Heart pounding, Tanya opened her case.

The clerk knelt down and began to rifle through her things. It took him less than a minute to discover Vasili’s typescript. He took it out and read the title page: Stalag: A Novel of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Klaus Holstein.

This was fake, as was the contents list, the preface, and the prologue.

The clerk said: “What is this?”

“A partial translation of an East German work. I’m going to the Leipzig Book Fair.”

“Has this been approved?”

“In East Germany, of course, otherwise it would not have been published.”

“And in the Soviet Union?”

“Not yet. Works may not be submitted for approval before they are finished, obviously.”

She tried to breathe normally as the clerk flicked through the pages.

“These people have Russian names,” he said.

“There were many Russians in the Nazi camps, as you know,” Tanya said.

If her story were to be checked it would fall flat in no time, she knew. If the clerk took the time to read more than the first few pages he would see that the stories were not about the Nazis but about the Gulag; and then it would take the KGB only a few hours to learn that there was no East German book nor a publisher, at which point Tanya would be taken back to that cellar in the Lubyanka.

He riffled the pages idly, as if wondering whether to make a fuss about this or not. Then there was a commotion at the next desk: a passenger was objecting to the confiscation of an icon. Tanya’s clerk returned her papers with her boarding card and waved her away, then went to assist his colleague.

Her legs felt so weak she feared she might not be able to walk away.

She recovered her strength and made it through the rest of the formalities. The plane was the familiar Tupolev Tu-104, this one configured for civilian passengers, a bit cramped with six seats abreast. The flight to Leipzig was a thousand miles, and took a little over three hours.

When Tanya picked up her suitcase at the other end she looked carefully at it but saw no signs that it had been opened. But she was not yet in the clear. She carried it into the customs and immigration zone, feeling as if she were holding something radioactive. She recalled that the East German government was said to be harsher than the Soviet regime. The Stasi were even more omnipresent than the KGB.

She showed her papers. An official studied them carefully, then dismissed her with a discourteous gesture.

She headed for the exit, not looking at the faces of the uniformed officials, all men, who stood scrutinizing passengers.

Then one of them stepped in front of her. “Tanya Dvorkin?”

She almost burst into guilty tears. “Y-yes.”

He addressed her in German. “Please come with me.”

This is it, she thought; my life is over.

She followed him through a side door. To her surprise, it led to a parking area. “The director of the book fair has sent a car for you,” the official said.