Edge of Eternity (9 page)

“Dmitri Dvorkin, and I'm here to tell you that Comrade Khrushchev is personally interested in this case.”

“Fuck off, Dvorkin,” said the man. “Comrade Khrushchev knows nothing about this case. You're here to get your sister out of trouble.”

Dimka was taken aback by the man's confident rudeness. He guessed
that many people trying to spring family or friends from KGB arrest would claim personal connections with powerful people. But he renewed his attack. “What's your name?”

“Captain Mets.”

“And what are you accusing Tanya Dvorkin of?”

“Assaulting an officer.”

“Did a girl beat up one of your goons in leather jackets?” Dimka said jeeringly. “She must have taken his gun from him first. Come off it, Mets, don't be a prick.”

“She was attending a seditious meeting. Anti-Soviet literature was circulated.” Mets handed Dimka a crumpled sheet of paper. “The meeting became a riot.”

Dimka looked at the paper. It was headed
Dissidence.
He had heard of this subversive news sheet. Tanya might easily have something to do with it. This edition was about Ustin Bodian, the opera singer. Dimka was momentarily distracted by the shocking allegation that Bodian was dying of pneumonia in a Siberian labor camp. Then he recalled that Tanya had returned from Siberia today, and realized she must have written this. She could be in real trouble. “Are you alleging that Tanya had this paper in her possession?” he demanded. He saw Mets hesitate and said: “I thought not.”

“She should not have been there at all.”

Daniil put in: “She's a reporter, you fool. She was observing the event, just as your officers were.”

“She's not an officer.”

“All TASS reporters cooperate with the KGB, you know that.”

“You can't prove she was there officially.”

“Yes, I can. I'm her editor. I sent her.”

Dimka wondered whether that was true. He doubted it. He felt grateful to Daniil for sticking his neck out in defense of Tanya.

Mets was losing confidence. “She was with a man called Vasili Yenkov, who had five copies of that sheet in his pocket.”

“She doesn't know anyone called Vasili Yenkov,” said Dimka. It might have been true: certainly he had never heard the name. “If it was a riot, how could you tell who was with whom?”

“I'll have to talk to my superiors,” said Mets, and he turned away.

Dimka made his voice harsh. “Don't be long,” he barked. “The next
person you see from the Kremlin may not be the boy who makes the tea.”

Mets went down a staircase. Dimka shuddered: everyone knew the basement contained the interrogation rooms.

A moment later Dimka and Daniil were joined in the lobby by an older man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He had an ugly, fleshy face with an aggressively jutting chin. Daniil did not seem pleased to see him. He introduced him as Pyotr Opotkin, features editor in chief.

Opotkin looked at Dimka with eyes screwed up to keep out the smoke. “So, your sister got herself arrested at a protest meeting,” he said. His tone was angry, but Dimka sensed that underneath it Opotkin was for some reason pleased.

“A poetry reading,” Dimka corrected him.

“Not much difference.”

Daniil put in: “I sent her there.”

“On the day she got back from Siberia?” said Opotkin skeptically.

“It wasn't really an assignment. I suggested she drop by sometime to see what was going on, that's all.”

“Don't lie to me,” said Opotkin. “You're just trying to protect her.”

Daniil raised his chin and gave a challenging look. “Isn't that what you're here to do?”

Before Opotkin could reply, Captain Mets returned. “The case is still under consideration,” he said.

Opotkin introduced himself and showed Mets his identity card. “The question is not whether Tanya Dvorkin should be punished, but how,” he said.

“Exactly, sir,” said Mets deferentially. “Would you like to come with me?”

Opotkin nodded and Mets led him down the stairs.

Dimka said in a quiet voice: “He won't let them torture her, will he?”

“Opotkin was mad at Tanya already,” Daniil said worriedly.

“What for? I thought she was a good journalist.”

“She's brilliant. But she turned down an invitation to a party at his house on Saturday. He wanted you to go, too. Pyotr loves important people. A snub really hurts him.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I told her she should have accepted.”

“Did you really send her to Mayakovsky Square?”

“No. We could never do a story about such an unofficial gathering.”

“Thanks for trying to protect her.”

“My privilege—but I don't think it's working.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“She might be fired. More likely, she'll be posted somewhere disagreeable, such as Kazakhstan.” Daniil frowned. “I must think of some compromise that will satisfy Opotkin but not be too hard on Tanya.”

Dimka glanced at the entrance door and saw a man in his forties with a brutally short military haircut, wearing the uniform of a Red Army general. “At last, Uncle Volodya,” he said.

Volodya Peshkov had the same intense blue-eyed stare as Tanya. “What is this shit?” he said angrily.

Dimka filled him in. As he was finishing, Opotkin reappeared. He spoke obsequiously to Volodya. “General, I have discussed this problem of your niece with our friends in the KGB and they are content for me to deal with it as an internal TASS matter.”

Dimka slumped with relief. Then he wondered whether Opotkin's entire approach had been to maneuver himself into a position where he could appear to do a favor for Volodya.

“Allow me to make a suggestion,” said Volodya. “You might mark the incident as serious, without attaching blame to anyone, simply by transferring Tanya to another post.”

That was the punishment Daniil had mentioned a moment ago.

Opotkin nodded thoughtfully, as if considering this idea; though Dimka was sure he would eagerly comply with any “suggestion” from General Peshkov.

Daniil said: “Perhaps a foreign posting. She speaks German and English.”

This was an exaggeration, Dimka knew. Tanya had studied both languages in school, but that was not the same as speaking them. Daniil was trying to save her from banishment to some remote Soviet region.

Daniil added: “And she could still write features for my department. I'd rather not lose her to news—she's too good.”

Opotkin looked dubious. “We can't send her to London or Bonn. That would seem like a reward.”

It was true. Assignments in the capitalist countries were prized. The living allowances were colossal and, even though they did not buy as much as in the USSR, Soviet citizens still lived much better in the West than at home.

Volodya said: “East Berlin, perhaps, or Warsaw.”

Opotkin nodded. A move to another Communist country was more like a punishment.

Volodya said: “I'm glad we've been able to resolve this.”

Opotkin said to Dimka: “I'm having a party on Saturday evening. Perhaps you would like to come?”

Dimka guessed this would seal the deal. He nodded. “Tanya told me about it,” he said with false enthusiasm. “We'll both be there. Thank you.”

Opotkin beamed.

Daniil said: “I happen to know of a post in a Communist country that's vacant right now. We need someone there urgently. She could go tomorrow.”

“Where's that?” said Dimka.

“Cuba.”

Opotkin, now in a sunny frame of mind, said: “That might be acceptable.”

It was certainly better than Kazakhstan, Dimka thought.

Mets reappeared in the lobby with Tanya beside him. Dimka's heart lurched: she looked pale and scared, but unharmed. Mets spoke with a mixture of deference and defiance, like a dog that barks because it is frightened. “Allow me to suggest that young Tanya stays away from poetry readings in future,” he said.

Uncle Volodya looked as if he could strangle the fool, but he put on a smile. “Very sound advice, I'm sure.”

They all went out. Darkness had fallen. Dimka said to Tanya: “I've got my bike—I'll take you home.”

“Yes, please,” she said. She obviously wanted to talk to Dimka.

Uncle Volodya could not read her mind as Dimka could, and he said: “Let me take you in my car—you look too shaken for a motorcycle ride.”

To Volodya's surprise, Tanya said: “Thank you, Uncle, but I'll go with Dimka.”

Volodya shrugged and got into a waiting ZIL limousine. Daniil and Opotkin said good-bye.

As soon as they were all out of earshot, Tanya turned to Dimka with a frantic look. “Did they say anything about Vasili Yenkov?”

“Yes. They said you were with him. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, shit. But he's not your boyfriend, is he?”

“No. Do you know what happened to him?”

“He had five copies of
Dissidence
in his pocket, so he's not getting out of the Lubyanka soon, even if he has friends in high places.”

“Hell! Do you think they will investigate him?”

“I'm sure of it. They'll want to know whether he merely hands out
Dissidence,
or actually produces it, which would be much more serious.”

“Will they search his flat?”

“They would be remiss if they didn't. Why—what will they find there?”

She looked around, but no one was near. All the same she lowered her voice. “The typewriter on which
Dissidence
is written.”

“Then I'm glad that Vasili isn't your boyfriend, because he's going to spend the next twenty-five years in Siberia.”

“Don't say that!”

Dimka frowned. “You're not in love with him, I can tell . . . but you're not wholly indifferent to him, either.”

“Look, he's a brave man, and a wonderful poet, but our relationship is not a romance. I've never even kissed him. He's one of those men who has to have lots of different women.”

“Like my friend Valentin.” Dimka's roommate at university, Valentin Lebedev, had been a real Lothario.

“Exactly like Valentin, yes.”

“So . . . how much do you care if they search Vasili's apartment and find this typewriter?”

“A lot. We produced
Dissidence
together. I wrote today's edition.”

“Shit. I was afraid of that.” Now Dimka knew the secret she had been keeping from him for the past year.

Tanya said: “We have to go to the apartment, now, and take that typewriter and get rid of it.”

Dimka took a step back from her. “Absolutely not. Forget it.”

“We must!”

“No. I'd risk anything for you, and I might risk a lot for someone you loved, but I'm not going to stick my neck out for this guy. We could all end up in fucking Siberia.”

“I'll do it on my own, then.”

Dimka frowned, trying to evaluate the risks of different actions. “Who else knows about you and Vasili?”

“No one. We were careful. I made sure I wasn't followed when I went to his place. We never met in public.”

“So the KGB investigation will not link you to him.”

She hesitated, and at that point he knew they were in deep trouble.

“What?” he said.

“It depends how thorough the KGB are.”

“Why?”

“This morning, when I went to Vasili's flat, there was a girl there—Varvara.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“She was just going out. She doesn't know my name.”

“But, if the KGB show her photographs of people arrested at Mayakovsky Square today, will she pick you out?”

Tanya looked distraught. “She gave me a real up-and-down look, assuming I might be a rival. Yes, she would know my face again.”

“Oh, God, then we have to get the typewriter. Without that, they'll think Vasili is no more than a distributor of
Dissidence,
so they probably won't track down his every casual girlfriend, especially as there seem to be a lot. You may get away with it. But if they find the typewriter, you're finished.”

“I'll do it alone. You're right, I can't put you in this much danger.”

“But I can't leave you in this much danger,” he said. “What's the address?”

She told him.

“Not too far,” he said. “Get on the bike.” He climbed on and kicked the engine into life.

Tanya hesitated, then got on behind him.

Dimka switched on the headlight and they pulled away.

As he drove, he wondered if the KGB might already be at Vasili's place, searching the apartment. It was a possibility, he decided, but unlikely. Assuming they had arrested forty or fifty people, it would take them most of the night to do initial interviews, get names and addresses, and decide whom to prioritize. All the same, it would be wise to be cautious.

When he reached the address Tanya had given him he drove past it without slowing down. The streetlights showed a grand nineteenth-century house. All such buildings were now either converted to government offices or divided into apartments. There were no cars parked outside and no leather-coated KGB men lurking at the entrance. He drove all around the block without seeing anything suspicious. Then he parked a couple of hundred yards from the door.

They got off the bike. A woman walking a dog said: “Good evening,” and passed on. They went into the building.

Its lobby had once been an imposing hall. Now a lone electric bulb revealed a marble floor that was chipped and scratched, and a grand staircase with several balusters missing from the banister.

They went up the stairs. Tanya took out a key and opened the apartment door. They stepped inside and closed the door.

Tanya led the way into the living room. A gray cat observed them warily. Tanya took a large box from a cupboard. It was half full of cat food pellets. She rummaged inside and pulled out a typewriter in a cover. Then she withdrew some sheets of stencil paper.