– You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.
– I treated you badly. And I’m sorry.
– What are you sorry for? Be specific. Your parents are depending on you.
– I shouldn’t have hit you.
– You’re not trying hard enough. Convince me.
Desperate, Leo’s voice was trembling.
– I don’t understand what you want. You have everything. I have nothing.
– It’s simple. I want to hear you beg.
– I’m begging you, Vasili, listen to my voice. I am begging you. Leave my parents alone. Please…
Vasili had hung up.
Voualsk
17 March
Having walked all night-his feet blistered, his socks sodden with blood-Leo sat down on a park bench, put his head in his hands and wept.
He hadn’t slept, he hadn’t eaten. Last night, when Raisa had tried to talk to him, he’d ignored her. When she’d brought him food from the restaurant he’d ignored that too. Unable to stay in their tiny stinking room any longer he’d gone downstairs, elbowed his way through the crowd, making his way outside. He’d walked without any sense of direction, too frustrated, too angry to sit still and do nothing although he realized that was exactly the nature of his predicament-he could do nothing. Once again he was faced with an injustice, but this time he was no longer able to intervene. His parents wouldn’t be shot in the back in the head-that would be too swift, too much an approximation of mercy. Instead they’d be persecuted drip by drip. He could imagine the variety of options open to a methodical, sadistic and petty mind. In their respective factories they’d be demoted, given the hardest, dirtiest jobs-jobs a young man or woman would struggle with. They’d be goaded with stories of Leo’s pitiful exile, his disgrace and humiliation. Perhaps they’d even be told that he was in a Gulag, sentenced to twenty years of katorga, hard labour. As for the family that his parents were forced to share an apartment with, there was no doubt that they’d be as disruptive and unpleasant as possible. The children would be promised chocolate if they made a lot of noise, the adults promised their own apartment if they stole food, argued and, through whatever means available, made home life intolerable. He didn’t need to guess the details. Vasili would enjoy reporting them, knowing that Leo wouldn’t dare hang up the phone since he was afraid that whatever hardships his parents were experiencing would double as a result. Vasili would break him from afar, systematically applying pressure where he was vulnerable-his family. There was no defence. With a little work Leo could discover his parents’ address but all he could do, if his letters weren’t intercepted and burnt, would be to reassure them he was safe. He’d built them a comfortable life only to have it ripped from under their feet at a time when they could least handle the change.
He stood up, shivering with cold. With some difficulty, and no idea what he was going to do next, he began to retrace his steps, back to his new home.
Raisa was downstairs sitting at a table. She’d been waiting for him all night. She knew, just as Vasili had predicted, that Leo now regretted his decision not to denounce her. The price was too high. But what was she supposed to do? Pretend that he’d risked everything for a perfect love? It wasn’t something she could just conjure on demand. Even if she’d wanted to pretend she didn’t know how: she didn’t know what to say, what motions to go through. She could’ve been easier on him. In truth, some part of her must have relished his demotion. Not out of spite or vindictiveness but because she wanted him to know:
This is how I feel every day.
Powerless, scared-she’d wanted him to feel it too. She’d wanted him to understand, to experience it for himself.
Exhausted, her eyes heavy with sleep, she looked up as Leo entered the restaurant. She stood, approaching her husband, noticing his bloodshot eyes. She’d never seen him cry before. He turned away and poured himself a drink from the nearest bottle. She put a hand on his shoulder. It happened in a fraction of second: Leo spun around, grabbing her by the neck and squeezing.
– You did this.
Her veins constricted, her face flushed red-she couldn’t breathe, she was choking. Leo lifted her up: she was on the tips of her toes. Her hands fumbled at his grip. But he wouldn’t let go and she couldn’t break his hold.
She reached towards a tabletop, her fingers straining for a glass, her eyesight blurring. She managed to touch a glass, tipping it over. It fell within reach: she grabbed it, swinging and smashing it against the side of Leo’s face. The glass cracked in her hand, cutting her palms. As if a spell had been broken he released her. She fell back, coughing, holding her neck. They stared at each other, strangers, as though their entire history had been washed away in that fraction of a second. A shard of glass was embedded in Leo’s cheek. He touched it and pulled the splinter out, surveying it in the palm of his hand. Without turning her back, she edged to the stairs, hurrying up, leaving him.
Instead of following his wife, Leo downed the drink he’d already poured and then poured another and then another and by the time he heard Nesterov’s car outside he’d finished most of the bottle. Unsteady on his feet, unwashed and unshaven, drunk, brutish and senselessly violent-it had taken him less than a day to sink to the level expected of the militia.
During their car journey, Nesterov didn’t mention the gash down Leo’s face. He spoke in short bursts about the town. Leo wasn’t listening, barely conscious of his surroundings, preoccupied with the question of what he’d just done. Had he tried to strangle his wife or was that some trick of his sleep-deprived brain? He touched the cut on his cheek, saw blood on his fingertip-it was true, he’d done it and he’d been capable of more. Another couple of seconds, a slight tightening of his grip, and she would’ve died. His provocation was that he’d given up everything-his parents, his career-all on a false pretext, the promise of a family, the notion that there was some tie between them. She’d tricked him, fixed the odds, skewering his decision. Only once she was safe and his parents were suffering did she admit the pregnancy was a lie. Then she went further, openly describing how she’d held him in contempt. She’d manipulated his sentimentality and then spat in his face. In exchange for his sacrifice, in exchange for overlooking incriminating evidence of her guilt, he’d gotten nothing.
But Leo didn’t believe it for a second. The time of self-justification had ended. What he had done was unforgivable. And she was right to hold him in contempt. How many brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers had he arrested? How different was he from the man he considered his moral opposite, Vasili Nikitin? Was the difference merely that Vasili was senselessly cruel while he’d been idealistically cruel? One was an empty, indifferent cruelty while the other was a principled, pretentious cruelty which thought of itself as reasonable and necessary. But in real terms, in destructive terms, there was little to separate the two men. Had Leo lacked the imagination to realize what he was involved in? Or was it worse than that-had he chosen not to imagine it? He’d shut down those thoughts, brushed them aside.
Out of the rubble of his moral certainties one fact remained. He’d laid down his life for Raisa only to try and kill her. That was insanity. At this rate he’d have nothing, not even the woman he’d married. He wanted to say, the woman he loved. Did he love her? He’d married her, wasn’t that the same? No, not really-he’d married her because she was beautiful, intelligent and he was proud to have her by his side, proud to make her his. It was another step towards the perfect Soviet life-work, family and children. In many ways she was a cipher, a cog in the wheels of his ambitions, the necessary domestic background to his successful career, his status as a Model Citizen. Was Vasili right when he’d said she could be substituted for another? On the train he’d asked her to declare her love for him, to soothe him, to reward him with a romantic fantasy in which he was the hero. It was pathetic. Leo let out an audible sigh, rubbing his forehead. He was being outplayed-and that’s exactly what this was to Vasili, a game, with the playing chips being denominations of misery. Instead of Vasili striking his wife, hurting her, Leo had done it for him, acting out every part of his plan.
They’d arrived. The car had stopped. Nesterov was already out of the car and waiting for him. With no idea how long he’d been sitting there, Leo opened the car door, stepping out and following his superior officer into the militia headquarters to begin his first morning at work. Introduced to staff, shaking hands, nodding, agreeing but unable to take anything in; names, details-they washed over him-and it wasn’t until he was alone in the locker room with a uniform hanging before him that he began to refocus on the present. He took off his shoes, slowly peeling back the socks from his bloody toes and running his feet under cold water, watching as the water turned red. Since he had no new socks and couldn’t bring himself to ask for a new pair, he was forced to put the old socks back on, wincing in pain as he slid the material over his raw blisters. He stripped, leaving his civilian clothing in a heap at the
