Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett

articles in her head, and now she was able to write fluently, referring occasionally to her notebook for details. Her brief was to encourage young Soviet families to migrate to Siberia to work in the boom industries of mining and drilling: not an easy task. The prison camps provided plenty of unskilled labour, but the region needed geologists, engineers, surveyors, architects, chemists and managers. However, Tania in her article ignored the men and wrote about their wives. She began with an attractive young mother called Klara who had talked with enthusiasm and humour about coping with life at sub-zero temperatures.
    Halfway through the morning, Tania’s editor, Daniil Antonov, picked up the sheets of paper from her tray and began to read. He was a small man with a gentle manner that was unusual in the world of journalism. ‘This is great,’ he said after a while. ‘When can I have the rest?’
    ‘I’m typing as fast as I can.’
    He lingered. ‘While you were in Siberia, did you hear anything about Ustin Bodian?’ Bodian was an opera singer who had been caught smuggling in two copies of Dr Zhivago he had obtained while singing in Italy. He was now in a labour camp.
    Tania’s heart raced guiltily. Did Daniil suspect her? He was unusually intuitive for a man. ‘No,’ she lied. ‘Why do you ask? Have you heard something?’
    ‘Nothing.’ Daniil returned to his desk.
    Tania had almost finished the third article when Pyotr Opotkin stopped beside her desk and began to read her copy with a cigarette dangling from his lips. A stout man with bad skin, Opotkin was editor-in-chief for features. Unlike Daniil he was not a trained journalist but a commissar, a political appointee. His job was to make sure features did not violate Kremlin guidelines, and his only qualification for the job was rigid orthodoxy.
    He read Tania’s first few pages and said: ‘I told you not to write about the weather.’ He came from a village north of Moscow and still had the north-Russian accent.
    Tania sighed. ‘Pyotr, the series is about Siberia. People already know it’s cold there. Nobody would be fooled.’
    ‘But this is all about the weather.’
    ‘It’s about how a resourceful young woman from Moscow is raising her family in challenging conditions – and having a great adventure.’
    Daniil joined the conversation. ‘She’s right, Pyotr,’ he said. ‘If we avoid all mention of the cold, people will know the article is shit, and they won’t believe a word of it.’
    ‘I don’t like it,’ Opotkin said stubbornly.
    ‘You have to admit,’ Daniil persisted, ‘Tania makes it sound exciting.’
    Opotkin looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said, and dropped the copy back into the tray. ‘I’m having a party at my house on Saturday night,’ he said to Tania. ‘My daughter graduated college. I was wondering if you and your brother would like to come?’
    Opotkin was an unsuccessful social climber who gave agonizingly boring parties. Tania knew she could speak for her brother. ‘I’d love to, and I’m sure Dimka would too, but it’s our mother’s birthday. I’m so sorry.’
    Opotkin looked offended. ‘Too bad,’ he said, and walked on.
    When he was out of earshot Daniil said: ‘It’s not your mother’s birthday, is it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘He’ll check.’
    ‘Then he’ll realize I made a polite excuse because I didn’t want to go.’
    ‘You should go to his parties.’
    Tania did not want to have this argument. There were more important things on her mind. She needed to write her articles, get out of there, and save the life of Ustin Bodian. But Daniil was a good boss and liberal minded, so she suppressed her impatience. ‘Pyotr doesn’t care whether I attend his party or not,’ she said. ‘He wants my brother, who works for Khrushchev.’ Tania was used to people trying to befriend her because of her influential family. Her late father had been a colonel in the KGB, the secret police; and her