Tom Smith - Child 44

Back at his parents’ old apartment, the place where they’d celebrated their wedding, there were friends, neighbours, all keen to take advantage of the hospitality. Elderly men sang unfamiliar songs. Yet there was something wrong with this memory. There were faces that were cold and hard. Fyodor’s family was here. Leo was still dancing but the wedding had become a funeral. Everyone was staring at him. There was a tap at the window. Leo turned to see the outline of a man, pressed up against the glass. Leo walked towards him, wiping away the condensation. It was Mikhail Sviatoslavich Zinoviev, a bullet through his head, his jaw smashed, his head battered. Leo stepped back, turned around. The room was now completely empty except for two young girls — Zinoviev’s daughters, dressed in filthy rags. Orphans, their stomachs were swollen, their skin blistered. Lice crawled across their clothes, their eyebrows and in amongst their matted black hair. Leo closed his eyes and shook his head.

Shivering, freezing cold, he opened his eyes. He was underwater and sinking fast. The ice was above him. He tried to swim upwards but the current was pulling him down. There were people on the ice, looking down at him, watching him drown. An intense pain burned in his lungs. Unable to hold his breath, he opened his mouth.

Leo gasped, opening his eyes. Raisa was seated beside him, trying to calm him. He looked around, confused: his mind half in the dream world, half in this one. This was real: he was back in his apartment, back in the present. Relieved, he took hold of Raisa’s hand, whispering in a hurried unbroken stream.

— Do you remember the first time we saw each other? You thought I was rude, staring at you. I got off at the wrong metro stop just to ask your name. And you refused to tell me. But I wouldn’t leave until you did. So you lied and told me your name was Lena. For an entire week all I could talk about was this beautiful woman called Lena. I’d tell everyone, Lena’s so beautiful. When I finally saw you again and convinced you to walk with me I called you Lena the entire time. At the end of the walk I was ready to kiss you and you were only ready to tell me your real name. The next day I told everyone how wonderful this woman Raisa was and everyone laughed at me saying last week it was Lena this week it’s Raisa and next week it’ll be someone else. But it never was. It was always you.

Raisa listened to her husband and wondered at this sudden sentimentality. Where had it come from? Maybe everyone got sentimental when they were sick. She made him lie back and before long he was asleep again. It had been almost twelve hours since Dr Zarubin had left. A slighted, vain old man was a dangerous enemy. To take her mind off her anxieties she made soup — a thick chicken broth with strips of meat, not just boiled vegetables and chicken bones. It bubbled on a slow heat, ready for Leo when he was able to eat again. She stirred the soup, filling a bowl for herself. No sooner had she done so than there was a knock on the door. It was late. She wasn’t expecting visitors. She picked up the knife, the same knife, placing it behind her back before moving closer to the door.

— Who is it?

— It’s Major Kuzmin.

Her hands shaking, she opened the door.

Major Kuzmin was standing outside with his escort, two young, tough-looking soldiers.

— Dr Zarubin has spoken to me.

Raisa blurted out:

— Please, take a look at Leo for yourself—

Kuzmin seemed surprised.

— No, that isn’t necessary. I don’t need to disturb him. I trust the doctor on medical matters. Plus, and don’t think me a coward, I’m fearful of catching his cold.

She couldn’t understand what had happened. The doctor had told the truth. She bit her lip, trying not to let her relief show. The major continued:

— I’ve spoken to your school. I’ve explained that you’ll be taking leave in order to help Leo recover. We need him fit. He’s one of our finest officers.

— He’s lucky to have such concerned colleagues.

Kuzmin waved this comment aside. He gestured at the officer standing beside him. The man was holding a paper bag. He stepped forward, offering it to her.

— This is a gift from Dr Zarubin. So there’s no need to thank me.

Raisa was still holding the knife behind her back. In order to accept the bag she’d need both hands. She slipped the blade down the back of her skirt. Once it was in place she reached forward, accepting the bag, which was heavier than she expected.

— Will you come in?

— Thank you, but it’s late and I’m tired.

Kuzmin bade Raisa goodnight.

She shut the door and walked to the kitchen, putting the bag on the table and taking the knife from the back of her skirt. She opened the bag. It was filled with oranges and lemons, a luxury in a city of food shortages. She shut her eyes, imagining the satisfaction Zarubin was enjoying from her feelings of gratitude, not for the fruit, but for the fact that he’d merely done his job, for the fact that he’d reported that Leo was genuinely sick. The oranges and lemons were his way of saying she should feel indebted to him. Had another whim taken him, he might have had them both arrested. She emptied the bag into the bin. She stared at the bright colours before picking out every piece of fruit. She’d eat his gift. But she refused to cry.

19 February

This was the first time in four years that Leo had taken an unscheduled leave of absence. There was an entire category of Gulag prisoner convicted under violations of work ethic; people who’d left their station for an undue amount of time or who’d turned up for their shift half an hour late. It was far safer to go to work and collapse on the factory floor than to pre-emptively stay at home. The decision whether or not to work never resided with the worker. Leo was unlikely to be in any danger, however. According to Raisa he’d been checked on by a doctor and Major Kuzmin had paid him a visit, giving the OK to take time off. This meant that the anxiety he was feeling had to be about something else. The more he thought about it the more obvious it became. He didn’t want to go back to work.

For the past three days he hadn’t left his apartment. Shut off from the world, he’d stayed in bed, sipping hot lemon and sugar water, eating borscht and playing cards with his wife, who’d made no allowance for him being ill, winning almost every hand. For the most part he’d slept and after that first day he’d suffered no more nightmares. But in their place he’d felt a dullness. He’d expected the feeling to fade, convinced that his melancholy was a side effect of the methamphetamine slump. The feeling had got worse. He’d taken his supply of the drug — several glass phials of dirty white crystals — and tipped it down the sink. No more narcotic fuelled arrests. Was it the drugs? Or was it the arrests? As he’d grown stronger he found it easier to rationalize the events of the past few days. They’d made a mistake: Anatoly Tarasovich Brodsky had been a mistake. He was an innocent man caught up and crushed in the cogs of a vital and important but not infallible State machine. It was as simple and as unfortunate as that. A single man didn’t dent the meaningfulness of their operations. How could he? The principles of their work remained sound. The protection of a nation was bigger than one person, bigger than a thousand people. How much did all of the Soviet Union’s factories and machines and armies weigh? Compared to this the mass of an individual was nothing. It was essential that Leo keep matters in proportion. The only way to carry on was to keep things in proportion. The reasoning was sound and he believed none of it.