Back in the car we drove out of the town and munched the bread and drank the milk as we travelled. ‘I had a conversation with the woman at the pumps,’ said Saltykov.
‘Really?’
‘She asked what the registration of my car was. I explained it was Moscow. She said she didn’t know how long it had been since a Moscow registration had filled up at her fuel pump.’
I waited to see where this story was going, or what the punchline was going to be; but this seemed as far as Saltykov wanted to take it.
‘Well, that’s very interesting,’ I said.
The road took us through other towns and through countryside and finally into the suburbs of Kiev; a great many low concrete buildings, and then, as we came closer to the centre of the city, larger high-rise concrete buildings. ‘[I don’t see any older buildings,]’ said Dora, peering through the glass.
‘[Not much survived the war,]’ I said.
It is an attractive city despite all that: wide boulevards lined with many chestnut trees, or cherry trees, both of which were just starting to bud into blossom. Trams clanked and swayed down the middle of the larger roads; and their electrical cables ruled as-yet unwritten musical scores against the sky. There was an air of mid-morning bustle. It seemed busy, after so much vacant countryside.
‘[And where is the American embassy?]’ Dora asked me.
‘[I don’t know. I shall ask Saltykov.]’
But this conversation did not go well. ‘I don’t know where it is!’ he snapped at me. ‘How should I know?’
‘Well I don’t know either. We need to ask somebody. Find a policeman.’
‘We can hardly address a policeman!’ Saltykov said. ‘Are you insane? How insane are you? Is that the form your insanity takes — drawing a policeman’s attention to us?’
‘The policeman need not know who we are,’ I said.
‘Driving a Moscow car? Asking for the American embassy? How could this not draw attention? Perhaps I should add that I am a qualified nuclear physicist, and that you are on the run from the KGB?’
‘There is no need for sarcasm,’ I suggested.
‘If you persist in—’ Saltykov began, and then he jerked the steering wheel. Saltykov, it seemed, had been compelled to swerve to avoid colliding with a small motorcycle. The tyres sang like sirens, and with a cumbrous shudder the car moved sideways, slid a little, and stopped. Immediately, from surrounding morning traffic, a symphony of horns rang out.
‘You distracted me!’ gasped Saltykov, in outrage. ‘Did I tell you not to distract me when I was driving? And yet you distracted me! I very nearly collided with the two-wheeled vehicle.’
He seemed to be in a very bad mood. I have no doubt that this, of course, was in part to do with his lack of sleep.
‘Move the car,’ I urged, from the back seat. ‘We are blocking the junction.’
‘Do not tell me what to do. And do not distract me,’ said Saltykov.
‘All right — but move the car.’
‘That is telling me what to do! I asked you not to tell me what to do! You deliberately told me what to do after I told you not to tell me what to do! I need hardly tell you how distracting it is to tell me what to do when I have previously told you not to tell me what to do!’
I put my teeth together, behind my lips, and tried counting, silently to ten; in Russian, then in English. I still felt the urge to pound Saltykov with my elderly fists. I tried again in French. At huit Saltykov had calmed down sufficiently to restart the engine and move the car.
We drove through the streets of central Kiev in silence. Eventually, Saltykov drew his car to a stop outside a row of shops. He turned the engine off and withdrew the key. ‘You may go into one of these shops,’ he told me, ‘and ask about the embassy.’
‘Very well,’ I retorted, clambering from the car in a fury.
The first shop sold clothes and, although there was very little by way of stock, there was of course a queue. I contemplated joining the queue, although I would have been queuing not to buy anything but only to ask the way to the American embassy. This, I decided, would be a ridiculous thing to do. So I came out of the shop again, and went into the shop next door: a bookshop. The shopgirl was fitting blocks of volumes into the shelves like a bricklayer; I asked if she knew the whereabouts of the American embassy, and she expressed her perfect and complete ignorance. Coming onto the street again I stopped a passerby: a bearded individual in a black overcoat with a bundle of wooden dowels in his hand. ‘American embassy?’ he said, with a puzzled expression. ‘In Kiev? There’s no American embassy in Kiev. You want Moscow. That’s where the American embassy is.’
‘Comrade,’ I pressed, in a crestfallen voice. ‘You are sure?’
‘What should Ukraine want with an American embassy? Kch, kch, kch.’ This last was a strange little scraping-gulping noise he made in his throat, something I took to be an expression of disapproval. ‘You know, you should know about the embassy being in Moscow,’ he added, his face creasing further from puzzlement to suspicion. ‘You have a Moscow accent.’
‘Thank you, comrade,’ I said, stepping away.
‘Have you come from Moscow to Kiev to look for an American embassy?’ he called after me, pointing at Saltykov’s Moscow numberplates. ‘Why would you not simply go to the American embassy in Moscow?’
I hurried back to the car. The man stood on the pavement staring at us. ‘Drive away,’ I told Saltykov.
‘Did that individual give you directions?’
‘There’s no American embassy in Kiev,’ I snapped. ‘Just drive away, before he flags down the Militia and we are all arrested.’
‘No American embassy?’ said Saltykov in his implacable voice, pointedly not starting the engine of his taxicab. ‘But that is not good news.’
I explained the situation to Dora. ‘[Oh no!]’ she said, her flawless brow creasing with dismay. ‘[What can we do? Oh no! And we came all this way!]
‘[It would be terrible to think that the deer died in vain.]’
‘What did she say?’ Saltykov wanted to know.
‘She considers it unfortunate.’
‘Indeed. Of course, on the other hand, it was necessary for us to come to the Ukraine, embassy or no embassy. So it is not entirely unfortunate.’
‘Necessary?’
‘I have already explained,’ said Saltykov. It is crucial that we make our way to the nuclear facility at Chernobyl, not far from here. It must be today. Tomorrow would be too late.’
‘You are sure about the date?’
‘I am sure of what Coyne told me.’
‘We can hardly take Ms Norman to the nuclear facility.’
‘Indeed!’
The man on the pavement was still there. He had tucked his faggot of wooden dowels under his arm and had taken out a notepad and a pencil in order to write down the registration number of Saltykov’s taxi. ‘We must go,’ I said. ‘That man is writing down your numberplate.’
‘Get out and remonstrate with him,’ Saltykov told me.
‘You do it!’
‘But I have a disinclination to interact with strange men, on account of my syndrome. You must do it.’
‘Certainly not.’
Making unhappy noises, Saltykov started his car and drove away. ‘The situation cannot be helped,’ he said. ‘We must take Ms Norman to a hotel. We must book her into a hotel, and then you and I must drive out to Chernobyl.’