Never before had such detail been broadcast. We have no record of how effective the inspector’s broadcast (three times repeated in one day) proved in pacifying the anti-Asiatic feelings in the town. But the Vladimir rape story within a month or two had spread widely through Russian industrial cities, acquiring even more horrendous detail and always ending with the assertion: Of course it was Uzbeks who did it.
The backlash among the nationalities was slow in developing. But it came from a core of hatred of the Russians that went back to the last century. Now stories of their treatment, of their second-class citizenship in this Union of supposed equals, flowed back to the national republics. Anti-Russian outbreaks like that in Baku on the day of the funeral parade became more common.
In response, Kuba was able to push through a reluctant Politburo further budget increases for an expanded Bureau of State Security. At this time, too, he assumed the responsibilities of Minister of the Interior, making official his control of the militia.
Of the remaining power blocks in the Soviet State, the Party and the Army, the first was already in disarray following the arrest of Natalya Roginova. The Army, paralyzed by uncertainty and rent with deep divisions between its more junior and senior general officers, for the moment sat tight and watched.
On one issue only it refused to budge. Its Politburo representatives still refused to endorse Kuba’s claim to be appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party. Thus the Party remained headless while Kuba’s paramilitary formations increased in number and authority. And the Army looked on uneasily at developments it felt it could neither encourage nor dissuade.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was raining. On the rooftop opposite he could see the melting snow sliding down toward the guttering. Another year. A year far different from those times a decade ago. Now he despised his youthful self. “Silence,” his father had said, rubbing his fingers together in the Russian way that first day he had returned, “is truly golden.” So perhaps is youth.
Letsukov turned up his coat collar and crossed Dzerzhinsky Square toward the guardhouse on the gate. “I have an appointment with Colonel Pleskov,” he said.
The guard picked up something in his tone and rose, saluting smartly. Within minutes he was being escorted down the long pale-green corridor with the white globes on chromium rods.
Colonel Pleskov was already in the room. He was as brisk as ever.
“You’ve been meeting an American woman,” he said. “Mrs. Carole Yates, wife of…” he glanced at a paper on the desk, “Thomas Foster Yates, First Secretary at the American Embassy.”
“Yes.” Letsukov remembered vividly the Colonel’s earlier phrase: “I don’t have to prove anything.”
“The relationship dates perhaps from a reception on the day of the state funeral.” The Colonel smiled, obviously pleased with himself.
“It does.”
“What sort of a relationship is it, Letsukov?”
“The usual sort.”
“Sexual.”
“Yes.”
“Do you discuss political questions?”
“No, Colonel.”
“I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“Only because I’ve examined photographs of the lady.”
“I see.”
“But political questions could be introduced.”
“I don’t see the point.”
“The point is that her husband is an American diplomat. We have some reason to think he is highly thought of in Washington.”
“I can’t help you, Colonel. I have never discussed Mrs. Yates’ husband.”
“Then you must.”
Letsukov sat in the upright chair, the wet topcoat dripping onto the parquet floor. “I must?”
“Yes. It’s a unique opportunity. Use tact. Ask questions. We can provide you with a more luxurious apartment to go to if that’s what the lady is used to.”
“It’s a casual relationship,” Letsukov said. “A few times only. There’s no reason to believe it will last.”
The colonel stood up. “You must make it last,” he said smiling. “And why not? I have seen the photographs, as I said.”
Letsukov stood.
“You’re leaving for a trip to the Ukraine next week,” the Colonel said.
“I shall be away a month or more. By then Mrs. Yates may well have found other friends.”
“I think not,” the Colonel said jovially. “Absence, the Americans say, makes the heart grow fonder. We could, of course, cancel your visit — but I don’t think it would be wise. In any event we are not pressing you. Let me have your first report when you get back to Moscow.”
“I repeat the relationship may not last,” Letsukov said. “For the moment she finds it exciting to…”
“To sleep with an uncouth Russian?”
“Perhaps there is something of that in it, yes.”
“Not that you Alexei Alexeivich are an uncouth Russian.”
Letsukov eyed the young Colonel.
“I know these foreign women,” Pleskov said. “They’re looking for something different. They’ve got everything — they need more.” He extended his hand. “A report once a month. And if you need that apartment, rich curtains, a silk bedspread, a touch of the old Russia, just let me know.”
Letsukov left Dzerzhinsky Square and walked quickly in the direction of the Plevna Gardens. Gray-edged, the watery snow on the rooftops dripped into the gutters of the Polytechnical Museum. Ahead, in the Plevna Gardens, Carole was waiting for him.
He felt he had reacted convincingly to the Colonel. Not too much guilt. Not too much anxiety to cooperate. Walking through the drizzle his thoughts were full of the young American woman whose life had become entwined with his. The images bombarded him: of Carole pacing the room, brushing her blond hair with short vigorous strokes; of Carole asleep beside him; of Carole naked in the shower; of Carole laughing, talking, joking; of Carole with all that sheer capacity for happiness which he had never met in a woman before.
He had changed in the months they had been together. Infected by her optimism he had begun to see that hope for Russia was inextricably connected with hope for himself. He had begun to see that the Soviet system could only continue to exist while Russians like himself worked for their own private success within the system. Only now did he see how deeply pessimistic that willingness to conform had been. Lenin himself, he thought wryly, would have rejected it for the serf-like attitude it was. But then Letsukov was aware that he had achieved this epiphany only through his love for Carole.
To Alexei Letsukov to be in love was an experience which defeated all comparison. He had not in the past lacked for the company of women. So often he had used the act of sex as a temporary salve, to assuage guilt, to suppress anxiety or to erase disappointment. In Paris he had used Carole herself that way. But with a wonderful tenacity she had drawn them both above that first encounter, enabling them to remeet on different terms, allowing his caution both as a Russian and a Soviet man to evaporate slowly in the warmth with which she encircled them.
And now that warmth was to be pierced by the grubby probing fingers of the KGB.
Letsukov stopped at the Plevna Monument. He stood with the light rain falling on his fair hair and trickling down his forehead.
As I stood at the Plevna Monument that evening [Letsukov wrote], I saw myself at a crossroads of my life. However wary I was of the Russian addiction to the bitter taste of sacrifice, I was forced to recognize that as long as I continued to see Carole I would be of more than usual interest to the men at the Lubyanka. Yet if I were to take the opportunities which my work offered, to become involved in the Free Trade Union Movement, I could not afford to be an object of interest to the KGB for a totally separate reason. I could not, in short, put brave men at additional risk so that I might continue to enjoy a closeness which every day seemed to grow between this American girl and myself and which every day we saw more confidently as love.