She smiled and stepped back toward him. “The state has made the right choice with your promotion, Bear. They know a loyal member of the party when they see him.” She shivered.
They smiled at the farce they played even in the privacy of their home — a Navy home near a secret Navy base on the other side of Kola Bay from Severmorsk where the larger Northern Fleet Headquarters was located.
“You are cold,” he said.
“We are now north of the Arctic Circle. It is hard not to be cold,” she said, her lips pursing.
He laughed. “Ah, Elena; you do act as if you are such a weak, innocent Soviet woman. I pity anyone who crosses you.”
She smiled. “And I hope you never forget it.” She leaned forward and hugged him. Stepping back, her hands stroked the shoulder boards. “My captain first rank,” she said with a sigh. “I cannot tell you how hard I worked for this promotion.”
“Oh,” he exclaimed. “And I suppose you think I had little to do with it.”
She stepped back.
There was that twinkle in her eye. He loved the twinkle. He loved the slender neck that after this many years and through the war with the Nazis never grew a line or a mark. Men’s eyes turned when her narrow waist swung that gorgeous butt when she walked. He sighed.
“What are you thinking, my husband?”
“I am thinking the cold weather will require you to hide your body beneath layers and layers of wool and cotton to keep it from freezing so hard you would be unable to walk. With so many layers you would waddle instead of walk.”
The smile left her face, and her blue eyes widened. “What a horrid thing to say. Stop thinking like that. Let’s change the subject. When will you make admiral?” she asked, wrapping her arms around him. “I do so want you to make admiral.”
“I just made captain first rank, Dorogojj. The party will determine if I can serve it at a higher, or even lower rank.”
“Never a lower rank. You are so loyal. We have sacrificed so much for the party and for the Soviet Union. They will recognize your dedication and professional zeal—”
He interrupted, “You talk like. .” He couldn’t think of a good word to finish the sentence.
“See,” she said, “even you know you will be an admiral one day.”
“Why? So you can show up those wives who rub your nose in the success of their husbands?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Of course,” she answered petulantly. “Wives enjoy the ranks of their husbands as much as their husbands do. Now that you are a captain first rank, I can sit in the front row.”
He frowned. “Let’s hope no one hears my beautiful wife talking about class status.” He bent down, his eyes flickering from side to side as if searching for something. “Someone might hear.”
Her smile disappeared. “I told you — don’t joke about that,” she said.
He nodded, his smile disappearing also. “You are right. It is a bad joke.” Then in a louder voice, Anton added, “Whatever is good for the party is what I will do. Our people sacrificed so much in the war, and now we must sacrifice for the good of our people.”
She turned, her nightgown whirling seductively as she walked away. She looked back over her shoulder. “What time do you have to be on the boat?”
He looked at the small Soviet-manufactured clock on the side table of the bed. It showed four o’clock.
“Did you wind the clock last night?”
“Yes, I wound the clock. It only works for a few hours, so I find myself spending all day winding the clock. Nothing works—”
He looked at his wristwatch and interrupted, “It’s ten to seven.” As if hearing him, a car horn beeped from the road in front of the house. “My driver is here.” He grabbed the heavy wool bridge coat off the chair and slid the coat on quickly.
“Why doesn’t he come to the door and knock? Shouldn’t a captain first rank deserve a knock instead of a beep?”
He smiled. “We are all equal in the Soviet Union.”
“I don’t want an equal husband in the Navy; I want to be an admiral’s wife. Make him wait.”
“He might drive off without me.”
“He would never!” she said with a trace of shock. “Never drive away and leave a captain first rank stranded at home.”
He walked toward the door. “Come here and kiss me away, Dorogojj.” Most likely the driver was KGB, but his wife knew this as well as he did. Those most likely to disappear into the background of life as drivers, sweepers, trash collectors; all of them could be members of the Committee for State Security. The fact never bothered him, for there were people within the Soviet Union who would die to destroy the socialist life being developed for all. If you were innocent, then you had nothing to worry about. As his father always told him, you can never make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
She walked to him; her eyes locked with his, and then she stood on tiptoes when he bent down to buss him on the cheek. “I would kiss you on the lips, but this close to the door, they would freeze together.”
“Then I would have a hell of a time explaining to the admiral why I have my wife attached to my lips this morning.”
She stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t tell me you were going to see the admiral this morning.”
“There are many things in the Navy we don’t tell our wives because they ask too many questions and sometimes they talk too much.”
He grabbed her and kissed her on the lips. “There! We were lucky this time. We did not freeze together.”
Anton took in the Kola Bay morning as the driver weaved around potholes, a near-constantly blowing of the horn at everything and everybody as he sped along the narrow road leading toward the other end of the sealed base. The car took a sharp right turn in the road, nearly throwing Anton into the middle of the backseat. The turn brought the ribbons of dense smoke rising from the hidden dark, gray factories of the city of Murmansk into view. Sludge from the mining operations ran into Kola Bay, on the eastern side of the city. Murmansk was around the far bend to his right; Kola Bay separated the man-made city from the research and development facility where he was to work.
He wondered for a moment what weapons he would be testing on the K-2 project. Elena would be shocked to discover that he had no idea what he was to be doing, much less the name number of his boat.
“The smoke of the workers,” the driver said with a nod from beneath his woolen black hat.
“Yes,” Anton answered. “They are being very productive.” The man was obviously not a sailor. He had expected a Navy person to be his driver. As he studied the man’s face, the driver reached up and scratched his rough-shaven cheek. Fingers stuck through missing fingers of a glove, probably cut away to make driving easy but keep the hand warm at the same time. The fingers were clean and gave an impression of being soft — not the fingers of a man used to hard work.
“You know, comrade, that Murmansk is the largest inhabited city north of the Arctic Circle.”
Anton acknowledged the comment. Murmansk was new by Soviet standards. The party created it in 1927 along the ice-free Kola Bay. The unfrozen body of water ran northeast nearly fifty-five kilometers to the Barents Sea. Murmansk was the manufacturing, mining, and fishing industry might of the North. The smoke poured from the stacks of hundreds of plants sitting side by side near the shores, disrupting the clear Arctic morning that settled over the perpetually frozen city. Kola Bay, at one time, must have been a natural paradise, disrupted only by the occasional hunter, sparse fishermen, and the cries of wolves. He would have loved to have seen it.
“The party has done so much for this region. Until Murmansk, there was only Severomorsk and the Northern Fleet. Now we have industry; people have food; and all thanks to the foresight of the party.”