Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [75]
“Left?” Arkady asked.
“Defected,” Irina said. “Dear old grandmothers and former soul mates who keep telling us everything is fine and that we can go home again.”
Arkady said, “Nothing is fine. Don’t go back.”
“It’s possible that at Radio Liberty we have a better idea of what’s happening in Russia than you do,” Stas said.
“I hope so,” Arkady said. “People outside a burning house generally have a better view than the people inside.”
Irina said, “Don’t worry. I’ve already told Stas it hardly mattered what you said.”
The sigh of a tuba marked the start of a waltz. Musicians in lederhosen had appeared on the first floor of the pavilion. Otherwise, Arkady saw little besides Irina. The women at other tables were beer-fed, slim, brunette, white-blond, in slacks and skirts, and all of a German sameness and safeness. With her wide Slavic eyes and self-possession, Irina was unique, an icon at a picnic. A familiar icon. Arkady could have traced in the dark the line from the lashes of her eye over the curve of her cheek to a corner in the softness of her mouth; yet she had changed, and Stas had put a name to it. In Moscow she had been a flame in the wind, so desperately outspoken that she was a danger to anyone near. The woman Irina had become was someone colder and in control. The queen of Russian émigrés was only waiting for Stas to finish his beer so she could leave.
Arkady asked her, “You like Munich?”
“Compared to Moscow? Compared to Moscow, rolling in broken glass is nice. Compared to New York or Paris? It’s pleasant, but a little quiet.”
“It sounds as if you’ve been everywhere.”
“And you, do you like Munich?” she asked.
“Compared to Moscow? Compared to Moscow, rolling in Deutsche marks is nice. Compared to Irkutsk or Vladivostok? It’s warmer.”
Stas set down his empty stein. Arkady had never seen anyone so thin drain beer so quickly. At once Irina rose, in command, ready to hurry back to real life.
“I want to see you again,” Arkady said in spite of himself.
Irina studied him. “No, what you want is for me to say that I’m sorry if you suffered on my account. Arkady, I am sorry. There, I said it. I don’t think we have anything else to say.” With that she left.
Stas lingered. “I hope you are a son of a bitch. I hate it when lightning hits the wrong man.”
Because she was tall, Irina seemed to sail between tables, her hair back like a flag.
“Where did they put you up?” Stas asked.
“Across from the train station.” Arkady mentioned the address.
“Sort of a dump,” Stas said, surprised.
Irina finally disappeared into a crowd arriving on the other side of the tower.
“Thanks for the beer,” Arkady said.
“Anytime.” Stas hurried after Irina, maneuvering around tables with a limp that seemed more a gesture of determination than a handicap.
Arkady stayed seated because he didn’t trust himself to walk. He felt he had come a long way to be run over by a truck. Tables were filling all the time, and he wanted the beer garden to close in over him. Here, beer had a sedative effect leading to calm, reasoned conversation. Couples young and old enjoyed civilized steins. Men with fierce eyebrows poured their concentration onto chessboards. The tower with the oompah band was about as Chinese as a cuckoo clock. No matter; he had wandered into a village where he was not known, neither welcome nor rejected. He would settle for invisible. He sipped the good beer.
What was really terrible, truly frightening, was that he did want to see Irina again. Humiliating though the experience had been, he realized he would accept more of it to be with her, which revealed a capacity for masochism that he had never known he had. Their encounter had been so grotesque as to be comic. This woman, this memory he had carried like an extra chamber of the heart and found after so long, seemed to barely recall his name. Well, there was a disproportion of emotion that was—to use her word—amusing. Or evidence of insanity. If he was wrong about Irina, perhaps he was wrong