Prisoners of Tomorrow (25 page)

“A lot of things,” Anita replied. “What would you like to know?”

“You don’t seem surprised or curious about why we should be interested in him.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore. I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“You were a member of the Friday Club as long as eight years ago,” Barbara said, making it a matter-of-fact statement rather than a question.

“Yes.”

“And other affiliated groups before that.” That was a guess, but worth a stab.

“Yes,” Anita answered.

“What kinds of activities were you involved in back then?”

“Is this really necessary? I’ve been through this over and over with the British. Don’t you people talk to each other? I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that we have limited time. My understanding was that you considered this meeting to be very important. I would like to make it as useful as possible.”

Barbara conceded the point with a nod. “Tell me, then, was your husband also involved in the dissident movement? Did you work together? How close were his views to the ones you expressed a few minutes ago?”

“We were in Sevastopol then. He was working on submarine communications,” Anita said distantly. “Then we moved to Moscow. He was made a professor at the university.”

“Yes, I have seen his chronological record.”

A pigeon alighted on the sill outside the window. It strutted a few steps with its chest pouting and its head extending and retracting like that of a comical clockwork toy, then stopped and cocked an eye to peer in through a pane for a couple of seconds. Then it flew away. “He was one of us,” Anita said. “He lived for the same cause. But he was never as passionate about it as some of them were. Maybe it had something to do with his being a scientist. Or maybe he became a scientist because he was that way to begin with. . . . But he was always more unexcitable and analytical. And very patient. He could have waited a hundred years for the system to change.”

“Does that mean he might still be actively involved?” Barbara asked.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Anita said without hesitation. “He’s not the kind to be easily changed.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“The last I heard was that he’d moved to Siberia, some kind of scientific establishment somewhere—but that was several years ago now.”

“You haven’t kept in touch since you separated?”

“No.”

Barbara looked surprised. “I’d have thought your work would have required it.”

Anita hesitated, then said, “My marriage to Enriko—my present husband—was a very fortunate occurrence for our group. As you can see, it provides opportunities for extending our contacts and gaining overseas support. It seemed better, in order not to risk jeopardizing such a stroke of good luck, to cut my connections with the past.” The explanation didn’t stand up. If Dyashkin were ever exposed by the KGB, his ex-wife would automatically be on the suspect list regardless of whether she stayed in touch with him or not. That Anita’s marriage to a KGB officer had been allowed to go through said, as clearly as anything could, that so far Dyashkin had managed to stay clean. Barbara stared back and said nothing.

Anita became agitated and reached for her purse, which she had set down by the window. She rummaged inside and took out a box of pills. Barbara picked up the jug of fruit juice from the tray standing on the table by the recorder taping the conversation, filled one of the glasses, and held it out. Anita took one of the pills and recomposed herself. “There was more to it than that,” she said. “Igor always had an eye for women—maybe you already know that. They responded to him, too, even though he never said very much. He had a way of radiating an aura of . . . well, call it mystery, or dominance, if you will. You know the kind of thing.”

Barbara smiled and tried to look encouraging. “Sure. Who hasn’t met a few like that?”

Anita went on, “Perhaps our getting married was a mistake. Igor was a brilliant man. Sometimes I felt I couldn’t provide the amount of intellectual stimulation he needed. He was in the Navy when we met, and for a time things seemed to go all right. But after he got his doctorate and we began meeting more academic kinds of people . . .” Anita drained the rest of the glass of juice. “One of his affairs became serious. Of course, the woman was also a scientist—a nuclear expert of some kind. I met her a few times. A very spirited woman. Her hair was the most noticeable thing. Like fire. Yellowy red, almost orange.”

“Can you tell me her name?” Barbara asked.

“Oshkadov. Olga Oshkadov.”

“Where was she from?”

“I don’t know. But she worked at the science city, Novosibirsk.”

“I see. Go on.”

Anita shrugged. “There isn’t really a lot more to tell. He was adamant that he wanted to separate. Because of our underground activities, however, we both saw that it was in our interests not to quarrel or get emotional about the situation. He agreed to a generous settlement financially to smooth things over. I have no complaints, really.”

“Was Olga also a dissident?”

“I don’t know. If she was, I was never told. But then, you’ll appreciate that we were hardly in the habit of publicizing such matters.”

Barbara nodded. “And your present marriage to Enriko. Would you say it was, well . . .”

“How far does affection enter into it?” Anita shook her head and smiled humorlessly. “Oh, there’s no need to worry about that. I’ve had my share of those kinds of delusions. Now only the cause matters to me. Enriko means nothing. This time it’s purely a matter of expedience—an opportunity that was too good not to seize.”

There was a tap on the door. Jeremy ambled out of the bedroom and opened it to admit a waiter with a cart loaded with plates, silver dishes, and pots. “Oh, jolly good. Just leave it there, would you? Here, buy yourself a drink on us.”

“Thank you very much, sir.” The waiter left.

“Just one last thing,” Barbara said.

Anita looked at her. “Yes?”

“Were you or your husband ever involved with a group known as the Committee for Freedom and Dignity?”

Anita looked puzzled. “No.”

“You didn’t deal with a person who went by the name of ‘Tortoise’?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

Anita shook her head. “I’ve never heard of either of them. Who are they?”

“You really don’t know?”

“No. . . . Can’t you tell me who they are?”

Barbara finished the notes she had been making and closed her book. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s time for lunch.”

It was hardly surprising that Anita had never heard of either the Committee or the Tortoise, for neither of them existed. The terms had been invented purely for introduction into the conversation as “tracers.” If they turned up in the official Soviet communications traffic intercepted by the Western intelligence in the weeks ahead, it would be a give-away that Anita’s loyalties were not as she claimed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It hit Paula first when she was on her way to the kitchens, a half hour after the cell’s cheerless breakfast of watery oatmeal, black bread with margarine and jam, and tea. A hot flush came over her suddenly. She found herself fighting for breath, and her legs became lead. She tottered against the corridor wall and put a hand out to steady herself.

The female guard who was leading stopped and looked back, while the other three prisoners in the detail waited with no show of concern. “What’s the matter with you? Come on.”

“You by the wall, move!” the second guard snapped from the rear. She poked Paula sharply in the back with the baton she was carrying.

Paula lurched a couple of paces along the wall, tried to stand, and fell back against it once more. Her chest was pounding, and she could feel perspiration trickling down her body inside her shirt. Nausea welled in her throat. “Can’t . . .” she gasped.

“Oh, you don’t feel like working today? Is that it? What do you take us for, fools? You don’t get away with that kind of thing here. You and you, take her arms. We’ll take her to work if she won’t walk.”

Paula felt two of the other women hold her on either side, and then she was on her way along the corridor again. She had a fleeting impression of somebody going the other way stopping to look curiously, two prisoners in work smocks wheeling a cart into an elevator on one side, and all the time the back of the guard striding ahead . . . wide hips swinging beneath the plain brown military skirt; massive calves encased in thick tan stockings; heavy, flat-heeled shoes. Now they were at the doors leading into the kitchens.

Her first breath inside was like an intake of hot, fetid gas from a furnace, and sent her reeling against one of the aluminum worktables. The Toad was there suddenly, saying something, but all Paula could hear was incoherent snatches of her voice mixed with the guard’s.

“. . . matter with her? Doesn’t she . . .”

“I think it’s . . . on the way here . . . malingering?”

“Yes,
you!
I’m talking to you! What do you
babble-babble, cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck-cluck . . .”

Paula was distantly aware of her knees buckling. Her arm pushed out against something as she slid down the side of the table to the floor. There was a crash and the sounds of breaking glass. The faces of the Toad and the guard were peering down at her with their mouths moving, but both the sight and the sounds were out of focus. After the effort of trying to stand, the relief of sitting was like an escape to nirvana. She let her head fall back against the metal door behind her and closed her eyes, not minding if she stayed there forever. She couldn’t get up again, didn’t want to get up. Nothing could make her. That was all there was to it.

. . . Then she was being stretched out along the floor. A coat or something was being tucked around her. She drifted. . . .

“Hey, can you hear me?” Someone was slapping her cheek lightly. She was still lying on a hard floor, feeling cold and shivery now. A hand was feeling her pulse . . . then her eyelid was being lifted. A bright light . . . Collar being opened, dermal diffusion capsule taped to the side of her neck. She opened her eyes briefly and saw a woman in a white cap and a medical smock lowering a red blanket. Warmth, blessed warmth . . .

Voices echoed from far away. “Oh no, she’s got something all right . . . Couldn’t guess at this stage . . . will be notified in due course . . .”

Hands were lifting her. . . .

* * *

She was watching Mike showering. Mike had been the oldest of the lovers she’d had. She liked his body the most. He had big shoulders and a barrel chest, and even the thickening around his midriff had excited her as a sign of maturity. He reminded her of Robert Mitchum, one of her favorites from the old-time movies, before they’d been taken over by health-faddist adolescents. She and Mike used to shower together after they made love. The best times had been late in the evening, before going out to dinner, or maybe to a party somewhere in Washington. He grinned and gestured for her to join him. But as she moved he began changing into the Toad. The closer she approached, the more he transformed. She recoiled, and it was Mike again. There was no way to get to him.

The dream dissolved, leaving her tense and agitated. She turned her head to the side and felt it resting on a pillow that felt soft and smelt clean. The remnant of the image in her mind died away, and her tension with it. Her toes were rubbing on the luxury of smooth linen. The sounds of a woman’s footsteps on a hard floor, lasting for a few seconds, stopping, then starting again, and a man’s voice talking in Russian, filtered through into her awareness.

She opened her eyes and saw a room with beds and lockers, pastel-yellow walls, and some kind of wheeled apparatus consisting of metal flasks, rubber tubes, and a panel with lights and switches standing at the far end. Raising her head, she saw she was in a small medical ward. A blond orderly was collecting dishes from the other beds and taking them to a cart standing in the center aisle, and a woman on the far side was watching something on a flatscreen mounted on a hinged arm extending across the bed. Another woman was reading, others were sleeping. Paula tried to sit up, but she was too weak and her head swam from the attempt. She followed the orderly with her eyes, licked her lips as she summoned up the effort, and finally managed to croak,
“Pozalsta . . .”

The orderly looked round, put down the plate she was holding, and came over. She had blue eyes and a pretty face. “So, you are awake now,” she said in Russian. “How do you feel?”

“Could I get something to drink?”

“Water, yes? I don’t know if anything else would be good.” She half-filled a glass from a pitcher on the locker by the bed and helped Paula to lift her head. Nothing had ever tasted so good.

“Better? I’ll get the nurse to come and look at you. Sleep some more, now.”

“Spasiba, spasiba.”
Paula lay back and closed her eyes. Simply to be talked to like a human being again . . . She put out of her mind any thought about how long it was likely to last.

They told her it was food poisoning. She told them she wasn’t surprised. It would soon pass, they said. One more day of rest, and then there would be no reason for her not to return to work. No, she protested, surely not so soon. She didn’t feel up to walking, let alone laboring for ten hours. One more day—they were adamant.

Paula found herself dreading the thought of going back. Several of the other women with her in the ward were also Russians, but they exhibited nothing comparable to the hostility she had been subjected to back in the cell. It seemed she’d managed to get herself confined with just about the worst mix of personalities that she could have run up against.

The woman across the aisle was called Tanya and came originally from Volgograd. It used to be Stalingrad before the Party went through one of its periodic interchangings of black and white and deglorified the great dictator’s memory. Tanya was a teacher, and had been arrested for promoting among her pupils ideas that conflicted with the official ideological doctrines. “I couldn’t care less about their stupid doctrines,” she told Paula. “And that’s one of the worst crimes for a teacher. I couldn’t make the bureaucrats understand that objective reality
is
what it is, and that it doesn’t care what any Party tries to say it should be. We can only discover. Children should be taught
how
to think, not
what
to think. That was all I cared about—children’s minds.”