The wide embankment was clear of cars and pedestrians. I nipped across the road, threw the old locks into the river, and hurried back to the far pavement. I was still walking towards the mouth of the alleyway when Sergei's car came towards me; but by then I was a safe distance from the church.
All the way back to Balashika I was uncomfortably aware that I stank like a sewer rat. But Sergei made no comment, and when I paid him off at the barrack gate I gave him twenty dollars over the odds, so that he went off in high good humour.
My own schedule was tight, but possible. The lads were still out on their night exercise, so there was no need for explanations. My first date with Anna had gone down the tubes; but under our new arrangement she had agreed to pick me up at 8:45, 50 I just had time for a shower. One hell of a shower it had to be, too. I washed my hair twice to get rid of the smell, and as I scoured myself all over, I felt my spirits lifting.
The worst part of the evening was over. What lay ahead I wasn't sure, but at least there was a promise of some action and excitement.
Comfortable in clean clothes, I again left word with the scalies and headed for the guardroom. I'd asked Anna not to drive in,
in case any of the lads saw her and started taking the piss, and I found her sitting outside at the wheel of her little blue Fiat. As I climbed into the passenger seat I got a kiss on the cheek and a waft of heady scent not the cheap rubbish that the slappers at the hotel had been doused in, but something sophisticated and Western. In the dim light I couldn't see exactly what she was wearing, except that it was a trouser suit. She had a big fur coat thrown back off her shoulders, over the seat.
"Great to see you!" I went.
"Great of you to come. Where are we going?"
"A restaurant called the Taiga." She turned and gave me a peculiar look, not quite mocking, but definitely amused.
"That's not your kind of tiger, by the way." She spelled the word out and said, "It means the forest in Siberia, the wild forest. The restaurant's only a small place. No tourists ever go there. But it has proper Russian food."
"Sounds good," I said.
"In fact, it sounds tremendous. I haven't eaten all day."
"Well," she said, as she zipped through the gears, 'tell me the story.
"Sasha must have told you already."
"He has. But I want to hear your version."
"You will. But I won't bore you with it yet. Wait till we get there. I need a drink to get me going."
"All right. It's not far."
Once again we sped down that damned road, then cut away through the northern edge of the city. I complimented her on the car, on her driving, on her clothes (even though I couldn't see them) anything to avoid plunging into the saga, because I was afraid that once I'd started, everything would come out.
My mind was whirling as Anna pulled up in a scruffy sidestreet.
"Here we are," she announced.
A small, red sign proclaiming TAIGA glowed faintly above a battered wooden door. If you hadn't known what the place was you'd never have given it a second glance. But inside it was like a forest growing in a cave: real tree-trunks, some birch, some pine, divided up little cubicles from each other, and the ceiling was a riot of branches. The air was warm and full of a wonderfully rich, meaty smell.
The waiters were dressed in forest green. From the way one of them sprang forward to take Anna's coat, I saw that she was a star guest. Another man showed us straight to a table in a corner cubicle: he ushered Anna into her chair and held a brief conversation as he poured out two glasses of vodka from a bottle already sitting in an ice-bucket on the table. That was apparently all the ordering she needed to do: no question of menu or wine list.
She raised her glass and said, "Poyekhali!"
"What's that?"
"It means "Bottoms up" when you're drinking vodka. It's what Gagarin said when he was about to go into space "Let's get moving."
"Pc yekhali, then." I clinked my glass on hers, and we both drank. Now I saw that her suit was made of turquoise shot-silk, and that she was wearing a pearl necklace. For the first time since I'd met her, she'd put on visible make-up not much, but enough to accentuate her good features. She had darkened her eyebrows slightly, which made her eyes look bigger, and a touch of lipstick made her mouth seem more generous. She'd washed her hair, too, and done it so that it stood up in a shiny black curve above her forehead.
"Have some caviar," she said.
"It's the best thing with vodka."
She took the lid off a white pot cradled in a bed of ice, revealing a nest of shiny black eggs underneath. At that moment a waiter arrived with a dish of hot toast wrapped in a napkin.
"Please!" she said.
"Dig in. Is that the right expression?"
"Spot on!" I dug deep with a teaspoon, and heaped caviar on to the toast the best mouthful I'd ever eaten. More vodka, more caviar. She too seemed hungry, eating and drinking level with me. I don't usually pay much attention to food, but the salty fish eggs and ice-cold spirit were such a combination that for a few minutes I really had to concentrate on my taste buds.
"Don't overdo it," Anna said presently, again with that amused glint in her eyes.
"There are other things coming Siberian specialities
"Why all this Siberia suddenly?"
"That's where I come from."
"Really!" I looked at her with new interest.
"Tell me."
She began to talk, quite fast, about how she'd been born in a village called Charysh, three thousand kilometres east of Moscow, in the Altai mountains a primitive community, without electricity in those days, and most of the houses made of wood. Her family had been dirt-poor, but her father was the local schoolmaster, and when Anna had showed intellectual promise at the age of nine, he'd sent her to live with an aunt and uncle in the capital so that she could get a better education.
The waiter brought us hot plates and a bowl from which steam rose in clouds, but Anna was so immersed in her narrative that she didn't immediately notice. Then, breaking out of her reverie, she said, "Look! Pilmeni dumplings with spiced meat. And this is special cabbage, cooked with walnuts."
She helped herself and started to eat, but in a vague manner, not focusing on the delicious food. Her mind was out in the mountains and forests, and on she went, talking, talking, as she recalled how the River Charysh froze over in winter, so thick that army trucks could drive across it, and how, when the snow came, it would blanket the land a metre deep for four or five months on end.
Red wine had appeared on the table. I drank some, and kept eating. The little dumplings were irresistible. I lost count of the number I put away as I listened to her stories, fascinated to see a different, softer, more vulnerable person emerging from the tough chrysalis which was all I'd known so far.
Soothing taped music was playing, no more than a gentle background drone. But suddenly, as a new song started, Anna gave a twitch and cried, "Oh! This one I love." With a flick of the hand she bade one of the waiters turn up the volume, and the sound swelled into that of a male-voice choir, with a single, clear tenor reaching high above a groundswell of sonorous basses.
To my amazement, I saw her eyes fill with tears. For my benefit she began to translate the story, speaking low and fast as each haunting phrase of the song came to an end.
"A man is running through the taiga… He follows the tracks of wild animals… A storm is blowing… His way is long.. Hide him in your breast, dark taiga… Far away he has left his native land, his mother, his wife and children… He will die in a foreign land and be buried there.. His wife will find someone else… But his mother will never find another son.