Our Woman in Moscow(113)

“Luckily the bullet missed his heart by a couple of inches. As it is, I must write a report on the incident. This is very grave, Ivanova. Very grave.”

“Don’t worry about the report.”

“I don’t worry about it with respect to myself, Ivanova. I’ve written such reports before. They are inconvenient, but my career has survived worse. No. The trouble is the child. There are witnesses. I can’t obscure the facts.”

“Of course not. She is to blame. She must face the consequences.”

The general stares at her. The color begins to fade from his skin, the blood to return to its usual habits of circulation. He must be about fifty or so. Lyudmila knows his record. He made his name during the defense of Moscow, was transferred to Stalingrad, then led a division into Poland and then Germany as the tide turned. He’s seen more bloodshed and more human misery than any single person should witness in a hundred lifetimes.

“You realize, of course, what those consequences are. To attack a solider, to shoot him. To attempt a prison escape. These are the most serious possible offenses. Her age and sex will not protect her. Nor can you, Ivanova.”

“I understand.”

He sighs. “Do you know how she found this place?”

“According to her account, she forced the information from my deputy at Moscow Centre, then boarded a train for Riga, then stole a motorcycle, upon which she conveyed herself here.”

“Where did she learn to ride a motorcycle, at her age?”

“I’m not exactly certain.”

“My God. She has the tenacity of a tiger. What a shame. What a waste.” He shakes his head and fixes Lyudmila with his dark, sunken eyes. “It would have been far better for her if she had succeeded.”

Lyudmila holds the gaze for a moment or two. Neither of them says a word. Through the window comes the ecstatic song of birds, greeting the morning.



After Lyudmila leaves the general’s office, she finds a guard to accompany her to one of the prison huts. Only one prisoner inhabits this one. There’s no cot inside his cell. He lies on the bare floor, without a blanket, either asleep or unconscious. When Lyudmila enters the cell, he lifts his head and winces. She crouches next to him and sets her hand on his big shoulder, before she realizes it has been grotesquely dislocated. She pats his other shoulder instead.

“Mr. Fox,” she says. “I have a proposition for you.”





Iris





July 1952

Near Riga, Latvia



The cell has no window, other than the small barred opening cut into the door, so Iris has no way of knowing what time of day it is, or how much time has passed since the doctor left. The guards stripped away her jewelry, including her watch. From the other cell, Ruth reports that she hasn’t got a watch, either.

Still, it must be light outside by now. The day’s begun, the endless summer day of the high northern latitudes. Somewhere outside these walls, a sun burns white and clear in a perfectly blue sky, and a briny wind rushes off the Baltic Sea to clean the air. Not far away, a fishing boat plies the waves, to and fro, waiting for a signal from shore that will never come. A man stands in the bow right now, a man who has been up all night with his binoculars, searching the shore until his eyes ache. His face will be knit with anxiety. Someone will bring him a sympathetic cup of black coffee, which he’ll sip as he leans against the railing and clings to hope. ASCOT. She’s known him by that name for so long, she’s almost forgotten the real one.

The children are still asleep, she thinks. They haven’t made a sound since the ruckus a few hours ago, when Sasha appeared out of nowhere looking like a straw-haired cadaver. Poor Sasha! Does he know the truth? Does he suspect, at least? He must. That expression as he looked at her—terror and betrayal—devastated blue eyes—Sasha never could keep his emotions from invading the muscles and nerves of his face. It was the expression of a man who has turned the pages of his own personal Book of Revelation and read the judgment written there. Iris’s heart mourns for him. She looks down at the crook of her right arm, where Gregory lies heavily, lips parted, a tiny trickle of contented milk at the corner of his mouth. He looks shockingly like Sasha—at least, how Sasha would look as an old man, red face compressed into permanent grumpiness. His limbs are already long, his eyes are already blue.

But the action of gazing at her baby has already exhausted Iris. She feels a little better now. The doctor changed her dressing and tut-tutted and made her take aspirin and water. He said she needs penicillin. He doesn’t have any. Penicillin is scarce and rationed mostly to party officials and their families. But he will see what he can do.

You’ve got to fight this, Iris tells herself. You’ve got to get better. Gregory needs you. The children need you.

Ruth needs you.

Once that KGB woman has squeezed what she can out of Sasha—unless Sasha breaks and tells her the truth, or as much of the truth as he can surmise—they’ll execute him and then send Iris and the children to some labor camp, probably. If Iris doesn’t get better, they’ll put Gregory and Claire in an orphanage, or possibly adoption by well-connected party members. Iris imagines some Russian woman, some wife of a Politburo bigwig, feeding Gregory a bottle and tucking Claire into bed at night. The image hurts so much that she allows herself to doze off, but not before shifting Gregory so that he’s lying safely between Iris and the wall. Her last conscious thought is that she must ask the guards for fresh diapers.