Viktor gave her a quick look.
'You were thinking of your mother.'
He nodded.
'Pyotr Lavrentyevich didn't want to tell you… He's heard that the Party organization and the Institute authorities have really got it in for you… Apparently Badin said: "It's not just a case of hysteria. It's political hysteria, anti-Soviet hysteria." '
'So that's what's the matter with me,' said Viktor. 'Yes, I thought that Pyotr Lavrentyevich was keeping something back.'
'Yes. That upset me very much.'
'Is he afraid?'
'Yes. And he considers you to be in the wrong.
'Pyotr Lavrentyevich is a good man,' she added quietly. 'He's suffered a lot.'
'Yes,' said Viktor. 'And that's what's upsetting. Such an audacious, brilliant scientist – and such a cowardly soul.'
'He's suffered a lot,' repeated Marya Ivanovna.
'All the same, he should have told me.'
He took her arm. 'Listen, Marya Ivanovna, what is all this about Madyarov? I just don't understand.'
He was haunted by the thought of their conversations in Kazan. He kept remembering odd words, odd phrases, Karimov's alarming warning and Madyarov's own suspicions. He was afraid that his blatherings in Kazan would soon be added to what was already brewing in Moscow.
'I don't understand myself,' she replied. 'The registered letter we sent Leonid Sergeyevich was returned to us. Has he changed his address? Has he left Kazan? Has the worst happened?'
'Yes, yes,' muttered Viktor. For a moment he felt quite lost.
Marya Ivanovna obviously thought that her husband had told Viktor about the letter that had been returned. But Sokolov hadn't said a word. When Viktor had asked that question, he had been thinking of the quarrel between Madyarov and Pyotr Lavrentyevich.
'Let's go into the park,' he said.
'We're going in the wrong direction.'
'There's a way in off Kaluga Street.'
He wanted to know more about Madyarov, and to tell her of his and Karimov's suspicions of one another. The park would be empty; no one would disturb them there. Marya Ivanovna would understand the import of such a conversation. He would be able to talk freely and openly about everything that troubled him, and she would be equally frank.
A thaw had set in. On the slopes you could see damp rotting leaves peeping out from under the melting snow; in the gullies, however, the snow was still quite thick. The sky above was cloudy and sombre.
'What a beautiful evening,' said Viktor, breathing in the cool, damp air.
'Yes, and there isn't a soul around. It's like being in the country.'
They walked down the muddy paths. When they came to a puddle, he held out his hand and helped her across.
For a long time they didn't say a word. Viktor didn't want to talk about the war, the Institute, Madyarov, or any of his fears and premonitions. All he wanted was to keep on walking, without saying a word, beside this small woman with the light yet awkward step – and to prolong this feeling of lightness and peace that had suddenly come over him.
Marya Ivanovna didn't say a word. She just walked on beside him, her head slightly bowed.
They came out onto the quay. The river was covered with a layer of dark ice.
'I like this,' said Viktor.
'Yes,' she agreed, 'it's good.'
The asphalt path along the quay was quite dry and they walked more quickly, like travellers on a long journey. A wounded lieutenant and a stocky young girl in a ski-suit were coming towards them. They had their arms round one another and were stopping every now and then to kiss. As they passed Viktor and Marya Ivanovna, they kissed again, looked round and burst out laughing.
'Who knows?' thought Viktor. 'Perhaps Nadya came for a walk here with her lieutenant.'
Marya Ivanovna looked round at the young couple and said:
'How sad it all is.'
She smiled. 'Lyudmila Nikolaevna told me about Nadya.'
'Yes, yes,' said Viktor. 'It is all very strange.'
Then he added:
'I've decided to phone the director of the Electro-Mechanical Institute and offer my services. If they don't accept me, I'll have to go somewhere like Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk.'
'Yes, that's the best thing you can do,' she said. 'What can I say? You couldn't have acted any other way.'
'How sad it all is.'
He wanted to say what a deep love he felt now for his work and his laboratory. He wanted to say that when he looked at the new apparatus – now almost complete – he felt a strange blend of joy and sorrow; that he sometimes felt he would come back to the Institute at night and peer through the windows. But he didn't say anything; he was afraid Marya Ivanovna would think he was putting on an act.
As they came to the exhibition of war-trophies, they slowed down to look at an aeroplane with black swastikas and at the grey German tanks, field-guns and mortars.
'They look terrifying enough even like this,' said Marya Ivanovna.
'They're not so bad,' said Viktor. 'By the time the next war comes, they'll seem as innocent as muskets and halberds.'
They reached the gate.
'So our walk's come to an end,' said Viktor. 'What a pity this park's so small. You're not tired?'
'Not at all. I do a lot of walking.'
Either she was pretending not to understand or she really didn't.
'It's strange,' he said. 'Our meetings always seem to depend on your meetings with Lyudmila or mine with Pyotr Lavrentyevich.'
'Yes,' she agreed, 'but how else could it be?'
They left the park; the noise of the city surrounded them again, destroying the charm of their quiet walk. They came out onto a square not far from where they had first met.
Looking up at him – as though she were a little girl and he were an adult – she said:
'Just now you probably feel a special love for your work, for your laboratory and equipment. But you couldn't have acted in any other way. Another man could-but not you. I've brought you bad news, but I always think it's best to know the truth.'
'Thank you, Marya Ivanovna,' said Viktor, squeezing her hand. 'And not only for that.'
He thought he could feel her fingers trembling in his hand.
'How strange,' she said. 'We're saying goodbye almost exactly where we met.'
Viktor smiled. 'It's not for nothing that the ancients said, "In my beginning is my end." '
Marya Ivanovna frowned as she puzzled over this. Then she laughed and said: 'I don't understand.'
Viktor watched as she walked down the street: a short, skinny woman, not someone a passer-by would turn round to look at.
57
Darensky had seldom been so bored or depressed as during these weeks in the Kalmyk steppe. He had sent a telegram to Front Headquarters, saying that he had completed his mission and that his continued presence on the extreme left flank – where there was in any case no activity – served no purpose. With an obstinacy he found incomprehensible, his superiors had still not recalled him.
It wasn't so bad when he was working; what was most difficult was when he was off duty.
There was sand everywhere; dry, rustling, slippery sand. Of course, even this supported life. You could hear the rustle of lizards and tortoises and see the tracks left by the lizards' tails. Here and there you came across small thorn bushes, themselves the colour of sand. Kites hovered in the air, searching for refuse or carrion. Spiders ran past on long legs.
The stern poverty, the cold monotony of the snowless November desert, seemed to have devastated the men who had been posted here. Their way of life, even their thoughts, seemed to have become equally dreary.
Little by little, Darensky had submitted to this monotony. He had always been indifferent to food, but now he thought of little else. The endless meals of sour-tasting soup made from pearl barley and marinated tomatoes – followed by pearl-barley porridge – had become a nightmare. Sometimes he found it unbearable to sit in the gloom of the small barn, in front of puddles of soup splashed over a table knocked together from a few planks, watching everyone sipping this soup from flat tin bowls; all he wanted was to get out – to escape the rattle of spoons and the nauseating smell. But as soon as he left, he began to count the hours till the next day's meal.