his own voice, surprised at its evenness.
The recall notice gave Levin the excuse to leave ahead of the normal, mass departure of the other Soviet officials. He felt safe telephoning ahead, to warn Galina he would be early: she was too well prepared to respond wrongly over the open line but Levin was confident she would understand something was happening because he rarely departed from normality when he was working within the confines of the United Nations.
She was still cautious when he entered the compound apartment, following his lead, which he offered quickly, not wanting her to give any blurted sort of reaction too soon to be discerned by those who daily transcribed the monitors he knew to be installed in their apartment. Very early in the posting Levin had found three listening devices in the most obvious places – the telephone receiver, the light socket and inside the actual keyhole of the door separating the living room from the main bedroom – before abandoning the search as a useless exercise, because he knew they were the ones he was expected to find and that there would be others more cleverly concealed. Quickly, to guide her, he said: ‘I thought we might go out tonight. Dinner, I mean.’
Galina, who was as heavy as her husband, bulge-hipped and droop-busted, but unlike Levin worked harder to disguise it, always dressing carefully in voluminous, folding dresses and smocks, was instantly alert, aware of two departures from the norm within the space of an hour. ‘A mission party?’ she probed tentatively.
‘Just the two of us.’
Galina knew from Levin’s monitoring search that there was no visual surveillance. Confident therefore that the gesture was safe she nodded, knowingly, raising her voice in apparant anticipation. ‘That would be wonderful.’
‘Petr will be all right by himself,’ Levin insisted, in further guidance to her that their son was not to accompany them.
Galina became sober-faced in more complete awareness, but for the benefit of the listening devices she maintained the necessary charade. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’ll be quite all right.’
Levin decided upon the Cafe Europa on 54th Street, not talking within earshot of the cab driver on the way and politely asking when they arrived for their table to be changed, to ensure greater privacy. Galina had been involved from the beginning – that had been one of Levin’s insistences – so there was no necessity for detailed explanations. He still watched her intently as he spoke, alert for her reaction to match his earlier bewilderment.
‘This morning?’ she demanded, not able to believe it either.
‘Waiting for me when I arrived.’ He was glad of the waiter’s interruption for drinks orders although it delayed the inevitable question by only a few seconds.
‘How long?’
‘A fortnight.’
Galina looked at him doubtfully, as if she had misheard. Then, flatly, she said: ‘Natalia is not due back from Moscow for another month.’
‘Do you think I need reminding of that!’
‘So it’s got to be a mistake.’
‘Which I can’t do anything to rectify.’
‘You must query it!’
‘How can I!’
‘How can you not!’
‘I can’t go back!’ protested Levin. ‘I’d wreck years of preparation. The punishment would be their using the association with the FBI as the very evidence to send me to a gulag. Maybe worse. I’m helpless: we’re both helpless.’
The woman waited until the drinks were put before them and the waiter withdrew and then she said, quiet- voiced: ‘My darling Yevgennie Pavlovich. From the beginning, all those years ago in Moscow, I agreed to be in this with you. I agreed to defect with you and to live for the rest of my life in whatever unreal sort of existence I would be called upon to endure just to be with you. Because I love you. I’ll always love you. But I love our son and daughter just as much; maybe more, in some ways, because they’ll need greater protection than you do. Because they don’t know: they’ll never be able to know. You’re properly trained… a professional. For them it was always going to be a monumental upheaval, changing their lives, just like that…’ Galina stopped, snapping her fingers. She took up again: ‘I was prepared for that monumental upheaval: to help them and to explain as much as I could to them and maybe in time – a very long time – to make them understand you weren’t the traitor to your country they would believe you to be…’ She stopped, swallowing heavily from her drink, needing it. ‘I only ever made one condition. That we were never split. I will not do it… cannot do it, with Natalia still in Russia. Neither of us can.’
‘I’ll get her out,’ blurted Levin. ‘Not at once, of course. That won’t be possible. But in time. In time they’ll let her out…’
Galina shook her head sadly. ‘We can’t be certain of that, my darling. We can’t take that risk.’
‘Can we take the other risk!’
‘Not without Natalia,’ insisted the woman adamantly, refusing to answer the question. ‘I won’t go without Natalia.’
‘Things are different, under Gorbachov!’
‘Stop it, Yevgennie Pavlovich!’ said the woman sadly.
‘You’ve got to choose.’
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘I’ll make a meeting, with the Americans…’
‘…What can they do?’ interrupted Galina objectively.
‘I can’t go without you.’
‘I can’t go without the children. Both of them.’
‘I don’t know what to do!’ said Levin, who did but did not want to confront the decision.
‘You really can’t go back, can you?’ accepted Galina.
‘No,’ he said shortly.
‘Why did it have to happen like this!’
‘I don’t know.’
The waiter arrived to take their order from a menu at which neither of them had looked.
‘What do you want?’ asked Levin.
‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘We’d better eat something,’ he said. ‘For appearance sake.’
‘Appearance sake!’ erupted Galina bitterly. ‘Always for appearance sake! Will there ever be a time when we can do something other than for appearance sake!’
‘I hope so,’ said Levin doubtfully. ‘One day.’ He’d never imagined it was going to be as bad as this. And it hadn’t even started yet.
Major Lev Konstantinovich Panchenko, the deputy security commander for the First Chief Directorate, stumped heavy-booted into Kazin’s office, a recruiting poster image of a militarily trained officer, shaven-headed, polished-face, starch-stiff. The salute was like the movement of machinery: he stood ramrod straight, eyes pitched just above Kazin’s head.
‘At ease,’ said Kazin.
There was a barely perceptible relaxation from the other man.
‘Comrade Major,’ opened Kazin, almost conversationally. ‘You have been attached to this Directorate security division for ten years?’
‘Yes, Comrade First Deputy.’
‘It is a vocation you enjoy?’
‘Yes, Comrade First Deputy.’
‘One in which you see a continuing future?’
‘Yes, Comrade First Deputy.’
‘Comrade Major Panchenko, for the past five of those ten years you accepted money from Jews seeking exit visas to Israel: bribes for linking them with the responsible officials at the Dutch embassy from which they can obtain finance necessary to purchase those exits,’ announced Kazin. ‘Through a KGB deputy in Tbilisi you import
