Tom Smith: Agent 6

– I cannot intervene in your trial. However, I have been able to petition for Zoya and Elena to be granted permission to visit you. I have succeeded. They will arrive tomorrow.

The shift from despair to elation was too much. Exhausted from a lack of sleep Leo sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, breathing deeply. Ivanov added:

– In exchange I ask only one thing. Do not tell Elena that I arranged it. Please do not mention me at all. It will ruin it for her.

It took Leo a moment to recover. His voice was weak, the anger and indignation was gone.

– You could have arranged this without telling me?

Ivanov nodded.

– I could have done.

Ivanov turned around, about to leave. Leo called out:

– Why?

Ivanov hesitated, taking out a photograph and showing it to Leo, his fingers trembling. It was a photograph of Mikael Ivanov seated beside his wife. She was pretty rather than beautiful with generous eyes and open features. Leo asked:

– You told her what you were doing?

– Yes.

– Did you tell her why?

– She thinks it’s a random act of kindness, an expression of my good nature.

After studying the couple’s expressions for a moment, Leo returned his gaze to the floor. Ivanov slipped the photograph back in his pocket, adding:

– In her eyes I’m a good man. That’s as close as I can expect to actually being one.

Once again Leo sat in the interrogation cell with his arms and legs in restraints waiting for his daughters. Once again several hours had passed with no answer from the guards, no clue as to what was happening. He glanced at the pipe in the corner of the ceiling. The thirty-third drop of water was forming at the rusted joint. Almost six hours had passed. Was it possible that Ivanov had lied to him? No, the remorse he’d seen in his face had been real and impossible to feign. But he might have been manipulated by more important men, lied to and falsely assured that he could deliver the good news only so that the traitor would suffer even more today when they did not arrive. Hope and despair were the torture instruments in play: the authorities switching between the two with such expert cruelty that Leo struggled to breathe as he imagined the future. He would remain here in ignorance, tormented by broken promises. He would never know if his daughters wanted to visit. He would never know if it was their decision to stay away Not knowing would break him and it would break him long before the trial reached its inevitable conclusion. As the thirty-third drop of water fell Leo could no longer fight back his frustrations and he leaned forward, bowing down before his torturers, sinking his head to the table.

Some time later, the cell door opened. Leo didn’t sit up. He didn’t look. If he allowed himself to picture his daughters at the door when they were not there, he might not be able to survive the disappointment. He could feel his heart weakening with the pressure of the past week. However, he could not suppress a faint hope and he listened carefully. He could only hear one set of footsteps – heavy boots – it was the KGB officer. Leo closed his eyes, grinding his teeth in expectation of those awful words: Not today.

But the guard said nothing. After a moment Leo opened his eyes, scared by the flutter in his chest. He listened again, hearing the unmistakable sound of someone crying.

Leo sat up sharply. His daughters were at the door. Elena was crying, Zoya was holding her sister’s hand. Both of them were beautiful in their different ways, both of them were scared. Leo froze, unable to speak or smile. He would not allow himself to feel happiness until he was sure this was not a dream, or a deception conjured by his sleep-deprived mind. Perhaps he was delirious, imagining his daughters when in fact he was still lying on the table. His mind had played games with him before. He had seen a vision of Raisa in the Afghan cave. She’d been a comforting illusion, one that had dissolved and disappeared when tears formed in his eyes.

Leo stood up, his steel restraints rattling. His daughters stepped into the cell, walking slowly towards him. Watching them in motion, observing the details of their posture, he was amazed by the lifelike details of this apparition. But he would not feel joy. He would not laugh or delight in this moment. He could not commit to it. He had no doubt, no doubt at all, that they would vanish as soon as he touched them, or if he closed his eyes their surface would shimmer, the light would break apart and they would be gone and he would be alone. They were a projection from his mind, a mirage, constructed to protect himself from the bleak reality that he would never see them again.

Exhausted, trembling and on the brink of insanity, Leo said to them:

– Make me know that you are real.

He noticed that Elena was pregnant, a fact he had not known, or been told. As he began to cry, his daughters hurried forward, wrapping their arms around him. And finally Leo allowed himself some happiness.