Free The Defector by Evelyn Anthony Page B

And she laughed softly.
    “I’m sorry. Am I such a bad lover?”
    “No, no, no don’t apologize. It’s just I’ve never had a man who was so impatient. It’s very flattering.” She twisted her arms round his neck; she couldn’t see him in the darkness. She kissed him.
    “I feel ridiculously happy,” she said.
    “Every woman should have someone like you for Christmas.” Oh, Brigadier White, she thought suddenly, if you could see me now. and my lovely sister who hops in and out of bed like a chestnut on a hot griddle.
    “You can’t sleep in here,” she said.
    “Do you want to go back to your own bed?”
    “No,” Sasanov said.
    “I want to talk; I like to talk afterwards. Do you mind?”
    “Of course not,” Davina reached out and switched on the bedside lamp. He blinked and, stretching over her, he turned it out.
    “That’s horrible,” he said.
    “I’ll pull the curtains back if you want light.” The sky was cloudless and the bright moon shone into the room. His naked body turned to silver. She made what room for him she could, and he slid into the bed again.
    “What do you want to talk about?” Davina asked him. Her own body had a complacent, lazy life of its own, enjoying its exhaustion. Now her mind snapped to attention. “I want to talk.”
    “Do you want a cigarette?” she asked him.
    “No. Next time, we will have some vodka in the room. Then we can drink together. That’s very good; you’ll like it.”
    “I’ll get some,” she promised. She waited, not taking the initiative.
    “Jacob Belezky was my friend since we were children,” Sasanov said suddenly.
    “We went to the same village school, and I wanted to marry his sister when I was fourteen. Did you know that, Vina?”
    “No,” she said.
    “You actually grew up together?”
    “He was very clever, clever as a Jew, we say in Russia. He went on to the Science College in Moscow, while I took a course of political studies in Leningrad. His sister became a doctor, with a practice in Moscow. I used to take her out, before I met my wife.” His face was turned away from her, looking at the window.
    “I didn’t know you were that close,” she said.
    “I don’t think anyone did.”
    “He became a physicist,” Sasanov went on.
    “He had a brilliant brain, a great future. He was moved to Moscow, where I was posted to the Ministry for External Affairs. We took up our old friendship. Our wives were friends too. He would come to our apartment on Nevsky Street and we’d all sit round and eat and drink and talk all night. I thought of it this evening, sitting with your family. It was so different, so calm and formal, like a play in the theatre.
    I tried to explain to you in the garden, how different it was. In my apartment we have a big table in the kitchen. The family lives there;
    our samovar is in the middle of it, like a god; there’s always food and tea and vodka, or wine. When our friends come, we all sit together, round the table and the samovar. I have a very good apartment, with three bedrooms, and a dacha out at Zhukova. But we live and eat and enjoy ourselves in the room with the samovar. It is the heart of the Russian home. You would find it very noisy; everybody shouts. And it’s the place where people speak their thoughts out loud. You can’t do it in restaurants or public places. You have to be careful. “
    I’ve done it, she was thinking, I’ve broken through. He’s really talking to me now.
    “But Belezky felt safe with you,” she murmured.
    “Yes, he trusted me. He wanted to change me, so he took the risk.”
    “How change you?”
    “Make me see our way of life through his eyes. We used to sit up all night, arguing about so many things. The rights of the individual; he was always saying how important they were… the freedoms, he called them. Freedom to worship a god, if you believed in one; freedom to speak, to read and write, to travel. Freedom to take work or change your job without