Doctor Gavrilov (26 page)

He looked at her, open-mouthed. Katie went on, angry, relentless. ‘Come on, tell me. Have you got into trouble with the police? Have you –' and suddenly she stopped. Something prevented her from naming the other possibilities which came into her mind – warned her that it was better not to go there. She tried to calm herself, to sound more reasonable. ‘Mitya. Ever since Anna came home, you've been like this… I don't understand. You act as if she had died, not as if she had got better…'

‘Yes, I know… I can't help it.'

‘I thought things were better now. You have some work… we have some money. You must tell me, what is the matter with you? You don't talk to me, you don't explain anything. You are shutting me out… Don't you see, I feel so lonely.'

He gave a grimace, as though what she was saying physically hurt him, and murmured, ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Mitya, it isn't enough to be sorry. You have to do something about it. I can't go on like this. I need some support myself. I have Anna, and Sasha, both needing me constantly, I try to help you, and I am getting nothing back…'

‘I know. I am not much use to you, am I?'

He looked so utterly wretched at this moment that Katie took pity on him. She went towards him and put her arms around him; feeling him soften, she went on. ‘You don't confide in me; I wish you would. It would be so much better if you didn't bottle everything up inside you.'

He said, ‘But if I told you… you could not forgive me.' And then, when she looked at him, startled, afraid, he said, taking a deep breath, ‘Katie, I know this is terrible… I have something to tell you. If there was any way I could avoid it I would… I have to go away again.'

Katie sat down very heavily on the chair next to him. She knew instinctively that something was coming which she didn't want to hear. If she could have stopped the conversation then she would have done, but she could see that it was already too late – and besides, now she had to know. She tried to prepare herself, asking, ‘When?'

‘At the end of the month.'

‘For how long exactly?'

‘I don't know. Perhaps several months, perhaps a year.'

‘A year? Where? What for? You mean, in Russia?'

Dmitry's voice was very gentle. ‘Katie, I didn't tell you the truth. I lied to you last time… I was not in Russia. It's the same place as before… I am going to Libya.'

It took a few moments to sink in. Katie echoed, ‘Libya,' wooden, hollow. Then she got up from the chair. She walked across the room, and the floor seemed suddenly uneven, unstable. She stumbled against the corner of the sofa, turned to face him. He sat there, immobile, his face hanging down, unable to look her in the eyes. Everything suddenly became clear to her, his secretive behaviour, the money from Geneva, his nervousness and depression, the hints from Tim which she had wilfully blotted out. Of course, this was the thing she had most feared. She said, ‘I see… now I see… that is where the money came from. So that's what you have done… you have been selling nuclear secrets to the Libyans.'

D
MITRY stood up, facing her; he felt they were like wild animals assessing one another before a battle. He didn't attempt to deny what she had said. How could he? Now he saw fully the terrible trap that he had made for himself. He didn't dare tell her how it had all happened, how he had been approached first by the Russians, which might have excused him a little in her eyes. Wild scenarios went through his head; that if the Libyans suspected this, they might come and question her; if she knew, they might force it out of her; and then he himself would be dead, or worse. He must let her think the very worst of him; that was the only way. Katie had turned white now, she was trembling, and having struck her this terrible blow, he could only stand and watch her suffering.

‘Mitya… How could you? Have you gone mad? After everything you you've said, everything you've done… at the IAEA, and afterwards… I believed you, I trusted you, and now…'

‘We had no money –' He was going to say more, but she stopped him.

‘And what else would you have done? Would you have robbed a bank, would you have murdered someone…'

Dmitry circled round her, trying to calm himself. He said, ‘Katie, please, don't be too hard on me. It was not entirely my own doing… I have tried to get out, but… they have a way of trapping you.'

‘What do you mean? They tried to blackmail you? What with?'

‘Oh, you can imagine, Katie.'

‘They threatened you?'

‘Yes, that of course… and other things.'

‘What other things?' Katie was by now on the verge of hysteria; he could see her distress growing by the moment. ‘What things, Mitya? Tell me, for God's sake, tell me.'

Dmitry turned his head away from her. She rushed over to him, grabbed his head, and forced him to look at her. Her fingernails pressed painfully into his face. She shouted, her face ugly with despair, ‘I want the truth, Mitya; tell me the truth.'

Dmitry said, ‘Haven't you guessed?' and then Katie said, in a much calmer voice, letting go of him, ‘Anna.'

He could say nothing. Katie went on, quite calmly, ‘I see, so it wasn't some random child molester, was it? Now I understand. That is what has been the matter with you, isn't it. They did it, and it was your fault. Isn't that what happened?'

‘Yes.'

‘And all this time, when I was thinking, and wondering – you knew. You
knew
!' He had never seen a look like the one she gave him now; he saw that she was struggling between two extremes of feeling, of love and hate. She would have forgiven him anything, probably, as long as he had not put her children in danger; that was the one thing he knew she couldn't live with. Suddenly she hurled herself down, flinging herself forwards on to the sofa, and howled in a terrible, desperate voice, ‘Oh, my God, what have you done to us?'

She went on sobbing and crying out, her hands in front of her face. Dmitry went over and tried to pull them away but she resisted. He said, ‘Please, Katie, stop this, I can't bear it, let me talk to you, please, look at me,' but she only said, over and over, ‘No.' Great sobs shook her body. Dmitry held her, despite her struggling against him, and he too began crying, the tears flowing freely from his eyes and pouring down his face faster than he would have thought possible. She opened her eyes and looked at him, but it was even more terrible to look into her face than it was before; her whole body contorted and she began to sob even more desperately. She tried again to get away from him, turning in his arms, rolling down on to the floor, but he hung on to her, gathering her close to him. He was so strong, there was no way she could physically resist him; he pressed her close to his chest and she hung there, her tears soaking his shirt. She struggled again and he abruptly let go over her, and watched her crawl along the floor, curl herself up into a ball. Dmitry left her and sat woodenly on the sofa, waiting for her to stop crying. He sat and waited for a long time.

Finally she sat up, struggling for control. ‘I can't do anything…. This is too terrible. I don't know you, I don't know what you've become… I feel as if you've killed me.'

He opened his mouth to speak to her, but no words came.

She said, ‘This has to end. You've put us all in danger, me, Anna, your own son… I can't go on with this.'

She sat on the sofa next to him, her hands in her lap, struggling to stop crying. He saw that there was no way back from here, and that for her sake he had to end everything, decisively, at once. He tried to talk calmly, to make practical arrangements. ‘No. Of course you can't. I have thought it all through… you must write to the lawyer and ask for a legal separation. Just wait another month, till I get my permanent residency here… I will agree to whatever terms you want. I'll make sure that there is enough money for you, I'll have it paid regularly into our account. I'll go to Libya till my contract runs out… while I am working for them I will have no contact with you or the children. That way you will not be in any further danger. You must tell nobody about this. When the contract runs out… when I come back…'

‘If you come back.'

‘Well, if I come back, then… then we can meet and talk about a final agreement, a divorce if you want one, access to the children and that kind of thing.'

Katie trembled from head to foot. The word ‘divorce' seemed unbearable to her. She asked, ‘And there's no other way out of this?'

‘There is no way out.'

Katie said, ‘I should have known, back in Vienna… there is something wrong with you. You were always too secretive. It's like an addiction. And then like all addicts, in the end you have to destroy yourself, and not content with that you have to pull everyone else in with you…'

‘Yes,' said Dmitry, heavily, staring at the back of his hands, which now seemed foreign to him, as if they were someone else's, ‘Yes, perhaps it is like that.'

‘Well,' said Katie, ‘I shall never sleep, but even so, I have to go to bed.'

He followed her upstairs. They undressed, in silence, and Katie lay down on the bed. Dmitry said, ‘Do you want me to sleep downstairs?' but she shook her head. He didn't think he would be able to sleep either, but he did, almost instantly. He was woken later in the night by her crying. He put his arms around her and held her tightly. She clung to him as if she was afraid of drowning; then she took his hands and placed them on her breasts; still sobbing, she came on top of him and guided him into her and then began to make herself come over and over with sharp, desperate cries. Then they went on, obliterating everything else in the flood of sensation, until finally, exhausted, moaning, Katie begged him to stop. Then she said, ‘I don't understand… why is sex so good with you? If it was not for that…'

And Dmitry said simply, ‘It's because we love one another.'

She said, ‘Then why? Why wasn't that enough to satisfy you?' and she began crying all over again with as much anguish as when she had first started. And then she stopped suddenly and looked at him, asking, ‘How shall we tell Anna?'

Anna didn't understand what he was saying. They both sat, either side of her on the sofa, and tried to explain, that Mitya had to go away and work abroad for a long time, and that he would not be able to visit them. She asked at once, ‘But you will come back?' and Dmitry, because Katie had insisted that they didn't lie to Anna and betray her trust, couldn't answer her. Katie spoke up for him, unable in the end to inflict so much pain, saying, ‘Well, we hope so, let's see what happens.' At first Anna couldn't take it in, had refused to believe it; but when she saw that they were serious she said, her voice rising to a wail, ‘But I don't want Mitya to go away. I want him to stay here and be my daddy!'

Katie looked at Dmitry with the expression of a tigress ready to kill. He said, helplessly, unable to endure Anna's distress, ‘It isn't because I don't love you, Anna. I don't want to go… I am doing it because I have to.' Anna turned and ran upstairs, sobbing loudly, and Katie ran after her. Dmitry sat and stared at the floor. His own grief seemed pitifully inadequate in front of hers. He wanted to howl in shame and rage, to shed tears as they did, but his frozen frame would not respond.

He met the Libyans once more at the Metropole Hotel. ‘I want to go as soon as possible, tomorrow, the next day. I don't want to go via Moscow… its all a farce anyway, if I'm being watched, they'll know what I am doing… book me a flight straight to Malta.'

Hattab nodded. He cleared his throat; they both faced the bar, not looking at one another. He said, ‘I understand that there was a regrettable accident with your little girl. It occurred to me that you might think… I can assure you that this was not anything to do with us.'

Dmitry stared at him, uncomprehending. There seemed such sincerity in his voice, his manner, that Dmitry was completely confused for a moment. But if they were not responsible, how could they know? The piped music in the background jangled his nerves. It even occurred to Dmitry for a moment that this might have been some further convolution in Rozanov's diabolical scheming, but he dismissed this thought as soon as it came. He looked at the Libyan; well, why shouldn't he lie, like this, with a smile, to get what he wanted?