Joseph Kanon - Defectors

“To go to the Black Sea?” Sounding somehow like a joke.

“For a rest. You know the Service has a clinic there, to improve the health. It would be good for her.”

“What does Frank think?”

Vassilchikov shrugged. “He says she can rest here. But maybe after you leave—then he can go with her. You know, he depends on her so much.”

Simon looked at him, thrown slightly off balance. The KGB urging a rest cure, Simon trying to listen between words. A scheme? Or genuine concern? A girl who once went away with him. Long dark hair, body arched back toward the dance floor, everybody watching, maybe just him watching, holding her waist, in his hands. The memory of it here like a flash, then gone. Now a woman slurring warnings in his ear. Not to be mentioned the next day. It occurred to him then, looking around the dreary Moscow courtyard, that they had all thrown their lives away, everything they thought they were going to be. Or maybe Frank had done it for them.

“Are you going to stand there gossiping like two babushkas?” Frank was in the doorway. “Come in, come in. I thought you’d never get here. What was the problem? Traffic? Couldn’t be. That’s in the next five-year plan.” He had put his arm around Simon’s shoulder, guiding him in. “Careful here.” He pointed to the concrete step, a chunk crumbling at the edge. “Lift is on the fritz today, I’m afraid. Well, every day. But much better for the health. Good exercise. It’s only two flights. Keep the noise down, though. Madam has a headache.” Raising an eyebrow, just between them, making a joke of it. “So what took you so long?”

“Mr. Weeks went for a walk.”

“What, alone? Oh, you don’t want to do that. Then Boris doesn’t know where you are and he gets anxious. Blood pressure goes right up, doesn’t it, Boris?”

“I wanted to see Red Square.”

“Not the mummies, I hope.”

“No, just walked around.”

“Then you beat me to it. I was going to show you around later. I like to take walks in the afternoon. Boris too. Never mind, we’ll go somewhere else. Lots to see. Ah, here’s Jo.”

She was standing in the open doorway, arms folded, as if she were holding herself in, a cigarette in one hand. A simple skirt and cardigan, a shy smile.

“There you are. How nice,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “The place is a mess. Ludmilla doesn’t come till tomorrow.”

But it wasn’t a mess, just crowded, every wall lined with bookcases, framed pictures propped against some of the books, a couch and two tired club chairs, a professor’s apartment. Not Mt. Vernon Street, not even the small house near the Phillips Collection.

“So many books,” Simon said to Frank, a tease.

“Jo’s a great reader,” Frank said. “I’m still getting gentleman C’s. But you know, now that I have the time—sometimes we just read all evening.”

“This is the living room,” Jo said. “Not much by your standards, but a lot of space for here. Frank’s study is there—God knows what shape that’s in. He growls if I move a paper. Used to be Richie’s room,” she said, her voice neutral. “Bedroom there. And kitchen. And that’s it. Frank says I’m not to bother you when you’re working, but let’s have coffee first, yes? I can’t just say hello and then not see you. How’s Diana?”

“The same. Fine. She sends her best.” A polite lie.

“Coffee okay? I suppose you’ve been up for hours. As usual.”

“He went to see Red Square,” Frank said.

“Did you?” she said. “And here we are, just out of bed. Come, help me in the kitchen and tell me everything. Boris, coffee for you too?”

“Spasibo,” he said.

“My only word of Russian,” Jo said. “Oh, and pozhaluysta. Covers practically everything, spasibo and pozhaluysta. Just use your hands for the rest.”

“She’s kidding,” Frank said. “Her Russian is excellent.”

“I have a woman comes once a week to talk to me. We have tea. In glasses. She looks at me with these mournful eyes—well, she probably lost somebody in the war. I don’t dare ask, so we talk about the weather. Are the lilacs in bloom? Yes, the lilacs are in bloom. But not so many this year. And then I get the dative case wrong or something and she just sighs. Come. It won’t take a sec. Boris, there’s Izvestia.”

Simon followed her to the kitchen, where she turned on the gas under a kettle. “There’s some cake, if you like,” she said, but was motioning with her hands for him to run the tap water, pointing and making twisting motions.

“No, that’s all right,” he said, turning the tap, his face a question mark.

She came closer to him. “They can’t hear when the water’s running. Interferes with the voices or something. At least that’s what I heard. Anyway, let’s hope so.” She took a long drag on her cigarette and rubbed it out in the ashtray. “I’m sorry about last night. I do that now. I think I’m not going to and then I do. The worst part is that you’re always apologizing.”

“Not to me.”

“No, not to you,” she said softly. “You haven’t given up on me, have you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You see it in their faces.”

“See what?”

“Not that I see anybody anymore. You’re the first since—”

She turned to lift the kettle, which was whistling now, and poured water into the coffeemaker, the sink tap still running.

“Remember Carrie Porter? Maybe you never met. We were at school together. So that far back. And she was here. Spaso House, no less. Visiting the ambassador. I don’t know why—I suppose her husband does something. Anyway, she was at the Metropol. Frank likes to go there. The old world charm. So there we were having dinner, under the stained glass, and I look up and, my God, it’s Carrie Porter. From school. And she sees me and at first she pretends not to and then she realizes I’ve seen her, so she comes over.” She pushed down on the French press.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. Well, what did she ever say? But that wasn’t it. It was the look. She looked at me the way you look at a criminal. Nervous, a little afraid. Something you don’t want to touch. And I thought, my God, that’s what I’ve become. A criminal. Me, Ma Barker.” She smiled a little. “But not so funny, is it, when somebody like Carrie can think it. It means everybody does. A criminal.”

“You’re not a criminal.”

She shrugged. “And Frank? Carrie wouldn’t even look at him.”

“You’re not him.”

“But if I went back, they’d still throw me in the pokey. Anyway, I can’t go back. No passport. It ran out. So how’s it going to end?” She rested her hand on the coffeepot. “Well, we know, don’t we? It doesn’t. It just goes on like this.”

“Jo—”

“Sorry. You weren’t expecting this, were you?” She smiled to herself. “Neither was I. Sometimes I wonder how any of it happened. Was I there? I was going to be like Jo in Little Women, scrappy, take charge.”

“Katharine Hepburn,” Simon said.

“And here we are. In Yermolaevskiy Street. Getting plastered. Apologizing.”

“Stop.”

“Boris wants to send me to a sanitarium. For my health. No bars on the windows. Although what difference would that make?” she said, nodding to the running water. “And you know what? For about five seconds I thought about it. How bad would it be? Like the Greenbrier or someplace. Run by the KGB. Imagine Carrie Porter’s face then. Palm Beach this year? No, Sochi.” She looked down. “But Frank wouldn’t like that. Who knows what I’d say once I got some brandy into me? I say things, apparently.” She turned to Simon. “Don’t stay here. I don’t know what he wants, but he wants something. I know him.” She stopped, folding her arms across her chest again. “Know him. I suppose if there’s anything I didn’t know, it was him.”