“If these views are being shared with you, what makes you think they are not being shared elsewhere, with more impressionable minds?”
“But I can’t testify to that.”
There was a strange flash in Subotin’s cool-water eyes. They seemed to go round in surprise for a moment. The grin on his face was almost like the stifled wince of someone who’d had a cheap point scored against him. “Very well,” he said. He picked up his pen and crossed out the words “in his courses,” keeping only “at the institute.”
“Is this better?”
Florence nodded.
He passed her his pen. “Sign it.”
She did.
—
OUTSIDE, IN THE FAMILIAR gated courtyard, the day-melted snow had refrozen to crust. She could see a sickle of moon in the east, but the sky was still lucent, dimming slowly now that the days were getting longer. The moist April air carried smells of boiled meat and onions. Florence felt sick in her stomach. She had to sit down. A shellac of ice covered the green bench. She could feel its cold, melting moisture through her coat, almost down to her ass. She had given them enough to arrest Boris Rechok, a person she barely knew, on charges of “primitive anti-fascism.” If they brought him in, would they show him her statement and make him respond? Well, why did he have to say those things around her? What had she been supposed to do? Lie? Then Belkova and Danilova would have told the truth in her place, and then where would she be? She had finally given Subotin what he wanted. But he had said nothing afterward about her going to America. On the contrary, he’d seemed irritated that she hadn’t been more enthusiastic in her denunciation of Rechok! And that look on his face when she’d objected to parts of his report—she couldn’t get it out of her head. What was that look? She had seen it before. Not on Subotin’s face, no. But—God, to remember it now—on the face of Sergey Sokolov so many years ago. A look of utter surprise—less emotional state than physical instinct, like a reaction to the smell of something spoiled. They were memories she had buried—as an animal buries its droppings—so shameful that her mind took great pains not to shed light on them. They came back now with hallucinatory vividness. She saw herself reflected in her old boss Scoop’s eyes when it was revealed that she’d helped the Russian engineers, and then in Sergey’s eyes when she tracked him down in Moscow. The look they had both given her—as though they had suddenly realized that the intelligent, quick-witted woman in front of them was at heart a fool. It was this recognition of her foolishness that she thought she recognized in Subotin’s eyes. He honestly could not believe she was haggling with him over the details. Had she forgotten where she was, with whom she was arguing? She still thought she could have it both ways—get into bed with the NKVD and come out with her slip unwrinkled, her soul clean and unbesmirched. Too late for that, little dove. She was like a whore haggling over her honor.
The queasiness was overpowering. Florence needed to put her head between her knees just to keep breathing. Beads of sweat slid down between her breasts. Something percolated in her gut. And then all illusion of control vanished and she was retching, paralyzed by mutinous spasms until there was nothing left to heave but a thin, watery fluid. It spilled and dribbled on her shoes.
The necessity of sitting back up and cleaning herself now proposed a host of dangers. Somebody was touching her. Florence wiped her mouth with a corner of her kerchief and turned to see who it was. A tiny old babushka in a lumpy coat was sitting beside her. All the lines in her face crinkled imploringly. “Are you all right, dearie?” She touched Florence’s shoulder, but this only caused Florence to jerk. Who was this woman? Was she one of them? Her eyes cast up and around the surrounding buildings. Did one of Subotin’s windows face this little quadrangle? Were they watching her even now? She flicked her chin at the old woman. “Mind your own damn business,” she said and, clutching her bag, made haste out of the courtyard.
Karl Marx was right: we are not the rulers of our destinies. For all my renouncements of the secular prophet of my youth, I was ready to concede this truth as I sat in helpless silence in the L-Pet conference room. When our meeting came to an end we were down to three bids, two reasonable ones and the hot-air balloon floated by the boys from Geneva. I’d found myself unable to prune Sausen Petroleum out of the running completely. Yet in spite of the pressure from Kablukov I had not been able to mount a convincing defense, either. So I stayed mostly mute through the ceremony of selection, conscious throughout of Kablukov groaning subaudibly in his chair like a disappointed father. Tom looked no less displeased with me when we adjourned (early, so that the men of L-Pet could flee town in their Cherokees and get to their Zhukovka dachas before sunset). With about as much sincerity as I’d brought to our meeting, I told him I had food poisoning, then fled. I also had a dacha to hurry to, if I wanted to lose no time in beating some sense into my offspring.