Tom Smith - The Secret Speech

— I refuse to accept that test.

Ignoring Raisa, Stavsky crouched down, speaking slowly and clearly:

— Elena, you are going to be taken to a special hospital. They will try and make you better. It is possible that you may never see Raisa again. However, I will make sure that you are well looked after. These men will help you. If you do not wish to go, if you wish to stay, if you wish to remain here with Raisa, all you have to do is say so. All you have to do is say no. Elena? Do you hear me? All you have to say is no.

Elena did not reply.

INESSA, TIMUR’S WIDOW, opened the door. Leo entered the apartment. For several months after returning from Kolyma he’d expected that Timur would appear from the kitchen, explaining that he hadn’t been killed, he’d survived and found a way home. It was simply impossible to imagine this home without Timur. He’d been his happiest here, surrounded by his family. However, the designation of accommodation was a process without compassion. According to the system’s calculations Timur’s death meant, quite inarguably, that the family needed less space. Furthermore, their modern apartment had been a perk of his job. Inessa worked in a textile factory and the men and women she worked alongside made do with far more modest living arrangements. Using his blat , his influence, Leo had fought to keep the family where they were, requesting that Frol Panin intervene. Perhaps feeling a sense of responsibility for Timur’s death, Panin had agreed. Yet to Leo’s surprise Inessa had been tempted by the prospect of moving out. Every room was steeped in memories of her husband. They left her breathless, so sad she could barely function. Only when Leo had shown her the apartment block where she would be relocated to, a single room, shared facilities, thin walls, did she relent, and only then because of her two sons. Had she been alone, she would’ve moved out that same day.

Leo gave Inessa a hug. Separating, she accepted the loaf of bread:

— Where did this come from?

— The bakery underneath our offices.

— Timur never brought home bread.

— The people who worked there were too scared to talk to us.

— But not now?

— No.

Like the movement of a shadow, sadness passed across Inessa’s face. The homicide department had been Timur’s too. It was gone.

Her two sons, Efim, ten years old, and Vadim, eight, hurried out of their bedroom to greet Leo. Though Timur had died working for Leo, his sons bore him no ill will. On the contrary, they were pleased by his visits. They understood that Leo had loved Timur and that their father had loved Leo. All the same, for Leo, their affection was a fragile pleasure, certain one day to break. They did not yet know the details of what had happened. They did not yet know their father had died trying to put right the wrongs of Leo’s past.

Inessa ran her hand through Efim’s hair as he spoke excitedly about his schoolwork, the sports teams he was playing for. As the elder son, Timur’s watch would be given to him when he turned eighteen. Leo had replaced the cracked glass and the interior mechanism, which he’d kept for himself, unable to throw it away, occasionally taking it out and resting it on the palm of his hand. Inessa had not yet decided what story she would tell Efim about the watch’s origins, whether to lie about it being a treasured family heirloom. That decision was for another day. Addressing Leo she said:

— Will you eat with us?

Leo was comfortable here. He shook his head:

— I have to go home.

ARRIVING BACK AT HIS APARTMENT, he discovered that Raisa and Elena weren’t home. The security officers on duty remarked that the pair had left for school in the morning, observing nothing out of the ordinary. Unaware of any plans, he couldn’t imagine what Raisa was doing out at this time of night with Elena. No clothes had been packed: no bags had been taken. Phoning his parents, they didn’t have any answers. His fear wasn’t that Fraera was involved. Zoya’s murder had been her last act of revenge against State Security personnel. After a five-month absence he doubted Fraera would return. There was no need. Leo had been hurt exactly as she desired.

Hearing the noise of someone approach he rushed to the hallway, throwing open the door. Raisa staggered forward, catching the door-frame as if drunk. Leo supported her, taking her weight. He checked the corridor. It was empty.

— Where’s Elena?

— She’s… gone.

Her eyes rolled, her head slumped. Leo carried her into the bathroom, placing her under the shower, running it cold.

— Why are you drunk?

Raisa gasped, shaken awake by the shock of the water:

— Not drunk… drugged.

Leo turned the shower off, wiping Raisa’s hair out of her eyes, sitting her on the side of the bath. Her bloodshot eyes were no longer rolling shut. She stared at the puddles forming around her shoes, her speech no longer slurred:

— I knew you’d disagree.

— You took her to see a doctor?

— Leo, when someone you love is sick, you seek help. He said it would be unofficial, no paperwork.

— Where?

— Serbsky.

At the sound of the name— Serbsky —Leo went numb. Many of the men and women he’d arrested had been sent there for treatment. Raisa began to cry:

— Leo, he sent her away.

Dumb incomprehension, then rage:

— What is the doctor’s name?

Raisa shook her head:

— You can’t save her, Leo.

— What is his name!

— You can’t save her!

Leo raised his hand, arching it back, ready to strike her across the face. In a flash, diverting his anger, he grabbed the mirror from the wall and smashed it in the sink. The shards cut his skin, drawing blood, red lines rolling around his wrists, down his arms. Leo dropped to the floor, bloody mirror fragments scattered around him.

Taking a towel, Raisa sat beside Leo, pressing it against his injured hand:

— You think I didn’t fight? You think I didn’t try and stop them? They sedated me. When I woke up Elena was gone.

Leo turned the defeat over in his mind. It was complete. His hopes of a family had been destroyed. He’d failed to save Zoya’s life and failed to persuade Elena that life was worth living. Three years of honesty and trust between himself and Raisa had been wiped out. He’d lied to her, a lie forever preserved by the calamities that had followed from it. He didn’t feel any anger at Raisa for accepting Fraera’s offer, for agreeing to leave him. Raisa claimed it was tactical and nothing more, a desperate bid to save Zoya. She’d taken their family’s well-being into her own hands. The only mistake she’d made was waiting too long.

The three-year pretense had come to an end. He was no father, no husband, and certainly no hero. He would join the KGB. Raisa would leave him. How could she not? There would be nothing between them except a sense of loss. Each day he’d know that Fraera had been right about him: he was a man of the State. He had changed, but far more importantly he’d changed back. He remarked:

— There was a moment when I thought we had a chance.

Raisa nodded:

— I thought so too.

LEO WASN’T SURE HOW MUCH TIME had passed. They hadn’t moved — Raisa by his side, the two of them on the floor, leaning against the bathtub, the tap dripping behind them. He heard the front door open yet still he couldn’t stand up. Stepan and Anna appeared at the bathroom doorway. No doubt concerned by Leo’s earlier phone call, his parents had traveled over. They took in the room, seeing the blood, the smashed mirror: