The Starlings of Bucharest

by Sarah Armstrong

  I looked at it and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. I cleared my throat. ‘There’s some mistake. It was all paid in advance through Inturist.’

  ‘No. It needs to be paid before you leave.’

  My heart was beating fast. ‘It was paid in London at the Inturist bureau. All in advance. Look.’ I took the meal vouchers from my pocket and saw how my hands shook. ‘I got vouchers for my meals. I wanted a refund because it’s paid.’

  She took the vouchers from me and flicked through them. ‘Unfortunately, we had a report that a guest had meal vouchers stolen while in the hotel.’ She opened a drawer and dropped them in. ‘How would you like to pay?’

  ‘This is just a mistake.’ I tapped my leg. ‘I arrived on the 9th and was sent to the Inturist hotel next door, before they sent me here. The paperwork must still be with them.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Can you ask them?’

  She flicked her fingers. ‘I asked. They don’t have it. What proof do you have?’

  None. I had no proof. Suzanne had paid. I just had the tickets, the itinerary, the visa. None of was in the form of a receipt. I had nothing else.

  ‘You will have to telephone my office in London. They dealt with the payment.’

  ‘And they can confirm that you have to leave early?’

  ‘No, they can’t confirm that. They can confirm the receipt details.’

  She stood up to dismiss me. ‘I will see what I can do. Come back at noon.’

  ‘Can I have the vouchers back?’

  ‘No. There will be an investigation. Come back at noon.’

  When I stood up I felt dizzy, holding onto furniture on my way from the office. I was probably going to miss the river cruise, but not eating was more of a problem. I wondered whether I should pack now before they stopped me returning to my room, but felt some fresh air was urgent.

  I stumbled as I passed the doorman, and stood on the pavement while streams of grey people passed me. I walked through the underpass and headed for Alexandrovsky Gardens. I was going to lose my job, that was almost certain, but I didn’t want to end up in some kind of Russian debtors’ prison first. If they couldn’t sort it out I would have to swallow my pride and involve the embassy. I didn’t look forward to seeing Christopher’s smug face when I begged him for help.

  People around me, people who belonged here, sat on the benches and read, or walked through the gardens. The Kremlin’s high wall reassured them all that the whole state was behind them, or it would reassure me if I lived here. All I had was the embassy, an enclave of public schoolboys across the river who made assumptions and sweeping apologies which meant nothing.

  I had time to walk around, but I just sat in the sunshine, arms crossed to stop the shaking, and watched people. Men walked purposefully with copies of Pravda, or in groups more slowly, their wide trousers looking like nothing like flares. An occasional woman in a bright summer dress was outnumbered by older women in dark blouses and stiff skirts.

  Across the road I saw Christopher hurrying towards the Natsional and calmly thought, he’s going to sort out this mess for me. The least he could do. Strangely, I felt at the absolute heart of Moscow in that moment. People paraded for me to watch them, the embassy sent its most annoying man to fire-fight while the sun shone only on me.

  And yet, I had no faith that I was ever going to get home again.

  I waited in the Inturist office for Sasha to return. I had been wrong about Christopher. He wasn’t here sorting it all out. How would he have known if I didn’t tell him?

  I sat, head in my hands, the noise of the hotel continuing around me. Americans, Vietnamese, Italians all carrying on their holiday or business. I heard high heeled shoes and heavy boots on the hard floor.

  ‘Mr Walker.’ Sasha was back. ‘We have telephoned your office in London, but there is no answer.’

  ‘That can’t be the right number, then. Someone has to be there. Can I try?’

  ‘No. You say that you cannot pay for the room and tour you have already had, so I don’t think you can pay for a telephone call also.’

  I sat back. ‘So, what happens now?’

  ‘You will be taken to the Lubyanka until this is resolved.’

  There was the sound of heavy boots again on marble. I turned to see two police officers behind me, both staring straight ahead.

  ‘Sasha, please, this is just a mistake. It will all be sorted out.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Mr Walker.’

  One officer put a hand under my armpit to force me to stand. The other gripped my upper arm and we started walking to the entrance.

  ‘Sasha, please keep calling London. And phone the embassy for me, please.’

  ‘Very good, Mr Walker.’

  We were in the lobby. Guests stared and staff didn’t look at all. The doorman touched his cap as we exited the doors, as if we were off to the Bolshoi.

  The first officer said something in Russian and I shrugged my shoulders. He pulled me to the left and I could see the black car waiting for us, one man at the wheel and another holding the door open. Four policemen to escort me to the Lubyanka. I was being taken to a cell in the KGB headquarters. I felt laughter bubbling with the utter disbelief in my stomach. I should have finished Darkness at Noon. Did he escape at the end? Maybe someone would take a photo for the British newspapers, so they would know what had happened to me. At least I didn’t have handcuffs on.

  ‘Ted?’

  Oh, not Ursula, I thought, I don’t want her to see this, but it was Eva, looking bewildered.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘There’s some problem with my pre-paid hotel, so I’m being taken to the Lubyanka.’ It was as normal as I could make it sound, but for some reason I was starting to find it hilarious and I couldn’t stop smiling. ‘I’m sure the embassy will sort it out. They are going to inform them for me.’

  She didn’t bother talking with me after that. She questioned the two officers either side of me. The second one, who still held my arm, let up a little, and they both exchanged what sounded like angry words with Eva. She looked at them, eyes flashing, and I began to think of her as my hero. Then the first officer pushed me into the car, and they sat either side of me. She had failed, I thought, but then she got in the front passenger seat. The car sped off, leaving the fourth officer on the pavement.

  It wasn’t a long journey. As we passed the Metropol I felt sad that I wouldn’t go back there, and then we were at the Lubyanka but not going in one of the front doors. The car drove around and parked at the back, at the large door with a guard on either side. Like Lenin’s tomb. I started to shake as I was pushed from the car but, joyously, I saw that Eva was coming in too.

  ‘Won’t you get in trouble?’ I asked her.

  ‘No, don’t worry. We are all equal in the Soviet Union, and I am as important as anyone in this building.’

  I hoped she was right.

  She argued up the stairs, she argued in the waiting room where I had been placed on a wooden chair. I just watched her, seeing the dark blue shapes of the policemen come and go around her. Finally she came back to me. Her hair was starting to escape from its bun, and her cheeks were flushed with rage or excitement.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The politsiya have agreed to release you into my custody while this is resolved.’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’

  She looked confused. ‘They say you can stay with me for now. As a guest.’

  ‘Aren’t the embassy sending anyone?’

  She looked around. ‘It doesn’t seem so, no. You’re welcome to wait for them, if that’s what you’d prefer. You’ll have to go in a cell until they turn up. I couldn’t say how long that would be.’

  I didn’t want to go in a cell. All I had was Eva. I stood up and looked at the remaining officer in the waiting room. He looked at me with an odd expression. For a second it was almost pity, but for whom, himself or me, I
didn’t know, and then his face was blank again and he turned away.

  Eva was waiting for me in the doorway. I followed her down the stairs, and back out to the same car which only had the driver now.

  She said, ‘Kursky vokzal.’

  ‘I’m not sure that this is a good idea for you,’ I said.

  She patted my knee. We pulled up at a train station where she sat me in the buffet with a coffee and went off to get tickets. I hadn’t finished when she called me over to catch the train. She got on but I hesitated.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going to take the train to Saltykovskaya, to my dacha. It’s like a summer house. Very simple, but it will be good for you to get out of Moscow for a while. You don’t look well, Ted.’

  I was sure I didn’t look good. I barely knew my name. She held her hand out. I took it and stepped on the train.

  ‘That’s right. We’ll work it out. Don’t worry. They are going to send your things on, but it will only be for a day or two.’

  I nodded. ‘Eva, I don’t have any money to pay for this. I can’t even afford the ticket for the train.’

  ‘You are a guest, and in Russia the guest is honoured. Please relax. It won’t take long to get there. Half an hour, that’s all.’

  I watched her face as the train pulled away. She was happy. I hoped she would stay that way.

  CHAPTER 31

  I didn’t relax on the journey, half expecting to be pulled off the train by soldiers and beaten, like in a film about the Second World War. It was strange how suddenly the grey buildings of the outskirts ended and became forests and villages until I remembered that I had experienced exactly the reverse on the way in. We arrived in Saltykovskaya and I followed Eva onto the open, concrete platform.

  ‘This way,’ she said. I looked around. There was a stall with some vegetables, some structures that I hoped were sheds and not dachas, and a few old women in black, their heads covered with muted scarves.

  We walked along a road, going south, I thought, and I reached into my pocket for my cigarettes.

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My duty-free cigarettes. I left them in the room with all my clothes, and notes, everything.’

  ‘How many cigarettes do you have left?’

  ‘Three.’

  She checked her watch. ‘They will bring all of your things here by four o’clock. Can you pace yourself till then?’

  ‘Yes. They’re going to bring my things? The KGB?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘More like under investigation. But you paid for the hotel, didn’t you? So, you’ll be fine.’

  She carried on walking. There were a few houses as we walked, and lots of trees. I assumed they were ‘houses’, but many were one-storey barns with rotten roofs and some were made from sheets of corrugated iron. A summer house in England would just be a fancy shed in the garden, not somewhere you could sleep.

  We walked on. The sun was shining and I wasn’t in prison. Small mercies.

  After twenty minutes we arrived at a much busier road and had to wait to cross it. Lorries thundered by and a bus.

  Eva looked at me. ‘I prefer the train, but there are buses into the city from here, too. It’s well connected.’

  If you had money, yes.

  We managed to cross over to a small shop at the side of the road, and Eva told me to wait outside. I turned my face from the dust spun up by wheels and tried to control my breathing. Eva came back out and we walked west for another five minutes before she stopped and dug around in her pocket for the keys to a huge pair of gates. She pushed them both open, wide enough so that a car could drive through, and gestured to the house. And it was a house. Two storeys, wooden and it didn’t look like it was crumbling away. It even had curtains.

  ‘Look round the back,’ she said.

  I passed the house and, through the trees, I could see a lake.

  ‘It’s called Silver Pond,’ she said.

  ‘It’s big for a pond, isn’t it?’

  ‘When we say “lake”, we mean somewhere like Lake Baikal. That’s nearly four hundred miles long. This is a baby, so it’s a pond.’

  ‘If you had somewhere like this, why would anyone live in Moscow?’

  Eva laughed and swept green leaves from a pair of wooden chairs, a small table between them.

  ‘It must have been windy the last couple of days,’ she said. ‘I can grow my dahlias, gladioli and marigolds, but in the winter it gets very cold. And winter starts in September and doesn’t end until May. So, we make the most of our summer. Lots of people commute from their dachas in the summer, some just come out at the weekend. My vegetable patch is over there,’ she pointed. ‘The people who run the shop look after it during the week. It’s good to grow your own food.’

  I stretched my legs out. ‘It feels like an entirely different place. A different country.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

  It was almost unnaturally peaceful here, with just the rumble of traffic on the other side of the house. Birds flew in and out of the birch trees which framed the garden down to the water. Bees dipped into groups of flowers that were embedded into long grass. I didn’t think I’d seen a bee in the city, but I supposed there must have been some. There were fruit trees near the house. I saw apples on one, and thought that the other was cherry. I could have been in England, I thought, and shivered as a cloud passed the sun.

  Eva brought a teapot and tea-cups on a tray. I was in England.

  ‘How long do you think it will take to sort everything out?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, not long.’

  ‘Am I under house arrest?’

  She laughed. ‘No! You haven’t got any money to go anywhere else, though, do you?’

  ‘No. That must be why they let me leave.’

  She passed across a pair of scissors with one of those strange pyramids of milk I’d seen in the Beriozka brochure.

  ‘I always spill it everywhere,’ she said.

  ‘Did you just get this from the shop?’ I said as I struggled to hold it steady and cut it cleanly.

  ‘Yes. I told them to bring round my friend’s dog as well. You remember, the one I was looking after? She’s been staying there while I’m at work.’

  I tried to relax. That massive dog. The carton opened and I poured it into a small jug on the tray before adding some to both tea-cups.

  ‘It that all right? About the dog?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re not scared?’

  ‘No.’ The dog would know, dogs can smell it, but Eva didn’t need to know.

  We sat silently for a while. I glanced at her now and then, but her face didn’t reveal anything.

  ‘Aren’t you expected at work?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve gone through most of the English translations with the official group,’ she said, ‘and it’s Friday. I never start any new work on a Friday.’

  ‘So you won’t be going back to the festival at all?’

  She looked at me slyly from the corner of her eye. ‘Are you worried that no one will know where you are?’

  Yes. ‘Not exactly.’ Yes. ‘It’s just Ursula. She’s already had Alan disappear, and now I’ve gone.’

  She turned to me. ‘What did happen to Alan?’

  ‘Oh, a stomach ulcer. Peritonitis.’

  She laughed quietly. ‘And I’ll bet the British Embassy thought it was a poisoning or some such nonsense.’

  ‘They did. They accused me of doing it.’

  She looked genuinely surprised, her mouth open, but her eyes were still smiling. ‘You?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You see, Ted, that is the problem with the upper classes. They believe their education was so perfect that they can’t possibly jump to the wrong conclusions. And they wouldn’t dream of blaming someone of their own class.’ She smiled. ‘Peritonitis. That’s painful. Poor Alan.’

 
What could she tell about me from my voice? She clearly still had a good ear for accents.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘All over. My parents were great travellers and we never settled in one place for long.’

  ‘But you lived in Britain, somewhere?’

  ‘Somewhere.’

  She was smiling, enjoying the evasion.

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘I just followed my heart.’

  ‘How long have you been in Moscow, Eva?’

  ‘Oh, a lifetime.’

  ‘How long is a lifetime?’

  She assessed me before saying anything. ‘What answer would make you feel comfortable?’

  I thought about it. ‘More than five years, less than twenty.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It just wouldn’t make sense to be so at home here if it was less than that, and you’ve kept too much knowledge of Britain and Britishness. Unless you are studying it. For work.’

  ‘You’re a bright boy, Ted. I don’t think you’ve been allowed a chance to really stretch that brain of yours.’ She pushed herself up and beckoned me. ‘Come and have a look at my pond.’

  We walked towards the water and I had the strangest feeling, as if she was going to push me in, but the edge of the water sloped up like a beach here. Somewhere you could beach a boat. The sun shone bright on the gentle waves and I squinted. The lake stretched so far that the houses on the other side looked tiny, and I saw little wooden docks with miniature rowing boats. It felt like money.

  ‘How do people get one of these places?’

  ‘As recognition for their work. And we really do value hard work in every area here. It’s not just the kind of job which has status in Britain. Over there, there is a bus driver. There, a teacher. There, a journalist.’ I couldn’t see what she was pointing at.

  There was an odd tone to her voice now.

  ‘In the Soviet Union it’s all about what you achieve, not what you are born with.’ She turned. ‘Oh, Vorona, you’re here.’ That massive black dog was standing behind us. She stroked the dog’s muzzle and lifted a hand to a man standing up by the house who must have brought it over. He left without doing the same.