yourself the whole time, Princess,” Nadezhda said snidely. “Grab onto this guy and race with us!” She went back to her partner, the handsomer of the two Irkutskian delegates from the Friendship Club, and prepared for the start of the competition.
Anna said to the orphanage director, “Looks like you’re going to get your exercise sooner than you thought.” They lined up with the others, and the radio producer gave the signal.
Right at the beginning two couples collided, cursing as they fell over one another. Yelena, the schoolgirl, was so light that her partner was able to pull her into the lead. The kolkhoz farmer’s coat ripped, leaving the peace ambassadress helplessly holding the loose tails in her hand; without hesitating, he lifted her to his shoulders and carried her in the direction of the finish line. Because there were an insufficient number of men, the cashier and another, younger woman, a college student, had banded together. They proved to be a strong pair, and they gave Yelena and her partner a run for their money. The orphanage director was frailer than Anna had expected; when he stumbled near the halfway point, she changed roles with him and hauled him behind her. They were the last to cross the finish line, their breath like white clouds around their heads, but for the brief duration of the race, Anna had forgotten her assignment and the impossibility of carrying it out. The others were already conjecturing about where they could get alcohol to toast the winners with.
Adamek joined the group, smoke billowing from his pipe. “Time to go,” he said. “They’re waiting for us in the Neutron Physics Lab.”
Arm in arm and giggling, the members of the visitors’ delegation returned to the bus. Popov’s absence was noted; a long, sustained whistle informed him that departure was imminent. Then they saw him, a small gray point in the distance, hurrying over the ice.
EIGHT
Anna spent the time after the tour of the laboratory in her room. She could hear some of the others changing for dinner, and in the room next to hers, the fellow from Irkutsk was visiting Nadezhda. They spoke softly for a while, but then their conversation fell silent, something struck the wall, and there was a cry, followed by tittering.
I’ll acknowledge my failure, Anna thought. Comrade Colonel, it was not possible for me to acquire the information without arousing suspicion, she said to an imagined Kamarovsky. Then she sat down on the bed, somewhat relieved. But her comfort didn’t last long, for soon her inescapable sense of duty announced its presence. She’d be in Dubna that night and the following day; she still had time to act. Should she, on her own initiative, simply go back to the physicists’ cafeteria in the hope of finding Lyushin there a second time? She remembered the remark the orphanage director had made on the Volga, the reference to the area dedicated to winter sports on the opposite bank of the river: Would that be where she could find the opportunity she was looking for?
These and other speculations made Anna so nervous that she leaped to her feet and changed—for the second time—the blouse she intended to wear to dinner. But then she opened the physics textbook again. She chose a chapter on quantum mechanics and tried to concentrate. Why am I kidding myself? she thought, her eyes still fixed on the text. I’m a house painter, the daughter of a poet, the wife of a soldier. I could have a delightful stay here, I could enjoy the nights with Alexey, but instead I’m trying to be a spy! I must be crazy, I should be punished, and one day I will be, too! She commanded herself not to waver, read the introduction in one go, and was surprised to find that she vaguely understood it.
How does Leonid put up with all this? Anna wondered as her finger slid down the page. How has he been able to keep silent for so long in the face of such cheating? Why has he decided to close his eyes to the obvious? The more intense Anna’s affair became, the more often her husband spent the night in his barracks. He assiduously overlooked every change: that she spent more time on her appearance, for example, or that she came home with things they really couldn’t afford.
One evening, after Anna had settled into the backseat of the limousine that would transport her to Alexey, she’d noticed Leonid stepping out