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Katerina shut the drawer. She spoke into the receiver, giving the number of the Institute. ‘Katerina Ilyina speaking.’
‘My name’s Spandarian,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. ‘It’s about time we met.’
Although his fingernails were polished, although his hair was carefully waved and his moustache was a topiarist’s dream, although his brown eyes were soulful and his brilliantine smelled of spices, Spandarian was a gangster. Katerina sensed this instantly. He was also a born interrogator, bandit brain and veneer, the hot/cold of the third degree.
He spoke melodiously but with a strong Georgian accent, fashioning flowers from some of his phrases. ‘So, Katerina Ilyina, you want to save Soviet women. Has it ever occurred to you that they don’t want to be saved? That, like Mother Russia herself, they merely want to endure?’ He lit a yellow cigarette packed with black tobacco and blew acrid smoke across his desk.
‘That’s what the Russian male would like to think, Comrade Spandarian.’ Her defiance pleased her: although few had seen him, the ruthlessness of the shadowy mentor of the Twilight Brigade was common knowledge.
‘The Russian male? I am not a Russian, Katerina Ilyina, I am a Georgian. In Tbilisi we know how to treat women. We flatter them, court them, love them. But they know their place just the same and they are happy.’
Katerina had been to the Georgian capital once. And what Spandarian said was true. Up to a point. Women were treated extravagantly. But they were chattels just the same. Georgia would be a challenge. But first Mother Russia.
Spandarian said: ‘Russian men are pigs.’
Katerina regarded him with astonishment, then found herself saying defensively: ‘Some of the younger ones are learning; they are more considerate.’ The young man on the bus, for instance.
‘You are a true Slav, Katerina Ilyina. Already you are confounding yourself. If the young men are improving what is the point of your Cause?’
‘Only some of them, the sons of the privileged.’ Privileged! What was she saying? ‘As for the rest … goats. And as for the Cause – equality, that’s what it’s all about. Just like Communism,’ she heard herself saying. ‘How many women are there 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 hit her across the face with the back of his hand but before she could throw herself at him an immense wardress invaded the cell and pinioned her arms.
‘If you don’t behave yourself,’ Spandarian said mildly, ‘we’ll have to lock you up with the old whore next door.’ He bowed to Katerina. ‘Read this document and digest it. If there’s anything you don’t understand I’ll be happy to explain. As we cross the border,’ he added. He lit one of his yellow cigarettes. ‘And now the contents of your handbag. A formality, you understand.’
He picked up Katerina’s handbag and pillaged it. Compact, lipstick, crumpled one-, three- and five-rouble notes, a few kopeks, tissues, punished wallet, ballpoint pen. A nondescript mess.
Spandarian opened the wallet. Flipped through the plastic-sheathed ID cards hinged inside. A couple of ten-rouble notes, photograph of her mother and step-father at a camping site at Adler on the Caucasion coast road, a few visiting cards and a couple of invitations. Spandarian examined one of these. Frowning, he asked: ‘Where did you get this?’ He was surprised, and that with Spandarian was a small victory.
Realising that it was the card the young man on the bus had given her and realising that Spandarian was impressed, she said: ‘From its owner, of course.’ She wished she had read the card.
‘I wasn’t aware you knew him.’ Him. Who? Spandarian was patently furious that the name hadn’t featured in the blue folder. Someone would fry! ‘Have you known him long?’
‘Since childhood.’ They would boil!
Spandarian timed his revenge nicely. ‘By the way, your mother and father – apologies, step-father – are quite comfortable in their jail.’ He slid the invitation back into the wallet.
‘You bastard. What have they done wrong?’
‘Let’s think. Harboured a known hooligan?. How about that?’ He gave a stage bow and walked out of the cell.
When he had gone Katerina allowed herself to cry. ‘A good man … my mother, always hardship … What right?’
Svetlana sat beside her again. ‘Never mind, pussycat. They won’t come to any harm. It’s us they’re gunning for.’
Me, Katerina thought. ‘I never dreamed they would expel me without you.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be there too. ‘And curiously: ‘Who was that invitation from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on, Kata, I’m not a Georgian bandit.’
‘Honestly.’ Katerina extracted the card from her wallet. ‘My God!’
‘Hand it over.’ When she did Svetlana whistled. ‘How did you get to know him?’
Katerina retrieved the card. It was an invitation to a pop concert. A personal one with the star’s name embossed on the bottom right-hand corner. Leonid Agursky. Pop idol, sex symbol …. And I met him on a bus!
Spandarian returned the following day. Picking up the expulsion order, he said: ‘You have read and understood it?’
‘I realise I’m being expelled for preaching Leninism.’
‘Ah, the rights of women. A worthy cause, Katerina Ilyina.’ He stroked his moustache downwards and outwards. ‘But you do understand the document?’
‘I’m not an imbecile.’
‘Good, good.’ He was pensive for a moment; Georgian spice reached Katerina strongly. ‘By the way you will be pleased to know that your mother and step-father have been released from jail. After all, why hold them? I’m sure you’re not going to be a hooligan any more.’
He tore up the expulsion order.
Striding past Petrovka’s shops in the direction of Sverdlov Square metro station, Svetlana said: ‘So it’s a different game from football. Two yellow cards and we’re still on the pitch.’
‘My parents … the son of a bitch.’
‘We were being given the treatment,’ Svetlana said. ‘The expulsion order – a phoney.’
Judas counselled Katerina. Would it really harm Calder if I processed what he told me and passed on innocuous trivia?
