"And yours, how was your work today?" she asks. They walk together to the small sofa and sit down. She likes the warmth of his leg touching hers, feels a stir of desire, but will not, or cannot show it.
"I don't know." His eyes are troubled. "It's not the same since..."
"Since what?"
"You make me look at things in a different way, Katya."
"But I'm proud of you. And your work. Why am I ruining it for you? Because I told you it was your father's path?"
He looks at her for a long time, thinking about the answer. His eyes are still considering when he leans over gently and kisses her throat. She closes her eyes slightly against the pleasurable touch of his lips on her skin, and looking up at her, he catches that moment of release.
"No. Not just that," he continues. "I don't know how to explain. Everything looks new since I met you. It's as though I was sleep-walking through the world up until now. You have sharpened all the blurred pictures that I had in my mind, and now I feel that I see things - or begin to see things - more clearly. I'm not really helping people, Katya. All I can do..."
"All they let you do," she says, fiercely, and he shrugs.
"All I can do is push paper from one side of my desk to the other, and try and argue a small point or two in meetings, or watch and wait and hope that things will improve. I begin to see it in a different way. A very different way." His voice is low, and she moves even closer to him, allowing his arm to press her to him, so that when they speak they can whisper. Just in case.
"How did you see it before?"
"You know. I like Khrushchev."
"You know he followed Stalin around like a little puppy," she says, with an ironic smile. "His little liubimchik."
"Look. Everyone believed in Stalin unless they figured out what he really was about. And if you figured that out, you were trapped anyway. Khrushchev did what he needed to in order to survive. I think some of these new ideas of his are good. Not all of them will work, but he has begun sweeping away that hero-worship that people had for Stalin, and that fear, that terrible, terrible fear. I think he's really trying to help now. It's just...there are no controls. He overrides Bulganin, Malenkov, all of them. And they're all watching their own backs, trying to keep their positions. Sometimes at the expense of doing good work. But it is changing, € he says, almost to himself. "At least now they're trying to control people by giving them something, not by threatening them."
"But they are still trying to control people?"
"I don't know. I think so. Possibly." He gives a wry, desperate smile. "You see, with one question you open up a new way of looking at things for me. I begin to see things differently now. And once you do that, you cannot go back to the old way of thinking can you? Can you, Katya?"
His last question is softly spoken, almost a plea. She hears it, but her eyes are focused on some faraway point, somewhere that he cannot see.
"No," she tells him. "You can never go back."
He looks at her a moment, and swallows a sigh. "Come on," he says, pointing at the stove. "It must be ready. Let's eat."
While he is filleting the fish and slicing bread, she has excused herself and disappeared into her bedroom. She quickly applies a little lipstick, for that is what she has ostensibly come here to do. In the mirror she eyes the briefcase. There is no time to consider, she must simply do it. She walks over to the bed in her bare feet, as silently as she can, and flips open the catch. It makes a sound and she glances at the door to see if he may have heard, but he is busy outside, and the background throb of the cooling oven is probably all he can hear. Inside is a notebook, full of clean paper, and one folder containing five sheets of paper. She scans them. They seems to be minutes of a meeting, something to do with defence research. They are in his handwriting; probably he was appointed to take the minutes. She reads two of the pages within a minute, memorising what she thinks are the key names and points. She will write them down later, when he is gone.
"Katya," he calls.
She slips the folder back into his bag - she can hear him coming to find her. Quickly she twists the catch closed again, and she is up and at the door of the bedroom, kissing him as he crosses the threshold. She stays in the kiss for a long time, to his surprise and pleasure, for she needs a few moments to recover herself, to slow the adrenalin that is coursing through her and making her hands tingle. Unexpectedly, she is also wracked by guilt, immediately. She is completely consumed by it, without any warning, without her even having to think through what she has just done. She leans her head against Alexander's shoulder, positioning herself so that her face is hidden from his gaze. You've done what you were told to do, she reminds herself, as he holds her. You've done what you've always wanted to do, and it will be all right when you get used to it.
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