Page 33 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"But I can't leave you in this much danger," he said. "What's the address?"

She told him.

"Not too far," he said. "Get on the bike." He climbed on and kicked the engine into life.

Tanya hesitated, then got on behind him.

Dimka switched on the headlight and they pulled away.

As he drove, he wondered if the KGB might already be at Vasili's place, searching the apartment. It was a possibility, he decided, but unlikely. Assuming they had arrested forty or fifty people, it would take them most of the night to do initial interviews, get names and addresses, and decide whom to prioritize. All the same, it would be wise to be cautious.

When he reached the address Tanya had given him he drove past it without slowing down. The streetlights showed a grand nineteenth-century house. All such buildings were now either converted to government offices or divided into apartments. There were no cars parked outside and no leather-coated KGB men lurking at the entrance. He drove all around the block without seeing anything suspicious. Then he parked a couple of hundred yards from the door.

They got off the bike. A woman walking a dog said: "Good evening," and passed on. They went into the building.

Its lobby had once been an imposing hall. Now a lone electric bulb revealed a marble floor that was chipped and scratched, and a grand staircase with several balusters missing from the banister.

They went up the stairs. Tanya took out a key and opened the apartment door. They stepped inside and closed the door.

Tanya led the way into the living room. A gray cat observed them warily. Tanya took a large box from a cupboard. It was half full of cat food pellets. She rummaged inside and pulled out a typewriter in a cover. Then she withdrew some sheets of stencil paper.

She ripped up the sheets of paper, threw them in the fireplace, and put a match to them. Watching them burn, Dimka said angrily: "Why the hell do you risk everything for the sake of an empty protest?"

"We live in a brutal tyranny," she said. "We have to do something to keep hope alive."

"We live in a society that is developing Communism," Dimka rejoined. "It's difficult and we have problems. But you should help solve those problems instead of inflaming discontent."

"How can you have solutions if no one is allowed to talk about the problems?"

"In the Kremlin we talk about the problems all the time."

"And the same few narrow-minded men always decide not to make any major changes."

"They're not all narrow-minded. Some are working hard to change things. Give us time."

"The revolution was forty years ago. How much time do you need before you finally admit that Communism is a failure?"

The sheets in the fireplace had quickly burned to black ashes. Dimka turned away in frustration. "We've had this argument so many times. We need to get out of here." He picked up the typewriter.

Tanya scooped up the cat and they went out.

As they were leaving, a man with a briefcase came into the lobby. He nodded as he passed them on the stairs. Dimka hoped the light was too dim for him to have seen their faces properly.

Outside the door, Tanya put the cat down on the pavement. "You're on your own, now, Mademoiselle," she said.

The cat walked off disdainfully.

They hurried along the street to the corner, Dimka trying ineffectually to conceal the typewriter under his jacket. The moon had risen, to his dismay, and they were clearly visible. They reached the motorcycle.

Dimka handed her the typewriter. "How are we going to get rid of it?" he whispered.

"The river?"

He racked his brains, then recalled a spot on the riverbank where he and some fellow students had gone, a couple of times, to stay up all night drinking vodka. "I know somewhere."

They got on the bike and Dimka drove out of the city center toward the south. The place he had in mind was on the outskirts of the city, but that was all to the good: they were less likely to be noticed.

He drove fast for twenty minutes and pulled up outside the Nikolo-Perervinsky Monastery.

---