productive, healthy young scientists, engineers and Olympic gold-medal-winning athletes. The cathedral-sized gymnasium, adjacent to the main building, was wider and deeper then the school itself, equipped with an indoor running track, an array of mats, hoops, rope ladders and springboards, all of which were put to good use by an extracurricular timetable that included an hour of training every day for every student regardless of age or ability. The implication of both his speech and the design of the school itself had been always very clear to Raisa: the country didn’t need poets, philosophers and priests. It needed productivity that could be measured and quantified, success that could be timed with a stopwatch.
Raisa counted only one friend amongst her colleagues-Ivan Kuzmitch Zhukov, a language and literature teacher. She didn’t know his exact age, he wouldn’t say, but he was around about forty. Their friendship had occurred by chance. He’d casually lamented the size of the school library-a cupboardlike room in the basement next to the boiler stocked with pamphlets, back issues of Pravda, approved texts and not a single foreign author. Hearing him, Raisa had whispered that he should be more careful. That whisper had been the beginning of an unlikely friendship which, from her point of view, might have been strategically unwise considering Ivan’s tendency to speak his mind. He was in many people’s eyes already a marked man. Other teachers were convinced that he hoarded forbidden texts under his floorboards or, far worse, he was writing a book of his own and smuggling the no doubt subversive pages out to the West. It was true that he’d loaned her an illegal translation of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which she’d been forced to read in parks over the summer and which she’d never dared take back to her apartment. Raisa could afford the association only because her own loyalty had never been too closely scrutinized. She was, after all, the wife of a State Security officer, a fact known by almost everyone, including some of the students. Logically, Ivan should have kept his distance. No doubt he reassured himself with the deduction that if Raisa had wanted to denounce him she would have done so already, considering how many imprudent things she’d heard him say and how easy it would for her to whisper his name across the pillow into the ear of her husband. So it came to be that the only person she trusted amongst the staff was the man most mistrusted and the only person he trusted was the woman he should trust least of all. He was married, with three children. All the same she suspected he was in love with her. It was not something she dwelt on and she hoped for both their sakes that it was not something he dwelt on either.
Outside the main entrance to the school, across the road, in the foyer of a low-rise apartment block, stood Leo. He’d changed out of his uniform and was wearing civilian clothing, clothing he’d borrowed from work. In the Lubyanka there were cupboards full of odds and ends: coats, jackets, trousers-all of various sizes and differing in quality, kept for exactly this purpose. Leo hadn’t thought about where these clothes had come from until he’d found a spot of blood on the cuff of a cotton shirt. They were the clothes of those executed in the building on Varsonofyevsky Lane. They’d been washed, of course, but some stains were stubborn. Dressed in an ankle-length grey woollen coat and a thick fur hat pulled down over his forehead, Leo was convinced his wife wouldn’t recognize him if by chance she glanced in his direction. He stamped his feet to keep warm, checking his watch, a stainless- steel Poljot Aviator-a birthday present from his wife. There wasn’t long until her classes were finished for the day. He glanced at the light above him. Using an abandoned mop he reached up and smashed the bulb, plunging the foyer into shadow.
This wasn’t the first time his wife had been followed. Three years ago Leo had arranged surveillance for reasons that had nothing to do with whether or not she was a security risk. They’d been married less than a year. She’d become increasingly distant. They were living together yet living apart, working long hours, glimpsing each other briefly in the morning and evening with as little interaction as two fishing boats which set sail each day from the same port. He didn’t believe that he’d changed as a husband and so couldn’t understand why she’d changed as a wife. Whenever he broached the subject she’d claimed she felt unwell yet she refused to see a doctor and anyway who was unwell month after month after month? The only explanation he could come up with was that she was in love with another man.
Duly suspicious he’d dispatched a newly recruited, promising young agent to follow his wife. This agent had done so every day for a week. Leo had justified this course of action because although unpleasant it was motivated by love. However, it had been a risk, not merely in the sense that Raisa might find out. If his colleagues had found out they might have interpreted this matter differently. If Leo couldn’t trust his wife sexually how could they trust her politically? Unfaithful or not, subversive or not, it would be better for everyone if she was sent to the Gulags. Just to be sure. But Raisa hadn’t been having an affair and no one ever found out about the surveillance. Relieved, he had accepted that he simply needed to be patient, attentive and help her with whatever difficulty she was going through. Over the months their relationship had gradually improved. Leo had transferred the young agent to a post in Leningrad, a move which he’d packaged as a promotion.
This mission, however, was something entirely different. The order to investigate had come from above. This was official State business; a matter of national security. At stake was not their marriage but their lives. There was no doubt in Leo’s mind that Raisa’s name had been inserted into Anatoly Brodsky’s confession by Vasili. The fact that another agent corroborated the details of the confession meant nothing: either it was a conspiracy, a bare- faced lie, or Vasili had planted the name in Brodsky’s head at some point during his interrogation, an easy enough thing to do. Leo blamed himself. Taking time off work had given Vasili an opportunity which he’d exploited with perfect ruthlessness. Leo was trapped. He couldn’t claim the confession itself was a lie-it was an official document as valid and true as every other confession. The only course of action had been to register his profound disbelief, suggesting that the traitor Brodsky was trying to incriminate Raisa as an act of revenge. Upon hearing this explanation Kuzmin had asked how the traitor knew that he was married. Desperate, Leo had been forced to lie, claiming that he’d mentioned his wife’s name in the course of their conversations. Leo was not a skilful liar. By defending his wife he was incriminating himself. To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs. Kuzmin had concluded that such a potential breach of security would have to be thoroughly investigated. Either Leo could do it himself or allow another operative to take over. Hearing this ultimatum, he’d accepted the case on the basis that he was simply trying to clear his wife’s name. In much the same way that three years ago he’d put to bed his doubts about her faithfulness, now he had to put to bed doubts about her faithfulness to the State.
Across the road children poured out of the school, breaking off in all directions. One young girl ran across the road, heading straight towards Leo and entering the apartment block where he was hiding. As she passed by in the gloom, her feet crunching on the shards of bulb glass, she paused, weighing up whether or not to speak. Leo turned to look at her. The girl had long black hair tied with a red band. She was perhaps seven years old. Her cheeks were pink with the cold. Quite suddenly she broke into a run, her little shoes tapping up the flight of stairs, away from this stranger and back home where she was still young enough to believe she was safe.
Leo moved to the glass door, watching as the last of the students filed out of the building. He knew Raisa wasn’t timetabled for any extracurricular activities-she’d be leaving soon. There she was, at the entrance, standing with a male colleague. He had a trim grey beard, round glasses. Leo noted that he was not an unattractive man. He looked educated, cultivated, refined, with busy eyes and a satchel brimming with books. This must be Ivan: Raisa had mentioned him, the language teacher. At a guess Leo reckoned this man was older than him by at least ten years.
Leo willed them to separate at the gates but instead they set off together, walking side by side in casual conversation. He waited, allowing them to get ahead. They were familiar with each other, Raisa laughed at a joke and Ivan seemed pleased. Did Leo make her laugh? Not really, not often. He certainly didn’t object to being laughed at when he was foolish or clumsy. He had a sense of humour in that regard but no, he didn’t tell jokes. Raisa did. She was playful, verbally, intellectually. Ever since they’d first met, ever since she’d tricked him into believing she was called Lena, he’d never been in any doubt that she was smarter than him. Considering the risks associated with intellectual agility, he’d never been jealous-until now, watching her with this man.
Leo’s feet were numb. He was glad to be on the move, trailing his wife at a distance of about fifty metres. In the weak orange glow of the street lights it wasn’t difficult to follow her-there were hardly any other people on the street. That changed when they turned on Avtozavodskaya, the main road, which was also the name of the metro station to which they were almost certainly heading. There were queues of people lined up outside grocery stores, clogging the pavements. Leo found it hard to keep track of his wife, made harder by her nondescript clothes. He had no choice but to shorten the distance between them, quickening his pace. He was less than twenty metres behind her. At this distance there was a danger she’d see him. Raisa and Ivan turned into Avtozavodskaya station, disappearing from view. Leo hurried forward, weaving in and out of the pedestrians. In the commuter crowds she might easily disappear. This was, as Pravda frequently boasted, the busiest and best metro system in the
