Many cafés and bakeries lined the streets, some of them looking very new and bare, and almost all of them kept tables and chairs outside. As she considered her choices, taking in displays of food, Temerity caught her reflection in a window. She wore a white scarf over her hair, a short-sleeved white blouse, dark blue trousers, and brown Oxfords with a low heel. Many other women also wore trousers, giving the lie to her handlers’ warnings — an attempt at tact, perhaps — that she might stick out in a crowd. Temerity understood something her handlers did not. Despite the dark glasses and the scars, despite the dent in her head, she could more or less disappear. Few men noticed a woman unless she could offer them something, even just the pleasure of her prettiness. Temerity, long past pretty and, she told herself, long past caring about it, might as well be invisible.
Another wave of young women and men passed by, very close, and Temerity found herself hemmed in. She stumbled. A fair young man speaking German turned to ask Temerity in Russian if she’d twisted her ankle; she answered in Russian that she was fine. Walking faster, the youngsters soon passed on, and Temerity considered how twelve years before that young man would have been her enemy. Of course, he’d been a child during the war, hardly an enemy, a view of accident and innocence that Temerity had learned to keep to herself during the forties. Perhaps this young German man survived the attacks on Dresden or Berlin. Perhaps he’d been conscripted to fight in those final days; she’d seen photos of German boys too young to shave, wearing baggy uniforms and holding weapons, eyes huge. Perhaps his parents remained quiet Nazis while he rebelled. Perhaps he was related to Ursula Friesen. Nothing, Temerity told herself, would surprise her anymore.
She adjusted her dark glasses as two uniformed KGB officers strolled past, faces not stern but mildly interested, helpful if asked, there only to maintain order, comrade. They’d changed their uniforms since the days when they were called NKVD, and no doubt many officers infiltrated the crowd in plainclothes. How many? Did they feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in Moscow for the festival? Temerity just kept herself from smirking. KGB feeling helpless? A delicious thought. Then again, a nervous and threatened KGB could be more dangerous. The Khrushchev Thaw, with its relaxed censorship and widespread release of political prisoners, who then saw their convictions expunged in a process called rehabilitation, had also eased, however slightly, international relations. Temerity, like many in the SIS, watched these developments with caution and muted hope.
It’s still Moscow, Temerity told herself, echoing the warnings she’d given her students. Khrushchev is desperate to prove he’s not Stalin, but it’s still Moscow.
A group of people of all ages, children to elderly, dressed in various manners, now placed their arms around one another’s shoulders, formed a circle, and began to dance, two steps right, one step left. Most of the dancers smiled, though one frowned when he saw Temerity.
Suspicious of the dark glasses, perhaps.
A scent of freshly baked bread wafted, and Temerity followed it to a nearby bakery window. A young woman who gazed at the crowd with a mix of longing and fear, a samovar steaming behind her, hung bubliki on a string. The first bublik collided with the wooden X at the string’s bottom, and then the others quickly piled on. Then the young woman tacked the string to the ceiling. Temerity, reminding herself of her doctor’s orders to cut back on starches, paid for a bublik. She first declined, then accepted the offer of an extra honey drizzle and a dip into poppy seeds, almost dizzy with anticipated pleasure. The long war years and her demanding work, both at Bletchley Park and then with MI19, interrogating prisoners of war, had left her thin. Since the end of rationing on meat and cheese a few years before, she’d gained nearly two stone. Her body seemed determined to store every possible calorie as fat. She refused to admit that the changes in her waist and hips bothered her — mere vanity, as silly as worrying about the grey hair. Her thickened ankles, however, she preferred to hide under loose trousers.
Biting into the bublik, she smeared honey and poppy seeds over her lips. Then she found a table and sat down. A tram passed, packed with yet more young people who stuck their arms and faces out the windows and called happy greetings to all. Visitors to the festival enjoyed free travel on the buses, trams, and metro. Temerity had even travelled the 1935 Sokolnicheskaya metro line, one stop at a time, getting out at each station to sketch. As the train pulled into Vasilisa Prekrasnaya, she almost decided to stay aboard. Then she peered at the huge mosaic; Bilibin’s Vasilisa still dominated the space. Just as the train doors started to close, Temerity leapt out. The train departed, people streamed past, and soon she stood alone. She considered following them up the stairs to see if Kostya’s block of flats had changed; sweat chilled her armpits. Then she stretched out to touch Vasilisa’s hand, the one holding the lantern made of a skull and holy fire.
She could not reach it.
It was never Vasilisa who was too small, she decided. It was me.
Unable to ascend those stairs, unable to sketch, imprisoned by her failures, Temerity had waited and then caught the next train.
A man on stilts and dressed in a top hat and tails passed by, leaning over and greeting everyone he met in French, English, and Russian. —I am Pierre from Cameroon. And who are you? I am so happy to meet you. Yes, hello, I am Pierre from Cameroon. Who are you?
A young woman replied in French that she was Joie from Laos, supplying the obsolete term French Indochina when Pierre frowned and said he did not know of Laos. She climbed up on Temerity’s table then, her feet among ashtrays and crumbs, and took Pierre’s hands. —We have shrugged off the chains of imperialism. Someday soon, your country will, too.
They held hands and stared into each other’s eyes.
Wobbling on his stilts, Pierre blinked back tears. —Let me get down from these things, and we can talk properly.
As Joie helped Pierre remove the stilts, Temerity stood up to leave them the table. Neither of them noticed her. They already stroked each other’s hands.
Honeyed bublik filling her mouth, Temerity sat down at the next little table. The energy from the crowd took on a new edge, one delicious and dangerous, as sexual attractions blossomed and inhibitions fell aside. The circle dance stopped, and the dancers parted a moment to allow two violinists, a man and a woman, to inhabit the centre space. The woman, about Temerity’s age, gave spectators a demure smile. The man, balding with jowly cheeks, kept his face neutral. Temerity thought she recognized him; the memory of his name slipped away. Both musicians raised their violins; the man nodded; the woman began.
Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor, first movement. Without orchestral backup, it sounded bare yet courageous — exquisite.
The violinists, sharing glances, seemed to know and trust each other. Sweat glistened on the man’s bald head and dripped down the back of his neck; a flush reddened the woman’s cheeks and throat. They finished, and in the silence before the crowd could react, the man addressed the woman as Comrade Orlova, and thanked her.
Temerity joined the applause.