Free Brainfire by Campbell Armstrong Page B

this slip? We need every hold on her that we can get. How can I tell her that her family was killed by Arabs? Damned Arabs.” He paused, thinking of the pictures he had seen of the bombed bus, the corpses. “How can I take away her only reason for living?”
    Maksymovich smiled. “You sound quite humanitarian, Comrade. Now it’s a question of deciding her next test?” He found himself gazing down at the folder again. All things were possible, he thought. If she were really good: really good. One small test could lead to something else. He looked at Koprow. “I think I know of something,” he said. “Not altogether pleasant—but some things never really are.”
    5.
    In the hospital room Andreyev thought: How frail she looks, how tired—and he wondered what life was left to her. She was sitting upright, her eyes glazed, her awareness shot. She seemed at times not to recognize him. He watched her, conscious of Katya standing at the foot of the bed—Katya in stark white clinical garb, her face drawn and severe, her mouth a single straight line that might have been created by stitching her two thin lips together.
    Andreyev drew his chair closer to the bed. “Mrs. Blum?”
    She looked at him. He thought: She sees through me, straight through me. He struggled with a terrible longing to get up, walk from the room, leave all this behind—but he didn’t move: it was as if the presence of Katya, the whiteness of her clothing were meant to remind him of Domareski. Fear, he thought. You live with it. It becomes a daily staple. There are no days without fear. You do what you have to do. Other people define your existence in their terms. Identity, privacy, choice: all these become lost luxuries.
    â€œMrs. Blum—do you understand what I asked?”
    Katya moved. Behind her, the door of the room opened. Turning, glancing, Andreyev saw the KGB man who had been at the Ussuri. And the fear heightened in him. Refuse, he thought. Find it in yourself to refuse. Then, despite himself, despite the wretchedness he felt, he heard himself say, “Your family, Mrs. Blum. Think about them.”
    Something flickered in her eyes. A brief light, then it was extinguished. Where is she? he wondered. What lies inside that head? Ashamed, he found he could no longer look at her. He glanced at the bedside table, at a pale blue airmail envelope. It had been torn open. The kids are doing terrific. We can hardly wait to see you. The exit visa is sure to come through any day . Get out, he thought. Walk away from this.
    â€œDo you understand what I’m asking you to do?” he said.
    She looked at him—and what he saw in her eyes was an expression of hatred, something so deep, so forceful, as to be impenetrable.
    He was sweating, sweating and cold. “Do you understand, Mrs. Blum?”
    She opened her mouth, whispered. He could barely hear her. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. I understand.”
    The KGB man coughed in the background. Katya came around the side of the bed. Andreyev closed his eyes, as if this darkness might be enough for him to hide in. But you can’t hide, he thought. There isn’t a hiding place. There isn’t a place left for you, Andreyev. If you ever had a soul, you long since bartered it away. And in return for what? Exactly what?
    He opened his eyes. He saw her clenched hands. And it was clear to him that wherever she was, wherever she might be, she was no longer in this room.
    6.
    Rayner listened to Isobel, who, having kicked off her shoes in the manner of one both bored and exhausted, lay face down on the bed.
    â€œIf I have to tour another goddam factory,” she said, “I swear I’ll throw up.”
    Rayner stood in the open bathroom doorway and watched her. “They’re very proud of their factories,” he said. “You underestimate them. Some countries wouldn’t have the simple decency to show you the latest