The Russian Affair

THIRTY-SEVEN



Thicket and underbrush, pitch-black night. Had Anna considered that she was not only subjecting herself to incredible unpleasantness but at the same time taking part in something that would be classed as subversion, her impulse to turn around and go back to Moscow as quickly as possible would have looked like the only rational response. But in that night-shrouded no-man’s-land, whipped by tree branches, frightened by animal sounds, with no guide to orientation other than Anton’s injunction to find the tracks of the Baltic Railroad, Anna stumbled onward, come what might. A peculiar magnetic force had taken possession of her, pulling her along, compelling her to keep advancing on the impassable path whose goal was named Alexey. The stronger the doubts that plagued her and the greater her fear not only of doing the wrong thing but also, and more simply, of heading in the wrong direction, the more resolutely Anna struggled on. In all the months they’d been together, she’d gone to Alexey dozens of times, but never with such commitment, never with the feeling that she was going not the right but the only way. In many spots, the ground, thawed by the spring sun, had turned into a swamp; she sank in it up to her calves and consequently did her best to give the lowest terrain a wide berth. The time her walk was taking seemed interminable. Mustn’t the train have passed already? But Anna hiked on and on, until at last she tripped over an obstacle and fell flat. It was the aforesaid tracks, and the tree above her was no tree, but a power pole. Worn out and bloody-palmed, she started walking west on the cross ties.

Sooner than expected, lights came into sight, silhouettes darker than the sky appeared, sounds reached her ears, and more incredulous than relieved, she reached the little town of Maevo. She was able to purchase a train ticket without standing in the usual line, and the cashier had kindly informed her that the train would arrive on time, that is, with the usual delay. While she was asking for information about the formalities at the Latvian border, she heard the locomotive pulling into the station, and she was directed to join the little group of night travelers and board the train. There were amazingly few passengers in the carriage; Anna heard someone remark that trains headed in the opposite direction were always full. She fell exhausted into a seat, listened for a while to her breathing as it slowed down, and soon dozed off. Her nap seemed to have lasted only a few minutes, because when she started awake, they were arriving in Isakovo, an hour and a half from the border.

A large family of Latvians, returning home from visiting relatives and laden with leftovers, boarded the train. They spread themselves out near Anna and reveled in their memories of the festive hours they’d spent. Anna thought about why her family had always been so small. The war had carried off her paternal grandparents. Her mother’s parents had moved away from Moscow, and by the time Anna was born, both of them were dead. Viktor Ipalyevich had no siblings, and Dora, too, had been an only child. Petya, Father, and I, that’s the yield of the Tsazukhin family, Anna thought. And then there was Leonid. She wondered why she’d never wanted a second child. A job like hers was sought after because it paid well, and until such time as Leonid would attain a higher rank and more pay, income had taken precedence over her desire for more children. So now he was a captain—and he lived in Yakutsk. She realized that of all the questions currently pressing in upon her, the one about whether or not to have another child was probably in last place. And yet, the unity displayed by the Latvian family over there awakened a longing in her. How confident those people were, how protected they felt in the cozy bosom of their family.

Anna tried to snatch an hour’s sleep before reaching the border; according to the schedule, the train was due to roll into Riga around dawn. She took off her shoes and made herself comfortable, taking up two seats, but she couldn’t manage anything deeper than a light doze. She saw the signs for Dmitrovo glide past—at this time of night, there were no passengers either boarding or leaving the train. The conductor came through the car for the second time. Although he’d already taken Anna’s ticket, he stopped in the aisle and stared down at her as she lay curled up on the seats. She pretended to be asleep.

At Zaistino, border officials got on the train, two in police uniforms and one in civilian clothes. Anna sat up properly, rubbed her bleary eyes, and got her identity papers ready. She observed the plainclothes official; the man was obviously drunk. He was doing a good job of holding himself steady, but his skin and eyes betrayed him.

The large Latvian family was subjected to exhaustive scrutiny. The patriarch of the clan gave good-natured replies, while the women, intimidated, remained silent. It struck Anna that the Russian border cops were treating the Latvians as though they’d been granted the privilege of traveling in Russia, but now that period of grace was over, and they must scurry home to their “sister state” as quickly as possible. The officials’ condescension and rudeness irritated Anna. They gave the members of the family their documents back, approached Anna’s seat, looked at her—and continued on without a word. She expected the men to check her on their way back through the car, but soon they opened a door while the train was still moving and stepped off. They were in the no-man’s-land between the two border stations; a little farther on, Latvian officials saluted and took over the train on their native soil. While Anna was watching the exchange and trying to find an explanation for such lax bureaucracy, an automobile stopped on a gravel road near the railroad line. Everyone except the driver got out and boarded the train.

There was no reason for her to feel proud or elated, and yet, at that moment, Anna thought her adventure remarkable. Increasingly confident of actually arriving in Riga before too long, she even grew convinced that Anton had been nimble enough to shake off his pursuers. In her inexplicable cheerfulness, Anna saw herself as a genuine traveler, riding the night train on a flying visit to Latvia. While she was imagining her meeting with Alexey, the door opened behind her. She assumed that the Latvian officials were now doing their duty, and so she collected her identity papers, turned around, and looked into A. I. Kamarovsky’s eyes. In spite of the mild temperature, he was wearing a winter coat. He looked hollow-cheeked, even deathly; his innocuous smile didn’t suit his wasted face.

“Your blushing cheek shows me that you find it exhilarating, just as I do, to run into old friends while traveling.” He threw off his coat, spread it on the seat, and sat down next to Anna.

A great heat rose in her, as if she’d taken some fast-acting poison. Words fled from her mind; there was nothing to say.

“You probably find it impossible to sleep in trains, too,” he said with a benign smile. “So we may as well talk. We still have a while to go before we reach Riga. What would you like to talk about?”

She refused to put up with his taunting. If talk was what he wanted, it had to be the real thing. “I didn’t know anything about all this,” Anna said.

“Of course you didn’t. If you had, your behavior would be completely incomprehensible.” He raised his hands, indicating their unreal situation: Anna and the Colonel, their faces illuminated by the cold nighttime lighting, and behind them the big Latvian family, sound asleep. Kamarovsky pulled the skirts of his coat over his lap. “At the next stop, we should get ourselves something to drink. Have you ever been to Latvia before?”

She shook her head.

“I know practically nothing about it myself. That’s about to change.” The Colonel raised his eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “However the two of us work out what’s going to happen,” he said softly, “it won’t be easy, and I won’t hide from you the possibility of an unpleasant outcome.”

“Have you got Anton?”

“Anton’s insignificant. A loyal liegeman of his false lord.” Kamarovsky stiffened. “In a nutshell: Bulyagkov must not leave Riga. He must be stopped, one way or another.”

“One way or another.” She repeated the Colonel’s words and understood that he was speaking of life and death.

“The last thing we want is an arrest outside Russia. It mustn’t look as though we’re recapturing an escaped bird. But at the same time, the bird must be prevented from singing. Do you understand, Anna?”

Even though the possible consequences for Alexey terrified her, she was relieved that the Colonel was eschewing all bombast and rhetoric in discussing the matter. It wasn’t a question of hunting anybody down, but of correcting an erroneous development and preventing it from doing damage.

“I’ve never needed you so much as I do now,” Kamarovsky said soberly.

“What can I do to change anything?”

“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to know the answer to that question until after the fact. The important thing is for you to see the background issues in their proper proportions.”

From the day when Alexey had told her his story—the biography of a student who’d been brought to Russia clandestinely and forced into an uncongenial career there—from that moment on, Anna should have faced up to those background issues. She’d neglected to do so and instead acted as a mother, as a wife whose marriage was slipping from her grasp, as a daughter who wanted her father’s happiness. Whenever a change had occurred, she’d adapted to it and hoped that time was on her side. Alexey, on the other hand, had looked far into the future and known their time was limited. He’d treated Anna like a lover, but also as an instrument of his purpose, and he’d never taken his eyes off his goal. And now, Kamarovsky was demanding that Anna confront this man, and that she do so in full awareness of the “proper proportions.” In the woods and on the train, her spirits had risen at the prospect of seeing Alexey again, of being, in a way, his savior; but the idea of contacting him as Kamarovsky’s advance guard literally revolted her. At the same time, she had to smile at the Colonel, because his faith in her capabilities seemed unbroken.

“Please inform me, Comrade,” said Anna.

He nodded. Before he began, his eyes wandered to the window. “I can’t believe it’s already getting light outside. We’re farther north than Moscow, but it’s unusual to see a dawn like this back home.” And with that, he turned to her again.