The Forbidden Zone

by Michael Hetzer

  “Katherine!” said Victor. “What a pleasure!”

  “Hi, Victor.”

  “Please make the acquaintance of my dear colleague, Dr. Mikhail Yakovlev. Excuse Mikhail. He speaks only a little English. Pass message for Mr. R. I’ve been trying to work with Mikhail a bit, but with no success I’m afraid.” Victor slapped Mikhail on the shoulder. He smiled awkwardly. “Where is my brother? He doesn’t seem to take to languages very well. They’re lying to me. Help. Have you enjoyed the symposium, Dr. Sears?”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “Good!” He proclaimed it as though something had been decided. “Well, we must go. It was a pleasure meeting you. Shake Mikhail’s hand if you agree to pass the message to our friend. I look forward to your future letters, Dr. Sears.”

  Katherine opened her eyes and looked at Maxim and Lena.

  Maxim said, “That was it?”

  Katherine nodded. “It took me a while to figure it out. It was all so weird, so unexpected. I took a long walk through the streets of Helsinki, eventually winding up down at the port beside a ship called theEstonia. It reminded me of Victor, so I went into the port authority building and asked about it. The ship, no more than a ferry, made the four-hour trip to the U.S.S.R. three times a week. It struck me how close I was to Victor’s homeland — and yet how far. I sat down and went word by word over Victor’s message. Gradually, I understood. He was asking for help in finding out what had happened to his brother Anton. For some reason, he doubted the official explanation. He asked me to contact ‘Mr. R,’ your father. Obviously he couldn’t say the name ‘Ryzhkov’ in the presence of the other Russian.”

  “You remember all that?” asked Maxim doubtfully.

  “I have a photographic memory,” Katherine said matter-of-factly. “I see words.”

  Maxim didn’t look convinced.

  Katherine shrugged. “It’s like having my own tape recorder running inside my head. I can play back things I’ve read and conversations I had. Anyway, I used it with Victor during our first meeting in New York City when I repeated precisely something he had written three years earlier. It came up a few times in our letters, too, so Victor knew about it, and that’s why he could be confident I would understand his message that day at the department store.”

  Katherine breathed deep and went on. “Victor chose me because he had seen your father and me together. We met in the cocktail lounge the first night. Like me, your father was there to meet Victor. But your father, as a defector, was the one man harder for Victor to contact than me. So Victor used me as a courier to get to your father. But then, before I could deliver the message . . .”

  Lena finished the thought. “My father killed himself.”

  “He was so distraught, Lena. He must have missed you and his grandson, Victor. I was probably one of the last people he spoke to — we had dinner together — and all he talked about was the life he left behind in Russia.”

  Lena put her head in her hands and began to sob.

  Katherine waited a moment and said, “There was one other piece of Victor’s message. He said it just as I was leaving. Now, a day doesn’t go by that I don’t wish I could somehow have delivered it to your father.”

  “What was it?”

  “‘Sorry, Vova.’”

  Lena smiled. She wiped away a tear.

  Katherine said, “I learned later that ‘Vova’ is a nickname for Vladimir.”

  Lena began to talk. “Victor didn’t need to apologize. Father would have known what the speech was all about. Victor was not just a friend to father, he was a son — only closer because they shared their work. They would get together and argue about nothing. They would get so excited they would wake up the baby. It was unbearable. I would shut the door just to get away from it.

  “After father defected, Victor came back from Oslo to give me the news. He has such good connections that the KGB agreed to let him tell me. We held each other and cried and cried. It was like both of us had lost a father. For Victor, it was the second father he lost.”

  Katherine said, “Your father also defended Victor.”

  “He did?”

  It was at the cocktail party the first night. Victor had made a toast for his Russian colleagues, and Ryzhkov had shouted something across the room, Katherine didn’t know what. Victor and Ryzhkov eyed each other and there was a quick exchange in Russian. After Victor spoke, all the Russians cheered and patted him on the back. Ryzhkov went sullenly to the bar and ordered a drink.

  Katherine slid in beside him. “Excuse me for prying,” she said. “But what was that scene all about?”

  Ryzhkov tossed back his shot and signaled the bartender for another. He leaned on the bar and kept his eyes straight ahead. “Politics.”

  “What?”

  Ryzhkov’s drink arrived, and he gulped it down. The chatter in the room was back at full volume.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what did Victor say?”

  Ryzhkov stared straight ahead. “He who sings not with us . . .”

  Katherine shook her head helplessly.

  “It’s Mayakovsky, the poet.” He raised his voice, reciting. “‘And he who sings not with us today is against us!’”

  Katherine clucked her tongue. “That’s completely paranoid.”

  Ryzhkov turned and looked at her for the first time. “Have you ever been to Russia, Doctor . . . ?”

  “Sears. No.”

  “Do you speak Russian?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever read Anna Akhmatova?” His tone was sharp now.

  “Who?”

  Ryzhkov finished his drink and set the glass on the bar. His hand was shaking. “Do you know how many days the siege of Leningrad lasted?” His voice trembled with emotion.

  “No.”

  “I wonder then, Dr. Sears, how you dare presume to stand before me and judge Victor Perov when you don’t know even the first thing about Russia?”

  He turned and stormed out of the room.

  In her living room, Lena smiled at the story. “That sounds like Papa.”

  A moment passed, and Katherine asked, “Do you ever see Victor?”

  “About once a month,” said Lena. “He was here two weeks ago. He brought some antibiotics for my son. Vanya had . . .” Maxim interrupted. “I’m sorry. I don’t know the word for this disease. It’s like a sore throat.”

  “Strep throat?” offered Katherine.

  “Maybe,” he shrugged and went on with his translation. “Anyway, none of the pharmacies in Moscow had any antibiotics. It’sdefitsit. But the institute has a well-stocked pharmacy and Victor brought me some. He seemed very sad. Ever since Anton’s death, he hasn’t been the same. They were twins, and I think part of him died with Anton.”

  Katherine fidgeted anxiously.

  “Victor’s grandmother died, and his mother moved out. He’s living with some woman and her child now.”

  “He’s living with someone?” Katherine asked, startled.

  “That’s What he said.”

  “I have to talk to Victor Perov,” said Katherine.

  Maxim interrupted. “Katherine, my dear, that’s quite impossible. It’s one thing to sneak away from your tour group to meet me. But this Victor Perov is a scientist at a mail box — that’s what we call a secret lab — and the son of a Central Committee member. He’ll never agree to it. It would be suicide.”

  “He will meet me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  Maxim paused. “Give the message to me. I’ll take it to him.”

  “I can’t let you take that risk. Besides, the people who gave me the message said I must deliver it in person.”

  “You’re scaring me,” said Maxim with a frown. “What is this all about?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Lena sat puzzled, watching the exchange. Katherine noticed and told Maxim to translate. Maxim did, and Lena asked what Katherine wanted her to do.

  “Ask her if she w
ould be willing to call Victor,” said Katherine.

  “When?” asked Maxim.

  “Now.”

  “His phone may be bugged,” said Maxim.

  Katherine hadn’t thought of that. “Then ask her if she can contact him in person.”

  Maxim spoke with Lena a minute, and then he said, “She is afraid. She says she is divorced. Her son depends on her.”

  “I understand. That’s why I won’t ask her to carry the message, only to contact him to set up a meeting.”

  Lena listened and sat very still. She looked at the letters on her lap and then raised her eyes to Katherine. “Why are you doing this?”

  Katherine considered concealing her hidden motive. But she suspected Lena had already guessed.

  “Ya ego lyublyu,” said Katherine.

  I love him.

  A small smile came to Lena’s lips. “You can never be with him.”

  “Perhaps. But that doesn’t really change anything, does it?”

  The room was quiet. Katherine held her breath. Had she erred in revealing her personal secret? Perhaps Lena had her own feelings for Victor, in which case she might refuse to help, just to keep them apart.

  “Why should I believe you?” Lena asked at last.

  Maxim began to protest Lena’s blunt question, but Katherine stopped him. “It’s all right, Maxim. She has a right to ask that.”

  Katherine twisted a ring off her finger and handed it to Lena. The ring had a large amber stone in a silver setting. It looked like an antique. Lena turned it over in her hand a moment. She frowned, puzzled.

  “You know this, don’t you?” Katherine said in Russian.

  “Where did you get it?” Lena demanded.

  “Read the inscription,” Katherine said, gaining confidence in her Russian.

  Lena peered at the inside of the band.

  Maxim said, “What does it say?”

  Neither woman answered. They stared at each other a moment, and then Lena handed back the ring. Katherine slipped it on her finger.

  Lena turned to Maxim and spoke with him a moment.

  Maxim translated. “She has agreed to help. She wants to know what she should say to him.”

  Katherine breathed deep. “Tell him that Katherine Sears is in Moscow. Tell him I leave the day after tomorrow. Here’s a copy of my tour schedule.” Katherine handed Lena a paper and went on. “I won’t be able to sneak away from the group like this again. Victor will have to make contact with me somewhere along the line. We need two minutes together. That’s all.”

  Maxim translated and Lena replied.

  “It’s settled,” said Maxim. “She’ll go to Victor Perov tomorrow morning.”

  Afew minutes later, Katherine and Maxim put on their coats and left. They had been gone five minutes when Lena Ryzhkova heard a knock at the door. She turned the latch thinking that Katherine or Maxim had forgotten something. She pulled open the door and looked into the hard faces of two strange men.

  4

  It was after midnight at Little Rock Special Psychiatric Hospital, and Inmate 222 had given up trying to sleep. He lay on his back on his regulation three-centimeter mattress and stared up at the red eye.

  The eye was in fact a dim light bulb that bathed Cell 34 in an eerie glow, like a photographic darkroom. But to Inmate 222 it was the eye-that-never-blinked.

  Sleep was pretty much out of the question. At eight o’clock that evening, orderlies had given him a large dose of haloperidol. Inmate 222 blinked and struggled to focus his eyes. The blinking and the sleeplessness would go on through the night — provided he didn’t have a seizure. Doctors called the seizures “hyperkinetic-hypertonic syndrome” and dismissed them as a necessary side effect. All part of the treatment.

  There were seven other men in Cell 34. Inmate 222 listened to the sound of their sleep — the steady breathing, the snoring, the occasional shifting of position. He hated them for it. He never used to hate people. He was learning.

  Suddenly Igor Kolstov, the lunatic who slept on the bunk below him, began to thrash in his sleep. “Goddamn you. Bastards. Kill. Kill. Stop. No. Yes. Black. Goddamn you. Bastards . . .”

  Inmate 222 swung his pillow at Igor and hit him in the head. Bull’s-eye. The ranting stopped.

  An ammonia smell rose in the room. Igor had wet the bed again.

  “Bastard,” muttered Inmate 222.

  Inmate 222 returned to his vigil, hands behind his head, staring at the red eye.

  An hour passed and Inmate 222 climbed down from his bunk. He went to the door. “Orderly!” he called out.

  The metal slat in the door slid open and two beady eyes peered in.

  “What?”

  “I have to piss.”

  Urinating in the cell was forbidden. In Little Rock prison, called a hospital, inmates, called patients, were expected to get permission from the guards, called orderlies, in order to relieve themselves. It was part of the daily regimen of torture called treatment.

  “Hold it,” said the orderly and shut the flap.

  Inmate 222 turned and looked around the cell. He went over to Igor Kolstov’s bed and stood there a moment. He opened the flap in his prison uniform and took out his penis. He held it over Igor’s bed. At first, nothing happened. He often had trouble urinating; his bladder had been weakened by repeated drug therapy. But soon urine hissed against the mattress, and the sound of it helped to increase his flow. He stood there a long time emptying his bladder beside Igor. Finally, he shook his penis and put it back in his pajamas. He climbed up to his bunk, put his hands behind his head and stared at the red eye.

  A few minutes later, Inmate 222 sniffled.

  “Oksana,” he whispered.

  A tear rolled down his cheek, hit the pillowcase and soaked into the fabric. He sniffled again.

  “Victor.”

  5

  The Nightmare comes to Victor Perov in a place between sleep and consciousness.

  He is underwater. He is looking for something, but the water is muddy and he can see no more than a few feet. He has been under a long time, too long, and his lungs are straining for air. He needs to rise, to find the surface, to give up this foolish search.

  For what?

  Even as he dreams he wonders. But he knows he can’t quit. He goes deeper.

  He is claustrophobic. The weight of all the brown water above him is compressing him, pushing him deeper. The current is strong, and he must fight it too as he swims deeper still.

  He is weakening. His lungs are burning now, and he knows with terrible certainty that he can hold out no longer. He must rise. Already, it may be too late to reach the surface. He starts up.

  Then, in the depths below him, he sees a shadow . . .

  ANTON!”

  In bed, Victor Perov sat up straight and screamed.

  He opened his eyes. It was dark. Oksana Filipova was beside him.

  “Victor, it’s all right.”

  Victor was panting. His body was drenched in sweat.

  “It was just another nightmare,” said Oksana.

  “Jesus.”

  Oksana pulled him back down to the bed. She wriggled in closer, and her breasts pressed against his side. She laid her head on his chest.

  “Was it the same one?” she asked.

  Victor swallowed. He was still trying to catch his breath. “Yes.”

  “Can you remember what you were looking for?”

  Victor thought about that. “No.”

  “You called out, ‘Anton.’”

  “I did?” Victor knew the dreams were trying to remind him of something, something he had nearly forgotten. They were connected to Anton; they had begun the night he learned about his twin’s death.

  “He’s gone, Victor,” said Oksana. “He was killed in Afghanistan.”

  “Gone. Yes.”

  “If I can accept it, why can’t you? I was his wife. I am raising his son.”

  Victor didn’t answer. They lay quietly a while, and then Oksana lifted her li
ps to his. At first, he didn’t kiss her back, but after a few seconds he found himself pressing against her. Their tongues met, and she let out a tiny gasp. He pulled her closer. They made love slowly, rising and falling to the rhythm of their heartbeats, consoling each other with their bodies.

  Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms.

  “It’s not wrong what we’re doing, is it?” asked Oksana.

  Victor rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Not for the reason you think.”

  “Why then?”

  Victor thought about his inability to save his brother, his ridiculous speech in Helsinki, the suicide of his friend Vladimir Ryzhkov, and his abandonment of his own work at the institute.

  “Because I don’t deserve you,” he said. “I’m nothing.”

  Oksana’s eyes flashed angrily in the dark. “You’re not ‘nothing’! Grisha needs you.” She paused. “We both need you.”

  “‘Need’?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not ‘love.’”

  Oksana began to sob.

  Victor felt miserable. He longed to take her in his arms, to comfort her, but he could not. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling. Gradually, Oksana’s sobs quieted, and her breathing grew steady. Victor listened to her sleep. He searched himself for an answer to Oksana’s question. Whycouldn’t he accept Anton’s death? But when he looked into his heart he found nothing — no feelings, no thoughts, no passion. Just a hole as deep and dark as the shadow in his dream.

  Grisha took the call. It was 7:00 A.M., and Victor was slicing cheese and sausage for breakfast. Oksana was in the shower.

  Ithad to be Grisha who answered the call. As master-of-all-matters-relating-to-the-telephone, no one in the household dared pick up the phone without permission from the three-year-old. Once, about two weeks earlier, Victor had made that unfortunate mistake. Grisha had thrown himself to the floor and begun screaming. He had been inconsolable. So Victor had put on his coat and gone outside to a taksifon on the street corner. He called the house. Grisha answered and they talked that way for several minutes. When Victor returned, Grisha was at the kitchen table eating his dinner as though nothing had happened.