Secret Kingdom

by Francis Bennett

  ‘Shall we come to the point?’ Koliakov said half an hour later. ‘Is it not time to remove our masks?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  Koliakov emptied his wine glass.

  ‘You are not a diplomat, my friend. That is your cover. You are an intelligence officer. You are recently out of training school in New Maiden, and Budapest is your first posting. You are here to learn the ropes, as you British call it. You do not have to tell me if I have hit the bull’s eye, but I know I am right.’

  Koliakov poured himself another glass of wine. He had drunk most of the first bottle and was now well into the second. So far it appeared to have no effect on him at all. For a man so thin that was surprising.

  ‘So who am I? You are curious, no doubt, to know more. Like you, my diplomatic role is a cover. I work for the KGB.’ He raised his glass to toast Hart. ‘We are both in the same business, though on different sides. I believe it is important we should get to know each other, enjoy each other’s company. Who knows? There may come a time when our lives depend upon it.’

  What do you do when a Soviet agent rumbles your disguise and tells you so? The New Maiden syllabus, surprisingly, didn’t stretch as far as that, perhaps because it was something that wasn’t meant to happen. Denial was out of the question. Better treat it lightly. You might learn something that way.

  ‘What gave it away? The cloak or the mask?’

  Koliakov slapped him on the back affectionately. ‘I love the English,’ he said, laughing. ‘You take nothing seriously.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘You must not worry that your cover is blown. What does it matter? We are all blown after a few weeks in a foreign country. I hope in my quiet way I might have merited a little curiosity from the British. Perhaps a modest file in your famous Registry.’ He leaned forward, staring into Hart’s eyes. ‘We must not allow the facts of our professional lives to spoil our dinner. For tonight the Cold War is suspended. Friends for an evening, yes?’

  Koliakov raised his glass to Hart. ‘A truce?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ What else could he say? ‘A truce.’

  They talked after that, not about secrets or betrayals but about themselves. Koliakov, Hart learned, had been in Budapest for two years.

  ‘I prefer it to Moscow. Anywhere is better than Moscow. I was born in Leningrad. You understand the reason for my hostility to Moscow. But the Hungarians are a vulgar people, do you not find that? One tires so quickly of their peasant culture. I prefer to eat without the indigestible accompaniment of a gypsy band.’

  His happiest time, he said, had been his last post, three years in New York. That explained his accent. ‘What a city. What a people. There I was a correspondent for Radio Moscow. That was my cover. I was engaged in active measures,’ which he described as ensuring that the Soviet Union was portrayed favourably in newspapers and on the radio.

  ‘It was not real intelligence work, you understand,’ he said. ‘My job did not call for the proper exercise of the skills I have acquired.’ What those skills were, he didn’t say. ‘I had wanted to be posted to the United Nations but sadly I was not successful. Promotion in the Soviet Union is dependent more on whom you know than on merit. My contacts were not of sufficiently high calibre to allow me to win my case. Still, I had three years in New York. For that at least I must be thankful.’

  They were the last to leave the restaurant. Even the musicians had packed up their instruments. Hart was exhausted but exhilarated, though for reasons he was hard put to define. He had been made no offer, told no secrets, nor asked for any. But he knew more about his opponent than he had ever dreamed he would.

  Koliakov got to his feet. He paid the bill and refused a receipt. He caught Hart’s surprise.

  ‘It is so bourgeois to ask for a receipt, do you not think?’

  They stood on the pavement outside the restaurant waiting for a taxi.

  ‘May I drop you?’ Koliakov enquired. ‘I have a car.’

  ‘I’ll walk,’ Hart said. ‘Clear my head a bit.’

  ‘Goodnight, my friend. I have enjoyed this evening. We must do it again before long. Next time we will speak Russian together. We will talk about Martineau’s mistress. Yes? The one he shares with our General Abrasimov.’

  3

  ‘I hope I am not disturbing you,’ he says in Russian. ‘May I come in?’

  He greets her as if they are friends who meet regularly. There is nothing in his manner to suggest that more than sixteen years have passed since they last had any contact with each other.

  ‘Of course.’

  His hair is grey now but still as thick as she remembers, his skin the same deathly pale; only the shadows under his eyes are darker, and there are deep lines on his cheeks and around his mouth where before there were none. His face has coarsened with age and his body is wider and heavier. He looks older than she expected, but there is no question about the strength concealed beneath the immaculate general’s uniform. That impression of power contained within him is just as she remembers. Even now she senses its whisper of attraction.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Do you have whisky?’

  ‘I have some beer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She goes into the kitchen to fetch the beer from the fridge and a glass of mineral water for herself. Alexei is walking slowly around the room, inspecting her photographs, her books, all her possessions with the air of a man conducting an inventory. He picks up a framed photograph. It is the picture taken on Margit Island. ‘I take it this is Dora.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Who is that with her?’

  ‘Julia Kovacs.’

  He frowns, as if he is trying to remember who she is. ‘What happened to Julia?’

  ‘She died last year.’ Is it possible that he can know nothing about her death? ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  If his surprise is an act, then it is convincing. He doesn’t ask how she died. Is his lack of curiosity because he already knows the answer?

  ‘Dora is sixteen now?’

  ‘Yes. Sixteen.’

  ‘A young woman already. How quickly it all passes.’ He has his back to her and he is looking through the photographs once more. ‘Almost the age you were when we met.’

  Suddenly the dam bursts in her head and there is nothing she can do to stop the memories of that time in Moscow flooding her consciousness.

  She is in hospital. She does not know how long she has been there. From time to time doctors inspect her, prod her, take her pulse, her blood pressure, draw off samples of her blood, press her stomach. The baby is well, they say. That at least is something. Nurses change the dressings on her wounds and sponge her body. She doesn’t want to eat, but she must, the nurses tell her, for the sake of the baby. They give her pills and she sleeps much of the time. She no longer knows who she is. Her mind is blank. She thinks of nothing, not even the baby, though she feels it flutter into life once or twice. She says little. She has instructed the doctors and the nurses that she will not see Alexei. She gives no reason. Only Koli and Julia are allowed into the ward.

  Koli comes when he can. Julia is there every day. She remembers waking one day and seeing Julia leaning over the bed. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she says.

  Nothing is lost over time, she realizes. What you bury when you forget is only in a shallow grave.

  ‘Ah, your great moment.’ He has stopped in front of the framed Olympic poster. He stares at the white silhouette of the Greek discus thrower superimposed on an impression of Big Ben and other London landmarks (she wonders if Alexei knows it is Big Ben). ‘You were always a wonderful swimmer, and you triumphed. What was the name of your great rival? Tall girl, from Volgorod, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Talia Osanova.’

  ‘Osanova. She hated you, I remember. Did she get a medal in London too?’

  ‘She wasn’t in the Soviet team. She was too old to compete by then.’

  ‘Her presence would have made no differ
ence. You were always better than she was.’

  He sits down on the sofa. ‘May I?’ He has taken out a gold cigarette case.

  ‘Of course.’ He smokes cork-tipped Western cigarettes, Peter Stuyvesant. How does he get hold of them?

  ‘I thought it best to wait until Dora went out.’

  Half an hour earlier Dora had been summoned unexpectedly by one of her teachers for a meeting at school. Alexei must have manufactured this absence. No doubt he knows just how long she will be away. Everything he does is calculated to the last detail. She wonders if there are any limits to his power.

  ‘Koli has told me about Dora’s exam results. Her disappointment is understandable. She is serious about becoming a doctor, I take it?’

  ‘Very serious.’

  ‘Is she good enough?’

  Eva is startled by his question. If he has spoken to Koli, then he must know why Dora failed. ‘According to her teachers she is, yes.’

  ‘I can get her a place at medical school in Moscow.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to go to Moscow. Her life is here.’

  ‘You could come with her.’

  ‘This is where I live too.’

  ‘I can look after you both in Moscow.’

  ‘Does that mean you can’t do so if we stay here?’

  ‘Distance might add to the difficulty.’

  The care with which he chooses his words tells her at once that he has his own reasons for suggesting they return to Moscow with him that have nothing to do with Dora’s failure.

  ‘Medical school for Dora isn’t the point, is it?’ she says.

  ‘That’s your interpretation, not mine.’

  ‘Why do you want to get us away from Budapest?’

  ‘I want Dora to have the career she has chosen. If that is impossible here, then why not Moscow? The medical school is excellent.’

  ‘It is only impossible here because she was failed for reasons that have nothing to do with her abilities.’

  ‘So Koli told me. I looked into that. There is no evidence to support what Koli says. Her papers weren’t up to standard, apparently. The recommendation was that she try again.’

  How can he believe that? She decides to ignore what he has said. ‘Did you instruct the examining board to fail her?’

  ‘Do you think I would do such a thing to my own daughter?’

  His daughter? The child he has never seen in his life, to whose upbringing he has contributed nothing. How can he call Dora his?

  ‘What better way to put pressure on her to leave Budapest?’

  ‘You credit me with a nature I don’t possess.’

  ‘Your reputation precedes you,’ Eva says.

  ‘You mustn’t believe all you hear.’ He stubs out one cigarette and lights another at once. ‘I’m a soldier, not a politician. If I wanted her in Moscow, I’d arrange to have her taken there this instant, whether she liked it or not, and there is nothing you or anyone could do to stop me. The fact that I am here now in your apartment making this proposal tells you what you need to know. Don’t judge me too harshly. I am concerned about Dora’s future. Like any father, I want what is best for my daughter.’

  How can he call himself her father when he has never before shown the slightest interest in Dora from the day she was born? She feels anger and bitterness at his presumption. He has no idea what it is like to be a parent.

  ‘I would like you both to return to Moscow,’ he says. ‘The sooner the better. I am not thinking of my own convenience when I say that.’

  Moscow as sanctuary. That is how he is tempting her. It can mean only one thing. When the revolution comes, and his presence in Budapest is a sign that the Soviet authorities expect it to happen, he wants his daughter out of the way and, if he has to, her mother too.

  ‘What is going to happen here?’ Eva asks.

  Abrasimov draws on his cigarette before he answers. ‘The future depends on your fellow countrymen. I hope they will come to their senses.’ His voice trails away. What will happen if they don’t is left to her imagination. ‘Will you put my offer to Dora?’

  ‘She won’t agree.’

  ‘I asked if you would put it to her.’

  ‘Very well.’

  It’s too late, she wants to tell him. You can’t turn up after so many years and start exercising your power over a daughter you wouldn’t even recognize if you passed her in the street.

  ‘I want you both to think it over. You need not worry about money or accommodation. That would be taken care of. There is plenty of work for interpreters in Moscow, and for doctors.’

  He gets up to leave. ‘My offer is unconditional. Please consider it seriously. It would be foolish to dismiss it out of hand.’ He hesitates for a moment. ‘I would be pleased to have you both there. I would like to get to know my own daughter.’

  4

  From the bus stop the walk up the hill was longer than he had anticipated and the path steeper. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, but even so, when he arrived, he was red-faced and sweating and wishing he had taken a taxi. From the outside the restaurant had the look of a private house with a garden, plane trees, flowering bushes and roses climbing the dry wall of the old brick building that housed the dining room. Above him, pigeons settled on the roof. In the shadows of the trees he saw white-painted tables and chairs, at some of which people were sitting. Behind them, like a huge backcloth, the blue sky was lightly streaked with high feathery clouds beneath which the city shimmered grey and dusty in the heat.

  Christine was alone. When he saw her, at first she appeared to be made of crystal, an unmoving, immaculate presence, the green dress set against her pale, fine skin giving her the appearance of glass. In her company he felt hot, dishevelled, in need of a bath.

  ‘It was further than I thought,’ he said wryly.

  She smiled at him. ‘It’s hotter than ever, isn’t it?’ She handed him a glass of white wine and soda water. They talked about how difficult it was to sleep at night; would it ever rain again? the growing tension in the city; was the Soviet presence more marked than it had been? Was there going to be a revolution? Would the Soviet reaction lead to an international crisis?

  ‘I put you in an impossible position the other night,’ Christine said, suddenly touching his hand. ‘It was quite wrong. Will you forgive me?’

  She had kissed him, that was all. She had done it as a dare to herself, he was sure, as much as anything to prove she could. It had little or nothing to do with him, it was more a clue to her state of mind at the time. He’d felt sorry for her then, and he still did. It was the act of a lonely woman.

  ‘Please.’ He was embarrassed by her protestations, uncertain what to say. ‘Please.’

  She smiled her thanks. He saw a look of relief pass briefly across her face. Beneath the crystal exterior, there was another, less confident woman.

  ‘There’s something I think you ought to know about Bobby.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he replied, fearful of being drawn into some conflict between her and Martineau.

  The vodka bottle beside her had hardly been touched and her glass was almost full. She had been smoking before he arrived – the ashtray was evidence of that – but not drinking.

  ‘Ten years ago, in Moscow, he had an affair with a French woman. She was married to a much older man, a professional diplomat, and she was bored with him. She set her cap at Bobby and he fell. The affair lasted almost a year. I learned about it towards the end but I never said anything at the time. Don’t ask me why. I suppose I was frightened of losing him, I don’t know. It was probably a bad mistake in a lifetime of bad mistakes.’

  She lit a cigarette. Hart saw that her hands were shaking.

  ‘Then she left Moscow and that was it. I should have spoken to Bobby then, but again I didn’t. That was cowardly of me, and foolish too. Then we were recalled to London. That was the terrible period of political infighting when I thought Bobby was going to have a breakdown, followed by the
horror of Rio. I couldn’t say anything then because he was so depressed. I wanted to leave him but in the end I stayed, even though I hated every moment because I thought if I left he might do something terrible to himself. I had never seen that self-destructive side of him before.’

  She looked at the vodka glass, thought about drinking from it, and then pushed it aside.

  ‘I knew coming out here was our last chance. I thought we could make it work. Bobby seemed so much better. Then it happened all over again. I couldn’t believe it. I had stood by my husband in Rio and he repaid me by betraying me in Budapest. I had been thrown over for a second time in favour of a woman much younger than myself. Can you understand my bitterness?’

  She wasn’t looking at him as she spoke. He wondered if she knew he was there, or perhaps all she wanted was an audience, someone whose presence allowed her to say what was on her mind.

  ‘I found out everything I could about her, her name, her age, where she lived. Then one day when I could no longer bear Bobby’s lies about his work keeping him away, I wrote to a former colleague of his, a man I’d known who’d left the Service around the time we came back from Moscow. I poured my heart out to him, told him everything. I am ashamed to say I could only do this because I was drunk at the time.’

  She stopped talking and stared out into the distance. The brightness had gone out of the light now. It wasn’t dusk yet, still late afternoon. The trees rustled with a sudden breeze that momentarily took the edge off the heat. Christine was lost in her own thoughts. Hart had an uneasy feeling that he could guess what was coming next.

  ‘I didn’t think any more about it until Nigel Carswell arrived. The moment I heard he was here, I knew why he’d come. You can imagine how I felt.’

  ‘There’s been a lot of speculation about Carswell’s visit,’ Hart said defensively. ‘You can’t be sure why he came to see Bobby.’

  ‘I’ve lived in the shadow of the Service for more than twenty years, Hugh. I know its ways by now. Carswell would have told Bobby to drop this woman or face the end of his career. He knew Bobby would listen to him.’