Jack went home to tell Elizabeth what he’d discovered. He found her behind the door, her breathing agitated and her face pale. When the young woman learned that, with the trial happening early, there would be no American lawyer coming to defend her uncle, her head dropped and she began to cry, as if she finally understood that nobody would be able to save Wilbur Hewitt from the firing squad.
“Don’t worry. I’ll speak to Natasha. Maybe she can get her father to see me,” said Jack without thinking—he knew very well that nothing he could do would help Elizabeth’s uncle.
He didn’t dare leave her alone. He dug out the notes in English he’d made from the Soviet Penal Code and gave them to her, pointing out the paragraphs that might prove useful. She waved them away and started sobbing again.
“Read it,” Jack insisted. “They’ll probably call you to the witness stand. It might not get him released, but you could prevent yourself from being implicated.”
Elizabeth didn’t seem interested. “And you, what will you do?”
“I want to get to the store to stock up on food. I doubt the OGPU will go there, but given the situation, we can’t be too careful. I also forgot to ask where the trial’s taking place, so I’ll take the opportunity to find out how the jury and the defense work. I’ll come back as soon as I’m done. Until then, don’t even think about opening the door to anybody.”
The young woman nodded without much conviction.
Jack wrapped up and then headed to Ivan Zarko’s house to ask him to hide the Ford Model A somewhere safe. He might need it at some point, but with the place teeming with police eager to make arrests, being an American driving in a private vehicle could only bring him trouble. “It’s just until things calm down,” he explained to Zarko.
The old man spat out a stream of abuse before agreeing to lock the car up in an abandoned repair shop, but he warned Jack that, if the OGPU found it, he would sooner tell them who its owner was than be interrogated. Jack didn’t bother arguing. He nodded, said good-bye, and took a tram that was unusually packed with civilians all wearing their Sunday best.
At the Avtozavod, he couldn’t find Walter, so he headed to the hospital entrance, where two policemen were asking everyone going in or out for identification. Jack let some people go in ahead of him while he deliberated how best to avoid unwelcome questions. He was aware that if he asked outright for Dr. Lobanova, he risked being fobbed off or having Natasha herself refuse to see him. When he saw a little group of people waiting to visit their sick family members, he decided to ask one of the last in line for help, feigning his old limp. “Cigarette?” Jack said, offering one to the well-built man who’d agreed to let Jack lean on his shoulder to take the weight off his painful leg. “This damned cold cuts my hip like a knife!”
The stranger celebrated the offer of a cigarette as if he’d just struck gold, and thrust the papirosa into the gap between his teeth. Jack held on to the man as if he really needed the support, and limped forward toward the policemen, striking up a conversation with such familiarity that anyone seeing them would have sworn that they were close relatives or old friends. Once in front of the police officers, they both showed their papers. The well-built man was visiting his son and was allowed straight through. However, hearing Jack’s foreign accent, one of the guards ordered him to stop.
“American?” he asked, reading his name on the old prescription that Jack had offered as proof.
“By birth, unfortunately,” Jack replied in perfect Russian. “Luckily, I was able to return to the motherland.”
“This is just a prescription,” said the Soviet guard. His eyes remained hidden in the shadow of his visor.
“Yes. I forgot to bring my pass. With this limp . . .” He felt the man he was resting on trying to set off into the hospital, and he held him to make him wait.
“Well, I’m sorry, but your name isn’t on the patient list,” the young man said.
“Listen, I’m freezing to death, and I can barely walk. The truth is I was supposed to come next week, but the pain . . .”
“Like I said, you’re not on the list. You’ll have to come back another day.”
The well-built man attempted to go in again, but Jack held him more firmly than any recovering patient would. “Wait a minute!” Jack said to the man, before turning back to the guard. “Look, perhaps you haven’t read the letterhead on the prescription properly, but Natasha Lobanova isn’t just the director of this hospital; she’s also the daughter of Sergei Loban, the highest authority in the OGPU for sixty miles around. And I can assure you that if you don’t let me in, Dr. Lobanova will be more than happy to recommend to her father that you patrol those sixty miles day and night.”
The young guard lost his confidence and looked to his comrade for help. Not finding any, he turned back to Jack. “All right. But hurry up,” he said, then snatched the document from the next person in line.
As soon as the guards were out of sight, Jack parted company with his sturdy new friend and headed down the corridor that led to Dr. Lobanova’s office. He was about to go in without knocking, when he heard someone arguing bitterly inside. He recognized Natasha’s voice, its tone rising in response to the angry words of the other speaker. He waited outside, unable to make out what the dispute was about, until a crash of glass shattering into a thousand pieces made his heart thump. He heard the latch on the door moving, and he quickly hid behind a nearby screen. Through a gap, he saw a uniformed officer come out of the office. He tried to see the face, but the man had his back to him. At that moment, someone tapped Jack on the shoulder, making him spin around. He found himself face-to-face with an elderly woman in need of directions to the rehabilitation room. He gestured in its direction and turned back to the crack in the screen. The officer, with a fist in the air, seemed to be threatening Natasha. Jack couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was Viktor Smirnov, rage contorting his face.
He waited behind the screen until he was certain that Viktor wouldn’t return. Then he came out from his hiding place and walked into Natasha’s office without knocking. He found her squatting on the floor, picking up the remains of several flasks and test tubes.
“I told you to get out!” Natasha yelled, before realizing who it was. Recognizing Jack, she tried to compose herself. “Oh! What’re you doing here?”
“I’m sorry to show up unannounced. What happened?”
“Huh? Oh . . . nothing. I bumped into the sample trolley. Why are you here?” She finished cleaning up, sat herself in an armchair, and tried to act normal.
Jack felt hurt that she was lying to him. He sat opposite her, pondering whether to ask her what really happened, but he decided to be prudent. “I wanted to see you.” He’d promised himself he wouldn’t talk about his feelings, but he found it impossible. “How are you?”
“Busy, like everyone in the Avtozavod.”
“Yes. I heard about Stalin’s arrival, but I mean, apart from the disruption, how are you doing?”
“In relation to us?” She took out a cigarette and lit it. Jack was surprised—Natasha smoked only when she was under a lot of stress.