Free The Porcupine by Julian Barnes Page B

Bush. Lucky not to be living with the gypsies.’
    ‘We worked and we erred. We worked and we erred.’
    ‘We certainly erred.’ ]

    Maria Solinska waited an hour outside the Friendship 1 block before she could get on a bus. No, I do not have a nice apartment, she thought. I want an apartment with more room for Angelina, where the electricity does not go off every two hours, where the water supply does not simply dry up as it did this morning. The whole city seemed to be breaking down. Most of the cars were off the road because of the petrol shortage. Even cars converted to gas were now under plastic shrouds since gas had been restricted to domestic use. The buses ran when a tanker brought oil, when the mechanics could push-start them, when the bandits who drove them deigned to turn up as a change from ducking for black-market dollars.
    She was forty-five years old. Still attractive, she thought, although she could make no sure deduction from Peter’s intermittent zeal. During the Changes people had been toobusy, or too tired, to make love: that was another thing which had broken down. And afterwards, when they did, they were scared of the consequences. During the last statistical year, the number of live births had been exceeded both by the number of abortions and by the number of deaths. What did that tell you about a country?
    Really, the Prosecutor General’s wife should not be expected to take a bus to the office and be hemmed in by fat peasant rumps. She had always worked hard and done her best, it seemed to her. Papa had been a hero of the Anti-Fascist Struggle. Her grandfather had been one of the earliest party members, had joined before Petkanov himself. She had never met him, and for years he had scarcely been referred to, but since the letter arrived from Moscow they could be proud of him again. When she showed the certificate to Peter he had refused to share her pleasure, grumpily commenting that two wrongs did not make a right. That was typical of his recent behaviour, which was quietly, smugly triumphant.
    She had married him at twenty. Almost at once his father had done something stupid; people said he had been lucky to escape with exile to the country. And then, at almost the same age, Peter had left the Party, stupidly, provocatively, without even asking her advice. There was something unstable about him, something that sought trouble, just as his father had sought it. And then he’d applied to prosecute Stoyo Petkanov! A middle-aged professor wanting to play the hero! Pathetic. If he lost, he would be humiliated; even if he won, half the people would still hate him, and the other half would say he should have done more.

    Lieutenant-General Ganin arrived, as before, with a manila folder stuck out in front of him. Perhaps he woke up like that, and the only way to get rid of his condition was to come and see the Prosecutor General.
    ‘We trust, sir, that the course of the trial is proceeding according to your best expectations.’
    ‘Thank you. Tell me about it.’ Solinsky reached out and simply took the folder, jerking the security chief into commentary.
    ‘Yes. Report of our investigation into work done at the Special Technical Branch in Reskov Street. Mainly in the period 1963 to 1980, at which point the branch was transferred to the north-east sector. Many of the reports from Reskov Street have remained intact.’
    ‘Pride in their work?’
    ‘Who can tell, Mr Prosecutor?’ The General stood stiffly and anxiously before him, more like a provincial lieutenant than a key figure in the restructuring of the country.
    ‘General, on another matter …’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    ‘Do you happen to know … It isn’t relevant, I just wondered if you knew what became of that student, the one with the beard, who kissed you in the snow.’
    ‘Kovachev. As a matter of fact I do. He organises the visa queue for the US Consulate.’
    ‘You mean, he works for the Americans?’
    ‘No, no. Haven’t you seen