Which might prove difficult. Going over the Bolshoi reception menu with Mr. Foy had in fact made her quite hungry, and she'd skipped lunch while working at the embassy, so when she met Yuri and his friends at Russkiy Dom she'd opted for a full-course dinner: soleniye ogurscy, sliced and salted cucumbers, for an appetizer (Yuri had tried to tease her by ordering seledka pod shuboy, as he knew the name alone made her cringe: salted herring in a sheepskin "coat"). For a main course she'd ordered veal pelmeny, what she called "Siberian ravioli." Perhaps she'd hoped to capture some memory of childhood, when her mother would make and roll the thick, salty dough for the wrap and grind a mixture of veal and beef for the filling. She'd even had a dessert, which was quite unusual for her: tvorog, cottage cheese with honey. Yuri had watched her eat with some appreciation-and a certain horror.
"Natashka," he'd said, "how do you eat like such a obzhora, and still look like a ballerina?"
She'd then surprised Yuri further by agreeing to go with them for a drink afterward. Yuri had said something about Natalya finally becoming a "party girl"-though he'd said it in English, and with Yuri's accent it sounded like "party ghoul."
Later, when they were ensconced in the noisy discomfort of the Sibir lounge, she'd finally felt he was relaxed enough to bring up her request.
She'd told him she was doing research for an American academician; it wasn't of any real consequence, she said dismissively, but he was a friend of someone at the embassy. She hadn't been able to find one of the books she needed, so she'd turned in a request for permission to access the restricted archives. But that normally took months. Could Yuri be a dear and see if there was anything he could do to speed things along? It probably wasn't important, there were so many books and magazines tossed into that immense trash heap labeled "State Security."
Yuri had smiled and said of course, for Natashka the Great Seer, he would do anything. She'd leaned across the table and kissed him-on the cheek. He'd smiled, in a tolerant, disappointed sort of way. But then she'd agreed to dance with him, and he seemed satisfied.
Natalya looked at the clock above her refrigerator: 12:15. Still too early to call.
She opened the fridge and took out a plastic bottle of water, went into the living room, and sat down in a large, overstuffed chair near the window. She didn't really like the furniture-modern, squarish, all in earth tones-but it had come with the apartment.
Everyone thought her apartment was too small, but in fact it made her feel secure, as though she were invisible-another sign of trying hard to be the nail that didn't stick up.
Yet oddly enough here, in America, she finally felt at home.
She'd always been fascinated with all things Western. One of her father's cousins, Svetlana, belonged to Beriozka, a folk dance troop that was allowed to travel abroad-her own father's position as an officer in the rocketchiki meant he wasn't allowed to leave the country, ever -and when Svetlana visited she would bring Natalya the most wonderful presents: chocolate from Germany, magazines from France, toys from Sweden. Natalya was particularly eager to tear through the magazines. Of course she couldn't read the words, but that didn't matter; she was looking for pictures of anything American: American cars, American clothes, American cities; but most of all American people. To her, they looked universally confident, handsome, happy-like people from another planet.
One day back then, when she was perhaps seven, she began speaking in a language all her own, and her mother asked, "What is that? Have you lost your mind?" And she'd answered, "Don't you know? This is English."
She simply hadn't fit in Uzhur, not in any sense. In a town where tanks sat at the entrances like squat, metal dragons; where soldiers were more common than children; where the boundaries were marked not by the usual fields of wheat and barley, but by a huge fence topped with electrified barbed wire; a town that, had she looked on a map, she wouldn't have found listed… in the midst of all this regimentation and sense of constantly being scrutinized, she was an utterly foreign free spirit.
She remembered one day her father came home from a ten-day duty at his base-what he called his "time in the hole"-to find her doodling on a photo of Lenin. It was an old black-and-white picture in one of the Party-published biographies her father kept above the desk he called his study, and she'd drawn a clown nose, gogglelike glasses, and a full beard on the Father of the Soviet Union's sacred face.
Her father had reacted in horror.
"Do you want a chance to become an orphan?" he'd said, snatching the book away.
Later, she saw him feeding it into the fire he started in their tiny, rarely used fireplace. But she also saw that he was smiling.
And so she'd learned something all the other children seemed to know instinctively: there were things you didn't draw, didn't say, didn't do.
Thinking now of that time reminded her of the tremendous pride she'd always felt in her father, even when he punished her for her independent ways. She remembered the ritual of him polishing his high, shiny black boots, the spitting and rubbing that would continue for an hour. "Can you see yourself, Natashka?" he would say, holding the boot beneath her face. She remembered the strong, musky smell of boot polish and leather, the way the boots made Nikolai seem a foot taller when he finally pulled them on. And then he would disappear for ten days or two weeks at a time. When he returned he was always very hungry, very happy, and very tired.
She snapped awake. She looked to the clock: 12:45. She cursed. Her father might already be gone for his morning's puttering at his garden.
She went to the end of the living room where she had her desk, a small study area that, she realized now, was a copy of her father's back in the apartment in Uzhur. She picked up the handset and dialed the prefix for Russia, and then the area code for Dubna.
She listened to the metallic buzz of the first ring. And then the second. Then she heard her father's voice.
"Alloa?" he said.
"Nikolai," she replied. She had addressed him with his first name since leaving the university, feeling it was the truly adult thing to do. " Privet. This is your daughter."
"Natashka." She could hear the pleasure in his voice. " Privet. You caught me just as I was leaving. I have to put my time in as a peasant, you know."
She laughed. "I won't keep you long, Father. I just wanted to know how you are."
"Ah," he said. She could hear the reticence in his voice. "I survive. That's the most important thing."
"You are well?" she asked.
"Better than some," he replied. Then he went on to list the troubles of various relatives and friends: divorces, drunkenness, unruly children, poor wages. It was all something of a ritual with them. "And poor Dmitri Sergeivich. His leukemia is very stubborn."
Dmitri was one of her father's oldest comrades from his days as a rocketchiki. Natalya knew that the incidence of all sorts of cancer and blood diseases was extraordinarily high among the former rocketchiki; her father attributed it to "sitting like a hen on nuclear eggs" for years at a time. Fortunately, her father was as yet free of such "souvenirs of service," as the ex-soldiers called them.
"And you, Natashka? How is my little diplomat?"
"I am fine, Father. I had lunch with the president just yesterday," she joked. "He agreed to see about increasing your pension."
She knew her father's so-called military pension was a ridiculously small amount, given his years of dedicated service. He worked now with a branch of the State Bank in Dubna, looking after their security and planning for various emergencies and disasters. He described the difference in responsibilities this way: "Once I held the fate of the planet at the tip of my finger. Now I use that finger to plug leaks."
She spoke for a few minutes about her work at the Cultural Center, trying to make it sound more glamorous than it really was, as she knew this made her father feel a sense of pride. She mentioned the Bolshoi reception, and he responded that she was living the life of an aristocrat.
"How things have changed," he said, somewhat
wistfully.
She laughed again. "An aristocrat that works like a dog," she said. And, since she knew he was about to say he had to leave for his garden, she finally broached the subject she'd been working up to.
"Nikolai," she tried to keep the increased tension and formality out of her voice. "You know I am contacted from time to time by American professors, seeking help with books from the archives." She waited for a moment, but he didn't respond. "Well, I received a very curious request the other day, about such a book. But I cannot find anything about it in the places I usually look. I thought perhaps it was a book you might have encountered in… your extensive reading."
Now her father's silence was palpable. "Yes?" he said finally.
"It is a book with a strange name. Or actually, it might not be the book's name at all. The American was not certain about that. He knows only that it was published sometime between 1960 and 1970." She waited.
"And this book's maybe-name?" her father asked.
"Something like Stzenariy 55. Or perhaps it is Borba s tenyu. You see? Very confusing."
Again, there was silence.
"Have you ever heard of a book with either title?" she prodded.
"No," her father said finally.
She waited again, for some question, some comment. But he said nothing.
"Are you certain," she said, though she already knew his answer. "Nothing like that at all?"
"I've read so many books, Natalya," and she noticed his return to the formal address, "it's hard to remember them all. But a title like that… and who is this American academician who is asking about this maybe-book? A boyfriend?"
She laughed, even though she felt the joke was forced. "No, I've never met him." She was about to tell him Jeremy Fletcher's name, when for some reason she decided not to. "Just someone at an American university. Probably someone whose Russian is very bad, and he simply mixed it all up."
"Yes," her father said. "I'm certain that's it. Probably best just to leave it alone. You know how persistent these Americans can be." He paused for a moment. "Probably someone you should not contact."
Then they exchanged a rather awkward "pakah," too informal a farewell for the tension she suddenly felt; and then, instead of hanging up, her father had added, "Natalya, you know I love you very much."
She was surprised. He wasn't usually this emotionally forthcoming in their phone chats. "And I love you too, Father," she said.
And then they hung up.
Natalya sat for a while in the overstuffed chair, looking out the window, and wishing desperately for a cigarette. In all the years of her rebellions, her alien tastes and desires, her difficult marriage with Sander, her parents' separation and divorce… through all those years, she'd never suspected that her father actually ever lied to her.
But he was lying to her now. Of that she was certain.
It was nearly 1:30, far past her usual bedtime. Perhaps she would try to do something different on Sunday, something away from the center and the embassy, away from this search that was leading nowhere. Perhaps tomorrow she would go to the Mall, visit the Lincoln Memorial, and find some sort of wisdom there. Or at least comfort.
She turned out the light by the chair and made her way through the darkened apartment into the bedroom, where, as soon as she'd undressed and stretched out on the bed, she immediately fell asleep.
CHAPTER 13
Once back in his room, Benjamin had looked around for glasses for Gudrun's brandy. He was nervous, and felt silly for being nervous. There was always the chance she'd change her mind and not show up. Or maybe he was making too much of this. Perhaps she really did want to talk to him about Jeremy. Which, he reminded himself, smiling, was what he was supposed to want, too.
As he was washing two glasses he found in the bathroom a knock came at his door. Holding the glasses, still dripping, in one hand, he went into the room and opened it.
"As promised," announced Gudrun, holding aloft a squat bottle of brandy. She was still in her evening dress, though she'd let her hair down, so that it shone like a mane against her bare shoulders. Once again, Benjamin thought she was one of the most striking women he'd ever seen. "Are you going to invite me in?" she asked.
"Oh, of course." He pointed to the two chairs set next to the small table, but Gudrun sat down unceremoniously on the bed.
"Is one of those for me?" she asked, pointing to the wet glasses.
"Yes." He shook the water from it. "Sorry, all I could find." As he held forth the glass she tilted the bottle, poured a healthy portion into it, then motioned for the other, did the same. She set the bottle on his nightstand, took one of the glasses from him, and tapped glasses.
"To making new friends," Gudrun said.
"And absent old ones," Benjamin answered.
"Yes, of course." She took a sip of her brandy. "So tell me, Benjamin, how do you… sorry, did you know Jeremy Fletcher?"
Benjamin sipped his own, found it pretty strong stuff. "In college," he said. "But I hadn't heard from him in years."
"But then he called you to come out here? To help with his work?" Benjamin just nodded. "And your field is Colonial history?"
"How did you-?"
"Samuel told me." Gudrun leaned back on the bed. "Though he didn't explain why Jeremy suddenly needed a Colonial historian."
Benjamin paused. "Why do you say suddenly?"
"Well," Gudrun smiled, "you arrived late yesterday afternoon with a single suitcase, you weren't on the roster of new fellows sent around last week, and there wasn't a single rumor about your coming." She laughed lightly at Benjamin's look of surprise. "The Foundation is like a village, Ben. Everyone knows everyone else's business. Oh, do you mind if I call you Ben?"
Benjamin was beginning to feel uncomfortable still standing over Gudrun. He perched at the head of the bed, on a pillow. "Not at all," he said, lying. "But now let me ask you something. Why do you think Jeremy suddenly needed you, an expert in counterterrorism?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't know," she said. She leaned over him, took the brandy bottle from the nightstand and held it toward him.
"I'm fine," Benjamin said. "I had a lot of wine with dinner, and…"
Gudrun set the bottle and her own glass on the nightstand. She turned back to Benjamin, reached forward, and took his hand.
"You're really quite handsome, Ben. Are you used to hearing that from women?" She put her right arm around his neck and began caressing the back of his hair with her fingertips. When he just sat, staring at her, saying nothing, she leaned forward and kissed him.
The taste of the brandy was like an aphrodisiac. Benjamin felt his head reeling. Gudrun kept her mouth against his, her lips slightly parted. Benjamin was surprised at how tender the kiss seemed, how sincere. He was intensely aware of her perfume-something both sharp and musky-and the sound of her dress pressing against his shirt, her fingers on the back of his neck…
She moved her head back a few inches.
"Let's dispense with this jacket, shall we?" she said.
Almost instinctively, Benjamin started to shrug off his jacket, then realized he would have to set his drink down first. He leaned awkwardly over to the nightstand. As he did so, the glass bumped the side of the yellow sheet of folded paper he'd set there. It fell to the floor, where it lay almost beneath the bed, half open. Even as Gudrun was helping him out of his jacket, he couldn't help glancing down at it.
When after a moment she realized he wasn't helping her, she stopped.
"Cold feet?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
Benjamin looked at her. His first thought was that she was indeed a very beautiful woman: her blond hair, dark eyebrows, bright red lipstick… like something out of a 1950s movie. And he was about to turn her out.
"No, no," he said. He ran his hand through his hair, then stood up so that his shoe was covering the yellow paper. "I think I've had too much to drink after all," he said. "That damned scotch of Samuel's." And then he gave her a look he hoped was both guileless a
nd slightly drunk.
If she was insulted, she hid it well. She stood as well, put her hand on his chest.
"Well, there's still time to… get to know each other. I think you'll be around for a while." Before he could ask what she meant by that, she gave him a very kind peck on the cheek, said, "Do you mind?" and took the brandy. Then she left, closing the door softly behind her.
It was only after she was gone that Benjamin wondered why he was hiding the paper from her. From what little he'd seen of what was written there, he didn't have a clue what it meant.
Benjamin crouched down and took the yellow paper gently by one corner. When it had fallen partially open, he'd seen only the word "TEACUP" written across the top in neat, block letters. Now that he saw the entire half-page, he knew he had to show it to Wolfe, regardless of the late hour.
He went into the bathroom, splashed cold water over his face and hair, and ran a towel over his head. Then he went back into the bedroom, grabbed the yellow paper, and hurried out of the room and down the hall.
CHAPTER 14
"I'll be damned." Wolfe was holding the small yellow paper Benjamin had brought him. "What on earth does it mean?"
Benjamin had found Wolfe still awake and reading in bed, some sort of scholarly journal, and listening to a radio; somehow he'd found a station with oldies from the 1930s, the kind of music that he thought suited Wolfe perfectly. He also had the ubiquitous tumbler of scotch on his bedside table.
The half sheet of notepad paper had small figures on it, and a single word:
"Tell me again, slowly, where did you find this?"
"On my nightstand." Benjamin said, then corrected himself. "I mean, that's where I'd put it. But it must have fallen out of the Ginsburg book, the one about Harlan Bainbridge."
Wolfe stood up. He studied the paper in silence for a moment, turned to Benjamin.
"Care for a drink?" he asked, as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
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