The train was crowded with Soviet soldiers, raucous conversations crisscrossing the carriage. They were being mobilized in preparation for the planned uprising, of which they knew nothing. There was no sense of anxiety or trepidation, their jovial mood contrasting starkly with Leo and Raisa, the only civilians on board.
When Leo had heard the news- Zoya is alive -relief had been muddled with pain. In disbelief he’d listened to Panin’s explanation: the retelling of events on the bridge, including Zoya’s calculated pretense and her willing collaboration with a woman who wanted nothing other than to make Leo suffer. Zoya was alive. It was a miracle, but a cruel one, perhaps the cruelest good news Leo had ever experienced.
In explaining events to Raisa, he’d witnessed the same shift from relief to anguish. He’d knelt before her, apologizing repeatedly. He’d brought this upon them. She was being punished because she loved him. Raisa had controlled her response, concentrating on the details of what had happened and what it revealed about Zoya’s state of mind. There was only one question in her mind: how were they going to bring their daughter home?
Raisa had no difficulty in accepting that Panin had betrayed them. She understood the logic of Fraera’s cooperation with him in order to enact her revenge in Moscow. However, Panin’s attempts to initiate uprisings within the Soviet Bloc was political maneuvering of the most cynical kind, condemning thousands to death in order to consolidate the position of Kremlin hardliners. Raisa couldn’t understand what part of this appealed to Fraera. She was siding with the Stalinists, men and women who thought nothing of her imprisonment or the loss of her child, or indeed the loss of any child. As for Zoya’s defection, if that was the right way of looking at it, defecting from one dysfunctional family to another, Raisa was less puzzled. It was easy to imagine Fraera’s intoxicating appeal to an unhappy teenager.
Leo had made no attempt to talk Raisa out of accompanying him to Budapest. The opposite was true: he needed her. Raisa stood a much better chance of getting through to Zoya. Raisa had asked Leo whether they were prepared to use force if Zoya refused to come, confronting Leo with the grim prospect of kidnapping his daughter. He nodded.
Since neither Leo nor Raisa spoke Hungarian, Frol Panin had arranged for them to be accompanied by forty-five-year-old Karoly Teglas. Karoly had worked as an undercover operative in Budapest. Hungarian by birth, he’d been recruited by the KGB after the war, serving under the hated leader Rakosi. Karoly had recently been in Moscow on a temporary basis, advising them on the potential crisis in Hungary. He’d agreed to act as a guide and translator, accompanying Leo and Raisa.
Returning from the toilet, Karoly wiped his hands on his trousers, taking his seat opposite Leo and Raisa. With a portly stomach, plump cheeks, and round glasses, there was hardly a straight line anywhere in his appearance. A collection of curves, he appeared, at a glance, an unlikely operative, definitively nonlethal.
The train slowed, nearing the town of Berehowe on the Soviet side of the heavily fortified border. Raisa leaned forward, addressing Karoly directly:
– Why has Panin allowed us to go to Budapest when Fraera is working for him?
Karoly shrugged:
– You would have to ask Panin himself. It is not for me to say. If you want to turn back, that is up to you. I have no power over your movements.
Karoly looked out the window, remarking:
– The troops are not crossing the border. From here on, we behave like civilians. Where we are going, Russians are not loved.
He turned to Raisa:
– They won’t make any distinction between you and your husband. It doesn’t matter that you’re a teacher and he’s an officer. You’ll be hated just the same.
Raisa prickled at being spoken down to:
– I understand hatred.
At the border, Karoly handed over the papers. He glanced back, watching Leo and Raisa, in conversation, seated in the back of the car-paying careful attention not to glance at him, a giveaway that they were debating how far they could trust him. They would be wise not to trust him in any way. His orders were simple. He was to delay bringing Leo and Raisa into the city until an uprising had begun. Once Fraera had served her purpose, Leo, a man reported to be of great tenacity and zeal, a trained killer, could be allowed his revenge.