The Russian Affair

SIXTEEN



The physicist was wearing a light gray suit inappropriate to the season and a blue shirt that set off his burnished hair. He’d secured one of the much-requested alcove tables. As Anna approached, he stood up and offered her the seat next to his on the upholstered banquette. She noticed that he had unusually small ears and a liver spot on his chin. Anna sat on the wooden chair across from him.

“The band’s behind you if you sit there,” he said, trying to change her mind.

She looked over her shoulder. The little stage was empty. “How did you get my telephone number?”

He laughed. “The hotel in Dubna keeps complete lists of its guests. There was only one house painter in your delegation. Riddle solved.”

Although a glass of wine was in front of him, Anna got a whiff of stronger liquor. She spread her napkin on her lap.

“It’s wild game week in this restaurant. They have Manchurian venison. Or would you prefer capercaillie, or maybe some hazel grouse?”

“What are you having?” she asked, ignoring his display of esoteric culinary information.

“We could start with snipes’ eggs. The red wine is outstanding.”

She consented to the wine but wanted no appetizer. There was noise behind her as the musicians came back from their break and took up their places. Their stage was a semicircular platform thrusting out from the back wall and festooned with flower garlands. Above the stage hung a chandelier.

“Tell me about your father,” Lyushin said, opening the conversation. “What’s he writing at the moment?”

“How do you know who my father is?” Anna had been happy to learn about the hotel guest list, because it meant that Alexey had nothing to do with Lyushin’s information, but now mistrust was reawakened.

“You gave yourself away!” Lyushin plucked happily at the corner of the tablecloth. “Your name was on the delegation’s list as Anna Tsazukhina. Even in Moscow, Tsazukhin’s a rare name. Can we expect a new volume of verse from your father soon?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the music, which began as he was speaking.

The band launched into a lively tune, and the sudden volume of sound put an end to the conversation. The waiter came and took their order, bending down and bringing his ear close to Lyushin’s mouth. “We’ll have Manchurian venison,” the physicist said. Then, addressing Anna again, he asked, “Did you by any chance watch The Open Ear the other afternoon?”

They discussed the broadcast and the interview until the waiter brought a new carafe of wine and filled their glasses.

“You have a perfect neck,” Lyushin said. As he leaned forward, she smelled the alcohol on his breath again. “I’m glad you came.”

She drew away from his touch and asked, “What brings you to Moscow?”

“I have an appointment with the Minister tomorrow,” he answered. His casual tone failed to mask his desire to impress her.

“Are you going to meet Bulyagkov, too?” Now that Lyushin had brought up the Ministry, Anna was certain that Alexey knew he was in the capital.

“Of course. Without your friend, no research project gets off the ground.” He clinked glasses with Anna and drank.

“Will the Ministry give you the resources you need?” she asked, daring to probe a little deeper.

“I like to think about our afternoon in Dubna. When you were wearing nothing but a woolen blanket.” His hand played with Anna’s knife. “You were a joy to behold. For those of us who live in barren isolation, such sights are rare.” Seeking an excuse not to look at him, she turned around and faced the bandstand, where the portly fiddler was beginning a passionate solo. “What shall we do afterward?” Lyushin asked. “Will you show me Moscow?”

“I work the early shift tomorrow.” Even though Anna hadn’t expected anything different, she was disappointed at the predictable course the encounter was taking. How nice it would be to be cuddled up with Petya in their sleeping nook right now, listening to Viktor Ipalyevich’s sardonic commentary on the television offerings. She drank some of the heavy wine and let her eyes wander over the room, where every table was occupied.

“Is this your first time in the Ukraina?” Lyushin asked, interrupting her gazing. “Frightfully baronial, but still impressive, don’t you think?”

All of a sudden, the situation appeared so grotesque to her that she stood up and excused herself. On the way to the ladies’ room, she crossed paths with the waiter, who was bringing Lyushin’s order of snipes’ eggs. She hurried past the band and up some stairs; the female washroom attendant eyed her, calculating what sort of tip she might be likely to give. Anna leaned on a sink, stared at her reflection in the mirror, and washed her face with cold water.

A strange scene awaited her upon her return. Something had flown into the violinist’s eye. He stood at the front of the bandstand, helplessly holding his instrument at arm’s length, while his colleagues tried to remove the offending speck with their handkerchiefs. Entranced, the diners stared up at the stage, as though they were watching a group of acrobats performing a difficult trick. The fiddler cried out in pain and begged his comrades in God’s name not to be so rough; then he sprang backward, fending off the others with his bow and shouting that he required medical attention. After a moment, he stepped forward again and began to speak, just as if his speech were part of the performance. “Please excuse me, but my pain is too great,” he said. “Is there a doctor in this esteemed audience?”

Nobody responded to the violinist’s appeal, whereupon he actually bowed and then, with both eyes tightly shut, staggered off the stage. The bassist took over as announcer and informed the public that it would unfortunately be impossible for the group to continue without a violin. The members of the band formed a row, faced the audience, bowed as their injured colleague had done, and left the bandstand, accompanied by irritated applause. They marched past Anna, who then returned to her table and found Lyushin eating with apparent delight.

“Most delicious,” he said, holding out a skewered snipe’s egg to her. A half-full glass of vodka was on the table in front of him; between bites, he tossed down the remaining half. “It’s not only poets who are poetic,” he declared in a surprisingly loud voice. “Some sort of lyricism is granted to every creative person. We scientists, for example, possess as much imagination as writers do.”

The waiter brought another glass of vodka.

“How else could we have named the streams of cosmic elements ‘proton showers’ or ‘electron sheaves’? In order to characterize the quantum numbers of particles that have existed only in theory until now, we ascribe magical properties to them. Theoretical physics is the poetry of the sciences!”

Anna looked on as her companion got steadily drunker.

“The poetic in us is the longing to see into the depths of things, to comprehend their connections, to call out to the passing moment and say, Stay awhile! Do you understand that, Anna?” It was obvious that he needed no encouragement to go on. “And I have succeeded!” He reached for his glass. “I have brought the moment to a halt. And I needed no Mephistopheles to help me do it!” He spoke the last words so loudly that a couple at a nearby table turned around. “Similar projects are under way in Japan and the States,” he continued more softly. “But they haven’t got as far as we have. Not even close. They can’t come up with any conclusive formula.” He pointed at himself with his fork. “I can.”

Anna’s initial irritation had turned into amusement, which now gave way to curiosity. “The last time I saw you, you said you’d failed.”

“It depends on how one fails,” Lyushin said. He pushed his plate away and treated himself to another swallow of vodka. “I need more time, more time! But the dogs are breathing down my neck. They’re after me like hyenas.”

“Who’s breathing down your neck, Professor Lyushin?”

A man in a black overcoat approached the part of the restaurant where gilded columns screened off the recesses containing individual tables from the rest of the dining room. His upper body leaned forward from the waist as he headed toward his goal. Anna noticed him first. While she was still wondering why he hadn’t handed in his outer garments at the cloakroom, he entered the circle of light shed by the chandelier. With his hat on his head, Alexey looked to Anna like a Party leader from the provinces. In the shadow of the hat brim, his eyes were invisible, but his nose and cheeks were red from the cold.

“Well, this is certainly a surprise,” he said, coming to a halt in front of the table.

At first, Lyushin had trouble reconciling Bulyagkov’s presence with that time and place. Holding his glass in his right hand, he pointed at the newcomer with his left as if he’d forgotten the newcomer’s name. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s what I was about to ask you,” Bulyagkov said to Anna.

She felt as though she’d landed in a scene from some anachronistic farce. There sat Lyushin, the charmer, too drunk to function; there stood Alexey, the lover, who seemed to have caught Anna red-handed; and here she crept, the crafty serpent, getting what she deserved.

“How did you find me?” Lyushin asked.

“My Ministry pays your expenses,” Alexey answered.

“Let’s drink to that!” With irrepressible self-assurance, the physicist gestured toward an unoccupied chair.

“I must speak to you alone,” Bulyagkov replied, glancing sidelong at Anna.

“Don’t we have all day tomorrow at the Ministry for that sort of thing?”

“I was just about to leave,” Anna interjected.

“Imagine, this is Comrade Anna’s first time in the Ukraina,” Lyushin said, switching to a conversational tone.

The waiter appeared behind Bulyagkov. “Your coat?”

“I’m not staying,” the Deputy Minister replied.

A second waiter came up, pushing the serving cart. A silver platter was laden with steaming slices of meat, dressed with a greasy sauce and garnished with bay leaves and bilberries. The waiter began to distribute the portions.

“I’d rather not eat,” Anna said.

The waiter paused with uplifted serving utensils.

“Please fetch the comrade’s coat,” Bulyagkov said, indicating Anna.

Whatever was behind Alexey’s sudden appearance, she didn’t like the way decisions were being made on her behalf. “Maybe I’ll have a little taste, after all,” she declared.

The waiter placed a plate in front of her, and for the second time she laid her napkin on her lap. Then she cut herself a piece of meat.

“We were discussing The Open Ear, the TV program,” Lyushin said, trying to get a conversation going. “A nerve-racking interview. The subject was too much for the woman who moderates the show. She was in over her head.”

Upon hearing this assertion, Bulyagkov took a seat. “You talked about your project on television?”

“Perhaps a bit, in a popular-science sort of way.”

Anna saw the two exchange looks.

“The Minister will want to hear details from you tomorrow,” Bulyagkov said.

“I have the documents with me.” Lyushin stabbed his fork into a morsel of venison, brought it to his mouth, and chewed. Meanwhile, Anna, inexplicably ravenous, cleaned her plate.

“I’d like to go through the papers with you,” said Bulyagkov, unbuttoning his coat and leaning back.

“Now?” Lyushin patted his forehead with his napkin.

“How are you getting home?” Alexey asked, tapping the back of Anna’s hand.

“On the subway, naturally.”

“Don’t be silly. Anton will give you a ride.”

“And what about you?” She didn’t understand his sudden change of mood.

“I’ll be here for a while yet. I’ve got some things to do.”

“The three of us!” Lyushin said with a laugh. “Like the Three Musketeers! We should all go to a bar.”

Bulyagkov gazed at him with cold eyes. “Comrade Anna surely has to get up early. And as for you, Nikolai, you’d best go to bed soon so you can sleep off your liquor.”

“I find Moscow even more provincial than Dubna,” Lyushin said with a sigh; however, when Anna stood up and accepted her coat, he didn’t protest. “It was a pleasure, Comrade,” he said. “Too bad we didn’t have more time together.”

“Thanks for the invitation.” She wrapped her scarf around her head.

After he’d walked a few steps with her in the direction of the exit, Bulyagkov observed, “I believe you should thank the Ministry for Research Planning.”

“I’d rather go home on the subway,” she announced. The moment alone with him was disagreeable to her. Halfway to the door, he took her hand, squeezed it, and turned back without a word.

As she hurried over the richly patterned carpet, Anna tried to make sense of her departure. Had Alexey, insulted and offended at having found her with Lyushin, thrown her out? Had he turned up at the Ukraina only to speak to Lyushin, or had someone tipped him off about her? Anna went through the revolving door and into the cold night air, which hit her like a blow.


When Alexey returned to the table in the alcove, Lyushin was studying the dessert list. “Let’s go.”

“I’ve got a craving for something sweet—”

With unaccustomed violence, the Deputy Minister struck the menu out of Lyushin’s hand. “You’ve had enough sweets for one evening.” Like a dog only now perceiving the possibility of a beating, the physicist rose to his feet. Bulyagkov made for the steps to the mezzanine, where the elevators were. By the time the double doors split open, Lyushin had caught up with him, and they stepped into the elevator together. “Have you completely taken leave of your senses?” the older man barked as soon as the doors shut. “I don’t care whom you choose to meet. But inviting Anna to this place was stupid and dangerous!”

“You can’t believe that I asked your girlfriend here—”

“Shut your mouth.” With a gesture, Bulyagkov directed Lyushin to push the button for his floor. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing! In any case, nothing that she could have understood.”

“So you told her something!”

“No, I didn’t, I swear!”

“She’s Kamarovsky’s informant.” Bulyagkov stepped closer.

“Then why didn’t you get rid of her long ago?” Lyushin hissed.

For a moment, the Deputy Minister seemed about to punch the suntanned face beside him, but instead, he thrust his fists into his pockets. “I thought you understood the game. If you hadn’t played Don Juan tonight, Anna would still be our best camouflage.”

“I gave away nothing. What do you think I am?”

“I think you’re someone who acts like an idiot whenever his dick takes over. Anna will report to Kamarovsky … she has to! And the old devil will draw his own conclusions.” Bulyagkov smoothed his hair back and put on his hat. “Where are the papers?”

“In my room.” Lyushin was holding tightly to the rail that ran around the elevator car.

“In the safe?”

“No, in the …” He paused, realizing that he’d made yet another mistake. “In my suitcase.”

“I’ll take them away with me tonight and put them in a more secure place.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Lyushin staggered out first. “Please, believe me, I had no designs on Anna. I … I don’t know anybody in Moscow, and she’s such a charming person.”

“The crucial question is whether Anna will continue to believe your story.” Bulyagkov watched pensively as the other unlocked his door.

They entered the dark hotel room. Lyushin hurried to his bag and pulled out a briefcase. “There,” he said, handing it to Bulyagkov. “You see, there wasn’t anything to worry about.”

The Deputy Minister turned on the lights and examined the combination lock. “Most of the time, the Minister limits his questions to the bare essentials. Speak only when you’re called upon to do so.” He held out the briefcase to the physicist and said, “Open it.”

Lyushin dialed in the combination and took out two apparently identical folders.

“Which is which?”

“That’s the folder for the Minister. And this one’s for you.”

Bulyagkov opened the folders and paged through the documents, comparing them. “Good.” He thrust the folders under his arm. Lyushin lay collapsed on the sofa. “You’ll come to the Ministry tomorrow at eleven o’clock sharp,” Bulyagkov said. “We won’t see each other again until the appointed time. When you arrive, I’ll be with the Minister, and we’ll be expecting you.” He turned to the door. “And no more bars tonight, you understand?” He left without waiting for an answer.