The Russian Affair

The Russian Affair - By Michael Wallner





ONE



Anna laughed and pivoted to the left, turning her back to the harsh wind. The man in front of her folded his handkerchief, laid it across his empty shoes, and stepped to the brink. Instead of using water to wet himself down, he scooped up some snow and rubbed his chest with it. Then, accompanied by the bystanders’ expressions of compassion and encouragement, he arched his back, sprang forward, and disappeared into the black water. Small chunks of ice bobbed against one another. Anna watched as the man swam underwater to the far end of his improvised swimming pool and surfaced there. His beard, white and unkempt a moment ago, was now gray and plastered to his cheeks.

“He ought to get a life guard’s badge,” the woman next to Anna cried out, pulling the fur trim of her cap down over her ears. “That way he could charge admission.”

“The Moskva River belongs to everybody,” a man wearing eyeglasses replied. The snowy wind bent his umbrella to one side. Anna dodged the pointy wire ribs and watched the bearded swimmer as he propelled himself through the water with increasingly powerful strokes. She pushed her way out of the group of spectators and hurried along the riverbank. Under the Krasnopresnenskaya Quay, she climbed up the icy steps and soon reached the bus stop. On the ride home, people on the bus discussed the weather. It was getting warmer, they said; tomorrow the temperature was supposed to rise above twenty below zero. That meant that the cold holidays would be ending soon, and the schools would open again. The thought elicited a satisfied nod from Anna. When Petya didn’t have to go to school, everything was thrown into disorder.

With a jerk, the bus moved out of the middle lane. Anna noticed the policeman who was waving the heavy vehicle to one side; at the end of the avenue, a large, dark automobile appeared and rapidly came closer. The bus rolled into the right lane. The Chaika was already right behind it. When the big car pulled alongside, Anna could see a lady in the backseat, her hair waved, a magazine on her lap, and then the Chaika shot past. Although the policeman, too, must have noticed that the car carried only a female passenger, he saluted it as it sped away.

Anna got off the bus at the Filyovsky Park stop. The queue of people waiting on the corner indicated that the canned peaches must have finally arrived. Should she get in line? It would be her fourth queue of the day. Anna banished all thoughts of peach compote, turned into her street, and entered Residential Building Number Seven. On the fourth floor, she unlocked the door to her apartment.

“Did you get toilet paper?” her father asked.

“No, Comrade, I have procured no toilet paper,” Anna answered, in her best Communist-youth-organization voice.

“If you think we can keep on using newspaper, you’re wrong,” Viktor Ipalyevich said, stretching out both arms and pointing from one end of the apartment to the other. “The paper in the windows was letting in drafts, so I had to replace it.”

“In the living room, too?” Anna asked, putting her purse on the table.

“In the living room, in the kitchen, wherever it was.” Since his daughter was paying his gesticulations no heed, he let his arms drop, took the dark brown chessboard from its shelf, and began setting up the pieces. His peaked cap, which he wore even inside the apartment, made him look younger; only his goatee betrayed the fact that the poet Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin had gone gray.

Anna raised her nose. “Have you been distilling again?” Her eyes narrowed, and the blue irises grew dark.

“That’s no reason to glare at your own father as though he’s some sort of reprobate.”

He tried to bar her way to the kitchen, but Anna was faster. On the stove, she found the telltale system of metal pipes: a many-dented teapot served as a condenser; above, in another pot, the first distillation was cooling. In the next stage of the process, the once-distilled liquor would be sent through the labyrinth again.

“Even when you close the window, the neighbors can still smell it,” Anna said, looking at the elbow joint where the last pipe emptied into a converted paint can.

“And will the neighbors run to the police on account of a little glass of Four-Star Tsazukhin and denounce Viktor Ipalyevich as an unproductive Soviet citizen? Or will they hope to be invited into the courtyard on the next sunny day and served by Viktor Ipalyevich in person?”

Refusing to engage in a rhetorical battle with her father, Anna turned off the gas flame that kept the mechanism in operation. He said, “That’s the way to turn Four-Star Tsazukhin into rotgut,” and went into the living room, shaking his head. The velvet curtain that hid the sleeping alcove moved and a small hand appeared, followed by a child’s face—the image of Anna when she was a young girl. The child’s hair covered his ears and was cut straight across his forehead, just above his eyebrows. Long lashes screened his light eyes; he had a strong nose, and his mouth was a little too big.

“Are you finished now, Grandfather?” the boy asked.

Anna stepped into the living room. While the poet was announcing that the game could begin, he answered her anxious look with a nod. She formed the word temperature with her lips; her father pointed a finger upward and answered inaudibly, “Ninety-nine point seven.”

“You can play only until dinner,” Anna told her son by way of greeting.

Petya clambered out of the bed where they both slept and embraced his mother. In his dark blue pajamas, he resembled a miniature sailor. He jumped up onto the chair, squatted down, and moved a white pawn two squares forward. Anna carried her shopping bag into the kitchen, took out two cans, placed one between the windows, and opened the other. In order to prepare the soup, she had to move Viktor Ipalyevich’s private distillery to one side.

“I have to go out later,” she called into the living room. “Will you put Petya to bed?”

“You’re going to the combine again?” Anna’s father asked absently. “I wish I knew why you have to attend every meeting.”

“To get a Category One.” She dumped the red beets into the pot.

“And what’s the difference between a Category One painter and the rest of them?”

Anna looked at her hands, at her gray, chapped skin, at the cracks around her wrists. “A Category One painter doesn’t have to put her hands in lime anymore.”

The soup began to boil. She stirred it, remembering that the meeting of the building combine wasn’t scheduled to take place until the following week. The thought of her real purpose made her feel languid. She could heard her boy wheezing in the next room; the game excited him.


Shortly before seven o’clock, Anna left the apartment. The collar of her overcoat was turned up, and her fur hat was pulled down on her forehead. No one could have maintained that the cold wasn’t the reason for these precautions. On the ground floor, old Avdotya, a fellow resident, was fiddling with the mailbox. “Anna Tsazukhina, I’m at my wits’ end!” she cried out. Avdotya was nearly deaf. Since everyone spoke loudly to her, she took that for normal procedure and bawled at everyone in her turn.

“Have you misplaced your key again, Avdotya?”

“Indeed not! There it is!” The old woman looked up imploringly.

Anna considered the little metal drawers. Rust had made some of their numbers unrecognizable. “Isn’t yours seven-oh-six?”

“Seven hundred and six, exactly!” Avdotya pointed to her key ring, which was hanging awry from one of the little doors.

“But you’re trying to get into seven-eight-six.” Anna stuck the key into the right hole and turned the lock. The mail drawer was empty.

“I’m waiting for a letter from Metsentsev!” Avdotya explained, without looking into the mailbox. “He’s going to write me about …”

But Anna had stepped out of the building, and the closing door swallowed Avdotya’s last words. Anna left her street behind, turned into Mozhaisk Chaussée, and crossed to the side where the streetlights were no longer functioning. In such cold weather, fewer people than usual were out and about, but Anna kept her eyes open for someone standing still where there was nothing to see, someone who slowed his pace in the icy wind. Only when she was certain that everything on the avenue looked normal did she slip into an alleyway on her left, a narrow passage that was closed to traffic. And yet Anna knew that at the end of the alley, for the past several minutes, a black automobile had been waiting with its engine running; the driver didn’t want to get cold while he waited. She hadn’t taken more than a few steps on the hard-trodden snow before the car’s headlights flared and a rear door opened.

“Good evening, Anton,” she said, settling into the backseat.

The driver tilted his rearview mirror so that he could see her. “You’re early. That’s good.” His full, deep voice always caused Anna to wonder if he’d once been a singer.

“Why is that good?” She took off her cap.

Anton didn’t answer as he made a skillful turn in a small space and drove out onto the avenue. He paid no heed to the onrushing traffic; as he expected, all vehicles braked when their drivers realized that a ZIL government car was jumping into the inside lane. Anton accelerated, the limousine hurtled forward, and Anna was thrust back in her seat. She was so warm that perspiration ran down her spine. A bright light made her look up; Anton was overtaking the bus for Nagatino. Passengers sat in pale light. Some of them stared after the long automobile; ZIL limousines had “Special Right-of-Way.” Except for weddings, driving a black automobile was forbidden. Anna smiled: If you got married, for a few hours you enjoyed the privileges of a prominent road user. She watched the bus getting smaller, certain that the weary shapes it carried figured her for a woman who was being driven, at state expense, to visit her hairdresser or pick up packages in Granovsky Street.

Anna put a hand over her eyes. Once upon a time, she would have set out on this drive full of happy expectation; she would have gazed at her reflection in the passenger’s window and fixed her lipstick and adjusted her hair. Two years ago, when she was twenty-five, and after three years of marriage, her husband Leonid had finally been transferred to Moscow. To avoid having to live in a shared flat on the outskirts of the city, they had accepted Viktor Ipalyevich’s offer and, together with Petya, moved in with him. Anna had obtained a good position with the building combine, earning more than her husband, who drew a lieutenant’s pay; it was she who took on the chief financial burden of her four-person household.

Then, in April of that same year, her building combine had been ordered to paint the facades of several buildings along Kalinin Prospekt for the May Day celebrations. Yarov, her foreman, had opined that a new coat of paint made no sense if the rust on all metal surfaces were not removed first. There wasn’t enough time for that, he was informed, and he should use colors that guaranteed anti-rust protection. Anna had kept Yarov from gainsaying this instruction, and work had begun. The plaster was loose and dry rot had invaded many walls; nevertheless, the building combine’s skilled workers covered the facades in friendly shades of yellow and light gray. In order to meet the deadline, they had worked in four shifts. On the afternoon of April 30, a committee that included the government’s Deputy Minister for Research Planning inspected the results. Anna didn’t know who the powerful man with the greasy hair was, but the fine fabric of his overcoat gave him away as a member of the nomenklatura. While scaffolding was being dismantled and hauled away on all sides, Anna gave the arch she was working on a final stroke of her brush. Alexey Maximovich Bulyagkov stepped under her ladder and praised her flawless brushwork as the other members of the committee formed a group behind him. The Deputy Minister wanted to know how long it took for a person to learn to make such a perfectly straight stroke.

“At twelve, I joined the Pioneer Girls,” Anna answered properly. “When I was sixteen, the combine offered me a trainee position. I received training to become a skilled worker, and two years ago, I passed my qualifying examination.” She straightened her headscarf; her work clothes were tight on her, because under them she was wearing her heavy sweater and a pair of pajama pants. While she was trying to remember some of her building combine’s outstanding accomplishments, Bulyagkov asked her name.

Anna came down the ladder. “My name is Anna Tsazukhina, and I’m twenty-seven years old.”

“Are you related to Tsazukhin, the poet?”

Anna could not have said why she’d introduced herself by her maiden name. “He’s my father.”

Two members of the committee put their heads together.

“I’m an admirer of his work,” Alexey Maximovich said, setting his foot on the ladder’s lowest rung. “Of some of his work.” He held out his hand; although her own was covered with flecks of paint, Anna laid her brush aside and clasped hands with the Deputy Minister.

“All the best, Anna Tsazukhina,” he said, gazing at her with merry eyes. Then he turned, and he and his colleagues moved on from the archway.



Six weeks later, Anna had accompanied her father to a poetry reading; after some brief resistance, Leonid had agreed to go along as well. They had taken the subway to the Pushkinskaya station and climbed up into the light of a bright June evening. Viktor Ipalyevich bit his lower lip and nervously chewed his beard, which he’d trimmed the previous day.

Viktor Tsazukhin was a veteran of Soviet literature; his early poems had evoked the Red Army’s battle for Berlin. He was known as a forerunner of the artistic generation produced by the Revolution, and his analytic, future-oriented style had served as a model for many later poets. In recent years, his publications had become rarer and their print runs smaller. The state publishing house no longer printed his volumes, which now appeared through the auspices of a small house dedicated to “special Soviet literature.” Since Viktor Ipalyevich lived a secluded life with his family, he had no idea whether or not he still had a following as a poet and, if he did, no idea how his descriptions of the present found their way into his readers’ hands.

When Viktor, Anna, and Leonid reached the area in front of the Conservatory building, the poet was overwhelmed. Countless young people were causing such a tumult that ushers and police were having great difficulty in keeping the entrance open to ticket holders only. Groups of female students, hoping they might still be able to secure tickets, gathered around latecomers. Automobiles were thickly parked up and down Gorky Street; drivers just arriving were waved on.

Someone recognized Tsazukhin, and within seconds, the crowd began to close in on him and Anna and Leonid in such numbers that the three were unable to take another step forward. People greeted the poet; those standing nearby asked him to take them with him into the auditorium. Helpless with happiness, Viktor groped for his daughter’s hand, while Leonid directed his efforts toward opening a passage for them. But they needed help from some of the policemen, who steered them away from the colonnaded doorway to a smaller entrance nearby, where a door opened for a moment to admit them. The poet, his two companions, and a nimble student—a girl in a plastic raincoat—slipped inside; the door closed at once, separating them from the throng of people trying to press in behind them. Doctor Glem, the chairman of the artistic board, was waiting for Viktor Ipalyevich and his family on the stairs. The chairman exchanged hasty greetings with the poet and his family, in which, without many words, the student was included. While an assistant showed Tsazukhin’s companions to the box assigned to them, Doctor Glem escorted Viktor Ipalyevich backstage.

Leonid helped Anna out of her jacket. Enjoying her elevated vantage point, she let her eyes wander over the auditorium. Usually, the large hall was used for concerts, with room for seven or perhaps eight hundred people; tonight, there were surely a thousand, and more were still shoving their way inside. In the parquet section, she recognized Plissetskaya, the ballerina from the Bolshoi Ballet, and not far from her, the comedian Rodion; Brezhnev’s personal interpreter took a seat in the middle. Older gentlemen were standing in the aisles and ascertaining who had come besides themselves; above all, however, Anna saw sons and daughters. The moment touched her, and when she sat down next to her husband, her face was burning. There below her sat Moscow, not some small collection of admirers still loyal to a forgotten poet, but the citizenry, come to hear her father. When the lights dimmed and the applause began, Anna realized that her father had made his entrance onto the stage. Doctor Glem offered Viktor Ipalyevich the seat reserved for the guest of honor and stepped to the lectern. The audience, however, would not allow the chairman of the artistic board to speak; the clapping grew so unanimous that Tsazukhin had to get to his feet again and make another bow. Even now, his peaked cap remained on his head. Minutes passed before Doctor Glem could deliver his speech of greeting. It consisted of a patriotic profession of faith in the new Soviet lyric poetry, properly declared and congenially applauded. Glem thanked the audience, introduced Viktor Ipalyevich, and left the stage. Anna’s father slowly walked forward. The folder he placed on the lectern remained closed. He pushed back his cap, which left a red stripe across his forehead. Wide-eyed, he peered into the darkness of the parquet and at the packed rows of seats beyond it.

“The weathercock rotates. That’s his line of work …” he began. The microphone sent his words all the way to the last row.

Anna leaned on the balustrade. Viktor Ipalyevich wasn’t like the young Moscow literati who looked upon the cat-and-mouse game with the Soviet state censors as good sport and were content to publish clandestinely. He wasn’t one of those writers whose works appeared as closely printed typescripts and got passed from hand to hand and whom neither jail sentences nor publication bans could intimidate. Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin figured in official Soviet literature; the state had seen itself represented and embellished by his work. Anna knew the program for the reading. In accordance with the wishes of the literary committee, her father was to begin with the conformist verses of Sling and continue with some longer passages from The Red Light. Now, however, he was declaiming a poem, “The Weathercock,” that he’d only recently written. No one had ever heard these verses.

Tsazukhin’s voice rose as he spoke the last lines:

I do not hold

with the cock on the roof,

yet I know which way the wind blows.





The silence in the auditorium was palpable. He marked a pause, and then, when he opened the folder to begin the scheduled reading, spontaneous applause interrupted him. This time, he didn’t accept it, waving the plaudits away and reading the first lines while some in the audience were still clapping. The people understood: first a bit of provocation, followed by adherence to conventions. The official program was under way.

During the intermission, Anna and Leonid strolled around the upper foyer. Leonid wanted to get them something to drink, so he joined the line for the bar. Anna took a few steps with him and then stood still, listening to what the people around her were saying. “Viktor Ipalyevich challenges our feelings,” she heard someone say. “He elicits our humor.” A man quoted a passage in which the poet brought his irony to bear on the tactic employed by people who, while waiting in a line, jot down their place number on their wrist so as to keep pushy interlopers from getting ahead of them. Amused, Anna turned her head and saw a large, powerful man with a blue tie bearing down upon her.

“Are you enjoying the evening?” he asked.

She needed a few seconds to recognize him as the man who had stood under her ladder a few weeks earlier.

“Your father is an exceptional poet,” said Alexey Maximovich Bulyagkov.

“Do you like his poems?”

“I don’t think I do.” He examined the people around him. “But they touch me. Judge for yourself which is more important.”

At that moment, Anna felt as though a ray of light had gone through her. It came from the magnificent chandeliers, from the excited chatter of the large crowd, and, above all, from the marvelous experience she was sharing with her father. At the same time, she wondered how the Deputy Minister had recognized her without her work overalls on and with no scarf on her head; she was wearing the lime green dress she’d bought with a month’s salary.

“Are you here alone?”

“My husband’s over there.” She pointed to the commotion in front of the drinks bar.

“What does your husband do?”

“He’s an officer in the armored infantry, stationed in north Moscow.”

Bulyagkov bowed and walked over to a lady in a floor-length gown, who greeted him volubly.



Two weeks later, Anna received a small parcel in the mail, a copy of a volume called My Beloved Does the Wash, which was a collection of all her father’s love poems. When she deciphered the sender’s name, she hurried to the apartment and withdrew into the sleeping alcove. Leonid was sitting at the table with Petya, cutting his bread into bite-sized pieces; two arm’s lengths away, Anna read the Deputy Minister’s letter. He requested that her father write a personal dedication and sign the book, and he suggested that Anna look at the poem on page 106. Strangely excited, she turned to the page and read these verses:

Come see us tomorrow, uplift and gladden us!

Today’s rain refreshed us, and the forecast is glorious.

And should we want stormy weather,

We’ll make some together!





There was a handwritten note on the margin of the page: “Would you return this volume to me personally tomorrow evening at seven o’clock?”

Anna and Leonid had been married for three years; Petya had come into the world a few weeks after the wedding. Neither of them had ever made the other feel that their little boy was the only reason they were still together. Leonid behaved himself, drank little, and treated her father with respect. Anna didn’t dream about anything out of reach; she wanted a good education for her son, her own apartment, and perhaps, eventually, a car. And she had never, at least until that day, knowingly done anything wrong. She was forced to think about some of her colleagues, who reported on casual flings that apparently enlivened their marriages. Such accounts were accompanied by declarations that an affair didn’t mean that much these days; there was a real thirst for life in the city of Moscow. Anna resolved to take the Deputy Minister’s note as a joke and his offer not very seriously. However, when she climbed out of the alcove, she avoided Leonid’s eyes and hid the book in her bag.

The following day, she worked the early shift and was home by three. At dinner with her family, she pushed the volume of poetry across the table to Viktor Ipalyevich and said, “A girlfriend from the site asked me to get your autograph.”

Still chewing, her father took his fountain pen out of his breast pocket. “For whom shall I sign it?”

“Just your name’s good enough. It’s going to be a gift.” Anna held the book open to the first page to avoid the possibility that he’d flip through it to the telltale note.

“Even on worksites, people are reading my poems,” he said. Smiling, he wrote, “With Best Wishes, Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin.” Anna blew on the ink, closed the volume, and laid it on the bookshelf.

Leonid helped her do the dishes. “Maneuvers start tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll probably sleep in the barracks tonight.”

“I’ve got another combine meeting,” Anna replied, running water into the sink.

While Leonid lit up his evening cigarette, while her father got the chessboard out and shoved a pair of cushions under Petya, Anna changed into her summer dress with the brown dots, put on a jacket over the dress, and took leave of her family. As she went down the stairs, she felt incomprehensible relief at the thought that she wouldn’t have to see her husband again later that night.

The return address on the parcel indicated a street on the opposite side of the city center. Anna took the wrong bus and missed the appointed time. She hurried along the avenue and turned into a side street. The dimly lit sign read DREZHNEVSKAYA ST. The secluded place, the unprepossessing buildings threw her into confusion: It wasn’t conceivable that the Deputy Minister lived here. There was no café, there weren’t even any shops; where had he invited her to go? Anna reached the address she was looking for and stepped back. On this bright July evening, not a single window showed a light. She hoped that there had been some misunderstanding, considered once again the possibility that she was the victim of a practical joke—the big shot from the Ministry, she thought, had allowed himself a laugh at her expense.

“You’re too late, Anna Tsazukhina.” Bulyagkov, wearing a light summer suit, was coming toward her from the other end of the narrow street. “Of all bad habits, tardiness is the worst,” he said, looking at her so merrily that her confusion only grew.

Without further explanation, he unlocked the door and went in ahead of her. Anna followed him to a nondescript staircase, which he went up three steps at a time. At the door of an apartment with no nameplate, he used his key again. The opening door revealed an elegantly furnished flat; stray beams of sunlight greeted Anna as she entered. Bulyagkov tried to help her out of her jacket, but she kept it on.

As her host made no effort to begin the conversation, Anna said, “Here’s the book.”

“How is our poet?” Bulyagkov said, glancing at the dedication before laying the volume aside.

“Since his reading, my father has been interrogated several times in the headquarters of the Writers’ Association.”

“Were there accusations?” The Deputy Minister stepped over to the sideboard in the living room.

“He was asked to review the political usefulness of his poems.”

“What did you expect?” Bulyagkov uncorked a bottle of wine. “Your father behaved like a bull in a china shop. Now he’s got to bare his bottom and sit on the shards.”

The crude image startled her. “Do you think his poems are ‘unidealistic’ and ‘morally inadequate,’ too?”

“I don’t understand a thing about poetry,” he said, pouring himself some wine. “Nobody gets upset about a little sideswipe.” His light eyes measured her. “But what Viktor Tsazukhin did was deliberate provocation. And so now he has to take a couple of raps on the knuckles.” He took a sip and held the glass high. “I should have opened the bottle earlier. And you, Anna, how are you?” He gestured, offering her a corner seat on the sofa.

“Why does that interest you?”

“I like your dress. Did you make it yourself?”

“I can’t sew.”

Bulyagkov skirted the coffee table, sat on the sofa, and leaned back. “This light makes your hair look red.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her as she slipped into her seat. He placed a full glass in front of her and, without waiting for her to pick it up, clinked it with his own. “Tell me about yourself.”

“You know most of what there is to tell.”

“Far from it. For example, I wonder why your father didn’t see to it that you received some other kind of education.”

“I’m satisfied.”

“That’s not an answer.”

After a pause, she said, “Viktor Ipalyevich is a poet.”

“A man of intellect,” said the Deputy Minister, nodding in agreement. “So why would his daughter become a house painter?”

“He’s a poet—and nothing else.” Anna gripped the stem of her wineglass with two fingers. “Until my mother got sick, she worked for us all. Then she died. Man cannot live on poetry alone.”

He looked toward the window. “It’s hard when you can’t do what you have the talent to do.”

“I’m not talented,” she replied, “and I like my work. It’s well paid.” She drank, tasting the heavy wine all the way down. “Why not tell me about yourself, Comrade?”

“Oh, how boring,” he sighed. “I’m originally Ukrainian. I came to Moscow when I was fifteen, and I’ve gotten about as far as a non-Russian can.”

“Your Ministry is responsible for research planning. That can’t be boring.”

He shook his head and said, “Administrative work. Our office makes money available. In the laboratories, in the big science cities—that’s where the meaningful work takes place. We’re just puffed-up bureaucrats.” He looked at her. “What about your husband? What’s he doing this evening?”

“He’s taking care of Petya.” She straightened her upper body. “No, I’m wrong. He has to go on maneuvers.”

“Does he like his unit?” Bulyagkov drained his glass.

“He’s stationed in Moscow, and that counts for a lot.”

“It’s hard to obtain a right of abode for Moscow.”

Throughout the following hours, Anna found the Deputy Minister attentive and calm, and possessed of a charm the likes of which she’d never known. Usually, when men became confiding, they made jokes and accompanied a bit of flattery with some harmless touching. Anna had never before encountered such seriousness in a man, an almost intimidating interest that seemed to require her to show her best side. It was an effort for her to be this interesting Anna, the exertion weakened her, and she was afraid that she didn’t deserve such an elevated level of attention. She would have liked their get-together to be more relaxed, but at the same time, Bulyagkov’s steady pressure made the encounter unique. She envied his travels—not only did he know Kiev, Vladivostok, and Prague, but he’d also seen Havana and Helsinki; he liked reminiscing, and he answered her questions at length. During the conversation, he went into the kitchen and returned with an already-prepared platter—little liver pâté sandwiches, bread, and ham. Between them, they emptied the bottle of wine. Only once, in the midst of an animated description, did he lay his hand on hers; otherwise, he didn’t make the slightest attempt to touch her.

Physically, he wasn’t Anna’s type; the men she found attractive were wiry, with long limbs and thick hair. The Deputy Minister was a brawny man with a pronounced paunch; his face might have been angular once, but now it looked puffy. She liked his eyes, which had something of the Arctic wolf about them. Was it shyness that prevented her from asking him what he expected from her? As for Bulyagkov, he acted as though he thought it a natural thing for a high state official and a house painter to spend an evening together. They conversed some more, followed the zakuski with a few glasses of vodka, and darkness fell, which at that time of year meant that the midnight hour was approaching. Without explanation, Bulyagkov stood up and disappeared into an adjoining room, which Anna presumed was the bedroom. She figured that the next item on the program was at hand, but before she could work out what her own behavior was going to be, he came back. His damp temples indicated that he’d merely gone to comb his hair. He hated to say it, he said, but the time had come for her to go. He answered her surprised look with an invitation to name a wish—the first wish that came into her mind.

“Faucet washers,” she said, and then she had to laugh at herself. “The faucets in our apartment drip. They take standard washers, but I can’t find them anywhere.”

“Washers.” Bulyagkov escorted her to the door. “I’ll see if my influence extends that far.” He took her by the shoulders and gave her a brotherly kiss. Anna started down the stairs. On the way home, she realized that the granting of her wish would mean that this wouldn’t be their last meeting. The thought of the Deputy Minister’s clever move made her smile.


Two weeks had passed, and Anna assumed the matter had been forgotten. But one afternoon, a black ZIL parked in front of her building. An inconspicuous man got out, presented himself as a messenger, and, when Anna came down, handed her a small package no larger than a bar of soap. The man was Anton, whom she saw from the front for the first time.

“That’s from Alexey Maximovich,” he said, stony-faced. “If you have time this evening, he would be delighted to receive a visit from you.”

Anna wondered whether Bulyagkov had chosen the date at random or knew that she was working the early shift that week. “How long do I have to think it over?”

“Come to Gospitya Street at eight,” Anton replied. “I’ll wait for you there.”

“If I can’t make it, how can I reach you?”

“Don’t worry, Comrade. Gospitya Street, right off the little square.” He got back in the car and drove away. Anna opened the package while she was still on the street. Upstairs in the apartment, she announced that she’d finally been able to scare up some of those confounded washers. Viktor Ipalyevich congratulated her and got out the pliers.

That had been the evening when Anna was Anton’s passenger for the first time. He took a surprisingly short route to Drezhnevskaya Street. She admired how smoothly he weaved in and out of traffic without making use of the privileged status accorded to government vehicles. In front of the now-familiar building, she got out of the car and told him good-bye, but Anton indicated that they’d see each other when she was ready to go home.

Bulyagkov opened the door with two potholders in his hands, and soon he was serving her Tartar-style chicken ragout. When Anna asked who had done the preparation, he confessed that the delicatessen on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt had delivered the food right on time. She thanked him for the washers, the most sensible gift she’d received in a long time. He opened a bottle of wine and showed her the label. She couldn’t decipher it.

“It’s a pinot blanc. I picked it up at my house.”

“What does your wife say when you leave with a bottle of wine under your arm?” Anna didn’t wish to be impertinent, but his casual attitude, which was again on display in this, their second meeting, made her nervous.

“Medea is home even more seldom than I am,” he said. He raised Anna’s hand, the one holding the glass, to her mouth. “Taste it.”

Although she found the wine so acidic that she grimaced, she praised it dutifully. Then she asked, “What does your wife do?”

“She’s on the Soviet Council for Inter-Republic Cultural Cooperation. Since so many touring theater companies are constantly arriving in Moscow, she goes to the theater very often—so often, in fact, that she ought to have a bad conscience.” He took a drink.

“Do you have a bad conscience, Comrade?”

“Why?”

“Because so far you haven’t given me a single reason why we’re together.” She felt her forehead beginning to burn. “Or are you going to tell me that we have these meetings because you like my father’s poems?”

“What sort of future do you dream about, Anna?”

For a moment, the right answer went through her head: I dream about the realization of world communism, equality for all people, and the end of imperialism for the benefit of every individual. She said, “When Leonid and I applied for an apartment, we were told that something would be available in Nostikhyeva soon. That was three years ago.” Anna pushed her plate away. “I’d like Petya to go to the Polytechnic. He’s got a talent for logic—he’s already beaten Viktor Ipalyevich twice at chess. But they take only so many students.”

“How about you, Anna? What would you wish for yourself?”

“I’d like to see Stockholm.”

His face took on a look of affectionate surprise. “Why Sweden?”

“Viktor Ipalyevich has a book at home, a thick volume with pictures. Stockholm’s a city on the sea, and it doesn’t get hot in summer.” She smiled. “I don’t like hot weather.” Her host refilled their glasses. “When are you going to try to kiss me, Comrade?” Anna asked. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the intimate setting, but in any case, Anna thought the question was justified.

“Does that mean you want me to?”

“You’re doing everything possible to soften me up.” She pointed at the remains of the exquisite snack.

“Do you suppose that I’m trying to seduce you with chicken ragout and white wine?”

“Aren’t you? What do you want from me, Alexey?”

He turned serious. “I watched you that day we first met. You were standing on the ladder, and I was under you. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

She moved away. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t think it’s a pleasure to look at you?”

“But we can’t just … sit here and eat, and I tell you about Leonid, and you talk about Medea …” Anna forcefully laid her hand on his. “And then I go back home?”

“There are things I can imagine doing with you.” He stroked her thumb.

She raised his hand and pressed it against the base of her throat, expecting his fingers to set out on their own.

“I’d like to see you naked,” he said. “We could keep sitting here and talking—I won’t touch you.”

“No,” she said curtly.

He drew back his hand. “I understand.”

“Not because I’m too modest,” she went on more softly. “Not because of that.”

“But because … ?”

“I can’t undress in front of you.”

“A scar? Perhaps a third nipple?”

“I can’t let you see my underwear.”

He leaned back, smiling. “You think I can’t imagine what kind of underclothing a female house painter from combine four-one-six wears?”

“With these things on, doing a ‘striptease’ in front of you is out of the question.” She pronounced the unusual word slowly.

“You could go to the bathroom and fold your clothes in a nice neat pile. I’ll wait here.”

“Will you get undressed, too?” Anna could feel sweat forming on her upper lip.

“Good gracious, no.” Bulyagkov folded his arms as though trying to cover himself.

He pressed her with neither gestures nor looks. Anna cast her eyes around the apartment, taking in the chandelier, the pattern of the wallpaper, the brass curtain rods. From outside came the light of an interminable dusk.

“Please close the curtains.”

As if they were at the beginning of an experiment, Bulyagkov got to his feet and they moved past each other without exchanging a glance, Anna heading for the bathroom and her host for the window. Anna walked down the hall, turned into the bedroom, and stopped in surprise: The bed wasn’t made. She gazed at the blue-and-white-striped mattress with the folded duvet on top of it. Whatever the Deputy Minister had in mind for her, it wasn’t the obvious thing. When she entered the bathroom, the turquoise-colored tiles gave her the feeling of stepping into a dream. She ran her fingers over them. Where could you get such beautiful materials? The pale gray grout between the tiles wasn’t the crumbly stuff Anna had to work with on the job. She continued to discover further details as she undressed. Since Anna and her family had moved in with her father, casual living had come to an end. Viktor Ipalyevich, who had sung of many a body in his poetry, detested displays of real nakedness and wouldn’t allow Petya to sit at the table without a shirt, not even on hot summer days. Anna took off her shoes, her blouse, and her skirt; a glance in the mirror confirmed her belief that her gray brassiere was not made for a stranger’s eyes. She removed it, quickly slid her panties down to the floor, and beheld the naked house painter. Her bosom was glistening with perspiration, and her muscular arms bore witness to the countless buckets of paint she’d hauled up and down scaffolding. Anna pinned her hair back and washed herself, but she still didn’t like what she saw in the mirror. She put one foot forward, raised her chest, threw her head back; then, at last, she opened the door into the bedroom. A sudden feeling of shyness overcame her, followed by a bad conscience: While she was undressing herself for another man, Leonid was putting Petya to bed. Anna covered her breasts and started to return to her clothes, but then she heard Alexey’s voice. He was calling her from the hall; she answered that she was coming. While she walked to the bedroom door, she could feel the vein in her neck throbbing. Alexey was waiting for her in the dimly lit anteroom. Gravely and lovingly, he kept his eyes fastened to hers. Then he led the way back into the living room.


Anna jerked around in her seat. Outside, an icy wind was beating against the window through which she’d watched the bus for Nagatino disappear.

“You passed it up!” she cried out to Anton.

He raised his eyes to the rearview mirror. “A small change in the routine, Comrade.”

The ZIL shot onto Vernadsky Prospekt, heading southwest. “Where are we going?” Anna asked. When she got no reply, she leaned forward over the seat. “I have to be back before midnight.”

“By midnight, we’ll all be in bed,” Anton said in his soothing bass.

With a jolt, they drove onto the icy bridge; the limousine was taking the expressway out of the city, already leaving behind the big housing developments to their right. Soon Anton turned off onto a road snuggled amid white hills. Anna saw the silhouettes of bare trees against the dark gray sky. The headlights repeatedly tore a patch of frozen forest out of the darkness. She asked no more questions. A DEAD END sign appeared, and under it a notice banning all vehicles. But a freezing policeman waved the automobile through without looking into the backseat. On two sides, Anna saw walls, in front of which young birch trees had been planted. A second man in uniform opened a barrier for them, and the ZIL drove into a pine plantation. Only the road had been cleared; otherwise, the snow lay knee high on all sides. Anna could see no building of any kind until Anton rounded a bend to the left and stopped on a steeply sloping concrete slab. When she got out of the limousine, ice crystals stung her face. Here on the slope, the trees stopped. In spite of the darkness, she was sure that the river lay before her, compelled to a standstill, as it were, by the cold.

There were lights in three windows at ground level, and then lights came on outside, too. Around the door, Anna could see wood carvings of some pale color; the house itself might have been blue. Anton, without a coat, walked ahead of her. Alexey Maximovich appeared in the doorway, wearing a white shirt under a woolen jacket. “We have visitors in the city,” he sighed. “My wife needs the apartment.” Without making sure that his visitor was following him, he went back into the house. The door closed behind them.

The most impressive thing, Anna thought, was the stove, a massive construction covered with blue tiles that radiated an immense amount of heat. She let her coat slip from her shoulders. “I thought your wife …”

“Medea knows about it. I’ve had the Drezhnevskaya apartment since long before you came along.” There was a dull sheen on his cheeks and chin; Anna was sure that he’d just finished shaving.

Finding it hard to look at him, she let her eyes wander. There were carpets on the wall of Kyrgyz workmanship, and a gigantic Persian rug formed the centerpiece; she followed the patterns with her eyes, the meanderings in blue and ochre, as if writing were concealed in them. Upholstered furniture faced the fireplace. Above the dining room table was a hanging lamp; its weak light conjured up days of old, because this house was still lit by petroleum lamps.

“Are you hungry?” Alexey sat on the bench sofa and arranged a cushion for Anna. “Anton picked up a few things.” He nodded toward a passageway, which she supposed led to the kitchen.

“Is Anton going to stay in the car?”

“Are you worried about him?” he asked with a grin.

“It’s cold.”

“He can go into the summer house.”

Anna walked through the passage to the next room and found the light switch; the kitchen still looked rustic, but it was equipped with every urban convenience. “Shall I fix us something?” she asked.

“Yes, make something for us, Annushka,” he called out.

After checking the pantry and glancing at the clock, Anna took out onions, eggs, and sour cream and heated some oil in a small iron skillet. If it takes us an hour to eat, she reckoned, there will still be an hour before Anton has to take me back. If Alexey comes with us, he’ll have Anton drop him off first. She turned on the oven, cut the onion into thin slices, and dressed them with cream and paprika. After beating some eggs, she poured them into the skillet and put it in the oven. She heard Alexey moving around in the living room, and soon afterward came the sound of music, a sleepy hit tune featuring lots of violins. He walked into the kitchen. Anna said nothing. Every time, she found the preliminaries more difficult. She hoped he’d start the conversation on his own. With his fingers, he combed her hair aside and kissed her ear, but it wasn’t a caress; it was rather a kiss of welcome, as though he were just now greeting her. Without interrupting her work with the two-handled chopper, she leaned her head against his cheek.

“A hard day?”

“The comrades monopolized me for four long hours. The office was overheated, my secretary’s coffee undrinkable, and the representative from Tambov had such foul breath that I stood up and pretended I had to walk around in order to think.” Bulyagkov leaned on the sink. “I’d love to see you cook naked.”

“Not tonight.” She looked into the oven to see whether the eggs had set yet. “Was the Minister there?”

“He knows what sessions he should stay away from.” With the reserve that she had liked in him from the start, Alexey put his hand on her waist. “It’s always about money. Every oblast wants to distinguish itself through particular achievements in research. The farther they are from Moscow, the more money they want.” He clasped the back of her head, and she enjoyed the pressure of his fingers. She wrapped a cloth around her hand and took the little pan out of the oven.

“Take a seat.” She strewed chopped onion onto the cooked eggs.

“Do you know that this is a Ukrainian recipe?” Alexey asked. “I was often served this dish as a child.”

“What were you like when you were a boy, Alexey?”

“Happy.” He went back into the front room.

Anna heard the sound of a bottle being uncorked, followed by the tinkle of glasses. When she carried in the food on a tray, Bulyagkov, who was standing in front of the liquor cabinet, turned around. She served; he took a seat and started eating.

“Seventy-four percent,” he said after a few bites. “With the help of the technological revolution, they want to boost petrochemical production by seventy-four percent.”

“Isn’t that … extraordinarily good?”

“There is no ‘technological revolution.’ Seventy-four percent is beyond all reason. It’s not even an incentive, it’s a fantasy.” He drained his glass and refilled it at once. “But Kosygin wants to announce it. And therefore I have to put on the necessary performance for the Minister.” With a sudden blow, he jammed the cork back into the bottle. “They want units of greater capacity, gigantic power station units to improve primary processing.” He broke off a piece of bread and used it to wipe the traces of egg yolk off his plate. “But things aren’t so advanced as that, not anywhere in the country. In Murmansk, they thought they had the problem solved. Twelve million rubles, and during the trial run, everything blew up in their faces.”

He took Anna’s wrist. “You’re not taking care of yourself,” he said, waving her hand back and forth.

“I’ve used your cream.” She wanted to pull her hand away.

“Rough and blotchy,” he said, spreading her fingers.

“It’s the lime.”

“Why don’t you wear gloves?”

“They don’t help.”

“You’re beautiful, Annushka.” He let himself sink back against the cushion. “Are you cold? Shall I put more wood on?”

“It’s fine.” She shifted to the side and took off her boots. While she let her blouse drop and slipped out of her underskirt, she had the feeling that, for her, deceit and reality were getting more and more mixed up. Every day a new piece of her integrity went missing, and her feelings slipped away from her. Obviously, her life was a lie.

Without touching her, he stood up, took a step back, and pointed at her body with an outstretched hand. Calling her affectionate names, he watched as she unzipped her skirt and slid off her pantyhose. Finally naked, Anna set the plate in the skillet and put the remains of the bread on the plate. With a glance at the wall clock, she made sure that there was as yet no reason to hurry. In semidarkness, she sank down onto a rug, and her mood grew darker and calmer. She couldn’t help thinking about Anton. Had he made himself comfortable in the summer house? He was probably sitting in the car with the engine running.