a foreigner, a Ukrainian who’d fled to Russia, had made it all the way into the Central Committee’s inner circle.
She noticed the wrinkled skin on her fingers; her bath had cooled. Since she couldn’t get any warmer water to flow out of the faucet, she reached for a bath towel. She’d just finished drying her legs when the telephone rang. Of late, most calls had been for Viktor Ipalyevich; the government press had questions about setting the poetry volume, and the poet was under pressure to deliver the completed manuscript. Expecting that she would have to apologize for her father, she picked up the phone.
The man at the other end of the line spoke Anna’s name without introducing himself. “I’m in Moscow,” he said, as though this piece of information alone sufficed to explain his call.
Had she not seen that television program a few days previously, she wouldn’t have had the remotest chance of identifying the caller by his voice.
“Don’t you know who I am?” Nikolai Lyushin asked, practically insulted.
“How did you get this number?”
“You can figure that out yourself, Comrade.” He laughed harshly. “I know hardly anybody in Moscow, and I have no plans for this evening. Therefore, I’m taking the liberty of inviting you to come out with me.”
“Why would you ask me out?”
“During our little quantum chat, you showed that you were a gifted student. And so I thought you might wish to delve into the subject a little more deeply.”
The safest answer would have been a no, but Anna’s time in Kamarovsky’s service had taught her to sense, behind every event, the presence of another event. Lyushin’s proposal had a deeper meaning, and it was her duty to fathom that meaning. Therefore, she said, in a slightly friendlier voice, “It’s already pretty late.”
“Don’t they say that the Moscow night never ends? I’m sitting in the Ukraina hotel, and I’m bored to death. Just a little drink, Comrade—what do you say?”
“I have to wait until my son comes home. Can you call back in half an hour?”
Delighted by her apparent change of heart, he said, “I’ll reserve the best table!”
She stood before the sofa, lost in thought. Although the floor was wet under her feet, she didn’t go back into the bathroom, but instead opened her telephone book. There was only one person she could ask for advice. Anna looked up the number of the Moscow Times. She hadn’t talked with Rosa since Dubna, and so some flowery greetings would have been in order, but Anna skipped all courtesies and went directly to Lyushin’s offer.
Rosa asked, “Has he said what he wants?”
“At first, I thought he’d come here on account of this television program, The Open Ear. Don’t you and your colleagues know why he’s in Moscow?”
“So Lyushin turned on the charm for you, did he?” Rosa asked, ignoring Anna’s question. “But he knows about you and Bulyagkov.”
“Should I turn down the invitation?”
“Well, he can hardly start fumbling with your underclothes in the restaurant of the Ukraina hotel.”
“It’s not so far from the restaurant to his room.”
Rosa laughed. “You mean you’d like to go there?”
The question was a provocation, and still it caught Anna off guard. At that moment, it became clear to her that she had a real desire to put a few scratches on Nikolai Lyushin’s dandified facade. She asked, “Shall I inform Kamarovsky?”
“I’ll take care of that,” came the immediate reply. “You should go to the Ukraina. Wouldn’t you enjoy turning one of the most brilliant heads in Russia? Order the most expensive things on the menu, bleed the fellow dry, thank him for a pleasant evening, and leave the restaurant.” She hesitated, as if there were still something she wanted to say. “Call me up afterward, no matter how late it is.”
While Anna, now dressed in a bathrobe, was wiping up the wet floor, she heard the light footsteps and the heavy footsteps mounting the stairs together. She went to the little vestibule, opened the door for father and son, and looked for her blue dress in the wall closet. Petya told her about a dog that had almost been run over. When Viktor Ipalyevich saw that Anna was making preparations to go out, he turned ostentatiously to his poems.
SIXTEEN
The physicist was wearing a light gray suit inappropriate to the season and a blue shirt that set off his burnished hair. He’d secured one of the much-requested alcove tables. As Anna approached, he stood up and offered her the seat next to his