stamp on the envelope right away. She stood with bowed head, reading the letter. It bore the signature of her building combine’s secretary and informed Anna that she had been chosen out of thousands of Soviet women to take part in an educational trip for the benefit of proven and tested former Pioneers. Lost in thought, she climbed back up the stairs.
“An educational trip?” Viktor Ipalyevich asked. “It’s been ten years since you were in the Pioneer Girls.” He screwed up his eyes. “Do you by chance have an admirer in high places?”
Anna jumped at how unerringly her father had guessed the truth. His work folder was already closed for the day, and he’d been perusing a novel. Now he stood up, switched on the samovar, and cast a glance out the window. “Pretty unusual, to go on such a jaunt at this time of year.” Gray snow hung on the window ledges like wads of dough, and a ladder of ice led down from the roof. “Where are you supposed to go on this trip?”
“Dubna,” Anna replied, without enthusiasm.
“They’re sending you all to the physics city?” Perplexed, he scanned the opening lines of the letter and then read aloud: “Religions dissolve like fog, empires collapse; only the works of science survive over time.”
It was the motto of the trip. The guests from Moscow were to visit the facilities in Dubna, a center of Soviet research, and receive instruction in its latest achievements during colloquies with scientists. “That certainly beats me,” Viktor Ipalyevich said, turning the letter over as though there might be an explanation on the other side.
“It has to do with the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the science city,” Anna explained. Given her way, she would have torn that letter to shreds, burned the shreds, and forgotten about her assignment. She pretended to have urgent business in the kitchen; once she was on the other side of the door, she took several deep breaths.
Viktor Ipalyevich followed her. “Foreign diplomats, high officials of the Communist Party, and members of the nomenklatura are allowed to go to Dubna. And now, my daughter!”
“Why not?” she said curtly, letting herself be provoked despite all her scruples. “I have the same right as anyone else to be informed about scientific progress.”
“Politicians’ platitudes,” he said, laughing, but he gave way before her angry look: “Of course you’ll go on the trip, Annushka, don’t worry about a thing, it’ll do you good.”
“Three days. Can you look after Petya for such a long time?”
“Haven’t I always?” Viktor Ipalyevich opened his arms. “Come here, Pioneer Girl, let’s drink to your trip.” Knowing there was no use in opposing him, Anna got out the little glasses.
That night, she tossed and turned as she lay beside Petya. The boy’s breath rattled in his throat; his head was nestled against one small hand. Anna drew the curtain aside, lifted her feet out of the alcove, and crept through the room. On the sofa, Viktor Ipalyevich slept without a sound, as if death had surprised him in his sleep.
She went into the kitchen, sat beside the stove, and lit the gas. The heat in the building was turned down so low at night that a film of ice had formed on the water in the sink. She lifted her legs, clasped her thighs at the knees, and held her feet near the flame. Shooing away the confused thoughts of half-sleep, she undertook some sober reflection. Was Alexey really behind her invitation, as Kamarovsky had tried to make her believe? Or was the Colonel merely using this as a pretext to lull her into a false sense of security? She recalled her conversation with him. “Bulyagkov himself set up the whole thing,” Kamarovsky had said. “Obviously, he wants to have a romantic encounter with you outside Moscow, and so he sees to it that you win an educational trip.”
“And suppose Alexey suspects something? Suppose he wants to put me to the test in this unusual situation?”
“When you’re a member of the visitors’ delegation, don’t do anything that might make him suspicious.”
Anna’s eyes glided over the window joints; the cracks in the cement were stuffed with newspaper, but still there was a draft that fluttered the blue flame on the stove. She put her feet back down on the floor. Her soles felt a little singed, yet at the same time her whole body was shivering with cold. I must see Alexey again before the trip, she thought. I must know