Natalia had secured a corner table, her large briefcase-sized valise securing a third seat, which would put Sasha between them. She’d already finished whatever she’d eaten and had her coffee cup before her. Sasha was still eating a hamburger, but her attention was upon one of the restaurant-supplied coloring books. Natalia gave him the briefest welcoming smile, moving her valise from the third chair, and said something to Sasha. At the counter he ordered the obvious. His McMuffin was soggy and the coffee was a gray color.
When Charlie reached the table Natalia said, “I told Sasha we might be meeting a friend.”
“Hello,” said the child. “I’m Sasha. What’s your name?”
Charlie looked inquiringly at Natalia, who shook her head. Charlie couldn’t think of an appropriate Russian transliteration and said, “Ivan,” sure it wasn’t a pseudonym he’d forget after the morning’s still hopeful expedition.
Natalia’s forehead creased as she raised her eyebrows at the name, smiling down at his choice of meal. “I guessed that’s what you’d order.”
“What else could it have been?” Charlie smiled back.
Sasha made an attention-gaining slurp, sucking at the straw in her cherry milkshake, and said, “Would you like me to color you a picture?”
“I’d like that very much,” said Charlie. How could it be like this? Small talk, easy words that ordinary people said in ordinary situations: he didn’t have to sift and scrape every word for a second or third or fourth meaning.
“You choose,” Sasha insisted. “An elephant or a giraffe or a lion? It will have to be one of those because they’re all I’ve got.”
“A giraffe, please,” said Charlie.
“You wouldn’t like a lion, instead?”
“All right, a lion.”
Sasha smiled. “The giraffe is for Mama and the elephant is for Igor. He’s my teacher at school and our friend.”
“I. .” started Charlie, stopping himself from saying he knew. “. . He’ll like that,” he finished. He’d seen Natalia’s wincing frown.
“How are things?” she asked, as Sasha began scribbling with her crayons.
“Confused.”
“You look terrible. Drained. Are you all right?”
“There’s a lot happening.” He was glad there was a wall behind him.
Natalia frowned again. “From what I’ve read and seen on television I believed it to be all over: I thought you’d be going back very soon?”
“Not yet.” Innocuous though the words sounded, they marked a change from neither ever discussing work with the other.
“It seems bad, for you?”
“It could be. I could be recalled.” Not instantly forgotten small talk after all. But she would have surely mentioned the embankment ambush if she’d known about it: rejected his even approaching them. Now he was lying by omission, he recognized.
“How would you feel about that?”
Natalia didn’t want small talk, either, Charlie accepted. “It could make a lot of things easier.”
“Could it? Really, I mean?”
“I think so. And I have thought about it, very seriously thought about it.” He’d done the right thing by keeping the meeting, despite all the deceit and soul-searching.
“So have I. Although not to the extent of your quitting.”
“It might not even be an option of my choosing.”
“You wouldn’t like that.”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t,” Charlie agreed. “The circumstances, I mean. Not the result.”
“What are you talking about?” unexpectedly demanded the child.
“Something a long way away,” said Natalia.
“Not here, you mean? Not in Moscow?”
“No, not in Moscow,” said Charlie.
“Don’t you live here?”
“No,” said Charlie. “I live somewhere else.”
“My papa lives somewhere else, a long way away. I don’t see him but Mama says she might take me there one day.”
Charlie was conscious of Natalia flushing, very slightly. To his daughter Charlie said, “Would you like that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sasha, with the serious-faced sagacity of a child, returning to her coloring.
“I wish that hadn’t been said.”
“I don’t have a problem with it,” said Charlie. “The opposite, in fact.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. . that I’ve decided anything. Now I’m even more unsure.”
“Don’t be,” urged Charlie. “It really could be so much easier now.”
“You couldn’t live without the job. You know you couldn’t and I know you couldn’t.”
“I could,” insisted Charlie. “And will. By choice or otherwise.”
“Finished!” announced Sasha, triumphantly, offering Charlie the crayoned image. The lion’s mane and feet were colored green, its body yellow. She’d strayed over most of the guiding outlines in her eagerness to complete it.
“It’s the best picture of a lion I’ve ever seen,” enthused Charlie. “May I keep it?”
“I want you to,” insisted the child. “Are we going to see you again?”
“I hope so,” said Charlie.
“So do I. Next time you can have the giraffe and Igor can have the lion.”
“We have to go,” abruptly declared Natalia, the flush returning as she collected up her valise.
“We haven’t properly talked,” protested Charlie. This could be the last opportunity it would be safe for them to meet, for him to persuade her!
“You knew we couldn’t, not today. That wasn’t what today was about.”
“I’ll call again, when things get clearer. But don’t forget what I said. And that I meant all of it.”
“You’ve told me you meant what you said a lot of times before, Charlie. And haven’t meant them.”
“This time I do. I really do.”
“I’ve got a call to make” insisted Natalia, ushering Sasha before her.
So had he, thought Charlie. And a hell of a lot depended on it.
26
“Hello!” a man’s voice, slightly slurred.
Charlie said, “I have this number to call?”
“This is a public phone.”
“Who are you?” Surely not a hoax! It couldn’t be!
“Get off the line. I want to use the phone.” The voice was slurred, the belligerence rising.
“Did you answer because it was ringing?”
“Get off the fucking line!”
“I will when you answer the question. Otherwise I’ll keep it open: blocked.”
“It was ringing as I got into the kiosk. Now get off the fucking line!”
Charlie did, stepping away from the telephone for a woman who was waiting with a tugging child on reins but stayed close enough to hear her voice when she spoke in case the contact was planned differently from how he expected. It was high pitched, a complaint about a gas installation, not at all the tone he wanted to hear. There could be a simple, easy explanation. The belligerent man could have got to the telephone seconds before the woman, no thought of politely deferring to her using it first. Probably wouldn’t have wanted him to, hanging around to hear everything she said. Made every sense for her to be the one to hold back. She would have heard the ringing: know he’d understood and was trying to reach her. All he had to do was wait. But not too long. The woman for whom he’d stepped aside appeared to be having an argument with whomever she was talking; the tugging child was pulling away, distracting her. Charlie walked to and fro in her eye line, to remind her he was waiting. Pointedly she turned her back on him. It was six minutes past five. His feet throbbed. The child became entangled in its reins and fell, pulling the woman off balance. He began screaming and she finally slammed the phone down, dragging him away.
Charlie wedged himself into the kiosk, determined against abandoning it again, and dialed out the number from the paper slipped into his pocket. The line was engaged. He had to redial continuously four times before he got a ringing tone, counting each separate sound. He got to six before the receiver at the other end was lifted. No one spoke.