Arthur was pleased to see it again, but didn’t assume his things would be returned.
“And here we have some more books. One on chess. Interesting. Does this mean that our man is modest; willing to admit that there might always be something new to learn? That he doesn’t know it all. I think perhaps this is true? And what about these books? One on fishing. So what. So a man who can fish might be able to provide for himself when those around him are starving. And a book on navigation. Navigation. You are learning the rudiments of how to travel across the sea unaided. Does this perhaps tell me that the man is engaged in certain hidden activities? That he is a spy?”
“No,” Arthur protested.
Radek laughed again.
“No,” he said. “No. I know you are not yet a spy.”
There it was again. Language is a subtle but vicious killer. What did he mean by “yet”?
“Would you like to take your things away or shall we have someone bring them to your apartment?”
“You mean I can have them back?”
“Certainly. What would I want with a book on fishing? And Shakespeare, I know my Shakespeare well enough, I think.”
Arthur hesitated, looking at the contents of the parcel strewn across the table.
“Would you mind sending it on?”
“Of course. And now Mr. Ransome, can I offer you some tea?”
He accepted, and soon the parcel was forgotten. As they spoke Arthur saw why he had opened it; there was no great sinister meaning behind it, but simply that Radek was a small boy in a big world, curious and inquisitive. Arthur stayed far longer than he realized, and fell into a long conversation about everything from chess to revolution, but it was another small warning, Arthur knew. Nothing he did, nothing he said, nothing he owned, would be his alone.
* * *
He started working for Buchanan, the British Ambassador. He’d been asked to find out what he could about Trotsky, and he did, reporting back in good faith. And if he learned anything interesting from Evgenia about her employers, well, that simply showed that he understood the game.
But if Arthur started to understand what he was doing, others did not.
He was in Buchanan’s office, a few days before the kind old Ambassador left Russia for good. A week later and Lockhart arrived, and then things changed entirely, but that day, Arthur was reporting to Buchanan, as usual.
Just then the door flew open, and an officer burst in.
He pointed at Arthur.
“You, sir,” he declared, his nostrils quivering, “should be shot!”
Arthur had never met him before but knew him by sight. General Knox was the British Military Attaché to Petrograd.
Buchanan raised a hand to try to stop Knox, but he was in no mood to stop.
“Sir George, I’ve been watching this man, and his … activities. He is a Red! He has been consorting with the Bolsheviks, and should be considered a traitor. He ought to be dealt with as such!”
Arthur tried to protest his innocence, but Knox ignored him completely apart from occasionally waving a finger in his direction. Buchanan, meanwhile, already weakened by his illness, was in no condition for a fight, and simply waited for the storm to pass.
Knox ended his tirade and looked expectantly at Buchanan, like a dog waiting for a bone. Arthur would have found him comical, but he knew that he was the bone Knox wanted.
Buchanan lifted his gaze from his desk to Knox.
“General,” he said, “Mr. Ransome is an agent of the British Embassy, and therefore the British government. Please be good enough to treat him accordingly. You may go.”
It was over. Knox stood rooted to the spot briefly and then, as the color rose in his cheeks, spun on his heel and slammed the door behind him.
Buchanan forced a weak smile on Arthur.
“Talk to Trotsky, find out what he really wants. Do your job. Then come and tell me.”
Arthur nodded, and did as he was told, but it all came to nothing.
Next day, Buchanan left for England, and a week later, Lockhart arrived to act in his place.
7:55 P.M.
THE COLD TAP DRIPS IN THE BATH, almost hypnotising Arthur. He stirs himself and stretches his long legs, resting his feet on the wall above the taps. His thoughts drift some more and a face comes to mind.
Lockhart.
When Arthur learned he’d returned to Russia, he was surprised, to put it mildly. Lockhart had been sent home from his position in Moscow in disgrace. There’d been an affair with a Russian Jewess; she was married, and then again, so was he. The official story was ill health, returning home to rest, honorable leave of absence. The usual humbug, but Arthur knew the truth, had had the gossip from the Embassy corridors, that Lockhart had been a bad boy. It wasn’t even so much that he’d had an affair, it was that he hadn’t been able to keep it a secret.
For a man in his profession, that was a crime in itself.
It was unforgivable.
* * *
And yet, he had been forgiven, because he came back to Petrograd in January. The Embassy was always a good standby for a decent plate of food; that was something Arthur had learned. As things got harder through that winter, he found his visits coincided more and more often with lunch.
On the prowl one day for food and news, in that order, he got more than he expected.
Lockhart.
Arthur’s heart rose the moment he saw him. He rushed over, shaking the Scot warmly by the hand.
“Steady on, Ransome,” he said, laughing.
“It’s so good to see a friendly face,” Arthur said. “Everyone else has left.”
“And I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me, eh?”
Arthur shrugged.
“Nothing surprises me anymore. After the Ambassador left I didn’t know who would replace him.”
“Oh, I’m not replacing him, he was an Ambassador, whereas I…” he paused. “If I’m replacing anyone, I’m replacing you.”
He smiled.
“Don’t worry, I’ve no interest in journalism. I’ve been sent here as head of a special mission. To make and keep contact with Trotsky and the Bolsheviks. Something that seems to have been your sole responsibility up till now.”
“I see. Sir George didn’t mention you were coming.”
“Would it have been any of your business? Anyway, he may not have known. I was only told myself just before Christmas.”
“You knew he was ill.”
“Yes,” Lockhart nodded. “Saw him in Norway on my way out here. The cruiser that sent me here was to collect him and take him home. He seemed pretty badly off, but you know, you could see he was relieved to be out of Russia.”
“It does that to some people.”
“Listen, Ransome, it’s lunchtime, fancy a bite to eat?”
Arthur smiled to himself, delighted his little scheme had worked again.
“I have to admit,” he said, “The food here…”
“No,” Lockhart said, quietly. “Not here. Let’s go out. Yes?”
* * *
They walked through the city’s ice-bound streets, trying and failing to find a restaurant that was both open and with the appearance of somewhere they might actually want to eat. Arthur mildly cursed himself for the presumption that he was going to get his teeth into Embassy food again. Eventually, they stumbled across a place. A vegetarian restaurant, called “I Eat Nobody,” it was the wit of the name as much as anything else that took them inside.
“Probably the safest place to eat anyway,” Arthur said as they sat down. “There are some bad stories circulating about the little meat that is available. Species-wise.”
“Species-wise?” Lockhart grimaced.
Arthur nodded.
“Species-wise.”
Over bowls of steaming borsch Lockhart told Arthur about his mission.
“The government still isn’t prepared to recognize the Bolsheviks officially. The attitude is still one of calculated indifference. The policy is that there is no p
olicy. But, there are those, and Mr. Lloyd George is among them, who have read the newspaper reports of certain journalists,” he looked straight into Arthur’s eyes, “and feel that there should be some kind of relationship with the Bolsheviks.”
He took a mouthful of the beetroot soup while Arthur pondered the fact that the Prime Minister of Great Britain had actually been influenced by something he’d written.
“I’m here to head up a mission of official contact with Messrs. Trotsky and Lenin. Unofficially, of course.”
Arthur smiled.
“Naturally. Which rather makes me redundant as a go-between.”
“Officially yes. But unofficially, I…”
He stopped, and put his spoon down.
“Arthur, you have to tell me something, and you have to tell me straight. Are you a Bolshevik?”
Arthur’s laugh made the few other people in the near-empty restaurant look sharply around.
“Ransome,” Lockhart said. “An answer, if you please.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. No. No, of course, I’m not a Bolshevik. I’m a journalist. It’s my job to talk to them. By that logic…”
“Fair enough. I believe you, but this is a strange world we are living in, and not everyone is what they seem. Half the world still believes Trotsky is a German agent sent to topple Russia from the inside.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“I know it’s nonsense, but that’s not the point. It’s what people believe is true that matters, not what actually is true.”
There was something else Lockhart was driving at, but Arthur let it pass, and let him talk.
“You need to be careful, Arthur. And I need your help, so you’ve got to stay out of trouble.”
“My help?”
“I may now be the official channel from Britain to the Bolsheviks, but you know them in a way I don’t. You can get me into places, get interviews, contacts.”
“That’s fine. I can do that.”
“Yes, you can, but only if you’re not locked in a prison cell.”
He picked up his spoon again and began to work on the soup once more.
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It might be, but it’s not from me. However, there are those who think you are not to be trusted, Arthur. There are even some who think you are an agent.”
“An agent?” Arthur said, doubtfully.
“Dammit, Arthur,” Lockhart whispered across the table fiercely. “A spy! Do you understand me? A Russian spy.”
Arthur nodded gently, and there was no laughter on his lips this time.
“Who are these people?” he asked.
“Some ministers. The head of Scotland Yard. People at the Foreign Office, the Secret Service. Oh, and some of the Americans.”
“Americans?” Arthur spluttered.
“Keep your voice down,” said Lockhart. “Yes, Americans. Listen, I told you that this is a strange world. You may be what you seem, but not everyone else is. You know Sissons?”
“Head of the American Mission?”
“Head of the American Mission, and a spy to boot. He has formed the opinion that you are also an agent; the only difference is that he can’t make up his mind whether you’re a British one or a Russian one.”
Arthur shook his head in disbelief. He had little time for Sissons, but nonetheless had spoken to him frequently over the last few days. With a dead weight in his stomach he remembered that they’d even arranged to meet the following day to get passes for the Constituent Assembly. He began replaying all his conversations with him, trying to recall what he’d said and what it could mean.
“I’d stop that if I were you,” Lockhart said, having guessed what he was doing. “You’ll go mad that way. Just be careful from now on. Because I need you.”
8:10 P.M.
ARTHUR LIES IN THE BATH. He has propped his pocket watch on the side of the sink, but can’t make out the time as the face has steamed up. For a moment he panics, then forces himself to relax. He can’t have been in the bathroom for more than an hour at the very most; that still gives him nearly two hours to get dressed and go to meet Lockhart.
He waits for his heart to stop thumping.
* * *
The meeting point is fifteen minutes away, at a stroll; a small seedy bar called Finland. And then on to wherever Lockhart has set up his denouement. For that’s how it feels to Arthur, it feels like a finale, an end game.
The analogy with chess springs to his mind again. It was Radek who made the comparison first, wasn’t it? Or Trotsky? It doesn’t matter now, whichever of them said it, it’s true. Arthur loves a good chess puzzle, he’s played games at the strangest times, and found it clears his head and calms his mind. Once, years ago, when he was away at the front near Tarnopol, he played chess with a young officer even as shells fell in the distance. They’d played one game that Arthur had won by a lucky stroke, then the officer had had to mount up and ride away.
“I’ll give you a rematch when I get back,” he’d called, but Arthur never saw him again.
Arthur sits up in the bath and props his shaving mirror behind the cold tap. He soaps his chin. If I am in a chess game, he thinks, I know which piece I am.
A pawn.
Bizarrely, though, he’s still not sure which side he belongs to. He’s a pawn in no man’s land, caught between the white British knights and the red Russian rooks. But each side thinks they own him, and that scares him. He thinks of the move in chess called the pawn sacrifice. A pawn is of little worth, and can easily be expended if there is a chance of a greater reward to be had.
* * *
No, he tells himself.
No, he’s on the British side. He’s agreed to Lockhart’s scheme, for good or for bad, and it’s too late to start dithering about it now.
8:20 P.M.
ARTHUR GETS OUT OF THE BATH CAREFULLY, feeling at least a hundred. As he stands he sees his body in miniature in the shaving mirror. God! He’s so thin. Even the relative comfort of the Elite is not providing him enough to keep him well fed.
Too bad, he thinks. There are people worse off, all across Moscow, across Russia. There are stories coming in from the unknown depths of Samara province that people have resorted to the ultimate taboo, and are eating meat of a very familiar nature. Not everyone believes the stories of cannibals, but there are those who do. Even in the bleakest winter days back in Petrograd such an idea would have been unthinkable.
Arthur wraps a towel around his waist, drapes his greatcoat across his shoulders and makes his way back down the corridor to his room, now completely oblivious of scraps of paper, door frames, and even unseen gunmen.
Closing the door behind him, he slips the coat back onto its hook, and checks he has put out all the clothes he will wear, as if preparing for some magical ritual.
* * *
It was only a couple of months after Lockhart returned to Russia that they moved to Moscow.
“You and I have been speaking the same language,” Lockhart said to Arthur, as they had a drink in the bar of the Astoria. “You and I. We both think that the best thing that our government could do, for Russia and for the war, is to help the Bolsheviks. Yes?”
“Are we alone in that view?” Arthur asked.
“Things are changing,” he said. “Good God, things are changing all the time. Our government, Arthur, is trying to make up its mind whether to ignore the Bolsheviks, or invade Russia and restore the Tsar and the rest of White Russia.”
“Invade? But that would be…”
Lockhart ignored the pointless remark. He sat opposite Arthur, their knees almost touching, but staring at his hands as he spoke.
“Red or white, white or red. Who knows which color pieces they’ll choose…? And everything is changing, every day. Everyone is leaving.”
“Everyone?” Arthur asked. Lockhart glanced up at his friend, seemed to shake himself, and got back to business.
“The Bolsheviks are leaving Petrograd. The new German fr
ont line is a short train ride from here; the Reds are moving their capital to Moscow, as of old. Napoleon never managed to capture it. I think they figure that since Napoleon failed, the Kaiser will, too. But it was the winter that stopped Napoleon, and spring is almost here. Anyway, they’re going to up and run to Moscow, and everyone else is simply running away. The French, the Chinese, the Japanese Ambassadors are leaving.”
Everyone. The Bolsheviks had decided that Petrograd was too close to the German army, who were advancing in fits and starts toward the city. When the Bolsheviks went, so did everyone else; all the foreign embassies, the Japanese, the Germans, the French, the British; and so did anyone else with any interest in them. Lockhart and his mission. The few remaining journalists. Arthur. There was nothing left for him in Petrograd. He shut his flat up, having given his landlady an exorbitant sum of roubles to keep it on for him, just in case. He was happy enough to be fleeced by her, it was only money, and there were more important things than money.
Evgenia had gone, too, following Trotsky to Moscow with the other Bolsheviks. He hadn’t even seen her before she went; he’d been sent on some wild-goose chase by Lockhart. In the event of a German invasion of Russia, and the British having to leave Moscow, they needed a bolthole halfway to the northern coast. Lockhart had asked Arthur to go to a godforsaken town called Vologda, and to “claim” a building there suitable for use as the British Embassy if need be.
“Claim it?” Arthur had asked.
“Stick a flag on it, man!” Lockhart said.
“And where do I get a flag from?”
“Use your ingenuity. And get a move on.”
“I only earn a journalist’s wages, you know.”
“All your expenses will be covered,” Lockhart assured him, “by the British government.”
Arthur did as he was told.
In the end, he had borrowed a flag from one of the British cruisers imprisoned by the frozen waters of the Neva, and had made the fruitless journey to Vologda. He had learned one thing from the trip, though, one very important thing. While there, muddled news from the peace talks with Germany led Moscow to think that a German invasion was imminent. Lenin of all people had telegraphed to Arthur and his traveling companions to let them know the news, so they might take whatever action they saw fit. For the foreigners, this meant running for home. Arthur read the telegram with disbelief, not at what Lenin had to say, but at an extra message tacked on the end, addressed purely to him.
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