Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 53

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  Suslov said nothing to Olivia about Borodkin until he came back up to Moscow that Friday from Tula, arriving at nearly 2200, or ten at night, the evening sky just barely dark. She met him at the station and they went to a small café nearby that served shashlik and lemonade scented with orange flower water, eating in a companionable silence. It was only back at her flat, after pleasure in a bedroom illuminated by the fading light of the long Northern summer day, that he raised the issue. “Your administrator, Borodkin…”

  “Is a problem,” she finished.

  “You know this.”

  “You are not the first person to tell me.”

  “Who else?”

  “Simonov, for one.”

  “He was a wise young man.”

  “I saw the way Borodkin looked at you,” she said in tacit agreement.

  “I saw the way he looked at you,” Suslov said. “He is not now a danger to you. But he is becoming one.”

  “These are not Stalin’s years. They’re not even Brezhnev’s.”

  “No, they’re not. Of course, during Stalin’s years, and even Lenin’s, really, although it is still somewhat heretical to say that, there were no rules. After Stalin’s death, there were rules. Now, we don’t know what the rules are. Or will be. They can change. Baseless accusations, even from your minder, have no force for the moment. But…”

  But… “Is there anything I should do?”

  “Yes. Your work, which you do so well. Make whatever professional friends you can. Be discreet and modest. Be careful, if you can, not to awaken their insecurities and regrets. Say nothing about Borodkin to Maria Fedorovna; she will feel obliged to report. Don’t pit her against another minder.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I was going to say, keep my sister out of this, and that’s a good principle. Ira can’t know what she’ll be getting involved in next, any more than I can. But Ira will be loyal to you. Loyalty obligates us. That obligation is not to be called upon lightly.”

  “I know.”

  He kissed her between her brows. “One final thing.”

  “Yes?” Her voice slightly suspicious.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  “That’s hard.” Meditatively, she kissed his chest, laid her head down on the scarred flesh to hear his heart beating, almost in fact as quickly as hers.

  “I know.” He stroked her hair, growing out of its crew cut into something still short, but now beginning to be trimmed into sleek elegance.