Angels in the Snow

by Derek Lambert

  ‘Always travel with someone,’ he said. ‘Especially on the trains. That’s when they try to compromise you. And never stray outside the forty kilometre area.’

  ‘How do I know when I’m outside it?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘You’d know soon enough. The militia would nobble you. The answer is not to go more than thirty kilometres unless you’re going to the airport or somewhere special.’

  ‘But I can visit other parts of Russia, can’t I? Leningrad for instance. I thought I’d like to go there.’

  ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,’ Mason said. ‘With permission of course. We might send you up on some sort of job when you’ve learned the ropes. But you’ll have to go with someone of course. Even then I expect you’ll be followed. I went to Kazan the other week with a chap from the Canadian Embassy. We were followed everywhere we went.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it was quite as bad as that,’ Mortimer said.

  Mason nodded. He had a keen, refined face, silken hair receding at the temples and bristles of virile hair in his ears. He always spoke with great intensity. ‘And steer clear of the Press as much as possible. Leave them to us older chaps. We know how to handle them. They’re only interested in bad news anyway.’

  ‘They warned me about the Press at the FO,’ Mortimer said. ‘Are there many British correspondents here?’

  ‘The Times, Telegraph, Express, Mail and Reuters have staff men. Not bad chaps but they’re inclined to make mountains out of molehills. In any case they have a briefing with the Minister once a fortnight. He tells them all he thinks they should know. Would you like another cup of tea?’

  ‘No thank you,’ Mortimer said. He wondered if there was much that he should not do.

  ‘And of course don’t get involved with any Russians. You’ll find they’re very friendly people but it doesn’t pay to get too close to them.’ He paused. ‘You’re not married, are you?’

  Mortimer thought: Here it comes. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t quite know how to put this,’ Mason said. ‘But it is my duty and I’m sure the Ambassador would want me to mention it. Avoid the Russian girls like the plague. You’ll probably have a few approaches made to you. Be polite but firm.’

  Mortimer said: ‘Everyone has been on to me about this. I don’t understand really. Obviously I’m not going to get tangled up with a beautiful spy. But haven’t there been lots of cases recently of Englishmen marrying Russian girls?’

  ‘Not diplomats,’ Mason said. ‘Journalists and businessmen and people like that. Not diplomats.’

  ‘But it isn’t a crime to go out with a Russian girl, surely.’

  Irritation sharpened the intensity of Mason’s voice. ‘It may not be a crime,’ he said. ‘It’s just not done. Now perhaps you could look through these and mark up anything you think might interest us.’ He handed Mortimer a stack of provincial editions of Pravda.

  Later Mortimer asked Giles Ansell, with whom he shared an office, if Mason was inclined to exaggerate the hazards.

  Ansell said: ‘He’s obsessed with them. He’s not really a diplomat like the rest of us. He’s a political animal. Knows what they’re saying in the Kremlin before they’ve said it and all that. Absolutely fluent in Russian. But he’s so bloody good at his job that he gets passed over as far as promotion is concerned. Or at least he thinks he does. The trouble is all the intrigue and whatnot that he studies has got into his blood. He sees a spy at every corner.’

  ‘But is he right about not going out with Russian girls?’

  ‘It’s up to you, old boy. I personally wouldn’t say no to banging a Russian bird. It would be one for the old memoirs.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go out with one?’

  ‘Because my wife wouldn’t approve,’ Ansell said gloomily. ‘You must come round to dinner one evening this week. Anne likes a bit of company.’

  They were interrupted by the sound of excited voices in the lobby, a rare phenomenon in the British Embassy. Ansell went out to find out what was happening.

  When he came back he said: ‘Quite a flap on.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘A Russian tried to defect to the embassy.’

  The wife of a diplomat on the way to the embassy to take her husband home to lunch had stopped at traffic lights across the bridge. As she was about to drive away a middle-aged Russian who had been lounging against the railings pulled the door open and sat down beside her. ‘British Embassy,’ he said. ‘British Embassy.’ And handed her a piece of paper with a message scrawled on it in broken English. It was a plea to be given asylum; the secret police were after him and he had a message for Winston Churchill. When she slowed down as if to stop the man became hysterical and mimed the action of cutting his throat.

  ‘So what did she do?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘She got as far as the embassy gates and shouted to the militia outside. They carted him off still clutching his piece of paper.’

  ‘Poor chap,’ Mortimer said. ‘What do you think will happen to him?’

  Ansell put two fingers to his temple. ‘Dosvidaniya,’ he said.

  ‘Couldn’t she have brought him inside? After all we would have granted him political asylum if he’d jumped ship in London.’

  ‘Far too risky,’ Ansell said. ‘There would have been a hell of a rumpus. He was obviously as nutty as a fruit cake and in any case how would we have got him out of the country? Apart from that he might have been a phoney sent in so that the Russians could accuse us of subversive activities. No, she did absolutely the right thing. Didn’t panic and used her common-sense. Quite a girl.’

  The wife was reported later to have said that the Russian’s breath had upset her more than anything. She was concerned about his fate but what else could she have done?

  Hugh Farnworth, the extrovert first secretary in charge of security, passed word around the departments that the incident should be underplayed to the point of extinction. In particular no one should mention it to the Press.

  When Ansell drove him home Mortimer wondered if the grey Volga two cars behind was following them. They drove beside the Kremlin wall, turned left at an irritable policeman on point duty, passed the Lenin Library and the Kremlin Hospital. The homeward crowds skipped across the street daring the cars to run them down or waited in resentful huddles at the crossings glowering at the drivers, shuffling their feet towards the tyres. They poured down the metro stations, fought their way into the buses, queued for the evening papers with their predictable headlines. Pale, headscarved women and weary men heading for cramped flats where together they would make the bed and cook the meal and watch television and go to bed and get up and go to their respective jobs.

  A big woman carrying a bulging string bag walked in front of the car. Ansell braked. ‘Bloody peasant,’ he said. The woman walked on as if she were crossing an empty field. ‘There’s all hell to pay if you hit one of them. And it’s always your fault. I sometimes think they want to be knocked down by a Western car.’

  They turned into Prospect Kalinina where acetylene welders were dripping sparks from the girders of new apartment blocks on to the old tenements below. Over the winding river once more, wispy with mist, past the battlements of the Ukraine Hotel, past the Dom Igrushki toy shop where children gazed at the poor toys in the windows. At the third militiaman along Kutuzovsky Prospect Ansell made a U turn.

  They followed a Mercedes and a Peugeot into the car park, ‘I thought about getting a bigger car,’ Ansell said. ‘But what’s the point of getting anything decent? It would only be wrecked by these peasant taxi drivers.’

  A group of Cubans in Army battle-dress slouched past.

  ‘Not as popular as they used to be,’ Ansell said. ‘They reckon Castro’s got a bit too big for his boots.’

  ‘Why on earth are they dressed up like that?’

  ‘Heaven knows. Perhaps they’re the only clothes they’ve got. They sleep a dozen to a flat, you know. And they won’t let anybody in. I th
ink they’re just ashamed of the way they live.’

  An African parked his car so that it blocked two others. He walked away looking pleased with himself, incongruously elegant in a slim-trousered suit and a snap-brimmed hat.

  It was almost dark now, the air smoky and iced and hostile.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ Ansell asked.

  ‘Nothing very much. I thought I’d write a few letters and have an early night. I haven’t been to bed before one since I arrived.’

  ‘What about taking in a flick at the American Club with us? If we can get a baby sitter that is.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a baby,’ Mortimer said. ‘You don’t look like a father.’

  The remark seemed to please Ansell. ‘A little girl,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a film? You might as well be introduced to the American Club. Dreadful place, really. But it serves a purpose. Especially if you’re a bachelor.’ He winked at Mortimer. ‘What about it?’

  ‘All right,’ Mortimer said. ‘I’ll write my letters now.’

  But he didn’t finish the letters because he had a visitor.

  He was interrupted by a ring at the door. A loud, drilling ring that startled him. He thought immediately of the warnings about attempts to compromise him.

  A slim girl in a grey woollen dress stood at the door. She said breathlessly, ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you and I wouldn’t have dreamed of disturbing you normally but I’ve locked myself out and I wondered if I could use your phone.’

  The warnings were lodged in his mind like repetitive advertising. ‘I’m awfully sorry but I don’t know who you are,’ he said. He was ashamed of his clumsiness.

  She flushed. ‘I’m from upstairs. I know we haven’t been introduced and I wouldn’t have disturbed you if I hadn’t been desperate.’

  An American journalist who lived two floors above Mortimer walked down the stairs. He saluted the girl. ‘Hi there,’ he said.

  ‘Hallo,’ she said. She turned back to Mortimer. ‘The lifts aren’t working. You’ll get used to that after a while. There’s a man next to us who’s got a heart complaint. He’s terrified of going out in case the lift breaks down while he’s out and he has to walk up the stairs.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Mortimer said. ‘I didn’t realise you were in this block. Come in and use the phone by all means.’

  She stood in the lounge looking uncertainly around. ‘It’s a very nice flat,’ she said. ‘You have very good taste.’

  ‘The furniture was here when I arrived. It’s not bad but it isn’t what I would have chosen. I prefer old things.’

  ‘So do I,’ said the girl.

  ‘Then you don’t really like it,’ Mortimer said, remembering how Randall had tricked him into admiring modern art.

  ‘I think it shows very good taste—if you like modern furniture. Like you I prefer something more mellow.’

  He watched her while she telephoned. Reddish hair unswept making the back of her neck look vulnerable, innocent somehow. Thin fingers with nails painted pink. Calves of her legs strained as she bent to replace the receiver. He hardly heard what she said on the phone.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘It was very kind of you.’

  ‘Would you care for a cup of coffee? Or a drink perhaps?’

  She hesitated. ‘No thanks. I haven’t really the time. Someone is coming with the key.’

  After she had gone her perfume lingered in the flat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The American Club was the most cosmopolitan establishment in Moscow. You could meet almost anyone there except a Russian.

  It was run by servicemen from the American Embassy with great efficiency, elaborate courtesy and a stolid suspicion of strangers. No one was allowed in without a pass or a passport and girls in slacks were barred.

  The vetting was in the hands of Elmer, a muscular, impassive Texan, whose personality was something of an enigma. He was said to be a character and a ‘deep one’. He appeared to have no sense of humour, but the sensitive detected derision in his drawl. Pleas for admittance and petulant threats were atrophied by his imperturbability. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Sorry, sir. No can do.’ Rejected visitors had the impression that they were lifted gently by the neck and deposited outside.

  Upstairs, servicemen dexterously served drinks behind a long bar while their colleagues made their play for the nannies—Finnish and British mostly—over cans of beer and long, lethal Scotches tinkling with ice. Later they took them down to their den on the ground floor appointed with hi-fi, cushioned sofas, television and a cocktail cabinet.

  Twice a week there was a film. Newcomers decided that the first film they saw must be the worst ever made—until they saw their second and third. Thereafter they watched in a numbed coma: it passed a couple of hours, they said. Oriental diplomats, moth-like Vietnamese, silent women in saris, arrived shivering in the gloom and left as the film ended, their entry and exit unnoticed. How the films were chosen was never divulged; but a programme posted on the noticeboard contained the assessments of an enthusiastic critic called Sandy. ‘A breathtaking saga of the West—five stars.’ ‘A rib-tickling comedy, a must for the family—five stars.’ There were those who suspected that Sandy had never seen the pictures; and once when he dismissed a thriller with only four stars the regulars agreed that it was the best movie ever shown at the club.

  The reels broke down regularly but there was no whistling or cat-calling; the audience sat mutely as if no one had noticed. And afterwards they scarcely discussed what they had seen. They sat at tables with drinks in front of them which they replenished during the interval. A few Americans and a couple of frustrated British businessmen usually stayed at the bar drinking.

  Sometimes there were dances which were occasionally enlivened by fights. But the blows had to be struck quickly before Elmer intervened. And even then they were lugubrious affairs which lumbered from crude insults to clumsy blows and were usually fought over a girl who would have titillated neither combatant had they been sober. The rivals sometimes went to the toilet to settle their differences. A laborious punch, knuckles smashed against the wall, both bodies wallowing on the floor. Then, smelling slightly of urine, back to the dance to find that the girl was dancing with someone else.

  The prettiest girls were the Scandinavian and German secretaries. They professed to have fiancés at home but were not inhibited by any such betrothals. The Finnish nannies were very young and their English very bad; the servicemen favoured the English nannies. They were untidy girls with thick legs and heavy bosoms who would be matronly at thirty-five; but word had gone round that they were easy. Not all of them were.

  Marines newly arrived were told by their colleagues: ‘You gotta screw an English nanny before you leave. Man, they—like they were frightened it was going out of fashion.’

  Love affairs sometimes developed between the servicemen and nannies and they held hands at the movies. Then one day duty called elsewhere and the nannies were stricken with grief and a sense of betrayal until a replacement moved up the line to console them. Then the nannies went home and married young men in their fathers’ firms and blamed bicycle saddles for their loss of virginity.

  Elmer inspected Mortimer with care. ‘Sure glad to have you along,’ he said after a while. ‘Make sure you fill in a membership form as soon as possible. I guess Mr. Ansell here knows the ropes.’

  ‘I sure do,’ Ansell said as they walked up the stairs. ‘And one of the main things is never to have a row with that blighter.’

  ‘I think all these men are impertinent,’ said his wife. ‘I mean just who do they think they are?’

  She was small and blonde with a pekinese face. She enjoyed giving dinner parties and was a student of etiquette.

  They sat at a table near the screen. ‘Keep the seats while I get the beers,’ Ansell said.

  Mrs. Ansell said: ‘Perhaps Richard would like something else. You never ask anyone, Giles. You just get up and say you’re buying beers. It
’s just possible that I don’t want a beer either.’

  Ansell smiled but he wasn’t amused. ‘Would you like something else old man? Name your poison.’

  ‘A beer will be fine,’ Mortimer said.

  ‘Right, three beers it is.’

  ‘And a dash of lime in mine, please darling,’ said Mrs. Ansell.

  ‘You’ve never had lime before.’

  ‘Tonight I feel like a little dash of lime.’ She waited until her husband had gone to the bar. ‘I’m so afraid Giles will get set in his ways,’ she said. ‘It’s not good for his career to get into a rut.’

  She peered behind her in the gloom and waved girlishly at two young men sitting at a table littered with cans of beer. ‘There’s Peter and Geoffrey,’ she said. ‘Such nice boys.’

  The two men, who were in the commercial section, acknowledged her without enthusiasm. They were third secretaries whose wives were spending a few days in Helsinki. They reclined elegantly and drank thirstily.

  Ansell brought back the beers. ‘Peter and Geoffrey look pretty fed up,’ he said. ‘I expect they’re wondering how much their wives are spending.’

  The film was about a reformed prostitute trying to start a new life. She found her true vocation nursing in a children’s home and fell in love with a rich man-about-town. A few days before they were to be married she caught him apparently trying to interfere with a little girl from the home. Disillusioned she left town.

  Mortimer waited for disgust or incredulity to be expressed. But the audience might have been watching a travelogue. The Indians and Orientals slipped away, without emotion, accepting without question whatever was fed to them on the small silver screen. The remaining men went to the bar.

  A marine fed kopeks into a juke box and pressed half a dozen buttons. He took a big nanny on to the floor and began to dance. In one corner of the bar a drunken American wearing a tartan bow-tie said in a loud voice that he thought the film had been a lot of horse-shit. It was the only positive reaction to the film Mortimer had heard. No one responded. ‘Goddam horse-shit,’ repeated the American. ‘Isn’t that right, Mac?’ He banged an empty glass in front of the barman. ‘Scotch on the rocks?’ asked the barman. ‘A large one,’ said the American. ‘A stinking great large one. Why do they show horse-shit like that?’