“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Don’t despair. I won’t let them drag you off to the basement.”
“But can you stop them from shipping me off to the Arctic Circle?”
“We may have to turn to your father for help, if that becomes the question.”
“When he finds out I’ve been working for you, he may not be so eager to save me.”
Uncle Vladimir laughed. “That’s the spirit! Always think the worst! Then you’re never surprised or disappointed.” He got serious again. “I can talk to your father, if that becomes necessary. I doubt that it will.
“Go back to work. If there are any further developments concerning Gagarin and the cosmonauts in their revolt against the Central Committee, tell me immediately.”
32
Katya
When I returned to my lonely room that night, I found I had a visitor — Katya. This was the first time we had seen each other since my accident. “Oh my God, look at you!” she said, referring to my cast. “They’re going to kill you, if you’re not careful.”
“I’m careful,” I said.
She nudged the cast with the toe of her boot. “Not careful enough.” Then she kissed me.
Since our meeting at Baikonur, we had struck up a relationship of sorts. My training left me little time for a social life; the relative inaccessibility of Star Town was also an obstacle. Then you had Katya’s travel schedule, which often took her to the Central Observatory in the Crimea and no doubt to other scattered institutes of the Academy of Sciences.
It was much like my relationship with Marina — long absences punctuated by brief hours of passion. It wasn’t love, of that I was sure. Katya was a decade older than me, with not only a husband but a good number of other lovers before me. And possibly at the same time. I never asked; Katya’s regal bearing, the sweep with which she entered a room, or a conversation, made such questions seem almost blasphemous.
“It’s bad enough they make you live in a closet. Now they’ve crippled you so you can’t leave.”
“I can leave. I was in Moscow today. I even saw Vladimir.” This was what passed for dangerous conversation between us, the fact that I had met her through my uncle. I had never told him that we had met again, much less become lovers, leaving that to Katya, who in any case saw Vladimir more often than I.
“Dear Vladimir,” she said, sighing. I asked her what she was doing at Star Town. “Instruction in lunar geography and photography,” she said.
It was my turn to laugh. “That was the class I missed today!”
“I know. I was handed a very formal excuse by some young officer. Besides, I wasn’t the actual lecturer: I was merely along to control the materials, to make sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Meaning the Air Force of the USSR?”
She smiled. “Exactly.” Then she looked around my quarters. “Do you have anything to eat…?”
“Not even a potato,” I said. “But there is a café at the station.” I meant Tsiolkovsky train station, the stop nearest Star Town.
“You’re spending all your money!” Katya was much like my mother in her frugality.
“I’m only using the money I’m saving on furniture.” This was pathetic, but true. The flat had come with some of the worst furniture I had ever seen in my life, and I had grown up on military bases. It was heavy, blocky, badly varnished, if at all. The couch was covered with some greasy green fabric that had, I think, formerly been used to protect a truck.
Katya reached for her coat. As she did, there was a knock at the door, which I answered. It was Shiborin, looking flushed and excited, as if he had just run to the residence block from the training center. “There’s a lot of excitement,” he said, panting.
Then he saw Katya behind me, and froze. With her experience in the world of Security, she said, quietly, “Would you like me to leave? Or do you want to talk out there.”
Before I could answer, Shiborin said, “Out here. It will only be a minute.”
Door closed, he got excited again. “Did you tell me you worked for Artemov?”
“I was at the bureau when he took it over last year. But I never worked directly for him.”
“Good, then you’re probably safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Shiborin looked down the dark, dingy hallway. “Artemov was taken in for questioning by State Security today.”
“How do you know that?”
“I happened to be in the sauna when Belyayev and Saditsky came in. They had been over at the bureau trying to find out why the civilians have a better L-1 simulator than we do, and suddenly this whole meeting was called off. They saw Artemov and a bunch of other people being loaded into cars, and Saditsky recognized them as State Security.”
I still didn’t believe it. “Even if they got in those cars, it doesn’t mean they were being arrested or questioned—”
“Belyayev asked these guys, the men in the black coats, he called them. And they just flashed passports at him — a Hero of the Soviet Union! — and told him to mind his own business!” Shiborin shook his head. “He was still pretty steamed when he got to the sauna.” He grinned, to make sure I got his joke.
“Who was taken with him?” I was thinking of poor Filin, who would have to be hospitalized for months to recover from something like this.
“A bunch of second-level people — his little group of pets. Oh yeah, that guy you said you knew — the Georgian.” I had pointed out Lev Tselauri to Shiborin and my classmates during one of our pointless, if not openly hostile, meetings with Artemov and his staff. So Lev had been swept up.
He and I had avoided each other since our last meetings at Baikonur, back in April. I had no idea of how he and Marina were doing, whether she had given birth to a boy or a girl. I didn’t even know where they were living.
“Who would be powerful enough to haul Artemov around?” I asked. “Who’s bigger than Ustinov?”
“The Central Committee and the Politburo,” Shiborin said, with satisfaction. “Representing the Party and the people—”
He was in danger of lapsing into boilerplate propaganda, so I interrupted. “I’ll see what I can find out.” I thanked Shiborin, and went inside my flat.
I told Katya about Artemov and State Security. “Good. It’s about time someone disciplined that drunken, incompetent bastard.” This was vintage Katya, never leaving anyone in doubt as to her opinion.
“I’m starving.”
The trains back to Moscow stopped running at ten, so after dinner I packed Katya off. In other circumstances, I would have asked her to spend the night, but knowing how much she hated the flat, feeling somewhat awkward with my cast, and needing badly to speak to my father, I reluctantly let her go.
I wasn’t able to reach him until the next morning. “Yes, I know all about Artemov,” he said. “He’s not being arrested, but questions have been raised about sabotage.” I can’t remember what my father said immediately thereafter, because I didn’t hear him. Maybe it was the word sabotage coming on the heels of mention of Artemov, but it was at that moment that I realized my conversation yesterday with Uncle Vladimir had triggered this. “Yuri?”
My father had noticed my strange silence. “I’m still here.”
“I said, someone probably wants to throw a scare into him. He just arbitrarily canceled one of our programs, you know. Refused to support it.” I had heard rumors that the 7K-VI program was in trouble; this was additional confirmation. “He’s also having big fights on your Moon rocket.”