Free The Debriefing by Robert Littell Page B

products because they’re good, or because they’re bad and aren’t selling.”
    “It isn’t the government that advertises,” says Stone. “It’s the company that makes the product. Most of the time a number of companies make the same thing. So they advertise to convince people that their model looks prettier or works better or lasts longer or costs less.” Stone smiles at Kulakov warmly. “It’s a different world, Oleg, but it will all fall into place. Give it time. Don’t become impatient.”
    But Kulakov is impatient: with the daily routine, with the English lessons, with the scenery, with the food, and most of all with the questions that Stone fires at him from nine to twelve every morning, seven mornings a week.
    “Can’t we break off now?” Kulakov had a habit of complaining, his eyes glued to the Japanese wrist watch Stone had given him the second week they were there.
    “It’s only eleven-thirty,” Stone answered. “Let’s give it another half hour.”
    “But we’ve been over this before,” Kulakov groaned.
    The debriefing, in fact, had reached the point where there was almost nothing they talked about that they hadn’t talked about before. But Stone, poring over the transcripts of previous sessions late into the night, was purposefully leading Kulakov over the same ground again and again, and then once again, looking for a word, a phrase, a hesitation, an inconsistency, a flaw, a discrepancy; looking even for a failure to change wording, which could indicate that a response had been memorized.
    “Tell me about your daughter again,” Stone urged him.
    “Don’t you get tired of listening to the same thing over and over?” Kulakov whined. He plucked a cigarette from a box and inserted it in the ivory holder that Thro had given him when he had admired hers. “Nadia,” he began—he leaned toward the match that Stone held for him—“was an open book from the day she was born. If she was ever sad, or lonely, or anxiousabout something, if she was falling in love or out of love, it was written on her face.” Kulakov sucked on the ivory holder and stared out the window.
    “You met some of the boys she fell in love with, didn’t you?” Stone prompted.
    “She brought them to the house if she really liked them,” Kulakov said. “She respected her parents. She wanted us to like the people she liked. It was normal.” And more forcefully: “ She was normal.” Again Kulakov’s gaze was fixed on the rolling hills that surround the farm.
    “She also brought girl friends home,” Stone said carefully. “You told me she brought girl friends home.”
    “Yes, she brought girl friends to the house,” Kulakov replied quietly. He had himself under tight rein. “But she never thought of them in that way. I tell you, I knew her like a book. I would have known.” Kulakov was talking more for himself than for Stone by then; if he had been rehearsed, Stone thought, it was a brilliant job of acting. “When my wife showed me the photographs—”
    Stone cut him off. “Describe the photographs.”
    “They were taken with a telephoto lens. They came in the mail. No letter. No return address. Just photographs. One showed her holding hands … one with her arm around the other’s waist, laughing, kissing a shoulder. The black-and-white one was taken head on and said ‘With love, from Lina’ on it. I used to carry it around in my wallet. I had a vague idea about trying to find this … this Lina. I noticed it was gone when you returned my wallet the other day.”
    “I didn’t think you’d want it any longer,” explained Stone. “What was Nadia’s attitude toward the photographs? Did she admit the liaison?”
    “She admitted everything, yes,” Kulakov recalled. His eyes were moist by then, and red-rimmed. “She said she was in love with this … this girl … this Lina. She asked where was it written she had to fall in love with a boy. … She was only nineteen- … only