'Vitya will take this very badly,' she said. 'He's incredibly nervous at present. He thinks he's about to be arrested. He keeps going back over everything he's ever said, who he said it to and when. Especially during that unfortunate time in Kazan.'
Yevgenia stared at her sister for a while. Finally she said:
'Shall I tell you the most terrible thing of all? This investigator said to me: "How can you claim to be ignorant of your husband's Trotskyism when he himself told you Trotsky's verdict on one of his articles: 'Splendid, that's pure marble'?" On my way home I remembered Nikolay saying to me, "You're the only person who knows those words." That night it suddenly hit me – I told that story to Novikov when he came to Kuibyshev in the autumn. I was horrified. I thought I was going out of my mind…'
'You poor woman. But then that's the sort of thing that would happen to you.'
'What do you mean?' asked Yevgenia. 'It could just as well have happened to you.'
'No. You left one man for another. Then you told the second man about the first. What do you expect?'
'You've probably done the same. You left Tolya's father. I'm sure you've talked about him to Viktor Pavlovich.'
'You're wrong,' said Lyudmila emphatically. 'Anyway that's different.'
'Why's it different?' asked Yevgenia, feeling suddenly irritated. 'What you're saying now is just plain stupid.'
'Maybe it is,' answered Lyudmila calmly.
'Have you got the time?' asked Yevgenia. 'I've got to go to 24 Kuznetsky Most.'
Giving vent to her anger, she went on:
'You've got a difficult character, Lyuda. I can understand why Mama lives like a gypsy in Kazan instead of staying with you in your four-room flat.'
Yevgenia immediately regretted these harsh words. Wanting Lyudmila to understand that the trust between them was stronger than any chance misunderstanding, she said:
'I do want to trust Novikov. But still… Who else could have told the security organs? It's terrible. It's like being lost in a fog.'
Yevgenia would have given so much to have her mother beside her. She would have leant her head on her shoulder and said: 'Dearest, I'm so tired.'
'You know what might have happened?' said Lyudmila. 'Your general might have mentioned this conversation to someone else who then reported it.'
'Yes,' said Yevgenia, 'of course! How strange I never thought of something as simple as that.'
In the quiet calm of Lyudmila's home, Yevgenia felt even more conscious of the confusion inside her… The thoughts and feelings she had repressed, the secret pain and anxiety from the time she and Krymov had separated, the tenderness she still felt for him, the way she still felt somehow accustomed to him – everything had flared up with renewed intensity during these last weeks.
She thought of Krymov when she was at work, when she was in a tram, when she was queuing for food. She dreamed of him almost every night, moaning, crying out in her sleep, waking up repeatedly.
She had terrible nightmares, full of fires and scenes of war. There was always some danger threatening Nikolay Grigorevich – and she was always powerless to protect him.
And when she got washed and dressed in the morning, afraid of being late for work, she would still be thinking of him.
She didn't think she loved him. But is it possible to think so incessantly of someone you don't love? And if she didn't love him, how could she feel such distress over the tragedy that had overtaken him? And why – when Limonov and Shargorodsky made fun of the supposed non-entities who were his favourite artists and poets – did she always want to see Nikolay, to run her fingers through his hair, to comfort and fondle him?
She no longer remembered his fanaticism, his lack of concern over people who had been arrested, the anger and hatred in his voice when he had talked about the kulaks. Now she only remembered his good side; she only remembered what was sad, touching and romantic about him. It was his weakness that gave him power over her. There had always been something helpless in the way he smiled, his movements were awkward and his eyes were those of a child.
She saw him sitting there with his shoulder-tabs torn off and his face covered in grey stubble; she saw him lying on a plank bed at night; she saw his back as he walked up and down the prison yard… He must be thinking she had had a premonition of his fate and that was why she had left him. All night he was thinking about her. Madam general…
She had no idea whether these thoughts sprang from love, pity, a guilty conscience or a sense of duty.
Novikov had sent her a pass and arranged by radio for a pilot he knew to take her by Douglas to Front HQ. Her superiors had given her three weeks' leave to visit him.
She tried to reassure herself, telling herself over and over again, 'He'll understand. He's sure to understand. There just wasn't anything else I could do.'
She knew very well how badly she had behaved towards Novikov. There he was, still waiting for her.
She had written him a mercilessly truthful letter. After sending it off, she had realized that the letter would be read by the military censors. All this could make terrible problems for him.
'No, no, he'll understand,' she repeated to herself.
Yes, of course he would understand – and leave her for ever.
Did she really love him, or was it just his love for her that she loved?
When she thought about the inevitable break with him, she was overwhelmed by fear, melancholy and a sense of horror at the thought of being left on her own. It was unbearable to think that she had destroyed her happiness with her own hands. It was equally unbearable, on the other hand, to think that there was nothing she could do about it, that it was now up to Novikov whether or not they finally separated.
When the thought of Novikov became unbearable, she tried to imagine Nikolay Grigorevich. Perhaps she would be summoned for a confrontation… Hello, my poor darling…
Novikov was tall, strong, broad-shouldered and in a position of power. He didn't need her support; he could take care of himself. She thought of him sometimes as her knight in armour. She would never forget his handsome, charming face. She would always grieve for him, always grieve for the happiness she had destroyed. But what of it? She wasn't sorry for herself. She wasn't afraid of suffering.
But then she knew that Novikov wasn't really so very strong. Sometimes she had glimpsed a timid, almost helpless look on his face… Nor was she really so pitiless towards herself, so indifferent to her own sufferings.
As though she had just read her sister's thoughts, Lyudmila asked:
'So what's going to happen about this general of yours?'
'I can't bear to think.'
'What you need is a good hiding.'
'But there just wasn't anything else I could do,' pleaded Yevgenia.
'I don't like your continual wavering. If you leave someone, you should make a clean break of it.'
'Oh yes,' said Yevgenia. 'Take good care of yourself and keep out of trouble. I'm afraid I can't live like that.'
'That's not what I mean. I don't like Krymov, but I respect him. And I haven't even set eyes on your general. But now you've decided to be his wife, you do have a certain responsibility towards him. And you're not behaving responsibly at all. An important officer with a wife sending parcels to someone in camp? You know how that could end.'
'I do.'
'Do you love him or not?'
'Leave me alone!' said Yevgenia, sounding as though she were about to cry. At the same time she asked herself, 'But which of them do I love?'
'No, I want you to answer.'
'There was nothing else I could do. People don't cross the threshold of the Lubyanka just for the fun of it.'
'You shouldn't think only of yourself.'
'I'm not thinking only of myself.'
'Viktor agrees with me. Really, it's just pure egotism.'