Bearpit (28 page)

‘Quite so,' said the Directorate chief, as if he already knew. ‘Before you return to America I want a meeting between us.'

The fear that Yuri had experienced at the grave engulfed him again, worse this time. It would be wrong for him to ask the reason, he realized. ‘When, Comrade First Deputy?'

‘Tomorrow,' decided Kazin. ‘Make yourself available at three.' The man turned after the peremptory demand but almost at once looked back. ‘Precisely at three,' he bullied. As he continued towards his car, Kazin thought that absolute power was like an aphrodisiac. Better than an aphrodisiac, in fact.

Yuri watched the man get into his car, conscious that he had an advantage in the warning from his father of which Kazin was unaware. It was a fleeting attempt at self-assurance. What good was the warning to him now, Yuri asked himself. He was quite exposed: quite exposed and helpless.

Yevgennie Levin wrote carefully and in as much detail as he felt was possible. Anything from the debriefing was obviously precluded but there was a lot from the outing through the Connecticut countryside. He did not identify any township by name, of course. He referred to Litchfield simply as an historic place, although he described the rooftop vantage points (‘to watch the sea where there is no sea') and talked about the strange defoliation (‘like the horrific pictures that came from Vietnam') of the elms and spruce and firs as he had travelled along the Naugatuck Valley, although he did not identify that, either, because he did not know its name. He wrote about the house, too, setting out its size and fittings and assuring Natalia that her mother and Petr were happy, fully aware as he wrote that it was a lie.

It was not until the last page – the fourth – that he tried to answer the accusation that had reduced Galina to tears and caused Petr's outburst when Natalia's letter had arrived.

‘I have not abandoned you, my darling,' he wrote. ‘None of us have abandoned you. We would never do that; could never do that. I have been promised that you will be able to join us here, one day …' Levin halted, realizing the exaggeration but deciding to leave it, guessing her need. ‘That day – that one day soon – we will all be together again as a family, loving together as a family, complete as a family. Please have patience. Trust me. Know that I love you.' Levin stopped again, eyes blurred over the paper. Moscow should not have done this to him: to any of them. Presented with the situation again, Levin knew he would have abandoned the entire project and returned to Moscow, to whatever awaited him there. Quickly he stopped the run of thought. Had he returned to Moscow, wrecking what had taken so long to establish, the destruction of the family would have been even more complete, his being parted from them for years in some corrective
gulag.
Levin blinked, clearing his vision, reading the letter through and deciding there was no more he wanted to say. He repeated his love and was sealing the letter when Petr came into the den in which Levin spent most of his time; Bowden had left for the day only an hour before.

‘I've just written to Natalia,' said Levin.

‘When's Proctor collecting it?'

‘Some time this evening.'

‘Would he take one from me as well?'

‘Of course.' Levin was curious, detecting the absence of the animosity to which he had now become accustomed from the boy.

As if in confirmation of his father's thoughts, the boy said: ‘I want to talk to you.'

‘About what?'

‘Mistakes: my mistakes.'

‘Doing what?'

‘Behaving as I have.'

Levin smiled, hesitantly but hopefully. ‘It hasn't been easy, for any of us,' he encouraged.

‘I haven't made it easy for anyone,' confessed the boy. ‘I want you to know that I'm sorry.'

‘I didn't expect this,' admitted Levin.

‘I'll never lose the feeling about being Russian,' said Petr in apparent qualification. ‘I've just come to realize that my attitude is ridiculous. What's happened has happened.'

‘I never expected it to be so difficult for you,' said Levin in further admission. ‘You always seemed to like everything about America: clothes, television … things like that.'

‘Because I'd never known it before,' explained the boy. ‘I used to fantasize what it would be like, going back to Moscow with things that none of the other boys had: imagine the impression I would create.'

‘Now you can have them permanently,' reminded Levin.

‘I've apologized to my tutor as well,' disclosed Petr. ‘Did you know he used to teach at Forman School in Litchfield, that little town we went to the other day?'

‘No,' said Levin. ‘I did not know.'

‘He says I'm doing well now.'

‘It's good to hear,' said Levin. ‘In fact everything's good to hear. Your mother will be pleased.'

‘Natalia will be able to come one day, won't she?'

‘I promise she will,' said Levin. He wished he were sure.

‘Why did you do it? Defect, I mean.'

Levin hesitated, wondering if there would ever be a time when he could tell the boy the truth. One day, maybe: but not for a very long time. Inadequately, he said: ‘I felt it was best.'

Petr appeared about to speak when David Proctor entered the room, earlier than Levin had expected. Levin said at once: ‘Petr and I have been having a conversation. About his being here.'

‘I'm apologizing for the way I've behaved,' came in Petr, unprompted. ‘I'd like to say sorry to you, too, Mr Proctor. I haven't been very pleasant.'

The FBI supervisor began his habitual spectacle cleaning, smiling short-sightedly in the boy's direction. ‘I've been waiting for you to accept things,' he said. ‘Took longer than I expected but I knew you'd get there, in the end. Well done.'

They were stupid, all of them, thought Petr. He wasn't the least bit sorry for the way he'd behaved. Just that it had taken him so long to realize the restrictions he was imposing upon himself, by the constant opposition. From now on he was going to be the best son and the best pupil imaginable, until he was able to get away from this prison of a place to a proper classroom that the Forman lecturer had said, three days before, was essential if he were to learn properly. And he was going to be the ideal student until the first day they relaxed. Then, knowing now where he was, he was going to catch the first train from the first station back to New York and to the Russian delegation at the United Nations there. His fool of a father might have defected, but Petr Levin hadn't. And they were going to know it – his father and Bowden and Proctor – when he denounced them all, as publicly as the Soviet mission would allow him to denounce them.

23

Yuri was astonished how few of his father's personal possessions there were to remove from the dacha: from the bedroom a jacket, two pairs of trousers, some underwear and a smock, the photographs of his unknown mother; some winter boots and a frayed greatcoat, also for the winter, which he found in the outhouse. Truly a transient occupation, decided Yuri, recalling his impression the last time they had been there together: the last time he had seen his father alive. There was no mark of the man whatsoever, anywhere: as if he had never existed. Caught by the thought, Yuri wondered if at Kutuzovsky Prospekt there would be any photographs of his father: he couldn't remember there being. If there weren't, there would be no tangible memory of him at all: the pictures here were all that he wanted to keep. Everything else could be thrown away: hardly worth the trip out of the city.

Yuri bundled everything, even the greatcoat, into a single suitcase and stood above it, gazing around the main room of the country house. Who would be the next occupant? Would he – or they – make it a home, rather than a temporary resting place? He looked back to the suitcase. So little, he thought; not enough.

It was almost without thought that he mounted the stairs to make a final search for anything he might have missed, checking first the cupboards and drawers of the room he'd occupied and finding nothing apart from the government-supplied linen, and after that his father's room and finding the same. It was when he left the second bedroom that he glanced upwards, again without thought, and guessed from the slope of the ceiling above him that there was probably a loft: certainly a space between the peak of the roof and the covering above his head. Curiously, with closer concentration, Yuri looked for a trap door throughout the length of the landing but there was no evidence of one. He went back, staring upwards this time, into both bedrooms but there was no entry from either.

If there were an attic it was sealed, Malik concluded, going out again on to the central corridor: another aimless search. He was practically at the head of the stairs when he stopped, parallel with the door to the narrow storage cupboard which he'd already checked and knew to contain only more government-owned material, mostly bedcovering. He opened it again, looking for something else this time.

It was a narrow hatchway, seeming to be tightly cut from the planking after it had been laid, so that only by looking positively was it possible to detect the likelihood of an opening. And impossible to reach anyway because of the serried layers of slatted shelves upon which the sheets and towels lay. Yuri removed the contents and after the contents the wooden strips, which was difficult because they were sized differently. At first he took them all out but then realized he would have to replace one at each level, to provide some sort of ladder to reach the entry. He had to climb with his back pressed against one wall, with no handhold, and strain to push the overhead hatch open, so snug was its fitting into its surround. He had not thought of the need for illumination until the planking moved and then saw he would not need it; there was a window, invisible from the ground, actually set into the roof.

Yuri hauled himself through the gap, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. His immediate thought was that it had been a wasted effort and that the angled room was as empty as everywhere else in the house. And then he saw the trunk, quite compact but with a curved top, wedged into the darkest corner, at the furthermost point from the window's light.

It was a small room, restricted by the roof's drop, so Yuri crawled towards the box, pulling it out directly to be under the window. There was a stir of dust and a cobweb snagged across his face, but the container appeared quite clean. For several moments he gazed down, not attempting to open it, the strange reluctance to intrude briefly stronger than his absorbed curiosity. There was a lock, but no key. To have to break it open seemed … he didn't know what it seemed but he didn't want to do it. But he didn't have to: the lid lifted quite easily and held, kept up by hinged metal struts. His initial reaction was one of disappointment. Yuri had expected it to be full – of what he didn't know – but it wasn't: only a third, maybe less, was taken up. There were several stacks of papers, all appearing to be aged. Tentatively he reached out, feeling their brittleness to his touch. He lifted the topmost document cautiously, conscious of tiny cracks at the edges, knowing it would be most fragile at the fold, so he was even more careful straightening it.

‘My Darling,' he read. ‘I am still warm from you, wet from you, feeling so much loved by you: I touch my sex to feel where you have been and want you there again. You consume me, my own darling. Make me live …'

Yuri jerked his eyes away from the yellowing paper, face burning and aware that he was physically blushing. He'd already guessed anyway but he still looked to the second, final sheet of what he held, for the inscription. His mother had signed it, strangely formally, ‘Olga', which surprised him: he'd expected something else, a love-name, and was absurdly disappointed. Still with the first letter in his hand, Yuri went to another, separate bundle, aware at once of the different handwriting and recognizing it just as quickly. His mother's letters to his father, his father's letters to his mother: before him, on cracked and frail paper, was set out their love, their life. He felt like a child – which in reality he could never remembering feeling – peering through the keyhole of their bedroom, shocked by their nakedness and by what they were doing. But like the peeping child, he did not stop looking, despite the discomfort. The correspondence was carefully arranged by date, so that it was easy to follow, to chart the progress of their relationship. The first letters
had
been formal – his father had signed off three ‘Your respectful and obedient servant', at which Yuri openly sniggered – the intimacy gradual, almost imperceptible. As he read, Yuri's embarrassment seeped away, replaced by another surprise. His mother had only ever been a frozen image, encompassed in a frame. But he'd known his father … no, not known: been aware of. Familiar. He would never have believed – still could not have believed but for the letters he held in his hands – that the aloof, white-haired, uneven-shouldered man who had always found any expression of affection so difficult could have brought himself to write the sort of intimate, exposing words he was reading.

There was too much for him to read sitting up here in the darkening attic. Yuri flicked through, finding the photographs halfway down the pile of his father's letters, obviously in their special place. Four were of their actual wedding, his father not disfigured then, towering above her, thickly dark-haired. There was a shot of his mother staring adoringly up at the man and another of her placing her wedding flowers traditionally upon the monument to the unknown soldier. And then Kazin. It was not a good photograph, blurred by poor focus, but Yuri knew It to be the man: much thinner than he was now, smiling towards her. Kazin's expression appeared proprietorial, which Yuri knew it could surely not have been, not on the day that she married someone else. There was a further photograph of his mother alone, demure and not actually facing the camera, looking instead into what Yuri guessed to be the stream running past the dacha and which he preferred to the framed ones he had already packed. And a close-up, full-faced shot of his father, still uninjured. The man had on what appeared to be the same suit he'd worn at the wedding but Yuri didn't think it had been taken then: this looked more like the sort of formal portrait for some KGB accreditation, stern and expressionless. At least he would not have to worry about any photographs being available at Kutuzovsky Prospekt, thought Yuri; he wished there had been more.