The War in 2020

'I'm just curious,' the officer said.

'Nothing,' Valya cried. 'For God's sake, what do you think I am?'

The officer looked at her for what seemed a terribly long time. Then he said:

'What should I think, little Valya? Surely, you don't expect me to believe that an attractive young woman— well, perhaps not so young anymore — but let's say 'an attractive Russian woman,' shall we?' He looked from Valya's face down to the line of her breasts and back up again. But there still was no trace of desire in his eyes. He might have been appraising an animal at a market. 'Now you don't expect me to believe that you're so… so indiscriminate… that you would simply throw yourself into bed with a foreigner whom you had met hardly an hour before without receiving some sort of… compensation?'

Valya felt her cheeks burning. She recalled with piercing clarity the voices in the hotel night, the bellowing American beyond the thin wall, and the Russian woman cursing and demanding money.

'I am not a prostitute,' Valya said quietly, as if trying to convince herself.

'Oh, now. I never used such a word.' The interrogator smiled, more paternal than maternal this time. 'Far from it. You're just a girl who likes to have a good time. And who, occasionally, runs a bit short of money.'

'I'm not a prostitute, ' Valya screamed. She gripped the sides of the flimsy table, even rising slightly from her seat.

The interrogator was unruffled. 'Of course not. If you say so. In any case, I'm not a stickler about terminology.'

Valya collapsed back into her chair. 'I'm not a prostitute,' she repeated, with a noticeable catch in her voice.

'Now, Valya,' her tormentor continued. 'Little Valya. Let's look at the facts.' He glanced back toward the litter of photographs but made no move to consult them again. 'You were a married woman. Nonetheless, you carried on a virtual carnival of affairs behind your poor husband's back. Why, when he was off supposedly defending the motherland, you even had to abort your child by a notorious black marketeer. Now let's see — that was your third abortion, correct?' He took up his pencil.

'Second,' Valya said icily.

He made a tick in his notebook. 'No matter. You aborted the child with which you had been impregnated by a public criminal. For whom you did… favors. Favors of the most questionable sort.' The officer looked up from his papers, bright-eyed. 'I don't suppose you would be interested in reviewing any of the photographs from the abortion clinic? No? Of course not. Anyway. You were married to a Soviet Army officer. You whored all over Moscow with a black marketeer—'

Valya caught the sudden hardening in the man's voice. And there was something else, something else. He had said something wrong — what was it? She was so tired. She could not think clearly.

'— got pregnant, aborted, then dropped your carcass into bed with a foreign spy. Without remuneration, of course.'

'What?'

The officer appeared genuinely surprised at her outburst.

'What foreign spy?' Valya cried. She felt a terrible chill slither over her skin. The word spy had been haunted into her consciousness, into the genes of her race. The lonely syllable made her instantly afraid.

'Why, what should I call your American?'

'He's… he's a businessman.' Even now, she wondered if he was waiting for her at the hotel. They had an appointment for dinner at eight o'clock. Had she seen a way, she would have burst free and caught a bus or a trolley… she would have even run all the way… to hurl herself into Ryder's arms, and into the embrace of the hopes he represented.

The interrogator laughed. He positively shook. Reaching clumsily for his glasses, he took them off so that he could dab at his tiny eyes.

'Oh, Valya,' he said. 'My little Valya. Surely, you don't expect me to believe that you — that you, of all people — could be so naive?'

Valya looked at him in confused horror.

'Why, my little angel,' he continued, 'your latest customer — excuse me, your latest lover—is a warrant officer in the United States Army. A reconnaissance man, no less. Oh, Valya, you have to be more careful. You need to construct better stories to cover your tracks.'

Valya sat. Frozen. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

'Now why don't you just tell me,' her interrogator went on, 'what sort of information you passed to him? What messages did your husband give you for the American?'

'You're mad,' Valya declared in an awkward, stunned voice. 'That's insane. Why Yuri… Yuri would never…'

'I'm just trying to keep the names straight,' the officer said. 'Now this particular Yuri would be your late husband?'

Valya stopped breathing. Everything stopped. The blood had gone still in her arteries and veins. Then her eyelids blinked.

'Yuri?' she said.

'Why, Valya — surely this doesn't come as a surprise? Surely you knew?'

'Yuri?'

'Oh dear. Oh, Valya. I am sorry. I thought you'd been informed.' The officer ruffled through his file of papers. 'Now where is it? Oh, I can't believe I'm so clumsy. Forgive me. Please.'

'Yuri?'

The officer looked up to meet the change in her tone. He looked genuinely ill-at-ease. 'Of course, one understands how such oversights occur. I mean, it was, of course, quite recent. But, even in cases of espionage, one would think… a basic respect for the decencies…'

'… Yuri?…' Valya began to sway sideward in her chair. When she closed her eyes, she smelled the ghost of the cheese sandwich on the hairs above her lip.

The officer jumped up from his chair and caught her. 'Now, now,' he said. 'This must be a terrible shock. Why, I'm almost convinced you're not mixed up in any of this.'

'Water, please.'

The interrogator offered her the glass of stale tea. She sipped from it, then remembered why she had refused to drink any more. Her kidneys burned.

She tried to raise herself. But the officer's hand on her shoulder held her firmly in place.

'Please,' Valya said. 'Let me go to the toilet.'

'All in good time.' The hand pushed down ever so slightly. 'It's not so urgent, is it? Just when we've almost resolved the issue of your involvement in all this.'

She needed to go to the toilet. She tightened her loins, closing her thighs in a deadlock.

'So, let me see if I understand all of this,' the interrogator said. 'You had no idea that your husband was a traitor? That he was shot for collaborating with the enemy?'

Valya understood nothing. He was talking to someone else now. These words bore no relation to her life whatsoever.

'Of course, you realize that the penalty for such betrayals is always death?'

Betrayals? Nothing but betrayals. But which sort of betrayals was he speaking of now? None of it made any sense. It was all madness, and it had begun when they came for her at the school. After all of her efforts at maintaining a positive image before her superiors, they had come for her right in front of the students, unceremoniously hustling her out of the classroom. She had felt sick, realizing that she would never be able to explain this away.

What was he talking about now? Espionage? Yuri? And he said that Yuri was dead. But it was impossible for Yuri to be dead. She had only been thinking of him the night before.

'Please,' she said, 'I have to go to the toilet.'

An enormous hand smashed into the side of her face. She flew to the ground, leaving the toppled chair