Page 406 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"I was going to say," he said patiently, "that if we do get married I assume we'll have children and you'll stay home and take care of them."

Her face was flushed with outrage. "Oh, is that what you assume? Not only do you plan to prevent me getting any further promotions, you actually expect me to give up my career altogether!"

"Well, that's what women usually do when they marry."

"The hell it is! Wake up, George. I realize that your mother devoted herself from the age of sixteen exclusively to caring for you, but you were born in 1936, for Christ's sake. We're in the seventies now. Feminism has arrived. Work is no longer something a woman does merely to pass the time until some man condescends to make her his domestic slave."

George was bewildered. This had come out of the blue. He had done something normal and reasonable, and she was spitting with rage. "I don't know why you're so goddamn ornery," he said. "I haven't ruined your career or made you a domestic slave, and I haven't actually asked you to marry me."

Her voice went quiet. "You asshole," she said. "You total asshole."

She left the room.

"Don't go," he said.

He heard the apartment door slam.

"Hell," he said.

He smelled smoke. The steaks were burning. He turned off the heat under the pan. The meat was charred black, inedible. He tipped the steaks into the garbage bin.

"Hell," he said again.

PART EIGHT

YARD

1976-1983

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Grigori Peshkov was dying. The old warrior was eighty-seven, and his heart was failing.

Tanya had managed to get a message to his brother. Lev Peshkov was eighty-two but he had announced that he was coming to Moscow, in a private jet. Tanya had wondered if he would get permission to visit, but he had managed it. He had arrived yesterday and was due to visit Grigori today.

Grigori lay in bed in his apartment, pale and still. He was sensitive to pressure, and could not bear the weight of the bedclothes on his feet, so Tanya's mother, Anya, had placed two boxes in the bed, tenting the blankets so that they warmed without touching him.

Though he was weak, Tanya still felt the power of his presence. Even in repose his chin jutted pugnaciously. When he opened his eyes, he revealed that intense blue-eyed stare that had so often struck fear into the hearts of the enemies of the working class.

It was a Sunday, and family and friends came to visit. They were saying good-bye, though naturally they pretended otherwise. Tanya's twin, Dimka, and his wife, Natalya, brought Katya, their pretty seven-year-old. Dimka's ex-wife, Nina, turned up with the twelve-year-old Grisha, who had the beginnings of his great-grandfather's formidable intensity, despite his youth. Grigori smiled benignly on them all. "I fought in two revolutions and two world wars," he said. "It's a miracle I lasted this long."

He fell asleep, then, and most of the family went out, leaving Tanya and Dimka sitting at the bedside. Dimka's career had advanced: he was now an official of the State Planning Committee and a candidate member of the Politburo. He was still a close associate of Kosygin, but their attempts to reform the Soviet economy were always blocked by Kremlin conservatives. Dimka's wife, Natalya, was chair of the Analytical Department at the Foreign Ministry.

Tanya began to tell her brother about the latest feature she had written for TASS. At the suggestion of Vasili, who worked now in the Agriculture Ministry, she had flown to Stavropol, a fertile southern region where the collective farms were experimenting with a bonus system based on results. "Harvests are up," she told Dimka. "The reform is a big success."

"The Kremlin won't like bonuses," Dimka said.

"They'll say the system smacks of revisionism."

"The system has been operating for years," she said. "The regional first secretary there is a real live wire. A man called Mikhail Gorbachev."

"He must have friends in high places."

"He knows Andropov, who goes to a spa in the region to take the waters." The KGB chief suffered from kidney stones, an agonizing ailment. If ever a man deserved such pain, Tanya thought, Yuri Andropov did.

Dimka was intrigued. "So this Gorbachev is a reformer who is friendly with Andropov?" he said. "That makes him an unusual man. I must keep an eye on him."

"I found him refreshingly commonsensical."

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