He strode towards the barrier, hearing Oleg's sarcastic: 'Sorry I mentioned it, Colonel sir,' behind him. Don't upset the man! He paused and turned. 'It was a very obvious wig,' he said with studied lightness. Then he smiled. Oleg returned the expression, nodding and chuckling.
'Wasn't it though — what a shocker! They always make me laugh, wigs. Don't know why — haven't got much myself — but, wigs — !' He burst into laughter. Priabin joined in for a moment.
'The wind all right, sir?' Oleg asked solicitously.
'Bit better, thanks.'
'You got anything?' he asked, fishing in his pocket and bringing out a wrapper of indigestion tablets. 'These are good — get them in the beryozhka shop. American, they are. Better than those peppermint things they make in Minsk. Try one.' He held out the wrapper. There was fluff from his pocket on it. Priabin did not dare risk reaching out his hand. He could envisage fumbling with the wrapper, tearing it, spilling the tablets, arousing Oleg's suspicions.
'Don't do anything for me. It's vodka I need!' he announced as heartily as he could.
'Comeon, then, sir-'
Priabin shook his head. 'I've taken enough time off-better get on with my tour of inspection.' He shrugged. 'See you, Oleg.'.
He touched his cap with his gloves and walked off.
'A real pity, sir — ' he heard Oleg offer.
'What?' he snapped, turning on his heel.
Oleg was holding out the wrapper of indigestion tablets. 'These,' he said. 'They smell of mothballs — taste of 'em, too. Don't blame you for refusing.'
Priabin smiled. 'Bye, Oleg.' He strode towards the ticket barrier, passed through it with a nod to the KGB man who must have inspected Gant's papers, glimpsed the poster displaying the pictures of the American pilot, and passed into the station's main concourse. A wig… attracting attention to a distraction. See the wig, see the silly vanity, the life-style and personality it suggests — miss the pilot beneath.
The air outside the Leningrad station was cold. It was as if he had walked into a sheet of glass. He breathed deeply, many times. His head would not clear. It was like a night sky against which rockets and other fireworks burst. Crazy, useless schemes, exploding, leaving their fading images on an inward eye. He had no idea what to do.
Except he knew he could not report her. He could not tell his superiors, could not tell Vladimirov, that the woman he lived with, the woman he loved, was aiding Gant in his escape from Moscow. They would arrest her, interrogate her, make her talk — then dispose of her. Into a pine box or into one of the Gulags, it was the same thing in the end. Reporting her would be her death sentence.
'Gant-!' he murmured fiercely, clenching his fists, then pulling on his gloves in a violently expressive manner. 'Gant — '
Anna was running a terrible risk. She was in the utmost danger.
He clattered down the station steps towards his limousine.
Where?
What to do?
They were going to Leningrad — in all probability, they'd leave the train before it reached the city. Someone would be waiting for them, an Englishman or an American…
And then it struck him, jolting him like a blow across the face. She was leaving — leaving with the American — she was getting out-
He climbed into the back of the black car and slammed the door behind him.
'The apartment!' he snapped.
The driver turned out into the square. Railway stations all around the square. Images of departure, of fleeing.
He did not know what to do. He knew only that he must not lose her.
The train gathered speed, passing the television tower, its top hidden by low grey cloud. Sleet melted on the window, becoming elongated tadpoles of water. The closest suburban stations all exhibited the same functional, deserted appearance as they headed north-west out of Moscow. The compartment was warm. A loudspeaker softly provided Tchaikovsky. Gant did not know how to begin the conversation he knew he must have with the distraught woman who sat opposite him. She was staring at her hands, which seemed to be fighting each other in her lap. Her lover, she had replied to his first question. The man she lived with. He had been unable to find another question to ask. Instead, he had stared out of the window as if surprised that the train was still moving, still being allowed to continue on its journey.
Finally, as the suburbs flattened into parkland, grey and white beneath the driving snow and low cloud, and then rose again into the old town of Khimki-Kovrino, Gant turned away from the window.
'What will he do?' he asked, staring at his own hands, as if imitating the woman's supplicatory posture. She looked up, startled back to her present surroundings. Her features appeared bruised with emotion.
'What — ?' she replied in Russian. He wondered whether her use of her native language — he had spoken in English — was some way of keeping him at a distance. Or simply security?
'I said, what will he do, the man you live with?' he repeated in Russian.
She shook her head. 'I don't know — !'
'He knew it was me,' Gant explained unnecessarily. 'And he guessed we were together.' He cleared his throat. 'What would he make of it?'
'He knows about me!' she exclaimed, beating her fists in a quick little tattoo on her thighs. 'He already knows — !'
'Jesus-H-Christ…' Gant breathed, leaning back in his seat.
The small compartment was hot, even though he had removed his formal overcoat and unbuttoned his jacket. He fiddled with the half-glasses on his nose, but did not remove them. 'He knows about you…' he repeated in English.
'He's known about me for a long time. He's done nothing about it. He — ' She looked up, and essayed a smile. 'He's very much in love — ' She might have been talking of a favourite Son and another woman. 'It pains him — sometimes he can't sleep — but he protects me…'
'Christ — ' Gant rubbed his forehead, inspecting his fingers for dampness. Very little. He was surprised. He checked his body. Hot, yes, but no sense of rising panic. The movement of the train, north-west towards Leningrad and the border, lulled his body. The first stop was Kalinin, a hundred miles from Moscow. Perhaps they were safe until then.
He could not panic, he decided. The woman had coped, coped with much more, over a much longer time. While she remained almost calm, so would he.
'Listen,' he said, leaning forward, reaching out his fingertips. She withdrew her hand, holding it against her breasts. He sat back. 'Listen- think about it. What will he do? What will he think?'
'I-God, I don't know…'
'Will he — will he blame the CIA? Will he blame me?'
'What do you mean?'
The daylight outside was failing. It was as dark as late evening already. The tadpoles of melted sleet wriggled across the window. A collective farm lay unused beneath a layer of snow. A tractor huddled near a hedge.
'Does he love you enough to blame everyone else except you for what he saw?' Gant explained with some exasperation. 'Is he that blind? Will he blame the CIA, the British, me — ?'
'Instead of me?' Gant nodded. 'Perhaps- '
'Will he report us to his superiors? Will they stop the train?'
'I — don't think so…' Anna's brow creased into deep lines. Gant guessed her age to be around thirty-eight or nine. Older than the young colonel he had seen on the platform. He leaned back and closed his eyes. What had he seen? Seen her trying to reassure him… yes. He'd understood that there was no danger, even through his shock. What else — ? The man? Smiling, laughing, holding her -
His face when she climbed aboard the train, in the moment before he saw Gant — ?
Love. Something from paintings, almost religious — what was it? Adoration — ? Adoration…