thousand miles to Tashkent, way beyond the distance they needed. Fuel for more than five hours, take them into Europe, into the West. But down into Tashkent, where the flight was rooted, what papers would you need for that? Didn't know. It had been his plan, his idea, the whole thing and the others had accepted it, and he didn't know the answers, and had no way of finding them, only at the counter, only at the ticket counter.
Cannot apply logic to regulations, either know the answer or you are ignorant.
He joined the queue to one of the central counters, heavy traffic, more than at the extremes of right and left. Funny how people sought the centre where the delays would be greater.
Conformity. Five, ten minutes slipping by, and time for him to sum up the girl in the dowdy blue uniform behind the counter. Customers in front of him being satisfied, queue lengthening behind him. Soon there was only one more man in front – heavy suit of a Party worker. Perhaps he wasn't, but Isaac reckoned anybody who wore a heavy suit when it was hot was a Party worker, status in showing they had the clothes. Sweat was running down the man's neck on to his collar: so much for the gesture of superiority.
An argument. The man wanted Moscow. She said it was full for two days. He showed her his papers, his documentation and his cards, but she replied by saying it didn't make a damn of difference, that everything was full, although he could go to the airport and try his luck there.
Isaac realized that the man couldn't be that important, meant he didn't qualify by his rank for the tickets kept back for senior Party officials on all flights. Everyone knew about that.
The girl's cheeks were flushed, and she was looking round her for support when she caught Isaac's eyes, and his wink, the lowered lid, was acknowledged. Isaac saw her stifle a giggle and return her gaze to the man whose voice was now raised.
There would be trouble for her, a complaint to the responsible person. His department would lodge a protest at the highest level. What was her name? Blatant obstruction of an official. And he left his place at the counter.
Isaac said, 'I'd like to book three for tomorrow, to Tashkent, student fare, coming back fourteen days from tomorrow. I'd like to go on tomorrow afternoon's flight, return Wednesday fortnight. If it's possible?' and he smiled, boyish, intimate… 'silly old fool. You handled him well-you'll not hear from him again.' His right hand had moved from his hip pocket, engulfing the fifty roubles of notes, and the fist opened among the papers in front of her, tickets, timetables, price charts, and without taking her eyes from him she covered the notes, faded and worn, with her booking pad.
She didn't reply, just picked up her desk telephone – computer not working again-and was talking into it; Isaac waiting for the verdict.
Still holding the phone she asked for the names, and when they had been given to her she repeated them into the receiver, spelling them out letter by letter. It seemed to take a lifetime. She said 'priority', and grinned at him; not bad looking, Isaac thought, but someone should do something about her teeth. He smiled back.
'Confirmed,' she said, and started to make out the tickets themselves. Not much to fill in, not like an international ticket. When she had finished she set to work on her calculator. 'With the student reduction, and the fourteen-day stop reduction, and the ballet festival concession in Tashkent – you're lucky on that one… five hundred and twenty-two roubles… for the three. You pay over there, on the right at the cash counter, if you haven't a warrant, that is.'
'Our parents have the money,' said Isaac. 'Keep the tickets there beside you and I'll be back with the money…'
'I'm not supposed to do that, to make out tickets that aren't immediately paid for.'
' I'll be back. I know when you close. Keep them on one side. I'll be back.'
So the flight was booked, and he found it difficult to walk when he was out on the street again.
'How easy 1 It was going to work. The whole thing was going to work. He wanted to shout, to yell the message. David and Rebecca and Isaac, they'd show the bastards. Show them all.
Isaac's mother was waiting, as he had told her to, outside the Savings Bank nearest to their home.
She was a small, sparrow- sized woman, and the fines on her face were devoid of relief. The boy had not explained, given her no reason for her presence there, just told her to bring the payment book. A hard and suffering time she had had, with money not easy to come by; it had been grafted for, worked for and collected With a miser's hand. And he had said he would need most of the deposit that had increased at such pitiful speed over the previous thirty years. He had told her that David and Rebecca's mothers would repay her in part, and she had thought that she barely knew these other persons who were families of her son's friends. But something in the boy's looks had stopped her from remonstrating, and so she now stood and waited for him.
Two per cent per annum they paid – not a way to get rich, not a way that people could lift themselves from the bog of their lives. But what alternative was there? What else could one do with one's money? When he came Isaac took her arm, kissed her on the cheek and together they took their place in the queue. A bright, airy interior. Lace curtains and flowers on the table where the customers could sit and prepare their paperwork. Even Lenin, in his wall portrait, seemed content, as he looked the length of the bank across to the photograph of the Ukrainian General Secretary of the Party. At the counter, like a ventriloquist's doll, his mother spoke while Isaac a pace behind her primed the old lady's ear as to how much she should withdraw. It was time-consuming but without difficulty, and they maintained a punctilious politeness to the girl, for she could easily hinder them if they aggravated her. And they were Jews, so it was easy to offend.
When the money had passed to his mother and on to Isaac, he said, ' I cannot tell you why, but you will know by tomorrow night, and you must have courage, the courage of our people.
Whatever happens you must be brave. Do not bow to them. I will not be home tonight. Do not ask why; be brave.'
There was no emotion displayed by the old lady as she stepped out on to the street again. She walked away with a brisk and sturdy step.
And he had the money in his pocket. A tight wad of rolled, crisp banknotes, and he was hurrying for the bus that would take him back to the centre of Kiev and the Aeroflot offices. So he had done his part; they could board the plane that would lift off in twenty-three hours. But had David the guns? Would Rebecca secure access for them? And when would Moses break, when would Moses talk?
Yevsei Allon could barely believe his luck.
First the call by telephone to the freight office, and his being told by the Under Manager that there was a personal message for him, and not to take long because the line carried official business. The voice of the girl that he remembered from school, and who had been too haughty then to acknowledge him, the suggestion that they should meet and talk about the old days in the classroom, the little laugh that mingled with the static of the poor connection, and his thinking of his night classes, and not daring to mention them. They would meet at the subway entrance that was near the small church of Saint Sophia.
Before he had left the airport at the end of the day-shift Yevsei had spent ten full minutes in the washroom, scrubbing his hands and lathering the hard public utilities soap on his face. He wetted and then combed the short hair on his head till the parting was straight and exact, and he had looked at himself in the mirror, and the man who waited behind him to use the basin had quipped, 'You'll need more than soap and a comb to please her.' He'd blushed, crimson over his whitened face, and mumbled an answer before running for the bus.
They had had coffee after they met, sitting at a table away from the bar where the voices of other customers were reduced to a background drone. The girl listened to him as he grew in confidence, and she had asked him about his job, what he did at the airport, and they had talked of their teachers in the low voices of conspiracy and of their friends, and demolished them all.
Her white teeth had flashed when he made his jokes, and she had thrown back her head, so that the long black hair trailed away from the slightness of her neck. He could see the shape of her breasts and the outline of her waist till there was a tightness and a sweat inside the ill- fitting trousers that he cursed himself for having chosen to wear that morning. Too much really to believe in. On his way to the toilet he'd stumbled, banging his foot against the leg of the table, rattling the cups. Then he'd scrabbled in his pocket for the kopecks that he needed for the machine, and for the sachet that he would want when the light faded.
She took him in the early evening to the sandbank of the Dneiper, and they swam in the great river that flows north to south through the city. She was prepared, and wearing a one-piece bathing suit that had been concealed under her dress, he in the blue underpants that bulged and heaved in spite of the cold drift of water round his lower belly. When he touched her in the water, trying to pretend it was an accident, she had not moved away as the other
