He had produced a notebook. In Moscow it would have been her file but here in a Paris café it was a sleek black leatherbound notebook, something that in Moscow even an official would count himself lucky to possess.
File or notebook, the preamble was the same : ‘You were born Maria Andreyevna Rogova in Leningrad on May 8, 1927,’ he repeated. ‘On September 1, 1948, aged twenty-one, you married the traitor Ostrakov Igor, a captain of infantry in the Red Army, born of an Estonian mother. In 1950, the said Ostrakov, being at the time stationed in East Berlin, traitorously defected to Fascist Germany through the assistance of reactionary Estonian émigrés, leaving you in Moscow. He took up residence, and later French citizenship, in Paris, where he continued his contact with anti-Soviet elements. At the time of his defection you had no children by this man. Also you were not pregnant. Correct?’
‘Correct,’ she said.
In Moscow it would have been ‘Correct, Comrade Captain,’ or ‘Correct, Comrade Inspector,’ but in this clamorous French café such formality was out of place. The fold of skin on her wrist had gone numb. Releasing it, she allowed the blood to return, then took hold of another.
‘As an accomplice to Ostrakov’s defection you were sentenced to five years’ detention in a labour camp, but were released under an amnesty following the death of Stalin in March, 1953. Correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘On your return to Moscow, despite the improbability that your request would be granted, you applied for a foreign travel passport to join your husband in France. Correct?’
‘He had cancer,’ she said. ‘If I had not applied, I would have been failing in my duty as his wife.’
The waiter brought the plates of omelette and frites and the two Alsatian beers, and Ostrakova asked him to bring a thé citron : she was thirsty, but did not care for beer. Addressing the boy, she tried vainly to make a bridge to him, with smiles and with her eyes. But his stoniness repulsed her; she realized she was the only woman in the place apart from the three prostitutes. Holding his notebook to one side like a hymnal, the stranger helped himself to a forkful, then another, while Ostrakova tightened her grasp on her wrist, and Alexandra’s name pulsed in her mind like an unstaunched wound, and she contemplated a thousand different serious problems that required the immediate assistance of a mother.
The stranger continued his crude history of her while he ate. Did he eat for pleasure or did he eat in order not to be conspicuous again? She decided he was a compulsive eater.
‘Meanwhile,’ he announced, eating.
‘Meanwhile,’ she whispered involuntarily.
‘Meanwhile, despite your pretended concern for your husband, the traitor Ostrakov,’ he continued through his mouthful, ‘you nevertheless formed an adulterous relationship with the so-called music student Glikman Joseph, a Jew with four convictions for anti-social behaviour whom you had met during your detention. You cohabited with this Jew in his apartment. Correct or false?’
‘I was lonely.’
‘In consequence of this union with Glikman you bore a daughter, Alexandra, at The Lying-in Hospital of the October Revolution in Moscow. The certificate of parentage was signed by Glikman Joseph and Ostrakova Maria. The girl was registered in the name of the Jew Glikman. Correct or false?’
‘Correct.’
‘Meanwhile, you persisted in your application for a foreign travel passport. Why?’
‘I told you. My husband was ill. It was my duty to persist.’
He ate again, so grossly that she had a sight of his many bad teeth. ‘In January, 1956, as an act of clemency you were granted a passport on condition the child Alexandra was left behind in Moscow. You exceeded the permitted time limit and remained in France, abandoning your child. Correct or false?’
The doors to the street were glass, the walls too. A big lorry parked outside them and the café darkened. The young waiter slammed down her tea without looking at her.
‘Correct,’ she said again, and managed this time to look at her interrogator, knowing what would follow, forcing herself to show him that on this score at least she had not doubts, and no regrets. ‘Correct,’ she repeated defiantly.