Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 61
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The drapes of Olivia’s bedroom were open so that the room was lit by the ambient light of Moscow at night reflected off the snow. She was lying face down in bed, languid after a very hot soak and a glass of wine, just resting, her legs spread so Suslov could kneel between them and stroke her back while she made soft sounds deep in her chest. “I would like to ask something of you,” Suslov said quietly.
“Sexual favors?” she murmured, aroused.
He smiled. “In a while, yes, of course. My request is, I’d like you to meet one of my instructors.”
“Why?”
“He’s a retired US Army officer, an infantry colonel.”
He felt her breath catch. There was real fear in her voice, and not unreasonably. “Why would you suggest I meet with an American officer?”
“I do not know if you will stay here in Russia forever. I think he might be useful to you someday. At the very least, he’s a man I’ve come to respect for his intelligence and openness.”
“Dmitri Borisovich, if I went home to America, it would be to arrest and probably many years in prison. What I’ve done would be taken very seriously.”
“Even if that is true now, it may not always be.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Only in the abstract. However, the abstract has a way of becoming suddenly real. Relations with the United States are in flux. They may settle into something very good for all, or something very bad. Russia may settle into something very good. Or very bad. We cannot yet know. We do know that there are people who want Russia to return to the former ways, with themselves as masters.”
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
“A quote, obviously. From what?”
“A very bad poem everybody had to read in freshman English literature.”
“Then why read it?”
“Because the central problem of Paradise Lost is that the most interesting character is Satan. God, the saints and the angels are all such bores.”
“The poet never visited Russia. Here the evil are boring.”
“And God?”
“Boring also. Also nonexistent. No matter. It may be that someday you have to leave, perhaps suddenly. It never hurts to know people who might have influence back in America.”
Olivia sat up. “If I left…would you come with me?”
He paused. “No. But I will tell you this. If we are shot, much less imprisoned or tortured, just because you are an American, a Jewess, and my lover, and for no other reasons, I will have lived too long. I have come to believe that what happens to us, if anything, will be symbolic of where my country is going. I am not confident. But as long as you will have me, I am your man.”
“As long as you will have me…I am your woman.” They kissed briefly. “Now. Who is this American?”
“Colonel Cooper is a widower and childless, and he will be here over the holy days. He has heard of you from my classmates. In fact, he has been asked if he knows you. At this level, even large armies are very small. You’re not a secret anymore and even if you were, if the CIA has any acuity whatsoever, they know about your work here. They don’t need a visiting professor at the General Staff Academy to tell them about that.”
And that was her fear, the worry always in the back of her mind. Not just that somebody would know. But that somebody would come across something that might damn her. And now, something that might also damn also her lover and everyone who’d known them.
“I know.”
“I very much doubt he will be anything but kind to you, and he is another American in a strange land at his Christmas. If you do him the kindness, I believe you will enjoy his company.”
“Then I will do so, my love.”
“Thank you.”
And because he is a fellow American, my love, perhaps he will be a lifeline for you, if we Russians collapse the roof in upon ourselves.
There were times when he liked to be aggressive with her, liked her to resist a little, just as there were times when he liked her to overpower him. But just as there were times when he liked to be decadent and perverse and utterly civilized with her, there were also times when he liked to be sweet and innocent and tender, a little forceful and very gentle, and this was one of those times. He entered her without preliminary, finding her barely moist, but very welcoming, her skin smooth and almost hot from the water as he covered her with his own warm weight, making her gasp. “I need this,” she managed to say.
“Yes, you do. We both do. Take all you want, love. All you want, for as long as we have.”