sour cream and heated some oil in a small iron skillet. If it takes us an hour to eat, she reckoned, there will still be an hour before Anton has to take me back. If Alexey comes with us, he’ll have Anton drop him off first. She turned on the oven, cut the onion into thin slices, and dressed them with cream and paprika. After beating some eggs, she poured them into the skillet and put it in the oven. She heard Alexey moving around in the living room, and soon afterward came the sound of music, a sleepy hit tune featuring lots of violins. He walked into the kitchen. Anna said nothing. Every time, she found the preliminaries more difficult. She hoped he’d start the conversation on his own. With his fingers, he combed her hair aside and kissed her ear, but it wasn’t a caress; it was rather a kiss of welcome, as though he were just now greeting her. Without interrupting her work with the two-handled chopper, she leaned her head against his cheek.
“A hard day?”
“The comrades monopolized me for four long hours. The office was overheated, my secretary’s coffee undrinkable, and the representative from Tambov had such foul breath that I stood up and pretended I had to walk around in order to think.” Bulyagkov leaned on the sink. “I’d love to see you cook naked.”
“Not tonight.” She looked into the oven to see whether the eggs had set yet. “Was the Minister there?”
“He knows what sessions he should stay away from.” With the reserve that she had liked in him from the start, Alexey put his hand on her waist. “It’s always about money. Every oblast wants to distinguish itself through particular achievements in research. The farther they are from Moscow, the more money they want.” He clasped the back of her head, and she enjoyed the pressure of his fingers. She wrapped a cloth around her hand and took the little pan out of the oven.
“Take a seat.” She strewed chopped onion onto the cooked eggs.
“Do you know that this is a Ukrainian recipe?” Alexey asked. “I was often served this dish as a child.”
“What were you like when you were a boy, Alexey?”
“Happy.” He went back into the front room.
Anna heard the sound of a bottle being uncorked, followed by the tinkle of glasses. When she carried in the food on a tray, Bulyagkov, who was standing in front of the liquor cabinet, turned around. She served; he took a seat and started eating.
“Seventy-four percent,” he said after a few bites. “With the help of the technological revolution, they want to boost petrochemical production by seventy-four percent.”
“Isn’t that … extraordinarily good?”
“There is no ‘technological revolution.’ Seventy-four percent is beyond all reason. It’s not even an incentive, it’s a fantasy.” He drained his glass and refilled it at once. “But Kosygin wants to announce it. And therefore I have to put on the necessary performance for the Minister.” With a sudden blow, he jammed the cork back into the bottle. “They want units of greater capacity, gigantic power station units to improve primary processing.” He broke off a piece of bread and used it to wipe the traces of egg yolk off his plate. “But things aren’t so advanced as that, not anywhere in the country. In Murmansk, they thought they had the problem solved. Twelve million rubles, and during the trial run, everything blew up in their faces.”
He took Anna’s wrist. “You’re not taking care of yourself,” he said, waving her hand back and forth.
“I’ve used your cream.” She wanted to pull her hand away.
“Rough and blotchy,” he said, spreading her fingers.
“It’s the lime.”
“Why don’t you wear gloves?”
“They don’t help.”
“You’re beautiful, Annushka.” He let himself sink back against the cushion. “Are you cold? Shall I put more wood on?”
“It’s fine.” She shifted to the side and took off her boots. While she let her blouse drop and slipped out of her underskirt, she had the feeling that, for her, deceit and reality were getting more and more mixed up. Every day a new piece of her integrity went missing, and her feelings slipped away from her. Obviously, her life was a lie.
Without touching her, he stood up, took a step back, and pointed at her body with an outstretched hand. Calling her affectionate names, he watched as she unzipped her skirt and slid off her pantyhose. Finally naked, Anna set the plate in the skillet and put the remains of the bread on