Child 44 - Страница 69

Together, as a collective, plans were laid to transport them south. One member of the audience worked as a truck driver shuttling loads between Moscow and towns such as Samara and Kharkov. Kharkov was some three hundred kilometres north of Rostov, half a day’s drive. Though it was decided that driving into Rostov itself was too risky since the driver had no business there, he’d be prepared to take them to the nearby town of Shakhty. He could legitimately pass off this diversion by claiming that he was visiting family. That same family would, after listening to the story, almost certainly agree to help Leo and Raisa travel into the city.

At the very least they had a day and a half in this crate, cooped up in complete darkness. The driver was transporting bananas, luxury exotic goods intended for the spetztorgi. Shops for high ranking Party figures, the kind of shops Leo and Raisa once bought their own groceries in. Their crate was positioned at the back of the truck wedged under other crates all filled with precious fruit. It was hot and dry and the journey uncomfortable. There were breaks every three to four hours when the driver would stop, slide off the crates above them, letting his human cargo stretch their legs and relieve themselves by the side of the road.

In complete darkness, with their legs crossed over each other, in opposite corners of the crate, Raisa asked:

— Do you trust him?

— Who?

— The driver.

— You don’t?

— I don’t know.

— You must have some reason for asking?

— Of all the people listening to the story he was the only one who didn’t have any questions. He didn’t seem to engage with it. It didn’t shake him as it shook the others. He seems blank to me, practical, unemotional.

— He didn’t have to help us. And he’s not going to be able to betray us and then go back to his friends and family.

— He could make something up. There was a roadblock. We were caught. He tried to help us but there was nothing he could do.

— What do you suggest?

— At the next stop, you could overpower him, tie him up and drive the truck yourself.

— You’re serious?

— The only way to be sure, to be absolutely certain, is to take his truck. We’d have his papers. We’d have our lives back in our hands, back under our control. We’re helpless like this. We don’t know where he’s taking us.

— You were the one who taught me to trust in the goodness of strangers.

— This man isn’t like the others. He seems ambitious. He spends his entire day transporting luxury items. He must think: I want that, I want those fine textiles, those rare foods. He understands that we’re an opportunity. He knows how much he can sell us for. And he knows the price he’ll pay for being caught with us.

— I’m hardly the one to say this, Raisa, but you’re talking about an innocent man, a man who seems to be risking his life to help us.

— I’m talking about guaranteeing that we reach Rostov.

— Isn’t this how it starts? You have a cause you believe in, a cause worth dying for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing innocent people for.

— We wouldn’t have to kill him.

— Yes we would, because we couldn’t leave him tied up on the roadside. That would be a far greater risk. We either kill him, or trust him. Raisa, this is how things fall apart. We’ve been fed, sheltered and transported by these people. If we turn on them, execute one of their friends for no reason other than as a precaution, I’d be the same man you despised in Moscow.

Even though he couldn’t see her, he knew she was smiling.

— Were you testing me?

— Just making conversation.

— Did I pass?

— That depends on whether we get to Shakhty or not.

After a stretch of silence, Raisa asked.

— What happens once this is over?

— I don’t know.

— The West will want you, Leo. They’ll protect you.

— I’d never leave this country.

— Even if this country is going to kill you?

— If you want to defect, I’ll do everything I can to get you onto a boat.

— What are you going to do? Hide in the hills?

— Once that man is dead, once you’re safely out of the country, I’m going to turn myself in. I don’t want to live in exile, among people that want my information but hate me. I don’t want to live as a foreigner. I can’t do it. It would mean that everything these people in Moscow have said about me would be true.

— And that’s the most important thing?

Raisa sounded hurt. Leo touched her arm.

— Raisa, I don’t understand.

— Is it that complicated? I want us to stay together.

Leo said nothing for a moment. Finally he replied:

— I can’t live as a traitor. I can’t do it.

— Which means we’ve got about twenty-four hours left?

— I’m sorry.

— We should make the most of this time together.

— How do we do that?

— We tell each other the truth.

— The truth?

— We must have secrets. I know I have some. Don’t you? Things you’ve never told me.

— Yes.

— Then I’ll go first. I used to spit in your tea. After I heard about Zoya’s arrest, I was convinced you’d reported her. So, for about a week, I spat in your tea.

— You spat in my tea?

— For about a week.

— Why did you stop?

— You didn’t seem to care.

— I didn’t notice.

— Exactly. OK, your turn.

— Truthfully—

— That’s the point of this game.

— I don’t think you married me because you were afraid. I think you scouted me out. You made it look like you were scared. You gave me a false name and I pursued you. But I think you targeted me.

— I’m a foreign agent?

— You might know of people working for Western agencies. Maybe you were helping them. Maybe that idea was at the back of your mind when you married me.

— That’s not a secret, that’s speculation. You have to share secrets — hard facts.

— I found a kopek among your clothes, the coin could be split it in two — it’s a device for smuggling microfilm. Agents use them. No one else would have one.

— Why didn’t you denounce me?

— I couldn’t do it.

— Leo, I didn’t marry you as a way of getting close to the MGB. I told you the truth before, I was scared.

— And the coin?

— That coin was mine…

Her voice drifted off, as though weighing up whether or not to continue.

— I didn’t use it to carry microfilm. I used it to carry cyanide paste, when I was a refugee.

Raisa had never spoken about the period after her home had been destroyed, the months on the road — the dark ages of her life. Leo waited, suddenly nervous.

— I’m sure you can imagine the kind of things that happened to women refugees. Soldiers, they had needs, they were risking their lives — they were owed. We were their payment. After one time — and there were several — I hurt so much, I swore if it ever happened again, if it ever looked like happening again, I’d rub that paste across his gums. They could kill me, hang me, but maybe it would make them think twice about doing it to another woman. Anyway, it became my lucky coin because as soon as I started carrying it I never had any problems. Maybe men can sense a woman with cyanide in her pocket. Of course, it didn’t cure the injuries I’d sustained. There was no medicine. That’s the reason I can’t get pregnant, Leo.

Leo stared into the darkness, at the place where he imagined his wife must be. During the war women had been raped during the occupation and then raped again by their liberators. As a soldier he knew such activity had been sanctioned by the State, considered part of the fabric of war and an appropriate reward for a brave soldier. Cyanide had been used by some to take their own lives in the face of impossible horrors. Leo supposed that most men might’ve checked the woman for a blade or a gun but a coin — that would’ve slipped their attention. He rubbed the palm of her hand. What else could he do? Apologize? Say he understood? He’d framed that newspaper clipping, hung it on the wall, proud, oblivious to what the war meant to her.

— Leo, I have another secret. I’ve fallen in love with you.

— I’ve always loved you.

— That’s not a secret, Leo. You’re three secrets behind.

Leo kissed her:

— I have a brother.

Rostov-on-Don

15 July

Nadya was alone in the house. Her mother and sister had gone to visit their grandmother and although Nadya had initially accompanied them, as they’d approached her grandmother’s apartment block she’d feigned a stomach ache and begged to be allowed to return. Her mother had agreed and Nadya had hurried back home. Her plan was simple. She was going to open the basement door and find out why her father spent so long downstairs in what must be a dark cold room. She’d never been down there, not once. She’d walked around the building feeling the damp bricks and imagining what it must be like inside. There were no windows, just a ventilation hole for the stove. It was strictly forbidden, out of bounds, an unbreakable rule of the house.