Hot Siberian

by Gerald A. Browne

  “You have. You’ve done extremely well.”

  “It’s not much of a challenge. Mainly all I do is soak up Churcher’s complaints and tremble on cue.”

  “You’re being remarkably modest. Truth is, you’ve got things there on the London end running so smoothly they seem routine. I hardly ever hear even a caution from our legal department, and it used to always be stirring up problems. Our transportation people are more punctual than ever with our shipments to the System, because you’ve kept on top of them. All in all, Nikolai, it’s no strain for me to commend you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know, every feather you put into your cap also goes into mine.”

  “You mentioned there was a place for me here in Moscow whenever I might want it.”

  “When did I say that?”

  “We were in the car coming from the System. It was a Friday.”

  “I don’t recall.”

  Nikolai doubted Savich ever forgot anything.

  “Anyway, is such an offer possible?”

  “You want to be assigned to Moscow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why the hell would you give up the spot you now enjoy to be in the frenzy of this bureaucratic hive?”

  “It’s just that I’ve had my fill of London, of Churcher and the System and all.”

  “Seems you’ve given this thought.”

  “Plenty.”

  “You know, of course, there are countless comrades who would sell their souls to be in your London shoes.”

  A nod from Nikolai, conceding that. The way he saw it, reassignment to Moscow was essential to his resolve. The protection of distance. He wouldn’t even return to London to get his personal belongings if he could help it. He’d have someone from the embassy ship everything. As for the clothing and other things of his that were at Vivian’s flat and down at her house in Devon, he’d just consider them lost. He pictured her throwing them in the trash bin. The middle of his chest panged as though it had caved in.

  “Perhaps you’re letting ambition get the best of you,” Savich said.

  “Would that be so terrible?”

  “No, but it would be ordinary and therefore disappointing. I had you, especially you, standing out from the pack, from all those desperate climbers.”

  Nikolai assumed from that that he’d been on Savich’s mind to a greater extent than he’d realized. He considered it a compliment.

  “What is it you see ahead for yourself, Nikolai? A deputy ministership?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Or could the destination you have in mind be my job?”

  Nikolai laughed tensely.

  “You wouldn’t care for it,” Savich said, “believe me. Discount the privileges. Eventually they get taken for granted, and then what else is there?”

  Nikolai thought of Lev, how the stripping of his privileges had so shattered him. He decided upon what he would say next but he paused a long moment to give it weight. He told Savich: “I’ve lost my sense of place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I seem to no longer have a Russian perspective.”

  “You shouldn’t admit that, not even here.”

  “I’ve been with the trade mission in London for six years. That’s nearly half my adult life. The other afternoon I tabulated it and found that of my last two thousand, one hundred and ninety days I spent altogether only seventy-eight here in my own country, and thirty of those way out in forsaken Aikhal.”

  “I had no idea your being in London was such a hardship. Quite the contrary—my impression was that if we ever wanted you back you might not come.”

  “Defection has never entered my mind.”

  “Of course it has. Anyone in your circumstances would be seriously attracted to that option.”

  “So, isn’t that all the more reason to bring me home?”

  “Or perhaps,” Savich said, matter-of-fact, “it’s good reason to have you there.”

  Nikolai didn’t know how to take that. Was it an oblique suggestion that he defect? Surely not. Savich meant leaving him in London would be a good test of the strength of his loyalty. That had to be it. “It’s just that I have this feeling of being neither-nor.”

  “It will pass.”

  “I’ve had the symptoms, so to speak, for quite some time. A year, a year and a half.”

  “Why haven’t you mentioned it until now?”

  “I’ve been putting it off. A couple of weeks ago in Pushkin Park a whore mistook me for a Western visitor.”

  Savich was amused. “What an insult.”

  A slight shrug from Nikolai.

  “You’ve had a falling-out with Vivian.”

  “Not really.”

  “To cause such a crisis you must have quarreled over something important.”

  “We did not quarrel.”

  “And I suppose she didn’t phone me four times.”

  “Four times?” Nikolai had assumed Vivian had called Savich once and given up after that. Four was a much more gratifying number for him. It meant Vivian’s pain was at a pitch equal to his own and, quite possibly, that she also wasn’t getting any good sleep. It might mean she too lay in bed in the dark and suffered when, reaching with her legs, she touched nothing. She too was deadened from the waist down while short-circuited, incapable of interest or concentration, on the verge of exploding, from the neck up. It could even mean she wasn’t having Archer around, wouldn’t let him in, absolutely wouldn’t let him in, had seen him once and not found him such a comfortable sanctuary, Nikolai thought.

  Savich removed his feet from the taboret. He sat forward and pressed: “Tell me about it.”

  As much as Nikolai had assured himself that he wanted to avoid the subject, it came pouring out. He was like a man just released from a long solitary confinement, grateful for an ear. He related the Baden-Baden episode and all that had led up to it. He didn’t just hit upon the high points but got down fairly deep into some of the emotional chasms.

  Savich was the perfect listener. The little nods of his head encouraged Nikolai on. He remained rapt and silent even when Nikolai paused for comment. Finally, at the half-hour mark, Nikolai began repeating himself and Savich decided he’d absorbed enough. He sat back and returned his feet to the taboret. “You abandoned her,” he said, not accusingly.

  “I got out while I still could.”

  “You must have been furious at her.”

  Nikolai wouldn’t admit to being furious.

  “Your grandfather’s Fabergé objects were so precious to you. Didn’t she realize that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she was aware of the sacrifice you were making.”

  Nikolai came close to asserting that his late grandfather had considered Vivian a worthy cause and had urged him to sell the Fabergé things.

  “Don’t you believe she was insensitive?”

  “No.” Adamantly.

  “But—”

  “Vivian never vowed to change her ways,” Nikolai told him. “In fact, she warned me that she was likely to run right through the money. I guess I just didn’t expect that to happen as it did, all at once.”

  “You’re defending her.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Why should you?”

  “I love her.”

  Savich was pleased with Nikolai’s admission. He was like a lawyer who’d just inversely proved a point. Now on to another. “Was leaving her entirely your idea? Or perhaps at one time or another she suggested it.”

  “All mine.”

  “She must have at least alluded to it.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe she did but so obliquely that it went right by you. I find it difficult to believe that she had no reservations about the relationship.”

  “It’s not like Vivian to look very far ahead.”

  “But you have a telescopic view of the future.”

  “Well, in this instance I could see the inevitable.”

  “Whic
h was?”

  “Brawling, wounding, eventually each of us retreating to our opposite elements. I have no way of satisfying her financial needs now and certainly no such future prospects. At least none of that magnitude.”

  “A Communist’s fate, eh?”

  “You might say. I’d have to have millions. Maybe not as many as Archer but nevertheless millions. You’ve no idea what a squanderer Vivian is.” Nikolai said that more fondly than he realized.

  Savich asked: “Is that honestly the only reason you’re not with her this moment?”

  Nikolai shrugged.

  “It’s not merely an excuse?”

  “I’m avoiding a lot of unhappiness.”

  “And, I must point out, in your overly cautious, self-dispiriting Russian way, depriving both you and Vivian of all the happiness that could be enjoyed between now and your foreseen emotional Armageddon. Nikolai, you’re being a damn fool.”

  Nikolai brightened. “You really think so?”

  “I most certainly do.” Savich looked off. His eyes covered. He was elsewhere, in another time. When he returned to the here and now he told Nikolai softly: “I envy you your Vivian.”

  That, Nikolai believed, was like a man who owned a whole hothouse of flowers envying another man’s single bouquet.

  “She’s unique. Like most women with such beauty she uses it, but she doesn’t rely on it excessively. She’d be desirable even if she wasn’t so beautiful, because not a moment with her would ever be dull. Think about it. Have you ever been bored with her—socially, sexually, whatever? I don’t mean have you been exasperated—of course you’ve been exasperated with her. She’d provoke that. But bored?”

  Nikolai honestly couldn’t call up one moment of boredom. He’d been entertained even when Vivian and Archer were going through all their ugly-expensive-gift-you’ll-have-to-take-it-back-and-get-the-money-for-it routines.

  “Your Vivian is living her life more than her life is living her. Ironically, her eccentricities, the very things that make her seem inaccessible to you in the long range, are the very things that have you so taken. Do you doubt that? Well, imagine her without them and what do you have?”

  Not his Vivian, Nikolai thought.

  “Anyway,” Savich sighed conclusively, “no matter, it’s Moscow you want.”

  “If possible,” Nikolai said, not able to conceal his diminished conviction.

  “It’s possible enough. But for me it may not be the most advisable thing at the moment. For some time now I’ve been criticized for showing favoritism, particularly toward you, for allowing you to remain assigned to London all this while. Nothing to it, of course. I’ve left you there because you know Churcher so well and apparently he’s satisfied with having you to deal with. Besides, there’s no reason why you’d be my favorite, is there?” Savich evidently thought Nikolai’s reply so obvious he didn’t wait for it, went right on. “However, if I were to reassign you to Moscow now it would appear as though I were giving in to the pressure, admitting there was substance to the accusations. Don’t you agree?”

  Nikolai agreed. But he didn’t believe it. Savich had the final say when it came to the nomenklatura for the Ministry of Foreign Trade. One had to be on that select list of candidates in order to get anywhere, and Savich could, with a mere word, shift a name from the top to the bottom or have it stricken completely. Furthermore, Nikolai reasoned, Savich was too confident of his standing to react to such petty maneuvering.

  “What we could do, though,” Savich said, “is transfer you elsewhere with the intent of eventually bringing you here. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind doing a stint in Leningrad, your home ground. That should get you happily back in your motherland’s arms. How do you get along with Valkov?”

  Nikolai’s reply of “All right, I guess” was transparent.

  Savich pretended not to see through it. “A year or two with Valkov in Leningrad should do it. Then you can move into a spot here in Moscow if you still want it.”

  The idea of being in Leningrad with Valkov instead of in London with Vivian was almost sickening to Nikolai. He wished he hadn’t gotten himself into this. It had turned into a bind.

  “Is that your stomach growling?” Savich asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, it’s not mine. I had a snack just before you arrived. Are you sure you won’t have a little something? Perhaps some pâté or tapinade?”

  “I’d still just as soon wait for dinner.”

  “At least let me know if you get light-headed.”

  Nikolai’s stomach squished and grumbled about his refusal on its behalf. He’d put nothing into it except whiskey since his mushroom-and-onion breakfast. What possible harm could there be in accepting a small slab of fois gras? it pleaded. What price politeness?

  “Valkov,” Savich said, as though titling his next topic. “Valkov is the epitome of his type. Ruthless, ego-driven, Communistically warped. His aspirations make him most useful. Do you see him like that?”

  “I don’t have your vantage.”

  “The convenient thing about him is that he doesn’t require any pushing or pulling. His own exorbitance serves as his carrot, keeps him moving on track. And then, of course, there’s Yelena. How well do you know Mrs. Valkova?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “That’s incredible, considering her looks and the aggressive way she presents them. I would have thought that at one time or another, prior to Vivian, Yelena might have gotten to you.”

  Nikolai shook his head no, and his facial expression said absolutely not. It was not a total lie. Yelena Valkova had come on to him once. It had been after regular hours at the office of Almazjuvelirexport. She was there on the pretext of meeting Valkov, who’d gone to Moscow for the day, but she must have known all flights in were canceled because of a sleet storm. Her voice on the intercom surprised Nikolai, summoned him to Valkov’s office. There on the floor just inside the entrance was her full-length chinchilla coat, in a pile the insolent way she’d just let it drop. Nikolai would have to step over it. It would, he thought, be like stepping over Valkov, and that made Yelena all the more tempting. She was perched on the front edge of Valkov’s desk, the heels of her shoes spiking left and right into the arms of a chair. Her skirt was gathered up, her marvelous legs apart. Her panties were bunched in her hand. She said everything by flinging her panties at Nikolai. His altered senses saw them transform from nothing into flimsy, flesh-colored material, much like silk fabric impossibly appearing from a magician’s fist. The beautiful Yelena got hold of him with her eyes for a long moment before she lay back across the desk. Nikolai remained at the doorway, enjoyed a good long helping of the circumstances, then glanced down at the chinchilla. He turned on it and went back down the hall to his office. After a short while he heard Yelena leave, which increased his misgivings. That unconsummated opportunity was to this day italicized among his erotic memories.

  “When it comes to avidity, I believe Yelena outdoes Valkov,” Savich said, “although I’m not sure he realizes that she’s much too complex for him. Frankly, I find her a bit more than merely interesting, don’t you?”

  Nikolai wanted off the subject. “Valkov mentioned a field trip to Uzbekiskaya in September, to evaluate emerald yield.”

  “First I’ve heard of it.”

  “Oh?”

  “And such a thing would have to originate with me. I think he must be just pinching your nose.”

  “He showed me some emeralds—in fact, quite an impressive lot.”

  “Nevertheless, let me assure you we have no intention of getting into the emerald business. Valkov’s September field trip is a figment of his dislike of you. Are you certain you haven’t done something to cause him to have such ill-feelings?”

  Only breathe, Nikolai thought.

  Do Kien, the Vietnamese army captain turned servant, appeared to inform them that dinner was ready.

  Savich and Nikolai went into the dining room and sat across from one another at midpoi
nt of the long, gleaming mahogany table. Mai Lon did the serving. Nikolai noticed how deft and delicate were her movements. When a plate or glass was placed it seemed to float down in front of him. It was as though the slightest rattle or tinkle would be committing the sin of intrusion. Nikolai guessed that Mai Lon, with her diminutiveness and fine oriental features and complexion, was no older than twenty. Actually she was forty-one and on behalf of Communism in Southeast Asia had killed six enemies in close combat and at least triple that number in various firefights. Savich did not know this much about her, had no idea that just behind Mai Lon’s set little smile and marveling eyes was such lethalness.

  Along with the several courses of dinner the conversation skipped and drifted from topic to topic. It had no destination or purpose other than geniality. Politics were not brought up, religion was avoided, and Vivian was a subject apparently already settled. Frequently observations of no relevance were put in, splinterlike thoughts that in other company would have gone unexpressed. Such as Savich’s isolated statement that he found Venice not only more dank but, as well, more decadent in winter. From the pros and cons of existentialism they went into the pleasure of fear, then on to medieval gallantry, which they agreed had for the most part been unfairly exploited. As an example Nikolai related an account he’d read of how a lady of those times, wishing to confirm her desirability, dropped one of her gloves from the Pont-Neuf. Her knight, without hesitation, leaped into the Seine after it and could only drown under the weight of his armor. Savich was knowingly amused. They touched upon the spiritual abstractions of Kandinsky, the profound directness of Isak Dinesen, the libidinal appeal of reed-thin ballerinas. Savich claimed that serious ballet dancers were exceptionally talented at lovemaking because of certain internal muscles that were incidentally developed during their many years of rigorous training. Thus, they were able to clench so possessively they made one feel attached, causing titillating fears of castration and slavery. Nikolai did not comment. Those Kirov dancers he’d had that much to do with years ago evidently hadn’t trained long enough, while conversely, Vivian had never in her life performed even a single plié.

  Dessert was served with minor ritual. A gâteau millefeuille, the flakiest possible pastry, layered four times alternately with zabaglione, topped by crème Chantilly dotted with whole glazed cherries. Savich oohed playfully over it when it arrived, and Nikolai had to remind himself that this was the Minister of Foreign Trade, his very important utmost superior. Savich had succeeded in making him feel right at home, like family, and Nikolai didn’t hesitate to ask for a second portion of the cake before it was offered. He was emotionally improved, comfortable there, unconcerned that the last flight to Leningrad had already departed. It was understood he would stay the night.