That evening Tanya went down in the elevator and knocked on the door of her brother’s apartment.

Nina opened up. “Oh,” she said rudely. She retreated into the apartment, leaving the door open. She and Tanya had never liked one another.

Tanya stepped into the little hallway. Dimka appeared from the bedroom. He smiled, pleased to see her. She said: “A quiet word?”

He picked up his keys from a small table and led her outside, closing the apartment door. They went down in the elevator and sat on a bench in the spacious lobby. Tanya said: “I want you to find out where Vasili is.”

He shook his head. “No.”

Tanya almost cried. “Why not?”

“I’ve just avoided being exiled to Kharkov, by the skin of my teeth. I’m in a new job. What impression will I give if I start making inquiries about a criminal dissident?”

“I have to talk to Vasili!”

“I don’t see why.”

“Imagine how he must feel. He finished his sentence more than a year ago, yet he’s still there. He may fear being forced to remain there the rest of his life! I have to tell him that we haven’t forgotten about him.”

Dimka took her hand. “I’m sorry, Tanya. I know you’re fond of him. But what good will it do to put myself at risk?”

“On the strength of ‘Frostbite,’ he could be a great author. And he writes about our country in a way that encapsulates everything that’s wrong. I have to tell him to write more.”

“So what?”

“You work in the Kremlin: you can’t change anything. Brezhnev is never going to reform Communism.”

“I know. I’m in despair.”

“Politics in this country is finished. Literature could be our only hope, now.”

“Is a short story going to make any difference?”

“Who knows? But what else can we do? Come on, Dimka. We’ve always disagreed about whether Communism should be reformed or abolished, but neither of us has ever just given up.”

“I don’t know.”

“Check where Vasili Yenkov lives and works. Say it’s a confidential political inquiry for a report you’re working on.”

Dimka sighed. “You’re right, we can’t just give up.”

“Thank you.”

He got the information two days later. Vasili had been released from the prison camp but for some reason there was no new address on file. However, he was working at a power station a few miles outside Irkutsk. The recommendation of the authorities was that he should be refused a travel visa for the foreseeable future.

Tanya was met at the airport by a representative of the Siberian recruitment agency, a woman in her thirties called Irina. Tanya would have preferred a man. Women were intuitive: Irina might suspect Tanya’s true mission.

“I thought we could start at the Central Department Store,” Irina said brightly. “We have a lot of things you can’t easily buy in Moscow, you know!”

Tanya forced enthusiasm. “Great!”

Irina drove her into the town in a four-wheel-drive Moskvitch 410. Tanya dropped her bag at the Central Hotel, then let herself be shown around the store. Curbing her impatience, she interviewed the manager and a counter assistant.