'To serve the people and the Party with all my strength.'

'And? '

'Not to let Vitaly Rogov pinch my lunch!'

More laughter as the twins ran away from her up the stone steps, Katya waving till they had disappeared.

In the metro she saw everything too brightly and from a distance. She noticed how glum the passengers were, as if she were not one of them herself; and how they all seemed to be reading Moscow newspapers, a sight that would have been unthinkable a year ago when newspapers were good for nothing but toilet paper and closing off draughts. On other days Katya might have read one too; or if not, a book or manuscript for work. But today, despite her efforts to rid herself of her stupid dream, she was living too many lives at once. She was cooking fish soup for her father to make up for some act of wilfulness. She was enduring a piano lesson at the elderly Tatyana Sergeyevna's and being rebuked for levity. She was running in the street, unable to wake. Or the street was running after her. Which was probably why she almost forgot to change trains.

Reaching her office, which was a half-heartedly modern affair of flaking wood and weeping concrete - more suited to a public swimming pool, she always thought, than to a State publishing house - she was surprised by the sight of workmen hammering and sawing in the entrance hall, and for a second she gave way to the disgusting notion that they were building a scaffold for her public execution.

'It's our appropriation ,' wheezed old Morozov, who always had to steal a word with her. 'The money was allocated to us six years ago. Now some bureaucrat has consented to sign the order.'

The lift was being repaired as usuat. Lifts and churches, she thought, in Russia always under repair. She took the stairs, climbing swiftly without knowing what the hurry was, yelling cheerful good mornings at whoever needed one. Thinking afterwards about her haste, she wondered whether the ringing of her telephone had drawn her forward subconsciously, because as she entered her room there it was on her desk howling to be put out of its pain.

She grabbed the receiver and said 'Da,' out of breath, but evidently she spoke too soon, for the first thing she heard was a man's voice asking in English for Madame Orlova.

'This is Madame Orlova,' she said, also in English.

'Madame Yekaterina Orlova?'

'Who is this, please?' she asked, smiling. 'It is Lord Peter Wimsey perhaps? Who is this?'

One of my silly friends playing a joke. Lyuba's husband again, hoping for a date. Then her mouth dried.

'Ah well, you don't know me, I'm afraid. My name's Scott Blair. Barley Scott Blair from Abercrombie & Blair in London, publishers, over here on a business trip. I think we have a mutual friend in Niki Landau. Niki was very insistent I should give you a call. How do you do?'

'How do you do,' Katya heard herself say, and felt a hot cloud come over her and a pain start at the centre of her stomach just below the rib cage. At the same moment Nasayan strolled in, hands in pockets and unshaven, which was his way of showing intellectual depth. Seeing her talking, he hunched his shoulders and struck his ugly face ather in a resentful pout, willing her to get off the line.

'Bonjour to you, Katya Borisovna,' he said sarcastically.

But the voice in the telephone was already talking again, pressing itself upon her. It was a strong voice so she assumed someone tall. It was confident so she assumed someone arrogant, the kind of Englishman who wears expensive suits, has no culture and walks with his hands behind his back.

'Look, I'll tell you why I'm calling,' he was saying. 'Apparently Niki promised to look out some old editions of Jane Austen for you with the original drawings, is that right?' He gave her no time to say whether it was right or wrong. "Only I've brought a couple over with me - rather nice ones, actually - and I wondered whether we could possibly arrange a handover at some mutually convenient point?'

Tired of glowering, Nasayan was picking through the papers in her in-tray after his usual habit.

'You are very kind,' she said into the mouthpiece, using her dullest voice. She had closed her face, making it lifeless and official. That was for Nasayan. She had closed her mind. That was for herself.

'Niki's also sent you about a ton of Jackson's tea,' the voice continued.

'A ton ?' said Katya. 'What are you talking about?'

'I didn't even know Jackson's were still in business, to be honest. They used to have a marvellous shop in Piccadilly a few doors down from Hatchard's. Anyway, I've got three different kinds of their tea sittinghere in front of me � '

He had disappeared.

They have arrested him, she thought. He never rang. It's my dream again. God in Heaven, what do I do next?

'- Assam, Darjeeling and Orange Pekoe. What on earth's a pekoe? Sounds more like an exotic bird to me.'

'I don't know. I suspect it will be a plant.'

'I suspect you'll be right at that. Anyway the question is, how can I give them to you? Can I bring them to you somewhere? Or can you drop in at the hotel and could we have a quick drink and a formal presentation?'

She was learning to appreciate his long-windedness. He was giving her time to steady herself. She pushed her fingers through her hair, discovering to her surprise that it was tidy.

'You have not told me which hotel you are staying at,' she objected severely.

Nasayan's head jerked round to her in disapproval.

'Well, neither I did now. How ridiculous of me. I'm at the Odessa, know the Odessa? just up the road from the old bath house? I've become quite fond of it. Always ask for it, don't always get it. My daytimes are rather taken up with meetings - always the way when one's over on a flying visit - but evenings are relatively free at the moment, if that's any good to you. I mean how about tonight - no time like the present � would tonight be any good for you?'

Nasayan was lighting one of his filthy cigarettes, though the whole office knew she hated smoking. Having lit it, he hoisted it in the air and sucked from it with his woman's lips. She grimaced at him but he ignored her.

'That is actually quite convenient,' Katya said in her most military manner. 'Tonight I have to attend an official reception in your district. It is for an important delegation from Hungary,' she added, not sure whom she was meaning to impress. 'We have been looking forward to it for many weeks.'

'Great. Marvellous. Suggest a time. Six? Eight? What suits you best?'

'The reception is at six o'clock. I shall come at perhaps eight-fifteen.'

'Perhaps-eight-fifteen it is. You got the name, did you? Scott Blair. Scott like the Antarctic, Blair like a trumpet. I'm tall and seedy, about two hundred years old, with spectacles I can't see through. But Niki tells me you're the Soviet answer to the Venus de Milo so I expect I'll recognise you anyway.'

'That is most ridiculous!' she exclaimed, laughing despite herself.

'I'll be hanging around the lobby looking out for you, but why don't I give you my room telephone number just in case. Got a pencil?'

As she rang off the contrary passions that had been gathering in her burst their banks and she turned on Nasayan with flashing eyes.

'Grigory Tigranovich. Whatever your position here, you have no right to haunt my room like this, inspect my correspondence and listen to my telephone conversations. Here is your book. If you have something to say to me, say it later.'

Then she scooped up a sheaf of translator's manuscript on the achievements of Cuban agricultural cooperatives and with cold hands began leafing through the pages, pretending to count them. A full hour passed before she telephoned Nasayan.

'You must forgive my anger,' she said.

'A close friend of mine died at the weekend. I was not myself.'

By lunchtime she had changed her plans. Morozov could wait for his tickets, the shopkeeper for his bars of fancy soap, Olga Stanislavsky for her cloth. She walked, she took a bus, not a cab. She walked again, crossing one courtyard after another until she found the down-at-heel blockhouse she was looking for and the alley that ran beside it. 'This is how you get hold of me when - you need me,' he had said. 'The janitoris a friend of mine. He will not even know who made the sign.'

You have to believe in what you are doing, she reminded herself.

I do. I absolutely do.

She had the picture postcard in herhand, a Rembrandt from the Hermitage in Leningrad. 'Love to you all,' her message read, signed 'Alina', and a heart.

She had found the street. She was standing in it. It was the street of her bad dream. She pressed the bell, three rings, then shoved the card under the door.

A perfect Moscow morning, alight and beckoning, the air alpine, a day to forgive all sins. The telephone call behind him, Barley stepped out of his hotel and, standing on the warm pavement, loosened his wrists and shoulders and rolled his head round his collar while he turned his mind outward and let the city drown his fears with its conflicting smells and voices. The stink of Russian petrol, tobacco, cheap scent and river water - hullo! Two more days here I shan't know I'm smelling you. The sporadic cavalry charges of the commuter cars - hullo! The belching brown lorries, thundering through the pot-holes in pursuit. The eerie emptiness between. The limousines with their blackened windows, the unmarked buildings splitting before their time - are you a block of offices, a barracks or a school? The dough-faced boys smoking in the doorways, waiting. The chauffeurs, reading newspapers in their parked cars, waiting. The unspeaking group of solemn men in hats, staring at a closed door, waiting.

Why did it always draw me? he wondered, contemplating his life in the past tense, which had recently become his habit. Why did I keep coming back here? He was feeling high and bright, he couldn't help it. He was not used to fear.

Because of their making do, he decided. Because they can rough it better than we can. Because of their love of anarchy and their terror of chaos, and the tension in between.

Because God always found excuses not to come here.

Because of their universal ignorance, and the brilliance that bursts through it. Because of their sense of humour, as good as ours and better.

Because they are the last great frontier in an overdiscovered world. Because they try so hard to be like us and start from so far back.

Because of the huge heart beating inside the huge shambles. Because the shambles is my own.

I shall come at perhaps-eight-fifteen, she had said. What had he heard in her voice? Guardedness? Guarding whom? Herself? Him? Me? In our profession, the couriers are the message.