The Russian Affair - By Michael Wallner Page 0,138

In sudden high spirits, Anton leaned on the horn. “Words to live by,” he said.

“He chose a single way this time,” Anna pointed out. “With no turning back.”

“I don’t know. You may well be right, Comrade.”

“Please call me Anna, like everyone else.”

“I can try.” He smiled. “But habit, Comrade, habit’s a big, strong horse that pulls in only one direction.”

Now that she was talking to him at some length for the first time, Anna realized that Anton was no urbanite; he was a country boy, and his years in Moscow hadn’t succeeded in driving that out of him.

They reached Volokolamsk and shortly thereafter left it behind. Anna saw the golden towers of a cathedral shining between houses, and then a swanky house, once a noble’s residence, that had been turned into a club building for the agricultural combine. Beyond the town limits, Anna admired the private vegetable gardens, where bean plants and lettuces were sending their first shoots up into the light. Anton took the feeder road to the big highway, and their pace increased substantially.

“Do you know what’s special about Volokolamsk? When the Nazi troops were advancing on Moscow, this was the farthest they got.”

“Here? I thought that was Yakhroma. On the trip to Dubna, we were told—”

“Yakhroma? Nonsense!” he said vehemently. “It was Volokolamsk, I can assure you. I know the history. Twenty-eight soldiers under General Panfilov managed to destroy dozens of Nazi tanks before they themselves were killed. There’s a monument to the twenty-eight heroes in Volokolamsk.” He gave Anna a penetrating look. “Here is where the Wehrmacht was brought to a standstill, not Yakhroma!”

They left the Moscow administrative division, crossed into the Tver oblast, and an hour later were nearing the town of Rzhev. Anna grew tired and even briefly fell asleep. A noise as loud as an ongoing explosion made her start awake in terror. “What is it?”

“Sukhoi Su-9,” he said, smiling at her and pointing skyward.

The sound faded away and came back. Another black fighter plane swept across the clear sky, leaving its noise far behind.

“Where are we?”

“There’s an air force base a few miles from here,” Anton said, shouting over the roar of the jet engines. “That one was a Tupolev.” He leaned forward and struck the dashboard. The temperature gauge needle bounced. “I think it could use a little drink,” Anton said. He patted the steering wheel. “It won’t be long, my thirsty friend.”

The town lay a little distance off the M9. Anton stopped in front of a simple house on the outskirts. A woman was outside, weeding her vegetable garden. “It’s better if you ask her for some water,” Anton said, handing Anna a jerrican.

She got out, stretched, and walked toward the fence. “Excuse me, Comrade …”

The woman, bending to her work, hadn’t heard Anna coming and jerked herself upright. As a sign of her innocuous wish, Anna held up the container. “Could you give us some water?”

“Water? How about a glass of lemonade?” She stuck her little knife into her pocket and opened the garden gate for Anna.

After a brief glance at Anton, Anna followed the woman into the house and entered a living room where her eye was struck by something she would never have expected to find in such a place: silver-gray wallpaper with a white pattern, perfectly hung and cleanly finished at the top, a hand’s width below the ceiling. Light, freshly washed curtains were suspended from gleaming, gold-colored rods, meticulously aligned with the top line of the wallpaper, and alongside them hung drapes with a dark brown pattern. Anna noticed a television set, a house plant, and even central heating.

“You’ve got a lovely place here,” Anna said. “How did you get ahold of this first-class wallpaper?”

“My brother’s the local priest,” the woman explained. “I’m his housekeeper.”

Behind her, Anna spotted a cross and some pictures of martyrs. “Your brother?”

“Our members spend generously,” she said, plucking at the lace tablecloth until it lay smooth. “Are you hungry, my girl? I’ve stuffed some hardboiled eggs.”

“Thanks, but we’re in a hurry.” Anna turned toward the kitchen.

“The wallpaper was a gift from God’s children in our kolkhoz,” she said. Then she laid her hand on the samovar. “But surely you’ll drink some tea, won’t you?”

“Many thanks, but no. Maybe on the way back.” Anna pointed to the jerrican.

“We could have filled that in the garden,” the woman said, clearly irritated by the rejection of her hospitality. She gruffly ran her hand over the cherrywood sideboard, as if she’d discovered a speck