Document Z

by Andrew Croome

  There was a man with a gun at the front of the house and a man with a gun at the back. He wanted a gun himself but they said the government could not do that.

  Kovalenok seemed alright. He’d shaken Petrov’s hand and said, ‘Don’t worry about this rubbish with the ambassadors. When you get back to Moscow, across the frontier, everything will be fine.’ Which Petrov understood to mean he was doomed.

  His first job in the safe house had been to fake his death. He had written the note fiercely:

  I have put an end to my life because in our environment the leaders, mainly, have proved themselves to be slanderers and liars who invented various stories in order to dishonour the life of honest people. The chief slanderers were Comrades Lifanov and Kovaliev who described me as an enemy of the Soviet people. Let them bathe in my blood. Let Mr Generalov, who confirmed this, also enjoy my blood. It is a pity our collective has cringers.It is a disgrace. Against the rules etc. Let them bathe in my blood and enjoy the fact that I am not among the living.

  Gilmour had taken it to Kings Cross to post and then they had given him five thousand pounds. He’d handed some over and tomorrow Gilmour was going to bring him some clothes. The rest was in the safe in the corner of this room and he had the key. Two thin bundles of notes.

  Saburov was reading aloud in Russian. Petrov was worried about the translator’s background: that he might have an attachment to the Russian Social Club. Howley had assured him he did not. He made out the word ‘Sudania’—the codeword for Australia. Saburov was reading Moscow’s letters. Probably they would trust the letters, come to believe in them more than in him. That was alright.

  On the table in front of the couch was a beer glass. He considered going to the fridge. His first act as a defector, a free man, had been to drink two beers in a hotel bar before walking to meet Howley. By that stage he had already signed the asylum request and handed across the documents. He’d snoozed in the ASIO flat in the Cahors building. He’d met Colonel Spry, the head of Security, who had impressed him: a soldier, a leader with a sense of humour and a directness that made him want to divulge everything he knew. Which, of course, he wouldn’t. He had settled on that already. He knew that to be useful, he needed to remain useful. So that afternoon, when the questioning had begun, he was helpful but also helped himself with specific failures. Errors of memory, pauses to think and correct himself, leaps backwards to change names or dates that in the conversation were an hour or two old. It was part of the process and they would learn that. Easy to confuse July ’52 with August ’53. Best to keep asking because the answers will change.

  He thought about Bialoguski and Dream Acres. Could he see the doctor again? He would have to be careful but he didn’t see why not. Give it time. Caution was important.

  He had told them he wanted Jack. He wanted Gilmour to send some agents to Lockyer Street to nab the dog in a car. The security men said no. If Jack disappeared, the embassy would know that their third secretary was alive. He supposed it made sense.

  He was talking plainly about Evdokia now. Telling them that she was an MVD operative with field experience and a long intelligence career. He was hinting that they should approach her directly. If they let her know what he had done, she would have little choice but to come across. He wasn’t afraid. He thought he could account for this path he had been forced to take. She would understand and she would forgive. He had thought it was possible to do this without her. Why, then, did he want her here?

  He sat up on the couch, listening, and then he stood and went to the window. Street lamps. Lamps on the sides of houses. A car was coming towards them. He watched the lights prime the nearby walls and roofs.

  He was certain the assassin would come from New Zealand, probably by a flying boat via Rose Bay. He had to believe in Howley. He would put his life in the man’s hands for now and a long time. If Howley said Saburov was alright, he was alright. If he said, do this, move now, he would.

  They were ready to interview him again first thing the next morning. In his imaginings, he’d thought the process would involve microphones in the walls, but the microphone was in front of him on the table. They gave him coffee and an ashtray.

  Howley said, ‘Why don’t you quickly go over your history once more?’

  He gave it again as he’d written it scrappily the day before. Larikha. Joining the Party. The navy. The cyphering training and the various stations he’d worked in, who his bosses had been, how he’d come to Australia, who in the embassy was MVD.

  They told him they’d put Kislitsyn under full-time surveillance. Howley was wearing a tiepin.

  Petrov asked, ‘What about my wife?’

  ‘She’s at home,’ Howley said.

  ‘You must talk to her. Convince her to defect.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘It’s important. She has information that might be very useful for you.’

  Gilmour put a brick of cigarettes on the table and they opened a box and began to smoke.

  Howley said, ‘Between 1945 and 1948, the Communist Party here had a group of External Affairs officers who were giving them official information—that right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How were they reporting it?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Copies of documents.’

  ‘They were handing over copies of documents?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Documents about Australian foreign policy?’

  ‘About many things. America. England.’

  ‘About atomic tests?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘But about other things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Policy papers?’

  ‘Position papers, yes.’

  ‘Secret documents?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. Documents that were secret to you.’

  ‘Written by us?’

  ‘America and England, also.’

  ‘Who were these men?’

  ‘What were their names?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Some of them I know. Later I will remember.’

  ‘Are those men still there?’

  ‘It’s possible. Maybe one.’

  ‘You know his name?’

  ‘I will remember.’

  Howley paused. ‘But these men were your agents? Inside External Affairs?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘They don’t tell me the past unless it is of use.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Howley. ‘Why don’t they tell you the past?’

  He shrugged. He said that in the Soviet Union the past was always secret. The past was a kind of power to be regulated and meted out, and if you didn’t know the history, there was nothing to betray.

  They threw darts and he drank bourbon. The dartboard rested against a terraced garden bed on the uphill slope. Leo Carter had replaced Gilmour. There were nine people in the world who knew where he was: the safe-house team, these two men with guns, and Colonel Spry.

  For a few days, the interviews went on, and in the middle of the second, the phone rang. It was on a small stand in the hall. Carter picked it up. There was a hushed conversation. He rang off and told them that Evdokia had gone to the embassy. Three men had escorted her to Lockyer Street and collected some things.

  Petrov pictured Kovaliev’s face.

  ‘We must get her a message,’ he said. ‘She thinks I am dead but she must know I am still alive.’

  Howley remained silent. Leo Carter asked how that could be done.

  ‘Bialoguski,’ Petrov suggested.

  ‘No,’ said Howley. ‘The doctor must stay in the dark.’

  Petrov went to the window. Trees moving in a slight wind. The midday sun on terracotta tiles.

  ‘Will they take her through Singapore?’ asked Howley.

  Petrov turned around. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If they stick to their regular plan.’

  ‘We could appro
ach her there. That way, you are safe and later she can join you here.’

  ‘We should consider that.’ Petrov suddenly froze. He was thinking about Rex Chiplin’s man in the post office. ‘The telephone here,’ he said, ‘is it a regular line? A standard line in every sense?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Is it orthodox?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘The registration. Is there anything that indicates it belongs to Security?’

  Howley was looking at him curiously. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s perfectly fake. Or perfectly real. Whichever.’

  ‘The communists,’ Petrov blurted. ‘They have a spy in the post office and he tells them whose feeds you tap.’

  They sent for her. When she got to the ambassador’s office, Kovalenok handed her a note. It was a message from the Australian government to the embassy. They were saying her husband was with them and was alive.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked the ambassador.

  She said nothing for a time, then: ‘Somehow the Australians must have forced him to stay.’

  She surprised herself by finding she could actually believe that. Yes; either he had decided to stay or they had forced him.

  The two men looked relieved. She thought this was because at least now they had something to report.

  ‘A forced defection,’ said Kovalenok.

  ‘An act of provocation.’

  ‘An ill-adjusted mortar on the landscape of no effect.’

  The ambassador looked at her. ‘We are going to respond to this note,’ he said. ‘And then you will ask to see him.’

  She went back to her room and found Masha and told her the news and they hugged. Masha looked up and down the corridor. ‘Now it is you we must worry about,’ she said.

  The next day it was in the papers. She knew it was because she wasn’t allowed to read them. Sanko came early and removed her radio set.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she protested.

  ‘The ambassador requires it.’

  Masha sneaked her the Herald. The prime minister had announced it to his parliament: Soviet diplomat crosses the curtain—victory for the free world.

  She started to laugh at the photograph of Volodya and then she tried not to sob.

  Kovalenok came and explained she was to take one last trip to collect her things. He, Sanko and Vislykh drove her to Lockyer Street. There were two men on the road there. Reporters. They made the escort nervous.

  When she entered the house, she saw it had been destroyed. Every drawer was open, the sum of their material lives scattered on the floor, boxes blown apart, shoes flung, the fridge door ajar and it still running. She stayed ten minutes, walking the rubble. She packed almost nothing.

  Kovalenok came inside, muttering about possibilities for danger. ‘We must return another time,’ he said.

  That evening, they brought her and Volodya’s belongings in trunks. Standing over her, Vislykh made her sort what she did and did not want. She might have kept one small memento, but in the end she packed nothing of Volodya’s. She didn’t want to provide anyone with evidence of intent.

  She lay in bed with the lights off. She’d tried to open the window for air. Someone had nailed it shut. She listened to the building creak. Maybe they would murder her. They could do that and there would be no consequences. Tell the world she died of nervous shock.

  At the embassy, people began gathering at the front gate. Journalists. Busybodies. A small crowd, pressing the buzzer out there.

  Generalov gave out revolvers. Evdokia watched from the window of the commercial section. Kislitsyn crossed the grass to the fence and asked the crowd to leave. Someone booed him. He recrossed the grass and a few minutes later Kovalenok went out. He was carrying a camera, one of the Leica imitations. She heard the voices shouting questions. In response, Kova-lenok raised the camera point-blank and shot. She knew what he meant by it—an act of photographic recording would have dispersed a Russian crowd. But on the Australians the message was lost. The photographers in the pack photographed him in return. He made his retreat to the building and no one else ventured out.

  She went to bed.

  Not too many ways I am getting out of this alive.

  Masha delivered a bowl of oats. The prisoner added water to the milk and pushed the oats around.

  She saw Vislykh return via the back gate. A short while later, she was called to the ambassador’s office.

  ‘Your husband has written a letter to you. I believe it carries signs of being written under duress.’

  Volodya’s jerky handwriting.

  Dear Doosia,

  I have read in today’s newspapers announcements saying that you think I was forcibly seized. That is untrue. I am alive and well and I am being treated well. I desire to assure you personally of this and I have asked the ambassador to arrange for me to see you as soon as possible.

  V. Petrov

  What announcements? The ambassador was staring into his desk.

  She said, ‘I can’t tell you whether the words are his, but the handwriting is a definite match.’

  ‘It’s very short.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not many long letters are written at gunpoint.’

  ‘No.’

  The ambassador handed her a second letter. It was a prepared reply. She would copy it into her own hand. She read the letter and he watched her.

  She said, ‘I won’t write this. I will write my own letter. Maybe I will borrow from your letter, but I won’t sign anything that isn’t my own.’

  He seemed to be expecting this. He pointed to the typewriter.

  She sat and wrote a page that wasn’t really for her husband but for the trial she might have in Moscow. She said his letter was forced. She suspected he had been kidnapped. The Australians must have learnt of his imminent departure and decided to act. She hoped they would release him. She hoped the diplomatic efforts underway would have some effect. She told him she was trying to be strong. She needed to reach Moscow, leave this country, go somewhere where she would be safe. She told him to think of her.

  Taking her lead from the ambassador’s letter, she said that given the circumstances it was not possible that they meet.

  Generalov read what she’d written, gave a grunt and she left the room.

  Two days later, the ambassador summoned her once more. He and Kovalenok stood each side of the desk. Her letter was there between them, unsent. They said nothing at first. Perhaps Moscow had denied permission for her missive to be dispatched.

  Kovalenok put a pen and a page typewritten on embassy stationery before her and asked her to read it. It was another letter from herself to her husband, far shorter this time, just a simple paragraph:

  Dear Volodya,

  I have received your letter. My meeting with you under the conditions proposed by the Australian Department of External Affairs is impossible, as I am afraid to fall into a trap.

  E. Petrova

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Kovalenok frowned. ‘What is no?’

  ‘No, I won’t write this.’

  The two men looked at her.

  ‘You must,’ said Generalov. ‘It is not we who have penned this letter. It is Moscow.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘What is wrong with it?’ said Kovalenok.

  ‘I won’t say it, that is all.’

  Kovalenok indicated that she should sit. Evdokia refused. He offered her a cigarette and she shook her head.

  ‘Sign the text as it stands,’ he said. ‘It will reach your hus-band faster.’

  ‘Do I care when it reaches him?’

  ‘You are his wife.’

  ‘That is not what is at issue.’

  Kovalenok put his fingers on the page. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘you must understand that this is Moscow’s text. We simply do not have permission to change it.’

  It took her a moment to realise he was addressing her by her MVD rank.

  ‘I have no orders,’ she said.
‘No orders concerning this note have been given to me.’

  ‘The instruction is implicit,’ said Kovalenok.

  She shrugged once more.

  ‘I’m sure you have been thinking about the law,’ he said. ‘There are special laws in these situations and obviously you must know. There will be a trial when you return. Believe me that what happens now may influence the proceedings. What can happen? Camps and possibly even execution if it is judged that your husband, in this affair, has left of his own accord.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You are going home very shortly, Evdokia Alexeyevna,’ Generalov put in. ‘The opportunities for you to demonstrate your allegiance are vanishing. You should sign and we will testify that you were eager. Alright?’

  She looked at the note. ‘Alright,’ she said. And picked up the pen.

  Whole days passed where she hardly left the room. She sat looking through the window, watching the sway of trees in the wind or simply staring into space. Masha brought her some books—novels and biographies—but they sat unread. She began to sleep oddly, snoozing for hours in the afternoons and waking at 3 a.m. Kovalenok started to insist that she walk each day in the embassy’s grounds. He escorted her, tried to involve her in a taste experiment he was conducting, smoking his way through different brands of Australian cigarettes. They were careful to keep clear of the fences and the front gate. Soon, she found herself looking forward to leaving for Moscow, regardless of what fate might bring. The solitary days added together and she was ready for anything to give.

  Inoculation. A doctor came and she was taken to a room upstairs and given injections. Cholera and smallpox. She needed certi-fication to travel. Smallpox was one shot but cholera was a two-stage affair. ‘Next week we will inject you with the second half,’ said the doctor.

  She looked at Vislykh, who was observing, and said that there might not be time for that to occur.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Vislykh. ‘Can we not simply do it now and issue the certificate?’

  The doctor shook his head. He was a white-haired man of about fifty and had, she thought, a successful practice on the street near the hospital. Vislykh appealed to him, saying the travel was an emergency—could he not issue the certifi-cate and she would have the second shot somewhere along the way?