Making Enemies

by Francis Bennett

  ‘And people died,’ she says.

  ‘Building a nuclear bomb is a dangerous business.’

  I had nothing to do with it, he’s saying. Andropov the Innocent?

  ‘How could anyone justify the destruction of even a corner of the laboratory? What possible purpose could that serve?’

  He puts his head in his hands. It is the first sign of weakness he has ever shown her. Is he at the limit of his strength, or is he simply acting remorseful to impress her?

  ‘In order to conceal their own inability to deal with the problem at the Institute, the political authorities put out a rumour that your resistance was crumbling. I assured my superiors that there was no danger of your protest collapsing. For their own reasons, they chose to ignore me and put their faith in the political commissars. Some form of action, they argued, was needed to revive your flagging morale. They wanted concrete evidence of the volatile nature of the process of making nuclear bombs. They wanted proof of how dangerous it was, proof that was undeniable. They devised the idea that an explosion in the laboratory would strengthen your opposition to the development of the bomb.’

  ‘Why?’ She is incredulous.

  ‘The damage would illustrate how precarious this process is.’

  Still she is mystified. ‘You created the Institute’s opposition to the bomb,’ she says. ‘You wrote the script and you have won the argument. We are your creatures. We have done as you instructed. How could you let such a thing happen?’

  ‘We are not alone in this. Others, interests are involved. We are both part of something larger.’

  It is out of my control, that is what he is saying. Is he warning her too? Krasov was right. If Andropov is involved with others, then so is she. Now she knows how her name appeared on papers Krasov has read.

  ‘Part of what?’

  ‘Even if I knew I would not tell you that.’

  ‘But you allow yourself to be manipulated by these people you won’t name.’

  ‘We are only manipulated if we are forced to do something we don’t believe in. That’s the question I asked you. For weeks now I have fed you a script which argues that to build nuclear weapons without secure international safeguards for their control is wrong. That is the basis of your opposition. Have we been successful because you did as you were told? Or do you actually believe in the arguments you professed were your own?’

  She knows she is no longer the naive woman who stood up in the lecture theatre (how many weeks ago? It seems like another life) and quoted statistics she had learned off by heart. Andropov still gives her the script but the voice is no longer his alone. The words he has given her have opened her eyes and the arguments have convinced her. That and the terrible experience amid the destruction at D4, where that night statistics became truth and the truth overwhelmed her, all that has given her an authority and a certainty she has never possessed before.

  ‘Is what we are doing right?’ he asks again.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ she says urgently.

  She prefers Andropov without doubts, the man who only gives her certainties, who questions nothing. It is easier to deal with conviction.

  ‘You believe in it?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There is a price we cannot afford to pay.’

  ‘What is that?’

  She is drawn in now, there is no going back. She justifies her reply by telling herself that this might be the only opportunity she will ever have to discover the nature of the man in whose power she finds herself.

  ‘The destruction of everything we have worked so hard for.’ Still she does not understand. He sees her questioning gaze, her frown. She does not know what he is working for. ‘The creation of a new society.’

  ‘You believe in that?’ she asks. She is surprised at his innocence.

  ‘A new order, a new civilization, yes. My father sacrificed himself for it when I was young. He was a Hero of the Soviet Union. I would do the same. I have always believed that we must strive for a new way of life. That is why what we are doing is so important.’

  Andropov the Patriot. More than that. Andropov the Guardian of the Flame of Righteousness.

  ‘The problem is, we have lost our way on the path to the new world. The ultimate victory of the people will not be possible until we have found again the roots of belief that inspired our fathers to break with the past and begin this giant social experiment.’

  He lights another cigarette. The world outside the apartment has vanished. There is no one alive except her and Andropov and these confessions.

  ‘Didn’t you have dreams when you were young?’ he asks. ‘Didn’t you believe in the possibility of changing the world? Don’t you still?’

  Andropov the Idealist.

  Has she ever believed in anything? The selfishness of youth blinded her to the privileges brought by her father’s position in the Party. Didn’t everyone live like that? Then she fell in love. In the arms of an English scientist in a hotel bedroom in Leiden, she discovered how hollow the values were on which her life was dependent. On her return to Moscow she divided her self into real and apparent, and since then the real has been buried along with all her memories, her true feelings, and she has lived the false life of the apparent. Long ago love destroyed any possibility of her belief in Marxist ideology. No faith has replaced it, only a powerful instinct to survive.

  ‘I was neither believer nor unbeliever,’ says Ruth the Apparent. ‘I have never questioned anything. This is the life I know, the society to which I belong. As a scientist I am a part of the giant experiment. I never see myself in any other role.’

  ‘I was a Young Pioneer.’

  The first piece of autobiography. Andropov the Idealist, his emotional needs satisfied by the Party and its organizations, its philosophy, its pageants, its rituals, its supreme mastery of young hearts and minds that so cleverly conceal the vacuum within. She sees him, shirt off, body wet with effort, the young man in the posters of her youth, working on the land alongside its peasants, believing that every swing of the axe is another blow against the old world.

  When had the deception been discovered, his beliefs shattered? When had he lost his faith?

  ‘I never believed the stories about the privileged,’ he says. ‘I thought they were put about by our class enemies. I denied them fervently. We had created a society of equals where privilege no longer existed. That was why I joined the Party. We were all one.’

  ‘Then you discovered the stories were true,’ she says.

  He stares at her. Suddenly his blue-grey eyes no longer reflect her questions back at her; she can see through them, into his heart. The yearning for belief has not left him.

  ‘I wanted to be a scientist,’ he says. ‘That was my ambition. I came to Moscow to study. I fell in love with the daughter of a Party official.’

  ‘I was the daughter of a Party official.’ she says.

  ‘She took me to her home and I saw the corruption at the highest level. Everything I had denied was true.’

  Andropov the Betrayed. The loss of faith. That was it, the admission she has fought so hard for. But now she has it, what can she do with it?

  ‘Was it so very terrible?’ she asks, thinking of the life her father’s position had provided, the larger apartment, the dacha in the country, the plentiful supplies of food, the official cars. Was that corruption or just reward?

  ‘To discover your belief is hollow? To possess something of value on which your whole life is based, only to have it taken away from you, to end up with less than before? Can you imagine the emptiness?’

  Andropov the man who lost his ideals. Why has she never had ideals herself? Is there something deficient in her life, in the narrowness of its focus – her work, her mother, her son?

  ‘I had nothing else in my life. When my faith was stolen, a terrible wrong was committed.’

  She sees then who he is, she sees with a piercing clarity the twisted purpose behind everything that Andropov is doing. He is Andro
pov the Puritan, his self-appointed task to be the watchdog of the Party’s ideals, to use whatever power he has to rekindle the flame of purity that had once burned so fiercely within him. He is yearning for certainties; he is ready to be consumed by a fire greater than himself. How easily he can be used by those with darker purposes, who exploit the emptiness within him. He has become their creature without knowing what is happening to him. Andropov the Fanatic.

  ‘My parents were peasants. They believed in the dream of true socialism. My mother died of starvation when our smallholding was absorbed into a collective farm. You see now what we are fighting against? How we must resist the corruption that surrounds us?’

  ‘We?’ she says weakly. Andropov smiles.

  ‘We are in this together now,’ he says. ‘We know too much about each other not to be comrades in arms.’

  His words make her shiver. He is warning her. Miskin was right. Her heart sinks.

  Andropov the Enemy. No, much more dangerous than that.

  Andropov the Ally.

  5

  DANNY

  Tony Meadows and I were looking through the early edition of the Evening Standard when Beryl put her head round my door.

  ‘Charlie’s been on the blower, Danny,’ she said. ‘He’s with Mr Watson-Jones’ (In all the time I knew her, Beryl never called him Simon.) ‘He wants you to drop everything and join them. Thomas will take you over. He’s waiting outside now.’

  Was it Charlie or Watson-Jones who didn’t want me leaning my bike against the railing outside the house in South Street?

  I sat in the back of the Rolls and tried to work out why I’d been summoned. Charlie never discussed his weekly meetings with Watson-Jones; we assumed the agenda was about political management, which was nothing to do with the day-to-day workings of Eccleston Street. One of the earliest lessons I learned was that Charlie liked to keep the compartments of his life separate. Manchester and London never met, nor did home and politics. Charlie had a wife, but we knew nothing about her and never met her. It would take a lot to make him break this particular habit.

  If Watson-Jones wanted my presence, there had to be a reason, however unpredictable he might be (Beryl’s phrase), or unmanageable (Charlie’s phrase, overheard once). That’s where I came unstuck. After years in the army I might know little about politics but I was beginning to know Watson-Jones. He did nothing without a reason though his motives were sometimes obscure. Perhaps he wanted me there to observe, to listen; perhaps he wanted to prepare me for something in the future. Throughout the short journey I could not get rid of the uneasy feeling that he wanted something I would be reluctant to give. By the time I reached South Street I was on my guard.

  Meredith answered the door. ‘They’re waiting for you, Danny.’

  She looked pale and thinner than when I had last seen her. But her smile was as broad as I remembered it, and her welcome as warm. I would have preferred to have spent the afternoon talking to her than sitting in the study listening to her husband.

  ‘Go on in. I’ll bring some tea before long.’

  I knocked on the study door and went in.

  ‘Danny. Good of you to come. Sit yourself down. Charlie here and I were having a talk. We thought you could help us.’

  I looked at Charlie. He didn’t seem too pleased but his expression gave little away. I was sure it had not been his idea to summon me to South Street and he’d rather I wasn’t there.

  ‘We’re reviewing progress, Danny. Prudent after nearly three months of operation, don’t you think? How we’re doing, where we’re going, that sort of thing. Yes?’

  I nodded my approval as I was expected to do. It allowed Watson-Jones time for one of his pauses.

  ‘We’ve been looking at the newsletter.’ Copies were spread all over the dining-room table. ‘I was saying to Charlie here, jolly good, off to a strong start, well done to you and the boys. Well done.’

  I knew the Watson-Jones style by now. Start with praise, soften up the resistance, get your opponent’s eye off the ball (there were only friends or enemies in Simon’s world and sometimes they changed sides with breathtaking speed), then go in with the big stick when they’re least expecting it. I tensed myself for the blow. When it came it wasn’t from any direction I’d expected.

  ‘One observation though.’ He had stationed himself at the table, arms outstretched, head thrust forward, surveying the newsletters as if he was searching for a typographical error. ‘I’m not seeing enough anti-Soviet material. Nowhere near enough. We’re letting the Reds off the hook. That’s bad, Charlie. This isn’t the time to go soft on the Soviets.’

  That was it. He wanted me to hear his criticism of Charlie. He was sure Charlie would filter his objections when he reported the meeting to me. I was there to witness the full strength of his displeasure.

  ‘That’s a bit hard, Simon,’ Charlie said. I was surprised at the lack of edge to his response.

  ‘They’re the enemy, Charlie. Bad, evil people.’ He had come back into the centre of the room now and was standing in front of Charlie and myself. ‘We’ve got to kick them where it hurts. That’s what we’re after, isn’t it? Getting back at the bastards. You agree with that, don’t you, Danny?’

  This was the first crack in the relationship between Charlie Faulkner and Watson-Jones since I’d started working with them. Watson-Jones wasn’t interested in my opinion. What he wanted was me as his man in the office, someone to keep Charlie up to the mark. I was being asked quite openly to change sides. I was surprised Watson-Jones imagined I would.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong. Lots of good stuff here,’ he said, not waiting for me to reply. ‘The economy. Beveridge. Education.’ He gestured towards the table. ‘Solid issues, all of them. But think back to the early days, Charlie. Remember what excited us then? We wanted to tell the truth about the Soviets. That’s what I’m after, Charlie. Red lights for danger. I’m looking for the signs but I’m not seeing any.’

  In a way I wasn’t surprised at his criticism. Charlie had sold the venture to me because he’d agreed with my warnings about the Russians. Apart from Monty, Watson-Jones and Charlie Faulkner were the only people to take seriously the view I’d come to adopt in Berlin. Initially, when I started at Eccleston Street, I had been disappointed that the Soviet Union had featured so little in what we were doing. I hadn’t thought it right then, certainly not while I was learning the ropes, to raise my concerns. Now it seemed Simon had got there before me. I had a sneaking suspicion he was right. The newsletter was soft on the Soviets. We could have hit much harder. But I wasn’t here to show my disloyalty to Charlie. This wasn’t going to be an easy meeting.

  ‘While we were off fighting the Nazis,’ Watson-Jones said, getting into his stride, his voice rising with feeling, ‘The communists were slipping their people in here, not just the trades unions, left-wing groups, that’s old hat, but the upper echelons, the universities, the civil service, our intelligence services, the army, the police force.’

  ‘That’s propaganda, Simon. You’ve got no reliable evidence to support that view.’

  ‘Soviet sympathizers are littered throughout this damned socialist country. That’s the point. The danger’s here, now, all around us, everywhere. We’re no longer safe in our own beds. The bastards are taking over.’

  It was an extraordinary assertion, one I assumed Charlie would reject. To my surprise he didn’t. His reply was defensive.

  ‘We can’t invent news for the sake of it,’ Charlie said stiffly.

  ‘I know it’s hard, Charlie, and you’ve done a great job, you and the boys.’ His words were silky, disingenuous. He was leading Charlie somewhere, I couldn’t tell where but I sensed it was dangerous. ‘The dangers we saw haven’t gone away, they’ve got worse, much worse. We’ve got to wake up the world, Charlie. That’s our mission. Alert them to the true nature of the Soviet beast. The enemy banging his rifle butt on the door is threatening enough. But some of them have slipped through the crack, and that’s wo
rse. If we close our eyes to what’s happening, we’re guilty of helping the enemy’s cause.’

  If there was to be an explosion, this was the moment. Watson-Jones’s challenge was aimed at the heart of Charlie’s decency. He was asking him to be someone he wasn’t. I couldn’t understand Simon’s purpose. Charlie wasn’t a man to be pushed around in this way, which is why Simon had wanted him to run Eccleston Street in the first place. How could Simon imagine Charlie would cave in and agree to something he already knew he’d never do?

  ‘What do you suggest?’ The voice was ice-cold, the body perfectly still, the eyes looked up from the wheelchair directly at Simon. The challenge was returned.

  ‘Dig deeper, Charlie. Look harder.’

  ‘Dig where?’

  I could see Charlie was going to express his displeasure at being rapped over the knuckles in my presence by making Watson-Jones spell out every inch of the way he wanted us to go. But he wasn’t about to lose his temper. I admired his self-restraint and wondered if it was the right tactic.

  ‘The country is spilling over with spies, subversives, sympathizers, men and women who, if Stalin knocked at the door, would ask him in for a cup of tea, and nobody’s doing anything about it. We need names, dates, facts, unarguable evidence.’

  ‘We’re publishing a political newsletter, Simon, not an investigative broadsheet.’

  ‘I want to see the flag flown, Charlie. I want the world to know our newsletter is patriotic, what we write is for the good of the country. I want every sentence to declare unequivocally where we stand on the Soviet issue.’

  (‘The man’s mad,’ Charlie said to me on the way back to Eccleston Street. ‘Obsessed. He’s lost all sense of proportion.’ Somehow he didn’t sound very confident about it.)

  ‘Don’t nudge the reader in the ribs, Charlie. Shove a pointed instrument up him till he bleeds. Look at this, our headlines should shout. Look at that. Look at the truth.’ He paused a moment to draw breath, then went on. ‘We’ve got to shock him out of his complacency. Make sure he sees the Soviets are here, standing in the bus queue beside us, not somewhere out of sight across the sea. We’ve got to bring our people to their senses. Get the urgency of our message across.’