19

It’s not too late to call at Julia’s, if she hurries. When did she last eat? Soup and sausage with the children at lunchtime. That seems a long time ago. She isn’t hungry. She’s tired, but she dreads going to sleep without Andrei beside her. As soon as she falls asleep, it will set a seal on everything that has happened today. Time hasn’t moved on too far yet. It’s still the same day, the one on which Andrei was arrested. She can still say, ‘I saw Andrei this morning. This time yesterday, we were at home together.’

If only Julia’s alone. With Vesnin at home it will be more difficult. Anna doesn’t know him, and he’s not going to welcome this kind of trouble. Much better if she can explain everything to Julia, and Julia will find the right moment to talk to her husband and ask for his help. You can’t just throw a thing like this at him without warning. He might not know how far back Anna’s friendship with Julia goes.

Probably he won’t be at home. Julia said he was out most evenings, and she didn’t always go with him. He was meeting colleagues, and besides –

‘You get tired of eating out all the time.’

‘Do you?’

Another tram, clanging and clanking through the dark night. Anna gets on gratefully, and sits down. The streets are quiet now. A few people plod along, huddled against the sharpness of the wind. They’re going home, to their own homes. They’ll close their doors and feel safe. They don’t know how quickly home can be cracked open, like an egg.

A granny with a huge basket gets on, and heaves herself into the seat next to Anna. Lumps bulge through the cloth that covers the basket. It’s a dark blue embroidered cloth, so shabby now that you can hardly see the stitches. It must have been a tablecloth once. Idly, Anna wonders what is in the basket. Potatoes probably … or turnips … or they might even be lumps of coal.

The old woman glances at Anna. Her face is nutlike, dark and withered, with small bright eyes. She nods as if satisfied, and smoothes the cloth over her basket with her knotted hands.

Suddenly the tram lurches, braking hard. There’s a commotion – some idiot running across the tramlines. The old woman clutches at her basket but the force is too strong for her. Anna makes a grab as the basket slips away, falls to the floor upside down, and empties itself.

Apples. Big green cooking apples, greasy-skinned. They tumble away under seats, around feet, beneath the hems of winter coats. The tram fills with the smell of apples.

They’ll be bruised, thinks Anna. Once they’re bruised they won’t keep. Already people are stooping to pick up the fruit. Anna doesn’t move, because she’s afraid of falling if the tram lurches again. Already it is picking up speed, and apples roll everywhere. A man kneels down to gather them and clambers back up with an armload.

‘Thank you, my dears, thank you,’ murmurs the old woman, who seems paralysed by the disaster and doesn’t try to pick up either the apples or her basket.

‘Here you are, granny,’ says the man, settling the basket back on her knees and replacing the apples he’s rescued. ‘Hold on a bit tighter, eh?’

As if the man has been appointed to the job, everyone starts to pass apples along to him, to put back in the basket.

‘You know how to handle them,’ the old woman approves. ‘You put them in gentle, that’s the way, so they don’t bruise. These are good keepers. They’ll keep till March.’

Everyone is handing back apples now, as if they were on a production line. The basket is almost full again. The old woman looks up into her helper’s face, and carefully chooses two large, unmarked fruit. ‘Take these for your little ones, son,’ she says. ‘They’re cookers, mind.’

The man pushes the apples carefully into his pockets. They only just fit; the cloth bulges. He settles his cap firmly on his head. ‘Hold on tight to that basket now,’ he says, and then he’s gone, swinging his way down the aisle and off the tram.

She’ll have come into the city to sell those apples at market tomorrow, thinks Anna. They won’t fetch much now that they’re bruised. That’s why she’s turning them over so anxiously. That basket is too full. Another sudden stop and they’ll be all over the floor again.

‘Why not tie the cover back?’ Anna asks gently.

‘My fingers aren’t good for that,’ says the old woman. ‘My man, he ties it tight for me at home, and then I’ve only to get it to my daughter’s. It’s just the one tree we’ve got but it’s a real Trojan. Every year it bears and bears.’

She’s not selling the apples, then, she’s brought them into the city for her family, from whatever little plot she has. Anna looks at the twisted, arthritic hands. ‘Let me tie it up safe for you.’

The old woman nods. Anna draws the cloth over the basket, makes sure that it is secure under the rim, and then knots the ends tightly. She sits back, the incident dissolves, and they are in their own worlds again. There is still a faint scent of apples.

It’s Julia who answers the door. Her face brightens when she sees that it’s Anna. ‘Thank goodness it’s you, I hate answering the door at night, in case it’s some bore looking for Georgii. He’s out, he’s got a meeting – well, a discussion about some project. I thought they were all coming back here but it seems not. But, Anna, you look worn out. You shouldn’t be doing so much in your condition. Come in and have some tea.’

Anna takes off her things and sits silently while Julia makes tea with her usual quick, light movements. ‘I won’t be a moment, the samovar was lit anyway – you know what a demon for tea I am in the evenings –’

The heat of Julia’s apartment sinks into Anna. They have money, you can see that, but this is money spent as Anna would spend it herself. Not like the Maslovs’ apartment with that stiff girl in her black-and-white uniform. Julia has silk cushions, and a long curved sofa upholstered in the same beautiful deep blue silk. There are paintings everywhere. Anna recognizes a Popova still life – and that portrait of a peasant child looks like a Goncharova. Brilliant trees bend down while the young girl’s fingers move so surely that she doesn’t even need to look as she milks her goat. Anna draws a deep breath. She and Andrei have slipped into darkness but the other world is still there, guarded by colour and form.

‘Your tea, Anna.’

‘Oh! Thank you, Julia.’

She looks away from the paintings. Opposite her, at either side of a huge, sleek mirror, there are tall white vases filled with branches of beech leaves. Their leaves gleam bronze, as if they’ve just been picked, although the trees are leafless now. Julia’s gaze follows Anna’s.

‘They’re lovely, aren’t they? You have to preserve them by standing them in water and glycerine as soon as you pick them.’

‘Really? Is that why the leaves haven’t dried up?’

‘Yes, and it preserves the colours. It’s quite easy, you just stand them in hot water and glycerine for a day. You can do it with all kinds of leaves.’

‘They’re beautiful.’ She stares around the room. Everything has Julia’s fingerprints on it, or her husband’s. It is intact.

‘Drink your tea. Would you like sugar, or jam? Some poppyseed cake? Georgii’s mother makes it. We drown in cake here.’

‘I’m not hungry, thank you.’

‘You need to eat. You’re so pale, Anna.’

Anna takes three lumps of sugar. Julia’s right, she’s got to think of the baby. She drinks the tea thirstily, realizing as soon as the hot liquid touches her lips how much she needs it.

‘Let me give you some more. Anna, darling, what’s wrong? Do you feel faint?’

‘Just a minute –’ The heat, the tea and Julia’s concern are too much for her. The mask of composure she’s worn all day cracks, and melts. Anna leans forward and covers her face with her hands.

‘Anna!’ Instantly Julia is beside her, kneeling by the chair. ‘What’s happened? Is it the baby?’

Anna shakes her head.

‘Then Kolya? Andrei?’

Anna gathers herself. She must not give way now. She pushes her fingertips hard into her forehead. Get a grip on yourself. Julia can’t help if you just sit here crying.

‘Here, here’s my handkerchief –’

Anna wipes her face, breathes deeply. ‘I’m sorry, Julia.’ She feels embarrassed and ashamed. She hates to be seen out of control like this. Good, the tears are receding. She swallows them back, blinking, and pushes her hair off her face.

‘It’s Andrei. They arrested him this morning.’

She feels as well as sees Julia’s recoil. ‘My God. My God, Anna!’

Anna notes what Julia doesn’t say. No cry of ‘It must be a mistake!’ or ‘That’s impossible.’ She has suspected before that Julia has knowledge of the world into which Andrei has disappeared. Now, she is sure of it.

After the initial shock, Julia speaks calmly. ‘Tell me what it’s about. If you know, that is.’

‘Andrei was involved in the treatment of this boy – the son of someone very influential. I won’t tell you his name. The child had cancer and he had all the right treatment, but now the cancer’s come back in another place. It does that, you know. Every doctor knows that’s the main risk. But now they’re saying that the boy wasn’t treated correctly.’

‘I didn’t know Andrei worked with cancer patients. I thought you said –’

‘I know. He doesn’t usually, it’s not his field. It’s complicated, Julia. It was a colleague who dragged him into it, and then the boy liked Andrei – well, I won’t go into it too much. It’s better if you don’t know.’

Julia nods. Without taking her eyes off Anna’s face she reaches out to the small table behind her, feels for the packet of cigarettes that lies there, takes one out and puts it between her lips. ‘Do you want one, Anna?’

Anna shakes her head. Julia’s fingers find her lighter, and she lights the cigarette. She draws smoke deep into her lungs, half closing her eyes.

‘Andrei’s done nothing,’ says Anna. ‘All he thinks about is his patients –’

‘Of course I know that. But it’s what they decide to think he’s done … Where are they holding him? The Shpalerka, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ve spent all day at work and then I went to see his professor to see if he could help. I’m going to make a lot more inquiries tomorrow – I’ll go to the Shpalerka –’

‘Don’t.’ Julia’s voice raps out instantly.

‘What do you mean? I’ve got to –’

‘Don’t, Anna. Keep away from them. Queue up with a parcel, but believe me, it’s not a good idea to go “making inquiries” in a place like that. Your name gets into the system. The next thing you know, you’re part of the investigation too.’

‘So you’re saying I should just do nothing – not even try to help him?’

‘Anna!’ Julia leans forward, crushes her cigarette out in the ashtray, and seizes hold of Anna’s wrists, shaking them gently. ‘Anna, listen. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. Do you want that baby to be born in prison and shoved into a children’s home? They give them new names, you know. You can never find them again.’

‘But Andrei –’

‘All he cares about is you and the baby. And Kolya, of course,’ adds Julia quickly.

‘I’ve got to do something. I went to see his professor but that was no good. If I can just find out what the charge is –’

‘No, Anna, it doesn’t work like that. Drink your tea, for God’s sake, you look as if you’re going to pass out on me.’

Anna swallows hot, sugary tea. Warmth spreads through her veins but her head feels icy.

‘You’ve got to disappear,’ says Julia.

‘Disappear! How can I disappear? My papers have to be in order, I’ve got my residence permit here, my job – we can’t live on air. I’ve got to support Kolya as well as the baby –’

‘For heaven’s sake, Anna, don’t be so naive!’ says Julia in a ferocious whisper. ‘What do you think is going to happen to them if you’re arrested as well? It’s because of them that you’ve got to stay on the outside. Do you think you’ll be getting three meals a day in prison, and a nice nurse coming in to make sure the baby’s all right? You’ll get bread, and a bowl of soup made with fish that’s gone off. If you’re lucky and anyone on the outside has got any money to send you, you can buy some sugar from the prison shop. As soon as the baby’s born, it’ll be taken away. What’s Kolya going to live on if you’re arrested? Oh no, I forgot, he’s already sixteen. That problem will soon be solved. They’ll arrest him, too. He’s getting a bit old for a Home for Juvenile Delinquents, so it’ll be prison for him as well.’

‘Julia –’

‘No. Listen. You’ve already made one serious mistake. You mustn’t go traipsing around asking people to help you. All you’re doing is creating witnesses to testify against you. I don’t mean me, I’m glad you came here. But that professor you were talking about – I don’t suppose he was falling over himself to offer his support, was he?’

‘No.’

‘Exactly. And if he thinks it will protect his own position he’ll tell them all about your visit, and every word you said. He wants to survive. He’ll throw you to the wolves.’

To the wolves. Sonya Maslova’s expression flashes through Anna’s mind. ‘Get out and don’t come back.’ Julia’s right. If it would benefit Maslov, Sonya would certainly denounce Anna. But that doesn’t mean that other people won’t help – they aren’t all the same –

‘I know what I’m talking about, Anna,’ says Julia, in a tone of weary certainty that silences Anna’s protests.

‘Julia?’ she says at last, tentatively.

‘Yes?’

‘Tell me …’

‘There’s nothing to tell. It’s the same story as everybody else’s, only in my case a miracle occurred.’ Julia smiles ironically. ‘Are you sure you want to hear about my little odyssey? All right then, but I’ll keep it brief. It’s not so lovely that you’d want to dwell on it.

‘My father was arrested in ’35, when I was seventeen. My parents had already been divorced for years, as you know, and they were poles apart. My mother had got herself into a very strong position one way and another, and she made sure she stayed in it.’ Julia’s left eyelid twitches. ‘She had no contact with any of us, and she changed her name. No doubt she rewrote her entire autobiography so that my father didn’t feature. I suppose it’s possible that she denounced him; but I’ve no proof of that and I don’t want to think about it.

‘He got five years, which didn’t seem too bad, except that he had angina and so I was very worried about that. You know I told you I was with the Kazan Ballet Company? Well, I was, but not for as long as I said. I had a fantastic stroke of luck. I got into Moiseyev’s new company – you’ve heard of it?’

‘Yes, I think so –’

‘It was a new world. It was wonderful. Exactly the kind of dancing I’d always wanted to do. I’d begun to feel so dead and stuck. I’d never realized dancing could be so – oh, I don’t know. Witty. Funny. Full of life. He was exacting, of course he was, but he had something you don’t come across very often – just once or twice in a lifetime. He had fire. Georgii has it too – that’s why –

‘Moiseyev had a vision and he would do anything to fulfil it, and he made you see what it could be like. We worked and worked and worked. I loved it, Anna! I was so happy. I realized that I’d never been happy in my life before, not really. You know what it’s like when every part of you, every fibre, is used – not used up – but used for a purpose – so that you can go on and on and you’re not worn out, you’re getting stronger all the time?’

Julia’s eyes shine as if they are full of tears. Anna is impatient. Why is Julia going on like this, when Andrei has been arrested? At any other time she’d have been glad to hear Julia’s story. But Moiseyev has nothing to do with what’s happening now, today, to Andrei.

‘It doesn’t happen very often,’ Julia goes on more quietly, as if she senses Anna’s thoughts. ‘And it soon came to an end. Late in ’37, just when everyone was going crazy about us – the Company, I mean …’ Julia pauses. The light goes from her face. She coughs, and swallows. ‘You remember those times. They started doubling everyone’s sentence, or worse. You were afraid all the time. It was like a disease. So many people were being arrested. I can’t imagine why I thought that being in the Company would make me any safer.

‘They asked me to come in for an interview, because they needed to make “certain inquiries”. I remember those exact words. I really thought it was just a formality – or at least, I convinced myself that was what I thought. I didn’t take anything along with me, no money, not even a spare pair of knickers. Can you imagine? I hurried along dead on time for my appointment because I had a rehearsal that afternoon and I didn’t want to be late for it. That’s how much of an idiot I still was, in spite of what had happened to my father. I could at least have given them the trouble of coming to look for me! But no. They only had to pick up the phone and I trotted along, as good as gold. Don’t you think, Anna, if they’d had to do all their own dirty work, it might have slowed down the process a bit at least?’

‘I don’t know, Julia.’ Anna looks into Julia’s dilated, glittering eyes. ‘You had no choice really. We didn’t fight. I’d have done the same as you.’

‘Would you? I don’t know. It still seems to me that we make it too easy for them. If everyone fought right from the first moment then they’d need a lot more Blue-caps. And a lot more guards in the prisons too. The whole performance might even become uneconomic.

‘But all that’s beside the point. If you don’t betray yourself, there’s usually someone ready to step forward and betray you. Anyway, so there I was, with my little pale blue leather bag which had nothing in it but a few sticks of stage make-up, some tights and a couple of pairs of dance shoes. The guards who searched me didn’t seem in the least surprised by my collection. I suppose they’d seen everything.’ Julia seizes hold of Anna’s hand. ‘Listen. Are you thirty-four now, or thirty-five?’

‘Thirty-four.’

‘The same as me. And I was nineteen then. We’ve nearly lived our whole lives all over again, and it’s still going on the same. But you mustn’t be like me.’ Julia drops her gaze. ‘Sometimes,’ she murmurs, ‘it doesn’t seem like any time at all. I wake up and I think I’m there.’ Her voice quivers, while her grip on Anna tightens.

The moment breaks. Julia reaches for another cigarette and lights it, narrowing her eyes against the smoke before she resumes her story in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. ‘As it turned out the charge wasn’t connected with my father. It was about a joke someone had made at a party. I could prove I wasn’t there, because I’d been sick that day and so I’d only just got through the performance and then gone straight home. But they still got me for “insufficient vigilance”. However, and this is where my miracle occurred: I only got a year, can you imagine that? In ’37! It was like being handed a bunch of flowers. Maybe the judge was a fan of the Company. Every day I expected to be hauled in front of another court and given an additional sentence. It was happening all the time. They were giving ten years, twenty years, anything that came into their heads by then, and of course the prisons were stuffed full so everybody was being sent off to the camps. But, do you know what, my sentence stayed the same. I came out.’

Anna reaches out and takes Julia’s hand, squeezes the soft, slender fingers.

‘My father died in ’39,’ says Julia. ‘Heart disease. He was out east, at a place called Elgen. We got the notification.’

‘Oh, Julia.’

‘You remember him?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I was such a fool. I should have run away, but I stayed in Moscow, like a plum on a tree, waiting for them to pick me. I was like nearly everyone I met in prison. Until the very last moment I couldn’t believe it would happen to me. But there were a few who saw clearly, right from the start. They just dropped everything, stepped out of their lives and went as far away as they could, as soon as they caught wind of trouble. They went off to any little place they could find in the back end of beyond. There were so many easy fruit to pick – the authorities only had to reach up a hand – and so the ones who’d vanished weren’t always pursued.

‘I heard about a university professor who went out to Central Asia, slept under the stars and lived on mare’s milk and wild honey – he must have had contacts out there, I suppose. It’s difficult, I know, especially for us, because we’ve all been brought up to fill in all our forms and have the right papers and notify everybody of everything. That’s one of the things that drew me to Georgii. He’s not like that, he cuts through everything.’ Julia leans forward and whispers almost inaudibly, ‘I know, you’re thinking about that Stalin Prize. But Georgii didn’t crawl for it. He made the films he wanted to make, that was all. He likes what it brings, of course, and it means he can keep on doing the work he wants. The one thing I know about Georgii is that he would always put me first, whatever happened, and try to keep me safe.’

Anna’s mind whirls.

‘So … after you were released, did you go back to the Company?’

‘No.’ Julia stares down at her feet, and in a flash Anna remembers. I kept getting injuries … everything was messed up … Dancers’ feet are horrible … Something else happened to Julia in that time; something bad. That limp she has … They did something to her, in there. Anna’s skin crawls.

‘Anyway,’ says Julia, ‘it wouldn’t have been good for the Company to have me back.’

Anna takes a deep breath. Even as she begins to speak, she knows it’s no good. ‘I was going to ask, Julia, if your husband might be able to … Well, you know. Put in a word for Andrei somehow. But now I see …’

‘No,’ says Julia quietly, ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t ask him, after everything he’s done for me. You can imagine, for example, what he had to do to get my papers sorted out so I could live here in Leningrad. That was my second miracle, when I met Georgii.’

Anna understands. Georgii and Julia are in their little boat, and only they know how low it lies in the water. One more passenger might send them all to the bottom.

‘It’s all right, Julia, I do understand.’ Her body feels so heavy, as if she’ll never be able to move again. ‘But if I go away, Andrei will think I’ve abandoned him.’

‘Drink your tea. You’re so pale, Anna, you’ve got to look after yourself. Andrei won’t think anything like that. He’ll guess what’s happened. In prison, you learn a lot of things very quickly. But until you’ve been “there” you can’t have any idea. There was a woman in the Lubyanka who’d been outside, standing in a queue to deliver a parcel for her husband. Or maybe there were two parcels … Yes, that was it! They accepted one parcel but started to make a fuss about the other. All at once, she was pulled out of the queue and taken inside “for interview”. That was that. She was arrested too. There was no one left on the outside to bring parcels for her. The worst of it was she had two children. Remember, there’s nothing easier than for them to arrest you too. Don’t think it can’t happen.’

‘But I can’t let a chance that I might get arrested as well prevent me from trying to do anything for Andrei. I’m not talking about causing trouble, just making inquiries.’

‘You really don’t know anything! How can I help you when you won’t even try to help yourself? Listen. There was a woman in our cell, Anna, who was pregnant. A bit further on than you, about six months I think. That didn’t stop them putting her on the conveyor belt.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s a form of interrogation. They kept her awake, standing up, all day and all night for two days – it’s something they do, and sometimes it’s not two days, it’s five or six or even more. When she came back to the cell she vomited all over the floor, and then collapsed. The next night she miscarried. She stuffed her blanket into her mouth because she didn’t want anyone to hear. I think she thought there was a chance the baby might be born alive. But it was dead, of course. They took it away. The guard put it in a bucket. They took her away too and I didn’t see her again. You haven’t been there, Anna. You think it can’t happen to you. But I tell you they can do anything. Anything at all.’

A long silence. The air of the room bristles with what Julia has tried to forget. Julia sits, head bowed. At last Anna stirs, leans forward, and strokes Julia’s hair. Her hand remembers the feel of it so well. In the old days, playing under the table in the communal apartment, they used to plait and unplait each other’s hair. Julia’s was always longer and thicker, like the hair of a princess.

‘Thank you, Julia. You’re a good friend. I’d better go now, before Georgii comes home.’