A Patriot in Berlin

by Piers Paul Read

  ‘I am sorry to disturb you, Anatoly Sergeyevich,’ said Gerasimov, assuming the kind of deferential posture he thought appropriate in the presence of a man who, however eccentric his appearance might be, remained one of the most celebrated painters in the Soviet Union.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Anatoly Orlov, still referring to Gerasimov’s astonished expression. ‘People are always puzzled when they meet me. They expect me to look like one of the heroic figures in my paintings. They’re not puzzled by my wife, of course. She looks the part. She was the model for some of those heroines holding the red flag. You met her, didn’t you? Of course you did. She let you in. Monumental! A strong woman. A good woman, a good wife, a good mother, a good citizen. And now she’s angry.’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘With events. The counter-revolution.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She thinks you’ve been sent to spy on us …’

  ‘Only to ask …’

  ‘We’ve nothing to hide. We’re Bolsheviks. We’ve always been Bolsheviks, and if that drunkard Yeltsin wants to drag me off to prison, or throw me out on the streets, I’ll be proud to go.’ He clenched his fist and raised it to the level of his shoulder. ‘They can suspend the Party with the stroke of a pen, but they can’t suspend the Bolshevik spirit in the Orlovs, the spirit that made this country great, that sent a shiver down the spine of every damned capitalist and imperialist west of Brest and east of Vladivostok!’

  ‘Comrade Orlov …’ Gerasimov began.

  ‘Comrade? Are you ironic? Am I your comrade? Or are you a lackey of the pusillanimous Gorbachev and the drunkard Yeltsin? Reformers! Democrats! Ha! Traitors, more like, out to sell Russia to the Jews in America and make us serfs of the World Bank.’

  He spoke in a declamatory style, as if addressing a crowd, striding to and fro, his dressing gown swirling round his ankles. ‘So what do you want to know? What am I painting? Not Yeltsin’s ugly mug, that’s for sure. Not the sly Asiatic eyes of that Siberian opportunist, no! I’m painting … Come, I’ll show you.’ And quite suddenly he turned and took the far larger Gerasimov by the arm, led him from the room, back across the hallway and up the stairs.

  ‘What do you know about art?’ he asked Gerasimov.

  ‘I have …’

  ‘Not much. I know.’ He said this kindly. ‘We had such a huge task – to educate the masses – that what we taught had to be rudimentary, yes …’ He paused on the landing to catch his breath, looked into Gerasimov’s eyes and repeated the word: ‘Rudimentary. And, of course, art had to serve the cause …’ They continued up the stairs. ‘There was no room for fancy theorizing, none of your “art for art’s sake”’ – he spoke these words with derision – ‘which gave all those flowery pictures by the Impressionists which now sell for millions in the West – all mirrors of their decadence. The mad Van Gogh – there, to elevate the distortions of a lunatic and call that art! And Renoir. Pornography. “I paint with my penis.” He admitted it. He never pretended otherwise.’

  They had come to a door at the end of a corridor on the first floor. Anatoly Sergeyevich Orlov paused; he still held Gerasimov by the arm. ‘And in Russia? A few pathetic imitations, always running after the latest Western fad. Just like now. But that wasn’t our authentic tradition. Have you read Chernyshevsky? “The true function of art is to explain life …” And the Wanderers put that thought into action. Repin, Surikov – they knew what they were doing. The Moscow school. But then Vrubel came from Petersburg and the rot set in. Bloody foreigners, charlatans who jumped on the bandwagon, just like now. Experimental art. Abstract art. Cubism. The Suprematists, Constructivists – rubbish, all rubbish. And they thought they were the revolutionaries! Ha! They were the frauds. Cunning Yids who bamboozled the critics and even for a time the Party. But they were never Bolsheviks. Never. They didn’t care a damn about the people. They despised the workers and poured scorn on anyone who scratched their heads in front of their paintings and asked what their scribblings were all about. Tatlin? Bits of wood. El Lissitzky? Squares and circles. Chagall? Yiddish kitsch. Kandinsky? Disintegration! Disintegration of form. Disintegration of meaning. Doodles. Ravings. The icons of nihilism. The delirium of a drunk!’

  He opened the door and led Gerasimov into his studio – a huge room with the high window that Gerasimov had seen from outside, a patch of brown on the white ceiling beneath the missing slates. It faced north, making the room even darker than the living room below. ‘Damn cold, eh?’ said Orlov. ‘We can’t get anyone to deliver coal for the stove. And no light bulbs. I paint in the dark. Dim light. Dim eyes. But colour in the painting, what?’

  And there was colour – a bright red in the flag held aloft by an armed worker as he stormed the gates of the Winter Palace. ‘Lest We Forget. That’s what I’ve called it. Lest we forget!’ And suddenly the old man fell silent, brooding over his painting.

  To Gerasimov it was familiar: he had seen dozens like it in different art galleries as a child. The storming of the Winter Palace had been one of the subjects he preferred: better, certainly, than the realistic depictions of workers surpassing their quotas in steel mills or on collective farms. ‘It’s very fine,’ he said lamely.

  ‘But no one will buy it,’ said Anatoly Orlov, quieter now, his brow creased in a frown. ‘Look.’ He turned and pointed to a stack of canvases in the corner of the studio. ‘They’ve started to return them. Some just arrived. Others have a covering note. “We’ve no room in our storerooms, Anatoly Sergeyevich, and yours are no longer the kind of pictures the public enjoy.” That from Perm. And from Lvov, no paintings, but a letter. “If you would like your works returned, kindly forward the cost of transporting them. Otherwise, they will be destroyed.”’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Gerasimov with a certain sincerity.

  ‘The question is this,’ said the old man. ‘Is art to lead or is it to follow? Is it to teach? Can it help but teach? And if it teaches, what does it teach? The earliest paintings – the buffalo in the caves at Lascaux. Were they there for decoration? No. The statues of the Greeks? The expression of an ideal. The Bayeux tapestry? A celebration of victory in war. And our Russian art, Comrade Chekist? Our venerated icons? Were they there simply to decorate the churches? Or were they the embodiment of the people’s faith? When the icon of the Virgin of Smolensk was paraded in front of the troops before the Battle of Borodino, was it just to show the soldiers a pretty picture? Or was it an invocation to a higher power, the power of the Mother of God which it portrayed? We are a nation, Comrade Chekist, to whom the icon was also the idea. And now …’ He turned to look at the stack of his rejected paintings. ‘Now there is no more art in Russia, because the Russians have lost faith in the idea.’

  There was a moment of silence. If Anatoly Orlov had any further thoughts, he did not choose to share them with Nikolai Gerasimov. Eventually, Gerasimov cleared his throat and said: ‘Anatoly Sergeyevich, it is my duty to ask you whether you know where we can get hold of your son, Andrei Anatolyevich.’

  The old man snapped out of his reverie. ‘Andrei? No. I don’t know where he’s gone.’

  ‘He has left the country …’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘As you know, he is no longer …’

  ‘They got rid of their best man.’

  ‘There were …’

  ‘Afraid of him, I dare say. I’m not surprised.’

  ‘There were changes in the personnel.’

  ‘It always happens when there’s a shake-up. The dregs float to the top.’

  It occurred to Gerasimov to point out that the October Revolution had been just such a shake-up but he did not want to set Anatoly Orlov going on another tirade. ‘His abilities were respected,’ he began.

  ‘Nonsense. He was sacked because he still believed.’

  ‘It was thought that officers who could not adapt to the new conditions …’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be lackeys of the West …’

  Gerasimov was becoming irrita
ted. For all the old man’s distinction, he could not permit him to waste his time. ‘There are loose ends,’ he said. ‘We have to find him.’

  ‘Then find him.’

  ‘We had hoped you would help.’

  Anatoly Orlov now seemed to feel that time was passing to no avail. He led Gerasimov out of the studio, down the passage towards the stairs. ‘He has gone to the West. He had business there. A joint venture, I believe. Import. Export. How should I know? You sacked him. He had to live. To use his talents. He can speak five languages. Did you know that? He could pass for a German or an American or a Frenchman. You trained him well.’

  ‘Has he contacted you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you an address or a number?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has he called you?’

  ‘No. He was a Chekist, remember? We never expect to hear from him when he’s away on an operation …’

  ‘You said he was on business.’

  The old man looked confused, as if he might have said something to compromise his son. ‘We haven’t heard from him,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what he’s doing. He would never tell me, anyway. I’m a painter, not a politician.’

  They had reached the landing halfway down the stairs. ‘So he did talk to politicians?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘If he had talked to politicians, who might they be?’

  ‘Who said he talked to politicians? Damn it, there were no politicians in the Soviet Union before Mikhail Sergeyevich had those damned elections in ’eighty-nine. Elections! A beauty contest among weasels!’

  Gerasimov did not want to engage in a debate about glasnost and perestroika. ‘I would greatly appreciate it, Anatoly Sergeyevich, if you would let us know if by any chance your son should contact you.’

  ‘Humph.’ The painter reached the hall where his wife Natasha Petrovna was waiting for them. She looked fleetingly at her husband, an anxious look in her eye, then turned to Gerasimov with no expression.

  ‘I was just saying to Anatoly Sergeyevich,’ said Gerasimov, ‘that we are most anxious to get hold of your son Andrei.’

  She nodded.

  ‘If he should call you …’

  ‘Of course.’ She led him towards the pantry and the back door.

  Gerasimov turned to take his leave of the painter. ‘Thank you for receiving me, Anatoly Sergeyevich …’

  The old man laughed. ‘It was no favour. I have time on my hands.’

  ‘The light bulbs,’ Natasha Petrovna whispered to Gerasimov as she opened the back door. ‘The large ones, for the studio lamps. They are so hard to find.’

  ‘I will see what I can do,’ said Gerasimov.

  She nodded, not to thank him, but merely to acknowledge that she had heard what he said.

  ‘These are difficult times,’ said Gerasimov.

  ‘Indeed.’ For a moment she watched as Gerasimov walked back down the damp drive towards the gate. Then she closed the door.

  Back at the Lubyanka Centre, Gerasimov was told that General Savchenko had returned and wished to see him at once in his office. He was ushered straight in. The general sat at his desk, leafing through the thin report that Gerasimov had prepared for his return.

  ‘I realize,’ he said sharply, before Gerasimov could open his mouth, ‘that you may have had other duties, and that this investigation which I entrusted to you posed particular problems … I realize too that I may have given the impression that there was no particular urgency in the matter. Nevertheless, it astonishes me that …’ He stopped, flicked though a few more pages, then went on: ‘No. Nothing astonishes me. But it surprises me, Comrade Lieutenant, that in … what is it, now?… eight months … you have accomplished so little.’

  Gerasimov cleared his throat. ‘As you say, Comrade General, there have been particular problems associated with this case. First of all, because of the secrecy of the icon operation, very few officers had any contact with Orlov in the period preceding his disappearance …’

  He waited to see if this excuse impressed Savchenko.

  ‘And?’ asked the general.

  ‘Well, you yourself imposed limitations. For example, I am quite sure that Orlov’s father-in-law, Ivan Keminski …’

  ‘You saw the daughter?’ Savchenko interrupted.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Unforthcoming?’

  ‘She said she knew nothing.’

  ‘And Orlov’s father?’

  ‘I saw him this morning. The same.’

  ‘Keminski,’ said Savchenko, rummaging through another pile of papers on his desk, ‘has apparently just registered as the agent of a private Swiss bank.’

  ‘That could well be something to do with Orlov.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Can I go and see Keminski?’

  Savchenko hesitated. ‘Better not. He still has friends who … It’s all very delicate. If we tread on the wrong toes, we could be ordered to leave Orlov alone.’

  ‘So how should I proceed?’

  Savchenko considered for a moment, tapping his nicotine-stained teeth with the end of a pencil. ‘Although I had hoped you would have done better than this,’ he said eventually, tapping Gerasimov’s report with the pencil, ‘I have to concede that the enquiries I made on my travels also proved fruitless. You talked to Kirsch?’

  ‘Yes. He provided some useful background.’

  ‘But nothing more. I know. No one in our Western residences had seen or heard of Orlov. It is quite possible, of course, that some may have done so but were unwilling to admit it. A large number of those still in the service are unsympathetic to the reform programme. They do not think that it will succeed, and fully expect that in a year’s time we may see Rutskoi or Khasbulatov in the Kremlin instead of Yeltsin.’

  ‘I do not see what more we can do unless Orlov himself breaks cover …’

  ‘We have got nowhere with people,’ said Savchenko, lighting a cigarette, ‘but there may be something we can learn from things.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘First of all, there are the passports. Orlov must have some false identity, and the papers to support that identity must come from Moscow.’ The cigarette dangled from Savchenko’s lips as he once again rummaged through the papers on his desk. He found what he was looking for, glanced at it, and then pushed it over the desk to Gerasimov. ‘There is a protégé of Khrulev’s …’

  Gerasimov looked down at the memo. ‘Peshkov …’

  ‘Peshkov, yes. He was apparently placed in Section Six by Khrulev, and handled the documentation for the icon operation. I suggest you visit him at home. Lean on him. Threaten him, if you like …’

  ‘On whose authority?’

  ‘Mine. And you can mention the chief, Bakatin. He’s as keen as anyone to find Orlov.’

  ‘Very well.’ Gerasimov half rose to go but Savchenko had not finished with him.

  ‘And then there’s the van,’ said the general, exhaling the smoke of his cigarette.

  ‘The van?’

  ‘It struck me, when I was in Germany, that the Volkswagen transporter used by the young officer … I forgot his name …’

  ‘Partovsky.’

  ‘Yes. Partovsky. That transporter which he used to bring the icons back to Russia is the only material link to Orlov’s operation in Berlin. Orlov may have bought it, or some associate may have bought it for him. Perhaps Orlov still has links with that associate. Certainly, it is worth looking at the van to see if it provides some kind of lead that you have failed to get from people.’

  The white Volkswagen transporter had disappeared. It was reported in the log of the Centre’s transport office that it had been collected from the Tretyakov two weeks after Partovsky’s return. A driver called Akinviev had brought it to the Lubyanka, but it had then been moved on to the central depot on the outskirts of Moscow by a driver whose scrawled signature appeared to read ‘M. Gorbachev’.

  Nikolai Gerasimov drove out to the depot in the Volga that aft
ernoon. He looked through the logbook with the duty officer to make sure that there was no record that the transporter had arrived. The duty officer readily admitted that it had almost certainly been sold by one of the drivers. ‘We have no M. Gorbachev on our list, Comrade Captain, not even Mikhail Sergeyevich, even though he’s out of a job.’

  ‘We have to find it,’ said Gerasimov, not smiling at the officer’s joke. ‘It’s not just a question of the theft. It’s an operational matter.’

  ‘Try the militia,’ said the transport officer. ‘They know the people who handle stolen goods.’

  A counsel of despair. No one in the militia would want to help the former KGB, particularly not Gerasimov who had so frequently stymied their moves against Georgi. But the very thought of Georgi gave Gerasimov an idea, and so, instead of returning to the Lubyanka Centre, he drove back into Moscow on the Prospekt Mira and stopped off at his flat on the Ulitsa Akademika Koroleva.

  Ylena was watching a video. She looked miserably at Gerasimov. He did not greet her but went straight to the bedroom to take off his clothes, then to the bathroom to take a shower. As he passed through the lobby on his way to the bathroom, Ylena shouted: ‘The Samara’s ready.’ He made no reply. He took his shower and then, with a towel round his waist, went to the door of the sitting room and said: ‘Is it here?’

  ‘No. He said to call when you wanted it.’

  ‘Tell him I want it now.’

  ‘You tell him.’

  He looked at her with an expression of menace in his eyes.

  She sniffed. ‘I don’t want to talk to him.’

  ‘Call your fucking lover. Tell him to bring the car.’

  He heard her sniffing as he went back to the bedroom, and then a click as she picked up the telephone. ‘And tell Georgi I want to talk to him,’ he shouted. The sniffs became sobs. ‘Tell him it’s business – nothing personal. Tell him, what’s a fat slut between friends?’

  The sob became a yowl, but slipped back to a sniff as she delivered his message over the telephone. She then went back to the television while Gerasimov, in fresh clothes, lay on the bed, reading while he waited.