‘All right,’ sighed Kaganov. ‘You’re the one who should know the man’s worth.’
‘Have you finished with me now?’ asked Pavel. He made no effort to keep the sneer out of his voice.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’re finished with you.’
The car pulled up outside his apartment and they both sat there.
‘She’s waiting for you,’ said Kaganov, after a while. He tapped the partition and the driver got out and opened the door.
Pavel leaned across, squeezing by the other Russian.
‘Pavel.’
The scientist turned. Kaganov was holding out his hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And goodbye.’
Pavel looked at the offered hand and then up into the man’s face. Then he turned, without saying anything and walked away from the car.
The concierge smiled a greeting at him, but Pavel swept by, anxious now to get to the apartment. The lift made its usual reluctant ascent and Pavel stood, drumming his fingers against the varnished sides, impatient at its slowness.
He hesitated outside the door, preparing himself. It took several minutes. Then, quickly, he twisted the key in the lock and went in.
Valentina was standing in the middle of the room waiting for him. She looked nervous and he thought she had been crying.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello.’
‘I looked out of the window and saw you arrive.’
‘Oh.’
They stood two feet apart, looking at each other. A wisp of hair, the grey part that she was self-conscious about, had slipped out of the band with which she had tied it back and flopped over her ear. Gently he reached out, brushing it back into place. She bent her head, trapping his hand and he kept it there.
‘My darling,’ he said.
She came forward and he held her, feeling her shake. He kissed her several times, waiting for the emotion to subside, then held her away from him, looking into her face.
‘I missed you,’ she said, softly.
‘And I you …’ he said, speaking with difficulty.
‘I was so worried.’
‘Why?’
She humped her shoulders, finding it hard to express herself.
‘You didn’t come back when the show ended,’ she said. ‘I met Dymshits’s wife in the market and she said you had stayed on, for a special reason. But no one knew what it was.’
She nodded to the corner of the room and he followed the gesture. His battered leather case stood there, still locked, near the display case showing his awards. Still junk, he thought, worthless junk.
‘It came back, several days ago,’ she said. Suddenly her control went and she burst into tears and he held her again, stroking her head, trying to calm her.
‘I thought you had defected,’ she sobbed, ‘I thought you had followed Alexandre and abandoned me.’
He went on stroking her hair. ‘Abandon you? You knew better than that.’
‘I know. I know it was silly and I kept telling myself that, but I couldn’t think of any other reason for your not coming back. I tried to find out. I asked people, but no one knew. Or wanted to know.’
‘There was nothing to know … no secret …’
‘Oh dear.’ She put her hand to her mouth and flushed, embarrassed, as if he’d surprised her doing something wrong.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh God, how selfish of me. How can you forgive me?’
‘Forgive what?’
‘I’m so excited that I forgot the most important news. Georgi is back. He’s got a surprise posting and he’s back here in Moscow. We can be together again, like a whole family.’
She burbled on. ‘And then I thought if you’d defected, then Georgi’s posting would be cancelled and he’d be sent back. And we’d be arrested …’
She started crying again.
‘But I kept thinking of you. Of never seeing you again … oh darling, I couldn’t bear the thought of that …’
She turned away, ashamed to face him.
‘That’s all I really thought about … us … just you and me. I didn’t even consider the children … am I so bad … so selfish …?’
She turned back to him, nervously.
‘Do you know what?’
‘What?’
‘I had determined … if you had defected that is … I’d made up my mind to kill myself. I was going to forget the children and kill myself. May God forgive me.’
He held her again and, hidden from her view, fought to control his own tears. She pushed him away, smiling.
‘But now you’re back. Now you’re back and we’re a family again and Georgi is home. Tonight you’ll see him.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And nothing will split us up again.’
‘Promise me?’ she asked.
He recognized the importance of the question to her.
‘I promise,’ he said. Then, remembering his arrival that morning, he added, ‘I’ll never go away again.’
She smiled, holding both his hands in hers. ‘Forgive me, my darling,’ she said, ‘I’m so concerned with myself that I’m ignoring you. You must be tired. Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, that would be nice.’
He followed her, as he always did, into the kitchen and watched as she brewed the samovar. Occasionally she glanced up and their eyes met and they smiled, complete without conversation.
An hour later Valentina arrived home from the academy and he spent thirty minutes reading the latest reports of her prowess with the violin and then, as it was getting dark, Georgi arrived, roughened by life in the barracks, wearing his coarse uniform, slapping his father on the back, swearing occasionally to record the fact that he was an adult.
They had a celebration dinner, with Georgian wine and borsch, with mutton dumplings, and occasionally Pavel’s wife cried with happiness and the children laughed at her, believing she was a little drunk.
They made love that night, unhurriedly and with great tenderness, two people treading a well-established path, and she cried again, but this time from pleasure.
He was almost asleep when she spoke and he struggled back from the edge of exhaustion, concentrating on what she was saying.
‘Viktor.’
‘What?’
‘I know I shouldn’t ask … that because of what you do it could be none of my business … but I was so worried …’
‘What?’ he said, holding her head against his chest. ‘What is it?’
‘Where were you? Why didn’t you come home, like the others?’
He lay quietly in the darkness, breathing deeply. So long did he take to reply that Valentina thought he had fallen asleep.
Then he said, ‘I was allowed to make a visit, a special trip, to someone who helped me once …’
Again there was a long pause. Then he added, ‘I had to say goodbye to an old friend.’
A Biography of Brian Freemantle
Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain’s most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.
Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the Daily Mail, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city’s orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives — and sold a bundle of newspapers.