Document Z (6 page)

‘Yes, yes. For that purpose. And then maybe we will see about my visa?'

Petrov smiled. They shook hands again and he left.

At the tram stop, one of the men was waiting. Petrov stopped on the street corner, lit a cigarette, and began to feel sick. They had probably followed him to the factory. They probably planned on following him all day. He felt a weakness in his knees, in his stomach—a disgusting base liquid rolling in its hollows. He could have vomited. He took a moment to compose himself, then stood at the stop only a few metres from the follower.

They both boarded the next city-bound ride. At the following stop, the man with the thin black tie got on, and then at the next the last man was waiting. This actually made Petrov feel better. Positioned like that, they must have lost him; and there wasn't much chance they could have been at the factory and reached these stops in time. They'd just been hoping he'd go back to the city the same way. Which meant he was stupid. He should have stayed on the south side of the river and crossed somewhere else.

The men were careful not to watch him directly. He was careful not to watch them directly. He retied his shoelaces and waited for the tram to reach the city. If he'd lost them once, he could do it again.

He got off on Bourke Street at the corner of Elizabeth Street. Black Tie and Brown Hat joined him on the footpath. He walked east along Bourke Street and turned into the first arcade he came to, moving quickly past a luggage shop and a shoe store. He gathered speed, examining his watch as cover: just a man with an appointment who is late. Pursuing footsteps sounded on the arcade floor. He passed into the light of Little Collins Street, then into another arcade, and he didn't look back. He went quickly into a café and asked for the toilet, and went past it, through the kitchen and out a back door. In the alley he reversed his heading, doubling back to Little Collins Street. He turned there for Swanston Street and hopped on a northbound tram. It pulled away and he watched from the windows until satisfied he was untracked.

An hour later he was at the bar of a pub in Fitzroy. He'd walked the entire distance, using his map, arriving sweaty in his long coat. It was half past three. He checked the address Zizka had provided: 71 King William Street. It was a while since Petrov had done this, not since his and Evdokia's last weeks in Stockholm, in fact. Of course there were such places in Moscow, but those he knew were under MVD surveillance and half the girls were co-opted workers; a visit there was a dangerous, foolish act for someone who knew any kind of state secret. Trapped by his position, he'd never attempted it. Things weren't the same here though, just as they hadn't been in Stockholm. Here, he was no one. He was just another body on the street and the street didn't know anybody's name. It was the only thing he had savoured about his years in the navy: the feeling of being the outsider, the man in port, in transit, free of consequence. He and his shipmates had visited the houses and he'd liked the girls then, enjoyed his ability to chat with them, to be accepting of their vulgarity. In Stockholm, his pleasure had been more in the physical act itself, the grip of his hand on the skin of a side or stomach. He'd been much less interested in the girl and far more, he guessed, in himself. It was addictive, and he'd arranged his activities to free himself as much as possible from the embassy's watch. Not so difficult in Stockholm; even easier in Melbourne when the one block of official Soviet soil in the country was five hundred kilometres away.

He finished his beer, feeling a little glum. Seventy-one King William Street was the main reason he'd come to Melbourne, but the encounter with the bastard followers had ruined his mood.

The building was a thin terrace, thick curtains in the windows. He knocked loudly, wanting to be off the front doorstep as quickly as possible, yet, paradoxically, feeling both powerful and uncaring to the same degree. Nobody answered. He looked up and down the street and knocked once more. Eventually, he was greeted by a man in a dressing gown who had the look of recent sleep.

‘Yes?'

‘Hello,' said Petrov.

They looked at each other.

‘A friend gives me this address,' said Petrov.

‘Does he?'

‘That's right.'

‘It's very early.'

‘It's a good time.'

The man looked past him to the street, then pulled back the door. The Russian walked in. They stood in the front room, dark and abundantly furnished with armchairs, drink tables and ashtrays.

‘Ford,' said the man.

‘Karpitch,' said Petrov.

It seemed that whichever girl was available had to be roused and was unhappy about it, for a minute or two after Ford left him he heard the sounds of a suppressed argument. But after a time she emerged. A big-hipped woman with brown hair. She smiled at him, took his hand and walked him up the stairs. In the large bedroom at the front, they stopped at the foot of the bed. He put his hand on her breast and then undressed her.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were going to die on the electric chair at Sing Sing. Evdokia sat at her desk with the newspapers and a pair of scissors and made clippings for Moscow. US atom spy couple, parents of Michael and Robert, their crime ‘worse than murder'. The secret the Rosenbergs had shared was a new type of bomb, a beryllium sphere, enclosed in plutonium, hugged by barium; thirty-six high-explosive lenses, each with two detonators, seventy-two condensers to fire them. Evdokia thought that detonators were detonators, but in the atom world there was always a further caveat on any basic fact. The judge said the Rosenbergs were part of a diabolical conspiracy to destroy a God-fearing nation and that the Russian international spy ring was a well-organised beast, with tentacles that reached into the most vital of places. The jury made no recommendation for mercy. Only the Lord could offer forgiveness for what the Rosenbergs had done.

If Moscow wanted these articles, Evdokia thought, something about the case must be true. The defence was claiming Political Hysteria. Evdokia clipped a photograph of Mrs Ethel Rosenberg: thirty-five years old, stern but delicate in black and white.

Ambassador Lifanov came into the room. The knot of his tie was minuscule, perfectly positioned on his throat, and the chain of a fob watch hung below his breast. He stood beside her and watched. She put the clippings in a folder and faced him. His glasses were low on his nose.

‘Petrova . . . these figures.'

‘Ambassador?'

He put some papers on her desk—the embassy's monthly payroll. She had prepared and submitted it that morning.

‘Is it correct, this figure?'

She looked. Everyone's salary was twofold: an allowance in Australian pounds, furthering a direct deposit in roubles into a Moscow account. The ambassador was pointing to Volodya's name and his one hundred and one Australian units.

‘Oh, yes,' she said.

The ambassador looked taken aback. He pointed out her own name.

‘Seventy-five Australian units,' she said. ‘Is something wrong?'

He frowned, gauging her. ‘Well,' he said, ‘it seems
unbalanced
. Wouldn't you agree?'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. The Pipniakovs, for instance. They have six mouths to feed. And here, look: twenty-six units. I think it is unfair. That is all. Alexandra agrees.'

‘Your wife, Comrade . . .' She was not sure what to say. ‘Nicolai Nikhailovich, these figures are set in Moscow . . . You are comparing a
dvornik'
s wage to a diplomatic post.'

‘Still, it is unreasonable. Do you not think?'

‘The figures are what the Foreign Ministry have decided.' She did not add that the payroll showed only her and Volodya's ostensible income—that the MVD served them additional salary as well. ‘Perhaps the Pipniakovs should receive more,' she said. ‘But my responsibility is only to ensure that the correct monies are paid.'

The ambassador shrugged. ‘I am simply saying that, without children, you and your husband are very well off.'

Hatred welled. She stood and left the room without looking at his face. The corridor was airless. Volodya was out of his downstairs office. She shut the door. She took a teacup from his desk and gripped it, applying tremendous pressure against the cup and its handle until the pain felt like it might damage her bones.

The national sheepdog trials. The weather was warm and the embassy accepted an invitation en masse and embarked on a Sunday morning, the cars sardined with children. The trials were at an oval in Yarralumla. The Soviets parked on the boundary and set down rugs and served themselves cordial, wine and bread. The next day would be Constitution Day, a holiday.

The dogs competed one at a time, herding three sheep through a series of obstacles. Evdokia and Volodya stood at the rail with Philip Kislitsyn and his wife. Anna wore a suit that was neutral in colour but modern in its look. She and Evdokia looked at poor Zaryezova. The girl's husband was in the commercial section and tense about his money. Her suit was ill-fitting, its shoulders uneven like some parallax mistake.

The dogs dashed and stalked and came around. The men, in crumpled suits and crumpled hats, whistled, waved sticks, split sheep and penned them, sometimes shouting ‘Hup'. There was a crowd of a few hundred, annexing the land around their cars, picnicking, a six-metre tally board and a loudspeaker broadcasting.

The secretary of the Trial Association walked past exhibiting the trophy and welcomed the Soviets to the event. The ambassador told him they had sheepdogs everywhere across Russia, but all of them with shaggy hair.

They drank from coloured metallic cups. Evdokia watched as Alexandra Lifanova poured all the women champagne except her. Anna stood for the toast but did so looking sympathetic and distressed. Volodya poured his wife a little brandy instead, and Kislitsyn asked for a share. The children chased one another through the shining maze of cars.

It turned out that the Czechs had come too. She walked with Volodya to their encampment under the shade of a tree. On the oval, a dog crossed between the sheep and his master and was disqualified. The company were despondent for it. Volodya, in a happy mood, shouted that it should be allowed to start again, and the Czechs chimed in, but with no result. Volodya and the Czech consul, Zizka, began drinking vodka. Evdokia watched the way he did it, gulping the drink down. Her husband and the consul stood clasping each other by the shoulder, smiling in the grassy sunshine. They drank and smoked and ate sausage and cured meats and they applauded the dogs and laughed together as they drank some more.

Evdokia sat on a rug with the consul's wife. The woman wore tinted glasses and had trouble watching the events on the oval, so Evdokia tried to describe what was happening, but it was such a poor sport to commentate on that they gave up, laughing. Lunch was chicken sandwiches.

Vasili Sanko came to say that Ambassador Lifanov felt ill and wanted driving home. Volodya looked at him, chewing. ‘That's your job.'

‘He says I am too drunk.'

Volodya examined him and grinned. ‘You are an ox. You are not too drunk.'

Zizka gave Sanko a glass. The driver paused briefly, then tipped it down his throat. He clapped once and said, ‘Volodya, the ambassador wants you to take him. He declares that you have the most practised hands.'

Volodya laughed. ‘He is wrong, I can't drive. I'll crash like a cartoon.'

Evdokia spoke up. ‘Tell the ambassador that my husband is too drunk. He is bleary-eyed.'

Sanko waited for his cup to fill again. He watched a dog finish its round. ‘Alright. We are all too drunk.'

Zizka cheered and laughed.

‘Tell Lifanov we're happy here,' said Volodya. ‘And say that while the Czechs' vodka might be inferior, at least they serve more of it.'

Sanko smiled and turned. He walked along the boundary, white pegs of timber, back to the Russian camp. Evdokia watched him go. A while later, they saw the Zim departing for Mueller Street. She wondered who was at the helm and turned to give Volodya a goading stare. He wasn't watching her. She saw him give the car a small wave and continue his cheering of the dogs.

The next day was Monday. In the Lockyer Street house, she stood at the door of the spare room. They'd planned to create a garden box that morning in the space below the porch, but Volodya was in here, snoring.

On the street, sprinklers flared in a few front yards. She walked to the Manuka shops. For the first time there she felt utterly lonely, somehow purposeless, a schism between herself and the physical world.

The house was empty when she came back. The car gone, Jack too. The afternoon arrived and went. She swept the house and used a duster. She put furniture oil on the chairs. The radio played serials that she didn't have the concentration to follow. It was enough for her to listen to the drama, the sound of family empires, humming.

She wrote to her mother. She wanted to write the things she couldn't: this growing isolation, the hollowness. The letter was so far removed. She sat the pen on the bureau and stopped.

Volodya came home before dinner, not saying where he'd been. Jack was muddy and she washed his feet in a bucket. The sun gone, they ate sausages from the freezer. She watched Volodya chew and told him that this was a wasted day, that miserable failure had come visiting their plans.

He looked at her and gave a nod. ‘The sausage is good. The potatoes.'

‘Are they?'

‘Tomorrow,' he said, ‘I need to go to Sydney.'

‘I thought maybe you'd gone there now.'

‘No. I'd tell you!'

He put pepper on the meat.

‘You went to the spare room last night?' she asked.

He nodded. ‘I woke myself from snoring. I was uncomfortable. I slept there for your benefit.'

‘Where did you go today?'

He paused. ‘Oh, errands.'

‘Errands where? In the country?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Jack's paws. Mud all over.'