Maslov glances behind him at the open door of the living room. ‘Please talk more quietly,’ he says, almost in a whisper. ‘My wife …’ He knew. He is not surprised.
‘Can we go somewhere and talk for half an hour? I need to ask for your advice.’
He looks at her searchingly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘About what has happened to Andrei, of course,’ she says, more sharply than she intended.
Maslov nods. He no longer looks confused. ‘My dear young lady,’ he says, ‘sometimes, you understand, it’s safer not to intervene. Better for – the person concerned – if things take their course. Outsiders can do more harm than good.’
She stares at him, too shocked to speak.
‘You’ll see,’ he says in a hurried voice, ‘if it’s just a misunderstanding, it’ll soon be cleared up. These people know what they’re about. Andrei will be back at work in no time.’
Anna’s hands clench. ‘How can you say that?’ she whispers fiercely. ‘You know that’s not what happens. This isn’t a misunderstanding. I’m not asking you to get involved in the case. But you know Andrei well, you’ve worked with him for years, you know how good he is. All I want is for you to say that. They’re bound to make inquiries at the hospital.’
Maslov blinks, but says nothing. Suddenly Anna understands that the inquiries have already been made. Probably Maslov has been interviewed today. But he’s not going to tell her, because he’s already decided on his position.
At this moment the living-room door opens and Maslov’s wife peers into the hall. Sonya, that’s her name. She doesn’t see Anna at first, because Anna is shielded by Maslov’s back.
‘Who is it, Volodya? For heaven’s sake, don’t keep guests standing out in the hall.’ Her voice is bright and social, if a little irritated. She moves forward, and Maslov steps aside, casting his wife a look of relief as he does so. At this moment Sonya Maslova sees Anna. The hostess frown deepens on her forehead as she tries to place this strange woman who was talking so intently to her husband. Someone from the hospital, come to badger her husband at home during one of his precious evenings. Probably after something. Sonya’s smile is wearing thin
‘This is Anna Levina,’ says Maslov, low and even. ‘You remember, my dear, you’ve met her before. Andrei Alekseyev’s wife. We were speaking of him earlier.’
Anna watches Sonya Maslova’s face turn to stone. ‘What are you thinking of?’ she asks, her voice quick, cutting, direct. ‘How dare you come here!’
Anna is speechless. Maslov puts out a hand to his wife. ‘My dear –’
‘You should have sent her packing straight away.’ Sonya takes a few hurried steps forward until she is standing right in front of Anna. ‘Don’t you appreciate that Professor Maslov is engaged in scientific research that is of the utmost importance to the State? There is a serious possibility that his name will be put forward for the Stalin Prize!’
‘My dear, please – that was only a rumour.’
She gives him an angry, sparkling glance. ‘You never push yourself! You let other people who are far less talented than you snatch all the prizes!’
Anna feels as if she has fallen out of the life she knew, and into an ugly dream. This can’t be Maslov, with whom Andrei has worked so long. Andrei’s mentor, the man he admires and almost loves. This is some kind of puppet who has taken Maslov’s name. A storm of protest seethes in her head. She will shame him. She will force him to change his mind. And yet another part of her, the part that is her father’s daughter, understands everything and knows there is no changing it. She licks her lips. ‘I’d better go,’ she murmurs. All she wants now is to get out of the place as fast as she can, before this woman picks up the phone to denounce her.
Maslov gives Anna a helpless glance. Sonya has forgotten her elegance and stands with her arms akimbo, like a market woman. ‘Get out,’ she says. ‘Get out and don’t come back.’
Anna crosses the hall, opens the handsome door, steps out on to the landing. Down the stairs, and across to the ornate street door. People who live in these apartments have really made it.
She is in the street. She must rest for a moment, because she doesn’t feel too good. Anna leans against the wall, taking deep breaths of the frosty night air. At that moment the door to the building opens again. A figure comes out, and looks up and down the street. It’s Maslov. Anna stands still, unresisting, as he comes up to her. If he were to get out a knife and stab her, it would seem perfectly in keeping with the logic of the day.
‘Are you ill?’ asks Maslov.
‘No. I expect Andrei told you that I’m pregnant.’
‘Yes. Yes, he did tell me.’
They are both silent, one remembering and one imagining that moment when Andrei gave the news he’d been waiting to give for so long.
‘You must look after yourself,’ says Maslov, ‘for Andrei’s sake. The baby is very important to him.’
‘How dare you say that to me, after –’ she jerks her head back towards the building.
Maslov shakes his head. ‘You mustn’t blame her,’ he says. ‘She lost her whole family, you know, in the war. I’m all she’s got. We have no children.’
‘In the siege?’
‘Yes, and she had two brothers who were taken prisoner. We never heard what happened to them. She’s terrified, you understand –’
‘I can’t think about that,’ says Anna harshly. ‘I have to think about Andrei.’
‘I have to think about her, can’t you understand that?’
‘And so you’ll go along with it,’ says Anna, ‘as long as it’s happening to someone else. It’s not just your skin she’s thinking about, it’s your reputation. She wants you to be a great man, as if we hadn’t got enough of those.’
‘You should be careful what you say.’
‘Why?’
‘In your position, I would be very, very cautious.’
‘I can see that.’
Maslov peers at her in the gloom. ‘Haven’t you ever gone along with it?’ he asks.
‘I can’t think about that now,’ says Anna again. ‘You won’t do anything for Andrei. That’s all that matters to me. You’d better get back to your wife.’
But still he hesitates. He wants something from her and she has no idea what it is. At last he says in a hurried whisper, ‘Don’t you understand that it would be better for you if you did the same?’
‘What?’
‘Tell them you knew nothing about what was going on. Apologize for your lack of vigilance. It’s the only way. You’re pregnant. Andrei would want you to save yourself. You should think about your child.’
Anna takes a step back from him.
‘I’m only trying to help you. You’re young, you’ve got your life ahead of you. Are you in need of money?’
Her lips feel numb, but he’s waiting for her to answer. He wants her to denounce Andrei. A ‘family denunciation’. Save yourself. You should think about your child. A hot sudden flush of rage releases her. ‘Professor Maslov, I think you’d better go in now. That man across the road has been watching us for quite a while.’
He freezes, his eyes fixed on her face, and then very slowly he turns his head until he’s able to scan the empty street.
‘Goodbye,’ Anna says, and walks away swiftly towards the tram stop. Her heart thuds with anger and satisfaction. That gave him a fright. Just for a second he felt a touch of what they’ve had to live with for weeks.
By the time Anna reaches the tram stop she feels cold and wan. Why did she act like that? Andrei would have hated it. He’s always hated anything mean or petty. Maslov was no worse than anyone else; it was only that she’d expected more of him. But why should he risk his career and even his freedom for Andrei? That was never part of the deal.
19
It’s not too late to call at Julia’s, if she hurries. When did she last eat? Soup and sausage with the children at lunchtime. That seems a long time ago. She isn’t hungry. She’s tired, but she
dreads going to sleep without Andrei beside her. As soon as she falls asleep, it will set a seal on everything that has happened today. Time hasn’t moved on too far yet. It’s still the same day, the one on which Andrei was arrested. She can still say, ‘I saw Andrei this morning. This time yesterday, we were at home together.’
If only Julia’s alone. With Vesnin at home it will be more difficult. Anna doesn’t know him, and he’s not going to welcome this kind of trouble. Much better if she can explain everything to Julia, and Julia will find the right moment to talk to her husband and ask for his help. You can’t just throw a thing like this at him without warning. He might not know how far back Anna’s friendship with Julia goes.
Probably he won’t be at home. Julia said he was out most evenings, and she didn’t always go with him. He was meeting colleagues, and besides –
‘You get tired of eating out all the time.’
‘Do you?’
Another tram, clanging and clanking through the dark night. Anna gets on gratefully, and sits down. The streets are quiet now. A few people plod along, huddled against the sharpness of the wind. They’re going home, to their own homes. They’ll close their doors and feel safe. They don’t know how quickly home can be cracked open, like an egg.
A granny with a huge basket gets on, and heaves herself into the seat next to Anna. Lumps bulge through the cloth that covers the basket. It’s a dark blue embroidered cloth, so shabby now that you can hardly see the stitches. It must have been a tablecloth once. Idly, Anna wonders what is in the basket. Potatoes probably … or turnips … or they might even be lumps of coal.
The old woman glances at Anna. Her face is nutlike, dark and withered, with small bright eyes. She nods as if satisfied, and smoothes the cloth over her basket with her knotted hands.
Suddenly the tram lurches, braking hard. There’s a commotion – some idiot running across the tramlines. The old woman clutches at her basket but the force is too strong for her. Anna makes a grab as the basket slips away, falls to the floor upside down, and empties itself.
Apples. Big green cooking apples, greasy-skinned. They tumble away under seats, around feet, beneath the hems of winter coats. The tram fills with the smell of apples.
They’ll be bruised, thinks Anna. Once they’re bruised they won’t keep. Already people are stooping to pick up the fruit. Anna doesn’t move, because she’s afraid of falling if the tram lurches again. Already it is picking up speed, and apples roll everywhere. A man kneels down to gather them and clambers back up with an armload.
‘Thank you, my dears, thank you,’ murmurs the old woman, who seems paralysed by the disaster and doesn’t try to pick up either the apples or her basket.
‘Here you are, granny,’ says the man, settling the basket back on her knees and replacing the apples he’s rescued. ‘Hold on a bit tighter, eh?’
As if the man has been appointed to the job, everyone starts to pass apples along to him, to put back in the basket.
‘You know how to handle them,’ the old woman approves. ‘You put them in gentle, that’s the way, so they don’t bruise. These are good keepers. They’ll keep till March.’
Everyone is handing back apples now, as if they were on a production line. The basket is almost full again. The old woman looks up into her helper’s face, and carefully chooses two large, unmarked fruit. ‘Take these for your little ones, son,’ she says. ‘They’re cookers, mind.’
The man pushes the apples carefully into his pockets. They only just fit; the cloth bulges. He settles his cap firmly on his head. ‘Hold on tight to that basket now,’ he says, and then he’s gone, swinging his way down the aisle and off the tram.
She’ll have come into the city to sell those apples at market tomorrow, thinks Anna. They won’t fetch much now that they’re bruised. That’s why she’s turning them over so anxiously. That basket is too full. Another sudden stop and they’ll be all over the floor again.
‘Why not tie the cover back?’ Anna asks gently.
‘My fingers aren’t good for that,’ says the old woman. ‘My man, he ties it tight for me at home, and then I’ve only to get it to my daughter’s. It’s just the one tree we’ve got but it’s a real Trojan. Every year it bears and bears.’
She’s not selling the apples, then, she’s brought them into the city for her family, from whatever little plot she has. Anna looks at the twisted, arthritic hands. ‘Let me tie it up safe for you.’
The old woman nods. Anna draws the cloth over the basket, makes sure that it is secure under the rim, and then knots the ends tightly. She sits back, the incident dissolves, and they are in their own worlds again. There is still a faint scent of apples.
It’s Julia who answers the door. Her face brightens when she sees that it’s Anna. ‘Thank goodness it’s you, I hate answering the door at night, in case it’s some bore looking for Georgii. He’s out, he’s got a meeting – well, a discussion about some project. I thought they were all coming back here but it seems not. But, Anna, you look worn out. You shouldn’t be doing so much in your condition. Come in and have some tea.’
Anna takes off her things and sits silently while Julia makes tea with her usual quick, light movements. ‘I won’t be a moment, the samovar was lit anyway – you know what a demon for tea I am in the evenings –’
The heat of Julia’s apartment sinks into Anna. They have money, you can see that, but this is money spent as Anna would spend it herself. Not like the Maslovs’ apartment with that stiff girl in her black-and-white uniform. Julia has silk cushions, and a long curved sofa upholstered in the same beautiful deep blue silk. There are paintings everywhere. Anna recognizes a Popova still life – and that portrait of a peasant child looks like a Goncharova. Brilliant trees bend down while the young girl’s fingers move so surely that she doesn’t even need to look as she milks her goat. Anna draws a deep breath. She and Andrei have slipped into darkness but the other world is still there, guarded by colour and form.
‘Your tea, Anna.’
‘Oh! Thank you, Julia.’
She looks away from the paintings. Opposite her, at either side of a huge, sleek mirror, there are tall white vases filled with branches of beech leaves. Their leaves gleam bronze, as if they’ve just been picked, although the trees are leafless now. Julia’s gaze follows Anna’s.
‘They’re lovely, aren’t they? You have to preserve them by standing them in water and glycerine as soon as you pick them.’
‘Really? Is that why the leaves haven’t dried up?’
‘Yes, and it preserves the colours. It’s quite easy, you just stand them in hot water and glycerine for a day. You can do it with all kinds of leaves.’
‘They’re beautiful.’ She stares around the room. Everything has Julia’s fingerprints on it, or her husband’s. It is intact.
‘Drink your tea. Would you like sugar, or jam? Some poppyseed cake? Georgii’s mother makes it. We drown in cake here.’
‘I’m not hungry, thank you.’
‘You need to eat. You’re so pale, Anna.’
Anna takes three lumps of sugar. Julia’s right, she’s got to think of the baby. She drinks the tea thirstily, realizing as soon as the hot liquid touches her lips how much she needs it.
‘Let me give you some more. Anna, darling, what’s wrong? Do you feel faint?’
‘Just a minute –’ The heat, the tea and Julia’s concern are too much for her. The mask of composure she’s worn all day cracks, and melts. Anna leans forward and covers her face with her hands.
‘Anna!’ Instantly Julia is beside her, kneeling by the chair. ‘What’s happened? Is it the baby?’
Anna shakes her head.
‘Then Kolya? Andrei?’
Anna gathers herself. She must not give way now. She pushes her fingertips hard into her forehead. Get a grip on yourself. Julia can’t help if you just sit here crying.
‘Here, here’s my handkerchief –’
Anna wipes her face, breathes deeply. ‘I’m sorry, Julia.’
She feels embarrassed and ashamed. She hates to be seen out of control like this. Good, the tears are receding. She swallows them back, blinking, and pushes her hair off her face.
‘It’s Andrei. They arrested him this morning.’
She feels as well as sees Julia’s recoil. ‘My God. My God, Anna!’
Anna notes what Julia doesn’t say. No cry of ‘It must be a mistake!’ or ‘That’s impossible.’ She has suspected before that Julia has knowledge of the world into which Andrei has disappeared. Now, she is sure of it.
After the initial shock, Julia speaks calmly. ‘Tell me what it’s about. If you know, that is.’
‘Andrei was involved in the treatment of this boy – the son of someone very influential. I won’t tell you his name. The child had cancer and he had all the right treatment, but now the cancer’s come back in another place. It does that, you know. Every doctor knows that’s the main risk. But now they’re saying that the boy wasn’t treated correctly.’
‘I didn’t know Andrei worked with cancer patients. I thought you said –’
‘I know. He doesn’t usually, it’s not his field. It’s complicated, Julia. It was a colleague who dragged him into it, and then the boy liked Andrei – well, I won’t go into it too much. It’s better if you don’t know.’
Julia nods. Without taking her eyes off Anna’s face she reaches out to the small table behind her, feels for the packet of cigarettes that lies there, takes one out and puts it between her lips. ‘Do you want one, Anna?’
Anna shakes her head. Julia’s fingers find her lighter, and she lights the cigarette. She draws smoke deep into her lungs, half closing her eyes.
‘Andrei’s done nothing,’ says Anna. ‘All he thinks about is his patients –’
‘Of course I know that. But it’s what they decide to think he’s done … Where are they holding him? The Shpalerka, I suppose.’
‘I don’t know yet. I’ve spent all day at work and then I went to see his professor to see if he could help. I’m going to make a lot more inquiries tomorrow – I’ll go to the Shpalerka –’
‘Don’t.’ Julia’s voice raps out instantly.