She was more sensible than her conservative boss, Dimka inferred. He shot her a grateful look and followed up. ‘Hence Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence, which enables us to spend less on the army, and instead invest in agriculture and industry.’ Kremlin conservatives hated peaceful coexistence. For them, the conflict with capitalist-imperialism was a war to the death.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dimka saw his secretary, Vera, enter the room, a bright, nervy woman of forty. He waved her away.
Filipov was not so easily disposed of. ‘Let’s not permit a naive view of world politics to encourage us to reduce our army too fast,’ he said scornfully. ‘We can hardly claim to be winning on the international stage. Look at how the Chinese defy us. That weakens us at Vienna.’
Why was Filipov trying so hard to prove that Dimka was a fool? Dimka suddenly recalled that Filipov had wanted a job in Khrushchev’s office – the job that Dimka had got.
‘As the Bay of Pigs weakened Kennedy,’ Dimka replied. The American president had authorized a crackpot CIA plan for an invasion of Cuba at a place called the Bay of Pigs: the scheme had gone wrong and Kennedy had been humiliated. ‘I think our leader’s position is stronger.’
‘All the same, Khrushchev has failed—’ Filipov stopped, realizing he was going too far. These pre-meeting discussions were frank, but there were limits.
Dimka seized on the moment of weakness. ‘What has Khrushchev failed to do, comrade?’ he said. ‘Please enlighten us all.’
Filipov amended quickly. ‘We have failed to achieve our main foreign policy objective: a permanent resolution of the Berlin situation. East Germany is our frontier post in Europe. Its borders secure the borders of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Its unresolved status is intolerable.’
‘All right,’ Dimka said, and he was surprised to hear a note of confidence in his own voice. ‘I think that’s enough discussion of general principles. Before I close the meeting I will explain the trend of the First Secretary’s current thinking on the problem.’
Filipov opened his mouth to protest against this abrupt termination, but Dimka cut him off. ‘Comrades will speak when invited by the chair,’ he said, deliberately making his voice a harsh grind; and they all went quiet.
‘In Vienna, Khrushchev will tell Kennedy we can wait no longer. We have made reasonable proposals for regulating the situation in Berlin, and all we hear from the Americans is that they want no changes.’ Around the table, several men nodded. ‘If they will not agree a plan, Khrushchev will say, then we will take unilateral action; and if the Americans try to stop us, we will meet force with force.’
There was a long moment of silence. Dimka took advantage of it by standing up. ‘Thank you for your attendance,’ he said.
Natalya said what everyone was thinking. ‘Does that mean we are willing to go to war with the Americans over Berlin?’
‘The First Secretary does not believe there will be a war,’ said Dimka, giving them the evasive answer that Khrushchev had given him. ‘Kennedy is not mad.’
He caught a look of mingled surprise and admiration from Natalya as he walked away from the table. He could not believe he had been so tough. He had never been a pussycat, but this was a powerful and smart group of men, and he had bullied them. His position helped: new though he was, his desk in the First Secretary’s suite of offices gave him power. And, paradoxically, Filipov’s hostility had helped. They could all sympathize with the need to come down hard on someone who was trying to undermine the leader.
Vera was hovering in the anteroom. She was an experienced political assistant who would not panic unnecessarily. Dimka had a flash of intuition. ‘It’s my sister, isn’t it?’ he said.
Vera was spooked. Her eyes widened. ‘How do you do that?’ she said in awe.
It was not supernatural. He had feared for some time that Tania was heading for trouble. He said: ‘What has she done?’
‘She’s been arrested.’
‘Oh, hell.’
Vera pointed to a phone off the hook on a side table and Dimka picked it up. His mother, Anya, was on the line. ‘Tania’s in the Lubyanka!’ she said, using the shorthand name for KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square. She was close to hysteria.
Dimka was not taken totally by surprise. His twin sister and he agreed that there was a lot wrong with the Soviet Union, but whereas he believed reform was needed, she thought Communism should be abolished. It was an intellectual disagreement that made no difference to their affection for one another. Each was the other’s best friend. It had always been that way.
You could be arrested for thinking as Tania did – which was one of the things that was wrong. ‘Be calm, Mother, I can get her out of there,’ Dimka said. He hoped he would be able to justify that assurance. ‘Do you know what happened?’
‘There was a riot at some poetry meeting!’
‘I bet she went to Mayakovsky Square. If that’s all . . .’ He did not know everything his sister got up to, but he suspected her of worse than poetry.
‘You have to do something, Dimka! Before they . . .’
‘I know.’ Before they start to interrogate her, Mother meant. A chill of fear passed over him like a shadow. The prospect of interrogation in the notorious basement cells of KGB headquarters terrified every Soviet citizen.
His first instinct had been to say he would get on the phone, but now he decided that would not be enough. He had to show up in person. He hesitated momentarily: it could harm his career, if people knew he had gone to the Lubyanka to spring his sister. But that thought barely gave him pause. She came before himself and Khrushchev and the entire Soviet Union. ‘I’m on my way, Mother,’ he said. ‘Call Uncle Volodya and tell him what’s happened.’
‘Oh, yes, good idea! My brother will know what to do.’
Dimka hung up. ‘Phone the Lubyanka,’ he said to Vera. ‘Tell them very clearly that you’re calling from the office of the First Secretary, who is concerned about the arrest of leading journalist Tania Dvorkin. Tell them that Comrade Khrushchev’s aide is on his way to question them about it, and they should do nothing until he arrives.’
She was making notes. ‘Shall I order up a car?’
Lubyanka Square was less than a mile from the Kremlin compound. ‘I have my motorcycle downstairs. That will be quicker.’ Dimka was privileged to own a Voskhod 175 bike with a five-speed gearbox and twin tailpipes.
He had known Tania was heading for trouble because, paradoxically, she had ceased to tell him everything, he reflected as he rode. Normally, they had no secrets from one another. Dimka had an intimacy with his twin that they shared with no one else. When Mother was away, and they were alone, Tania would walk through the flat naked, to fetch clean underwear from the airing cupboard, and Dimka would pee without bothering to close the bathroom door. Occasionally Dimka’s male friends would sniggeringly suggest that their closeness was erotic, but in fact it was the opposite. They could be so intimate only because there was no sexual spark.
But for the past year he had known she was hiding something from him. He did not know what it was, but he could guess. Not a boyfriend, he felt sure: they told each other everything about their romantic lives, comparing notes, sympathizing. Almost certainly it was political, he thought. The only reason she might keep something from him would be to protect him.
He drew up outside the dreaded building, a yellow-brick palace erected before the revolution as the headquarters of an insurance company. The thought of his sister imprisoned in this place made him feel ill. For a moment he was afraid he was going to puke.
He parked right in front of the main entrance, took a moment to recover his self-possession, and walked inside.
Tania’s editor, Daniil Antonov, was already there, arguing with a KGB man in the lobby. Daniil was a small man, slightly built, and Dimka thought of him as harmless, but he was being assertive. ‘I want to see Tania Dvorkin, and I want to see her
right now
,’ he said.
The KGB man wore an expression of mulish obstinacy. ‘That may not be possible.’
Dimka butted in. ‘I’m from the office of the First Secretary,’ he said.
The KGB man refused to be impressed. ‘And what do you do there, son – make the tea?’ he said rudely. ‘What’s your name?’ It was an intimidating question: people were terrified to give their names to the KGB.
‘Dmitriy Dvorkin, and I’m here to tell you that Comrade Khrushchev is personally interested in this case.’
‘Fuck off, Dvorkin,’ said the man. ‘Comrade Khrushchev knows nothing about this case. You’re here to get your sister out of trouble.’
Dimka was taken aback by the man’s confident rudeness. He guessed that many people trying to spring family or friends from KGB arrest would claim personal connections with powerful people. But he renewed his attack. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Captain Mets.’
‘And what are you accusing Tania Dvorkin of?’
‘Assaulting an officer.’
‘Did a girl beat up one of your goons in leather jackets?’ Dimka said jeeringly. ‘She must have taken his gun from him first. Come off it, Mets, don’t be a prick.’
‘She was attending a seditious meeting. Anti-Soviet literature was circulated.’ Mets handed Dimka a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘The meeting became a riot.’
Dimka looked at the paper. It was headed
Dissidence.
He had heard of this subversive news-sheet. Tania might easily have something to do with it. This edition was about Ustin Bodian, the opera singer. Dimka was momentarily distracted by the shocking allegation that Bodian was dying of pneumonia in a Siberian labour camp. Then he recalled that Tania had returned from Siberia today, and realized that she must have written this. She could be in real trouble. ‘Are you alleging that Tania had this paper in her possession?’ he demanded. He saw Mets hesitate and said: ‘I thought not.’
‘She should not have been there at all.’
Daniil put in: ‘She’s a reporter, you fool. She was observing the event, just as your officers were.’
‘She’s not an officer.’
‘All
TASS
reporters co-operate with the KGB, you know that.’
‘You can’t prove she was there officially.’
‘Yes, I can. I’m her editor. I sent her.’
Dimka wondered whether that was true. He doubted it. He felt grateful to Daniil for sticking his neck out in defence of Tania.
Mets was losing confidence. ‘She was with a man called Vasili Yenkov, who had five copies of that sheet in his pocket.’
‘She doesn’t know anyone called Vasili Yenkov,’ said Dimka. It might have been true: certainly he had never heard the name. ‘If it was a riot, how could you tell who was with whom?’
‘I’ll have to talk to my superiors,’ said Mets, and he turned away.
Dimka made his voice harsh. ‘Don’t be long,’ he barked. ‘The next person you see from the Kremlin may not be the boy who makes the tea.’
Mets went down a staircase. Dimka shuddered: everyone knew the basement contained the interrogation rooms.
A moment later Dimka and Daniil were joined in the lobby by an older man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He had an ugly, fleshy face with an aggressively jutting chin. Daniil did not seem pleased to see him. He introduced him as Pyotr Opotkin, features editor-in-chief.
Opotkin looked at Dimka with eyes screwed up to keep out the smoke. ‘So, your sister got herself arrested at a protest meeting,’ he said. His tone was angry, but Dimka sensed that underneath it Opotkin was for some reason pleased.
‘A poetry reading,’ Dimka corrected him.
‘Not much difference.’
Daniil put in: ‘I sent her there.’
‘On the day she got back from Siberia?’ said Opotkin sceptically.
‘It wasn’t really an assignment. I suggested she drop by some time to see what was going on, that’s all.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ said Opotkin. ‘You’re just trying to protect her.’
Daniil raised his chin and gave him a challenging look. ‘Isn’t that what you’re here to do?’
Before Opotkin could reply, Captain Mets returned. ‘The case is still under consideration,’ he said.
Opotkin introduced himself and showed Mets his identity card. ‘The question is not whether Tania Dvorkin should be punished, but how,’ he said.
‘Exactly sir,’ said Mets deferentially. ‘Would you like to come with me?’
Opotkin nodded and Mets led him down the stairs.
Dimka said in a quiet voice: ‘He won’t let them torture her, will he?’
‘Opotkin was mad at Tania already,’ Daniil said worriedly.
‘What for? I thought she was a good journalist.’
‘She’s brilliant. But she turned down an invitation to a party at his house on Saturday. He wanted you to go, too. Pyotr loves important people. A snub really hurts him.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘I told her she should have accepted.’
‘Did you really send her to Mayakovsky Square?’
‘No. We could never do a story about such an unofficial gathering.’
‘Thanks for trying to protect her.’
‘My privilege – but I don’t think it’s working.’
‘What do you think will happen?’
‘She might be fired. More likely, she’ll be posted somewhere disagreeable, such as Kazakhstan.’ Daniil frowned. ‘I must think of some compromise that will satisfy Opotkin but not be too hard on Tania.’
Dimka glanced at the entrance door and saw a man in his forties with a brutally short military haircut, wearing the uniform of a Red Army general. ‘At last, Uncle Volodya,’ he said.
Volodya Peshkov had the same intense blue-eyed stare as Tania. ‘What is this shit?’ he said angrily.
Dimka filled him in. As he was finishing, Opotkin reappeared. He spoke obsequiously to Volodya. ‘General, I have discussed this problem of your niece with our friends in the KGB and they are content for me to deal with it as an internal
TASS
matter.’
Dimka slumped with relief. Then he wondered whether Opotkin’s entire approach had been to manoeuvre himself into a position where he could appear to do a favour for Volodya.
‘Allow me to make a suggestion,’ said Volodya. ‘You might mark the incident as serious, without attaching blame to anyone, simply by transferring Tania to another post.’