The Rocket Man Read Online Free Page B

shouldn’t…’
    â€˜Yes, you should… I hope you’re not dieting, like all these other Western women? You are thin enough already.’
    She smiled, he ordered and the waitress went away. He said, ‘I’m sorry… we weren’t introduced…’
    â€˜I’m Katie Haynes.’
    He started slightly. ‘Oh, I see… you’re Bob Haynes’ wife.’ He took out a cigarette, tapped it on the packet. ‘I’m sorry… do you mind if I smoke? I should give up, I know, but you see I have so few other pleasures… I’m Dmitry Gavrilov – you can call me Mitya.’
    â€˜Mitya.’ She pronounced the name slowly, as if tasting it, exploring it with her tongue. ‘So you work with Bob? In Safeguards?’
    He nodded.
    â€˜What do you do there?’
    He looked at her, hesitating, as if uncertain what to say. Then he said, quite slowly and deliberately, ‘Actually I am an expert in uranium enrichment.’
    â€˜And have you been at the agency long?’
    â€˜Six months.’
    The coffee and cake came. Katie cut a sliver off the corner of her gateau, savouring each mouthful; Gavrilov consumed his quickly, without seeming to notice particularly what he ate. Katie, thinking that he might prove after all to be boring, and moved by some impulse of mischief, said, ‘I was always against nuclear energy myself.’
    â€˜Were you? Good for you.’
    â€˜Why do you say that?’
    â€˜Well, somebody has to be against it, ask all the right questions, try to make sure it’s as safe as possible. If we had had that kind of pressure at home we might not have had Chernobyl.’
    â€˜So why are you working there? Don’t you believe in nuclear power?’
    He looked away and then shrugged. ‘Is there an alternative? We can’t all be idealists. Some of us have to deal with the realities. You’re an idealist, I take it.’
    Katie said, ‘I don’t know.’
    â€˜Well, what do you believe in?’
    She laughed. She thought, what a question. ‘Well… I don’t know. God, I suppose.’
    â€˜Do you? I thought so, at the funeral. At one point you started to cross yourself.’
    â€˜I was brought up a Catholic. What about you?’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t believe in religion… it’s all right for people who want to believe in fairy tales.’
    â€˜There’s a lot of psychological truth in fairy tales.’
    They looked at one another and both laughed. Immediately the mood changed and lightened. Katie liked the way he smiled; he didn’t do it very often, but when he did it changed his whole face. She particularly liked the way the corners of his mouth turned slightly down and his eyes wrinkled. Katie asked, ‘Where do you live? You don’t live in the Russian compound now?’
    â€˜No, we live just the same as everyone else. Needless to say many people are unhappy about it, they complain that they are not so well off as they were before… well, that is what we Russians are good at, complaining. I have a flat in the 19th district. Is that far away?’
    â€˜No, we’re in the Weinberggasse.’
    â€˜Well, then, I’m just round the corner.’
    â€˜And your family…’
    â€˜I’m on my own. Divorced. No children.’
    She thought she detected a note of bitterness in his voice. She would have liked to ask him more, but she didn’t feel able to. Instead, she found him asking the inevitable question about the political situation back in Russia.
    He sighed, as if he had been asked this question a thousand times. ‘What can I say? Things are terrible. Let me quote you one of your English poets: ‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold…’
    â€˜â€â€¦Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”‘ echoed Katie. ‘I know it well,
The Second Coming
. Yeats is one of my favourite