item on the program was at hand, but before she could work out what her own behavior was going to be, he came back. His damp temples indicated that he’d merely gone to comb his hair. He hated to say it, he said, but the time had come for her to go. He answered her surprised look with an invitation to name a wish—the first wish that came into her mind.
“Faucet washers,” she said, and then she had to laugh at herself. “The faucets in our apartment drip. They take standard washers, but I can’t find them anywhere.”
“Washers.” Bulyagkov escorted her to the door. “I’ll see if my influence extends that far.” He took her by the shoulders and gave her a brotherly kiss. Anna started down the stairs. On the way home, she realized that the granting of her wish would mean that this wouldn’t be their last meeting. The thought of the Deputy Minister’s clever move made her smile.
Two weeks had passed, and Anna assumed the matter had been forgotten. But one afternoon, a black ZIL parked in front of her building. An inconspicuous man got out, presented himself as a messenger, and, when Anna came down, handed her a small package no larger than a bar of soap. The man was Anton, whom she saw from the front for the first time.
“That’s from Alexey Maximovich,” he said, stony-faced. “If you have time this evening, he would be delighted to receive a visit from you.”
Anna wondered whether Bulyagkov had chosen the date at random or knew that she was working the early shift that week. “How long do I have to think it over?”
“Come to Gospitya Street at eight,” Anton replied. “I’ll wait for you there.”
“If I can’t make it, how can I reach you?”
“Don’t worry, Comrade. Gospitya Street, right off the little square.” He got back in the car and drove away. Anna opened the package while she was still on the street. Upstairs in the apartment, she announced that she’d finally been able to scare up some of those confounded washers. Viktor Ipalyevich congratulated her and got out the pliers.
That had been the evening when Anna was Anton’s passenger for the first time. He took a surprisingly short route to Drezhnevskaya Street. She admired how smoothly he weaved in and out of traffic without making use of the privileged status accorded to government vehicles. In front of the now-familiar building, she got out of the car and told him good-bye, but Anton indicated that they’d see each other when she was ready to go home.
Bulyagkov opened the door with two potholders in his hands, and soon he was serving her Tartar-style chicken ragout. When Anna asked who had done the preparation, he confessed that the delicatessen on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt had delivered the food right on time. She thanked him for the washers, the most sensible gift she’d received in a long time. He opened a bottle of wine and showed her the label. She couldn’t decipher it.
“It’s a pinot blanc. I picked it up at my house.”
“What does your wife say when you leave with a bottle of wine under your arm?” Anna didn’t wish to be impertinent, but his casual attitude, which was again on display in this, their second meeting, made her nervous.
“Medea is home even more seldom than I am,” he said. He raised Anna’s hand, the one holding the glass, to her mouth. “Taste it.”
Although she found the wine so acidic that she grimaced, she praised it dutifully. Then she asked, “What does your wife do?”
“She’s on the Soviet Council for Inter-Republic Cultural Cooperation. Since so many touring theater companies are constantly arriving in Moscow, she goes to the theater very often—so often, in fact, that she ought to have a bad conscience.” He took a drink.
“Do you have a bad conscience, Comrade?”
“Why?”
“Because so far you haven’t given me a single reason why we’re together.” She felt her forehead beginning to burn. “Or are you going to tell me that we have these meetings because you like my father’s poems?”
“What sort of future do you dream about, Anna?”
For a moment, the right answer went through her head: I dream about the realization of world communism, equality for all people, and the end of imperialism for the benefit of every individual. She said, “When Leonid and I applied for an apartment, we were told that something would be available in Nostikhyeva soon. That was three years ago.” Anna pushed her plate away.