Kostya opened his eyes and glanced at Matvei’s hand pushing on his bad shoulder. —That hurts.
Boris stood before Kostya now, beside Matvei, interrupting the light. —It’s all right, Katelnikov. Take your hands off him. He’ll stay.
Kostya nodded. By my own free will, yet twice as much by compulsion.
DO NO HARM
Friday 30 July–Saturday 31 July
Chance. The young NKVD guard, distracted by the pretty nurse, took no notice of Efim leaning over his patient to check the dressings over the new plate in her head. Efim blew gently in her ear, hoping to rouse her. Then he whispered. —I’ve got your blouse.
The guard heard the noise. —No talking.
Calm, Efim faced the guard. —Head wound patients mutter.
The guard gave a little snort, then resumed chatting up the nurse. —We could meet for a drink after work. When does your shift end?
Temerity’s whisper almost cracked. —Embassy. Say…flu.
Efim flinched, tried to hide it.
The nurse stepped away from the guard. —Wait, I’m to report anything she says.
Efim gave the nurse a sorrowful look. —Then report nonsense. The patient is still delirious after surgery. Her good eye is still bloodshot. You can make a note of that.
From behind, the guard grasped the nurse by the elbows.
She shook him off. —Pig.
— Hey, hey, don’t be like that. I can show you a good time. A really good time. I wouldn’t want to see you have a bad time, not because of some misunderstanding.
Ignoring the plea in the nurse’s eyes, Efim asked to excuse himself from the room, and the guard nodded his thanks.
The light in the hallway, so bright, hurt his eyes, and the bare white walls bounced back the echoes of so many voices. Efim heard suffering, patients and doctors alike as they confronted their own helplessness before some terrible disease, but he also heard compassion.
So very different from Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two.
Several white lab coats hung from a coatrack near a closed door. Not breaking stride, Efim liberated a lab coat from a hook and shrugged it on.
No one noticed.
Then he almost gasped. For he’d found one: a telephone. On a desk. In an office. Door wide open.
So easy?
Shoulders back, he entered the office in all confidence. He eased the door shut, then picked up the telephone handset.
The switchboard operator asked for the number.
He said it with ease, not quite sure he said it at all. —British Embassy.
A pause. —Could you repeat that, caller?
— British Embassy, please.
Another pause, long enough, Efim reasoned, for the operator to make a note or start a recording of this strange call, too long for her to refuse outright.
Light glinted on a brass nameplate on the desk: Annenkov.
— Connecting you now, Comrade Dr. Annenkov.
The rings on a crackling line sounded so far away.
Answer, answer. Hurry.
Any moment, strong hands would grab his arms, strong voices would command him to come along. Any moment.
A male voice spoke in accented Russian. —Embassy of Great Britain.
— She…
Efim cleared his throat.
— She’s hospitalized with the flu.
— Say again, please.
He gave Temerity’s room number. Then he hung up.
Outside, in the corridor, boot soles tapped.
Efim emerged from the office to face his future.
The two NKVD officers ignored him, striding to some other task.
He found a lavatory in time. Dizzy, he washed his hands, lamented the lack of any sort of hand towel, and rubbed his fingers against the borrowed lab coat.
Olyushka…
As he returned to Temerity’s room, he noticed a woman searching the coat rack. The lab coat collar, now warmed by his neck, gave off a scent of Krasnaya Moskva. The woman called to her colleagues in banter, accusing them all of robbery, and then strode back into the office: Anna Novikova.
Efim almost called after her. Yet what to say? Anna, I thought you were dead. Anna, I thought you’d be arrested. She’d resigned from secret work at Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two, and survived? Found another job? Still had her medical licence?
Who protects her? Is she just lucky?
Just outside Temerity’s room, the nurse, eyes bright with angry tears, nearly ran into him. The NKVD guard poked his head through the door, looking peeved. When he noticed Efim, he stepped aside to let him in. He spoke of frigid sluts and their moods, then resumed blocking the open doorway.
Efim sat beside Temerity’s bed, his feet nudging his doctor’s bag. As he bent over and retrieved the bag to check for the blouse and passport, still there, he whispered to her. —They know.
No response.
He snapped shut the bag, placed it by his feet, and stroked Temerity’s hand.
Starlings and crows swooped and dove in Moscow-Leningradksy Station, and a locomotive hissed. Efim remained beside the stretcher, near Temerity’s head. British men in suits and hats, very natty, spoke to him in decent Russian, and they spoke to one another in quiet English.
A crack in the floor jostled the stretcher.
— Have a care!
— Isn’t she sedated?
— Sedated, not comatose. Now be gentle!
A new voice, deep and rich, one Efim recognized from Balakirev’s house. —Comrade Dr. Scherba.
The British men, startled, stopped talking, then tightened their grip on the stretcher.
Efim only sighed. —Comrade Captain Kuznets.
— A word?
Efim touched one of the British men on the arm. —Take the utmost care getting her on that train carriage. Wait, what’s she saying?
— She’s asking for you.
Efim gave him a sorrowful look and stepped away from the stretcher.
Boris put his arm around Efim’s shoulders as they kept walking. —My balls are in a vise.
— Mine, too, Comrade Major, and I have a train to catch.
— And I have nothing left to lose. Do you understand me? Balakirev was my case to investigate. I expected some everyday cronyism, some favours done for Nikto, the business with his propiska and flat. Not this. Never this.
Efim looked back over his shoulder to the train for Leningrad, where the British men struggled with the stretcher. —Oh?
— My father always spoke in proverbs. I swear the man knew no other language. Laws, he said to me, laws catch flies, and hornets go free. That’s what this whole purge is about: find the hornets. I never even saw the hornet. I look incompetent.
Efim had nothing to say to that.
Boris gestured to the train. —And now I’m also overruled. The orders to get her home come from the highest diplomatic channels. It seems the Boss has a soft spot for women who shoot themselves. He’s full of surprises. And you want to go with her.
— By British request. It’s been approved. I witnessed the injury, and she needs medical escort.
— Aristarkhova needs her husband.
Efim felt only exhaustion. —How do I even know she’s still alive?
— She’s fine. There’s been some trouble with the post, but she’s fine. Waiting for any word of you.
— I can’t trust you on that.
— What will you do once you reach Leningrad, Dr. Scherba? Leap off the train, scream your goodbye in the street, and hope she hears the echo?
Efim noticed the approach of three other NKVD officers. Behind them, a cleaning crew dragged pails, brushes, and mops across the floor.