At six in the morning, the telephone rings. Instantly, as if he’s been expecting this all night long, Andrei jumps out of bed, crosses the room, grabs the receiver and lifts it slowly to his ear.
‘Alekseyev, Andrei Mikhailovich?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is a message from Medical Personnel. I am to inform you that, with immediate effect, you are suspended from your duties, pending investigation of serious irregularities –’
‘But, but –’
‘You are required to hold yourself available for investigatory interview without notice. You are not permitted to enter hospital precincts during the period of investigation.’ The line clicks. The caller has rung off, leaving behind a singing, listening silence.
‘Andrei, what is it?’ Anna is bolt upright in bed, pale and frightened.
‘It was a call from the hospital.’ He swallows. ‘They are suspending me from duty.’
‘What?’ Anna cries.
‘You heard me. Hush, you’ll wake Kolya.’
‘You mean – just like that? But, Andrei, it’s only six o’clock. There can’t be anyone in the offices at this time.’
Andrei does not reply.
‘Andryusha, sit down, you look awful. I’ll make some tea. Oh no, there’s Kolya.’
The door opens and Kolya’s face peers round it.
‘What’s the matter? Why were you shouting? Who was that on the phone?’
‘It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.’
He hesitates, looking from one to the other of them, his face sharpening. ‘Is somebody dead?’
‘Of course nobody’s dead, go back to sleep. I’ll wake you at quarter to seven. It was just a call from work for Andrei.’
‘You don’t look like that when it’s just a call from work.’
‘He’s not a child,’ Andrei says. ‘He’s going to have to know.’
Now Anna looks from one to the other. Andrei is grey with shock. Kolya is frowning, not yet sure whether to challenge them or not. She goes over to Kolya, and puts her arm around his shoulders. He’s taller than her now, and she has to reach up. He smells like a man. When he was little and he woke up in the mornings, even his breath would be sweet.
‘All right, Kolya, get dressed quickly now, and use the bathroom first. No one else will be in there yet. I need to talk to Andrei. I’ll explain everything to you later.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Kolya, please. I need you to help me.’
‘It was a call from the hospital,’ says Andrei. ‘They are suspending me from my duties. You understand what that means?’
Kolya looks from Andrei to Anna. ‘You mean, you can’t go into the hospital?’
‘That’s right. They are holding an investigation.’
‘Did one of the patients die, is that why they’re suspending you? But it won’t have been your fault!’ cries Kolya, in a burst of instinctive loyalty that makes Andrei’s eyes sting.
‘You’re right,’ says Anna. ‘He did nothing wrong. It’s – you know – political. I’ll tell you in a minute. Go on and use the bathroom now.’
He nods silently, and asks no more questions. Andrei was right, he’s not a child any more and shouldn’t be treated like one. She turns back to Andrei, and out of the corner of her eye sees Kolya slip past with clumsy, silent tact, on his way out to the bathroom on the landing.
‘Andrei, Andryusha, my darling, don’t look like that –’
‘It’s my fault, Anna. I should have listened to Lena and to you.’
‘You couldn’t have avoided it.’
‘But now all this has come down on you. I’ll never forgive myself.’
‘You’ve got nothing to blame yourself for. Maybe the suspension will only last for a few days. Volkov just wants to lash out at someone. You must drink some tea. Eat something. I shan’t go to work, I’ll stay with you.’
‘No, you should go. Everthing’s got to seem normal. You go to work and Kolya must go to school. Tonight we’ll arrange everything, and tomorrow you take him down to Galya’s.’
‘Do you think it’s safe to wait a day?’
‘Yes. You’d better get ready, Anna, or you’ll be late.’
The morning routine shapes itself almost as usual except that Andrei sits unshaven in a chair by the window. Anna washes, dresses, drinks her tea with extra sugar because she cannot face eating, and collects her things.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? I can call in sick.’
‘No.’
‘I think you should call people to find out what’s going on. How about Gerasimov? Or Maslov, he’s always given you wonderful references. They might know what’s happening.’
‘I can’t talk to them on the phone, Anna.’
‘You mean the phone –’
‘There’s no point in putting other people at risk.’
‘You’re always saying that Lena knows everything that goes on.’
‘I can’t involve her.’
‘So everyone else has to be protected, while they set you up as the scapegoat for the whole hospital!’
‘It’s not like that. Go to work, Anna. You’ll be late.’
The door bangs, and she’s gone. A quarter of an hour later, Kolya leaves, after lingering awkwardly by the door and blurting out, ‘Sure you’ll be all right?’
‘Of course I’m sure. Try to concentrate in maths for once, Kolya, your last test results were very poor,’ snaps Andrei.
Kolya shrugs, mutters something under his breath, and disappears. Heaven knows how much Anna’s told him. He heard their whispered, rushed voices coming from Kolya’s room. He should have explained it all to Kolya himself, but he just couldn’t.
He couldn’t face it. The humiliation is too raw. To be suspended, as if he’d pawed a woman patient, or killed someone. The sound of the telephone voice still raps in his ears. He didn’t even argue, just bleated, ‘But, but –’ like a naughty schoolboy. ‘You are suspended from your duties, pending investigation of serious irregularities –’ Everyone in the hospital will know about it soon. His real friends will be shocked. He has decent colleagues who will be concerned for him as well as for themselves, but there are others who will make haste to separate themselves from him as fast as they can. They’ll find the ‘correct response to the situation’, which usually seems to be pretending that the person who is in trouble has never existed at all.
What will Lena think, or Sofya?
He can’t remember an idle morning like this, on his own, without Anna. He should be swinging through the double doors of Rheumatology by now. He should be scanning his clinic lists. There’s so much to do that you never have quite enough time to do it. Frustration boils up in him. Who will see to his patients? Everyone will do their best to fill the gaps but no one will gun for that sanatorium bed for Tanya, or make sure that little Lyova gets included in a promising clinical trial.
He must write notes. Surely he can telephone with instructions, if it’s a clinical matter? ‘You are suspended from your duties, pending investigation of serious irregularities –’
He gets up and begins to walk about the apartment, clenching his fists. A good long walk, that’s what he needs. ‘You are required to hold yourself available for investigatory interview without notice.’ If they phone again, and he isn’t here, what would that mean?
He’ll make tea. Where does Anna keep the things? No, what he would really like is a drink. A shot of that vodka they get out only when there are visitors. ‘Not only was Dr Alekseyev under suspension, but he was also noticeably under the influence.’ That certainly wouldn’t do. Besides, he doesn’t like drinking in the daytime. It blunts your reactions. You can’t risk it as a doctor, although of course there are those who do. But they are not suspended from duty, pending investigation.
He should have let Anna stay home with him. They should be together. Or perhaps that is completely wrong. Perhaps the only way to save her is for them to be quite separate. He should go off somewhere, far a
way. She should say that she threw him out because she was so ashamed of having a husband who had to be investigated. Yes, the example of Pavlik Morozov was the one for Anna to follow. Let her denounce him.
Anna would never do that. Going away would solve nothing; it would only make things worse.
They will all know by now. He stops pacing and slumps back in the chair. It’s ten o’clock. He looks at the telephone, but it doesn’t ring. Kolya will go to Galya’s dacha, Anna will keep on working, and I’ll do what? Wait. Just wait. Is it possible that there’s going to be day after day like this?
Suddenly the thought comes to him, as clear and bright as if it had been written on the wall for him to read: I could kill myself, and then it would all be over. Anna and Kolya would be safe.
A fly buzzes, trapped between the inner and outer windows. How did it get there? Oh yes, when Anna opened the window in the night. It’s twelve o’clock, which means that he’s been sitting here for two hours. People don’t come to arrest you in the middle of the day. Anna will be eating lunch with the children. It’s a very important part of their social education. They learn to eat with their knives and forks, they learn to wash their hands carefully beforehand, to cut up their food and to chew with their mouths closed. They have conversations. Anna says that sometimes these are so funny that she has to jump up and fetch the water jug, so they won’t see her laugh. If she laughs, they always want to know why.
He finds that he’s smiling. He can almost hear the children’s shrill voices and the clatter of the crockery as they pursue a carrot around their plates, and learn to ‘cut it up nicely’. Anna has described the scene so often that he feels as if he’s been there. ‘They sound just like a flock of little birds.’
What should he be doing? Perhaps he should write down everything that happened, in order, clearly, so that he can set the record straight. Make a case history of it, as he’s been trained. If only he knew what was best. Brodskaya has almost certainly been suspended too, if not worse. If they arrest her and take her in for questioning, who knows what might happen. She might say anything, if they put enough pressure on her. They’ll know what they want to get out of her.
He told Gorya he would come in and see him today. God knows what they’ll tell the boy now. Nothing, perhaps, because he’s already so ill. They may just let him think that Dr Alekseyev forgot about him. Couldn’t be bothered.
He’s like one of those cartoon characters who run over the side of a cliff and then keep running on empty air.
No, he won’t kill himself. He doesn’t know how he could have imagined it was even possible. He could never do that to Anna. Protect her! It would destroy her.
He won’t make things easy for Volkov. ‘Of course, Alekseyev killed himself once he suspected that his criminal conspiracy was about to be unmasked.’ He won’t give him that.
Anna is home early, laden with shopping as usual.
‘You shouldn’t carry so much.’
‘I’m pregnant, not ill. Look at this boiling fowl – nearly as plump as a roasting bird, don’t you think? Usually they’re such scraggy old things. And a good price too.’ Her eyes search his face. ‘Did you go out?’
‘No.’
‘You’re right, perhaps better not, in case they call again. As soon as I’d gone this morning, I knew I should have stayed. I should have been with you. I’ll just unpack the shopping –’
‘For heaven’s sake sit down and rest for a minute. The shopping can –’
The bell rings. They freeze, then Anna says, her voice carefully steady, ‘I expect Kolya’s forgotten his key again.’
They both know that when Kolya forgets his key, he bangs on the door, and shouts for Anna. The bell rings again, a long impatient peal.
‘I’d better open it.’
‘No, I will.’
Andrei goes to the apartment door, and opens it. In the dim light of the landing he sees a single figure. Heat rushes through his body. Only one. It’s all right. The shadowy figure resolves itself into a boy of about fourteen, holding a bunch of flowers.
‘Dr Alekseyev?’
‘Yes.’
‘Flowers for you.’ The boy thrusts the bunch at him.
‘Oh – thank you. Is there a note?’
‘No, just the flowers.’ The next moment the boy is away, clattering down the stairs. Andrei goes back into the apartment, and closes the door, frowning. He stares at the flowers as if they have nothing to do with him.
‘Roses!’ says Anna. ‘How beautiful. Who’s sending us flowers?’
‘I don’t know. There isn’t a note.’
There are four yellow roses, and a mass of dark foliage and fern, tightly and skilfully wrapped, as flowers are wrapped in winter to protect them from the frosts.
‘I’ll put them in water,’ says Anna. ‘It’s strange though, isn’t it? These are expensive flowers. You’d think someone would have put in a note.’ She thinks that probably the flowers are from Julia. It’s the sort of thing Julia would do. Carefully she unwraps the paper, taking care not to rip it. It’s thick, silvery paper, worth saving. She fetches the scissors and snips through the thick band of string that binds the stems.
The tight bunch relaxes. Anna lays it down and shakes it gently to loosen the flowers from the tangle of foliage without breaking any leaves. As she does so, she glimpses something white, deep down between the stems. A thorn catches on her hand as she reaches in to separate the stems. It’s a small envelope. So there was a note after all, so well hidden that you couldn’t see it until the bunch was taken apart. She turns it over, but there’s nothing written on it.
‘Look, Andryusha, there’s a note.’
‘Why don’t you open it?’
Anna hesitates. Why would the note be concealed like that? Julia would flourish Anna’s name across the envelope, and tuck it in on top of the flowers. Julia has nothing to hide. All of a sudden the roses look too bright and perfect, and the foliage so dark that it appears sinister. The thorn has pricked her skin. Slowly, as she watches, a bead of blood rises to the surface and holds there without spilling.
She’d better open the note.
Anna blots her finger, and unfolds a small sheet of paper, densely covered with handwriting that she doesn’t recognize. She looks for the signature, but there is only a letter: L. The note is not addressed.
‘It’s not for me, it must be for you,’ she says, passing it over without allowing herself to read it.
‘For me?’
‘Take it.’
The boy has been transferred to Moscow, to the Morozovka. V alleges serious professional irregularities in treatment. They say that B has been arrested. Panic here, people being called in. No news of R or R. Please don’t call me. Be very careful. Burn this. Good luck, L.
The words ‘Be very careful’ are underlined with a thick, black score of the pen. As if Lena feared that he might miss the most important point. Andrei reads through the note twice, and then holds it out to Anna. ‘It’s from Lena,’ he says.
‘From Lena!’
Anna reads the note without comment, and refolds it. ‘You’d better burn it straight away,’ she says. ‘She took a risk, with her children.’
Andrei lights a match, holds the note over the ashtray and sets fire to a corner of it. Flame races up the paper, and he drops it, still burning. Soon nothing remains but a frail, curled sheet of ash.
‘Wash it down the sink,’ says Anna. ‘We can keep the flowers, I suppose.’
He rinses the sink and the ashtray until there is no trace of burnt paper.
‘It reminds me of those stories they used to tell us in school, about anti-Soviet spies and agitators,’ remarks Anna. ‘They were always burning notes and writing in invisible ink. And then some brave young Pioneer would unmask them.’
‘My God,’ says Andrei, not hearing what she says, ‘if it’s true that they’ve arrested Brodskaya –’
‘ “R or R” – who does she mean? Russov must be one, I suppose?’
>
‘Retinskaya’s the other, the radiographer. She transferred to Moscow too, with Russov. There’s something going on between them, apparently.’
‘If they question Brodskaya, and she says something about you …’ says Anna in a low voice.
‘Brodskaya’s not that type.’
‘Everyone is that type, if things are bad enough.’
They look at each other in silence. What she’s said is true, Andrei knows. Brodskaya hasn’t got children, but she’s got her old mother. All they would have to do is threaten to arrest the mother as well. But not everyone gives way, even so. Brodskaya is tough. Besides, what the hell is she supposed to confess to, anyway? A conspiracy to cause the cancer to metastasize? What kind of ‘professional irregularities’ are there supposed to have been?
The worst thing is that he’s left in a fog, not knowing. He can’t ring any of his colleagues. Lena thinks the phone’s not safe. Please don’t call me. She’s probably right.
What if he just went to work tomorrow, and walked right into Admin and demanded to know what was going on? He’s got nothing to hide. He has no reason to skulk at home like a criminal.
‘I am to inform you that, with immediate effect, you are suspended from your duties, pending investigation of serious irregularities –’
Suspended; left hanging. They’ve arrested Brodskaya, but not him, although he was involved with the Volkov boy before Brodskaya was: through him. If it hadn’t been for Andrei, she would never have become Gorya’s surgeon. He wonders what Brodskaya is thinking now. Why should she protect Andrei? If it weren’t for him, she’d still be here in Leningrad, probably working late, calmly busy and on top of things. So many new cases come in each day that there’s never quite enough time. You get used to living like that.
‘Suspended from your duties, pending investigation.’
‘She’ll have to shut up her butcher’s shop.’