Now he bit his lip and bent over his notes for Perm. He had no idea how they were going to get the lieutenant there to talk. Follow-up communications with Valentin Gogunov had revealed a wealth of information that might be used as blackmail, but Aleksandr was squeamish about such a tactic, and Gogunov had intimated that it wasn’t going to work anyway. The current plan was that they’d pose as film students, but he hated sending them off with so little to go on. He’d written them a list of possible questions and angles and ideas, but it was difficult not knowing the inflections and the wordings, having no way to coach them into asking spur-of-the-moment follow-up questions or detecting bullshit. Sending them was like sending a probe to Mars—he thought of its insect legs folding up into a squat, its motorized head casting this way and that. You could program it to do what you wanted, but it was no replacement for going there yourself and flinging your fingers into the red sand.
“Grib.” Nina was standing in the doorway. She was wearing a silky nightgown, backlit by the moon, casting a sort of shaky, wan light all around her. She cocked her head to one side. “What are you doing?” She sounded like she actually wanted to know.
He spun around in his chair and took off his glasses. “Working on getting the kids ready for Perm.”
“Oh.” Her mouth disappeared somehow. She came to stand behind Aleksandr and rubbed her hands against the grain of his polo shirt. He sucked his stomach in before she could catch it. “Is that going to take all night?” she said.
“What? Why? What did you have in mind?”
Nina tossed her hair over a slim shoulder and arranged her face into what she must have thought was impishness. “I’m bored,” she said. “Let’s go out.”
“Out?”
“You and me? Just this once. We’ll take the car. We’ll drive somewhere. We won’t tell security.”
“I can’t.”
“Aleksandr.”
“I can’t.” He rubbed his eyes ferociously. “You know I can’t. I’m surprised you’d even ask. If I can’t go to Perm, why would I blow everything to go out dancing?”
Nina looked down, her expression flatlining.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t want to go out with you. It’s just that it’s not practical. I know you understand that.” He tried to take her hands, but she kept them balled up into unyielding buds. For a long moment, she said nothing.
“Ninotchka,” he said. “Please.”
“You think you’re going to win this thing?” she said hoarsely.
“Win it?” He stopped trying to get at her hands. “No, Nina. No, of course not.”
“Of course not?” She raised her face to look at him. Through her skin, he could see her veins, blue and vaguely upraised and pulsing with whatever emotions ran to that faraway, inscrutable heart. It must be strange to walk around with vulnerability like that plastered all over your face.
“What,” he said slowly. “Didn’t you know that?”
“I didn’t know you were so sure.”
“I should have thought to mention it.”
She looked down again. There was a faint kinetic charge in the air that he recalled from his chess days—from those moments when he knew somewhere deep in his pulpy cerebrum what was going to happen next, even if he couldn’t have said how.
“You think this is a joke,” she said. “But when I met you, you were a very different man. You used to enjoy life. You used to take some pleasure in people, and in going places, and in having fun. But it’s not like that anymore. We can’t go anywhere, and we can’t do anything, and if I want to have a party, I can’t have it catered and we need to pat down all the guests before they can enter our apartment. It’s no way to live, grib.”
He looked longingly at his notes. It would be another late night at this point. “I’m sorry, Nina.” And he was. He was so sorry. But he’d been apologizing with every gesture, with every advance and retreat, for the better part of a decade. Were there more creative ways to grovel, more imaginative modes of self-flagellation? Possibly, but his energies had to go elsewhere. Nina would have to be content with her current collection of prosaic revenges.
“We do all this and it’s for nothing?” she said. “You say glibly, ‘No, of course I won’t win’? That’s hard for me, grib.”
“I understand.” There was sense to this, he thought. He could squint and tilt his head and see it the way she did. But as soon as he acutely felt her problem, he could immediately see the solution. He screwed his eyes tighter, making effulgent whorls across his eyelids. Leave, then, he thought. I dare you. He stayed still. He listened. Leave, he willed her. Leave. Eventually, she did—but she only went so far as the bedroom, where he could hear the whinny of the closet door closing, the submerged whisking of nightgown against sheet. There was a silence. And then came muffled crying so earnest that it sounded, to Aleksandr, like the sobbing of a stranger.
Aleksandr stayed in the study, barely asleep for the first half of the night, barely awake for the second. When the dawn insinuated itself over the horizon, red as a festering wound, Aleksandr gave up and tried to work. Irina and Boris came in quietly at nine and took their papers into separate corners. At ten, Viktor walked in, his jaw stiff and his movements brittle. He was holding a copy of Novaya Gazeta. “Boss,” he said. “Did you see this?”
He handed the paper to Aleksandr. He’d brought copies for Irina and Boris, too. They opened their papers to the letters-to-the-editor section. In large font, the headline read, ALEKSANDR BEZETOV: THE RIGHT OPPOSITION CANDIDATE FOR RUSSIA? As Aleksandr read, he felt the arteries rioting and tangling in the back of his head. He recognized this as the physiology of rage.
Sir,
Many supporters of reform look to Aleksandr Bezetov as an important opposition figure; indeed, many hope that one day he will be our nation’s second democratically elected president. I have known Bezetov for many years, and I feel it’s time I publicly expressed my deep reservations about his fitness for this role.
What sacrifices has Bezetov really made for our country? What has he risked and lost? Has he truly earned his status as the opposition’s cherished figurehead? Certainly, Russia needs change. Certainly, Russia needs different leadership. But I hate to see so many people staking their hope for this country in someone so corrupt, so lazy—and, though it’s not popular to say so, so scared.
It’s widely known that Bezetov is making a film about the Moscow apartment bombings, and that is a laudable project, indeed. But who has been conducting the actual interviews? Who has been doing the actual work? Not Bezetov—he sends his gang of 20-year-olds everywhere to do his research for him. Bezetov doesn’t like to be out in the world with the people because, ultimately, he is afraid of the people. It’s exactly this arrogant coldness that makes Bezetov unworthy of the reform movement’s regard.
It is possible that Bezetov may yet be able to redeem himself. Insiders know that he has been planning an expedition to a certain military facility, and that—once again—he’s been planning to send his interns. If Bezetov hopes to win credibility among the citizens of his future democracy, he’ll realize that he needs to go there himself. Russia doesn’t need another powerful billionaire who doesn’t care about the people. Russia needs a man who will make real choices—and take real risks—on their behalf.
Sincerely,
Mikhail Solovyov
Aleksandr read, and his shoulders felt rigid, as though his shirt had been pinned to a wall. He retreated to the couch, moving aside a pair of gardening shears to sit. In some part of his head, he wondered why Nina had gardening shears—they didn’t have a garden, after all, they didn’t have a front yard, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have had the leisurely security to work in it. She kept sprigs of basil along the windowsill sometimes, and maybe she’d hoped that by now they’d be summering in a beautiful, enormous dacha somewhere outside the city, with a litter of tiny children playing outside in the dirt. “Well,” he said. “That’s pretty bad.”