The van came to a stop.
Larry added, “If you don’t leave and things go south for you, I can’t protect you, your government can’t protect you.” Larry handed him a stack of 100-ruble bills. “This was supposed to be for the Press Club. Use it instead to buy a ticket home. Pretend you got sick, I’ll make sure the Fulbright people don’t screw you over.”
“I didn’t ask you to protect me.”
“We won’t see each other again.” Larry pulled open the cargo bay door, doing so in a way that allowed him to stay hidden behind it. “Now get out.”
After walking the streets for an hour, Marko came to a decision. He called Katerina from a pay phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“You know your favorite place to paint?”
“You mean—”
“Don’t say it! Just meet me there.”
“When?”
“Now. Can you go now?”
“Yes…OK, yes, but what’s wrong, Marko?”
“I’ll talk to you soon.”
Marko climbed the hill that rose up behind the old city, past the tiny crooked homes and little churches, until it became too steep for buildings and was just overgrown grass and rocks and garbage.
It was dark now, ten o’clock in the evening. The lights of the city twinkled below him, and the sky above was a strange shade of violet. A gentle breeze blew waves through the scrub grass. To his right rose an enormous aluminum statue of a woman who in one hand held a sword and in the other a bottle of wine: treat Georgians well, you will be welcomed with wine; if not, then you’ll be fought with a sword. Well, thought Marko, that would be his motto too from here on out.
He climbed until he got to a paved footpath that traversed the top of a long ridge. He turned left, passing the funicular, which had been shut down for the night, and walked until he reached the entrance to the botanical gardens.
Tucked away on the back side of the ridge, in the shadow of a medieval fortress, the gardens of Tbilisi were a welcome refuge from the city. It was a wild place, crisscrossed by little dirt trails and crumbling stone walls. Because the city was on the other side of the ridge, the sound of cars was barely audible, and he could hear little but the wind rustling through the leaves.
During the day, the price of admission was just a pittance — twenty kopeks, payable to a gnarled old woman who, if she was lucky, collected enough over the course of a day to justify her pittance of a government salary. Now, the gardens were closed for the night, but there was no gate. Just beyond the entrance, Marko veered off the path and hid in the woods.
Katerina walked by him twenty minutes later, traveling quickly down the steep gravel path. She wore designer jeans — American style, but made cheaply in East Germany — that Marko had given her. Her loose white poet shirt had frilly flounces at the wrists and reflected enough moonlight that she seemed to glow amidst the trees.
Marko waited in the shadows, watching. Convinced that no one was following her, he ventured out of the woods, stepped quietly onto the path, and began walking in the direction Katerina had gone, keeping to the moon shadows on the path’s periphery. Before he got to a terraced section, where there was a stand of bamboo and a reflecting pool overgrown with lily pads, he ducked back into the woods.
Katerina would be waiting for him to approach on the main path, Marko reasoned, so he approached instead through the woods. Though he couldn’t make out her expression, he could see that she was pacing, with a nervous energy that was at odds with her usual languid demeanor.
Marko waited, listening to the surrounding woods. The light breeze rustled the leaves of the trees; branches squeaked as they rubbed together. After a time, he made his way silently to the edge of the terrace, picked up a golf-ball-sized rock and, standing hidden behind a tall pine, hurled it into the woods on the opposite side of the terrace.
Hearing the noise, Katerina turned. But Marko wasn’t focused on her. Instead he listened to the woods, straining his ears to pick up sounds of anyone else who might be out there.
Nothing.
“Katerina.” Marko spoke her name in a loud whisper. She turned.
“Marko?”
He stepped out briefly from behind the pine. “Over here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure you weren’t followed.” He spoke in Russian.
“You’re scaring me.”
“I think we’re safe. I was watching the path. Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Into the woods, to our campsite.” Last week, they’d stayed at the gardens until dark — Katerina had been painting, Marko reading — and then hiked to the edge of the preserve, down by a stream at the base of the hill. They’d drunk wine around a small campfire, and eaten bread and sheep’s-milk cheese. “Will you come?”
“Did you bring a blanket?”
“Yes.”
Katerina approached him. Her hand was warm. They stole through the woods, picking a path through the underbrush and stepping over downed trees. When they got to the campsite, Marko took off his backpack and pulled out the blanket and two candles. He spread the blanket on the flat section of land he and Katerina had cleared a week earlier; the candles he lit and propped up in rocks that were marked by wax drips, evidence of their previous outing.
Katerina removed her satchel and placed it on the edge of the blanket. “Why are we here?”
“Shh.” Marko put a finger to his lips, then took off his shirt.
She wasn’t wearing a wire; that much became clear once they were naked. That, combined with the feel of her lips, and her hair brushing against his shoulder, and her breath melding with his own, deflated his anxiety and suspicion to the point where he didn’t want to confront her. But he had to, and before they began to make love. Katerina’s head rested on his chest, her ear was inches from his mouth.
“Earlier today I told you some things.” He paused a moment, listening to the forest, then asked, “Did you…tell anyone else about them?”
His whispered question caused her to stiffen. She lifted her head off his chest. He ran a hand through her hair and guided her head back down.
“What do you mean?”
“The listening device I found. How I’ve been helping the Press Club. Did you tell anyone — anyone — about all that?”
“No.” Her body tensed. Either she wasn’t trying to mask her uneasiness or she couldn’t. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you are the only person I confided in. But now other people know what I told you.”
“What other people?”
Marko took a while to respond. “Who do you think?”
“You…you are accusing me?”