At last she came into the restaurant car. He waved, his heart lurching at the sight of her. She seemed preoccupied, and he felt a stab of longing. He could not bear to believe that she lived a life without him. He rose as she reached him, kissing her on the lips without embarrassment.
Sitting down opposite him, she looked out of the window at the falling snow. He took her hand and found it cold.
“My God, you’re freezing.” He poured her a glass of champagne and refilled his own. “To Siberia,” he said, lifting his glass and clinking hers as she lifted it. Her hands were shaking and she spilled her champagne as she lifted her glass.
“What is it?” he asked. “Would you rather we went back?”
She shook her head, her lips trembling.
“I’m being silly,” she said, throwing her head back, the hair shifting like silk. He sensed that she was terribly upset, but determined to hide it.
“What is it?”
“You must trust me,” she said, the yellow flecks in her eyes clear against the deep blue. She pressed her face against the window and, shielding her eyes from the interior glare, peered into the snow-filled night.
“What can you see?” he asked.
“A white world.”
“Perhaps the train will get stuck,” he said hopefully.
“Never,” she replied, her breath making a puddle of vapor on the window.
Suddenly, Anna Petrovna picked up the champagne glass and tossed off its contents in one gulp. Alex reached into the bucket and filled their glasses again.
“I must not be gloomy,” she said, smiling. She drank the champagne and again he refilled their glasses.
“Are you hungry?” Alex asked, pointing to the caviar.
Anna Petrovna shook her head. He felt her anguish.
“What is it?”
“I want to go back.”
He dared not question her further. Tomorrow the train would arrive in Irkutsk and the spell would be broken. He had vowed to himself not to think about it.
“Give the rest of the champagne to that idiot there,” he told the waitress, pointing to the KGB agent. But when they rose and started back toward their compartment, the red-haired man rose instantly to follow.
“Bastards,” Alex hissed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said as they walked through the icy vestibule. “It was a lousy celebration,” he said, opening the door of their compartment. He felt the half-digested caviar, a heavy glob bloating his stomach.
Anna Petrovna sat down on the lower bunk. “Perhaps it was because there was nothing to celebrate.”
She began to shake, burying her face in her hands. The size and strength of her body only added to the image of despair; a frail woman could not have looked half so desolate. He sat beside her. As their bodies touched she moved into his arms. Kissing her cheeks, he could taste her tears.
“We are heading to oblivion,” she whispered, sobbing.
Then, after a while, she stood up.
“There will be nothing, not a trace of memories anywhere. Only nothingness.”
She rested her head against the door, then pounded it with her fist.
“Alex, if only I could say—if only I could make you understand.”
He stood up and moved close to her, kissing her hair, whispering in her ear.
“I can understand.”
“Will you forgive me my deceit?”
“Your deceit?” They were the words he had told himself he would never hear.
“You will never forgive me,” she said, moving to the other end of the compartment. She faced him. Behind her he could see the snow smashing against the window.
“You have something to tell me,” he said, his heart racing.
“I have been working for the KGB,” she said quietly, the words a bullet aimed at his brain. He felt his tongue freeze in his mouth and a sudden heaviness in his legs. Of course, he told himself. Had he had any illusions? “I knew,” he wanted to say. But it wasn’t true.
“It is not the first time I have done so,” she said. “But the last time was years ago.”
He must have looked as if he were about to speak.
“Don’t. Let me go on,” she said. “For the love of an ideal you are sometimes willing to suspend what you might call personal integrity. You do it for your country. I do it proudly for mine. We have a viable experiment here. We are trying to provide a better life for everyone, all the people. I live by that concept. Considering man’s greed and selfishness, it is no small achievement that we have gone even this far. There have been abuses, I admit that. But I am not ashamed of having helped to root out our enemies. I was quite prepared to give anything to such a cause.”
She paused, clicked open her handbag and shakily lit a cigarette. For a moment, he thought she might collapse into tears again. Her speech had been ridiculously formal, lines from a bad play. He felt her pain and his own despair. It was all a charade, after all.
“Alex”—she paused—“my darling Alex,” she said softly. He wanted to cry himself. “You have information locked in your head that could have consequences for millions.” Dimitrov had said, “Be careful. They are clever.”
“Dimitrov is planning a nuclear strike against the Chinese,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
He watched the confusion in her face. Her body tightened as if it had been struck. Which of them, in the end, had engaged in the greater deception?
“You knew.?”
“Yes.”
“In his dacha? Then?”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing?”
“That again.” He paused. “I am not a killer.” Then it occurred to him that Dimitrov could have sent her. If not Dimitrov, then who?
“You must be one of the jackals.” He spit the words through his teeth. “What is it you want from me then?”
“Will he live long enough to do it?”
“Who wants to know? Who hired you to find out?”
“Zeldovich.”
“Zeldovich?” It was less clear than ever. “But he is Dimitrov’s lackey.”
“I know his reputation.”
“He’s the hatchet man. He does the dirty work. Everyone knows that.”
“It doesn’t matter. Our goals are the same.”
“Goals?”
“He is trying to save lives—Chinese and Russian.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes. And you have confirmed what Dimitrov intends.”
“Cross cross and double-cross,” he said in English.
“What does that mean?”
“It means”—he paused, remembering suddenly what they had shared—“it means that we are both cooked geese. It means that we possess information that cannot contribute to our longevity. It means—” A thought intruded, pulling him up short. “But you are getting off at Irkutsk.”
She slumped against the door as if she were about to faint. “No,” she said weakly. “He has asked me to stay.”
“Asked?” Alex shook his head. “With a trainload of troops and that red-haired goon and God knows who else?”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “He is trying to prevent a horror, a crime against humanity. He is acting out of morality.” She was shouting at him now. “There’s one man, at least, with the courage to act.”
“Then why didn’t he put a bullet in Dimitrov’s brain? He was with him every day. He could go back to Moscow right now and do it.”
Anna Petrovna’s upper lip trembled.
Of course, Alex thought, Zeldovich would do it if he could get away with it. But what was Zeldovich without Dimitrov?
“He is trying to save his own skin. He wants to know how much time Dimitrov has so he can chart his own course. If Dimitrov goes on for years, so does Zeldovich. If Dimitrov is to die quickly, so does Zeldovich—unless he finds a way out.”
She was cowering now, all defenses crumbled.
“You are his dupe,” he said gently, thinking about himself and his feelings for her. He wanted to draw her into his arms. “And a marvelous actress,” he said bitterly.
“Alex—” she began, a hint of tenderness in her quivering voice. Then she pulled herself back to the danger.
“I saw him kill Grivetsky. The general from the restaurant car.”
“Zeldovich?”
“Yes. In his compartment. Next to ours.” She pointed to the common wall.
“He knew about us. Of course, he knew.” Alex felt unclean, disgusted.
“Grivetsky was to be Dimitrov’s instrument. He was going to take command of the operation.”
“And he was killed for that reason?”
“What other reason? He would have killed Zeldovich. And me. Nothing, no one was to stand in their way.” Her courage seemed to be returning. “We have delayed the plan. At least for the moment.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
“What?”
“You are the witness.” He wanted to hurt her at the same time that he wanted to protect her. “Anna Petrovna,” he said firmly, “if Dimitrov dies, you are Zeldovich’s insurance. He will be able to say he killed Grivetsky to prevent the actions of a madman. It will be his reprieve.”
“And if Dimitrov should live?” The question did not need an answer. If only she meant nothing to him. Was it too late for that? His anger rose as he thought of Dimitrov, the charming monster. Could he bring himself to kill him for Anna Petrovna’s sake when he could not do it to save countless anonymous thousands? Or even to save himself?
“We have both been made fools of,” he said, thinking of how she had betrayed him.
“No.” She was emphatic, her voice rising in protest. The train was slowing for another brief stop. “You must not think of yourself that way,” she said in a whisper.
“It is not important how I think of myself. That’s not the main question.”
“When Dimitrov discovers that Grivetsky is gone,” she said quietly, “he will send someone else. It is all a matter of time.”
“Time again,” Alex thought aloud.
“How long will Dimitrov live?”
Was she thinking now of her own life? he wondered.
“I told you.”
“You gave me possibilities. Nothing definite.”
“What if I can’t be any more definite?”
She shrugged. “You must get word to the Americans, to the President.”
“From here?”
He looked at her, felt her anguish. And his own. He felt no compassion for either the Russians or the Chinese. He was not politicized like Anna Petrovna, or Dimitrov, or the President, or the Secretary of State.
“How long will Dimitrov live?” Anna Petrovna asked, her voice a whisper again.
“If you put a bullet in his brain you would know to within a millisecond. That is much simpler.”
“How long?”
“I told you.”
“Please. Tell me again.”
“Anytime—from now, this minute, or months from now, or years. That is the simple statistic. The odds get better as time goes on. As of four days ago, the disease was in remission. If the cells suddenly multiply again, he will begin to droop like a marshmallow over a fire. The end could be quick or slow, painful or quiet. He is sixty-nine years old. Anything can happen at that age. In any event, if there is a problem, he knows exactly where to find me.”
His voice rose well above the din of the train. The compartment seemed to have shrunk; he felt it caving in on his head. Suddenly it was all too much. He reached for the door handle and escaped into the passageway, walking swiftly in the direction of the hard-class carriages. In the space between the carriages he paused, letting the cold seep into him. He had to get off the train, he told himself. That, above all. This was a claustrophobic nightmare, and he was afraid for his sanity.
Walking through the darkened restaurant, he smelled scoured pots. The little manager was slumped over a table, snoring loudly. At the end of the carriage, in the faint light, Alex squinted at the timetable hanging in the glass frame. He compared it with his watch, which was still running on Moscow time. The train would reach Irkutsk in a few hours. Irkutsk, the name had once brought back the richness of his grandfather’s stories, the feeling that a piece of his life was there to be retrieved. Now it represented a dividing point, a chapter’s end. He had had quite enough of the Trans-Siberian Express, with its illusions of time and space. Looking behind him, he waited for the footsteps of the ubiquitous red-haired man, but he was not there. Alex walked on.
In the passageway of the hard-class carriage he took comfort in the noise and smells of the surrounding community. The never-ending chess marathon was still in progress. He felt the warm breath of the men as they watched intently, the old man still in the same position, all eyes concentrating on the chess board.
“He has won continuously for the past three days,” someone whispered in Alex’s ear.
“He has retrieved his respect,” another said.
Pushing past the crowd, Alex looked into each compartment as he passed. He finally found an empty spot, in an upper bunk near the door of the last car, the one before the troop carriage. Again he looked behind him, searching the passageway for the red-haired man. Then he slipped into the compartment and climbed onto the empty bunk, feeling the hard wooden surface against his spine.
Could he excuse her betrayal? He wanted to forgive her. After all, she too had been betrayed. Pawns in a terrible game. Both of them had been used and humiliated. If only he could stop the flow of his anger. Conversations drifted across his consciousness, bits of reality that could not find understanding in his overheated brain.
“Dimitrov is our man,” the President had stated—the President of the United States—and he, Alex, had accepted the contention as easily as if he had been watching a deodorant commercial on television. “He is committed, apparently, to a more moderate stance toward the Chinese,” the President had said, and that time Alex had heard the hedge—“apparently.” So even the President wasn’t sure, Alex thought, his mind grasping the possibility like a drowning man reaching for flotsam. Could he be convinced, even if Alex could get the word out? More than likely they would think him a raging idiot.
“You don’t believe in this thing we have created, Kuznetsov?” Dimitrov had said. Alex could remember the exact place in the woods near the dacha, the river rushing below them, the winter sun setting as they walked slowly along a gravel path. Dimitrov’s cheeks glowed slightly with the exertion. He is responding, Alex remembered thinking. He was hardly listening to the conversation, his concentration focused on Dimitrov’s physical reactions, the spring of his step, the measure of his energy, his alertness. Only now, as he played the conversation back, did it hold his interest.