The Russian Affair

by Michael Wallner

  Anna’s eyes had shifted from the table in the park to the water, where the woman, still sitting in the boat, was conversing with a younger man on the bank. She handed him the manuscript, and what she said about it seemed to please him.

  Pensively, Anna stepped into the building on the quay. The elevator wasn’t working; she took the climb to the eighth floor as an opportunity to warm up. At the top, she paused to let her breathing slow down. There was no nameplate to reveal who or what might be behind that door. She rang—one quick, sharp note—and Kamarovsky used the control in the living room to buzz her in. Anna hung up her coat and hat, cast a glance at the mirror, and walked to the end of the hall. The raffia lamp over the piano was hanging too low, and Anna ducked as she entered the room. Instead of lounging on the carpet-covered sofa as usual, Kamarovsky was standing at the window. The television set was on—pictures, but no sound.

  “How are things in Perovo?” A. I. Kamarovsky asked without turning around.

  “The combine is currently working in Karacharovo,” Anna said, correcting him even though she knew he knew exactly where her worksite was located. “Interior finishing work in complex two hundred and fifteen.”

  “And how far along is complex two-one-five?”

  “We’re ahead of schedule.”

  “New living space for eight thousand comrades.” He made a sign, and Anna stepped closer. “Until the triumph of socialism, our architecture was either backward or derivative.” The warm air from the radiator next to Kamarovsky stirred the curtains. Anna loved this view. The apartment building stood at the foot of the Kalininsky Bridge; she could see the frozen river and behind it the Comecon building and the Hotel Ukraina, mysteriously grandiose in the winter fog. Anna could smell the moth powder on Kamarovsky’s suit. He must have been outside; now the snow on his shoulders was melting and causing the musty odor. Had he been watching her while she sat under the statue?

  “These days, our master builders no longer imitate the architecture of the West. Moscow has become an international city with its own unique character.” He still hadn’t looked at her. “Comrade Stalin had the court chapel in the Kremlin demolished. Do you know why?”

  “Because it was a building associated with the clergy …”

  “No.” Kamarovsky gripped the side arm of his glasses. “Because it was ugly. It looked like a bunker gone wrong. By the time it was completed, the English had already built Westminster Abbey, and the influence of the Renaissance was spreading across Europe. Only in Moscow were the princes still putting up wooden buildings.” Without having altered the position of his eyeglasses, he lowered his hand to the seam of his trousers. “Stalin just wanted to get rid of the ghastly thing.”

  As though signaling that the architecture lecture was now over, Kamarovsky closed the door to the balcony and walked past Anna as though she weren’t in the room. He gestured to the visitors’ chair and turned on the lamp. Cold light fell on her shoulders.

  “Your report, Comrade.” Kamarovsky remained on his feet.

  Brezhnev’s image appeared on the television screen, speaking urgently to the members of the Central Committee, who nodded like schoolboys. For a moment, Anna was distracted.

  “Do you think that Alexey Maximovich will stab his boss, the Minister, in the back?”

  The question took Anna by surprise. “No,” she said. She turned her eyes away from the television. “He’s simply having trouble making the situation clear to the comrades from the northeastern oblasts.”

  “And why do you think the Deputy Minister is having so much trouble communicating a decision made by the CC? Does he think it’s wrong? Does he criticize it?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna replied, her back stiff.

  “Or might Alexey Maximovich see himself as the Minister for Research Planning?”

  She recognized the fine line this question made her walk. “I can’t draw that conclusion from anything he says. He’s never suggested that he’s unsatisfied with his position.”

  “But wouldn’t it be only natural? In the research field, Comrade Bulyagkov, who was educated as a physicist, is more competent than the Minister himself.”

  Anna remained silent. Alexey had told her that he’d broken off his scientific studies decades ago, but he’d never mentioned the reason why.

  Kamarovsky gave her a friendly look. “How ambitious do you think Alexey Maximovich is?”

  She thought about Alexey’s disparaging remark: We’re just puffed-up bureaucrats. There was no ambition in that, only resignation.

  When her silence persisted, Kamarovsky leaned down to her. “What do your feelings tell you about that, Anna?”

  His use of her first name frightened her. “I have no feelings for such things, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Spoken like an agent for internal security.”

  “I’m not an agent.”

  “We don’t let our emotions guide us,” he said, ignoring her remark. “We take advantage of other people’s emotions.”

  “I don’t believe I would be in a position to take advantage of Alexey’s emotions.”

  “Of course not. You provide the Deputy Minister with support, just as we do.” Kamarovsky pointed to her dress. “What is that, Comrade?”

  She looked down her front; he was referring to a slimy stain on her left breast. “That’s … oh for goodness’ sake … it’s phlegm. It’s been happening so often lately I hardly notice it anymore.” Before she could try to remove the spot, Kamarovsky said “Please wait” and went over to the sink at the far end of the room. He ran water on a towel and brought it to her.

  “Dawn patrol,” Anna said, rubbing the spot. “Petya has fever, along with a deep cough.” She held the fabric of the dress away from her body and rubbed some more. “When he wakes up, he’s so short of breath … I don’t know what to do.”

  “What does the doctor say?”

  “Nothing that helps.” For a second, their eyes met and held. “It’s a woman doctor. She says he’s got a catarrh and prescribes an inhalant the pharmacy doesn’t have.”

  “Have you tried another doctor?” He took off his glasses and held them against the light.

  “Not yet,” Anna said cautiously.

  “In your place, that’s what I would do.” Kamarovsky breathed on the lenses.

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know …” She left the sentence unfinished.

  “I’ve heard about someone.” He put the glasses back on his face, reached for his pen, took a sheet of paper, and wrote a note three lines long. Anna held her breath, as though the slightest sound might deter him from what he was doing. The pen hovered over the paper for a second, and then the Colonel signed it with his initials. He took out a rubber stamp, stamped the paper, and, with apparent indifference, pushed the sheet over to Anna. “The man’s supposed to be good. Maybe he can help Petya.”

  “This is very kind of you.” She made an effort to hide her great joy, her hope for Petya.

  “Kind? Not at all. I have an assignment for you, and I don’t want your concern for your child to have an adverse effect on your performance.” As though writing the note for Anna had reminded him of something, Kamarovsky opened the top drawer of the desk and took out a small box containing tablets. He pressed one out of its packaging and swallowed it without water.

  “An assignment?” Carefully, as if it were an important document, Anna folded the paper and laid it on her lap.

  FOUR

  The next day was a Sunday, but Anna, anxious and worried, checked her mailbox downstairs in the lobby. The letter had been delivered by a messenger; she noticed the special stamp on the envelope right away. She stood with bowed head, reading the letter. It bore the signature of her building combine’s secretary and informed Anna that she had been chosen out of thousands of Soviet women to take part in an educational trip for the benefit of proven and tested former Pioneers. Lost in thought, she climbed back up the stairs.

  “An educational trip?” Viktor Ipalyevich asked. �
��It’s been ten years since you were in the Pioneer Girls.” He screwed up his eyes. “Do you by chance have an admirer in high places?”

  Anna jumped at how unerringly her father had guessed the truth. His work folder was already closed for the day, and he’d been perusing a novel. Now he stood up, switched on the samovar, and cast a glance out the window. “Pretty unusual, to go on such a jaunt at this time of year.” Gray snow hung on the window ledges like wads of dough, and a ladder of ice led down from the roof. “Where are you supposed to go on this trip?”

  “Dubna,” Anna replied, without enthusiasm.

  “They’re sending you all to the physics city?” Perplexed, he scanned the opening lines of the letter and then read aloud: “Religions dissolve like fog, empires collapse; only the works of science survive over time.”

  It was the motto of the trip. The guests from Moscow were to visit the facilities in Dubna, a center of Soviet research, and receive instruction in its latest achievements during colloquies with scientists. “That certainly beats me,” Viktor Ipalyevich said, turning the letter over as though there might be an explanation on the other side.

  “It has to do with the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the science city,” Anna explained. Given her way, she would have torn that letter to shreds, burned the shreds, and forgotten about her assignment. She pretended to have urgent business in the kitchen; once she was on the other side of the door, she took several deep breaths.

  Viktor Ipalyevich followed her. “Foreign diplomats, high officials of the Communist Party, and members of the nomenklatura are allowed to go to Dubna. And now, my daughter!”

  “Why not?” she said curtly, letting herself be provoked despite all her scruples. “I have the same right as anyone else to be informed about scientific progress.”

  “Politicians’ platitudes,” he said, laughing, but he gave way before her angry look: “Of course you’ll go on the trip, Annushka, don’t worry about a thing, it’ll do you good.”

  “Three days. Can you look after Petya for such a long time?”

  “Haven’t I always?” Viktor Ipalyevich opened his arms. “Come here, Pioneer Girl, let’s drink to your trip.” Knowing there was no use in opposing him, Anna got out the little glasses.

  That night, she tossed and turned as she lay beside Petya. The boy’s breath rattled in his throat; his head was nestled against one small hand. Anna drew the curtain aside, lifted her feet out of the alcove, and crept through the room. On the sofa, Viktor Ipalyevich slept without a sound, as if death had surprised him in his sleep.

  She went into the kitchen, sat beside the stove, and lit the gas. The heat in the building was turned down so low at night that a film of ice had formed on the water in the sink. She lifted her legs, clasped her thighs at the knees, and held her feet near the flame. Shooing away the confused thoughts of half-sleep, she undertook some sober reflection. Was Alexey really behind her invitation, as Kamarovsky had tried to make her believe? Or was the Colonel merely using this as a pretext to lull her into a false sense of security? She recalled her conversation with him. “Bulyagkov himself set up the whole thing,” Kamarovsky had said. “Obviously, he wants to have a romantic encounter with you outside Moscow, and so he sees to it that you win an educational trip.”

  “And suppose Alexey suspects something? Suppose he wants to put me to the test in this unusual situation?”

  “When you’re a member of the visitors’ delegation, don’t do anything that might make him suspicious.”

  Anna’s eyes glided over the window joints; the cracks in the cement were stuffed with newspaper, but still there was a draft that fluttered the blue flame on the stove. She put her feet back down on the floor. Her soles felt a little singed, yet at the same time her whole body was shivering with cold. I must see Alexey again before the trip, she thought. I must know whether his suspicions have been aroused. A sound from the living room indicated that the urge to urinate was about to awaken her father. Anna turned off the burner and groped her way through the dark apartment to the sleeping alcove. As she pushed the curtain aside, she realized that she had never, in the year and a half since her affair with the Deputy Minister began, contacted him on her own initiative. He’d always gotten in touch with her, either in writing or through Anton; but this time, she would have to break the ritual order of things. She lay down next to Petya and drew the curtain closed. Immediately afterward, her father got up and shuffled sleepily toward the bathroom.

  If the building hadn’t stood opposite the Lenin Library, she would have overlooked the address. There was no nameplate, nor the smallest sign to reveal to the uninitiated that one of the special institutes was housed behind this smooth facade. Anna looked up the front of the multiple-story building. She exhorted Petya to behave particularly well and pushed open the iron door.

  The policeman looked up from his papers. He wasn’t the usual badly barbered kid with the carelessly knotted tie and worn shirt sleeves; his uniform was meticulously turned out and the sides of his head completely shaved. “Wrong door, Comrade,” he said, not in an unfriendly way, but as if no one had ever contested that sentence.

  “I’m coming from …” Anna unfolded Kamarovsky’s note and approached the policeman’s table.

  “Step back.” With an outstretched finger, he motioned her to stay behind the line painted on the floor. She obeyed, pulling the confused Petya with her. The policeman bent over a document. Then he said, “What do you have there, Comrade?”

  She hesitated again, until he invited her closer with a patronizing wave. She carefully laid the piece of paper on the edge of his table. The policeman picked it up as though it were one of hundreds like it he received daily, most of which failed to pass his inspection.

  “This isn’t an admission certificate,” he said without looking at it. Anna hunched her shoulders, as though expressing sorrow for troubling him with her request. The policeman held the writing up to his eyes. She watched as the fingers gripping the paper stiffened and slowly lowered it to the desk. “Why didn’t you say so at once, Comrade?” His smile uncovered a golden tooth. “You have to understand, many people try to get in without authorization, and it’s my duty …” He returned the paper to her, stood up, and showed her the way to the stairs. While Anna held her boy’s hand, the policeman pushed open the swinging door and let mother and son pass through it.

  In the next moment, her surroundings were transformed. No more flaking paint, no more diffuse light from weak bulbs; here everything gleamed. A line of halogen torchères extended along the corridor, and the comforting green walls shimmered; the synthetic floor covering appeared to have been wiped clean minutes before. A nurse seated behind a semicircular window raised her head.

  Anna presented her piece of paper. “Is there any chance of seeing Doctor Shchedrin?”

  Under any other circumstances, she would have had to reckon with an unfriendly, condescending, or in any case negative reply. The nurse checked the authenticity of Anna’s note of recommendation, picked up the telephone, and informed someone that a patient was on her way to consult Doctor Shchedrin.

  Anna corrected her: “I’m not the one who’s sick—it’s my son.”

  “The doctor has time for you.” The nurse directed her to the third door in the adjacent corridor.

  “Is that the waiting room?” Anna asked, taking Petya by the arm.

  “That’s Doctor Shchedrin’s office.” The nurse waited until she was sure the visitor had entered the right door.

  It was a friendly room, with a medicine cabinet, plants in stone planters, and a large assortment of children’s toys. There was a door in the opposite wall, and through it came a physician out of a picture book. His coat was fitted at the waist, and under it he wore a woolen suit and a bow tie. He looked comparatively young—there was only a little gray at his temples. A red fleck in the corner of his mouth indicated that the doctor had just been eating. He greeted Anna, bent down to Petya, and gave him his hand.

&nb
sp; “How can I help you, Comrade?”

  Encouraged by all the unusual friendliness, Anna told the story of Petya’s affliction: the early shortness of breath, the frequent attacks of dizziness and weakness; then, starting a few months previously, the coughing; and now, for the past several weeks, the constant fever. By way of ending her account, Anna started to repeat the diagnosis pronounced by the doctor in the polyclinic, but Shchedrin stopped her with a wave of his hand and swung Petya up onto the examination table. He did not ask the boy to stick out his tongue, nor did he have him undress; Doctor Shchedrin merely examined Petya’s eyes, pulled his eyelids down, and told him to look in all directions. Finally, he took hold of Petya at the point where his spine joined his skull. As he did so, he asked Anna, “Has he ever been tested for allergies?”

  “We’ve always been told it was a cold, a catarrh,” Anna stammered, as though she’d committed a sin of omission. “Is it bad?”

  “Not yet.” The doctor reached behind him and handed Petya some brightly wrapped candy. “In any case, until a year ago, he would have been too little to have the tests.”

  “Tests? Does that mean a serious illness?”

  “First we have to find out Petya’s secret,” Shchedrin answered. “Then we’ll do something about it. And after that, I promise you, Comrade, your boy will be considerably better.”

  She felt such a sense of relief that she stood up and strode toward the doctor, but instead of falling on his neck, she embraced Petya. “Did you hear that? You’re going to be well soon!” The boy nodded.

  Shchedrin leaned toward the intercom. “I need a full blood count.” He turned around. “You look like a brave boy.”

  Petya darted a look at his mother. “Why?”

  The doctor took out a case and opened it. It contained many little bottles, all of which looked the same. “Lay your arm on this cushion,” he said, pushing it under the boy. “Now I’m going to make thirty-three marks on your arm. And then we’ll see what happens.”