“Yes, you told me.”
He pushed past her and went back to the living room. The cigarettes were on the table beside his favorite chair.
“But you didn’t tell me,” Maria said, following him like a determined bulldog, “that your little cow-eyed student from the research center has followed you back to Moscow.”
“What? Who are you talking about?”
“That Vlasov bitch…the one you were sleeping with at the research center.”
“Sonya?” Markov felt torn between joy and dread. “She’s in Moscow?”
“Look at you!” Maria snarled. “You’re having an erection already!”
He shook his head. “Maria, you don’t understand. She means nothing to me. She’s only a child. An overactive child.”
“Who’ll pull her pants down anytime you ask her to,” Maria said.
Sighing, Markov said, “Maria Kirtchatovska, you know me too well. I can’t resist. She throws herself at me. She’s lively, and rather good-looking.”
And young, Maria added silently. She swung her gaze to the mirror on the wall across the room. She looked at herself: a small, heavy woman with a complexion like bread dough and the face of a potato. In her imagination she pictured her husband with the buxom young beauty she had seen in his bed.
“You won’t have to resist her,” Maria said, her voice low, venomous. “She’ll never be at the university again. She’s on her way to a factory in the Ukraine, where she will study tractor repair.”
Markov’s mouth sagged open. “What have you…?”
“And you’re going to Kwajalein, with me,” Maria said.
His face turned red. “Woman, you go too far!” he roared, lurching toward her, hand upraised to strike.
But Maria held her ground. “You’re too late to do anything about it,” she said. “It’s already done. And you’re not going to be out of my sight for a minute, from now on.”
Markov stood there, flushed, perspiration trickling down his neck and into his collar.
“You just…sent her away? Ruined her chance for a career in astronomy? Just like that?”
Maria said nothing. She turned and walked slowly back to the kitchen, leaving Markov standing there in the middle of the living room, realizing for the first time the power that his wife held in her hands.
Chapter 19
MARSHALL ISLANDS are the easternmost group of islands in Micronesia (q.v.) and the eastern district of the United States Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Two of the atolls, Kwajalein and Eniwetok, were the scenes of heavy fighting during World War II. Later Bikini and Eniwetok became centres for atomic bomb experiments…The islands extend roughly from latitude 3° to 15° N. and from longitude 161° to 172° E. Their land area is 61 sq. mi. and the lagoon area is about 4500 sq. mi. A reef-enclosed lagoon 70 mi. long with an area of 840 sq. mi. makes Kwajalein the largest atoll in the world…
Keith Stoner sat in the hot, high sun and squinted out across the white sand beach. From here the atoll looked like a classic tropic paradise: graceful palms swaying in the sea breeze; breakers frosting white against the distant reef; the incredibly blue-green lagoon, calm and inviting; crystalline sky dotted with happy puffs of fat cumulus clouds riding the trade wind.
All we need is a wahine in a grass skirt, he said to himself.
But when he turned around and looked inward from the beach, he saw that the modern world had lain its unmistakable hand on Kwajalein. Squat gray cinder block buildings stood scant yards from the beach in a clearing that had been bulldozed where once there had been palms and plums and even an island variety of pine tree.
Further along the narrow flat island was the airstrip, garages and maintenance buildings, machine shops clanging in the hot sunshine, jeeps and trucks buzzing along the only road—a crushed coral track that led from the docks at the northern end of the island to the living compound at the south.
Above it all loomed the radio telescope antennas, six of them, a half-dozen huge dishes of metal and mesh that all pointed toward one invisible spot in the sky: the approaching spacecraft.
“Beachcombing?”
Stoner turned to see Jo Camerata walking toward him, shoeless in the sand, wearing cutoff jeans that showed her long legs well and a skimpy halter top. She was already tanned to a deep olive brown.
In the few days since they had arrived on the island, Stoner had managed to avoid her. But you knew you’d have to see her sooner or later, he told himself.
“Sort of,” he answered guardedly.
She smiled. “You’re dressed for it, all right.”
He was in an old pair of jogging shorts and a light shirt that hung loosely, unbuttoned, its sleeves rolled up above the elbow. The Navy’s repeated warnings about infection and jungle rot had convinced Stoner that he’d keep his socks and shoes on at all times.
“How are you?” he asked.
For a moment she didn’t reply. Then, “Do you really want to know, Keith?”
He saw something unfathomable in those deep eyes of hers. “Big Mac treating you well?” he asked.
Her mouth went tight.
“You’re sleeping with him now,” Stoner said flatly. “Everybody knows it.”
Nodding slowly, she said, “He treats me better than you did.”
“Than I did?” He felt genuine surprise. “What’d I ever do to you?”
“Nothing. Not a damned thing,” Jo said, her eyes blazing now. “You treated me like Kleenex: use it and throw it away.”
“That’s not fair, goddammit!”
“But it’s true, Keith.”
“So you just walked off and attached yourself to McDermott. Got yourself a better deal.”
“You’re damned right I did. And I got a better deal for you, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She started to reply, but instead turned her back to him. He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around to face him.
“What’re you talking about?” he demanded. “What better deal?”
He had thought she was crying, but she was dry-eyed, in full control of herself.
“What better deal?” Jo repeated. “I left you alone so you could devote all your attention to your work. To your pictures of Jupiter and your computer runs. That’s all you ever wanted, wasn’t it? A few sanitary conveniences and no personal ties to bother you.”
He took a staggering step backward, away from her. “Jesus Christ, you sound like Doris.”
“Doris? Your ex-wife?”
He nodded.
Jo’s shoulders slumped. The fire disappeared from her eyes.
“I didn’t walk out on you, Keith,” she said softly. “I was never part of your life. You never let me be part of you.”
He turned away from her, scanned the horizon and the breakers along the reef, pulling his emotions back under control. Leave her alone, he told himself. She’s too young to get involved with you; you’re in no position to get involved with her.
“Look, Jo,” he said, facing her again, “this is a damned small island and we’re going to see each other every day, just about. Let’s just call a truce and forget about what’s already happened. Okay?”
“Sure,” she said, her voice strained. “Water under the bridge and all that.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Jo said, lifting her chin to stand as tall as she could. “I was just taking a walk around the beach, to see what the place looks like. See you.”
She strode off, leaving him standing there alone. With a shrug, Stoner started walking up the beach in the opposite direction.
Only after several minutes had passed, and she had looked over her shoulder three times to make certain he wasn’t anywhere in sight, did Jo allow herself to cry.