The Fall of the Russian Empire by Donald James

Author:Donald James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 1982-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

She awoke that morning and lay in bed trembling with excitement. It was the day Letsukov was due back from the Ukraine.

Brilliant sunshine flooded through the bedroom windows. No childhood memory equaled the happiness she felt. She got up quickly, took a shower and dressed. Sitting over a first cup of coffee she realized it was still barely seven o’clock. She smiled wryly to herself. It was going to be a long, long day.

At seven-thirty Tom Yates emerged from the bedroom, yawning. He sat in his robe at the kitchen table while she poured him coffee.

“I’ve been doing some calculations,” he said. “I’m building up a healthy stock of leave. I thought we might fly down to Italy for a couple of weeks with Jack and Harriet.”

Carole carefully poured herself more coffee. “Seems a waste,” she shrugged, “when there’s so much to see here.”

“For Christ’s sake, Carole,” he said, “you spend half your time complaining that you’ve seen all there is in Moscow, and now you don’t want to leave.”

“Perhaps I just don’t take to the idea of a solid fortnight with the Bennermans.” She sat at the table and picked up her cup. “They’re more your friends than mine, Tom.”

“You’d sooner take off somewhere with David Butler you mean?”

“Frankly, yes.” She felt a mounting excitement

“While I go to Italy with the Bennermans.”

“If that’s what you want to do.”

“Goddammit, I don’t feel I know you any longer, Carole.”

She would have liked to have been able to tell him that their marriage was over but she was still dependent on the status that being his wife conferred. There was no other way of remaining indefinitely in Moscow.

She sipped her coffee, eyeing him across the table. “I don’t want to go to Italy, Tom.”

“Okay, I’ll go by myself,” he said angrily.

She found she felt no guilt, only, as the day wore on, a gnawing impatience for the late afternoon to come. At the airport she was almost two hours early. She sat on a hard plastic bench watching the painfully long drawn-out movements of the clock hand.

The Kiev plane was on time. She had already chosen her position beside a vast concrete pillar, not too conspicuous but with a clear view of the arrival gate. As the passengers began to file through she felt a sudden, sickening charge of apprehension. There was no sign of him among the first group of men. No sign of him among the stragglers. No sign of him beyond the barrier among the final knot of airline officials.

She returned for the next Kiev flight, and the next. The following day she returned again to the airport for each flight, and between times drove back into Moscow to his apartment in case, for some reason, he had arrived by train.

On the third day her husband left with the Bennermans on a hurriedly organized trip to Italy. Her time was now her own and to her fears and disappointment and apprehensions was added a yawning sense of waste.

Five days later she was driving past his apartment at evening when she saw a light.

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