this, you canât be expected to watch her every moment of the day, goddamâa lover, someone she meets, someone she gives herself to, someone she screws . Dark rooms. Furtive little phone calls. Obscure restaurants. Inscrutable motel roomsâ
Drunk. A drunken uneven sleep, a dream of his brother John, a vague dream that eluded him on wakingâand yet he felt exhausted, as if at some point the dream had become nightmare, a nightmare he couldnât remember in the gray light of morning.
4
1.
Prints and illustrations hung against the walls of the large office. They suggested a continuum of Soviet history, a line linking past with present, tradition with technology, the indomitable Russian spirit sanitized of its occasional blood-lettings. The Eve of Revolution Day gathering in the Mayakovsky subway station, November 6, 1941: Stalin had been strategically omitted and the photograph showed only Party dignitaries and Trade Union leaders; a group of antique Abkhasian peasants seated around a table, dipping pieces of abusta into various sauces; a gruesome picture, made the more awful by its grainy authenticity, of several dead German soldiers lying in the Moscow snow; Yuri Gagarin, smiling, dressed for his orbital trip in 1961.
Andreyev was depressed by the collection: it bludgeoned him with something he had no urge to feel. But time and again, irritated by the droning voices in the room, he found his attention drawn to the gallery of illustrationsâMother Russia. Was he supposed to believe that Domareski had somehow contrived to fall from a moving train? That the Physician had by chance opened a door andâgiven the treachery of iceâlost his footing? Andreyev shook his head, watching Sememko play with a bunch of papers. The ugly Politician, constantly patting his moustache or tugging at the lower extremities of his vest, was talking about the Ussuri experiment to a room filled with those members of the Presidium whose function it was to plan the future strategies of science and scientific discoveries. His voice droned, and Andreyev, looking up at the blurred grin of the cosmonaut Gagarin, caught only a few words and phrases: naturally too early to say if thereâs any useful potential here ⦠experiment seemed successful .⦠There was a reference to acorns and oak trees, something clichéd and banal. Andreyev looked out of the window. Sleet lashed the city; the day was gray, the sky sullen with a sense of repressed violence.
Acorns and oak trees.
Andreyev clasped his hands together. He looked around the room, wondering at how the occupants managed to affect a physical resemblance to one another, as if there were some family relationship shared by each of them. Blunted faces, dark suits, white shirts, those thick necks that seemed to have been shaved as close into the skin as was humanly possible without bloodshed.
Sememko, looking self-satisfied, had stopped talking. He was sitting back in his chair, content with himself. Now Koprow had risen to his feet. Koprow the Hatchet, Andreyev thoughtâa thickset man, his head shaved bald and shaped like a bullet: you could imagine Koprow in other incarnationsâa treacherous Renaissance monk, a strong-arm man in a circus, the assassin who emerged from a darkened doorway. It was Koprow who secretly liaised between the KGB and the Ministry of Science.
Andreyev realized that Koprow was looking directly at him. The stare was both cold and definitive; Andreyev could hear something buzz in his own headâthe edge of some alarm, a quickened fear.
âIâve read the reports, of course,â Koprow said. The sudden fast smile that appeared on his face and then abruptly faded reminded Andreyev of a flawed neon.
âItâs my understanding,â said Koprow, pausing, gazing across the faces in the room in the fashion of one taking a roll call. âItâs my understanding that to all intents and purposes the Chinese
Drunk. A drunken uneven sleep, a dream of his brother John, a vague dream that eluded him on wakingâand yet he felt exhausted, as if at some point the dream had become nightmare, a nightmare he couldnât remember in the gray light of morning.
4
1.
Prints and illustrations hung against the walls of the large office. They suggested a continuum of Soviet history, a line linking past with present, tradition with technology, the indomitable Russian spirit sanitized of its occasional blood-lettings. The Eve of Revolution Day gathering in the Mayakovsky subway station, November 6, 1941: Stalin had been strategically omitted and the photograph showed only Party dignitaries and Trade Union leaders; a group of antique Abkhasian peasants seated around a table, dipping pieces of abusta into various sauces; a gruesome picture, made the more awful by its grainy authenticity, of several dead German soldiers lying in the Moscow snow; Yuri Gagarin, smiling, dressed for his orbital trip in 1961.
Andreyev was depressed by the collection: it bludgeoned him with something he had no urge to feel. But time and again, irritated by the droning voices in the room, he found his attention drawn to the gallery of illustrationsâMother Russia. Was he supposed to believe that Domareski had somehow contrived to fall from a moving train? That the Physician had by chance opened a door andâgiven the treachery of iceâlost his footing? Andreyev shook his head, watching Sememko play with a bunch of papers. The ugly Politician, constantly patting his moustache or tugging at the lower extremities of his vest, was talking about the Ussuri experiment to a room filled with those members of the Presidium whose function it was to plan the future strategies of science and scientific discoveries. His voice droned, and Andreyev, looking up at the blurred grin of the cosmonaut Gagarin, caught only a few words and phrases: naturally too early to say if thereâs any useful potential here ⦠experiment seemed successful .⦠There was a reference to acorns and oak trees, something clichéd and banal. Andreyev looked out of the window. Sleet lashed the city; the day was gray, the sky sullen with a sense of repressed violence.
Acorns and oak trees.
Andreyev clasped his hands together. He looked around the room, wondering at how the occupants managed to affect a physical resemblance to one another, as if there were some family relationship shared by each of them. Blunted faces, dark suits, white shirts, those thick necks that seemed to have been shaved as close into the skin as was humanly possible without bloodshed.
Sememko, looking self-satisfied, had stopped talking. He was sitting back in his chair, content with himself. Now Koprow had risen to his feet. Koprow the Hatchet, Andreyev thoughtâa thickset man, his head shaved bald and shaped like a bullet: you could imagine Koprow in other incarnationsâa treacherous Renaissance monk, a strong-arm man in a circus, the assassin who emerged from a darkened doorway. It was Koprow who secretly liaised between the KGB and the Ministry of Science.
Andreyev realized that Koprow was looking directly at him. The stare was both cold and definitive; Andreyev could hear something buzz in his own headâthe edge of some alarm, a quickened fear.
âIâve read the reports, of course,â Koprow said. The sudden fast smile that appeared on his face and then abruptly faded reminded Andreyev of a flawed neon.
âItâs my understanding,â said Koprow, pausing, gazing across the faces in the room in the fashion of one taking a roll call. âItâs my understanding that to all intents and purposes the Chinese
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