They were accused by Stalin of collaboration with the Nazis. All in all, this was not true. But it was a good excuse for the Soviet bear to swallow up the land at the end of the war and abolish self-rule.
The Crimean Tatar families were rounded up and banished to the Soviet republics in central Asia. Eventually, many of their offspring — like Ludmilla and Kokolev — returned, only to become bitter and disillusioned when they found themselves third-class citizens in their own land.
"Here we are," she said, opening the door.
The cottage was unimpressive from the outside, and even more so in the interior. It was stark and bare, with sagging, rugless wooden floors and Spartan furniture.
Light from a single coal-oil lamp illuminated a large room with a small wooden bed, a table and three chairs, and two sofas that had seen better days decades before. The kitchen was a tiny lean-to reached through an opening knocked through the original wall. An ancient tub sat in one corner with a pipe from its drain running through the wall. There were no pipes evident to run water into the tub.
Ludmilla saw his face as his gaze roamed around the room.
"These are very poor people. They cannot afford to live as you do in the West."
Carter smiled gently. "The West is not all a utopia, Ludmilla. There are poor people there, as well. I will take one of the sofas."
"There is no need," she replied calmly. "There is room for two in the bed."
Without waiting for a reply, she went in search of linen.
Carter found a bottle of vodka. He poured a glass for himself and held the bottle up to her. She shook her head, and shook out a sheet.
He sipped the strong liquid and watched her move around the bed. She had a long, lithe body, and she used it with an economy of movement.
"It's ready," she said at last, and extinguished the lamp.
He heard her shoes drop to the floor, and then she moved to the window. Her voice when she spoke seemed to be disembodied, as if the words weren't her own.
"It will be a clear, moonlit night tomorrow evening."
"Probably," Carter replied, discarding his own shoes.
"Are you frightened?"
"Yes. Why?"
"No reason," she murmured, shrugging out of her jacket. "I just wondered if people like you are ever afraid."
He stripped to his shorts and lay on one side of the bed. She hadn't moved from the window, and he could see, in the moonlight, her hands working on her own clothing.
Idly, Carter wondered if she were standing in the light on purpose, or if she was so lost in thought that she didn't realize that he could see every move she made.
Watching her undress, he found himself touched and affected by the naked slimness of her shoulders and her bare back. She had a beautiful back, but the shoulders were hunched slightly now.
"This man, this Boris Simonov… he must be very important to your people."
"He is."
She turned, poised in the shaft of flickering moonlight, immobile for an instant before moving to the bed. Ludmilla was not a woman of great physical beauty, but looking at the length of her nakedness, Carter felt a heavy sadness because she could so easily become beautiful.
He wasn't surprised when, as she slithered gently into the bed, she moved immediately to his side. She wriggled against him and eased one leg over his thighs.
"I thought tonight, for just a moment," she sighed, "how wonderful it would be to go with you."
"Would you like to?"
"No… not really."
She was silent. Then more movement, until one of his legs was captured between her thighs. He could feel her dampness as well as her softness.
He pulled her back against him. She came willingly and her long, smooth body pressed against his even longer, heavily muscled torso. He rubbed his hand up and down her back and lightly brushed his chin through the scented, golden halo of her hair. She smelled good and felt even better. His resolve not to get entangled began to weaken.
"I could never leave," she whispered. "Even though I am a traitor, I am Russian."
"Do you look upon yourself as a traitor?"
"Yes. Would you like to make love with me?"
"Yes."
"I have very small breasts."
"I hadn't noticed," he said, keeping the smile on his lips out of his voice.
"Good."
Her hand moved through the mat of hair on his chest, down over his belly. Her fingers found the heavy pattern of scar tissue and stopped.
"What's that?"
"Something you'll never have."
Lower, until her fingers found the elastic of his shorts.
It happened so quickly, it practically took his breath away. Her touch was deft, arousing him instantly. Suddenly she had rolled him above her and captured his hips with her straining thighs.
"There," she whispered, and her softness enveloped him.
Two
The bus ride was just under two hours. They both checked into the Soucha Workers' Recreation Center at a little past noon. Carter into the men's section, Ludmilla into the women's.
Carter thought there was some degree of irony in that, considering the very passionate lovemaking they had shared the night before. He thought it, but made a mental note to say nothing. That morning, before they had left separately for the bus that would take them south, Ludmilla had been cool and businesslike.
"When we arrive, do nothing out of the ordinary. Check in, unpack, and go about having a good time on the beach."
"Do you suppose it's all right if we have a chance meeting on the beach?"
She thought for a moment, and then nodded. "I should think so. This time of the year it will probably be a rather wild and drunken crowd. No one will remember seeing us together."
The bachelor cubicle he was assigned was spare but clean and contained all the essentials, and he shared a bath with only three other men. It wasn't exactly Club Med, he thought drily.
Doing as he was instructed, Carter unpacked and headed for the dining room. It was the lunch hour, and everyone else had the same idea. He got a plate of sandwiches and a large mug of beer, and escaped the screaming children by moving into the communal lounge.
Modem sofas and chairs were grouped around glass-and-chrome tables under a large chandelier with small bright bulbs of clear glass. Along one wall a glistening Telefunken console blared a mixture of sad Russian music, rock'n'roll, and American pop songs from the 1940s and 50s.
Ludmilla sat with two women on one of the sofas, picking at food from a lap tray. The two women, one at each of her ears, chattered incessantly. One was a dumpy, matronly sort of about fifty, with a sharp expression in hard eyes glinting behind unflattering glasses. She shoveled food from the tray into her mouth as if she hadn't eaten since childhood. The other was tall, with a reed-thin body, pinched features, and severely cut hair.
Carter started to move toward them, but a warning look from Ludmilla's eyes stopped him. He moved away and found a window table for one.
When she got up to leave, her lips silently formed the words Beach, one hour.
Carter killed a half hour reading propaganda like a good party worker, then returned to his cubicle. He donned trunks, pulled on a sweat shirt to cover his scarred upper torso, took one of the issue towels, and hit the beach.
He baked, wiling away another half hour without looking for her. He figured she would find him. And she did.
She was working her way down the beach in a state of constant flirtation. And she had a lot to flirt with in the process.
She wore a scarlet cloth twisted around her head, turban fashion, and a scarlet knit top so tight-fitting that every hint of a curve on her sleek figure was shown to maximum effect. The sweater was high at the neck, and the sleeves stopped just above the elbows. She had slender, browned arms, her delicately shaped hands tipped with scarlet nail polish. The bikini bottom barely covered the essentials and left her long, tapering legs nicely bare to ogle.