in a slightly clipped voice, as if it were something to be ashamed of.
“Shall I join you?” It was the most normal remark in the world. Then she laughed. “At the table, I mean.”
He looked flustered. Every word seemed a mine of possibilities. Then, bringing his thoughts together, he looked at the empty chair at his table, as though someone might be in it. Then he nodded, leaned over and picked his coat off the back of the chair, and hung it on his own without turning around, not wanting to take his eyes away.
He was looking good, Anna thought. Not just prosperous, but fit, healthy. His black hair, which grew thick around the temples, was swept across his forehead in a way that would have suited New York in the 1950s. His hands were manicured; his face, apart from the intensity in his eyes, was calm. He looked lean, with slightly dark Caucasian skin, as if he had a suntan. She remembered how handsome he’d looked in uniform twenty years before. He hadn’t changed much—there was still strength in his jaw, and the skin around his neck was taut, not flabby. His eyes in their fright were as intense and dark as ever.
She crossed over to his table and put her coat on the back of the chair where he’d removed his.
His food arrived—pasta, she saw.
“Don’t wait,” she said. “Eat. It’ll get cold.”
He looked at the pasta, but his appetite was gone.
“Are you going to eat?” he said.
“I’ll eat yours if you don’t hurry up,” she said. But he made no move to eat.
“Why are you here?” he said suddenly, and all the promise of his slight relaxation a moment before vanished.
“I live not far from here.” It was not an answer to his question.
“Where?”
“You want my address?” She gave him a smile that indicated the unlikelihood of receiving it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and looked momentarily defeated.
“I’ve never been in here,” she said.
“The food’s okay.”
She picked up the menu.
“I’ll have chocolate cake,” she said. “I won’t eat it all.”
They were silent. She saw he was not yet willing to accept this as a chance encounter.
A waitress came to the table, and she ordered chocolate cake.
When she’d gone, they both began to speak at once again, and each stopped for the other.
“You first,” he said.
“As far as I know, I’m alone,” she said. “They stopped following me months ago. I’ve been debriefed for longer than I thought possible. I’m clear.”
“Good,” he said. “I hope you’re right.”
They were silent, neither appearing able or willing to come up with an appropriate remark.
“You want to see me?” he said.
“I’m seeing you now.”
He looked hurt, confused.
“I’m sorry, Volodya,” she said. “But how can we see each other?”
“We can make another accidental meeting,” he said.
She saw he was desperate that this not be the last time.
He stretched his hand across the table towards hers and then stopped, unable to commit himself.
“I’m sorry about . . .” He didn’t finish. There seemed perhaps too many things to be sorry about.
“I’m sorry too, Volodya.”
He didn’t want to approach the subject of them too closely. Not yet.
“Your grandmother,” he said. “You know she died last year.”
“I know.”
Anna thought of the night at her grandmother’s five years earlier, when Vladimir had woken them at five in the morning to take her away.
“I owe you, Vladimir,” she said. “Thanks to you, Nana and I were able to say good-bye to each other before she died. But she was ready to go. You gave her a great gift, as well as me. I know she died happy, knowing I was safe. Eighty-five years of life, and at last one of her family breaks free, escapes their fate. It was what she always wanted for me. So thank you from her too.”
“I’ve seen your mother,” he said. “Once or twice.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“And him?” Vladimir said. “Your father?”
“I’ll never speak to him again,” she said.
“He’s gotten old,” Vladimir told her. “He’s in a care home for the Paradise Group,” he said.
Anna couldn’t imagine her father, the great SVR officer and tyrant, sitting in a care home. But the Paradise Group would look after him, whatever he wanted. They were the most senior retirees from the heart of the KGB. She didn’t reply. The thought of her father disgusted her. Her chocolate cake arrived, and she urged him to eat once again. They both ate without noticing the food.
She finished half the cake and pushed the plate across the table to him.
“Coffee?” she said.
“Are you?” He’d hardly touched the pasta.
“Yes. Two coffees,” she said to the waitress. “And another fork for my friend, please.”
The coffees arrived, and he heaped sugar into his. Conversation had ground to a halt. There was nothing to say that wasn’t charged with meaning, either dangerous or intimate. She was prepared for him to backtrack on his request to meet again, and had her response ready when he did.
“How many of them are there outside?” he said. “Or in here?”
“Volodya, there’s no one. Or not that I know.”
She wrote something on the bill the waitress had left, as if she was paying. Then she pushed it under his newspaper, a distance of a few inches. She was sure it would be unnoticed by anyone but the two of them.
“And you? Are you usually watched?” she said.
“No. Not usually.”
“Then if you wish, we could meet again,” she said, and lowered her eyes to the bill under the newspaper. “On Tuesdays I go to a gym. There’s a cafe behind the gym. I can usually be sure to be alone for an hour. I’ll go there. There’s a fire escape at the back. I’ll come straight out of the back and be in the cafe. Three o’clock.”
He didn’t reply.
“But if you don’t wish to meet me,” she said, “then I’m glad I’ve had the chance to thank you for what you did. You didn’t just save my life, you saved my love of life.” She paused, as if uncertain she was saying the right thing to her former lover. “Finn always wanted to thank you too,” she added finally. “It amazed him.”
A look of anxiety crossed his face.
“They killed him,” he said.
He looked down at the table. He had saved her. But the organisation he worked for had killed the man he had saved her life for.
“I know,” she said, in a way that understood his remorse. “But don’t worry, you’re safe. Your secret will be buried with me. I’m not here to threaten you. Ever.”
He didn’t reply at first.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I’m so sorry about Finn.”
“It’s not your fault. But thank you, Volodya.” She gave him a big, happy smile that was the first genuine expression she’d worn since they’d met. “And I’m happy to see you. Really I am.”
She took out a purse from her coat.
“I’ll get this. Pasta, salad, coffees, and half a chocolate cake. Fair exchange for saving my life?”
He smiled for the first time. “Fair exchange. We’re even.”
Then he fractionally extended his hand across the table again. It was such a small gesture, she might have missed it if she hadn’t been in a state of heightened awareness of his every reaction. She laid her own hand on top
