The Russian Affair

by Michael Wallner

  At the last moment, Anna had felt suddenly afraid and implored Leonid to reconsider. Tears weren’t appropriate for their situation, he’d replied amicably; they would see each other again in a few months. Assailed by the thought that she’d made the worst of all possible choices, Anna had watched in panic as her husband picked up his suitcase, threw his better uniform, still on its hanger, over his shoulder, and left the apartment. An army police vehicle had taken him to the airport.

  During the first days, Anna had received no news of him; all she knew was that the journey took thirty-six hours and that he would have changed planes in both Omsk and Khabarovsk. She had felt as though she were paralyzed; she’d cursed Kamarovsky’s plan, but most of all, she’d cursed herself, and she’d canceled two dates with Bulyagkov.

  After nearly a month, she’d received an enthusiastic letter from Leonid. Sakhalin lay in the same latitudes as the Mediterranean Sea, he told her, but the climate was incredibly harsh and unpredictable; for the first time in his life, he saw himself completely at the mercy of Nature. He’d done some reading about the time before the Revolution, when Sakhalin was the worst penal camp in tsarist Russia and millions of people had literally rotted there. Today, he pointed out, it was the site of a first-class fishing industry, and the military bases were well organized. He went on to say that the civilian population living on the island was made up mostly of women, because the men were off working on the mainland or had simply cleared out for good. When Anna read that, her loneliness had been augmented by jealousy. The whole time, she’d looked upon Leonid as the one who’d been cheated on and treated like dirt; now, in her mind’s eye, she saw him as a brand-new captain in a snappy uniform, cruising an island full of women!

  Anna had spent a sad winter. Bulyagkov, sensing that she was at her wit’s end, had behaved with surprising consideration. For even though Leonid’s departure had technically simplified the affair for Alexey, something fundamental had changed, and the two of them had reverted to the earliest form of their relationship: dinner and chatting on the corner seat. During the course of these conversations, strangely enough, the Deputy Minister had given Anna advice about her marriage, pointing out to her that longing was the strongest engine of any passion. And so it was Alexey, the cause of all the confusion, who gradually helped her to get over it. The spring had turned lush and heavy. When Anna turned out the light in Moscow, for Leonid, six thousand miles away, it was time for morning roll call.

  Anna lurched upright and listened. No more sounds came from the neighboring room. Resolutely, she clapped her physics tome shut, washed her face, brushed her hair, and went to dinner. The atmosphere in the dining room was as relaxed as it had been at lunch. Anna took her seat between the orphanage director and the blissful Nadezhda. Dinner consisted of pork and potatoes, and someone had scared up some red wine. Anna drained her glass in one gulp and accepted a refill from the orphanage director. The Aeroflot pilot had successfully insisted that the radio be taken from the lobby and set up in the dining room; the Irkutskians quarreled over the station of choice. Anna had received no message from Alexey and didn’t know whether or not Anton was waiting for her outside. Eating calmed her nervousness, the wine made her weightless; she began to enjoy herself and kept on drinking. In the meanwhile, the peace ambassadress was dancing with the kolkhoz farmer, and Nadezhda fetched her Irkutskian and laid her arms around his neck. The next time Anna looked up, the tables were empty, and everybody who had a partner was swaying to the music.

  “You look like you’re somewhere else,” the orphanage director said. “Why are you always so aloof?”

  “Leave me alone,” she said, slamming her glass on the table.

  “Come on,” he said, and stood up.

  “Shit music.” She shook her head.

  “As loaded as you are, what difference does the music make?”

  Anna felt that she was being helped to her feet. The man who’d seemed so frail to her grabbed under her arms and pulled her around the table. “If you don’t watch out,” she said, “I’m going to throw up on your shirt.”

  “Just as long as you’re having a good time.” He put his arm around her neck. Her feet slid across the floor. She sank against the male chest and stopped thinking altogether.

  Anna knew neither how long she’d danced nor with whom, but in the end, she must have wound up in Popov’s arms, because she remembered that the group leader had seen her to her room. She’d dropped her blouse and skirt near the bed and slept in her underwear.

  That morning, Anna’s hangover, oddly not as bad as the one the previous day, faded quickly after some coffee and salted herring. The group breakfast was a rather silent affair. It was obvious that not one of the delegates felt the slightest desire to visit the day’s main attraction, the phasotron. Even Popov had exceeded his limit the night before and made no attempt to hurry the group along. Only Adamek’s appearance set everyone in motion.

  Pallid and gray, the members of the visiting delegation stared out the bus windows while being driven to the other end of Dubna. Anna’s head bobbed up and down with every bump. It was clear to her that she’d let the entire evening slip by without doing anything to carry out her assignment. The visitors were led into a large shed, where protective goggles were distributed to them to shield their eyes against the dazzling light radiating from the welding torches in the main hall. The reactor was not yet finished, Adamek said, which meant that they had a unique opportunity to peer into the bowels of the gigantic machine. The Aeroflot pilot found it disappointing to be presented with a worksite instead of particles in rapid motion. The others trotted along behind their scientific guide, who introduced them to a female scientist named Stretyakova, the designer of the complex.

  “In a few weeks, particles will be hurtling through these channels at close to the speed of light,” she said in a high-pitched voice that seemed incongruous with her stout physique. The delegation stared into open tubes with pipes that could just as well have been connected to the sewage system. “Anyone who gets dizzy easily should stay down here,” Stretyakova declared, and then she started to mount a narrow ladder that led to the ceiling of the reactor hall. Given their weakened condition, each of the visitors, as individuals, would have declined to participate in such a climbing party, but no one wanted to be shown up in front of the others. And so they made an orderly ascent, first the peace ambassadress, then the Irkutskians, followed by Nadezhda, and so on until Adamek, who went up last, his eyes unobtrusively fixed on Anna’s rear end.

  When they had gathered on the circular steel walkway, the visitors were shown the reflector and the yard-thick concrete wall that provided protection from radiation. Leaning far over the railing, the scientist pointed out the bottomless shaft into which the control rods would be inserted. “Below us, it’s ninety feet straight down to the zero mark.”

  Most members of the group believed her without staring into the abyss.

  “With the help of decelerated-neutron irradiation chambers, one can see through living cells without harming them,” explained Stretyakova. For the first time, therefore, high-speed neutrons were going to be used in biological research.

  The group was spared the climb down the ladder; they were released through a door into the open. A blast of icy air struck them as they emerged. They went down the exterior steps to the foot of the reactor and walked beside frozen bulldozer tracks to the laboratory huts.

  “I thank you for your attention, and I wish you a good trip home.” Stretyakova’s lecture passed so seamlessly into a farewell that even Adamek took a few seconds to understand that they were being dismissed.

  “We thank the Comrade Doctor for her precious time,” he said, led the members of the delegation in a brief round of applause, and then signaled to them to bestir themselves. The bus driver had not been informed of their movements, so the little group had to make their way to the parking area over icy sand heaps and through defoliated undergrowth. During the ride back to the hotel, the atmos
phere was tense; Popov’s expression showed that he was ashamed of his team.

  A message from Alexey was waiting for Anna at the front desk. He complained about having been stood up the previous evening and ordered her to come to lunch at his borrowed house. Anton had another errand to perform, he said, so she must come on foot. Anna was none too pleased at the prospect of this visit. Flustered and sleep-deprived, she hurried to her room, showered, and—without informing Popov—set off on her walk.

  The way was unfamiliar in daylight; all the houses on the riverfront promenade looked alike. In the end, she found the villa only because Alexey was in the garden.

  “I wanted to split some firewood,” he said as he pulled open the iron-barred gate. “But there’s not an ax to be found anywhere on the premises.”

  She went ahead of him toward the house. He caught up with her on the shoveled path. “Where were you?”

  “I got no message at all from you.”

  “Am I supposed to send you a love letter every evening?”

  “I didn’t see the car.” As she spoke, she hung up her coat.

  “It’s too bad the evening was spoiled.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, closing the subject.

  “Wine?”

  “I’d rather not.” She turned off the harsh ceiling lights and sought out a spot in the dimly lit alcove.

  “You look pale.” He remained in front of the cold fireplace.

  “We’ve got a pretty hard-drinking delegation, you know.”

  “You were partying while I sat here bored?” He was obviously in a complaining mood, but after keeping it up for a bit, he eventually went into the kitchen. “Would you like something to eat? Anton picked up some cold cuts.”

  Anna greatly needed something warm. “Do you have any eggs? Shall I fix us some eggs and sausage?”

  “Will you do that?” he asked, suddenly the mildest of men, and showed her the pantry. Then he waited in silence while Anna rummaged around.

  “I’m awfully tired, Alexey,” she said over her shoulder. “These scientific lectures … can we sleep a little?”

  As though she’d spoken a magic word, he hugged her from behind and pressed his unshaven cheek against her ear. “Yes, let’s sleep, Annushka, I’m tired, too … God, am I tired.”

  “First we eat,” she said, pushing him aside. The sausage had a strong smell.

  When they were seated at the table, she asked, “How much time do we have left?”

  “My work in Dubna is done.”

  “Our group still has to visit …” She wiped the egg yolk from her plate. “I have no idea what we’re going to visit.”

  Anna left half of her meal untouched and went into the bedroom. Alexey followed her, pulled his suspenders off his shoulders, and watched Anna slip into the bed in her underwear. “Oh, this feels good,” she said. She turned on her side and drew up her legs.

  “Shall I set the alarm clock?” Unable to bend over and untie his shoes, he sank down onto the edge of the bed.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Some Pioneer Girl you are.” Still wearing his shirt and pants, he lay down, got under the covers, and stretched out his hand until it came to rest under Anna’s thigh. Then everything grew still.

  Even in her dozing state, Anna’s sense of duty tormented her. Could she in good conscience waste her last hours in Dubna sleeping? She saw herself standing on the mighty reactor’s cover plate, surrounded by scientists with masks covering their noses and mouths. The roof began to shake, then positively to rattle, but nobody seemed to take this state of affairs at all seriously. Don’t you hear that? Anna cried. Can’t you feel it, any of you? Everything’s exploding! She opened her eyes and saw that Alexey was on his feet. “But we haven’t been in bed five minutes yet,” she whispered.

  “Someone’s here.” He stepped to the window and pushed the curtain aside.

  No reason on earth could give her the strength to sit up. “Is it Anton?”

  “Good God,” Alexey growled. “Him, of all people.”

  She rolled over onto her back.

  “You stay in bed,” the Deputy Minister ordered her. “Don’t make a sound. I’ll get rid of him as fast as I can.”

  “Who?”

  “That madman Lyushin.”

  The bedroom door had not yet closed when Anna sat bolt upright. Sleep filled her head and made her limbs heavy; nevertheless, she forced herself to think clearly. If she still had one chance left to tackle her assignment, that chance had now come. Anna threw off the blanket. Her thighs, white and widely spread, lay on the sheet; her feet were covered by blue socks. By then, Alexey had admitted the visitor. She hurried into the bathroom to wash the sleep from her eyes. There was a broom leaning behind the door; she saw it too late. It slid along the door panel, crashed against the wainscoting, and made a bright, sharp sound when it struck the tiled floor. She stood stock-still; the conversation in the neighboring room had ceased. “No listeners,” someone said, and the bedroom door was yanked open.

  From close up, Nikolai Lyushin seemed smaller. He hadn’t taken off his overcoat, under which he wore no jacket, only a white shirt. The hair on his temples was damp, as if he’d been running.

  “Oh,” he said. “Well. Good day, Comrade.” He turned back into the living room. “I’m sorry, Bulyagkov, really. Don’t be angry.”

  Anna waited for Alexey to appear in the doorway—she was standing in the bathroom, and Lyushin just outside of it—but nothing stirred. She took the woolen blanket from the bed, wrapped it around her shoulders, and walked past the scientist into the living room.

  Alexey was sitting in his armchair. “As you see, we’ll have to have this conversation another time,” he said.

  “Please introduce me,” Lyushin said, stepping in behind Anna.

  “The comrade is part of the group that’s visiting from Moscow.”

  “Nikolai Lyushin,” the blond man said.

  “The quantum physicist?” she asked, looking at Alexey.

  “You know who he is?” Bulyagkov seemed more curious than surprised.

  “How do you know me?” Lyushin came so close to her that she could smell his aftershave lotion.

  “From the material they handed out to prepare us for our study trip.”

  “And you are what … a student?”

  “I’m a house painter.” She noted the exchange of glances between the two men.

  “I’m afraid I may be intruding,” said Lyushin, as though it weren’t obvious.

  “We were trying to take a nap,” Anna said coolly.

  “How about something to drink?” Before Bulyagkov could stand up, Anna had already grabbed the bottle from the shelf; the blanket slipped off her shoulder.

  “Let’s sit down.” He poured the drinks, and Anna slid onto the settle.

  Lyushin remained on his feet while he tossed back his first glass. “My place isn’t so comfortable,” he said.

  “That’s because you’ve got skis standing around everywhere.” Alexey clinked glasses with Anna. “Professor Lyushin was the Soviet champion in the triathlon.”

  “In the days of my youth.” Without hesitation, he sat next to Anna.

  “Where do you ski?” she asked, although she guessed the answer.

  “Across the river.” Lyushin indicated the direction with his head. “There’s a first-class cross-country course. You can even ski it at night.”

  “I thought scientists were on the whole … unathletic people.”

  “Stupid prejudice. Most of the ones here are ace athletes. You should see the river in summer. Covered with sails, and water-skiing is the latest rage.” He poured himself another drink. “We even have a soccer team. They have a game soon against the atomic city of Novosibirsk.”

  “In summer, it’s really …” Alexey sought the right word. “It’s really idyllic here. Twenty years ago, this area was uninhabited.”

  “Why was Dubna built here, of all places?” Anna was conscious of the unreal situation. T
he nuclear scientist and the Deputy Minister were sitting on either side of a woman wearing a woolen blanket. She nodded to one and then to the other, as her two male companions took turns telling the story of Dubna’s early years. The place called Novo-Ivankovo lay in the area later to be submerged when the “Moscow Sea” (the Ivankovo Reservoir) was filled. Novo-Ivankovo was torn down and rebuilt stone by stone next to Dubna; after that, the waters that would form the reservoir came pouring into the valley. Today, the reservoir’s gigantic power plant provided electricity to the capital as well as Dubna itself.

  “The people of Moscow were nervous,” Lyushin said. “In those days, not very much was yet known about the power of the atom.” He tilted his head to one side. “For reasons of radiation safety, Dubna had to be sufficiently far from the capital, which is why they drained the swamp where the city now stands.” He asked Anna what facilities the delegation had visited; Anna named the cyclotron, the nuclear spectroscopy laboratory, and the worksite where the phasotron was being built. Then she asked, “Why can’t we visit your department?”

  “We’re the ugly ducklings of scientific research,” Lyushin said, wheeling his glass on the table edge. “Nothing radiates where we are; no circulating particles approach the speed of light. We just sit with our slide rules and try to get our teeth into the uncertainty principle.”

  “You can imagine it in more modern terms,” Alexey said to Anna. “These days they use big computers instead of slide rules.”

  “Otherwise, however, little has changed since Bohr and Heisenberg,” Lyushin insisted.

  “What are you working on?” The question was out before Anna could consider the consequences. The two men looked at each other. She expected to hear something about state secrets and security regulations.