HE FOUND THE note pushed under his apartment door the following evening.
‘Come to dinner. Paris. 8 p.m. A.’
She had ignored him for a full two weeks. No words. No smiles. Nothing. If he had any self-respect, he should have set fire to her invitation. But he did not.
It was already 7:45, so he jumped in the shower and did a speed wash. He wrapped up warm and made his way to Paris. The exterior of the building could not have been more different from the real Paris. It was a classic, large and ugly Soviet block. He wondered what kind of reception awaited him inside.
When Anya opened the door of her apartment, she looked him straight in the eye, smiled and said hello. Normal behaviour from anyone else, but from her it was new and startling. She had dressed up for the occasion, and was wearing a knee-length black dress with ankle boots. Her cheeks showed signs of a little make-up, he was sure, and she had moulded her hair into a long plait.
‘Sit, sit,’ she said, as she fussed over dinner.
She seemed pleased to see him, and he wondered what had changed for him to deserve this reception. The only thing he could think of was that he had stopped trying.
As with the other apartments, hers did not have a kitchen. But unlike his own place, she had not engaged in Pyramiden’s DIY decorating habit. The room remained exactly as she had found it when she arrived. She had managed to cajole two dinners from the canteen, and she had reheated them by placing the dishes on top of two bowls of boiling water poured from her electric kettle.
‘Takeaway,’ she said.
‘It smells nice,’ he said.
‘Well, I can’t claim to have cooked any of it. I can cook, you know. I used to cook all the time back home in Moscow.’
‘Me too,’ he said, ‘though I think I’ve forgotten how, I’ve been here so long.’
While they ate, she quizzed him about his background, which she had never done before. He did most of the talking. He could tell it was a strain for her to make this effort at interpersonal communication, but he appreciated it. When they were finished, he washed up and dried.
Beside them the whole time was her narrow single bed. It was the same size as the one he had recently disposed of, though it was older and in need of repair. He pondered when would be the right moment to announce that he was now the only single man in London who was the proud possessor of a king-size double bed. He hung the damp tea towel on the radiator to dry. Then he turned to face her, and found her zipping up her coat.
‘Let’s go outside,’ she said. ‘Get your coat.’
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘For a walk.’
‘It’s freezing out there tonight.’
‘You don’t say,’ she said. ‘When is it not? We’re not going far.’
Yuri did as she asked, and followed her down the stairs. They walked side by side, through the square, before she led him off the path, crunching across the snow-covered grass to the Lenin monument. The grass had been specially imported from Ukraine. Every winter, the weather tried to kill it off but to no avail. It sprouted again each spring after the big thaw. Indestructible Soviet grass.
She leaned her back against the pedestal, and pulled him close. They kissed, and she started to undo his belt. He looked around nervously, but no one seemed to be about. The lights were on, behind them, in the Cultural Palace.
‘Here?’ he said.
‘There’s an Eisenstein film on,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen it before. It’s endless. They won’t be out for another hour.’
She was not like any school teacher Yuri had ever met. He was glad he was sober this time. They made love in the freezing cold, supported by the founder of the revolution. Perhaps he had a saying for this kind of occasion. He did for everything else.
Afterwards, as they adjusted their clothing, he saw her shivering. Standing still in one spot allowed the Arctic cold to take hold of you, and being semi-naked made it downright dangerous. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
‘Thank you,’ she said after a couple of minutes, before breaking away.
He was determined not to let this moment of closeness slip away, like last time, and allow her to drift away from him again.
‘I have a bigger bed now,’ he said. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘Really?’ she asked, not believing him.
‘I do. Come on, I’ll show you.’
‘You’re lying,’ she said.
‘You’d better come and see for yourself, then.’
‘Where did you get that?’ she asked.
‘I stole it,’ he said. ‘With a little help from some friends.’
They were standing inside the door of his apartment, staring at his new double bed. There was a reason the single beds in London were so narrow. This bed took up nearly all of his apartment’s floor space.
The Lithuanians had helped him carry it across, the night before. They had not taken much persuading to commit an illegal act. The hardest part had been getting it down the stairs of the Crazy House without waking all of the sleeping families. The four of them had been like a circus-clown act, running across the square with a bed leg each.
‘And why did you get it?’ she asked. ‘Are you thinking of getting married?’
‘I got it for you,’ he said, without any embarrassment at his admission.
She looked surprised. Maybe a little flattered.
‘How did you know I’d come back?’
‘I’m irresistible,’ he said. ‘OK, I didn’t know. But I’m really glad you did. You want to try it out?’
This time, he undressed her. He took his time doing it, one button at a time, even though he could sense her impatience. They made love again on his new bed, making full use of the room to manoeuvre that had been sadly lacking in the one it had replaced. Despite the extra space, her long hair still managed to be an attractive nuisance, getting in the way when it was least wanted.
The old single bed was now sitting pretty in a vacant apartment in the Crazy House. An unpleasant surprise awaiting some newly arrived married couple.
Afterwards, instead of shifting away from him, she curled her body into his. Everything was going very well, he thought, until he said, ‘So tell me more about you.’
It was a reasonable question since he knew almost nothing about her. She sat up and hesitated, and her familiar searching expression returned. For a moment, he feared she was going to make another bolt for the door. And then he saw her relax, and make the decision to stay.
‘I’m not really a teacher,’ she said, putting her head back on his chest. ‘I’m a physicist. At least that’s what I used to be. But teaching kids is the only work they’ll let me do now.’
Yuri began to have a sinking feeling. This promising relationship of course had to come with a catch. And here it came. He wished she would stop talking now, and he could go back in time and not ask any questions. He didn’t need to know her past.
‘I used to work alongside my husband on the Soviet’s third idea, that was until he defected five years ago.’
Wow, thought Yuri. Three things he didn’t want to hear, all in one sentence. Husband. Defector. And the third idea, which he knew to be the Soviet nuclear weapons programme. The latter two should have troubled him the most. But the first, husband, was the one he liked the least.
‘I didn’t know you were married,’ he said.
‘I used to be,’ she said. ‘Well, technically, I suppose I still am. But he’s gone.’
‘He defected,’ said Yuri. ‘On his own?’
‘Yes. On his own,’ she said, evidently still finding it hard to believe herself.
‘Why didn’t he take you?’
‘Good question,’ she said. Although, she made it sound like the worst question in the world. ‘I haven’t seen him in five years, so I haven’t been able to ask.’
Yuri was jealous of this man he’d never met, who must have touched her before he did. And what a fool he was to leave her behind. Some people did not know what they had.
‘Why didn’t you go with him?’
Anya shrugged. ‘I didn’t get to choose. I didn’t know he was going. He didn’t say a word. Not one. He must have known for months beforehand. We ate together, worked together, slept together. And nothing. All that time he was planning, and making arrangements. None of which included me. A husband should tell his wife something like that, shouldn’t he?’
‘He should,’ agreed Yuri, as he tried to erase an image in his head of her naked in bed with this man. It would not go away.
‘He went. He defected, but I was the one who got interrogated for days by the KGB. I told them I didn’t know anything, but they didn’t believe me. Not until much later.’
Yuri found it hard to believe too. How could she not know her own husband was defecting? Surely there must have been signs. It was not as if she was not an intelligent woman.
‘In the end they couldn’t prove I was involved,’ said Anya. ‘Not that that would have stopped them throwing me in prison if they wanted. But I think they did finally accept what I was saying. Though I didn’t get off for free. They said my old job was too sensitive for someone who was tarnished with collateral suspicion. That life was finished for me, and they let me become an overqualified teacher of ten-year-olds.’
Alarm bells rang continuously in Yuri’s head. She is trouble and you should just walk away. But he ignored those thoughts.
‘We’re connected, in a way,’ he said. ‘I worked at a uranium mine once, in the fifties. We supplied the raw material for you lot.’
She did not seem impressed by the correlation between her science job and his mining past. He had never actually been directly involved with the extraction of uranium. He had only installed showers for the poor bastards who had to dig the stuff out of the ground.
‘It wasn’t pretty what they did to those men,’ he said.
The men, mostly convicts, had scrubbed the radioactive dust off every night, but it was already killing them. They knew it too. Daily exposure took its toll all too quickly.
‘You want to blame me for that?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Why, do you feel guilty?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve said too much, I should go.’
‘No. Not again,’ he said, firmly. ‘Just sleep, OK. You don’t need to go running off every time. You told me your story, and it’s safe with me. I won’t tell anyone else. I want you to stay.’
She looked at him again with surprise in her eyes, as if real affection was not something she came across much. He could understand why. Her husband was a lying bastard. Although he was glad he had done him a big favour and left her behind.
She nodded her agreement and turned her back to him and faced the wall. He watched as she started to push and pull the pillow, to make it more comfortable, until she realised she didn’t need to. He smiled to himself. He had searched high and low for a soft feather pillow, eventually stealing one from an executive apartment.
He began to massage her shoulders, brushing her long hair to one side. As soon as he touched her, he could feel the build-up of tension, waiting to be released.
‘Stop,’ she said, without turning around. ‘I’m going to sleep.’
Despite himself, the colder she was the more he wanted her. He didn’t tell her that the uranium mine was where he had allowed himself to be betrayed for the one and only time in his life. Someone he had considered a friend had stolen his promotion, his ticket out of there, with a bribe to a party official. As a result, he had been stuck in that hellhole for a year longer than he should have. Since then he had been constantly on the lookout for deceivers, and he had never let it happen again. He knew how Anya felt. They had both been betrayed by someone they trusted. Although admittedly hers was on a scale well beyond his own.
He lay down beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her body without touching it. The curves of her back were inviting but he resisted. He was afraid that, if he touched her again, this might be the impetus for her to get dressed and leave. He turned out the lights and watched her for a while. Her pale skin was ghostly in the moonlight coming through the window. He was happy she had stayed, even though she had taken some persuading. That would change in time, he was sure. Her breathing became slow and regular. And he too fell asleep.
When he woke at six in the morning, her side of the bed was empty. All her clothes were gone too. As much as he found her behaviour frustrating, she did make him smile. He could no longer say that she did the unexpected. Instead, she consistently did the opposite of what he wanted. She must have been as quiet as a mouse to sneak out of the bed without waking him; that would not have happened in the narrow cot he had gotten rid of. Maybe I should go and get it back, he thought, or find a padlock for the door. In that case, she would probably have climbed out the window.
He showered and shaved. Then he dressed and made his way to the canteen for breakfast.
The first mine shift of the day had already started. So when he reached the top of the stairs, only two tables were occupied, one by Catherine, who smiled and gave him a little wave. And at a table at the far end of the room was Anya. She did not give him a greeting of any kind, even though she saw that he was there.
He decided to put the boundaries of their new relationship to the test. He hoped they were making some progress, but it was hard to say for sure. After collecting his breakfast, a black coffee and some bread, he headed in Anya’s direction. Politeness made him pause at Catherine’s table on the way. She was having a proper Soviet breakfast of buckwheat kasha.
‘Please sit,’ said Catherine. ‘We’re both late this morning, aren’t we?’
‘Actually, I need to talk to someone,’ he said.
The only other person was Anya, and Catherine turned and looked at her. He could see that she was disappointed he was not joining her. She did not hide any of her emotions.
‘We can walk together to the power station after, if you like,’ he offered.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
He walked on to Anya’s table and stood in front of her for a moment.
‘Sit down, if you’re going to,’ she said, in a sharp tone, and without looking up.
‘I don’t mind if I do, thanks for asking,’ he said.
‘It’s too early in the morning for smiles,’ she said.
‘Really, what time should they start?’
Outside, through the window, the morning was pitch black. It must be cloudy, he thought, blocking the stars, because he could not even make out the glacier across the bay.
He sat down opposite her, and she looked at him for the first time.
‘What I said last night …’
‘Yes,’ he said, wiping the grin off his face.
‘You won’t tell anyone about any of it, will you?’
‘I already said I wouldn’t, didn’t I? You don’t need to ask me again.’
‘Yes, yes you did,’ she said.
‘I am keeping secrets for lots of people,’ he said. ‘Can I ask you something else? Has all of what you told me got anything to do with the person you’re supposed to be meeting here?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it has nothing to do with any of that. I was just explaining how I ended up being a teacher. You wanted to know more about me. You’re probably regretting asking.’
‘No. I did want to know about you, and I still do. So, what about your rendezvous?’
Anya frowned. ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s not happening. I don’t care any more.’
She shut off the conversation there and looked out the window.
‘Will I see you later?’ he asked.
She shrugged.
‘Did you not enjoy last night?’
She turned, looked him in the eye and nodded.
‘Well then, you should do what you enjoy. There’s little enough to do here. I’d like to see you more often.’
‘You see me every day.’
‘You know what I mean,’ he replied.
‘We don’t need to set a schedule,’ she said. ‘Do we?’
‘No. You’re right, we don’t.’
A schedule sounded like a great idea to him. But he decided to let her set the parameters of their relationship. Not that he had much of a choice in the matter.
He glanced over at Catherine, whose patience, he could see, was wearing thin. He drank the last of his coffee and tucked the bread into his coat pocket.
‘Well, you know where to find me,’ he said. ‘If you want.’
He stood and started to walk away.
‘Maybe I will see you tonight,’ she said, after him.
He smiled and kept on going.
Outside, Yuri and Catherine set off on foot in the direction of the power station.
‘So, why were you late this morning?’ asked Yuri.
She looked embarrassed. ‘Promise not to laugh?’
Yuri smiled. ‘I promise.’
‘I was exhausted. This is my first real job since I graduated. Before that I was more of an activist. New Left and all that. Politics. Agitation. Part-time. Unsuccessful. Frustrating really. But I want to make a success of this. I’ve such a good feeling about it. And don’t worry. I’ll be fit as a fiddle in no time.’
‘Sounds like you were a bit of a rebel back home,’ said Yuri.
‘I guess,’ said Catherine. ‘If you want to call it that.
‘And now that you’re in the Soviet Union, what are you planning to rebel against?’
‘Ha,’ she replied. ‘Now that I am here, I was hoping those days were over. You’re lucky, you’ve already won that battle.’
For some reason, Yuri did not feel like a winner.
‘She’s one of the teachers, isn’t she?’ said Catherine. ‘The one you were talking to.’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Anya.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ she said, managing to make it sound not like a compliment.
‘Very,’ he agreed.
‘Are you two …?’ she asked, with a clouded expression.
He smiled. ‘It’s hard to know. You’d have to ask her.’
Catherine nodded and let the subject go.
In the afternoon, the two of them worked outdoors under floodlights, replacing a forty-foot length of pipe that had seen too many Arctic winters. As they carried the old pipe out of the way, Catherine’s strength surprised him. Not because she was a woman – there were plenty of tough Soviet women workers. But her frame was slight and it did not seem likely that she would be packing much muscle underneath her clothes.
‘I think you’re fitter than me,’ he said.
‘I’ve four brothers,’ she replied. ‘So it was kill or be killed, when we were growing up. And at uni, no one takes you seriously as an engineer if you can’t pull your share of the load.’
They dropped the pipe on the frozen, impacted snow, to be collected later.
A car pulled up nearby and Yuri saw Timur watching them through the windscreen. After a moment, he got out and signalled for Yuri to come over to him. Yuri had an unpleasant déjà-vu feeling. The last time Timur had done that it was to tell him that Semyon was dead. And he looked equally serious on this occasion.
‘I’ll be back in a second,’ Yuri said to Catherine. ‘Wait for me. Don’t try lifting that new pipe on your own.’
‘I could do it, you know,’ she said.
‘I’ll bet you could,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘But wait for me. Where would I be if you put your back out? I won’t get another assistant for three months.’
‘And you’ll never get one like me,’ she shouted after him. ‘Not in a million years. I’m special.’
Yuri smiled as he crunched his way across a patch of hard snow to the waiting KGB man. He could see that Timur was in a bad mood.
‘What are you doing?’ the KGB man demanded.
‘Working, what’s it look like?’ he replied.
‘I mean with her. What are you doing with her?’ said Timur, losing patience with him.
‘She’s my new assistant. She’s good,’ he replied. ‘She knows her stuff.’
‘Who said you could hire her?’
‘I didn’t. Grigory suggested it. Is there a problem?’
‘Well, he should have cleared it with me first,’ said Timur, his face flushed with anger.
‘Why? She just wants to make a contribution,’ said Yuri.
‘She’s a foreigner, that’s why. She’s not one of us. She hasn’t been cleared. Don’t take her anywhere sensitive.’
‘Sensitive?’ said Yuri. ‘You mean your office. That’s the only sensitive place in town. The rest is a coal mine.’
‘If there are any issues with her,’ said Timur, ‘I’m going to blame you, so you better just make sure there are none.’
Timur got back in his car, slammed the door and drove off. Yuri turned and looked over at the waiting English woman. He wondered whether she had managed to overhear any of their conversation. If she had, she was not showing it.
‘Come on, comrade,’ she shouted. ‘This pipe is not going to move by itself.’