'Tanya Rusakova, I believe.' I leaned towards her a little as I said it. 'I hope I'm not wrong.'
Then her eyes were on me for the first time, a shimmering and iridescent green, widening in surprise.
'Yes.'
'Shokin,' I said, 'Viktor Shokin. You won't remember me.but I think we live on the same street — Grafskij Prospekt? I've seen you there sometimes. And I passed through your office the other day. You' re at the Ministry of Transport, Motor Division?'
'Yes. I'm sorry, but I — '
'You were busy at your desk. I came in for a new driving licence, that was all.'
'I see.' she wished I hadn't recognized her, wished I weren't here.
When the waitress came we tried to get her to bring us anything except boiled chicken, but it didn't work: it was all they'd been given, she said wearily, when the caterers had loaded the galleys in Moscow.
'You're going right through to Beijing?' I asked Tanya while we were waiting.
'No.' she hadn't smiled yet, even as a social gesture, perhaps found it difficult, even impossible, because of her state of nerves and the overwhelming hatred she felt for General Velichko.
'Vladivostok, then,' I said, making it an amusing guessing game. She didn't answer, looked everywhere but at me. 'I'm a journalist, you see, and we're always asking questions, aren't we? I'm afraid the media hasn't got a terribly good reputation for the preservation of privacy. I'm going to Beijing. Have you been there?'
'No.' she was studying the menu, using it as a refuge.
'General Velichko is going there,' I said and she swung her head up and stared at me, more than surprised, shocked. That was my impression.
'I don't know him.'
She'd said it too fast, with her mouth too tight, and those fine sensual nostrils had flared and the light in her eyes was still burning, the hot light of the hatred I'd seen when she'd been looking at him, AD AM HALL at General Velichko, here in the dining car last night, her eyes looking down most of the time but on occasion drawn to him as he sat five tables down the aisle.
He'd been the only one of the three facing her; the other two had been sitting side by side with their backs to her. That was why I could be quite sure they'd been for Velichko, no one else, those sudden looks she'd given him, precipitate, spontaneous, and so very dangerous, though she'd been unaware of that. I would have felt afraid for her if I hadn't also seen, last night, that she could dissemble, Tanya Rusakova, when she wanted to — had given the good general the faintest of smiles as she'd left her table and walked past him along the aisle, what you would call the suggestion of a come-on.
She wasn't a tart. There were a few of them on the train but she wasn't one of them. She wasn't an actress, even though that smile for the general, however tenuous, had taken talent to produce, considering what she really felt for him. She was, as Galina had found out for me, a government clerk in the Motor Division of the Ministry of Transport, living alone on Grafskij Prospekt, thirty-two, unmarried. Her destination was Novosibirsk, not Beijing or Vladivostok, as I'd known. Her brother, an army captain, was stationed there.
General Velichko was also going to Novosibirsk, and I'd known that too, and that was why I'd thought it very interesting, that look of shock in the flashing green eyes when I'd said just now, General Velichko is going there too. I'd been looking for a reaction and I'd got it, and it had been more extreme than I'd expected Most of it was because I'd suddenly spoken the very name of the man who inspired so much hatred in her, but it must have been partly because of the deliberate dropping of disinformation. I'd been prepared for her to say, no, he's not going to Beijing, something like that, but it hadn't happened. She didn't want to talk about that man, not a word, had been tempted, surely, to get up and find another table if she could, or leave the dining car and this damned journalist with his damned questions.
Was she worried that I might be right, that she'd been mistaken, hat General Velichko wasn't in fact going to leave the train long Before Beijing, at Novosibirsk? How important was it to her?
Plates, suddenly, dumped onto the table in front of us, and the unappetizing smell of boiled chicken, none too fresh. Thank you, we said. She'd been quick, the waitress, even though the car was almost full and the other girls were flying around with trays and dishes and jugs of beer, the fat uniformed supervisor watching hem, hands on her hips. I wished our food had taken longer; I wanted as much time with Tanya Rusakova as I could get.
Zymyanin had wanted to know why I hadn't followed him out of here last night, since I must have recognized him. It was because I'd wanted to stay until the young woman with the silver-grey fur hat left her table, in case I could learn something. The Bureau should do everything, Zymyanin had said, to keep those men under surveillance. Apart from that, he'd given me almost nothing. That could have been because he didn't know anything yet, anything major.
Perhaps this woman did.
They were there tonight, the men I called the generals, six tables along the aisle. Did she know, Tanya? Did she want to look round to see if they were there, if he were there, Velichko? They weren't talking; they hadn't been talking last night; they sat with their food, eating it as a necessity, looking up from the table very seldom, when someone went past them along the aisle; they were the sort of men who'd want to know what company they kept, but here they didn't show concern: they had their bodyguards.
I didn't think Zymyanin had noticed Tanya Rusakova last night, except as a woman, as any man would — look at the eyes, the cheekbones, the infinitely attractive mouth — but he'd been concentrating, with his oblique and casual glances across the dining car, on the three men, and hadn't caught, I believe, the expression in Tanya's eyes when she'd looked at Velichko.
'I'm going to spend a night,' I said, 'in Novosibirsk.' this chicken really was bloody awful, God knew what they'd done to it down there in the galley, wiped it all over the floor, conceivably; she was taking her time, perhaps wouldn't say anything at all.
'Yes?' she didn't lookup. She was wondering how to ask me the question that was burning to get out: Why had I mentioned General Velichko, quite out of the blue?
'Just to break the journey,' I said. 'I wouldn't think there'd be much to do, in a place like Novosibirsk. Would you?' The Rossiya blew its whistle just then and the sound came with "' the shock effect of a scream in the night and she almost flinched, and I wanted to comfort her in some acceptable way, put my hand over hers just for an instant; she wasn't having much fun, Tanya Rusakova, sitting here with her nerves like an open wound, sensitive to loud noises, to the sudden mention of a name.
'There's an opera house,' she said.
'Oh, really?'
Then she covered it, too late. 'So I believe.'
An attempt to disassociate herself from the city of Novosibirsk, to be noted.
'Are you fond of the opera?'
'I quite like it, yes. Prince Igor.' she put her knife and fork together, her chicken unfinished, and got her grey leather bag, giving me a glance in passing with nothing in her eyes except perhaps distrust. 'Goodnight,' she said, and slipped gracefully between the bench and the table.
'It — ' was a pleasure, but I broke off, starting to rise and then stopping at once but not before she noticed it. I caught a look of surprise. It was so easy to forget and it could be so dangerous. Behave like a Russian, be like a Russian, think like a Russian…
She walked down the aisle, and I watched — I watched very carefully — the man sitting six tables along, heavy-faced, broad-shouldered, impressively-tailored. He glanced up as Tanya Rusakova passed him, and by his expression I could see that there had once again been a smile for the general.