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Levin. ‘I’d wreck years of preparation. The punishment would be their using the association with the FBI as the very evidence to send me to a gulag. Maybe worse. I’m helpless: we’re both helpless.’
    The woman waited until the drinks were put before them and the waiter withdrew and then she said, quiet-voiced: ‘My darling Yevgennie Pavlovich. From the beginning, all those years ago in Moscow, I agreed to be in this with you. I agreed to defect with you and to live for the rest of my life in whatever unreal sort of existence I would be called upon to endure just to be with you. Because I love you. I’ll always love you. But I love our son and daughter just as much; maybe more, in some ways, because they’ll need greater protection than you do. Because they don’t know: they’ll never be able to know. You’re properly trained … a professional. For them it was always going to be a monumental upheaval, changing their lives, just like that …’ Galina stopped, snapping her fingers. She took up again: ‘I was prepared for that monumental upheaval: to help them and to explain as much as I could to them and maybe in time – a very long time – to make them understand you weren’t the traitor to your country they would believe you to be …’ She stopped, swallowing heavily from her drink, needing it. ‘I only ever made one condition. That we were never split. I will not do it … cannot do it, with Natalia still in Russia. Neither of us can.’
    â€˜I’ll get her out,’ blurted Levin. ‘Not at once, of course. That won’t be possible. But in time. In time they’ll let her out …’
    Galina shook her head sadly. ‘We can’t be certain of that, my darling. We can’t take that risk.’
    â€˜Can we take the other risk!’
    â€˜Not without Natalia,’ insisted the woman adamantly, refusing to answer the question. ‘I won’t go without Natalia.’
    â€˜Things are different, under Gorbachov!’
    â€˜Stop it, Yevgennie Pavlovich!’ said the woman sadly.
    â€˜You’ve got to choose.’
    â€˜Don’t ask me.’
    â€˜I’ll make a meeting, with the Americans …’
    â€˜â€¦What can they do?’ interrupted Galina objectively.
    â€˜I can’t go without you.’
    â€˜I can’t go without the children. Both of them.’
    â€˜I don’t know what to do!’ said Levin, who did but did not want to confront the decision.
    â€˜You really can’t go back, can you?’ accepted Galina.
    â€˜No,’ he said shortly.
    â€˜Why did it have to happen like this!’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    The waiter arrived to take their order from a menu at which neither of them had looked.
    â€˜What do you want?’ asked Levin.
    â€˜Nothing,’ she said, ‘I’m not hungry.’
    â€˜We’d better eat something,’ he said. ‘For appearance sake.’
    â€˜Appearance sake!’ erupted Galina bitterly. ‘Always for appearance sake! Will there ever be a time when we can do something other than for appearance sake!’
    â€˜I hope so,’ said Levin doubtfully. ‘One day.’ He’d never imagined it was going to be as bad as this. And it hadn’t even started yet.
    Major Lev Konstantinovich Panchenko, the deputy security commander for the First Chief Directorate, stumped heavy-booted into Kazin’s office, a recruiting poster image of a militarily trained officer, shaven-headed, polished-face, starch-stiff. The salute was like the movement of machinery: he stood ramrod straight, eyes pitched just above Kazin’s head.
    â€˜At ease,’ said Kazin.
    There was a barely perceptible relaxation from the other man.
    â€˜Comrade Major,’ opened Kazin, almost conversationally. ‘You have been attached to this Directorate security division for ten