55

Returning from the store in the afternoon, Lyudmila saw a white envelope in the letter-box. Her heart, already fluttering after climbing the stairs, began to beat still faster. Holding the letter in her hand, she went down the corridor, opened Tolya's door and looked in – the room was still empty, he hadn't returned.

Lyudmila glanced through pages covered in a handwriting she had known since childhood – her own mother's. She saw the names Zhenya, Vera and Stepan Fyodorovich, but the name of her son was not there. Once again hope ebbed away – for the time being.

Alexandra Vladimirovna said almost nothing about her own life – only a few words about her difficulties with the landlady; apparently Nina Matveevna had behaved very unpleasantly since Lyudmila's departure. She wrote that she had heard nothing from Seryozha, Stepan Fyodorovich or Vera. And she was worried about Zhenya – something quite serious seemed to have happened to her. She had written a letter hinting at various problems and saying she might have to go to Moscow.

Lyudmila didn't know how to feel sad. She only knew how to grieve. Tolya, Tolya.

Stepan Fyodorovich was now a widower… Vera was a homeless orphan. Seryozha might or might not be alive. Perhaps he was crippled? Perhaps he was lying in some military hospital? His father had either died in a camp or been shot; his mother had died in exile… Alexandra Vladimirovna's house had burnt down; she was alone, with no news of either her son or her grandson.

Alexandra Vladimirovna didn't say a word about her own health. She didn't say whether her room was heated. She didn't say whether her rations had been increased. Lyudmila understood the reason for this all too well.

Lyudmila's home was now cold and empty. The warmth had drained out of it; it was a ruin. It was as though it had been destroyed by terrible, invisible bombs.

She thought a lot about Viktor that day. Their relationship had gone sour. Viktor was angry and treated her coldly. The saddest thing of all was that she didn't mind. She knew him too well. From the outside everything about him seemed exalted and poetic – but she didn't see people that way. Masha saw Viktor as a noble sage, as a martyr. Masha loved music and would go pale when she listened to the piano. Sometimes Viktor played for her. She obviously needed someone to adore. She had created for herself an exalted image, a Viktor who had never existed. But if she were to watch Viktor day in and day out, she'd be disenchanted soon enough.

Lyudmila knew that Viktor was moved only by egotism, that he cared for no one. Even now – though his confrontation with Shishakov filled her with fear and anxiety on his behalf – she felt the usual irritation: he was ready to sacrifice both his work and the peace of his family for the selfish pleasure of strutting about and posing as the defender of the weak.

Yesterday, in his anxiety about Nadya, he had forgotten his egotism. But was he capable of forgetting his troubles and showing the same anxiety on Tolya's behalf? She herself had been mistaken yesterday. Nadya hadn't been fully open with her. Was it just a childish infatuation? Or was this her destiny?

Nadya had spoken quite freely about the circle of friends where she had first met Lomov. She had told Lyudmila how they read futurist and symbolist poetry, how they argued about art, even about their contemptuous mockery for things which, in Lyudmila's eyes, deserved neither contempt nor mockery.

Nadya had answered Lyudmila's questions with good grace and seemed to be speaking the truth: 'No, we don't drink – apart from one evening when someone was leaving for the front'; 'We talk about politics now and then. No, not in the same language as Pravda… but only occasionally, just once or twice.'

But as soon as Lyudmila began asking about Lomov himself, Nadya had become edgy: 'No, he doesn't write poetry'; 'How do you expect me to know about his parents? I've never even met them. What's strange about that? Lomov doesn't know anything about Father. He probably thinks he works in a food store.'

What was all this? Was it Nadya's destiny? Or would it be quite forgotten in a month's time?

As she got the supper ready and did the washing, she thought in turn about her mother, Vera, Zhenya and Seryozha. She rang Marya Ivanovna, but no one answered. She rang the Postoevs – the domestic answered that her employer was out shopping. She rang the janitor about the broken tap, but apparently the plumber hadn't come in to work.

She sat down to write a long letter to her mother. She meant to say how sad she was that she had failed to make Alexandra Vladimirovna feel at home, how much she regretted her decision to stay on alone in Kazan. Lyudmila's relatives had given up coming to stay with her before the war. Now not even the very closest of them came to visit her in her large Moscow flat. Lyudmila didn't write the letter – all she did was spoil four sheets of paper.

Towards the end of the afternoon Viktor phoned to say that he'd be staying late at the Institute; the technicians he'd wanted from the military factory were coming that evening.

'Is there any news?' asked Lyudmila.

'You mean about all that? No, nothing.'

In the evening Lyudmila read through her mother's letter again and then got up and went over to the window.

The moon was shining and the street was quite empty. Once again she saw Nadya arm in arm with her lieutenant; they were walking down the road towards the flat. Suddenly Nadya started to run and the young man in the military greatcoat stood there in the middle of the road, gazing after her. Everything most incompatible suddenly fused together in Lyudmila's heart: her love for Viktor, her resentment of Viktor, her anxiety on Viktor's behalf; Tolya who had died without ever kissing a girl's lips; the lieutenant standing there in the road; Vera climbing happily up the staircase of her house in Stalingrad; poor homeless Alexandra Vladimirovna…

Her soul filled with the sense of life that is man's only joy and his most terrible pain.

56

Outside the main door of the Institute, Viktor met Shishakov getting out of his car. Shishakov raised his hat and said hello; he clearly didn't want to talk.

'That's bad,' thought Viktor.

At lunch Professor Svechin was sitting at the next table, but he looked straight past Viktor without saying a word. Stout Doctor Gurevich talked to Viktor with particular warmth on his way out of the canteen; he pressed his hand for a long time, but as the door of the director's reception room opened, he quickly said goodbye and walked off down the corridor.

In the laboratory, Markov, who was talking to Viktor about setting up the equipment for photographing atomic particles, suddenly looked up from his notes and said:

'Viktor Pavlovich, I've heard that you were the subject of a very harsh discussion during a meeting of the Party bureau. Kovchenko really had it in for you. He said: "Shtrum doesn't want to be a part of our collective."'

'Well,' said Viktor, 'that's that.' He felt one of his eyelids beginning to twitch.

While they were discussing the photographs, Viktor got the feeling that it was now Markov who was in charge of the laboratory. He had the calm voice of someone who is in control; Nozdrin twice came up to him to ask questions about the equipment.

Then Markov's face took on a look of pathetic entreaty.

'Viktor Pavlovich, if you say anything about this Party meeting, please don't mention my name. I'll be accused of revealing Party secrets.'

'Of course not.'

'It's just a storm in a teacup.'

'I don't know,' said Viktor. 'You'll get by without me. And the ambiguities surrounding the operation of psi are quite impossible.'