by W. T. Tyler
An army truck rattled along the silent street below, and Federov looked down from the roof’s edge. The truck hurtled on. The curb opposite the entrance was deserted, the policeman gone. Had he been frightened away or withdrawn?
“Probably we’d better go down,” he suggested.
“There may be some news,” Klimov agreed.
But Federov remained at the roof’s edge, binoculars lifted again, this time in the direction of the old Belgian residential section along the river where most of the Western ambassadors had their residences.
Like the Cubans, they debased his beliefs. Through their hirelings in the local press, they accused him of fomenting sedition and subversion; yet if there were guns on the street this night, it was because the Western ambassadors had sanctioned them. A recent article in Le Matin had identified the Moscow Komsomol School as a “spy center” where KGB officers “like the current Soviet Ambassador” sent their “stooges” for training. There were such schools, but Federov sent no students there, and he wasn’t a KGB officer. He was a diplomat, despite what many of his colleagues believed. He saw the suspicion in their faces and heard it in their innuendoes: they saw him as a sour, evil little man, practicing deceit. Cruelty and ignorance he could ignore, but these lies enraged him, not merely because they were false, but because they were malignly perverse, denying all that gave meaning to his career. He was a silent witness to the truths that events disclosed, not their satanic mechanic.
Following the most recent article, he’d taken his complaint to the foreign ministry, where he was received by the buffoon who headed the Soviet desk. The diplomat had listened in amusement, muttered a few banalities, and promised to look into it. Federov knew he would hear nothing more. The same week he’d complained about the article to the British Ambassador over lunch at the British residence.
“Well, don’t take it personally, Georgy old boy,” Cecil had chided, laughing mischievously, “but between us, it’s perfectly clear what you’re after. Of course it is. You’d like your chaps where the Americans and Belgians are, your military lads doing what theirs are doing. I dare say you wouldn’t even mind your own chosen few on a local politburo, Moscow-style, sitting where the parliament sits, eh? But we all know that, Georgy. Good lord! Don’t be naive. You wouldn’t be doing your work if you didn’t want that now, would you? And quite obviously, we wouldn’t be doing ours if we weren’t on to you. No bad faith, you see. It’s what keeps the match in play, the teams on the pitch, precisely the sort of symmetry that holds our little diplomatic community intact—gives it equilibrium and a dash of élan too, I’ll wager. I certainly wouldn’t fret about it. More lemon?”
Federov had been too stunned to reply. Until that moment he hadn’t guessed how his oldest friend in the diplomatic community viewed him. They’d served together in Tanzania, and he’d had earlier intimations of his English colleague’s eccentricities, but none so conclusive as those words uttered at lunch.
The afternoon of the luncheon, Federov had arrived at the British residence thirty minutes early through his secretary’s error in his appointment book. He was ushered into the rear garden to find his lanky colleague sprawled in the poolside sun, eyes closed, his collar undone, an aluminum contraption fitted to his neck, like a reflecting shade, to focus the sun’s rays against his face.
It was so childish an apparatus that Federov was immediately embarrassed, but Cecil had shown no mortification in the Russian’s discovery. He’d merely moved his feet from the cushions, unbuckled the sun mirror, adjusted the tie, and pulled on his coat. “Hullo there, Georgy. A reception this evening. Swedes, isn’t it? I thought I’d better look fit. Didn’t get my day on the river yesterday. Absolute sun addicts, those Swedes. Have you noticed?”
At Dar es Salaam, Cecil had been admired as a skilled sailor, the same reputation he’d won locally navigating his small craft on the crocodile-infested river; but until that moment, Federov had never divined its purpose. He was just a nautical sunbather, a diplomatic nincompoop, like many of the others, attributing to him hysterical, self-defeating ambitions which were as irresponsible as Khrushchev’s had once been. Although Moscow had once had reckless ambitions for the nation, that was no longer true. Times had changed. His diplomatic colleagues from the West were years behind.
The country was a vast one, too vast. Like Russia a hundred years earlier, it was a ramshackle agglomeration of tongues and nationalities that had little sense of a collective identity. Only a strong, repressive government of vast resources could keep this abstraction they called a nation intact. By definition, its government would be a tyrannical one. But Moscow’s resources were limited. Its meager financial aid was sent elsewhere in Africa, its political and military help to those clandestine guerrilla groups in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, where revolutionary cadres were being forged on the anvil under the iron hammer of Portuguese rule. In independent Africa, where nominal independence had come, political cadres would require more time to mature; historical truths, like the repression of neo-colonialism, would be slower to reveal themselves.
Federov was aware of all this as a result of his experiences in Tanzania. Six months after his arrival in this capital, he rewrote the embassy’s “secret” country plan and pouched it to Moscow with a five-page dispatch explaining his recommendations.
He made a simple point. He argued that if repression and brutality were required to keep this ramshackle nation intact, as he believed they were, then it better served Moscow’s longer-term interests if that repression continued to be a Western-supported one.
It would be extremely foolish, he warned, for Moscow to encourage premature revolutionary activities, as the Cubans were now doing from Brazzaville, if as a result of their “success,” Moscow would be required to assume the enormous financial burden now shouldered by the West. But even more costly, he continued, would be that burden of hatred which would inevitably be directed against any foreign patron that supported a regime that could only rule by oppression.
Federov argued that only when the political energies of the country were more mature—and a tyrannical Western-supported regime would speed the maturing process—would there be a greater role for the Soviet Union. He recommended imposing immediate restraints on Cuban mischief-making from Brazzaville.
Moscow agreed. Enormous demands were being made of Soviet economic, military and political resources in Southeast Asia and the Middle East at the time, and whether agreement was given out of expediency or because of the logic of Federov’s argument, he wasn’t sure. It was more likely that no one in the foreign ministry or the Politburo was giving any attention to the problem in any case; and for the Politburo to be told that a policy of indifference and neglect was, in fact, an imaginative and creative one would be the quickest way to obtain its endorsement. The Cuban protocol, imposed by Moscow on Havana, was the immediate result.
Whatever Moscow’s reasons, for Federov the logic was so simple and so self-evident that he could never understand why his Western colleagues hadn’t divined it themselves as a clue to Soviet policy in the region. Once the policy was imposed, he was grateful they hadn’t.
Klimov had doubts: “A man has to be active,” he’d said ruefully. “You’ll grow restless, like me. You locked yourself away in that dusty little closet you call an office to think deep thoughts, a new country plan, and a week later you tell me a brilliant idea has come to you—to lock everyone away in the embassy too, like you, and send the key to Moscow. What kind of idea is that? In a few months you’ll be pacing the floor, talking to the walls. Then you’ll send another message to Moscow, just four words: ‘Send me the key.’”
“Moscow has a short memory. They’ll send back just two words: ‘What key?’”
They crossed the roof and went down the stairwell. Markov met them in the downstairs hall, sent by the code clerk to fetch Klimov. He was tall and slim, his English that of an American, his French and German as good. The light fawn-colored suit was French, like the sh
irt; his cigarettes English Dunhills. In the canteen, he listened to American and English records. His father was a senior foreign ministry official, but the son was a changeling, switching paternity in the wink of an eye—now French, now German, now American. Like Markov’s father, Federov was only a Russian; he’d never pretended to be anything else.
“Was it burning?” Markov asked.
“No,” Federov replied, returning the binoculars to Klimov.
“What did you expect?” Klimov asked.
“Merde!” swore Markov.
Federov was annoyed. Perhaps it wasn’t just pretense, these French affectations. Maybe involuntary, like the chemistry of the chameleons in the rear garden. What sort of world would that be?—hypocrisy become a reflex, a mutation fixed in a younger generation that had lived so long without revolution they couldn’t recognize one when they saw it.
“What are our European friends doing?” Klimov asked.
Markov had been monitoring the emergency networks, not because this was his responsibility but because he was a born eavesdropper. How else could you explain his changeling’s tongue?
“The American, Bondurant, is at his residence,” Markov informed them. “He hasn’t left.”
“Sleeping, I suppose,” Federov muttered disagreeably. He wasn’t surprised that Markov was following the American emergency network. “I don’t blame Bondurant,” he called back over his shoulder on his way to his small office. “Not like us. If I knew as much as he knows, probably I’d be sleeping too.”
Chapter Fourteen
“It’s certainly reassuring to know your chaps have their hands firmly on the tiller,” Cecil observed, paddling himself about the pool in his wife’s flotation jig, an ample rubber armchair with pneumatic seat, pneumatic arms, and even a small Styrofoam tray to one side, convenient for a glass, snacks, or a cigarette pack. “I must say it makes it much easier for the rest of us, but it does get damned tedious occasionally. Tiresome too. And so deadly serious about it, you see—”
A helicopter sped over the treetops, lights blinking, and Miss Browning’s eyes lifted from where she sat on the edge of the pool, brown as a seal, her body shining with water, her bathing suit loose on her body.
“I shouldn’t worry about that,” Cecil continued drunkenly, “probably gone after Bondurant. Lifting him off to the President, I’d wager, for some midnight pow-wow.”
“Things are certainly quieter.”
“I would say confusion is usually in the mind. Dreadful racket it’s making. I don’t suppose they can see me, do you? All that noise—”
The helicopter disappeared.
“The pity of it,” Cecil continued, paddling again, “is that it’s just too bloody serious. I shouldn’t be surprised if in ten years or so your diplomats didn’t all look like the Russians, all baggy suits and bushy eyebrows, grim as old Georgy himself, gray peas in a pod. Do you know him?”
“Who?” she asked innocently.
“Georgy. Federov. It takes all the fun out of it, you see. I wouldn’t want that. Good lord, no. Takes all the individuality away. Makes you much too tedious, too. No doubt about that. I knew at six it would all blow away. I have a keen eye for that sort of thing, like those buggers out there in the road. The bloody idiots are lost, you see. Sorry. Would you like a go at it?” He paddled toward her. As his voice stopped, his drunkenness came on again, releasing him dizzily in the pool. “Shall I show you how it works? Hideous color, isn’t it? My wife bought it. She smokes, you see. Reads here, out in the sun. On the terrace there, she seems to attract gnats. So she reads in the pool. Quite fancies it. Shall I show you? You mount it as you would a skittish elephant in the Indian circus.”
He slid out and stood waist deep in the water. He tried to climb into the seat, but failed and turned over in the pool. He gave up and dragged it after him toward the shallow end where Miss Browning sat.
“Do you want to have a go at it?”
“I’m sure I’d drown.”
“I’m not very keen on it either, to tell you the truth.” He climbed out, up the steps. “What’s the radio saying?” The water had helped keep him erect, but now he tottered across the walk like an invalid catapulted from a wheelchair, knees bent, crablike, and had difficulty finding the steps to the terrace. “Just sailed the Atlantic in a dinghy, have I?” He tried to stand erect. “What’s the gin look like?”
Miss Browning lifted the gin bottle from her side. “Half empty.”
Half empty? Good lord? It was true then. Scuppered in gin! He shouldn’t have looked, not from this beastly altitude. “Have to watch the next one, won’t we?” he called cheerfully. What in God’s name had she been filling his glass with—neat gin, no tonic, not even a twist of lemon? Her innocence was awesome. “Steer a straight course now.”
With grave wooden precision, he mounted the steps. The wireless wasn’t turned to the national station at all, but to Radio South Africa. Sy Baxter and his Sunday Sandmen were playing Stardust Melodies. A Miss Clapham from Bracken Farm, Kenya, had requested “Roses of Picardy.”
Overhead, the helicopter clattered back over the trees, blades rapping like sticks in a fan, bearing to the north, toward the river. He didn’t dare look up. For a giddy second he was sucked into its vortices, the earth whirling below. He reached for the table to steady himself. The radio was there, at his fingertips, but unable to focus his eyes on the minute calibrations of the panel, he couldn’t find the national station. “Roses of Picardy” was simpler to locate, its familiar melodic line bringing the world back into focus. It was probably raining in Piccadilly, umbrellas up, bright lights swarming on the wet pavement.
“Are you all right?” Miss Browning asked, joining him.
“Quite, oh yes. Marvelous, these old melodies, aren’t they? Bring back a whole forgotten world.”
“It’s pretty.”
“Don’t much fancy the orchestra, but I’m sure it pleases Miss Clapham.”
“Miss Clapham?”
“Oh yes, at Bracken Farm, a regular Sunday subscriber. Sitting in her cottage in the highlands now, I’ll wager, a few Rhodesian ridgebacks at her feet, still in jodhpurs, maybe her felt hat too, with the pheasant’s quill. Her gin has a slice of lemon. I’m afraid Miss Clapham is in for a shocking surprise, Miss Browning. Would you care to dance?”
“Dance? Here?”
“She won’t mind. I say you won’t mind now, will you, Miss Clapham?” He rattled the radio with his hand, voice lifted. The music continued. “Of course not.” He turned, ready for a fox trot, but Miss Browning was looking past his shoulder, frightened.
Two soldiers had entered the rear garden by the side gate and stood at poolside looking down into the bright lights. One pointed to the lights and then to the sky in the direction the helicopter had gone.
Cecil turned angrily. “Oh look here now, enough is enough. It’s one thing to block my gate, but it’s quite another to come crashing into my private residence like this.”
The corporal pointed at the pool lights and then at the sky, insisting that Cecil extinguish the pool and garden lights.
“Don’t be a bloody ass. Turn off the lights? Of course I won’t turn off the lights. Why should helicopters come here anyway, you silly man! If they did, they’d certainly see what ruddy asses you’ve been, how absolutely disgracefully you’ve behaved out there! Now be off, both of you.” He moved toward them, reeling, found the top step, missed the second, then the third and toppled like a stone into the flower beds.
Behind him, Miss Browning found the light switches, doused both the pool and garden lights, and fled into the kitchen. The two soldiers stood for a few minutes looking up at the sky, oblivious of a dazed Cecil, who was crawling forward miserably out of a gumbo of compost onto the poolside flagstones. Finally satisfied, they turned back around the house and went out through the gate.
A few minutes later, Miss Browning kneeled at Cecil’s side in the darkness, a damp towel at his head.
“More embarrassed
than stunned, I suppose. Silly thing. No blood is there? No, I think not. Haven’t gone incoherent, have I?” He lay on his back, delicately holding the towel to the side of his face, looking up at the stars. His uncle had fought in Flanders.
She helped him into the house and he limped down the corridor to the study, where he stretched out gratefully on the couch. “To be quite honest with you, I’m not sure whether it was the gin, the steps, or the shrubbery. I think it may have cleared my head. ‘Bloodied in battle.’ Is that what they say?”
Miss Browning kneeled at his side, knees on the rug. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Not in the slightest. Rather preposterous, the whole evening, but what’s one to do?” He was painfully conscious of her suntan lotion, an almost edible aroma that lifted from her brown neck and shoulders. “You shouldn’t squat there, my dear. Most uncomfortable for you.”
“I don’t think it’s preposterous at all.” Her breath touched his face.
“But it is, quite ridiculous.” He tried to sit up, but felt giddy quite suddenly and sank back weakly. “I should get out of these wet trunks. You too. That’s a lovely fragrance you’re wearing, by the way, quite lovely.” He heard an old man’s voice.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Oh, no, I assure you. Quite the contrary.” He was aware of the damnable heat on his face, water running off in all directions from his brow and cheeks. “You’re quite a lovely girl with a lovely figure and one doesn’t mind saying so, you see.”
“I do have a nice figure, I know, and I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Oh, no. Certainly not.”
“I don’t mind if others notice, so long as I want them to notice.”
“Of course not.”
“I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed.”
“Then that was rude of me, wasn’t it? Is that the phone ringing?” He lifted his head but heard nothing. “I think we should get out of these wet suits,” he suggested.
“I do too.” Elbows raised, she undid the knot at the back of her neck and let the bikini halter fall forward across her knees. She stood up and stepped out of her briefs.