People who had terrible rows sometimes said things they didn’t mean to say. It was still only eleven o’clock. ‘No chance of Eddie coming home to lunch?’
‘He never does. He’d phone if he decided to.’
‘I’ll come.’
‘Thank you, darling. There isn’t anybody else I can talk to.’
As Brinkman drove back to the compound he determined his initial reaction to her call had been the right one. Now Blair was back in Moscow it wasn’t going to be easy to see Ann any more. To attempt to was virtual madness. Did he want to anyway? Although he’d disguised it better, Brinkman had been as bewildered and confused as Ann by what occurred after the Bolshoi and made the same resolutions about mistakes and forgetting them. So why had it been he who made the first approach, afterwards? He’d told her it wasn’t a casual fuck and it wasn’t Romeo and Juliet either, so OK, what was it? A personal involvement hadn’t featured in his plans for Moscow. Without thinking positively about it he’d imagined affairs, pleasant conclusions to pleasant evenings – which is how this had started, he remembered – but he hadn’t wanted telephone-at-work, see-me-at-once situations. And not with the wife of a man doing the same job as he was doing at the American embassy. So what was he doing driving across Moscow for lunchtime assignations? It wasn’t an assignation, he thought, in immediate correction. And there was a purpose – what about the divisions now? – if Blair had inadvertently said something during their argument. Which was an excuse for what? Brinkman couldn’t decide and Brinkman didn’t like being unable to decide anything: certainly not about himself.
There was no hesitation any more. As soon as she let him into the apartment Ann clung to him and kissed him and Brinkman held her and kissed her back and realised he was even more undecided.
‘When did he tell you?’ she asked.
‘We had lunch at the embassy.’
‘Can you believe it!’
‘Professionally, yes,’ said Brinkman. He was trying to be fair as well as guide the conversation.
‘But he knew how I felt!’
‘It’s a very important time here, just now,’ said Brinkman, steering still.
‘That all I bloody well hear! I couldn’t give a damn about how important situations are here at the moment. I came willingly here because I knew how much it mattered to Eddie’s career and I’ve endured it here, for the same reason. To be with him I’ve been virtually cut off by my family and I abandoned all my friends and until now I’ve tried not to complain too much…’ Ann held up her hand, a physical correction. ‘I let him know, clearly enough. But I tried not to go on about it, like some spoilt brat. And all right, I know that’s how I might sound now, to you and to him. But at least we could have discussed it! Didn’t I deserve that, at least?’
Brinkman supposed she did. She appeared to have lobotomised herself to what had happened between them while Blair was away in her equations about who had let whom down. Maybe he wasn’t the only one to try to create divisions. ‘It wouldn’t have been easy, talking on the telephone from Washington, would it?’
‘Why not! What’s all this crap about open lines and secure lines? We wouldn’t have been talking about anything secret. We’d have been talking about our future. And why was it so important to get a decision there and then? Why couldn’t he have come back here to Moscow so we could have talked it through?’
No reason at all, conceded Brinkman. Except that wasn’t how these things were done. He wouldn’t be able to make her understand. It was time to try to get the conversation back on course again. He said, ‘How long’s the extension?’
She snorted a laugh. ‘He says no longer than three years but I don’t believe him. Or that it could be sooner: maybe that we’d be able to keep to the original schedule if the leadership thing is sorted out.’
When the hell was he going to get a lead he could understand and follow? He said, ‘So you could be getting upset about nothing?’
‘Will it be?’
‘Chebrakin has been declared the new leader,’ he said.
She smiled up, in sudden hope. ‘So it is sorted out!’
‘What does Eddie say?’ he asked, directly and hopefully.
‘We haven’t talked about it. We haven’t talked about anything much since he came back,’ she confessed.
Seeing a route to follow Brinkman said, ‘Knowing – as he does now – how you feel about staying on I would have thought he would have said something if everything had been solved by Chebrakin’s election.’
‘So would I,’ she agreed.
Come on! thought Brinkman, the exasperation practically constant now. He said, ‘Hasn’t he?’
‘No’, she said, shortly.
Brinkman knew his conjecture in the embassy cafeteria was right. But what in the name of God was sufficiently important beyond Chebrakin personally to go back to Washington? And likely to keep Blair here longer than his scheduled posting, as much as three years longer? Ann hadn’t believed that, remembered Brinkman. Maybe longer then. It had been worth the risk, coming here today. Wanting more and remembering his earlier thoughts about what happened during arguments, Brinkman said, ‘So it was a bad row?’
‘Terrible,’ she said. ‘The worst ever.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Brinkman, another direct question.
Ann looked away. ‘That if I didn’t like it, I could leave.’
Not only important enough to go back to Washington; important enough to consider sacrificing his marriage. Jesus! thought Brinkman. Trying for still more he said, ‘People say things they don’t mean when they’re shouting at each other.’
Ann came against him once more and knowing her need he reached out and held her. ‘Oh darling,’ she said. ‘I’m so unsure of everything!’
So am I, thought Brinkman. So am I.
Until now Orlov’s deception of the old man had been unavoidable; Sevin led and Orlov had no alternative but to follow. Today it was going to have to become calculated and deliberate. Orlov had wanted it otherwise. He’d tried to think of every other way, every alternative avenue, but there was none he could attempt without the risk of arousing curiosity. He waited for the customary summons and entered Sevin’s suite with the approach carefully prepared. There was the progress discussion on the agricultural project and when the conversation began to flag Orlov said, ‘There’s something I think you should know.’
Sevin smiled at him, waiting.
‘Natalia and I have decided to divorce,’ announced Orlov. ‘Everything is well advanced, actually.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Sevin, curtly. There was no stigma to divorce within the Soviet Union but the news unsettled Sevin. He’d wanted Pietr Orlov perfect in every way and this was a blemish and an unnecessary blemish. Why couldn’t the man have maintained a pretence, aware as he was of the future that was planned for him! A lot of other people did.
Orlov knew that Sevin, a widower now, had been married for forty years. He said, ‘I thought you should know… in case of any embarrassment.’ Orlov had no religion but he knew the book. Judas, he thought.
Sevin’s mind was way ahead of the immediate discussion. People got divorced for a lot of different reasons but often because of some outside liaison but nowhere in the checks that he’d made was there a suggestion of Orlov being involved in any sort of extra-marital activity. Feeling he had the right, Sevin asked directly, ‘Is there anybody else?’
Orlov was stiff-faced with control: double Judas, he thought. He said, ‘No. Not on either side.’
‘Why then?’ persisted Sevin.
Prepared, Orlov said, ‘I suppose we were too long apart. We’re strangers to each other. There are constant arguments.’
‘Married people argue,’ said Sevin.
‘You’ve made it clear to me what you intend. How important it is for all appearances to be right. I did not consider the relationship between Natalia and myself sufficient to maintain that sort of public appearance, when the time comes.’ Judas, hypocrite, liar and cheat, he thought, miserably.
Sevin nodded at the explanation. Orlov had never done anything to create the slightest suspicion. Objectively Sevin decided it was an honest explanation and it was a completely acceptable – politically acceptable – explanation at that. He said, ‘I think you made the right decision. Divorce is one of the few things in this society that doesn’t
