‘Ah, Martha. You made it. How lovely,’ said Jessica.
‘If you’ve finished, I can come back next time.’
‘No, we’re just getting started. We’re choosing our Christmas carols to get them just right.’
‘That’s months away.’
‘No such thing as too much practice.’ Emily took an empty cup and filled it for me. ‘And what else would you be doing?’
I was rescued at lunchtime. Kit extracted me with the lie that we had a reservation at the Metropol, as unlikely as that sounded.
‘I need something to do, Kit. I need something that will excuse me from that hellhole.’
Kit put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Are you exaggerating, darling?’
‘No! It’s a terrible punishment for talking to people.’
‘It’s a sensitive place and time.’
‘Why? It’s all opening up, now, isn’t it? Brezhnev has meetings with Nixon, Nixon visits, they’re all allowed to talk to each other.’
‘The peace-loving Soviets are always at war in their hearts, and the freedom-loving Americans like to lock people up. But, yes, letting them lie to each other in a polite way is a good thing, I’m sure.’
We passed the pie stall outside the Metropol, but it was too cold to sit around. We went into the restaurant, steamy with the heat of oncoming winter, and ordered wine while Kit persuaded the waiter to admit to what was available.
‘The boilers are back on, then,’ I said.
‘They’re saying we’ll get the first snow on Sunday.’
‘That would be amazing. I always thought Moscow was cold, but it’s all up and down. It’s like being in London, really.’
‘Except for all the restrictions.’
‘Really, that doesn’t feel a million miles away, either.’ Eva’s comment about my class had stuck. ‘You can’t just walk into any building in London. There are shops and offices that are guarded by doormen. Schools and universities are dominated by people with money who know other people with money. And I know I’m talking about myself and I know I’ve benefited from it. Just look at all those people striking for the right to a decent wage. We’re completely corrupt. Freedom isn’t a British skill at all.’
Kit sat back and shook his head. ‘You can’t see the difference?’
I leaned in. ‘Well, all the bugging and following is annoying,’ and then I raised my voice a little, ‘but is it so different making me spend time with old ladies? That’s a form of spying and control.’
‘The main difference is that you can stand in Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square and tell everyone exactly what you feel about Edward Heath and nothing will happen. The papers can criticise him, the workers can strike and the radio can condemn soldiers killing protestors in Northern Ireland.’ Kit drained his glass. ‘Five years ago, in Red Square, eight people held slogans protesting against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. One banner said, “We are losing our best friends”. These people were sentenced to years in prison, or exile, or Siberia or psychiatric hospitals. Because to criticise the Union is to be insane. That’s where freedom begins to look a bit different.’
His face was flushed. Too flushed for the wine he’d drunk, although he was already halfway through his second glass.
‘I see.’
‘Do you? Because there’s a good reason why we need prior permission to go more than fifty miles outside of Moscow.’
He paused as the waiter placed our meals on the table. I wished we’d been talking about the speed of this delivery, rather than having an argument. When the waiter was out of earshot he continued.
‘There’s people like you all over the place who think that left-wing must be good, that the hard-working peasant really does run this show. And you think a comfortable room with two polite ladies and a pot of tea is a hellhole.’
‘You know I was exaggerating.’
‘I mean, why do you think Eva wants to leave?’
‘If you know how bad it truly all is, why wouldn’t you help her?’
‘She made her choices.’
He began to eat, and I started to slice up the tough fish I’d been given. It was so overcooked that I suspected we’d been given plates that had been returned to the kitchen. It would explain why they’d been so quick.
I looked up. Kit was glaring at me. I had the urge to giggle. Our first proper married argument.
‘Spit it out,’ I said.
‘It’s not a joke. I’ve known you for years. I never, ever thought that I’d got you wrong. But they were right. You are a communist sympathiser and you’re going to destroy my career.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Do you know that your name is in The Index?’
‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘I explained that away, because your father is important and they’d just made a note of you to be aware of who’s who, and who may be important. But no. You were in there because you’re on their side.’
‘Do you know what, Kit, with your stupid childish nickname? You really need to understand something about me. I don’t have a Communist Party card, but I can see that there are possibilities in the theory that we should consider. Because our way is not perfect. And you are as bad as them if you think that I can’t have my own opinion on the matter.’
‘An informed opinion is one thing. An emotional over-reaction is quite another.’
‘I’m not being at all emotional about this ridiculous argument, I’m being emotional about falling out with you. I came here to see new things, but also to be with you. And this whole time here, the attitude of,’ I looked around and lowered my voice, ‘the people you work with is that men do and keep secret all the important stuff, and the women can keep themselves quiet and tidy and out of the way. But it’s boring if you don’t have anything to do. I’m not going to be having babies and I don’t believe in yetis. So, I’ve just been speaking to people. Not telling them things, not spying, just interacting in a normal way with strange and interesting people. But, unlike Russia, in Britain it’s only women who get called mad when they won’t be obedient.’
‘Touché.’ Kit smiled, and we started to eat again, but there was something that had changed. I just hoped it would go back to normal. I didn’t tell him that my blue jacketed friend had been replaced by many more jackets than I could keep track of.
29
Finally, it did snow, but only for two hours. Still, it was enough to do two things. Firstly, I started to get really excited again for a Moscow winter, and all that it promised. Secondly, I realised that I needed to make it to more green spaces and make notes on the parks and forests so I could spend the winter writing about them.
Kit asked me now for a complete account of my day over dinner, and I wasn’t allowed to laugh off his requests. He knew what I was doing, so I resented his pretending to ask. I told him I’d been to the Illusion cinema inside one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters, the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building, and walked along the Yauza river for a while. I watered my jasmine plant and thought up lies.
‘What did you watch?’
‘I can’t remember. It was very earnest. I fell asleep.’
I told him I’d been to the Inturist offices and bought tickets to see the body of Lenin and inside the Kremlin.
‘What did you think?’
‘It was OK.’
I told him I’d stayed at home, reading.
‘So, you had time to cook today?’
‘No, I wasn’t hungry.’
He’d know that I was lying, of course, but he never said.
‘How was your day?’ I asked.
‘Oh, we just had to extract one of the exchange students from the Lubyanka.’
‘What did he do to get arrested?’
‘She,’ he said pointedly, ‘was taking photographs of a protest outside it. It’s illegal to take pictures of the Lubyanka, and protests, so that made for a long afternoon.’
I fiddled with my knife. ‘Was she injured?’
Kit looked at me. ‘She was swept into the prison with a load of protestors by most of the men working there. They weren’t asking for passports. I’d say she was injured, yes.’
He left his meal half eaten, and went out to smoke on the balcony. I watched him shivering and I wanted to go out and hold him, but I didn’t.
My home-made maps were beginning to fill out with little details. I started to imagine an illustrated book, with the map on a page and a transparent insert. I did think about how I would explain this if I got arrested and thought, everyone thinks I’m a spy anyway. They’d just have to send me home. I started to wonder which side it would be.
Underneath all this walking and mapping were Eva’s stories and the story about Eva, as I tried to work out what bits were true and what bits were narrative exaggerations. In the stories, there was a daughter, and she’d mentioned a daughter, so that might be true. Her lover seemed to have abandoned her in the stories, and she did seem very alone. But then, she, too, was now a spy of sorts, hiding herself behind ideas and requests and lapsed Britishness.
The fact that Leila found it interesting, too, made me feel a bit less obsessive. I had someone to talk to about it. I didn’t know whether to believe Eva, but I wanted a reason to.
Then, on the 24th, it snowed for four hours, and this time it settled properly. I was woken by the sound of shovels, and I got up to watch it fall from the balcony onto the fir trees and the last leaves of the birches. It wasn’t a proper Moscow winter yet, only three or four degrees, but it held the promise of what was to come. The air was still and hard, cut with the cries of children sliding down the slope at the back of the apartment blocks on bags and sledges.
I wrapped myself up in my winter coat and knitted hat and went outside. Would my jacketed men leave their warm cars and follow me into the snow?
I walked into the woods, seeing the pale blue sky through the birch twigs and the snow on the branches making the shadows underneath look blacker than usual. I put my hand on a striped trunk, but they’d stopped peeling bark like wallpaper.
My feet were starting to ache with the cold of melted snow. The pavements were cleared, but the snow in the wood had soaked right through. Yet I was determined to see the view from the university. From the Lenin Hills, I could see the whole of Moscow, freshly covered, before it began to melt again. I thought of going back for Kit’s wellies but decided it would take too long. The lift hadn’t worked for a couple of days. I would just walk off the cold. The thought of bumping into Ivan kept me going.
Along Leninsky Prospekt, the trees were beautified, and the buildings had small heaps of snow on windowsills and doorways. I was stopped a few times by women in thick fur coats and rubber boots, who told me to get some proper clothes on.
‘Vy zaboleyete.’ You will get ill.
‘Nichevo.’ It’s nothing.
I thought of the way my mother used to make me wear two pairs of socks, scarf and gloves. But that was for playing snowballs. Here, everyone had an opinion.
By the time I reached Universitetsky Prospekt, my feet were numb and I didn’t feel like an adult at all. I walked down to the observation point and leaned on the balustrade. It was everything I imagined: the tower blocks, the cupolas, the trees, all pristine. There was a strong, cold breeze up here. I kept rubbing my hand under my nose, not knowing if it was cold or running. My feet were starting to hurt. I wanted to stay, and I wanted also to be in a hot bath.
All the voices around me were from Western Europe. Did the Russians not appreciate this, or did they just know there was no rush? There would be a lot more snow to look at. I stamped my feet.
‘Hey.’
My immediate hope was that it was Ivan, but the voice was too high. I turned around to see Leila wrapped up in a fur coat, fur hat and some solid looking rubber boots.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘I wanted to see the snow.’ I was feeling a bit tearful now. ‘But I’m quite cold.’
‘I’ll walk back with you,’ she said. ‘There’s something I need to show you. And we might need some music on for this.’
I stepped away from the balustrade, my hands deep in my pockets.
‘You came out in leather shoes?’
‘You sound like every old lady I’ve seen today.’
‘But they’re right. You can feel that they were right, can’t you?’
‘I can’t feel a thing.’
Leila put her arm through mine and guided me home.
Leila filled a roasting dish with lukewarm water so I could soak my feet. Her fur coat lay backward over my chest and lap. My shoes looked as if they were ready to fall apart, but she screwed up pages of Pravda to try to give them some shape. The vodka she’d given me felt too cold in my hand, but hot in my stomach.
‘There must be a reason why they drink this stuff, right?’ she said.
‘I suppose so. It’s not for the taste.’
‘Do you want another?’
‘No thanks.’ I held the glass out and she put it in the kitchen. I placed my hand back under the coat and pushed my face into the fur.
‘I borrowed the coat, if you’re wondering. It’s my aunt’s.’
‘I should have borrowed things from Alison before she left. Her boots, for a start.’
‘She did leave you boots, and a fur coat. Kit’s got them.’
‘Has he?’
‘I think they’re still in his office. He’s probably worried about where you’ll go in them.’ She smiled sadly.
‘When did he say that?’
Leila sighed, and sat at her paper covered table. ‘He comes around before he goes home. He’s been doing it for a while.’
‘Does he ask about me?’
She nodded.
‘What do you tell him?’
‘Nothing. I barely see you now, anyway. I miss our meals, and I bet you miss my oven.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I don’t know what’s happened between you, but neither of you seems happy. Is there a way forward?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Are you going to leave?’
I looked at her, and past her, outside, to the Russia I’d been waiting for. ‘I don’t want to. I can’t. Not yet.’
‘It won’t be easy. He’s pretty cross with you.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’m cross too. But, right now, I’m worried about Eva.’
Leila raised her finger. ‘Let’s watch some TV.’
She put it on, some programme about a steel factory, and began to go through the papers on her desk. She pulled out an envelope and sat down close to me on the sofa.
‘Someone in Seb’s office went over to West Berlin, following some story.’ She waved her hand. ‘Anyway, I’d given him a name, just to run past some people, see if anything cropped up. And it did. He brought this back. It’s a Xerox. He managed to get it back to the office for an hour or two.’ She smirked. ‘He’s ridiculously good-looking. You would not believe what he persuades people to do. Thank God he’s in journalism and not politics.’
I pulled it out. It was folded strangely, sections of different lengths.
‘He had to fold it to hide underneath a dust jacket.’
I unfolded it. A copy of a two-page document. I scanned through it. Eva, Eva, Eva.
‘What is it?’ I whispered.
‘I can tell you what I think it is. I think it’s the beginning of the story of how Eva came to Moscow.’
11.ix.1946
Statement from Miss P. Walsh on the disappearance of Miss E. Ingham, as dictated to Lieutenant Barker.
I moved into a small apartment on Budapestastrasse with Miss E. Ingham in June 1946, and this is my report on events before she left. I have been asked to make it clear that this information did not come directly from conversations I had with Eva, but from reading her diary in October, something which I only did because she was absent from work and hadn’t been at the apartment for two days. I don’t appreciate the things which have been said about my doing this. If I hadn’t,
Eva would still be regarded as missing and soldiers would be looking for her.
Our first months were normal for the time. We found it hard to eat outside of the apartment, so we spent a lot of time together. Sometimes we would meet with other embassy secretaries and share food and drink. Eva didn’t drink alcohol in those early months, but later came to bring home spirits. I now know that she was given these by a man. There was no mention of what she did in return for these bottles. She seemed one of the more innocent of the secretaries, even though, at twenty-five, she was one of the oldest of us. I don’t know why she wrote so much about feeling lonely. I was always there.
In her diary, Eva referred to meeting a West German man, living in the American sector. She called him Wolfgang, and he had told her that this translated as the ‘wolf path’ or ‘wolf journey’. She liked this idea of being named after animals. I don’t know where they met. I think he was her lover. I don’t know. She didn’t tell me anything about this man, and I did ask her all the time where she was going. She said she needed to think and she liked the fresh air. She said she preferred walking on her own. I thought we got on well.
They would meet by the bridge over the Landwehr Canal, and spend time in the Tiergarten. I think they stayed in the British section. I don’t know who she thought he was, or what job he told her he had. He must have said he was involved in the reconstruction. I know we’re supposed to accept that not all Germans are Nazis, but she must have wanted more proof than him saying it.
I think his surname must have been Mann, or Volk Mann, because she practised writing her name like you do when you’re at school and you like someone. Eva Volk Mann was the last thing she wrote in the diary.
She didn’t come back on Wednesday 30th October. I reported this to the office, and it was on the 31st that I searched her room and found the diary in the suitcase under her bed. On Friday 1st November, I planned to hand the diary in to the Sergeant, but it was gone. Between me going to bed at half past ten and waking at half past seven, someone had been into our apartment and taken Eva’s belongings. I had been reading the diary in bed, but I didn’t hear anything when it was taken from my room. I don’t sleep well now.
The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt Page 21