Then Ayshe realized what a foolish thing she had said. Her cheeks turned crimson, and her face began perspiring profusely. “I’m sorry, please forgive me! I understand everything. I just hadn’t expected it—no one ever told me that this is how it is.”
Then a young couple came in—the middle-aged woman’s daughter and her husband. They wouldn’t all fit into the tiny kitchen, so Mikha and Ayshe went out, freeing up some stools.
The academician promised to write a letter about Mustafa Usmanov, and advised Ayshe to give an interview to one of the American journalists accredited in Moscow. He said he would organize it.
The most remarkable part of the story was that Academician Sakharov really did write the letter, and not to the American Congress, and not to some Western newspapers, but to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Two weeks later they invited him to a reception on Ogarev Street, and there he discussed the matter of Captain Usmanov with a couple of officials. It was still the time when they talked seriously to him, and didn’t just chuck him out with a respectful expression glued to their faces. The academician did truly achieve something: not long before, a Tatar family had been granted a residence permit in Crimea. One family out of many thousands. And he continued to make the rounds, to submit requests, to petition, to write letters.
Only in Mustafa’s case it was impossible to determine whether his words had an effect or not, since Mustafa Usmanov died in solitary confinement in a pretrial detention cell in Tashkent a month and a half later. Perhaps the academician’s letter pleading the case of the former Tatar hero, defender of the Motherland and special deportee, had not arrived in time, because the postal service of our country is known to be very slow.
But, for the time being, Ayshe was glad that she had had an important meeting, and she was hoping for the best. Mikha led Ayshe by the elbow. She could hardly stand on her own two feet, and kept thanking Mikha in words that were both too direct and too wooden. Only when they were right in front of Mikha’s house did he realize that they were being followed by someone with such an ordinary, unprepossessing face that there could be no doubt about where he had come from.
Two days later, in the evening, a foreign correspondent by the name of Robert visited them at home. He had been sent by Academician Sakharov. He wore a long Soviet coat and a fur hat with three flaps. He resembled more closely a Russian truck driver than an anti-Soviet Slavist from Washington, with Polish roots thrown into the combustible mix. They drank tea and talked. A small tape recorder, a miracle of Western technology, was placed on the table to record Ayshe’s words. The former Pole was wont to be a skirt chaser. He stared at Ayshe with a sweet expression on his face, and paid her compliments. She basked in the attention and bloomed. Smiling, she straightened her shoulders and spoke freely and even boldly, not at all shyly and haltingly, as she had in Sakharov’s kitchen.
Then Robert left, got into the cab that had been waiting for him the whole time, and went to his house on Leninsky Prospect. When he got out of the car, two thuggish-looking young men jumped him. He got into a fight with them, though he knew perfectly well that he shouldn’t have done that, and that the best thing to do was to make a beeline for his front door. As a result of this tussle, all three of them were taken down to the police station and charged with hooliganism. Robert got off fairly easily. They held him there overnight, and in the morning the American consul came to liberate the idiot. Unfortunately, in the midst of all these vagaries the tape recorder disappeared, never to be seen again.
The following day, toward evening, when Ayshe had gone to Children’s World to shop for her daughter, the neighborhood policeman, Kusikov, looked in and saw both the basket in which Ayshe had brought a melon and grapes, and the cheap suitcase. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then led Mikha out to the staircase landing and said:
“Hey, Mikha, it’d be better if you would, you know … They stopped by asking about who was living at your place. They really let me have it. You—well, you know, she’s gotta get out of here…”
That same evening Mikha took Ayshe to Kazan Station, and early in the morning, she left for Tashkent, after Mikha arranged for her to travel in the conductor’s compartment, without a ticket, in exchange for some hard cash.
Three days later, Mikha found a summons in his mailbox. It was an invitation to the Lubyanka, to a meeting with Captain Safyanov.
Mikha never told Alyona, but he showed Ilya the piece of paper when they met at their regular spot.
“I warned you. You shouldn’t have let Ayshe stay with you at home. You’re in the crosshairs now.”
Mikha blazed up all of a sudden: “What the hell should I have done, chase a young girl out onto the street in the middle of the night? In some situations you just can’t say no.”
“My God, Mikha, you’re such a child! You could’t afford to say yes, either! I warned you! And I told you that she should go to Sakharov’s alone, without you! How could you have agreed to allow someone from the foreign press corps into your home? You’ve made so many mistakes acting on someone else’s behalf, and now you’re going to be the one to take the rap. These are serious times we’re living in, things have never been worse. They’ve rounded up almost everyone. The Tatars, the Jews. The Chronicle isn’t even coming out anymore—there’s no one left to publish it. You picked a bad time to be noble and high-minded.”
Mikha relented.
“I know, I know. But there was no way I could act otherwise. I couldn’t chase her out onto the street; I couldn’t send her off to Sakharov’s alone. As for Robert coming over to my place—I could have avoided that, I suppose. But the rest of it—there was no other choice, Ilya. No other way.”
Ilya grew morose and silent. What could he do for his friend now?
“Listen, I know a man, a geologist. Maybe you could take off for the Far North, on an expedition? Conditions are harsh up there, of course. Yakutia is a long way off.”
“No. I can’t. Alyona. Maya. Anyway, you know there’s no hiding from them, once they set their sights on you!”
“Well, what if I went to Yakutia with you?” That was the most Ilya could offer. And there was no one who had anything else to offer him. Ilya recognized the familiar hand of fate, and knew deep down that Mikha could not extricate himself now.
* * *
Captain Safyanov wasn’t suited to outside surveillance—he had a large purple birthmark on his right cheek, which may even have been a growth. It was visible a hundred yards away. The birthmark didn’t interfere with investigative work, and Safyanov rose steadily in the ranks, not overtaking anyone else, completely satisfied with his salary, his bosses, and his family life. The most unpleasant part of his work was questioning those under investigation, but he tried to keep good relations with them insofar as it was possible. Which wasn’t always the case.
Melamid, the citizen who had been summoned for questioning today, had been handed down to him by another colleague who had just been promoted. The captain familiarized himself with the contents of the thick dossier beforehand, and was distressed—judging by the documents, this was someone with experience. He would have to work on him a long time.
The experienced citizen came right on time, not a minute late, and he looked like he had been around: a skinny neck, pale red hair, almost yellowish, sticking out in tufts, and cheeks covered with the beginnings of a beard. There was no beard to be seen on the photograph.
Well, we’ll need a new photograph for the file, Safyanov decided.
The captain began the conversation obliquely, reminding him of the document he’d signed last time, asking him about his employment, about his future plans. Then, out of left field, he asked: