Defectors

by Joseph Kanon

  “I know,” Frank said, soothing, brushing Simon’s jacket as he spoke. “You okay?”

  Simon took a breath. “Which one is Stalin’s wife?”

  “Over there,” Frank said, pointing.

  But when they told Boris they had seen it, his face clouded with disapproval, something inappropriate for Simon, any Westerner.

  “Was it well tended?” he said, polite conversation.

  Simon nodded. “The cathedral was beautiful. You should have come.” Nothing in his voice to give anybody away.

  Boris shrugged. “The opiate of the masses,” he said flatly. No irony, no self-consciousness.

  Simon looked at him, a good Soviet man, and suddenly wanted to laugh, about to fly off again, another not funny joke, the whole country full of them, the women in the hotel hallways, the listening chandeliers, the men plotting in the Kremlin, Stalin feeding on his own, check mark by check mark, a city without maps.

  They were crossing the intersection. Simon looked up at what he guessed was Gareth’s building, with its view of the parking lot. A high rise with concrete beginning to crack. Did Sergei live there too? Waiting for him to come home. He looked over at Frank, who was talking to Boris in Russian, idle chat by the sound of it. I have an alibi. You.

  Now the Metro again, the palatial stations. If he stayed on, could he go all the way to the airport? And then what? Visas and questions about why he was leaving. So soon? Before the book was done? Why was that? And for a second he felt what everyone here must feel, living under house arrest. For imaginary crimes. And he had just killed a man, a real crime, and no one knew. All the grisly apparatus of a police state and no one knew. An outing with Boris, on the KGB’s watch.

  During the war, at his desk on Navy Hill, he had wondered what combat would be like, how it would feel to kill somebody, whether he could go through with it. But it had been easy, an instinct, even when Gareth’s eyes opened. Save yourself. Only now his stomach was filled with it, churning with dread. It’s going to be all right. Was it? Frank had thought that before and ended up here. If nobody gets spooked. Simon clenched his fist, some gesture of control, as if he could hear Frank’s tail scratching against the bottle.

  * * *

  To his surprise, it was Tom McPherson who turned up for DiAngelis at the National bar.

  “Doesn’t Look give you enough to do?”

  “In Moscow? Everything happens behind closed doors. No access. Ever. So a little moonlighting. Makes it more interesting.”

  “Does Look know?”

  McPherson ignored this, his pleasant, bland features turning serious, full of purpose. “We need to set a date for the shoot. I’m going to have a package for you and they don’t want to use the dead letter drop. Direct handoff.”

  “Monday. We’re away this weekend. What’s in the package?”

  “No idea. I’m just the mailman. Ordinarily I’d guess visas, papers, kind of thing you don’t want to leave in the men’s room. But in this case—I don’t know. You already have yours. So it must be—whatever you’re talking to the Agency about.” He turned to the bar, ordering a brandy. “Mind if I ask you a question? Were you close, you and your brother?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s unusual, that’s all. You being with him. And working for the Agency. Does he know? No offense. I was just curious. What time Monday?”

  “Ten,” Simon said, then, “He doesn’t tell me anything.”

  McPherson shrugged. “But here we are. And you’ve got a delivery coming. Don’t worry, I’m not looking for a story. It’s strictly pictures with Look. Lehman’s the one you want to watch out for. He’s been trying to get a story on the defectors since he got here.”

  Simon looked up, a sudden thought. “He do this kind of work too?”

  “Not that I know of. But then I wouldn’t know.” He finished his drink. “Look who’s here,” he said, his voice lower, glancing toward the end of the bar where Gareth’s Sergei was questioning the bartender. “Mr. Jones must be out on a toot.”

  What people would think, the body still not found. Simon looked at Sergei, his face troubled, not sure what to do. Had Gareth done this before? It must be a small circuit of watering holes. Moscow wasn’t New York. The National, the Metropol, the Aragvi. But then what? The apartment suddenly quiet, empty. People like Sergei didn’t go to the police. Simon imagined him sitting alone, waiting. Getting up to look out the window. Now he noticed Simon, a flicker of recognition. For a second Simon thought he’d come over, ask if he’d seen Gareth, another layer of lies, but evidently the bartender’s word was all he needed. He turned and darted out of the room, heading for the Metropol.

  “They say the KGB fixed them up,” McPherson said. “Keep Jones happy.”

  “Who says?”

  “People. You know. Must have taken, though. It’s been years.” Now over, cut off like the air in Gareth’s throat.

  “I’d better go up,” Simon said. “Anything else?”

  “You tell me. I’m here, if you want to get word to anyone.”

  “Monday at ten.”

  “We might want to do another. Shoot. It’s a good excuse to talk.” He put down his glass. “Sorry about before. It’s just the logic of it. If you’re not reporting on him, what are you talking to the Agency about?”

  He looked at McPherson, the eager, open face.

  “This and that,” he said.

  5

  THEY DROVE WEST OUT of the city on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a showcase street lined with new apartment buildings.

  “The Friday ritual,” Frank said, looking at the swarm of black cars, the first traffic Simon had seen in Moscow. “Even in the rain.”

  It had been drizzling all afternoon, the air heavy and wet, forming condensation on the car windows.

  “It’s supposed to clear up,” Joanna said, next to Frank in the back. “Anyway, it’s good for mushrooms.”

  “Mushrooms,” Frank said, dismissing this, not worth talking about.

  “It’s all wasted on Frank. The country,” Joanna said, smiling. “When they offered us the dacha he didn’t want to take it. At first.”

  “What made you change your mind?” Simon said.

  “I didn’t want anybody to think I was ungrateful. It’s considered a privilege.”

  “The vegetables are,” Joanna said. “In the summer you can eat out of the garden.”

  “Why is it so hard? To get vegetables.”

  “The distribution system,” Frank said, not really paying attention. “It’s better than it used to be.”

  Simon, up front with Boris, looked at Frank in the rearview mirror, a doubling effect, their features so similar at this distance. His jaw, Frank’s. The same high forehead, wrinkled, preoccupied, neither of them looking forward to the weekend. Simon kept seeing the groundskeeper stacking rakes in the utility shed, smelling something. How long? Frank was sitting forward, hands on his knees. Square, long-fingered, like Simon’s. Did it matter whose had been on Gareth’s throat? The same hands.

  “You’ll like the Rubins,” Joanna was saying. “He’s nice.” As if they were simply neighbors, not on Hoover’s wish list.

  “When are they coming?”

  “Tomorrow lunch. I couldn’t face it tonight, all that work and everyone stays so late. So, just us.”

  “I have some people coming before dinner,” Frank said.

  “Who?” Joanna said, annoyed.

  “Some people from the office.”

  “You might have said.”

  “I just found out. Boris got a call.” He nodded toward the front.

  “They’re coming to the dacha? What’s so urgent? Oh, don’t tell me. Why start now?”

  “I’m planning a trip,” Frank said pleasantly. “I thought we’d take Simon to Leningrad. See the Hermitage. Then Tallinn, Riga. Doesn’t that sound—?�
�

  “Riga?” Joanna said.

  “It’s supposed to be very attractive. Lots of Art Nouveau. We haven’t been away in so long. I thought you’d enjoy it, with Simon here.”

  “You’re full of surprises.” She looked forward to Simon. “Did you know about this?”

  He half-turned, facing them. “Frank said maybe after the book— I’d hate to leave without seeing some of the country.” What he thought Frank wanted him to say. Just a trip. He glanced back to see his reaction, but Frank was facing Jo, juggling again.

  “And when is all this happening?” Jo said. “Do I get time to pack?”

  “This week, if I can get the go-ahead from the office. Don’t you want to go? I thought you’d be—”

  She waved this away and started rummaging in her purse for a cigarette. “Wonderful, isn’t it, to have a travel agent who comes to the house.”

  “We have some other work,” Frank said blandly.

  She lit the cigarette and rolled down her window to let the smoke out.

  “I wish you’d stop,” she said, not looking at him. “Retire.”

  Frank smiled, not biting. “And do what, crossword puzzles?”

  “How many? Tonight.”

  “Two.”

  “It’s only soup. There’s plenty if they want to stay.”

  “I’m sure they’ll want to get back.”

  “To wherever it is they go.”

  “Jo.”

  But the air had settled, the friction seeping out with the smoke. Simon looked at Frank. They were going to Leningrad, the little back-and-forth not even a quarrel, just making it more ordinary for Boris. Putting the pieces into place. No one knew.

  Frank caught his glance. “How are you doing up there? You know what this reminds me of? When we used to drive to Maine with Pa.” He looked at Jo, including her. “Simon always got the front seat, because he got carsick. Always in the front,” he said, warm, reminiscent. “So nothing changes.”

  Simon looked back at him quickly, surprised, then turned to face the windshield again, the boy in the front seat. Nothing changes.

  They had left the inner city and were passing the sprawling fields of garden allotments, each with its own hut, the dachas of the people.

  “I thought the photographer was supposed to come next week,” Jo said.

  “Monday,” Simon said.

  “Monday?”

  Simon turned. “I ran into him at the bar last night. At the National.”

  “At the National,” Frank repeated, looking steadily at him.

  “Mm. You know, the way you run into people.” Talking in code now, eyes on each other, the doubling effect complete. One person. “He’d like to get it done while we can.”

  Frank nodded, accepting this.

  “There’s no hurry,” Jo said. “I’d like Ludmilla to give it a good clean before—”

  “Nobody’ll know the difference,” Frank said. “We’re not supposed to be grand. Like anybody else.”

  “I told him ten,” Simon said to Jo. “Sorry, I should have checked. But he was so anxious—”

  But Joanna had already moved on, bowing to the inevitable.

  “So it’s the stringer for Look,” Frank said, asking something else. “Interesting.”

  “What is?” Joanna said.

  “Nothing. The foreign press. How many there are.”

  “My hair will be a mess.”

  Frank smiled at this. “No it won’t.”

  They stopped at a farm stand in the village, a piece of tolerated capitalism since the farms were near the Service compound. At a signal from Frank, Simon got out to stretch his legs, leaving Boris sitting behind the wheel.

  “Why the hurry?” Frank said quietly. “He’s the Agency contact?”

  “He says he has a package to deliver. Papers. Maybe exit visas. They didn’t tell him what.”

  “Exit visas? That’s not how we’re leaving,” Frank said, annoyed. “The last thing you want lying around. How do you explain that?”

  “Maybe it’s something else.”

  “I didn’t ask for—” He caught himself. “Well, never mind. Careful around Boris on Monday. You don’t think he notices, but he does.”

  “He say anything about yesterday?”

  Frank shook his head. “Not yet. No idea.” He looked up. “It’s why I thought we’d hurry our trip along. They’re bound to find him. Nothing to connect us, but you never know how people are going to react. You can plan everything, but there’s always an X factor. So let’s get ahead of it.”

  “Will you know Monday? Time. Place. Look will be there. Easy to pass the—”

  “No. Only to DiAngelis. Use Look to get to him, that’s all. I may know Monday. Depends on tonight.”

  It was real country now, stands of birch and pine, fields lined with windbreaks, dark, thick patches of old-growth forest. They passed through a security checkpoint at a manned gate.

  “It’s fenced,” Simon said.

  “The perimeter. You’re not aware of it when you’re inside. They patrol at night.”

  A weekend in the country.

  The road split off in several directions, like veins, no signs, no visible houses, each dacha tucked away in the trees by itself, the fence and guards invisible. They followed the main compound road for a mile or so, then turned onto a dirt road that twisted through woods dense with undergrowth, a fairy tale track, then another turn onto a narrower road. Simon had expected a cottage, but the dacha was a substantial two-story house, surrounded by trees, with a broad open lawn in front and garden on the side. The step-up porch and gables were trimmed with gingerbread, like the houses he remembered on the Vineyard, Oak Bluffs, with their elaborate painted scrollwork.

  “Smell the lilac,” Joanna said. “The rain brings it out.”

  The bushes, some tall as trees, grew alongside the house, their heady perfume another memory of home. For a moment Simon felt that they had left Russia, even gone back in time, all of them who they had been.

  They turned into the driveway to find another car already there, two men leaning against it, smoking.

  “They’re early,” Frank said, recognizing them. “Well, so much the better.”

  They were stocky, their raincoats stretched across their shoulders, hair cropped as short as Boris’s. They tossed their cigarettes when Frank’s car pulled in, but didn’t stand up, just watched sullenly, still slouching, like thugs. But what did DiAngelis look like in his raincoat? Not a gentleman’s business. Frank greeted them and led them up to the house without introducing them. Joanna watched them go up, heavy military clomps.

  “God help us. Thomas Cook,” she said, a wry shrug to Simon.

  Inside the house was country shabby, comfortable chairs that didn’t match and a fraying carpet, bookshelves everywhere, like the flat in Moscow. An old woman, dressed out of Tolstoy, was in the kitchen already starting the soup. Joanna greeted her in Russian, more halting than Frank’s but evidently understood since the old woman smiled back.

  “You’re in here,” Joanna said, opening a door and switching on a light. “It’s a little lumpy, but they all are. Furniture here— Why don’t you unpack and then meet me outside. We’ll have a walk while it’s still light. They’ll be hours.” She nodded to a closed door. “With their timetables. And whatever else—” She stopped, hearing herself, and looked at Simon, then started down the hall. The way she’d always lived, not knowing.

  When he came out she was picking lilacs, getting sprinkled by the wet overhead branches.

  “Good. You found the boots.”

  “Where’s the car?” he said.

  “Boris took it. He has a place on the other side of the village. He’ll drive us back Sunday.”

  “So we’re on our own?”

  “Unless they’ve wired the trees.�
�� She nodded. “On our own. Let me put these inside, then we can get some mushrooms.”

  “You really know the difference? Between the poisonous ones and—”

  She smiled. “No. I just pick one kind—I know they’re safe—and leave everything else. I don’t even like mushrooms, but it’s a good excuse to get out. They all do it. You’ll see them in the woods with their Little Red Riding Hood baskets. Just let me put these—”

  But before she could go up there was a barking, then a dog racing across the lawn.

  “Pani,” a voice called.

  “Marzena,” Jo said, her voice neutral.

  “Who?”

  “Perry Soames’s wife. Polish. They met—well, I don’t know how they met, actually. Marzena,” she called out.

  A woman in boots came around from the garden side, her blond hair protected from the damp by a headscarf.

  “Pani, bad girl,” she said to the dog, indulgent, then made a clicking sound which brought the dog over. “She gets excited. Oh, look at the lilacs. I love lilacs,” she said, drawing out the l’s, an exaggerated accent that reminded Simon of the Gabor sisters. “For tomorrow?”

  “Yes. You’re early,” Jo said, looking at her wristwatch, a tease.

  “I don’t mean to bother—is Frank here?”

  “He’s meeting with some people. From the office.”

  “Oh,” Marzena said, the code for off-limits. “It’s my icebox. That’s right, icebox? Kaput. I don’t know why. And you know how handy he is.”

  “Shall I tell him to walk over when he’s through?”

  Simon looked up, hearing something new in her voice.

  “If it’s not too late. I don’t mean to bother—” She glanced toward Simon, curious, waiting to be introduced.

  “I’m sorry,” Joanna said. “Frank’s brother. Simon.”

  “His brother,” she said, a theatrical delight. “Yes, I see it. Now that I look.” And then, to Simon’s surprise, she took off her scarf, shaking out her yellow hair, a kind of flirtation, as if she wanted him to notice her as a woman.

  “Marzena, you knew he was coming,” Joanna said, a gentle poke.