Page 262 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Dimka was taken aback. "So you admit that you prostituted yourself?"

"Oh, be realistic, how else does anyone get anything in Moscow?" She got the cigarette alight and drew on it hard. "You work for a general secretary who is mad. I open my legs for a marshal who is horny. There's not much difference."

"So why did you open your legs for me?"

She said nothing, but involuntarily looked around the room.

He understood instantly. "For an apartment in Government House?"

She did not deny it.

"I thought you loved me," he said.

"Oh, I was fond of you, but since when was that enough? Don't be such a baby. This is the real world. If you want something, you pay the price."

He felt a hypocrite, accusing her, so he confessed. "Well, I might as well tell you that I've been unfaithful too."

"Ha!" she said. "I didn't think you had the nerve. Who with?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Some little typist in the Kremlin, of course."

"It was just one night, and we didn't have intercourse, but I don't feel that makes it much better."

"Oh, for God's sake, do you think I care? Go ahead--enjoy it!"

Was Nina raving in her anger, or revealing her true feelings? Dimka felt bewildered. He said: "I never foresaw that kind of marriage for us."

"Take it from me, there's no other kind."

"Yes, there is," he said.

"You dream your dreams, I'll dream mine." She switched on the television.

Dimka sat staring at the screen for a while, not seeing or hearing the program. After a while he went to bed, but he did not sleep. Later, Nina got into bed next to him, but they did not touch.

Next day Nikita Khrushchev left the Kremlin forever.

Dimka continued to go into work every morning. Yevgeny Filipov, walking around in a new blue suit, had been promoted. Obviously he had been part of the plot against Khrushchev, and had earned his reward.

Two days later, on Friday, the newspaper Pravda announced Khrushchev's resignation.

Sitting in his office with little to do, Dimka noticed that Western newspapers for the same day announced that the British prime minister had also been deposed. Upper-class Conservative Sir Alec Douglas-Home had been replaced by Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour Party, in a national election.

To Dimka in a cynical mood there was something askew when a rampantly capitalist country could fire its aristocratic premier and install a social democrat at the will of the people, whereas in the world's leading Communist state such things were plotted in secrecy by a tiny ruling elite and then announced, days later, to an impotent and docile population.

The British did not even ban Communism. Thirty-six Communist candidates had stood for Parliament. None had been elected.

A week ago, Dimka would have balanced these thoughts against the overwhelming superiority of the Communist system, especially as it would be when reformed. But now the hope of reform had withered, and the Soviet Union had been preserved with all its flaws for the foreseeable future. He knew what his sister would say: barriers to change were an integral part of the system, just another of its faults. But he could not bring himself to accept that.

The following day Pravda condemned subjectivism and drift, harebrained scheming, bragging and bluster, and several other sins of Khrushchev's. All that was crap, in Dimka's opinion. What was happening was a lurch backward. The Soviet elite were rejecting progress and opting for what they knew best: rigid control of the economy, repression of dissenting voices, avoidance of experiment. It would make them feel comfortable--and keep the Soviet Union trailing behind the West in wealth, power, and global influence.

Dimka was given minor tasks to perform for Brezhnev. Within a few days he was sharing his small office with one of Brezhnev's aides. It was only a matter of time before he was ousted. However, Khrushchev was still in the Lenin Hills residence, so Dimka began to feel that his boss and he might live.

After a week Dimka was reassigned.

Vera Pletner brought him his orders in a sealed envelope, but she looked so sad that Dimka knew the envelope contained bad news before he opened it. He read it immediately. The letter congratulated him on being appointed assistant secretary of the Kharkov Communist Party.

---