This is all he knows. This is what he’s said to this KGB woman across the table from him—leaving out the part about the one-way radio—with all the conviction of truth, because he can’t say for certain who put that radio receiver there, and when it was last used, and what it was used for. Every time his mind reaches out to touch that poisoned cup, he snatches it back. No, it’s not possible. It’s unthinkable! All those thoughtless conversations with Iris about his work, all those innocent questions she asked. All those papers he brought home with him, all those secrets he shared with her because she was Iris. They were devoted to each other. Her loyalty was so essential to his existence that he didn’t even think about it—like breathing.
But the KGB woman stares at him with her cold eyes, so he looks down obediently at the piece of paper in front of him and says, “It’s in code.”
“Yes, of course the message is encoded. Unfortunately our cryptographers have been unable to decipher it. It’s the recipient who interests us. Do you see the address line, in plain English? The name Lonicera?”
“Lonicera? I don’t know him.”
“It is the name of the owner of the flat. It is also the scientific name for the genus of plants commonly known as honeysuckle.”
“Honeysuckle?”
“Yes, it’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it? I understand you and your family stayed in a house with the same name, the summer before your defection. It was owned by a man named Philip Beauchamp, whom we know to have been employed by the British intelligence service during the war.”
“Philip Beauchamp is dead. I killed him myself. It was an accident, of course—”
“Of course. These things happen. Still, it’s a peculiar coincidence.”
The woman stares at him without blinking. He stares back. He knows his gaze has some power—something to do with the particular shade of his eyes, which others find mesmerizing. It’s a power he never realized until Nedda pointed it out to him, the first time she took him to bed. He wasn’t a virgin, but he’d only slept with a couple of prostitutes, so it was a new and exquisite experience to lie among clean sheets afterward and talk and touch and kiss. She covered his eyes with her hands and said, That’s better. He asked her what she meant, and she said that he could make her do anything with those eyes of his, that ultramarine color like the purest lake in the world. She murmured in her gravelly voice that she only had to look at those beautiful eyes and she came off, like that—she snapped her fingers. Of course, she was just speaking hyperbole, bed talk, but still. The idea of his magnetic gaze gave him confidence. He would never have dared to approach Iris without it.
Now he trains those eyes on this KGB woman—my God, he doesn’t even know her name!—as if he’s casting a spell, the old razzle-dazzle, except it doesn’t seem to have any effect on her.
She looks, in fact, a little bored.
“Let us cut to the chase, Dubinin. As you Americans say.”
“I’m not an American. I’m a Soviet citizen now, remember?”
She shrugs this away. “You have something I require—a full confession of your crimes, and a certain piece of information which we know you to be carrying to your Western handlers. I, on the other hand, have in my possession something terribly important to you—your wife, who is very sick, it seems, and your children.”
“Is that a threat? You’re threatening me with the lives of my family?”
“Of course not. The decision is yours. The power of life and death is in your hands.” The woman spreads her own large palms before him. “I merely offer you the chance for redemption from your crimes, like a good Communist.”
“I can’t confess to a crime I haven’t committed. I can’t give you information I don’t possess. You can torture me, you can do whatever you like with me, but I have nothing to say.”
“Torture?” She raises her eyebrows. “Don’t be dramatic. I don’t torture people for information. Goodness, no. It’s barbaric.”
“No, you’re exquisitely subtle, aren’t you? Bloodless.”
The woman cocks her head a few degrees. “You look as if you could use a little fresh air. Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
Outside, the night is cool and clear, a taste of salt. Sasha has no idea where they are. Some military facility, probably. He sees the shadow of barbed wire against the horizon. A ghost of a watchtower from which a bright light flares and disappears. A few squat buildings pass by, barracks by the look of them. Already dawn is approaching. A yellow, hazy glow like enemy bombardment illuminates the sky to the east. The KGB woman is tall and matches his long-legged pace. Their footsteps crunch along the gravel path. A few yards behind them, a guard follows discreetly.