Doctor Gavrilov (34 page)

Often they walked in silence, but this morning, for the first time, Dmitry felt impatient. He felt, suddenly, that he wanted things to be resolved; it was he who initiated the conversation.

‘I would like to come off the drugs.'

‘All in good time.'

‘I think this is a good time… I am feeling much better.'

‘I am not convinced of that. I have already reduced the dose. If you came off the drugs completely, you might feel worse again.'

‘I would like to know that for myself.'

‘I understand your distrust of these drugs, but I can assure you that they were necessary in your case. You are responding very well, much better than I initially feared.' He paused. ‘I would feel happier about stopping them if you would agree to any other therapy.'

‘You want to psychoanalyse me.'

Senussi smiled. ‘Well, let's not put it like that. Let's just talk about things a little. As I've said, this is part of your problem, that you don't talk. Often these barriers which we put up to protect ourselves then serve to prevent help from getting in when we need it later on.'

‘What do you want me to talk about?'

‘Well, you could begin with your childhood.'

‘Why do you want to know about this? It will not be very relevant for your superiors.'

Dr Senussi sighed deeply. He said, ‘I have told you before, I am not here to interrogate you. I am a doctor, I will respect medical confidentiality.'

‘I am sure it is all very fascinating for a psychiatrist, my feelings for my mother, the impact of my father's early death, my relationship with my sister… but none of that has anything to do with this.'

‘Doesn't it?' Senussi turned, staring out to sea. ‘Often the seeds of a breakdown like this are sown much earlier. And this is not the first time you have felt suicidal, is it? Have you ever actually tried to take your own life before?'

‘No.'

‘But you have thought about it?'

Dmitry sighed. Did it matter, what he said? Perhaps he wanted to understand, himself. He did not see, thinking about it, how distant memories could reveal anything that would be of use to anyone. They began to walk again, and Dmitry began to cast his mind backwards, to all the periods of depression in his life. He remembered sitting outside his father's room when he was dying, shut out, and afraid. He remembered his mother's inconsolable sobbing, and a dim lamp burning on the table; he and Olga, huddled in bed together, clinging to one another for comfort. Then he recalled one winter, a time of intensely bitter cold, and the ice patterns on the car windscreen as he drove along a stretch of road… Suddenly, almost without realising it, he began to speak aloud. ‘When I was working, somewhere in Russia, it doesn't matter where… every night I would drive home to my first wife along this long, straight road. There was a huge tree by the road, and every night, when the headlights lit it up, I would think, all I need to do is to pull the wheel a little to the right, just a few centimetres, like this, and I would go off the road into the tree and be killed. It would take just a few seconds; and every night, I was those seconds from death. Why didn't I do it? What was it that stopped me from doing it? I came so close. Even now I don't understand.'

‘You were unhappy at the time?'

‘My marriage was breaking up. My wife was unfaithful… we had no children, she didn't want any. My job was tedious, all research was blocked, we were enduring the political stagnation of the Brezhnev years… what was there to look forward to?'

‘Still, you didn't kill yourself…. and there were things to look forward to.'

Dmitry said, bitterly, ‘Yes, I had a second chance… and look what I have done with it.'

‘We all tend to repeat patterns.'

‘It gives me no comfort to hear you say that.'

‘Still, you survived that depression, and there is no reason to suppose you will not survive this one. You do not seem suicidal now.' He paused. ‘Will you try again, do you think?'

‘No. I don't want to talk about it; really, it's over. I am not going to try again.'

They had come to the limit of their walk, up by the cliffs; Senussi turned, they stopped and looked at the sea, then began walking back again. Their shadows stretched before them and the sun, getting hotter, burned on their backs. Senussi said, ‘You sound so confident. Why is that?'

How could he explain? Dmitry felt changed. His attempt to kill himself had been a final attempt to force events under his control, to assert himself in the face of everything that had happened to him. He no longer felt any desire to do that. Ever since, as a young man, he had chosen to work with nuclear energy, his life had been compromised. He could see that now. He could not go back and change the past; he had to go on as best he could. He sat on the beach, watching the sun sparkle on the moving surface of the water, and thought, it doesn't really matter what I do. Just give up, go with it, do what is expected of you. After all, wasn't this what he had done for most of his life? Just now it was enough simply to exist; he felt as if he had never felt sensations so acutely before. He had not thought he could survive the torment he had been through but now he felt almost happy. He turned to the doctor suddenly and smiled, letting the soft sand run through his fingers, and blessed the fragility of emotion which gives both an edge to bliss and the knowledge that there is an end to pain.

K
ATIE sat at the kitchen table and watched Tim work, a pile of papers and his laptop in front of him. He told her he was compiling a list of reports for his editor on Libya's military procurement; of the involvement of British companies in setting up a chemical weapons plant, of a missile site in the Sahara, of a known German missile technician working in Libya, of Ukrainian customs officers seizing a consignment of rocket propellant bound for Tripoli. He had tracked down an agent for an Anglo-Russian pump venture and established that they were supplying vacuum pumps for Libya, though they strenuously denied that these were for use in nuclear installations. Tim was planning a trip to Libya at the end of the month. This filled Katie with anxiety.

From time to time Tim looked up at her and smiled. He had practically moved in, though Katie concealed the extent of their relationship from everyone, especially Anna. Tim worked late and came home long after the children had gone to bed, and in the morning Katie woke Anna, gave her breakfast and took her to school before Tim was up. In spite of this, Anna seemed to realise something was going on, and she seemed uneasy in his presence.

Katie knew that what she had done would be considered shocking and that nobody would sympathise with her, not her parents, who thought Dmitry was working in Russia, and certainly not the few friends she saw in whom she confided little. She knew they wouldn't understand that she had to be with someone otherwise she would fall apart, and she had to keep going because of the children. She felt that a man's presence there protected them. Besides, sex was like an anaesthetic, an opiate, it was the only thing that could make her forget everything, even if only for a few moments.

Tim stood up, went and poured a glass of red wine for himself, and a smaller one for Katie. As he put it on the table next to her, he leaned over and kissed the back of her neck. She looked back at him and smiled. He went back to his work and they sat in a companionable silence. She was grateful that he never demanded much of her; in fact, he seemed not to like too much display of emotion, and while, normally, this would have bothered her, now she felt relief, worn thin as she was by too much feeling.

She was writing to her bank. Tim had advised her to set up her own account and transfer money from the joint account to make sure her money was secure. She was puzzled because the money was still coming in at the end of the month; she had wondered at first whether this might mean that Dmitry was still alive, but Tim had pointed out that he could have arranged for money to be transferred monthly from some other account and that this might carry on till the money ran out. She hadn't dared to ask a lawyer what the legal situation was, what proof they would need of death, and anyway she was fairly certain Dmitry hadn't made a will; it was better not to raise the issue. And if he wasn't dead? What would happen then? She had no idea.

Tim had asked to look at the bank statements, had queried whether there was any way of finding out more about the account from which the money was paid, but Katie said it was a numbered account in Switzerland and she had no further details. Tim had also asked about some money which had come from a different bank in Geneva but Katie told him she thought this was for some translating he had done for an international organisation. Tim tried to find out more but failed. He'd asked, ‘Don't you mind where the money's coming from?' and she had said, defensive, ‘No, we have to live.'

But she had minded. How could she have blamed Dmitry for what he had done, when she was living comfortably off the proceeds? Tim's remark angered her, because it had hit a nerve. But she felt it would be even worse to take money from Tim and put herself further in his debt.

Katie finished the letter, signed it and sealed it in an envelope. She handed it to Tim to post. It was quiet in the room; she reached out and took his hand. She asked – she hadn't dared ask him before – ‘Tim. About this trip to Libya…'

‘Yes, it's okay. It's all set up.'

‘How long will you be away for?'

‘Not very long. A week or two, maybe…'

‘Oh, Tim, don't go.' She had wanted him to go, at first, in case he found out anything; but now she thought it might make things worse for all of them, including Dmitry if he were alive.

Tim pulled his hand away from her. ‘Katie, I can't not go now, it's all set up, I'd look an idiot, I've been pushing for it. Look, I know what I'm doing, don't worry. I know exactly what I can and can't do. They can't do anything to foreign journalists, it's too risky… they don't want any further international action. Besides…' and a trace of exasperation came into his voice, ‘I thought you wanted me to go.'

Katie was ashamed, but she couldn't help herself. She realised the superficiality of her relationship with Tim compared to that she'd had with Dmitry, but she knew she needed him. She thought back to those dreadful last days before Dmitry left and knew she couldn't have carried on much longer. Perhaps the relationship would have ended anyway, perhaps it was impossible to live together, feeling as they did. Every time she thought of it, those scenes played in her mind as if they were happening all over again, and she had to stop herself. She clung to Tim as the only thing which stood between herself and despair. She hesitated, and then said, ‘I don't want to lose you too, Tim.'

He looked at her for a long time. ‘Don't worry,' he said, ‘It isn't going to happen. You're stuck with me; I'm here for good now.'

Dmitry was back at Tajura. To his relief when he returned neither Masoud nor any of the others ever referred to what had happened; even Suzarbayev made no mention of it. Dmitry went back to work as if there had been no interruption. Most of the material which he had deleted from the computer had been reinstated and it took him only a few days to restore the rest. The new vacuum pumps had arrived, via some Anglo-Russian joint venture, and Suzarbayev had already installed them with his own modification to the withdrawal system.

About a month after he came back they had a trial run of the first cascade. Suzarbayev was in the lab with him now, checking the readings. He said, ‘This is excellent. They will be very pleased.'

Dmitry sat on the side of the bench. He said, ‘At this rate they could have a bomb inside five years.'

‘Are you worried about that? Don't think about that, it's not on your conscience. They have enough for that already.'

‘I'm sorry?' Dmitry was so startled he nearly fell off the end of the bench.

‘It's in the next block, upstairs. It came from Sarov – from Arzamas 16. How exactly they got it I don't know. I think the Russian government are so embarrassed they won't admit to it.'

Dmitry kept his voice as casual as he could. ‘How much do they have?'

‘They have 25, 30 kilograms, 90 per cent enriched. More than enough to build a bomb.' He laughed. ‘That'll have the Yankees running.'

Dmitry simply stared at him. Then he said, ‘I don't believe you.'

Suzarbayev turned around. ‘Oh, it's true,' he said, ‘I've seen it.'

They broke off abruptly as there was a knock on the door. Dmitry opened it; it was Senussi. He came to see Dmitry once a week, not for any formal therapy, because Dmitry had refused this, but simply to talk with him. Dmitry knew that Senussi had been asked to monitor his mental health but he did not resent this, looked forward every week to their conversations. They had discovered a mutual passion for Bach; Senussi had found Dmitry a portable cassette player, and every week brought him a new recording he had dubbed from his collection. This week he had promised to bring the six suites for solo cello, recorded by Rostopovich.