And now, it should be added, she certainly didn’t want to move anywhere else.
Raim had stood on the other side of the street, trying as hard as he could to think up what he would say on the off chance that Lidia Petrovna’s flat was not occupied by new inhabitants who might have her forwarding address. But when Lidia Petrovna appeared at the front door he recognised her straight away. Fortunately she didn’t glance in Raim’s direction but headed straight off towards town. Beautiful, majestic and completely her own woman, just as if all those years had never passed.
“I’ve been living here for ages,” said Lidia Petrovna, “and you only just found me.”
It was actually a question, but Raim didn’t yet know how to answer.
“I still have that drawing of yours somewhere,” Lidia Petrovna said with a grin.
Chapter 18
The Lenbumprom delegation travelled back by air, since Gennady Vassilyevich had to be sure to return in time for his son-in-law’s birthday party that evening. As soon as they arrived back at Pulkovo Airport he said goodbye to the rest of the group and headed straight for the VIP channel; if they’d gone by train he would have had to wait with the others while customs went through everyone’s bag. The procedure always took more time coming back from Finland.
Alex collected his small suitcase from the luggage carousel and headed for the customs queue. Unfortunately a large number of passengers from Finnair’s New York flight had transferred on to their flight, and they had trolley-loads of cases and bags with them, so it looked like they had a long wait ahead. Alex was tired and sweaty, and by now the effects of the wine he’d drunk during the pre-departure lunch were starting to wear off, which wasn’t a particularly pleasant sensation. He wasn’t afraid of anything happening at customs, since he had hardly anything of any interest with him apart from a couple of Miles Davis albums. He noted with a sigh that the other queue, which the majority of the Leningrad Paper Industry people had decided to join, was now moving slightly faster, but there was no point in changing queues.
The customs desk gradually got closer and closer, until finally the rather elderly Jewish man who was standing in front of Alex started to lift his cases with New York luggage tags one by one on to the conveyor. First the big ones, then the smaller ones, and then the duty-free carrier bags at the very end. The old man was sweating a lot more than Alex.
There were two customs officials: one to look at the contents of the cases on a screen, the other to rummage about in the cases which had been opened.
“Do you fancy a beer?” the second customs official asked his colleague when the duty-free bag had finally come out of the other end of the X-ray machine. The old man was standing there holding his passport and customs declaration in one hand, and trying to work out whether he was now allowed to put his things back on to the trolley.
“See what he’s got,” the first customs official said, without lifting his gaze from the screen in front of him.
The duty-free bag had come from a shop at Helsinki Airport.
“Nikolay,” the second customs official said, yanking himself a can from the six-pack and opening it.
“Ah, I’m not so keen on Nikolay, it always gives me a headache,” the first one said.
“Excuse me,” the bag’s owner said in Russian which had a heavy Odessa accent, “is bringing beer into the Soviet Union banned now?” He was still holding his passport and the customs declaration in his hand.
“Hey, no one was talking to you,” the second customs official said in his direction, taking a long swig from the can.
“I was just asking,” the old man said in a fluster. “But how about a stamp, do I get a stamp in my papers now?”
“Ah, he was just asking,” the customs official sneered. “Maybe he thinks he’s got rights or something?”
“He’s an émigré now this one,” the other one sniggered from behind the screen.
“We’re still dealing with you,” the customs official informed the man, pointing at the largest of his suitcases. “Show us what’s in this one!”
With shaking hands the man turned the case on its side and snapped the lock open. Inside were neatly packed dress shirts, a stripy wool jumper and a large teddy bear with a pink ribbon around its neck. The customs official pulled it out of the case.
“Hey, Vasya, we had some sort of tip-off about drugs hidden in soft toys, didn’t we?” he shouted over to the first official, without taking his gaze off the man.
“We sure did,” the other one laughed.
“Now then,” the official announced, placing his beer on the conveyor belt and taking a pair of scissors from the drawer. “Will you cut it open yourself, or should I?”
“Please, comrades, stop it, take all my beers instead, that bear is a present for my granddaughter!” said the old man in alarm, but the customs official had already stabbed the bear in the stomach with the scissors, sending filling material flying in all directions. The official then made a show of rummaging about inside the bear’s stomach for a bit before throwing it back to the man.
“Please accept my apologies on behalf of the Soviet Customs Committee,” announced the official with a broad smile. “There was a mistake, you can go now.” He picked up the stamp and marked the man’s customs declaration.
“That’s just incredible!” said the old man, unable to restrain himself any longer. “You’re some kind of… I don’t know what…”
“Yes Comrade Citizen, I’m listening…” said the customs official. “Maybe we should do a full body search on this one?” he added to his colleague.
“No, leave the fucker alone, Sanyok,” grunted the man behind the screen. “I’m not struck on poking around his fat arse.”
By now the people in the queue had grown more and more edgy, and a woman standing behind Alex had furtively fished a twenty-mark note out of her pocket and placed it between the pages of her passport.
“Gather up your bits and bobs old man,” said the customs official in an almost friendly tone. “The homeland awaits.”
“And what exactly are you looking at?” the other official asked Alex coldly.
“Nothing,” Alex said in a similarly flat tone, and he placed his suitcase on the conveyor.
“Please tell me the grounds on which I am being detained,” Karl demanded. “And whether I am entitled to see a lawyer.”
He was making a point of behaving calmly and politely, but he looked quite different to the last time he’d been sitting on that stool by Särg’s table. He had a large bruise under his left eye, his right brow was badly messed up and his knuckles were bloody. Arrangements had been made so that Karl was not held in the investigation cell with everyone else, where information could leak out, but in a separate room, which also happened to house two alcoholic ex-boxers.
“You see, even a petty Soviet criminal can’t stand a suspected traitor,” Särg said.
“How did you reach that conclusion?” Karl asked. “I dropped the soap and slipped over.”
“Do you want medical treatment?”
Karl shrugged.
“Not yet,” he mumbled. “But I would like to see a lawyer, like I said.”
Särg leant across the table in Karl’s direction. He knew that Fyodor Kuzmich demanded results; he also knew that they wouldn’t get any today, if at all, but he had to work with what he was given.
“You yourself claim that the Soviet Union is not a law-based state, isn’t that so?” he said quietly, looking Karl directly in the eyes. “So then, we’ll let you spend some time in the version of the Soviet Union in which you and your friends believe. To start with, you are aware that there is no paperwork to prove that you are here at all? On the one hand that gives us more options. But then it gives you more too. If we come to an agreement then you’ll get a genuine medical note to take to work to say that you have been in hospital all this time, that you were taken there unconscious following a car accident. What do you reckon?”