*
Tania came home eager to tell Vasili her plan.
They had been more or less living together, unofficially, for two years. They were not married: once they became a legal couple they would never be allowed to leave the USSR together. And they were determined to get out of the Soviet bloc. Both felt trapped. Tania continued to write reports for TASS that followed the party line slavishly. Vasili was now lead writer on a television show in which square-jawed KGB heroes outwitted stupid sadistic American spies. And both of them longed to tell the world that Vasili was the acclaimed novelist Ivan Kuznetsov, whose latest book The Geriatric Ward – a savage satire on Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko – was currently a bestseller in the West. Sometimes Vasili said all that mattered was that he had written the truth about the Soviet Union in stories that were read all over the world. But Tania knew he wanted to take credit for his work, proudly, instead of fearfully concealing what he had done like a secret perversion.
But even though Tania was bursting with enthusiasm, she took the trouble to turn on the radio in the kitchen before speaking. She did not really think their apartment was bugged, but it was an old habit, and there was no need to take chances.
A radio commentator was describing a visit by Gorbachev and his wife to a jeans factory in Leningrad. Tania noted the significance. Previous Soviet leaders had visited steel mills and shipyards. Gorbachev celebrated consumer goods. Soviet manufactures ought to be as good as those of the West, he always said – something that had not even been a pipe dream for his predecessors.
And he took his wife with him. Unlike earlier leaders’ wives, Raisa was not just an appendage. She was attractive and well-dressed, like an American First Lady. She was intelligent, too: she had worked as a university lecturer until her husband became First Secretary.
All this was hopeful but little more than symbolic, Tania thought. Whether it came to anything would depend on the West. If the Germans and the Americans recognized liberalization in the USSR and worked to encourage change, Gorbachev might achieve something. But if the hawks in Bonn and Washington saw this as weakness, and made threatening or aggressive moves, the Soviet ruling elite would retreat back into its shell of orthodox Communism and military overkill. Then Gorbachev would join Kosygin and Khrushchev in the graveyard of failed Kremlin reformers.
‘There’s a conference of scriptwriters in Naples,’ Tania said to Vasili, as the radio burbled in the background.
‘Ah!’ Vasili saw the significance immediately. The city of Naples had an elected Communist government.
They sat together on the couch. Tania said: ‘They want to invite writers from the Soviet bloc, to prove that Hollywood is not the only place where television shows are made.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re the most successful writer of television drama in the USSR. You ought to go.’
‘The Writers’ Union will decide who will be the lucky ones.’
‘With advice from the KGB, obviously.’
‘Do you think I have a chance?’
‘Make an application, and I’ll ask Dimka to put in a good word.’
‘Will you be able to come?’
‘I’ll ask Daniil to assign me to cover the conference for TASS.’
‘And then we’ll both be in the free world.’
‘Yes.’
‘And then what?’
‘I haven’t worked out all the details, but that should be the easy part. From our hotel room we can phone Anna Murray in London. As soon as she finds out we’re in Italy, she’ll catch the next plane. We’ll give our KGB minders the slip and go with her to Rome. She will tell the world that Ivan Kuznetsov is really Vasili Yenkov, and he and his girlfriend are applying for political asylum in Great Britain.’
Vasili was quiet. ‘Could it really happen, do you think?’ he said, sounding almost like a child talking about a fairy tale.
Tania took both his hands in hers. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I want to try.’
*
Dimka had a big office in the Kremlin now. There was a large desk with two phones, a small conference table, and a couple of couches in front of a fireplace. On the wall was a full-size print of a famous Soviet painting, The Mobilization against Yudenich at the Putilov Machine Factory.
His guest was Frederik Bíró, a Hungarian government minister with progressive ideas. He was two or three years older than Dimka, but he looked scared as he sat on the couch and asked Dimka’s secretary for a glass of water. ‘Am I here to be reprimanded?’ he said with a forced smile.
‘Why do you ask that?’
‘I’m one of a group of men who think Hungarian Communism has become stuck in a rut. That’s no secret.’
‘I have no intention of reprimanding you for that or anything else.’
‘I’m to be praised, then?’
‘Not that either. I assume you and your friends will form the new Hungarian regime as soon as János Kádár dies or resigns, and I wish you luck, but I didn’t ask you here to tell you that.’
Bíró put down his water without tasting it. ‘Now I’m really scared.’
‘Let me put you out of your misery. Gorbachev’s priority is to improve the Soviet economy by reducing military expenditure and producing more consumer goods.’
‘A fine plan,’ Bíró said in a wary tone. ‘Many people would like to do the same in Hungary.’
‘Our only problem is that it isn’t working. Or, to be exact, it isn’t working fast enough, which comes to the same thing. The Soviet Union is bust, bankrupt, broke. The falling price of oil is the cause of the immediate crisis, but the long-term problem is the crippling underperformance of the planned economy. And it’s too severe to be cured by cancelling orders for missiles and making more blue jeans.’
‘What is the answer?’
‘We’re going to stop subsidizing you.’
‘Hungary?’
‘All the East European states. You’ve never paid for your standard of living. We finance it, by selling you oil and other raw materials below market prices, and buying your crappy manufactures that no one else wants.’
‘It’s true, of course,’ Bíró acknowledged. ‘But that’s the only way to keep the population quiet and the Communist Party in power. If their standard of living falls, it won’t be long before they start asking why they have to be Communists.’
‘I know.’
‘Then what are we supposed to do?’
Dimka shrugged deliberately. ‘That’s not my problem, it’s yours.’
‘It’s our problem?’ Bíró said incredulously. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘It means you have to find the solution.’
‘And what if the Kremlin doesn’t like the solution we find?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dimka said. ‘You’re on your own now.’
Bíró was scornful. ‘Are you telling me that forty years of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe is coming to an end, and we are going to be independent countries?’
‘Exactly.’
Bíró looked at Dimka long and hard. Then he said: ‘I don’t believe you.’