Bolshaya Sadovaya — the sort of play an officer would want to see on leave from the Finnish border, a weak satire on provincial life in the Soviet Union that everyone seemed to want to see, so that the tickets were at some kind of premium.
Now, the cars were parked in the Arbat, a short distance
But his attention kept returning to the curtains across the windows of the Praga on the other side of the street, dimly lit from within. The sight possessed him because he and Natalia had often eaten or drunk there, in the early days, when he had waited for her to finish a performance in the chorus of the Bolshoi. A time before many things.
It was evident that Vrubel had chosen the Arbat because of its proximity to Natalia's apartment. He was to be forced to witness, from his car, the laughing, meaningful exit from the cafe, the summoning of a taxi, perhaps the heads leaning together through the rear window, even the grotesque cliche of merging shadows thrown on to the drawn curtains of a bedroom.
He had forgotten the surveillance purpose of what he was doing; so much so that he was on the point of ordering the other tail-car to go off-duty. He could not bear the thought that other men would sit outside the apartment-block on Kalenin Street, watching the same shadow-dance on the curtains. The thought left a vile taste in his mouth, and a creeping sensation in his genitals, as if they were threatened with pain or damage. He picked up the handset.
'Maxim,' he said.
'Yes, Major.'
'Forget it — go home.'
'Home, Major?'
'Yes, dammit! Go home. I'll take care of things here!'
There was a pause, then, with a tone in which he could sense the pity: 'Yes, sir.' Then, formally: 'Moscow Unit Seven-Oh-Four-Seven going off-duty in the Arbat. Returning to central garage. Good-night, Major.'
'Good-night.' He jammed the handset into its dip under the dash, rubbed his chin hard, a rasping sound in the car; it was as if he were rubbing something clean. Then he looked at his hand, to see if it trembled. It was steady, and he was thankful.
They came out of the Praga, laughing as he had anticipated — he could almost tell from the slant of her body, the way her fur coat was wrapped against her, the pressure of the sum form against Vrubel's uniform… she was inviting him without words. It was as if he had seen her fornicating in the harshly-lit street, so naked were her intentions. When the taxi moved away, he switched on the engine, and followed at a distance. There was no necessity to keep close. He knew their destination.
He parked quietly, with a view of her bedroom window, as the taxi drew away. Vrubel's tip, in anticipation, had no doubt been generous. Then they had gone inside — a part of his mind shared the lift with them. Then he picked up the handset, and called the Centre, requesting to be put through to the SID offices on Frunze Quay. All communications from mobile units were relayed through the central control room in Dzerzhinsky Street. Eventually, Ilya replied. His voice sounded more bored than before. Vorontsyev, as he waited, his mind on the Ossipov- substitute, had been unable to distract his eyes from the bedroom window. The light had gone on, the curtains tugged across. It was as if she knew he was down there…
'Vorontsyev,' he said, and his voice sounded thick and strange.
'Yes, Major.' There was some effort to attend, to sound interested.
He saw the figures moving in an old dance, against the lighted curtains. He could feel her body…
'Anything on that bastard yet?'
'Er — no, sir. Not yet.'
'Why not, for shit's sake? You must have something!' The bodies swayed — he could see the imperceptible movement towards the bed. 'Get your fucking finger out, Ilya! You're wasting time!' He wanted to go on shouting into the handset, shouting obscenities, berating his subordinate, purging him self. Orgasm of jealousy, hot in his dry throat.
'Yes, sir.' Ilya was abashed, shocked.
'Get — on with it, then. I want something by the morning. Something
He pushed the handset down into the passenger-seat, leaning his weight on it unconsciously. He was shuddering, as Vrubel would be, soon. The heave of the final thrust…
He got out of the car. He could no longer watch the darkened window. He drew in the air, gratefully, and made himself walk. He walked up and down, a sentry to Natalia's infidelity, his hands thrust in the pockets of his overcoat, his face a set, grim mask.
Vrubel, as he left, almost bumped into him, paid no attention except to mumble an apology. Vorontsyev, looking up, saw the officer's back walking away from him — uniform purpled beneath the street lamp for a moment, then the form shadowed again. He watched, hating.
He had been surprised when Vrubel and Natalia had taken a taxi from the apartment to the theatre, and wondered why Vrubel had no hire car. He saw him now fishing for a key, opening the door of a Zil, looking back up at the window, then sorting the engine — a sudden loud cough that seemed to waken Vorontsyev. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes — Vrubel had been with his wife only twenty minutes.
Even as the laughter began to bubble acidly in his throat — the image of temporary impotence sketched in his mind like a cartoon on a lavatory wall — he sensed that Vrubel was leaving with a purpose. He wasn't running
He ran to his own car, seeing the Zil turn out of the service road, heading north up the wide thoroughfare. Towards Arbat Square, and perhaps the Sadovaya motorway ring. His own engine fired at the third hasty attempt, he flicked on the headlights, and screeched away. There was satisfaction now in action, for the first time that night. He roared across the Kalenin Street, in front of a taxi which sounded its horn at him — Vorontsyev recognised with a smile that the man was probably KGB; he would otherwise have shown caution in remonstrating with a car so obviously in pursuit of something or someone.
Vrubel's black car was well ahead of him, crossing the Arbat — he caught a glimpse of it as he weaved out of the stream of traffic for a moment, into the path of an oncoming lorry. He ducked back in, then surged out, overtaking three cars before having to squeeze back into the heavy flow across the square. The night-life of Moscow, flowing back out to the new suburbs.
He did not catch sight of Vrubel again until they had both turned left on to Tchaikovsky Street, part of the inner motorway ring; then right through the Smolenskaia, and suddenly out across the Borodino Bridge, the water sluggish, dark ice perhaps at its edges — he could not be sure; certainly it was much colder.
As he crossed the bridge, it was as if he left the apartment behind him. Now thought, accelerating with the car, focused ahead and he began to sense that he had inadvertently panicked Vrubel. Something about his visit to the apartment had made him suspicious; perhaps the man could not believe that it was entirely fortuitous. But where was he going? Out of the city altogether? Had he arranged, perhaps, some meeting because he sensed that the SID suspected him?
Vrubel's Zil swung west on to Kutuzov Prospekt, and Vorontsyev found himself only two cars behind. Flanking the wide avenue, the pink-bricked blocks of apartment were grubbily washed by the sodium flares. There was a frost in the air; Vorontsyev turned up the heater of the car. The railway bridge, then the glass and aluminium cylinder of the Kutuzovskaya metro station. Vorontsyev wondered whether, since they were in a quarter where many diplomats of foreign countries resided, Vrubel had a call to make along the Kutuzov Prospekt. He stayed two cars behind him, hidden from the rear-view mirror.
There appeared to be no deviation as they drove through the quieter suburbs. Cars dropped away from the file, a stream running dry; the street lighting less insistent. Vorontsyev, who rarely had cause or inclination to visit the outer suburbs of the city, felt himself in a strange country. Only one car separated him from Vrubel now. He did not think that Vrubel suspected his presence — the way he had left the apartment on Kalenin Street indicated that he had no suspicion that he was under surveillance — but he suspected that the KGB officer had indeed set up a meeting. Either he wished to pass on something he had received from Ossipov at the officer's club — or he wanted
