prompt reply. “People can’t go back and forth over it, so it’s a border.”
“Do you remember when we looked at the map? Do you remember how big the Soviet Union is?” Petya nodded, unsure of himself. “In the East, where there’s always ice and it’s cold the whole year round …” Leonid hesitated. He could see Galina before him, in her apartment, in the hospital, in the airplane over the mountains of Yakutia, and the images threw him into confusion. Wasn’t a confession called for here? Wouldn’t he be doing the right thing if he admitted to his wife and son and—so much the better—the pigheaded old man, too, that he’d fallen in love with someone else, not that he’d wanted to, but these things happen? The very thought of such a confession was like a knife through his heart. The boy looked at his father, waiting for him to finish his sentence. “There are cliffs three hundred feet high,” Leonid went on, his head reeling. “And the country of Japan is only a few miles away. That’s the border I’m protecting, Petya.”
“Isn’t your year on Sakhalin almost up?” Anna asked in surprise.
“Yes … that is, no. It’s not yet decided.”
“But you must know what your new post is going to be.” She sat on the edge of the bed.
“Let’s talk about it after breakfast.” He lifted Petya from his lap, turned him on his stomach, and began to pinch and tickle him. It was a game they’d used to play for hours at a time. On this occasion, however, the giggling wouldn’t start; the boy sensed that the game was a diversionary tactic.
“There’s no way we can eat here.” Anna gestured toward the general mess. “I don’t have anything but the leftovers from yesterday.” Reluctantly, she pondered whether it would be possible to make a breakfast out of those.
“We’re off!” said Leonid. “Get dressed, Petyushka. We’re going out.”
“Yes!” The youngster’s shout echoed around the room. On the sofa, Viktor Ipalyevich belched but didn’t wake up.
More quickly than was his wont when getting ready for school, Petya threw on his clothes, even tying his own shoelaces, and stood at the door, wriggling impatiently while his mother packed the bare necessities for a Sunday outing. Although the wet, gray weather persisted, Leonid got his spring suit out of the closet. They left the apartment on tiptoe, as if anything short of cannon fire would have been capable of waking Viktor Ipalyevich. They didn’t start to plan their excursion in detail until they were on the stairs. A trip along the Moskva River struck them as an unimaginative choice, and Krasnogorsk was too far away.
“I wonder if Vorontsovsky Park has thawed out yet.”
Anna fell in with the suggestion immediately. “We’ll certainly see the first flower buds there,” she said.
The subway brought them to the train station. They drank cocoa with Petya and found an open bakery. The train was running late. By the time they got off a little south of the park, the sun had broken through the clouds.
“It’s about time for spring,” Anna said, smiling and taking Leonid’s arm. Leonid relieved her of the bag she was carrying. It felt good to stand blinking in the sunlight. They climbed the hill where the pastoral landscape began. It was hard to believe that there was still frost within Moscow’s city limits.
Anna was burning to learn where Leonid would be stationed next. She was sure he knew where he was going, even though he hadn’t spoken of it; his reticence could bode well or ill, she thought. Maybe his transfer back to Moscow was a foregone conclusion, and soon they could start thinking about the apartment in Nostikhyeva.
Petya ran a little ahead of them, fell back, scampered about, but never got too far away—until the pond appeared. “Look, no more ice!” he cried, and then he dashed down the slope.
“Be careful!” Anna and Leonid shouted, as though with one voice.
A black dog, incited to action by the galloping youngster, left his owner’s side and sprinted toward the pond, too. Petya noticed the dog in time and came to a full stop, but the animal rushed on and plunged without stopping into the water, spraying it in all directions. At first, seeing a vicious beast charging down upon their defenseless child, Leonid and Anna had sprinted side by side to the bank; now they were laughing with Petya and the dog’s owner at the perplexed animal, which had rocketed out of the icy