Tom Smith - Child 44

Leo looked at his mother. Her face was as pale as the lank cabbage leaves she held in her hand. She was quite calm. She didn’t contradict Stepan, asking instead:

— When do you have to decide?

— I have two days to gather evidence. Then I must report back.

His parents continued with the preparation of dinner, wrapping mince in the cabbage leaves, laying them side by side in a baking tray like a row of thick, dismembered thumbs. No one spoke until the tray was full. Stepan asked:

— You’ll eat with us?

Following his mother into the living room, Leo saw that there were already three place settings.

— You’re expecting a guest?

— We’re expecting Raisa.

— My wife?

— She’s coming for dinner. When you knocked on the door we thought you were her.

Anna laid a fourth plate on the table, explaining.

— She comes almost every week. She didn’t want you to know how lonely she finds it, eating with only the radio for company. We’ve become very fond of her.

It was true that Leo was never home from work at seven. A culture of long working days had been fostered by Stalin, an insomniac, who would take no more than four hours of sleep a night. Leo had heard that no one in the Politburo was permitted to leave until the lights of Stalin’s study were turned off, normally some time past midnight. Though this rule didn’t apply exactly to the Lubyanka, similar levels of dedication were expected. Few officers worked anything less than ten-hour days, even if several of those hours were spent doing nothing at all.

There was a knock. Stepan opened the door, allowing Raisa into the hallway. She was as surprised as his parents to see Leo. Stepan explained:

— He was working nearby. For once we can eat together as a family.

She undid her jacket, which Stepan took from her. She stepped forward, close to Leo, looking him up and down.

— Whose clothes are these?

Leo glanced at the trousers, the shirt — these dead men’s clothes.

— I borrowed them — from work.

Raisa leaned closer, whispering in Leo’s ear.

— The shirt smells.

Leo moved towards the bathroom. At the door, he glanced back, watching as Raisa helped his parents with the table.

Leo had grown up without running hot water. His parents had shared their old apartment with his father’s uncle and his family. There had been only two bedrooms, one bedroom for each family. The apartment had no inside toilet or bathroom, the occupants of the building had to use outdoor facilities which were without hot water. In the morning the queues were long and in the winter, snow would fall on them while they waited. A private sink full of hot water would’ve been an impossible luxury, a dream. Leo stripped off the shirt, washing himself. Finished, he opened the door, asking his father if he could borrow a shirt. Though his father’s body was work-worn — stooped and shaped by the assembly line as surely as the tank shells that had been shaped by him — he was of a roughly similar frame to his son, a strong build with broad, muscular shoulders. The shirt was a close enough fit.

Changed, Leo sat down to eat. While the golubsty finished baking in the oven, they had zakuski , plates of pickles, mushroom salad and for each of them, a thin slice of veal tongue cooked with marjoram, left to cool in gelatine and served with horseradish. It was an exceptionally generous spread. Leo couldn’t help but stare at it, calculating the cost of each dish. Whose death had paid for that marjoram? Had that slice of tongue been bought with Anatoly Brodsky’s life? Feeling sick, he remarked:

— I can see why you come here every week.

Raisa smiled.

— Yes. They spoil me. I tell them kasha would be fine but—

Stepan interjected:

— It’s an excuse to spoil ourselves.

Trying to sound casual, Leo asked his wife:

— You come here straight after work?

— That’s right.

That was a lie. She’d gone somewhere with Ivan first. But before Leo could consider it further, Raisa corrected herself.

— That’s not true. Normally I come here straight after work. But tonight I had an appointment, which is why I’m a little late.

— An appointment?

— With the doctor.

Raisa began to smile.

— I’d meant to tell you when we were on our own but since it has come up…

— Tell me what?

Anna stood up.

— Would you like us to leave?

Leo gestured for his mother to be seated.

— Please. We’re family. No secrets.

— I’m pregnant.

20 February

Leo couldn’t sleep. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the slow breathing of his wife, her back pressed against his side not out of any deliberate expression of intimacy but through chance movements. She was an unsettled sleeper. Was that enough reason to denounce her? He knew it was. He knew how it could be written up:

Unable to rest easy, troubled by her dreams: my wife is clearly tormented by some secret.

He could pass responsibility for the investigation to another person. He could kid himself that he was deferring judgement. He was too close, too involved. But any such investigation would only come to one conclusion. The case had been opened. No one else would position against a presumption of guilt.

Leo got out of bed and stood by the living-room window, which had a view not of the city but of the apartment block opposite. A wall of windows with only three lights on, three out of a thousand or so, and he wondered what worries were troubling the occupants, what was keeping them from sleeping. He felt an odd kind of companionship with those three squares of pale yellow light. It was four in the morning, arresting hour — the best time to seize a person, to grab them from their sleep. They were vulnerable, disorientated. Unguarded comments made as officers swarmed into their homes were often used against suspects in their interrogations. It was not easy to be prudent when your wife was being dragged across the floor by her hair. How many times had Leo smashed a door open with the sole of his boot? How many times had he watched as a married couple were pulled from their bed, flashlights shone in their eyes and up their nightclothes? How many times had he heard the sound of an officer laughing at the sight of someone’s genitals? How many people had he pulled from their beds? How many apartments had he torn apart? And what of the children he’d held back as the parents were taken away? He couldn’t remember. He’d blocked it out: the names, the faces. An indistinct memory served him well. Had he cultivated it? Had he taken amphetamines not to work longer hours but to erode the memories of that work?

There was a joke, popular among officers, who could tell it with impunity. A man and his wife were asleep in bed when they were woken by a sharp knock on the door. Fearing the worst they got up, kissed each other goodbye.

I love you, wife.

I love you, husband.

Having said their goodbyes they opened the front door. Standing before them was a frantic neighbour, a corridor full of smoke and flames as high as the ceiling. The man and his wife smiled with relief and thanked God: it was just the building on fire. Leo had heard variations on this joke. Instead of a fire there were armed bandits, instead of armed bandits there was a doctor with terrible news. In the past he’d laughed, confident that it would never happen to him.

His wife was pregnant. Did that fact change anything? It might change the attitude of his superiors to Raisa. They’d never liked her. She’d never given Leo any children. In these times it was expected, demanded that couples have children. After the millions who’d died fighting children were a social obligation. Why had Raisa not become pregnant? The question had dogged their marriage. The only conclusion was that there was something wrong with her. The pressure had been cranked up recently: questions asked with greater frequency. Raisa was seeing a doctor regularly in order to address the issue. Their sexual relations were pragmatic, motivated by external pressures. The irony didn’t escape Leo that just as his superiors got what they wanted — Raisa pregnant — they wanted her dead. Perhaps he could mention that she was pregnant? He dismissed the idea. A traitor was traitor, there were no exonerating circumstances.