27
Between the range of shops we now went to, and the British Embassy, our lives had improved with as much food and alcohol as we wanted. Leila even got used to classical music in the background, as she told us scandalous stories that Seb couldn’t get printed, and stories that probably weren’t true about the swimming pool being haunted by priests who thought the cathedral was still there. She knew where Kim Philby lived off Gorky Street. Kit fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. She got the map and pointed out Brezhnev’s address, 26 Kutuzovsky Prospekt. She talked about the monochrome clothes of the leaders, to stop them standing out from the rest of the population, and about secret cities that even other Russians didn’t know about. And sometimes we had cocktails for lunch and talked about Eva Mann.
‘Just because the character in the first story is called Eva, doesn’t make the author someone called Eva,’ she said.
‘I know. But the initials and Eva together?’
‘She says she doesn’t write stories.’
‘I don’t believe her.’
‘So, what do you think it all means? That last story. Where is she in it? England or Russia?’
‘I can’t decide.’
‘You know samizdat, the underground writings that get passed around? They’re in Russian. This is in English for a British reader. Do you think it was for you? How did she somehow get this to you in England?’
‘Honestly, I’ve been wondering for months and I still don’t have any answers. I think it was a signal which I haven’t worked out yet.’
‘Is she the type to be too subtle? Or has she overestimated your deductive abilities?’
I punched Leila’s arm. ‘So, Seb hasn’t found her on any records?’
She shook her head. ‘The war destroyed so many records that it’s not very surprising. You’re sure she has a link to Britain?’
‘Yes. She was definitely in Britain, and then Berlin. And she speaks,’ I closed my eyes to remember, ‘Russian, French, German. And Polish. So, I’m guessing she went there after the war as a translator.’
Leila looked at her watch. ‘Ah, I have to go. I have a Russian lesson at the Lenin Library. You ready to work out where Eva belongs?’
She paused. I’d been distracted. Ivan had come in and was standing by the bar. Was he angry with me for not agreeing to meet him again? Had he been arrested and questioned?
‘Have you got something to tell me? Who’s that?’
‘No one. Just Ivan.’
‘Just Ivan. And you a married woman.’
I forgot I was married. I saw her raised eyebrows. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘Oh yeah. That’s who you stood me up for, isn’t it?’ She pushed me. ‘Come on, I have to go. Say goodbye to lovely Ivan.’
While Leila paid up, I waited for Ivan to notice me. When he did, he smiled. He was OK. It was OK. I wanted to go over and speak to him, but I had somewhere to be and I didn’t want him to be noticed by Blue Jacket. If he hadn’t been before.
I gathered our coats, hats and scarves. In the bathroom, I took her fur coat, heavy like blankets, and she took my woollen one, and we wrapped our faces in scarves.
‘What about handbags?’ she asked.
‘They won’t notice that,’ I said. ‘How do you know you haven’t got a shadow, anyway?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but they usually don’t bother until the last few months. That’s when people have to work out ways of staying in touch when they’ve gone home. So, I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure.’
I grabbed her arm. ‘Leila, this is so exciting.’
‘It’s just step one. Find out where she lives, and then you have information on her, for a change.’ She laughed, pulled the scarf over her mouth and waved. I was to wait five minutes and then, if it had worked, Blue Jacket would be waiting outside the Biblioteka Lenina. For Leila.
The little park by Eva’s apartment was empty, and I could sit on the bench. I didn’t have to disguise the fact that I was watching her windows, but I made sure that the tree branches obscured me a little. It was about five degrees in the daytime, and the cold was the reason we’d chosen this day. I could wrap up and not look too obvious. I hadn’t realised I would be waiting this long though. My body was warm, but my toes were numb.
The lights went on in the apartment and I checked my watch – seven o’clock. Now it was starting to get dark and I was feeling very stupid indeed. Either our switch had been spotted or Eva really did live here. Either way, I was getting ready to give up and go home. I hoped that Leila wouldn’t call in on Kit and tell him what we’d been up to, even if it was much later than I’d said I’d be back.
I saw someone moving in the apartment and sat up a little straighter. I waited for the lights to go out, but they didn’t. A few people passed and I saw a figure leave her apartment. A figure with a dog.
They passed the entrance to the park and I stayed still, my face buried in the scarf, wondering whether the dog could smell me. Then I stood and saw them walking back to Kalinina Prospekt, crossing the Arbat. I followed them, watching the figure I assumed was Eva place something on a concrete windowsill. Before I could pass it, a couple came from the side road and picked it up. The man put it in his pocket and they walked towards me. The woman’s fur coat was pale, almost luminous in the dusk. I kept my head down, my eyes on Eva. Sometimes her hand fell onto the dog’s head and rested there, as if for reassurance.
She turned left at the main road and walked away from the centre, the dog keeping pace at her side. I hadn’t been this far down Kalinina, although one of the hard currency stores I’d been to was somewhere around here. I saw them walk into the entrance of an apartment block, one of the massive twenty storey ones, but built in two connecting parts, like an open book.
I couldn’t walk in there after them. There would be an unofficial guard keeping out foreigners, some dezhurnaya reporting on who came in and out. There was someone on every floor of every building, the secret infrastructure which ensured the Soviet Union persisted. So, either Eva lived here on Kalinina, or she was visiting someone. Either way, I was sure that she didn’t live in that imposing apartment.
It was getting very dark now and I was feeling exposed. The lights of the cars made the buildings look like they were shifting, and every building corner seemed to have a man lingering on it, smoking or reading a paper. I shuddered, and turned to walk back to the Metro. At Arbatskaya, I could walk through to Biblioteka Lenina for my line. I pushed my hands further into my pockets and started to walk, before noticing a dog panting behind me. Eva had caught me up.
‘You’re not being followed,’ she said. ‘I went inside to check.’
I felt proud that I’d beaten the KGB, but she didn’t look pleased.
‘I’ll have to report this, and then they’ll be watching you much harder.’
I nodded.
‘Let’s walk.’
She headed in the direction of Arbatskaya and I walked quickly. She was much faster than before.
‘So, you don’t live in that apartment?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘And you wrote the fairy tale stories?’
‘Hardly fairy tales. Folk tales, maybe.’
‘Did you mean for me to read them? How did I get them? I don’t understand how I was picked and what I’m supposed to do with them.’
Eva paused and looked at me. ‘I want to go home. I want you to get me home.’
I stopped walking. This was the other Eva, the unguarded one who had spoken to me openly on the way to the gardens. She walked on, the dog keeping pace beside her. The dog. What would happen to her dog? I hurried to catch up.
‘I can’t do anything, Eva. I’m just married to someone who works at the embassy. What do I do?’
‘You tell the embassy that I want to come home.’
‘Won’t you be put in prison?’
‘I am already in prison.’ She touched the dog’s head. ‘I know things. I am useful. Maybe they will be kind.’
She has no idea, I thought. The British would never trust her again. She’d spend her life under surveillance wherever she was. And what would they think of me, if I became her go-between?
‘Can’t you contact them yourself?’
Eva shook her head. ‘You don’t understand. If I just walked up to the embassy, I wouldn’t make it to the gate. I’d get sent to Siberia. They don’t see me as Soviet. They don’t trust me and they never will. We might be being tailed right now. Walk faster.’
We’d reached the Arbat Metro, but she kept going.
‘Eva, I don’t trust you either.’
‘Of course not. That’s why I had to get you interested in me before I asked you for anything. If I’d approached you with this you’d have run a mile. But not telling you drew you to me, and that means you feel manipulated.’
‘I have been manipulated. I’m still being manipulated. How did you contact me?’
‘That was easy. We knew your father’s job and name, we’ve been keeping an eye on him. We also watch out for protests, people who like to challenge the status quo are often sympathetic to what we’re doing. And your name was coming up at a lot of them. We even have a photo of you with your friends. We linked your name back to your father. Then your marriage announcement was in the national press. That gave us Kit’s name, and we found out his job and his name was on the list of new diplomats, and the visa application for his new young wife. Then it was a matter of seeing where you went and leaving the stories where you would find them.’
‘How did you know I’d take them?’
‘It’s your class. You think you own everything, that you have a right to what you want.’
I stopped. When she realised, she came back to me.
‘I can only tell you my story, Marta. You know your part in this.’
‘That’s not enough to make me help you.’
‘It’s all in my stories. You’ve read them. Didn’t you understand the message? Who are the wolves?’
I whispered. ‘KGB.’
‘And the narrator?’
‘You. But what happens to your dog if you go? What happens to your daughter? Anything you leave behind will be punished.’
Eva opened her mouth and then closed it. She looked away and slowed as we walked around to the front of the Lenin Library.
‘You know everything I can tell you.’
‘I know nothing but my interpretations. And if your side got you to write the stories, they must have read them. They must know what they say, on the surface and underneath that.’
‘I was hopeful that you would be smarter than them, Marta.’ She looked at the statue. ‘Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will always live.’ Eva smiled. ‘You know that, right?’
‘I’ve heard it. I don’t think I know it.’
‘I can’t escape him by myself. I need help. Please, think about it. I don’t see what you can lose, bringing in a lost sheep.’
The words were practised, but the smile was awkward and real. She knew how it sounded. The sheep, chased by wolves across Europe? It didn’t suit her at all.
‘I’ll think about it.’ I walked away to the Metro, and turned back. ‘Eva? Is any of it true?’
‘Nothing is true.’ She sat on a bench, her dog resting her head on her lap, the vast columns of the library behind her. ‘And, at the same time, it’s all true.’
I knocked for Leila to swap coats back before I went to my apartment, to find Kit was already there, looking very relaxed on the sofa. I could see from his face that he knew I’d been up to something.
‘I thought you’d be down here,’ he said, ‘and then Leila had an open bottle. I haven’t eaten. And Leila hasn’t said anything. Have you, Leila?’
‘I haven’t said anything.’
She sat on her writing chair and poured another drink for herself and one for me. I nudged Kit upright and sat next to him.
Kit waggled his finger in a way that I could see Charlie doing. He was faking nonchalance. ‘But something’s going on. And someone has a birthday tomorrow.’
I looked at Leila and she gestured towards Kit. He was supposed to be my husband and I’d never even asked when his birthday was. He saw my face.
‘Well, I suspect that this might not have been birthday related then.’
‘Do you know when my birthday is?’ I asked.
‘November?’
‘Close. October.’
‘Do you two actually know each other?’ Leila said, handing me my glass.
‘We adore each other,’ Kit said. ‘We’re just not very good on birthdays. I’m starving. Drink that up and let’s get some food, Martha.’
I downed the wine, and Kit pulled me up from the soft sofa. He put his arm around me and we went upstairs. He didn’t speak until we were inside the apartment, with music on.
‘So,’ he asked me, ‘where have you been?’
‘Just at Arbat.’
‘Isn’t that where Eva lives?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I think I need to come in and speak to someone.’
‘It’s choir tomorrow.’
‘No. Someone more important.’
Kit sighed. ‘I knew something was going on. Did you bring any food?’
‘No. We’ve still got some sausage. I left it on the balcony because it was cooler today than the fridge.’
‘Some bloody pigeon must have stolen it.’
‘It was inside a saucepan, with a lid on.’
‘Ah. Well, unless the pigeon took the saucepan as well, I think we’ve had visitors. I’ll see what we have.’
He’d taken me away from Leila to ask, and I realised that he didn’t trust her at all. I regretted involving her now because of what Kit would say. I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all to Leila. But it was too late for that.
28
I walked into the embassy, unsure of what was to come. I saw Emily, pearls in place, hovering in the background. I stood, awkwardly, by the entrance. I didn’t want to be Eva’s spokesperson. I should be isolating her, as the rest of them did.
Kit came down the stairs and gestured for me to follow him. His skin looked yellow in the weak lighting. Outside the clouds were heavy and inside the building the air felt thick with the anticipation of unfallen snow.
The stairs were shallow and swept around, back towards the front of the building. Kit knocked on the wooden double doors and, at a signal I didn’t hear, opened the door. Sir Alec was sitting with his back to the window in a low armchair, dark clouds behind him and a feeble beaded table lamp at his side. There was an open file on the coffee table, which he closed before he stood to shake my hand.
‘Mrs Hughes.’
He gestured with an open hand to the chair facing his, and I remembered that was my name. I half turned to sit, before realising that Kit hadn’t come in with me.
‘So, I believe you have something to tell me.’ Sir Alec leaned back in the armchair and pressed his fingers together.
‘Yes. I met a British citizen, Eva Mann, and she wanted me to contact you on her behalf. She is currently living in Moscow and wants to return to Britain.’
‘We know about Mrs Mann.’
‘Right.’ I waited. ‘What do you know?’
‘I know,’ he leaned forward, ‘that she is regarded as an enemy of Britain and you have been meeting with her regularly. How did you know to make contact with Mrs Mann?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You weren’t aware of her before you came to Moscow?’
‘No. I mean – no. I had been given a book of stories, which I now think she might have written, but I didn’t know who she was.’
Sir Alec raised an eyebrow.
‘Folk tales. Talking animals and things like that.’ I wasn’t making this better. ‘They have her daughter in them, a cosmonaut, and they describe how she fell out of love with the Soviets. She’s scared and she wants to go home.’
Sir Alec started to look through hi
s papers. ‘She doesn’t have any children. Do you have any proof of anything in the stories? Don’t you feel it was all a bit of a game to get you to come and find her?’
‘I didn’t intend to meet anyone.’
‘And yet.’ He sat back again. ‘We have been hearing other distressing news, of course.’
I tried to keep my confusion from my face. Was he talking about Sandra? My report on Charlie? I couldn’t guess.
‘My wife’s choir has been rather short on numbers recently. Maybe you’d like to join her?’
He stood and guided me to the door, his hand near but not actually on my back. He murmured as if someone else was in the room.
‘I think it would be a supremely good idea to spend your time with the Britons associated with the embassy. The women here only want to guide and help you. Moscow doesn’t have to be navigated alone and shouldn’t be. So, let’s not hear anything about people outside our little family.’
He opened the door. I nodded briskly, took a step and he closed the door. Kit was waiting. We went downstairs slowly but spoke quickly.
‘Well?’
‘Some patronising twit has banned me from speaking to anyone who isn’t connected to the embassy.’
‘That won’t be a problem, will it, darling? Eva Mann was clearly deceiving you on the orders of our peace-loving friends.’
‘She was interesting though, and she asked for my help.’
‘And you tried. You’ve been a bit silly, but thoroughly decent.’
‘But does this include Leila? She’s not connected to the embassy.’
‘She is connected. She’s allowed to come here whenever she needs to. It’s all to keep you out of trouble, darling. We don’t want to lose you to a gulag. Anything else?’
‘I have to go to choir.’
Kit’s face fell. ‘Oh, Christ. Sorry.’
Silently, he guided me to one of the back rooms. Emily was sitting with her pearly friend, Jessica. Sheets of music were spread out over the table, next to a teapot and cups.
The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt Page 20