The Russian Affair - By Michael Wallner Page 0,125
answered warmly. “I would have liked to know that everything was sorted out for you.” He fell silent, uncorked the dark beverage, and sniffed it. “Old port wine, I believe. Give Leonid time.” He took two inverted glasses from a shelf. “In a few months, everything could be back the way it was.”
“A few months.” It sounded worse when he said it. “So now we’re fellows in misery,” she observed, shifting without a preamble to the other subject she wanted to talk about.
“What do you mean?” He poured some wine and tasted it.
She waited until he’d swallowed. “Why are you getting a divorce, Alexey?”
He stared pensively at the bottle, as if it were an object of great interest. “Kamarovsky?” he asked in an undertone. Anna nodded. All at once, the Deputy Minister’s features relaxed. “Well, of course—the brotherhood must find that just fascinating.”
“You never spoke a word to me about it. Why the sudden separation?”
“Nothing lasts forever.” He could tell from her look that this trite observation wasn’t going to satisfy her. Bulyagkov realized how close he’d let Anna get to the truth. If she wanted to, she’d be capable of correctly identifying the connections linking various events. He could act like a lumbering old bear, but now there were some holes in his coat, and Anna could already see through them. The splendors and delights of the Peking Hotel hadn’t blurred her sight. Nor was her own pain leading her to talk only about herself; no, Anna looked more alert than ever. Bulyagkov considered this without fear and without any weakening of his feelings for her; but for the first time, he saw that the house painter represented a risk. “Medea and I will go our own ways from now on. There’s absolutely no drama, you understand?” He went up two steps into the alcove and sat on a long couch with curved armrests. “Remember, I told you I was going on a trip?”
“Yes?” She followed him to the couch.
“I leave tomorrow. I’m leading the delegation to Stockholm.” A mischievous look flitted over his face. “Why not come with me to the city where it’s never hot, not even in summer?”
Her voice became unusually clear. “You’re leading the delegation? I thought the Minister himself …”
Bulyagkov moved away from her. There was a short, aggressive silence.
“The Minister has fallen ill. An unforeseeable indisposition. Therefore I have to take his place.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s got some stomach or intestinal problem. That is to say, he’s puking his guts out. Maybe he ate something he shouldn’t have.”
“It’s remarkable that he’s come down with whatever he’s got barely two days before such an important mission.” He turned his head, and she stopped talking.
“You think he’s not really sick?”
“Don’t you know?” While Anna drank the heavy port, while he bent her back a little and kissed her temples, while she scrutinized the first-class wallpaper, whose seams were as good as invisible, she was tormented by the question of how Alexey could already have known a week ago that he was going to go on the trip if the Minister had fallen unforeseeably ill only yesterday.
“So you’re off to Stockholm.” As Anna cast about for a solution, she was slowly absorbed by the thought that Medea’s fate and hers were beginning to resemble each other. She noticed that Alexey wasn’t stopping at a little friendly snuggling and in fact had skillfully opened the hooks and pulled down the zipper on her skirt. Anna tried to hold on to her thoughts and resisted giving in to his caresses. Before her mind’s eye, she passed in review the persons who were keeping the wheels of this whole business spinning. The Minister and his Deputy, Medea, and Lyushin, too, belonged among them, and of course Rosa and the Colonel, but as hard as Anna tried to give to each of them a shape in keeping with his or her function, they soon merged with the amorous play that Alexey was drawing her into. For the first time, he exposed himself to her, removing his jacket and vest and undoing his trousers. With his tie hanging over his shoulder, he surged over her, bracing his elbows against the couch’s dainty backrest and keeping one foot on the floor. Surprised and excited, she accommodated him. Actually, she had come looking for consolation from her paternal friend, and now the old fellow, her wolf, was on top of her, penetrating her with his piercing eyes, kissing her earnestly, offering her his