Betrayal

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I think you are. I think you know what the highest level is. Or if you don’t you’re more of a fool than you look. Do you know where I’ve been tonight? Would you like to have a guess?’

  ‘With Gorya, perhaps?’ And then you drank, to wipe it out.

  Volkov bares his teeth. ‘No. Not that. My son is dying but I haven’t been to see him. I had a more pressing appointment.’ He is very drunk. ‘Don’t you want to ask me what that was?’ Volkov’s shoulders are bunched with tension. His eyes are bloodshot.

  ‘If you want to say,’ says Andrei.

  ‘My son is dying but I wasn’t with him. My wife is there. I’ll tell you where I was, my fine friend. I was dancing.’

  The emphasis that Volkov puts on these words is so ferocious that the air between them seems to quiver. He spits out ‘dancing’ as if it’s an obscenity. Does he mean he was out with a woman? That would be natural perhaps. You see death and you want to bury yourself in living flesh.

  Slowly, Volkov picks up the fallen chair, and resettles himself in it. ‘You’re a Siberian boy, like me,’ he says. ‘You’ll know the dance: Krasny Yar.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Andrei. A folk dance. Not with a woman then. Krasny Yar: beautiful ravine; red ravine. He knows the dance and Volkov will know it better, being a boy from Krasnoyarsk.

  ‘ “Oh”,’ echoes Volkov mockingly. ‘Oh, oh, oh, oh. And have you no further questions, Dr Alekseyev? All the symptoms appear perfectly normal to you? With your medical eye you will already have noticed that I’ve been drinking. You’re right. I’ve been drinking and dancing, and now I’m talking to you, and then my driver will take me to the Morozovka to see my child, by which time I shall be entirely sober.’

  An urgent phone call, and then he spends the evening folk dancing? Andrei shakes his head. He can’t understand any of this.

  ‘You may well shake your head,’ says Volkov, as if to himself. ‘What kind of man dances when his son is dying? But when certain tunes play we all have to skip about.’ He makes a dismissive gesture. ‘That’s by the way. Let’s get down to business. There’s nothing you won’t like. Sit down and read it.’

  He flips open the file and pushes it over to Andrei, who takes it and begins to read. Yes, it’s a statement. Someone has typed it out beautifully; perhaps the woman who gave tea to the guards.

  It begins with a lengthy biography and outline of his current professional work. The tone is sober and accurate. Everything is entered into in detail: his parents’ settlement in Siberia, his own education. It is noted that he was not a member of the Pioneers. There are his exam results, the move to Leningrad and his entry into medical school. Service with the People’s Volunteers at the outbreak of war. His war service in the besieged city. The tone so far is neutral and even respectful. His marriage to Anna; her family circumstances, class background and occupation. A note that her family is not of Jewish origin. Full details of her mother’s professional career; no mention of Mikhail’s writing. Strange. Andrei glances back, to check if he’s missed anything. No, there’s nothing. A brief mention of Mikhail’s service with the People’s Volunteers and his death from wounds during the siege, and that’s it.

  Extraordinary. Andrei would have thought they’d go to town on Mikhail’s fall from favour during the thirties.

  He reads on. This is like a novel, there is so much detail. It is like a description of the life of another man, but perhaps that’s always the case when you read about y urself. His further studies, his specialism, even some detail of particular cases.

  Andrei turns the page. Here is the record of his arrest. And now pages of his interrogation record. He reads it carefully but there seems to be nothing there which was not actually said during the interrogations. There’s no mention of Brodskaya. But then there is a question which he knows was never put to him:

  Do you accept, Dr Alekseyev, that you have shown insufficient vigilance?

  A. M. Alekseyev: I accept that I have shown insufficient vigilance.

  He looks up. ‘This question was never put to me.’

  ‘Which question?’

  Andrei indicates the place in the text. ‘This one.’

  ‘Ah. Turn the page.’

  Andrei turns the page. The next one is blank. He turns again. The next sheet is also blank. He riffles through the rest of the file, but there is no more writing in it.

  ‘Sign it,’ says Volkov. ‘I am giving you a chance.’

  ‘But it’s not accurate.’

  ‘It’s accurate enough for the purpose. Sign it.’

  Andrei rereads the last part of the statement. No one is named. There is no accusation of any crime. ‘Insufficient vigilance’ will get him five years, perhaps, ten at the most. Kostya Rabinovich said, ‘Start signing things and that’s the end of you.’ But isn’t there just a chance that Volkov really is giving him a chance? Brodskaya isn’t named. No one is named. No one else is being dragged into this.

  ‘Full name,’ says Volkov.

  Andrei picks up the pen. This is his life; he can’t deny it. He has not been sufficiently vigilant. He has not protected any of them: Anna, the baby, Kolya, himself. If this investigation continues they will spread the net wider. The best thing for all of them is for the case to be concluded as soon as possible. He’s not fool enough to think that anyone gets out of the Lubyanka with a slap on the back and an apology: We made a mistake, we pulled you in for nothing. Can he trust Volkov? Of course not. But has he any alternative?

  Volkov is watching him. Impossible to know what to make of his expression. Andrei pulls the statement towards him, and writes his name immediately under the last line of typing.

  ‘Good,’ says Volkov. ‘Now listen carefully. You may not be seeing me again. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Andrei looks at the sweat on Volkov’s forehead, the slight tremor of his hands. He sees the dilation of Volkov’s eyes. This man has had some shock, perhaps physical, perhaps mental. He is not the same man as he was before he received that telephone call. He’s been drinking, of course. But dancing is something else – Andrei can’t make sense of it. From the way Volkov spoke you would think he had been forced to dance. But who can force a top MGB man like Volkov to do anything he doesn’t want to do –

  Oh.

  Volkov is still waiting. He’s quick. He sees the change in Andrei’s face. ‘I see that we understand each other. Listen. Sometimes a man receives a – let’s call it a hint. An intimation. In my line of work you become quick at picking up such things. I received such an intimation tonight. Some men would ignore it; they would convince themselves that their position was secure and they had nothing to fear. But I am not such a fool. I know what it means. I’ve danced my dance. I can tell you that, my friend, because you’re not in a position to betray me. As for your case, I’ve done what I can.’

  And am I supposed to thank you? You were the one who got me arrested. You made the case against me. It was you who brought me here, to the Lubyanka.

  But in spite of himself, Andrei can’t help feeling something – not warmth, not sympathy, but a kind of recognition perhaps. He knows Volkov. Volkov has made sure of that. He has a strange way of coming close. If he’s right and he’s finished, then his downfall is going to be a hundred times greater than anything Andrei has experienced.

  He destroyed Brodskaya, Andrei tells himself, pulling back from his own thoughts. Well, she will have vengeance. But she wouldn’t have wanted that. It was her life she wanted, and her profession. Volkov took it all and didn’t even think it was worth taking.

  ‘You must go to Gorya now,’ he says, not wanting to say, While you still can.

  ‘Yes,’ says Volkov. He sighs deeply. It’s as if the alcohol in his veins swirls up one last time, freeing his tongue. ‘Gorya is better off out of this shit.’

  Gorya will be fast asleep by now. From time to time a nurse will check his breathing and all his vital signs. Andrei wonders if the mother is still ther
e, sitting by the bedside. Perhaps she’s dropped off to sleep. If Volkov falls, she’ll be in danger. Will they take her, too? Surely not before the boy dies. But even as Andrei says those words to himself, he knows that he doesn’t believe them. Anything at all can happen to anyone at all, and Volkov never forgets it.

  ‘I’ll go in a minute,’ says Volkov, but he doesn’t move. Outside the window it’s still snowing. Moscow is filling up with snow. Even in the dark there’s a faint glow from its whiteness.

  23

  A shaded lamp burns in Gorya Volkov’s room. He is propped high on his pillows, so that he is almost sitting upright. Beside the bed there is an oxygen cylinder. A mask covers Gorya’s mouth and nostrils. Tumours have swallowed most of the space inside his lungs. Each day they take away more of his breath. They have moved so fast from invasion to conquest that they have already surrounded his heart. This morning the doctors drew more fluid from his pleural cavity, to ease his breathing.

  The child is full of morphine. If it depresses the automatic functions of his body, that doesn’t matter now. His face looks peaceful, as far as it’s possible to judge through the mask. On the other side of the bed from the oxygen cylinder, his mother sits upright on her chair, although her head droops. Her sleep is very light; she would wake at the slightest sound from her son. Just ten minutes, she tells the nurses, is enough to keep her going for hours.

  She isn’t wearing any make-up. Once again she looks like the peasant woman whom Volkov married all those years ago.

  The door handle turns very slowly. Someone pushes the door and it opens without a creak. Volkov steps into the room, wearing a civilian overcoat and a fur hat. He stands by the door for a few moments, surveying first his son and then his wife. Perhaps he’s waiting for the cold which he’s carried in from the winter night to dissolve into the warmth of the room. He wouldn’t want the boy to feel that chill.

  Now he moves to the foot of the bed. The oxygen cylinder hisses. Volkov stands there for a long time, looking down at the boy. His face shows no particular expression. At last he leans forward to touch his son’s foot through the covers. His hand stays there, on the thin cotton coverlet, for more than a minute. The boy doesn’t stir. His mother’s head slips down a little further, towards her chest. Volkov straightens himself again, goes noiselessly to the door, opens it and leaves without looking back.

  Once he’s outside, he squares his shoulders and frowns at the empty corridor. For some reason there is no one guarding his son’s room tonight. His hand goes to the right-hand pocket of his overcoat and pats it lightly, as if for reassurance.

  Outside the hospital, his car is waiting. Volkov looks as if he’s about to get in, but then appears to change his mind. The driver has already sprung from his seat to open the passenger door. Volkov says something to him. The driver looks surprised, even a little alarmed. He seems as if he might be about to argue with Volkov, but he thinks better of it, gets back into the driving seat and puts the car into gear. Slowly, he rolls away down the street. His winter tyres cut a sharp pattern in the snow, but within a minute the swirling flakes have blurred it.

  Volkov watches the car until it is out of sight, and then glances rapidly all around him. He appears to see nothing that disturbs him. He hesitates a moment longer before seeming to come to a decision. He sets off, walking north at a brisk, confident pace. Soon his hat and shoulders are covered with snow, but he keeps going. It’s not until there’s the rumble of a militia truck behind him that his pace falters. However, he does not look round, and the truck goes by, churning up old and new snow. Volkov slows to walking pace, and then stops. It is now about two in the morning and he is conspicuous in the empty street. He seems to realize this, because suddenly he speeds up, moving more erratically now, and plunges into the entrance of a narrow alleyway on the left. The snow is even thicker here. He keeps close to the shelter of the wall, but stumbles on something that is hidden by the snow. A piece of rubble perhaps. He saves himself from the fall with surprising agility, takes a couple more steps and then stops and leans against the wall.

  The noise of his breathing is loud, and in spite of the cold he has sweat on his forehead. He pulls off his fur hat, shakes it, and drops it into the snow. He pats his overcoat again. There’s the sound of an engine on the main road. Perhaps it’s the truck again. Volkov looks to his right. Yes, it is the militia truck, but it passes in the opposite direction this time, slowly and steadily, as if on patrol. There is a possibility, of course, that it might be a different truck.

  Volkov appears to consider for a while, and then he takes off his leather gloves, puts them together carefully and drops them into the snow close to his hat. It is very cold; his breath smokes. He reaches into his pocket, takes out his Makarov service pistol and pushes the safety lever to the ‘fire’ position. He opens his mouth and puts the muzzle inside. He seems to know which is the correct angle, because he makes a small adjustment with his other hand. His hands are shaking, but not enough to interfere with what he’s doing. His breath comes hard. He seems to taste the metal of the gun and a mask of anguish and disgust comes over his face, as if he has tasted poison. For a few seconds he remains still, apart from the shaking of his hands, and then he leans forward, as if about to vomit, and pulls the trigger.

  24

  Kolya misses Leningrad, but he doesn’t talk about it. Anna doesn’t know what Galya said to him in the weeks before she joined them, but he seems different. Older, perhaps. More guarded. He is going to look like his father: it’s quite clear now. When he thinks she isn’t looking he gives her a quick, watchful glance, as if checking that she is safe.

  Anna arrived at Galya’s exhausted by her walk from the local station. Galya made her lie down, and drink tea that was heavy with sugar. Anna drank the tea and then lay flat, staring up at the ceiling. She was neither happy nor unhappy. There was only the mattress underneath her, and the narrow white room. She could let herself sink into it. There was nothing she could do and nothing that she needed to do. She heard Galya’s footsteps, and a murmur of voices. The dacha was small and it echoed like a wooden box.

  She had taken off the layers of clothes she’d worn for the journey. The baby turned inside her, kicking, insistent. I am here. Don’t forget me. I won’t allow you to forget me. She put her hands on her belly and watched the wall, thinking of nothing.

  After a while Kolya put his head around the door. He’d been out fetching wood. She searched his face, looking for her Kolya, her boy, but he wasn’t there. This was the face Kolya would have from now on, she thought. It was defined, with strong eyebrows. Not yet a man’s face, but you could see the man he would be.

  ‘Are you all right? Galya said you weren’t feeling too good.’

  ‘I’m fine, Kolya. Just tired.’

  ‘You’ll have to rest more,’ he said seriously. He came over and sat down carefully on the narrow bed. This slip room had belonged to Galya’s son, long ago. It had been a junk room for years; Anna remembered towers of books and broken chairs.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

  ‘The room? Yes, it’s lovely. It seems so much bigger.’

  ‘I cleared it all out. Most of the stuff was junk but there were some good pieces of wood. I’m using them to repair the hen-run.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. I do know how to use a hammer and nails. There are a lot of jobs that need doing around here.’

  ‘Well, Galya’s not so young any more.’

  ‘She’s ancient!’

  ‘We’re all ancient to you. Do you two get on all right?’

  ‘Of course we do. I like Galya, she leaves you alone. She doesn’t talk all the time. She can’t manage those hens any more, though. They keep getting out of the run and laying away. The vegetable plot’s too big for her as well. She’s only been growing stuff on about a quarter of it. I’m going to dig it all over as soon as the ground’s clear.’

  ‘I’ll help you, once the baby –’
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br />   ‘Galya says you’ve got to rest. I whitewashed the walls, did you notice?’

  ‘Of course I did. It’s so nice the way the light comes through on to it. I could lie here and watch it all day.’

  He looked anxious. Has she really changed that much?

  ‘Of course I won’t, Kolya! When have I ever lain in bed all day? I’m going to do the cooking. We can’t expect Galya to cook for the three of us.’

  ‘She’s hopeless, anyway. She makes the same soup all the time.’

  ‘She’s never been interested in cooking.’

  He sat there, watching Anna as if she might disappear. He didn’t ask any questions about Andrei. Perhaps Galya had told him not to, or perhaps he understood the whole situation.

  ‘Anna,’ he said at last, ‘what if they come here looking for – for us?’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘The morning I left, I gave the caretaker the impression that I might go out east, to be near Andrei’s people when the baby’s born.’

  ‘But his parents are dead.’

  ‘Yes, they are – but no one in our building knows that, do they?’

  ‘Do you think he believed you?’

  ‘I think so. I’d never have thought I could lie like that – do you want to know what I said?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was so early when I left that I didn’t think he’d be around, but he was sweeping snow out of the entrance. He was in a bad temper about it as usual. He stopped sweeping and stared at me. I was sure he’d noticed the bags I was carrying and all the clothes I was wearing. I nearly panicked and then I thought of what I could say. It just came to me. I pointed to the snow and said, “This is nothing to what they get where I’m going.” I could see his mind working. He said, “Where might that be?” and so I made out I hadn’t meant to let it slip. I said, “Oh, it’s nothing, I was only talking about where my husband’s family live, out east.” And he nodded, you know how he does, very slowly. As if he knows something which he can use against you, and he’s filing it away.’