A Very Private Plot (10 page)

She looked at him adoringly. She closed her eyes again just slightly, this time to reach over—the only mark of reticence he had ever spotted in her—and place her right hand in his. He felt the pressure, and returned it. And felt suddenly a wave of feeling he had experienced only in a few isolated moments in his busy young life, years during which he nursed only the one abiding passion, unrelated to what he felt now. They both recognized at this moment that they were heading, inevitably, toward the consummation of a passion new to both of them. It would have to happen—when it could not be denied.

He allowed himself to analyze it. Nikolai Trimov, he did not mind admitting to himself, was as self-disciplined a young man as anyone he had ever known: self-disciplined at Brovary, at Kiev, in the army. Nothing was allowed to distract him from the evolution of his mandate, one whose meaning he had spent his young lifetime struggling fully to discern. All those years spent in internalizing a compulsion seeded when he was fourteen years old, a compulsion he had fondled so diligently, if speculatively, through the fairy-tale, magic-dragon phase (I will wave my magic wand and the bad men will crumble to ashes!), on to the David and Goliath phase on which he was now embarked. A passion that had crystallized into high resolution on the evening—March 24, 1985—when he saw the news documentary depicting the head of the Soviet state declare his wholehearted commitment to fight on in the holy war against the people of Afghanistan in the name of
communism
…

She sensed his distraction and reverted to English: “Is Nikolai unhappiest?”

He woke quickly from the trance. “‘Is Nikolai
unhappy
?' Tatyana. That is all you need to say. ‘Unhappiest,'” he explained in Russian, “is the superlative form.”

She put on the facial contortion she had trained herself to exhibit when one of her students flagrantly misspoke an English passage. “Iss Nikolai on-heppee with Tatyana?”

He renewed the pressure on her hand and said in English, “No, Nikolai is not unhappy with Tatyana. Nikolai loves Tatyana very much. Do you think you can remember that phrase in English? It will take us very far.”

Yes, she said, she would commit the words to memory.

CHAPTER 11

SEPTEMBER 1985

The school clock rang at three, signaling the end of the class hour. The bell was especially welcome when fall was moving in, with its exhilarating cool, and only just a hint of the winter ahead. Viktor Pletnev, short, slender, direct, his eyes light blue and reflective, hurriedly told the students to read the next two chapters in the text in preparation for class on Wednesday. He then sped down to the faculty room to pick up his fortnightly paycheck and any reading matter placed in his open wooden mailbox.

There was a message for him. Professor Shalamov, the chairman of the history department at the university, had called. Pletnev was to report to him as soon as possible.

As he embarked on the long metro ride carrying him to the opposite end of Moscow from where he lived with his parents, Pletnev wondered what Shalamov, the grand martinet, wanted to see him about. It was not grossly inconvenient to go to him now—Viktor would have traveled to the university in any event for his regular night classes, but not until 7 p.m. Now he would have to while away the time between his meeting with the department chairman and the start of his own classes. It did mean that he would need to pay for his own supper instead of taking it at his mother's table. Well, he had his fresh paycheck.

He did not look forward to his session with the department chairman. Shalamov was a bloated, baby-faced zealot given to ideological pettifoggery. From time to time he would descend on one of the dozen professors who served under him and catechize him on historical rectitude, as defined the day before by the official press of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was drawn to do this by random reading in the papers of the graduate students, whom he would also chastise.

And yes, it transpired that Viktor was today's aberrant. Chairman Shalamov had asked to see papers done for the history class devoted to the events of 1917, beginning with the abdication of the Czar and going to the arrival of Lenin at the Finland Station in what was then Petrograd. Shalamov was clutching Pletnev's paper, and his disfavor was choleric. Pletnev had written that Trotsky's surreptitious help had been indispensable in arranging safe passage for Lenin through Germany. Now Shalamov was screaming that Trotsky had only
pretended
to be cooperative, that in fact he had all along been secretly scheming to take power from Lenin for himself, resulting—as of course everybody now knew—in his exposure and subsequent exile, and, ultimately, in his assassination, in Mexico, by a valiant Bolshevik who, to be sure, was operating on his own initiative.

When Shalamov engaged in such exorcisms there was nothing for the errant student to do except to wait, standing, until dismissed. Shalamov did not pause to ask where Pletnev had got his historical misimpression. He disdained to acknowledge that a perverted version of history, contradicting the correct version, was anywhere extant. It was manifestly a parthenogenic creation of the diseased imagination of the delinquent student.

After a half hour or so, it was over. Pletnev was told to go back to work.

He walked across the campus listlessly, moving inertially in the direction of the library, where he might use an hour or two before dinner. He seethed with contempt for Shalamov, in fact for the whole wretched university. He'd have loved to rise from his chair and tell the chairman that he, Shalamov, was a disgrace to the historical discipline, a contemptible courtier to the whims of Kremlin intrigue—Viktor stopped in mid-campus and added aloud to his platonic tirade, “
And on top of everything else, Shalamov, you are a corpulent visual mess and I would be ever so grateful, as would everyone you encounter, if from now on you would wear a face mask
.” Viktor broke out in the special laughter of retributive satisfaction, and suddenly felt much better.

Needless to say, he would suppress his feelings, as he had so many times done against the entire communist fraternity, of which Shalamov was only one, noisome example. What mattered most, he knew, was to get his advanced degree. And then.

And then! Perhaps and then, one glorious day, to travel. If ever he found himself outside the borders of the Soviet Union, Viktor knew he would never come back.

He passed through the main entrance to the library, intending to spend an hour in the periodical room, when suddenly he thought to pause to see whether the Chambers book Trimov had called for had been returned by the faculty member who had taken it out. He went to the card catalogue in the foreign books section and presented the request card to the clerk at the desk.

In a few minutes he was handed the volume. He took it to a desk and opened it at the back to trace its recent movements. The card attached to the back cover listed the dates on which the book had been consulted by a student and the dates on which faculty had withdrawn the book from the library. To his surprise there was no notation of the book's recent withdrawal by faculty from the premises. And it had been called down for examination in the library only once during the month of September. He read the librarian's notation: “Sept 21 '85, N. Trimov.”

Pletnev was perplexed. Nikolai had told him the book had been absent from the library and for that reason he hadn't been able to examine it. Pletnev had been lied to. What could have been Nikolai's motive?

The next day, at the tea break in midmorning, he accosted Nikolai. “You are going to look again next Sunday for the book by Chambers?”

“Yes, yes, Viktor.”

“It was not at the library when you went there last Sunday?”

“I already told you, Viktor. No, it wasn't there. A faculty member had removed it.”

Viktor Pletnev sipped his tea. After a moment he said to Nikolai, “It is very kind of you to take the trouble.”

“I am glad to do so. I am told Chambers was an interesting man.”

“Yes,” Viktor said. “He was very interesting. He wrote a book which prompted many people to anti-Communist thinking.”

Nikolai was silent.

“His book,
Witness
, is very moving.”

“Is he still alive?” Nikolai thought it tactically wise to feign ignorance.

“Alive! He died”—Viktor quickly calculated it—“twenty-four years ago. In 1961.”

“If he was so ardent an anti-Communist, how is it that we have such easy access to his book?”

Viktor opened his mouth wide, thought better of it, and asked Nikolai to lunch with him after the late morning classes, which now impended.

Two hours later, seated with their vegetables, potatoes, and soup, Viktor started in. “Nikolai, on the matter you raised this morning, your surprise that critical books are to be found in the library. You must know that, with very few exceptions, a student could always get such books. Periodicals, no. But it's also true that things are a little bit different now, you know. The glasnost of Gorbachev is not entirely meaningless.”

“I saw what he did to Sakharov when Sakharov protested the war in Afghanistan.”

“Well, yes, I am hardly suggesting that Gorbachev is about to change the policies of the Soviet Union. But it is no longer simple suicide to ask a question or two, or to read more widely than we were permitted to do even a year ago. Sure, you have to follow the official line very strictly—you should have heard my department chairman chew me out just yesterday afternoon. But you have not been in Moscow very long, and perhaps in Kiev it is different, but we
can
talk, if we want to—to be sure, using sound judgment—about the war, about how misdirected it is.”

Nikolai found himself uncomfortable even listening to such heresy. “As you may know, Viktor, my interests are exclusively in engineering and in languages. I have never—interested myself in political discussion.”

“Well, I don't say that that isn't the safest course. It probably is. But at least you should know that, here and there, there are people like me, interested for instance in the historical role of the Narodniki. They were, in case you are unaware of it, the true purists of the revolution. They wished to protest against tyranny, not to be catalysts of a fresh tyranny.”

Nikolai rose. “I'm sorry, Viktor. I don't want to continue this discussion. My thoughts and concerns are on other matters.”

Viktor, flushed, looked up at him. “Well, go ahead and concern yourself with whatever you like. But let me tell you this, Nikolai. The line Gorbachev is taking, in speech after speech—in connection with the disarmament talks, in connection with the summit conference with Reagan coming up—is simple, simple, simple. He wishes to arrest the American pursuit of a strategic defense, what they call ‘Star Wars' in America. That is his line.
Don't involve the Soviet Union in another arms race
. We are bleeding in Russia, Nikolai, and the greatest lesion is in Afghanistan. I hardly need to tell
you
that we are losing the war in Afghanistan. And my bet is that Gorbachev will recognize this before too long for one simple reason. He has no alternative.”

“Viktor!” Nikolai shot up his hand, palm upstretched. “
You must not go on
!” He was breathing heavily, his complexion pale. “And I certainly won't repeat what you have said!” He walked away, leaving his lunch half eaten.

Viktor Pletnev, his spoon playing with his unconsumed soup, was deep in thought. His eyes followed his colleague. Nikolai's stride toward the entrance door was interrupted by Tatyana, seated with a companion woman teacher. Nikolai resisted, but was constrained to sit down with them.

Pletnev resolved to attempt to probe deeply into the character of his colleague, the slim young man with the arresting face and the reputation as a scholarly polymath. Nikolai did not know that Whittaker Chambers was dead? But the book Nikolai had withdrawn from the library last Sunday carried the date of Chambers's death on the first page.

CHAPTER 12

SEPTEMBER 1985

On the following Monday, Nikolai approached Viktor at the morning break, told him that he had got hold of the Chambers book, had found the passage on the Narodniki, and translated it. He handed him the sheets.

“That is most awfully kind of you, Nikolai. I shall look for an opportunity to return the favor. Did you find the passage interesting? I am anxious to read it.”

“Yes,” Nikolai said noncommittally. “It was very interesting. As you will see, it provides a very … passionate view of the Narodniki.”

Viktor stretched out his arm and touched Nikolai's shoulder, a gesture of thanks, and sat down at one of the tables to read. Nikolai left the room.

At three, after classes were finished, Nikolai walked hand in hand with Tatyana, speaking to her in English. They would have time to promenade only once around the block because she had an appointment. There was the nip of autumn in the air and, coatless, Nikolai was glad to reach the shelter of the metro. He would go directly home. He did not need to pause at the library for more books—he had three in his apartment, including a little-used book on the structural work done on the Kremlin when the decision was made in 1901 to electrify the palace. He would devote himself to further study on the morphology of the Kremlin and then share his findings with Andrei when he came in at six from his police work. He took out his key, opened the door to apartment 6K, turned the tap for some water to boil, and was startled to hear a knock on the door. He looked rapidly about him to make sure there was nothing sitting in the room that should be concealed. Of course there wasn't. He opened the door to Viktor Pletnev.

Viktor did not give Nikolai an opportunity to be inhospitable. He walked in directly, his tattered briefcase in one hand, a paper parcel in the other. He closed the door behind himself. “I need to talk to you.”