Dimka felt close to tears. ‘Yes, Comrade First Secretary?’
‘I may not see you again.’
‘Surely that cannot be!’
‘Something I should tell you.’
‘Yes, comrade?’
‘Your wife is fucking Pushnoy.’
Dimka stared at him, speechless.
‘Better you should know,’ Khrushchev said. ‘Goodbye.’ He got into his car and it pulled away.
Dimka sat in the back of the Moskvitch, dazed. He might never see the impish Nikita Khrushchev again. And Nina was sleeping with a stout middle-aged general with a grey moustache. It was all too much to take in.
After a minute, the driver said: ‘Home or office?’
Dimka was surprised he had a choice. That meant he was not being taken to the basement prison of the Lubyanka; at least not today. He was reprieved.
He considered his options. He could hardly work. There was no point in making appointments and preparing briefings for a leader who was about to fall. ‘Home,’ he said.
When he got there, he found himself surprisingly reluctant to accuse Nina. He was embarrassed, as if he were the wrongdoer.
And he
was
guilty. One night of oral sex with Natalya was not the same as the ongoing affair that Khrushchev’s words implied, but it was bad enough.
Dimka said nothing while Nina fed Grigor. Then Dimka bathed him and put him to bed, and Nina made supper. While they ate, he told her that Khrushchev would resign tonight or tomorrow. It would be in the newspapers in a couple of days, he guessed.
Nina was alarmed. ‘What about your job?’
‘I don’t know what will happen,’ he said anxiously. ‘Right now no one is worrying about aides. They’re probably deciding whether or not to kill Khrushchev. They’ll deal with the small fry later.’
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said after a moment’s reflection. ‘Your family is influential.’
Dimka was not so sure.
They cleared away. She noticed he had not eaten much. ‘Don’t you like the stew?’
‘I’m on edge,’ he said. Then he blurted it out. ‘Are you Marshal Pushnoy’s mistress?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said.
‘No, I’m serious,’ Dimka said. ‘Are you?’
She put the plates in the sink with a bang. ‘What gave you that stupid idea?’
‘Comrade Khrushchev told me. I assume he got the information from the KGB.’
‘How would they know?’
Dimka noticed that she was answering questions with questions, usually a sign of deceit. ‘They watch the movements of all senior government figures, looking for nonconformist behaviour.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said again. She sat down and took out her cigarettes.
‘You flirted with Pushnoy at my grandmother’s funeral.’
‘Flirting is one thing—’
‘And then we got a dacha right next to his.’
She put a cigarette in her mouth and struck a match, but it went out. ‘That did seem a coincidence.’
‘You’re a cool one, Nina, but your hands are shaking.’
She threw the dead match on the floor. ‘Well, how do you think I feel?’ she said angrily. ‘I’m in this apartment all day with nobody to talk to but a baby and your mother. I wanted a dacha and you weren’t going to get us one!’
Dimka was taken aback. ‘So you admit that you prostituted yourself?’
‘Oh, be realistic, how else does anyone get anything in Moscow?’ She got the cigarette alight and drew on it hard. ‘You work for a General Secretary who is mad. I open my legs for a marshal who is horny. There’s not much difference.’
‘So why did you open your legs for me?’
She said nothing, but involuntarily looked around the room.
He understood instantly. ‘For an apartment in Government House?’
She did not deny it.
‘I thought you loved me,’ he said.
‘Oh, I was fond of you, but since when was that enough? Don’t be such a baby. This is the real world. If you want something, you pay the price.’
He felt a hypocrite, accusing her, so he confessed. ‘Well, I might as well tell you that I’ve been unfaithful too.’
‘Ha!’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you had the nerve. Who with?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Some little typist in the Kremlin, of course.’
‘It was just one night, and we didn’t have intercourse, but I don’t feel that makes it much better.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, do you think I care? Go ahead – enjoy it!’
Was Nina raving in her anger, or revealing her true feelings? Dimka felt bewildered. He said: ‘I never foresaw that kind of marriage for us.’
‘Take it from me, there’s no other kind.’
‘Yes, there is,’ he said.
‘You dream your dreams, I’ll dream mine.’ She switched on the television.
Dimka sat staring at the screen for a while, not seeing or hearing the programme. After a while, he went to bed, but he did not sleep. Later, Nina got into bed next to him, but they did not touch.
The next day, Nikita Khrushchev left the Kremlin for ever.
Dimka continued to go into work every morning. Yevgeny Filipov, walking around in a new blue suit, had been promoted. Obviously, he had been part of the plot against Khrushchev, and had earned his reward.
Two days later, on Friday, the newspaper
Pravda
announced Khrushchev’s resignation.
Sitting in his office with little to do, Dimka noticed that Western newspapers for the same day announced that the British Prime Minister had also been ousted. Upper-class Conservative Sir Alec Douglas-Home had been replaced by Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour Party, in a national election.
To Dimka in cynical mood there was something askew when a rampantly capitalist country could fire its aristocratic premier and install a Social Democrat at the will of the people, whereas in the world’s leading Communist state such things were plotted in secrecy by a tiny ruling elite and then announced, days later, to an impotent and docile population.
The British did not even ban Communism. Thirty-six Communist candidates had stood for Parliament. None had been elected.
A week ago, Dimka would have balanced these thoughts against the overwhelming superiority of the Communist system, especially as it would be when reformed. But now the hope of reform had withered, and the Soviet Union had been preserved with all its flaws for the foreseeable future. He knew what his sister would say: barriers to change were an integral part of the system, just another of its faults. But he could not bring himself to accept that.
The following day,
Pravda
condemned subjectivism and drift, hare-brained scheming, bragging and bluster, and several other sins of Khrushchev’s. All that was crap, in Dimka’s opinion. What was happening was a lurch backwards. The Soviet elite were rejecting progress and opting for what they knew best: rigid control of the economy, repression of dissenting voices, avoidance of experiment. It would make them feel comfortable – and keep the Soviet Union trailing behind the West in wealth, power and global influence.
Dimka was given minor tasks to perform for Brezhnev. Within a few days he was sharing his small office with one of Brezhnev’s aides. It was only a matter of time before he was ousted. However, Khrushchev was still in the Lenin Hills residence, so Dimka began to feel that his boss and he might live.
After a week, Dimka was reassigned.
Vera Pletner brought him his orders in a sealed envelope, but she looked so sad that Dimka knew the envelope contained bad news before he opened it. He read it immediately. The letter congratulated him on being appointed Assistant Secretary of the Kharkov Communist Party.
‘Kharkov,’ he said. ‘Fuck it.’
His association with the disgraced leader had clearly outweighed the influence of his distinguished family. This was a serious demotion. There would be a salary increase, but money was not worth much in the Soviet Union. He would be assigned an apartment and a car, but he would be in the Ukraine, a long way from the centre of power and privilege.
Worst of all, he would be living 450 miles from Natalya.
Sitting at his desk, he sank into a depression. Khrushchev was finished, Dimka’s career had gone backwards, the Soviet Union was heading downhill, his marriage to Nina was a train wreck, and he was to be sent away from Natalya, the bright spot in his life. Where had he gone wrong?
There was not much drinking in the Riverside Bar these days, but that evening he met Natalya there for the first time since coming back from Pitsunda. Her boss, Andrei Gromyko, was unaffected by the coup, and remained Foreign Minister, so she had kept her job.
‘Khrushchev gave me a parting gift,’ Dimka said to her.
‘What?’
‘He told me Nina is having an affair with Marshal Pushnoy.’
‘Do you believe it?’
‘I presume the KGB told Khrushchev.’
‘Still, it might be a mistake.’
Dimka shook his head. ‘She admitted it. That wonderful dacha we got is right next door to Pushnoy’s place.’
‘Oh, Dimka, I’m sorry.’
‘I wonder who watches Grigor while they’re in bed.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I can’t feel very indignant. I’d be having an affair with you if I had the nerve.’
Natalya looked troubled. ‘Don’t talk like that,’ she said. Her face showed different emotions in quick succession: sympathy, sadness, longing, fear and uncertainty. She pushed back her unruly hair in a nervous gesture.
‘Too late now, anyhow,’ said Dimka. ‘I’ve been posted to Kharkov.’
‘What?’
‘I heard today. Assistant Secretary of the Kharkov Communist Party.’
‘But when will I see you?’
‘Never, I imagine.’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I can’t live without you,’ she said.
Dimka was astonished. She liked him, he knew that, but she had never spoken this way, even during the single night they had spent together. ‘What do you mean?’ he said idiotically.
‘I love you, didn’t you know that?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said, stupefied.
‘I’ve loved you for a long time.’
‘Why did you never tell me?’
‘I’m frightened.’
‘Of . . . ?’
‘My husband.’
Dimka had suspected something like this. He assumed, though he had no proof, that Nik was responsible for the savage beating of the black-marketeer who had tried to cheat Natalya. It was no surprise if Nik’s wife was terrified of declaring her love for another man. This was the reason for Natalya’s changeability, from sexy warmth one day to cold distance the next. ‘I guess I’m frightened of Nik, too,’ he said.
‘When do you leave?’
‘The furniture van will come on Friday.’
‘So soon!’
‘In the office, I’m a loose cannon. They don’t know what I might do. They want me out of the way.’
She took out a white handkerchief and touched her eyes with it. Then she leaned closer to him across the little table. ‘Do you remember that room with all the old tsarist furniture?’
He smiled. ‘I’ll never forget it.’
‘And the four-poster bed?’
‘Of course.’
‘It was so dusty.’
‘And cold.’
Her mood had changed again, and now she was playful, teasing. ‘What do you remember most?’
An answer sprang to mind instantly: her little breasts with their big pointed nipples. But he suppressed it.
She said: ‘Go on, you can tell me.’
What did he have to lose? ‘Your nipples,’ he said. He was half embarrassed, half inflamed.
She giggled. ‘Do you want to see them again?’
Dimka swallowed hard. Trying to match her light mood, he said: ‘Guess.’
She stood up, suddenly looking decisive. ‘Meet me there at seven,’ she said. Then she walked out.
* * *
Nina was furious. ‘Kharkov?’ she yelled. ‘What am I supposed to do in fucking Kharkov?’
Nina did not normally use bad language: she felt it was coarse. She had risen above such low habits. Her lapse was a sign of how strongly she felt.
Dimka was unsympathetic. ‘I’m sure the steel union there will give you a job.’ In any case, it was time she sent Grigor to a day nursery and returned to work, something that was expected of Soviet mothers.
‘I don’t want to be exiled to a provincial city.’
‘Nor do I. Do you imagine I volunteered?’
‘Didn’t you see this coming?’
‘I did, and I even considered switching jobs, but I thought the putsch had been cancelled, when it had only been postponed. Naturally, the plotters did all they could to keep me in the dark.’
She gave him a calculating look. ‘I suppose you spent last night saying goodbye to your typist.’
‘You told me you didn’t care.’
‘All right, smart mouth. When do we have to go?’
‘Friday.’
‘Hell.’ Looking furious, Nina started packing.
On Wednesday, Dimka spoke to his Uncle Volodya about the move. ‘It’s not just about my career,’ he said. ‘I’m not in government for myself. I want to prove that Communism can work. But that means it has to change and improve. Now I’m afraid we could go backwards.’
‘We’ll get you back to Moscow as soon as we can,’ Volodya said.
‘Thank you,’ Dimka said with fervent gratitude. His uncle had always been supportive.
‘You deserve it,’ Volodya said warmly. ‘You’re smart and you get things done, and we don’t have a surplus of such people. I wish I had you in my office.’
‘I was never the military type.’
‘But, listen. After something like this has happened, you have to prove your loyalty by working hard and not complaining – and, most of all, not constantly begging to be sent back to Moscow. If you do all that for five years, I can start working on your return.’
‘Five years?’
‘Until I can
start
. Don’t count on less than ten. In fact, don’t count on anything. We don’t know how Brezhnev is going to work out.’
In ten years the Soviet Union could slide back all the way to poverty and underdevelopment, Dimka thought. But there was no point in saying so. Volodya was not just his best chance – he was his only chance.
Dimka saw Natalya again on Thursday. She had a split lip. ‘Did Nik do that?’ said Dimka angrily.
‘I slipped on icy steps and fell on my face,’ she said.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true,’ she said, but she would not meet him in the furniture storeroom again.