It was a stifling summer evening in their small room when Anna told him that she was pregnant. As soon as she saw that Josef was delighted with the news she was happy too. They had a state wedding a month later. Zagorsky had smiled and said that they were two little bourgeois, not real Bolsheviks, but he had come to the brief ceremony together with half a dozen of their friends. Afterwards they had all had tea and cakes in their room.
When Anna stopped working, a month before their child was due, it gave them more time together and they walked every day to the local park and watched the mothers with their babies and the old babushkas who looked after toddlers while their mothers were at work.
One day they sat there for ten minutes without speaking and then Josef said, “Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “I’m fine. I can’t wait for it to arrive.”
“You seem very quiet these last few days.”
“Do I?”
Josef noticed the evasion. “Is there anything else troubling you?”
She nodded as she looked at his face. “I don’t want to go back to that place.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like the things they do.”
“What kind of things?”
“You must know what they do, Josef, you work there too.”
“What things do you dislike?”
“They treat the people like they were enemies. Not just the counter-revolutionaries but ordinary people. There are thousands of people being arrested every month.”
“There’s a constitution now, Anna. State laws that govern what can be done.”
“They’re not interested in the constitution. They don’t care about the laws. Most people arrested never get to a court. And if they do then the Cheka tell the judge what his verdict has to be.”
“They just want to make sure that the revolution is not destroyed by counter-revolutionaries. It will get back to normal when things have settled down.”
“But it’s been almost two years now, Josef, and it’s getting worse not better. They haven’t done the things they promised. None of them.”
“It has taken longer to remove the kulaks than anybody expected. Until that’s done there is no land to give to the peasants.”
She shook her head slowly. “They’ve taken tens of thousands of hectares from the kulaks in the Ukraine alone. The peasants have been given none of it. They work on collective farms owned by the State. They’ve just exchanged one set of masters for another.”
“You don’t say those kinds of things to other people, do you, Anna?”
“Of course I don’t. I’m not a fool.”
“Is there anything else that worries you?”
“I want to go back to Poland, Josef. I can feel at home there. There aren’t the same problems.”
“There are plenty of problems in Poland, my love.”
“I know, but they’re only the problems that all countries have.”
“They’d never let us go to Poland, Anna. We know too much.”
She looked at his face. “And what we know is bad for the Bolsheviks, isn’t it?”
Josef sighed and looked towards the children playing by the small ornamental lake. “I’m afraid you’re right.”
“You feel the same way I do, don’t you?”
“Not really. There’s a difference. This isn’t my country. I don’t feel responsible for what they do.”
“But you know that these people are evil men?”
“Not even that, Anna. I know that they are ruthless and unjust in many ways. But I’ve always felt that they mean well. They will carry out their promises when the country is organised, settled down. The problems are so big, Anna. Even the fact that they are trying to put things right means that they deserve our sympathy and our support.”
“You must decide what you think, Jo-jo. As long as I don’t have to go back to that dreadful place.”
“I’ll think of some story, Anna, and I’ll see what I can do with Zagorsky.”
“You won’t tell him what I’ve said, will you?”
“Of course I won’t.” He smiled and took her arm. “Let’s go back and I’ll make us a meal.”
Zagorsky had arranged for her to have the baby in hospital. A rare privilege but one that Josef’s hard work justified.
Josef took flowers to her and was allowed to hold the baby who lay contentedly in his father’s arms, the big, pale blue eyes like his father’s eyes, his neat nose like his mother’s.
For several months the new baby had occupied their minds and then Anna’s official maternity leave came to an end.
Zagorsky listened in silence as Josef explained that Anna wanted to stay on leave for another six months to be with their child. When his lame explanation was finished Zagorsky looked at him.
“Why do you lie to me, Josef?”
“It’s not a lie, Comrade Zagorsky. She wants to be at home.”
“That’s just another way of saying that she doesn’t want to be here. She is more interested in the child than her work.”
“I think there is that too.”
“So why didn’t you say so?”
“I didn’t want you or the Party to feel that she was discontented.”
“Josef, she has been discontented for the last six months.”
“You mean she has said so?”
“No.”
“Her work is not to the standard you expect?”
“Her work is well done, she is conscientious and she carries out her orders meticulously.”
“So what is wrong?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong.” Zagorsky shifted in his chair and looked back at Josef. “I told you a long time ago not to believe men’s words. With some people they show their discontent or unhappiness by working harder and longer than anyone could reasonably expect. Over-compensation for inner feelings of guilt.”
“Guilt of what?”
“Their lack of faith. In this case, lack of faith in the correctness of what she is doing. Or maybe the correctness of what others are doing with whom she is connected.”
“I don’t think . …”
Zagorsky waved his hand to silence him.
“There is another thing, isn’t there? Another thing that occupies her mind, not just the child.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’ve not heard her when she’s bouncing
