‘As a condition of your application being favourably considered by the authorities, you signed an undertaking to the organs of State Security to perform certain tasks for them during your residence in Paris. One, to persuade your husband, the traitor Ostrakov, to return to the Soviet Union-‘
‘To attempt to persuade him.’ she said with a faint smile. ‘He was not amenable to this suggestion.’
‘Two, you undertook also to provide information concerning the activities and personalities of revanchist anti-Soviet émigré groups. You submitted two reports of no value and afterwards nothing. Why?’
‘My husband despised such groups and had given up his contact with them.’
‘You could have participated in the groups without him. You signed the document and neglected its undertaking. Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘For this you abandon your child in Russia? To a Jew? In order to give your attention to an enemy of the people, a traitor of the State? For this you neglect your duty? Outstay the permitted period, remain in France?’
‘My husband was dying. He needed me.’
‘And the child Alexandra? She did not need you? A dying husband is more important than a living child? A traitor? A conspirator against the people?’
Releasing her wrist, Ostrakova deliberately took hold of her tea and watched the glass rise to her face, the lemon floating on the surface. Beyond it, she saw a grimy mosaic floor and beyond the floor, the loved, ferocious and kindly face of Glikman pressing down on her, exhorting her to sign, to go, to swear to anything they asked. The freedom of one is more than the slavery of three, he had whispered; a child of such parents as ourselves cannot prosper in Russia whether you stay or go; leave and we shall do our best to follow; sign anything, leave, and live for all of us; if you love me, go…
‘They were the hard days, still,’ she said to the stranger finally, almost in a rone of reminiscence. ‘You are too young. They were the hard days, even after Stalin’s death : still hard.’
‘Does the criminal Glikman continue to write to you?’ the stranger asked in a superior, knowing way.
‘He never wrote,’ she lied. ‘How could he write, a dissident, living under restriction? The decision to stay in France was mine alone.’
Paint yourself black, she thought; do everything possible to spare those within their power.
‘I have heard nothing from Glikman since I came to France twenty years ago,’ she added, gathering courage. ‘Indirectly, I learned that he was angered by my anti-Soviet behaviour. He did not wish to know me any more. Inwardly he was already wishing to reform by the time I left him.’
‘He did not write concerning your common child?’
‘He did not write, he did not send messages. I told you this already.’
‘Where is your daughter now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You have received communications from her?’
‘Of course not. I heard only that she had entered a State orphanage and acquired another name. I assume she does not know I exist.’
The stranger ate again with one hand, while the other held the notebook. He filled his mouth, munched a little, then swilled his food down with the beer. But the superior smile remained.
‘And now it is the criminal Glikman who is dead,’ the stranger announced, revealing his little secret. He continued eating.
Suddenly Ostrakova wished the twenty years were two hundred. She wished that Glikman’s face had never, after all, looked down on her, that she had never loved him, never cared for him, never cooked for him, or got drunk with him day after day in his one-roomed exile where they lived on the charity of their friends, deprived of the right to work, to do anything but make music and love, get drunk, walk in the woods, and be cut dead by their neighbours.
‘Next time I go to prison or you do, they will take her anyway. Alexandra is forfeit in any case,’ Glikman had said. ‘But you can save yourself.’
‘I will decide when I am there,’ she had replied.
‘Decide now.’
‘When I am there.’
The stranger pushed aside his empty plate and once more took the sleek French notebook in both hands. He turned a page, as if approaching a new chapter.