The Man From St. Petersburg

by Ken Follett

  Mama reddened. "You impudent child!" she shrilled. She stepped forward and slapped Charlotte's face.

  Charlotte fell back and sat down heavily on the bed. She was stunned, not by the blow but by the idea of it. Mama had never struck her before. Somehow it seemed to hurt more than all the blows she had received during the riot. She caught Marya's eye and saw a peculiar look of satisfaction on her face.

  Charlotte recovered her composure and said: "I shall never forgive you for that."

  "That you should speak of forgiving me!" In her rage Mama was speaking Russian. "And how soon should I forgive you for joining a mob outside Buckingham Palace?"

  Charlotte gasped. "How did you know?"

  "Marya saw you marching along The Mall with those . . . those suffragettes. I feel so ashamed. God knows who else saw you. If the King ever finds out we shall be banished from the court."

  "I see." Charlotte was still smarting from the slap. She said nastily: "So you weren't worried about my safety, just the family reputation."

  Mama looked hurt. Marya butted in: "We were worried about both."

  "Keep quiet, Marya," said Charlotte. "You've done enough damage with your tongue."

  "Marya did the right thing!" Mama said. "How could she not tell me?"

  Charlotte said: "Don't you think women should have the vote?"

  "Certainly not--and you shouldn't think so, either."

  "But I do," Charlotte said. "There it is."

  "You know nothing--you're still a child."

  "We always come back to that, don't we? I'm a child, and I know nothing. Who is responsible for my ignorance? Marya has been in charge of my education for fifteen years. As for being a child, you know perfectly well that I'm nothing of the kind. You would be quite happy to see me married by Christmas. And some girls are mothers by the age of thirteen, married or not."

  Mama was shocked. "Who tells you such things?"

  "Certainly not Marya. She never told me anything important. Nor did you."

  Mama's voice became almost pleading. "You have no need of such knowledge--you're a lady."

  "You see what I mean? You want me to be ignorant. Well, I don't intend to be."

  Mama said plaintively: "I only want you to be happy!"

  "No, you don't," Charlotte said stubbornly. "You want me to be like you."

  "No, no, no!" Mama cried. "I don't want you to be like me! I don't!" She burst into tears, and ran from the room.

  Charlotte stared after her, mystified and ashamed.

  Marya said: "You see what you've done."

  Charlotte looked her up and down: gray dress, gray hair, ugly face, smug expression. "Go away, Marya."

  "You've no conception of the trouble and heartache you've caused this afternoon."

  Charlotte was tempted to say: If you had kept your mouth shut there would have been no heartache. Instead she said: "Get out."

  "You listen to me, little Charlotte--"

  "I'm Lady Charlotte to you."

  "You're little Charlotte, and--"

  Charlotte picked up a hand mirror and hurled it at Marya. Marya squealed. The missile was badly aimed and smashed against the wall. Marya scuttled out of the room.

  Now I know how to deal with her, Charlotte thought.

  It occurred to her that she had won something of a victory. She had reduced Mama to tears and chased Marya out of her room. That's something, she thought; I may be stronger than they after all. They deserved rough treatment: Marya went to Mama behind my back, and Mama slapped me. But I didn't grovel and apologize and promise to be good in future. I gave as good as I got. I should be proud.

  So why do I feel so ashamed?

  I hate myself, Lydia thought.

  I know how Charlotte feels, but I can't tell her that I understand. I always lose control. I never used to be like this. I was always calm and dignified. When she was a little girl I could laugh at her peccadilloes. Now she's a woman. Dear God, what have I done? She's tainted with the blood of her father, of Feliks, I'm sure of it. What am I going to do? I thought if I pretended she was Stephen's daughter she might actually become like a daughter of Stephen--innocent, lady-like, English. It was no good. All those years the bad blood was in her, dormant, and now it's coming out; now the amoral Russian peasant in her ancestry is taking her over. When I see those signs I panic. I can't help it. I'm cursed, we're all cursed, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, even unto the third and fourth generation, when will I be forgiven? Feliks is an anarchist and Charlotte is a suffragette; Feliks is a fornicator and Charlotte talks about thirteen-year-old mothers; she has no idea how awful it is to be possessed by passion; my life was ruined, hers will be too, that's what I'm afraid of, that's what makes me shout and cry and get hysterical and smack her, but, sweet Jesus, don't let her ruin herself, she's all I've lived for. I shall lock her away. If only she would marry a nice boy, soon, before she has time to go right off the rails, before everybody realizes there is something wrong with her breeding. I wonder if Freddie will propose to her before the end of the season--that would be the answer-- I must make sure he does, I must have her married, quickly! Then it will be too late for her to ruin herself; besides, with a baby or two she won't have time. I must make sure she meets Freddie more often. She's quite pretty, she'll be a good enough wife to a strong man who can keep her under control, a decent man who will love her without unleashing her dark desires, a man who will sleep in an adjoining room and share her bed once a week with the light out. Freddie is just right for her; then she'll never have to go through what I've been through, she'll never have to learn the hard way that lust is wicked and destroys, the sin won't be passed down yet another generation, she won't be wicked like me. She thinks I want her to be like me. If only she knew. If only she knew!

  Feliks could not stop crying.

  People stared at him as he walked through the park to retrieve his bicycle. He shook with uncontrollable sobs and the tears poured down his face. This had never happened to him before and he could not understand it. He was helpless with grief.

  He found the bicycle where he had left it, beneath a bush, and the familiar sight calmed him a little. What is happening to me? he thought. Lots of people have children. Now I know that I have, too. So what? And he burst into tears again.

  He sat down on the dry grass beside the bicycle. She's so beautiful, he thought. But he was not weeping for what he had found; he was weeping for what he had lost. For eighteen years he had been a father without knowing it. While he was wandering from one grim village to another, while he was in jail, and in the gold mine, and walking across Siberia, and making bombs in Bialystock, she had been growing up. She had learned to walk, and to talk, and to feed herself and tie her bootlaces. She had played on a green lawn under a chestnut tree in summer, and had fallen off a donkey and cried. Her "father" had given her a pony while Feliks had been working on the chain gang. She had worn white frocks in summer and woolen stockings in winter. She had always been bilingual in Russian and English. Someone else had read storybooks to her; someone else had said "I'll catch you!" and chased her, screaming with delight, up the stairs; someone else had taught her to shake hands and say "How do you do?"; someone else had bathed her and brushed her hair and made her finish up her cabbage. Many times Feliks had watched Russian peasants with their children and had wondered how, in their lives of misery and grinding poverty, they managed to summon up affection and tenderness for the infants who took the bread from their mouths. Now he knew: the love just came, whether you wanted it or not. From his recollections of other people's children he could visualize Charlotte at different stages of development: as a toddler with a protruding belly and no hips to hold up her skirt; as a boisterous seven-year-old, tearing her frock and grazing her knees; as a lanky, awkward girl of ten with ink on her fingers and clothes always a little too small; as a shy adolescent, giggling at boys, secretly trying her mother's perfume, crazy about horses, and then--

  And then this beautiful, brave,
alert, inquisitive, admirable young woman.

  And I'm her father, he thought.

  Her father.

  What was it she had said? You're the most interesting person I've ever met--may I see you again? He had been preparing to say good-bye to her forever. When he knew that he would not have to, his self-control had begun to disintegrate. She thought he had a cold. Ah, she was young still, to make such bright, cheerful remarks to a man whose heart was breaking.

  I'm becoming maudlin, he thought; I must pull myself together.

  He stood up and picked up the bicycle. He mopped his face with the handkerchief she had given him. It had a bluebell embroidered in one corner, and he wondered whether she had done that herself. He mounted the bicycle and headed for the Old Kent Road.

  It was suppertime but he knew he would not be able to eat. That was just as well, for his money was running low and tonight he did not have the spirit to steal. He looked forward now to the darkness of his tenement room, where he could spend the night alone with his thoughts. He would go over every minute of this encounter, from the moment she emerged from the house to that last good-bye wave.

  He would have liked a bottle of vodka for company, but he could not afford it.

  He wondered whether anyone had ever given Charlotte a red ball.

  The evening was mild but the city air was stale. The pubs of the Old Kent Road were already filling up with brightly dressed working-class women and their husbands, boyfriends or fathers. On impulse, Feliks stopped outside one. The sound of an elderly piano wafted through the open door. Feliks thought: I'd like someone to smile at me, even if it's only a barmaid. I could afford half a pint of ale. He tied his bicycle to a railing and went in.

  The place was stifling, full of smoke and the unique beery smell of an English pub. It was early, but already there was a good deal of loud laughter and feminine squeals. Everyone seemed enormously cheerful. Feliks thought: Nobody knows how to spend money better than the poor. He joined the crush at the bar. The piano began a new tune, and everyone sang.

  Once a young maiden climbed an old man's knee

  Begged for a story, "Do, Uncle, please,

  Why are you single, why live alone?

  Have you no babies, have you no home?"

  "I had a sweetheart, years, years ago;

  Where is she now, pet, you will soon know

  List to my story, I'll tell it all;

  I believed her faithless, after the ball."

  The stupid, sentimental, empty-headed damn song brought tears to Feliks's eyes, and he left the pub without ordering his beer.

  He cycled away, leaving the laughter and music behind. That kind of jollity was not for him; it never had been and never would be. He made his way back to the tenement and carried the bicycle up the stairs to his room on the top floor. He took off his hat and coat and lay on the bed. He would see her again in two days. They would look at paintings together. He would go to the municipal bathhouse before meeting her, he decided. He rubbed his chin: there was nothing he could do to make the beard grow decently in two days. He cast his mind back to the moment when she came out of the house. He had seen her from a distance, never dreaming . . .

  What was I thinking of at that moment? he wondered.

  And then he remembered.

  I was asking myself whether she might know where Orlov is.

  I haven't thought about Orlov all afternoon.

  In all probability she does know where he is; if not, she could find out.

  I might use her to help me kill him.

  Am I capable of that?

  No, I am not. I will not do it. No, no, no!

  What is happening to me?

  Walden saw Churchill at the Admiralty at twelve noon. The First Lord was impressed. "Thrace," he said. "Surely we can give them half of Thrace. Who the devil cares if they have the whole of it!"

  "That's what I thought," Walden said. He was pleased with Churchill's reaction. "Now, will your colleagues agree?"

  "I believe they will," Churchill said thoughtfully. "I'll see Grey after lunch and Asquith this evening."

  "And the Cabinet?" Walden did not want to do a deal with Aleks only to have it vetoed by the Cabinet.

  "Tomorrow morning."

  Walden stood up. "So I can plan to go back to Norfolk late tomorrow."

  "Splendid. Have they caught that damned anarchist yet?"

  "I'm having lunch with Basil Thomson of the Special Branch--I'll find out then."

  "Keep me informed."

  "Naturally."

  "And thank you. For this proposal, I mean." Churchill looked out of the window dreamily. "Thrace!" he murmured to himself. "Who has ever even heard of it?"

  Walden left him to his reverie.

  He was in a buoyant mood as he walked from the Admiralty to his club in Pall Mall. He usually ate lunch at home, but he did not want to trouble Lydia with policemen, especially as she was in a rather strange mood at the moment. No doubt she was worried about Aleks, as Walden was. The boy was the nearest thing to a son that they had: if anything should happen to him--

  He went up the steps of his club and, just inside the door, handed his hat and gloves to a flunky. "What a lovely summer we're having, my lord," the man said.

  The weather had been remarkably fine for months, Walden reflected as he went up to the dining room. When it broke there would probably be storms. We shall have thunder in August, he thought.

  Thomson was waiting. He looked rather pleased with himself. What a relief it will be if he's caught the assassin, Walden thought. They shook hands, and Walden sat down. A waiter brought the menu.

  "Well?" said Walden. "Have you caught him?"

  "All but," Thomson said.

  That meant no, Walden thought. His heart sank. "Oh, damn," he said.

  The wine waiter came. Walden asked Thomson: "Do you want a cocktail?"

  "No, thank you."

  Walden approved. Cocktails were a nasty American habit. "Perhaps a glass of sherry?"

  "Yes, please."

  "Two," Walden said to the waiter.

  They ordered Brown Windsor soup and poached salmon, and Walden chose a bottle of hock to wash it down.

  Walden said: "I wonder if you realize quite how important this is? My negotiations with Prince Orlov are almost complete. If he were to be assassinated now the whole thing would fall through--with serious consequences for the security of this country."

  "I do realize, my lord," Thomson said. "Let me tell you what progress we've made. Our man is Feliks Kschessinsky. That's so hard to say that I propose we call him Feliks. He is forty, the son of a country priest, and he comes from Tambov province. My opposite number in St. Petersburg has a very thick file on him. He has been arrested three times and is wanted in connection with half a dozen murders."

  "Dear God," Walden muttered.

  "My friend in St. Petersburg adds that he is an expert bomb maker and an extremely vicious fighter." Thomson paused. "You were terribly brave, to catch that bottle." Walden gave a thin smile: he preferred not to be reminded.

  The soup came and the two men ate in silence for a while. Thomson sipped his hock frugally. Walden liked this club. The food was not as good as he got at home, but there was a relaxed atmosphere. The chairs in the smoking room were old and comfortable, the waiters were old and slow, the wallpaper was faded and the paintwork was dull. They still had gas lighting. Men such as Walden came here because their homes were spick-and-span and feminine.

  "I thought you said you had all but caught him," Walden said as the poached salmon arrived.

  "I haven't told you the half of it yet."

  "Ah."

  "At the end of May he arrived at the Jubilee Street anarchist club in Stepney. They didn't know who he was, and he told them lies. He's a cautious man--quite rightly so, from his point of view, for one or two of those anarchists are working for me. My spies reported his presence, but the information didn't come to my notice at that stage because he appeared to be harmless. Sa
id he was writing a book. Then he stole a gun and moved on."

  "Without telling anyone where he was going, of course."

  "That's right."

  "Slippery fellow."

  A waiter collected their plates and said: "Will you have a slice off the joint, gentlemen? It's mutton today."

  They both had mutton with red-currant jelly, roast potatoes and asparagus.

  Thomson said: "He bought the ingredients for his nitroglycerine in four different shops in Camden Town. We made house-to-house inquiries there." Thomson took a mouthful of mutton.

  "And?" Walden asked impatiently.

  "He's been living at nineteen Cork Street, Camden, in a house owned by a widow called Bridget Callahan."

  "But he's moved on."

  "Yes."

  "Damn it, Thomson, can't you see the fellow's cleverer than you?"

  Thomson looked at him coolly and made no comment.

  Walden said: "I beg your pardon, that was discourteous of me, the fellow's got me rattled."

  Thomson went on: "Mrs. Callahan says she threw Feliks out because she thought he was a suspicious character."

  "Why didn't she report him to the police?"

  Thomson finished his mutton and put down his knife and fork. "She says she had no real reason to. I found that suspicious, so I checked up on her. Her husband was an Irish rebel. If she knew what our friend Feliks was up to, she might well have been sympathetic."

  Walden wished Thomson would not call Feliks "our friend." He said: "Do you think she knows where the man went?"

  "If she does, she won't say. But I can't think why he should tell her. The point is, he may come back."

  "Are you having the place watched?"

  "Surreptitiously. One of my men has already moved into the basement room as a tenant. Incidentally, he found a glass rod of the kind used in chemistry laboratories. Evidently Feliks made up his nitroglycerine right there in the sink."

  It was chilling to Walden to think that in the heart of London anyone could buy a few chemicals, mix them together in a wash-hand-basin, and make a bottle of dreadfully explosive liquid--then walk with it into a suite in a West End hotel.

  The mutton was followed by a savory of foie gras. Walden said: "What's your next move?"

  "The picture of Feliks is hanging up in every police station in the County of London. Unless he locks himself indoors all day, he's bound to be spotted by an observant bobby sooner or later. But just in case that should be later rather than sooner, my men are visiting cheap hotels and lodging houses, showing the picture."