LITMIR.BIZ

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in the Politburo, Comrade Spandarian?’

      He didn’t answer. Instead he picked up a light blue folder, finger and thumb feeling one corner as though he were rubbing an insect to death. He recited from it:

      ‘Unlawfully convening a meeting; incitement to violence; incitement to treason; hooligan behaviour; indecency in a public place; arson. That lot,’ Spandarian said mildly, ‘could put you away for the rest of your life. Or put you in front of a firing squad. Dissidents have been shot for less.’

      Reeling, she queried ‘Indecency in public?’

      Spandarian extracted a typewritten sheet of paper from the folder and read the exchanges with the woman in the red shawl. ‘Goloshes,’ he said. ‘Really!’

      ‘I can’t help what harridans in the audience say.’

      ‘Your friend Svetlana Rozonova wasn’t exactly reticent.’

      ‘You wouldn’t ….’

      ‘We might.’

      Spandarian stood up, walked to the window and stared in the direction of the Kremlin. ‘Strange, isn’t it, that the fount of Communism should look more like the ultimate altar of religion. All those cathedrals and churches …. The contradictions of revolution. Especially on Easter Sunday.’

      Hot/cold. Her courage was trickling away. ‘What do you want, Comrade Spandarian?’

      The angular woman from the outer office brought them tea and biscuits. When she had gone Spandarian sat down and said in between sips of tea: ‘You’re a very patriotic girl, Katerina Ilyina.’ She wondered about Spandarian’s brand of patriotism. ‘The spirit that won the Great Patriotic War.’

      Katerina nibbled a biscuit; it tasted of aniseed; she sipped lemon-sharp tea to disperse the flavour.

      Spandarian went on: ‘You are very fortunate – you are in a position to help your country.’ He dunked his biscuit in his tea and bit off the soggy tip.

      Warily, Katerina asked him how.

      He finished his tea and biscuit, dabbed the corners of his mouth with a red silk handkerchief and told her.

      She had struck up a friendship with an American defector, Robert Calder. Nothing wrong with that. In fact the friendship must have been arranged in heaven – ‘or whatever Arcadia awaits a good Communist’ – because that was what provided the opportunity for Katerina to be of service to the Soviet Union.

      All she had to do was observe Calder. Report on his moods, his thinking – party-line or otherwise – his habits. Encourage him to talk about the past – and the future.

      Touch his soul.

      ‘No!’

      Spandarian lit another of his terrible cigarettes. ‘When I was talking about the penalties involved in that disastrous affair on Women’s Day I omitted one. You would be expelled from the Soviet Union. I would see to that.’ The words rolled from his mouth in smoke.

      So this was patriotism. Her beliefs shrank, tarnished.

      Spandarian explained. ‘To serve one’s country one has to carry out acts that are sometimes distasteful. It’s unfortunate but when you’re dealing with unscrupulous enemies there isn’t any alternative. Always remember that these acts are a means to an end – the survival of the Soviet Union.’

      ‘No!’

      ‘And is what I’m asking so distasteful? I can assure you that at the head offices of State Security in Dzerzhinsky Square and on the Outer Ring, they would be far more unpleasant. My duties are more … delicate. Perhaps that’s why I am permitted such pleasant offices away from harsh realities.’

      No. But this time she didn’t speak.

      ‘And don’t forget Svetlana Rozonova,’ he said.

      Bastard.

      ‘I’m not asking you to betray anyone. Just to keep a defector under observation.’

      ‘Why is he so important?’

      ‘That needn’t concern you.’

      She thought: So that’s why I’ve been allowed to stay active in the women’s movement and keep my job. Blackmail.

      She felt soiled.

      ‘Will you do it?’ he asked.

      ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. Give me time to think of a way out.

      ‘Think well, Katerina Ilyina.’ Stroking his moustache, he stood up and bowed. For the time being it was over.

      From 25th October Street she walked into Krasnaya Ploschad, Beautiful Square in old Russian, better known as Red Square. To her left the windows of GUM and, farther away, the barley-sugar baubles of St Basil’s; in front of her the Kremlin walls and the red-granite block of Lenin’s Mausoleum where, in a glass sarcophagus, the father of the Revolution lay in peace. What would he have thought of the choice facing her?

      She walked past the queue waiting on the cobblestones to pay homage to the embalmed spirit of Bolshevism and past the main entrance to the Kremlin, the Redeemer’s Gate.

      She was arrested three days later.

      A bald man and a woman with a pale face slit by bright lipstick, both in plainclothes, called at the apartment on Leningradsky and took her in a black Volga to the women’s section of the prison at 38, Petrovka.

      They were courteous but uncommunicative. Katerina conducted herself with dignity but she wanted to weep.

      The cell was painted dark green. It contained two bunks, one above the other, a scrubbed deal table and two chairs, a washbasin, a slice of red soap and a galvanised bucket.

      The door shut with jarring finality.

      She sat on the bed. Concentrate on the logic of it, she thought, otherwise you’ll break. Humiliation. Question: why? Three days ago I was useful to them; suddenly I’m disposable, garbage.

      A shiny cockroach as big as a thumb made a run across the wall opposite her.

      She wondered if she would be expelled from the Soviet Union.

      A key turned in the lock and Svetlana was pushed through the door.

      She held out her arms and they embraced. Katerina felt courage pass between them.

      Svetlana said: ‘Let’s call room service and have a drink.’ She wore an emerald two-piece, a leftover from the reign of the pilot, and looked stunning. ‘Are you looking forward to life in New York?’

      ‘You think they’ll throw us out?’

      ‘We had one yellow card. This is the red.’ She sat beside Katerina and put her arm round her.

      From the corridor they heard scuffling. A woman with a Ukranian accent shouting: ‘Get in there, you fucked-out old iron.’ A cell door slammed.

      ‘One of the girls,’ Svetlana remarked. ‘Railway station material by the sound of it. We’re in good company Katerina Ilyina.’

      The key turned in the lock. Katerina smelled spicy brilliantine. Spandarian came in carrying a document headed MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS.

      He handed it to Katerina. ‘Your expulsion order,’ he said.

      ‘But you said ….’

      ‘That was three days ago, this is now.’

      Svetlana stood up, a little taller than Spandarian. ‘And mine?’

      ‘Yours? Who said anything about you being kicked out?’

      Katerina froze. To be expelled without Svetlana, that was worse than a death sentence.

      Svetlana said: ‘Listen you Georgian prick, if Katerina goes I go.’

      Spandarian

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