Then, after yet another suspect had been broken, Rosa Klebb would go back down the passage with her camp-stool and take off her newly soiled smock and get back to her work and the word would go round that all was over and normal activity would come back to the basement.
Tatiana, frozen by her thoughts, looked again at her watch. Four minutes to go. She ran her hands down her uniform and gazed once more at her white face in the glass. She turned and said farewell to the dear, familiar little room. Would she ever see it again?
She walked straight down the long corridor and rang for the lift.
When it came, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and walked into the lift as if it was the platform of the guillotine.
`Eighth,’ she said to the girl operator. She stood facing the doors. Inside her, remembering a word she had not used since childhood, she repeated over and over `My God–My God–My God.’
Chapter Nine
A Labour of Love
Outside the anonymous, cream painted door, Tatiana already smelled the inside of the room. When the voice told her curtly to come in, and she opened the door, it was the smell that filled her mind while she stood and stared into the eyes of the woman who sat behind the round table under the centre light.
It was the smell of the Metro on a hot evening–cheap scent concealing animal odours. People in Russia soak themselves in scent, whether they have had a bath or not, but mostly when they have not, and healthy, clean girls like Tatiana always walk home from the office, unless the rain or the snow is too bad, so as to avoid the stench in the trains and the Metro.
Now Tatiana was in a bath of the smell. Her nostrils twitched with disgust.
It was her disgust and her contempt for a person who could live in the middle of such a smell that helped her to look down into the yellowish eyes that stared at her through the square glass panes. Nothing could be read in them. They were receiving eyes, not giving eyes. They slowly moved all over her, like camera lenses, taking in.
Colonel Klebb spoke:
`You are a fine-looking girl, Comrade Corporal. Walk across the room and back.’
What were these honeyed words? Taut with a new fear, fear of the notorious personal habits of the woman, Tatiana did as she was told.
`Take your jacket off. Put it down on the chair. Raise your hands above your head. Higher. Now bend and touch your toes. Upright. Good. Sit down.’ The woman spoke like a doctor. She gestured to the chair across the table from her. Her staring, probing eyes hooded themselves as they bent over the file on the table.
It must be my zapiska, thought Tatiana. How interesting to see the actual instrument that ordered the whole of one’s life. How thick it was–nearly two inches thick. What could be on all those pages? She looked across at the open folder with wide, fascinated eyes.
Colonel Klebb riffled through the last pages and shut down the cover. The cover was orange with a diagonal black stripe. What did those colours signify?
The woman looked up. Somehow Tatiana managed to look bravely back.
`Comrade Corporal Romanova.’ It was the voice of authority, of the senior officer. `I have good reports of your work. Your record is excellent, both in your duties and in sport. The State is pleased with you.’
Tatiana could not believe her ears. She felt faint with reaction. She blushed to the roots of her hair and then turned pale. She put out a hand to the table edge. She stammered in a weak voice, `I am g-grateful, Comrade Colonel.’
`Because of your excellent services you have been singled out for a most important assignment. This is a great honour for you. Do you understand?’
Whatever it was, it was better than what might have been. `Yes, indeed, Comrade Colonel.’
`This assignment carries much responsibility. It bears a higher rank. I congratulate you on your promotion, Comrade Corporal, on completion of the assignment, to the rank of Captain of State Security.’