Despite the Falling Snow (37 page)

“Hardly anything. Clothes, the photograph of my parents, you know the one. And Misha, I have to give you this.”

She pulls at his coat, forcing him to slow down. He is reluctant to do so, but her gesture is urgent – she wants to give him this while they are still alone, before they reach the safe house. She glances around, but the street is a quiet one, on a gentle downhill slope, and there seems to be nobody about.

“What is it?” he asks.

She reaches inside her coat pocket and brings out a slim white envelope, which she holds out to him as he walks on. Alongside him, she sounds slightly breathless.

“Here, take this, Misha.”

He takes his other hand out of his pocket and reaches for the envelope.

“What is it?”

“A letter. For Sasha.”

Misha smiles and puts his hand away again. “Give it to him yourself.”

“In case I don’t make it. In case anything goes wrong.”

For a moment, she thinks he has not heard her. He is striding onwards, his eyes intent and focused ahead, and now he turns into a smaller street. Buildings of light stone loom around them in the gloom. They both stop, and glance around and up at the sky. Misha watches his breath puff out above him.

“It will all be fine,” he says at last.

“You never know what might happen,” she insists.

He looks over his shoulder, then quickly takes the letter, and tucks it inside his shirt, then starts walking again.

“I don’t know when I would ever see him again.”

She shrugs. “You would get it to him, eventually.”

“Would I throw up if I read it?” he asks, with a grin.

“Probably. It’s just a love letter, Misha.”

He nods. They are walking more slowly now, in a thick evening darkness. She looks up. They have turned again, and the alleyway where they are now has no streetlights, leaving only the glow of the snow to illuminate the atmosphere around them. Flakes are falling, slowly, languidly, and one catches on her eyelash. She blinks it away.

“Misha? You will be careful, won’t you?”

He pauses to look at her, taking in her open, concerned face.

“You’re the one that needs to be careful now, Katyushka.”

He seems nervous for her, Katya thinks. He probably knows even better than me how hard it will be to get out of here.

“You know what I mean,” she tells him. “You’re putting yourself at risk, helping me.”

He looks down, shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I do. You’re a good friend Misha.” Her hand is on his face, and her lips come up to kiss his cheek. There are no houses here, only a lonely patch of waste ground to one side. For a moment, she thinks she can smell the tiny wild flowers that grow there, the scent of them sweetening the evening air, before she remembers that it is snowing, and that nothing can have grown in that cold, solid earth for months.

“Just be careful, Misha. I will be out of here, but you won’t. And if they’ve caught someone already, they’ll torture and threaten him until they make him talk.”

“I know.”

“I worry that that person will end up betraying you.”

She is restless, and stamps her boots to keep warm. Then she takes a step further, as though encouraging him to start walking again, to get going. But he is not moving. He walks to the side of the alley, near a brick wall, and places her suitcase down on the ground. She follows him there.

“Are we waiting here?” she asks.

He nods slightly, and takes her hand, drawing her closer to him. She can feel the warmth of him beneath his coat. She frowns; his heart is beating very quickly.

“Katya,” he says, in a hoarse whisper. “I have to tell you something.”

His head is above hers, his face pressed down into her hair. He takes a breath, inhales the scent of her, and she tries not to pull away, but she is peturbed.

“What is it, Misha?”

He bends his head and whispers in her ear. “You should be careful that that person will not end up betraying you.”

She does not understand his words, but for the moment, it is as though words, and everyday signals and clear human contact are irrelevant. Something more primeval has taken her over. There is a strange sensation within her, an awareness of something terrible coming that cannot be averted, an almost preternatural sense of pre-warning. She stands there, cold and yet warm, against Misha, and she can hardly believe the realisation that is coursing into her body. The downy hair at the nape of her neck is raised. His hand comes up, caressing her hair, and it is then that she feels the cold metallic muzzle against the side of her head. It slides against her ear, and down to her chin.

“Misha?” she breathes.

He is whispering into her ear. “I know, it’s almost too ironic to be true. It was me that they got, you see, Katya? It was
me
. And now I have to help them.”

She is dizzy with shock and disbelief. This cannot be happening, not now, not today, not when she is so close to freedom, not from him. Without warning she finds herself choking on a sob.

“You
have
to, Misha?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t.”

He moves her shoulders slightly, so that she knows to turn and look behind her. Some small distance away, a distance magnified by the snow and the darkness, she can see the smudged outlines of two men, watching them.

“They’re KGB,” he says. “My new permanent escorts.”

“How did they…how can you do this? You’re not really going to, are you, Misha? Misha?”

There is a sound on the street that intersects the alleyway a hundred yards away. She waits, breathless, but they are young men down there, laughing and full of vodka, and they walk past. Even if anyone were to bother glancing into the alleyway, the air is too dark and the snow is falling too thickly for them to be seen. And even if they were seen… Misha’s arm is around her waist. Her body is held close to his, and anyone would think they were lovers, nothing more.

“Is Sasha out? Did they stop him?”

“He’s out,” he says, with almost a sigh, and she feels a moment of relief, for his tone and voice are so familiar. “And I wish you could have gotten out too. Maybe you could have, if you hadn’t chosen me to confide in just now.”

She is still in confusion. “Who else could I…? You’re the only one I know, Misha, the only one I trust. Trusted.” She makes a noise, a sound of bitterness.

“Well, they want to teach your husband a lesson. And you. They’re angry, Katya. Very angry.”

She feels tears at the rims of her eyes, and they are painful. It is as though they are turning to ice before they can even fall, mocking her sorrow.

“So it’s me or you, isn’t it?” she says. “That’s the choice they gave you.”

“I tried to keep you out of it…
You came to me
, remember?”

“Fucking bastard,” she says.

“Shut up.”

“No!” She sobs, suddenly. “I only want to get out of here and live, Misha. I don’t care about the rest of it any more. About all this.”

She can hear the tears in her own voice, and her eyes are blurred with the salty water.

“Please, Misha. How can you let them win?After everything we’ve lived for, and believed in?”

But he is pretending not to listen, she feels. Her breathing comes harder, for she is fearful that he will do it at any moment.

“Please don’t kill me, Misha, please don’t.” She pulls away slightly. “I don’t want to smell your coat and your… smell, as you kill me,” she says.

This makes him stop, and she feels a sense of respite. A moment to think. A second to imagine Sasha. In the back of her mind, she realizes that today was one of the few days when she did not say to herself, “Katya, you might die today. You might be killed today.” She has always been fully aware of death, and more so in recent times because of the nature of her work. Usually this thought comes to her before too much of the day has passed, and she always makes sure to focus on it, sometimes imagining possible deaths, and sometimes thinking of her misery at leaving Sasha. She hoards these thoughts consciously and regards them as talismans against the thing that has been thought of actually happening. But she does not remember having thought about her death today. She has been lax about it for many days now, swept away by her excitement and her hopes of the life they have to come. She has been so wrapped up in her visions of Sasha and herself, away from here, away from the lies and deception, just the two of them together, in love and happy and working, that she has completely forgotten to imagine the worst. And now look what has happened. Perhaps, she thinks, there is something to be said for superstition after all. Perhaps the fates do not like to be taken for granted. She wipes her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her coat.

“Misha, how can you betray me…? And what we’ve been fighting for?”

“Shut up. Stop talking.”

“Why, am I making you feel guilty?” With a swing of her fist, she hits him in the jaw, and tries to break free of him, but it is impossible. The men watching begin to move forward but then Misha hits her hard, on the side of her head. She staggers for a second, and then straightens her thin shoulders and faces him. Her ears are ringing from the blow. He shoves her backwards, turning her so that she is facing the wall and he is standing close behind her. So that he doesn’t have to see her face, she thinks. She fights a whimper that rises in her throat, because now she feels truly terrified for she knows that it must happen now. She tries not to panic, tries to keep an image of Alexander in her mind. He hits the top of her head, and at the same time she feels a foot kick the back of her knees, making her drop hard to the ground, kneeling.

“You fucking bastard. How can you, Misha? It’s
me
. Please, Misha, just let me go. Please, I don’t want to die like this.” This pitiful pleading will not move him, she knows, but she cannot think well at this moment; she cannot stop herself from crying.

There is no reply, but there is an inhuman sound from his mouth. Is it anguish or anger? He puts a foot on the back of her neck, and presses, with surprising control and gentleness, so that her head is pushed forward so far that beneath the wet snow she can smell the dirty tar of the alley, and the trails of old urine that have trickled down it for years.

“Let’s just get this done, Katya.” It is anguish she hears in him.

“I have one thing to say,” she says, through her weeping. “I’m pregnant, Misha.”

Why she has said it she does not know. He would never let her go because she is pregnant, but it has been in her mind all day. She has been waiting to say it to Sasha when they meet again; all afternoon she has been imagining the joy and excitement in his face when he hears it, and so the words have been rolling around in the front of her mouth, waiting to be spoken aloud. And now she has spoken them.

“I thought you never wanted children.” Now his voice is harsh. He has switched off, and is pretending that it is not Katya under his boot and gun here in the filthy alley.

He is right. She had gotten pregnant despite her precautions, and she had always taken these for she had previously had no desire to bring a child into this world of theirs, a world in which she could see little hope. And then there was the burning mark of the loss of her parents. She has always known the risks associated with her work, the risks of capture and death, and she has never wanted to leave her own child motherless, to put her own child through what she herself suffered.

When she had realised the reason for her nausea and her bloated stomach she had wished silently, in the late night darkness of their bedroom, for a miscarriage. But that was before the hope of escape. Before the vision of a life with Sasha in another place, where it would be just them, and their baby – no bugs, no cameras, nobody watching them, nobody for her to spy on. A place where she could fight communism openly. She can hardly believe what is happening. She hates herself for ever wishing the baby dead, and now she is angry with herself, for she feels that she has brought this fate upon herself. It is irrational, but she feels it. Here, in this soiled, cold alley, she has been given the means for her tiny baby to die, and she has to die with it. She turns her head to the side and whispers.

“Misha, please, don’t do it. You can help me. I don’t want the baby to die. Come away with me. Let’s make a run for it, right now, you and I. We’ll go away together. You don’t want to stay here working for the KGB for the rest of your life. Come with me. We’ll live happily together. We can do it.”

She pauses, and he is still behind her. She can feel him wavering, she is sure of it. Something has touched a nerve. Perhaps, like her, he feels that, even if the odds are against them, he has nothing to lose by trying. Perhaps one more round of persuasion will clinch it.

“You and me?” he says, softly, and she hesitates. Something strikes her as being wrong here, but before she can think about what it is, she speaks again, desperate to secure the advantage.

“Yes. You and me and Sasha, together. Think of it.”

He kicks her hard. This one is between her shoulder blades and now she cannot breathe. She knows at once where she has made her mistake…
‘and Sasha’
. Now she sees with such clarity, as though a spotlight has suddenly been trained on her. He is in love with her. She sees it now, understands finally the desperate need she has sensed, but dismissed, in certain of his looks and touches. And by reminding him that she is going to Alexander, that she loves his best friend, that she is pregnant by him, she understands at once that she has just lost her last chance of evading death.