“March?” Vasili was disappointed. “That’s six months away,” he said in a tone of reproof.

“I’ll try to get an assignment where I could meet her.”

“Please do.”

Tanya was offended. “Vasili, I risk my damn life to do this for you. Get someone else, if you can, or do the job yourself. Hell, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course.” He was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. I have so much invested in it—three years’ work, all in the evenings after I come home from my job. But I have no right to be impatient with you.” He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “You’ve been my lifeline, more than once.”

She nodded. It was true.

All the same, she still felt cross with him as she walked away from the café with the ending of his novel in her bag. What was bugging her? It was those women in high-heeled shoes, she decided. She felt that Vasili should have grown out of that phase. Promiscuity was adolescent. He demeaned himself by showing up at every literary party with a different date. By now he should have settled down in a serious relationship with a woman who was his equal. She could be younger, perhaps, but she should be able to match his intelligence and appreciate his work, perhaps even help him with it. He needed a partner, not a series of trophies.

She went to the TASS office. Before she reached her desk she was accosted by Pyotr Opotkin, the editor in chief for features, the department’s political overseer. As always a cigarette dangled from his lips. “I’ve had a call from the Agriculture Ministry. Your piece on Stavropol can’t go out,” he said.

“What? Why not? The bonus system has been passed by the ministry. And it works.”

“Wrong.” Opotkin liked to tell people they were wrong. “It’s been scrapped. There’s a new approach, the Ipatovo Method. They send fleets of combine harvesters all over the region.”

“Central control again, instead of individual responsibility.”

“Exactly.” He took the cigarette from his mouth. “You’ll have to write a completely new article about the Ipatovo Method.”

“What does the regional first secretary say?”

“Young Gorbachev? He’s implementing the new system.”

Of course he was, Tanya reflected. He was an intelligent man. He knew when to shut up and do as he was told. Otherwise he would not have become first secretary.

“All right,” she said, stifling her anger. “I’ll write a new piece.”

Opotkin nodded and walked away.

It had been too good to be true, Tanya thought: a new idea, bonuses paid for good results, improved harvests in consequence, no input required from Moscow. It was a miracle the system had been permitted for a few years. In the long run, such a system was totally out of the question.

Of course it was.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

George Jakes wore a new tuxedo. He looked pretty good in it, he thought. At forty-two he no longer had the wrestler’s physique he had been so proud of in his youth, but he was still slim and straight, and the black-and-white wedding uniform flattered him.