Angels in the Snow

by Derek Lambert

  The queues to leave coats were longer than the queues to get into the theatre. The women, big with stiff hair freshly dressed in pneumatic styles, took off their boots and put on shoes. Many of the men, divested of their outdoor clothes, wore wool and open-neck shirts. There were several diplomats among them with over-dressed wives, and bewildered tourists clutching Bolshoi literature. Mortimer saw Mason with his handsome, strident wife who looked like a Bavarian and acted like a Women’s Institute chairman, and the American Chargé d’Affaires in laboured conversation with a Congolese. Wherever you went in Moscow you never really left the diplomatic community: it was within the vastness of the Soviet Union, a more introverted society than a Devonshire village.

  A man walked in front of Mortimer in the queue. Mortimer tapped him on the shoulder and said in slow Russian: ‘This is supposed to be a queue.’

  A girl’s voice behind him said in English: ‘Leave this to me, Mr. Mortimer.’ He turned and saw the girl who had been locked out of the flat above him and blushed inwardly with pleasure.

  She addressed the Russian loudly and fluently. At first he ignored her but when she began to enlist support from others in the queue he walked away muttering irritably.

  ‘A peasant,’ said the girl. ‘You know why he pushed in, don’t you?’

  ‘Because he wanted to get to the counter first, I suppose.’

  ‘He pushed in because he knows that if he doesn’t get inside dead on time he’ll be locked out until the interval. And that’s what will happen to us if they don’t hurry up.’

  Mortimer rather hoped that he and the girl would be locked out together. Except, of course, that Diana would be locked out with them.

  ‘You speak excellent Russian,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not surprising—I am Russian.’

  But he had realised this before she had finished speaking and flushed, this time outwardly. So within a few days of his arrival he had been alone in his flat with a Russian girl. He looked around furtively for Mason.

  The girl said: ‘Did you not realise that I was Russian?’

  ‘It didn’t occur to me at the time,’ Mortimer said.

  She smiled—a little sadly, he thought—and said: it seems to me that you are not happy that I am Russian. I had been working as an interpreter in the flat above you.’

  ‘Of course I am happy. Why shouldn’t I be?’ And then, to change the subject: ‘You speak with a slight American accent. Why is that?’

  ‘A lot of English-speaking Russians have an American accent. I don’t know why this is. I think a lot of the teachers learned their English from Americans during the war.’

  A woman grabbed the coats from Mortimer. As he was about to comment on her manners to the girl, the woman pointed out a tear in his coat. ‘I will have that mended for you when you return,’ she said.

  The girl said: ‘You see—manners are not everything. It is better to perform one kindness than to utter a thousand polite greetings.’

  ‘You speak in proverbs. Are they your own?’

  ‘It seems to me that is just the way I talk. And now we must run or we will not see the first act. Show me your tickets, please, and I will tell you where you are sitting.’

  ‘To the right somewhere,’ he said.

  ‘You are right down the side. It’s very cosy there. Almost like a box.’ She gave him back the tickets. ‘Perhaps we shall meet during the interval,’ she said.

  ‘I hope so,’ Mortimer said. ‘I certainly hope so. By the way, what’s your name?’

  ‘Nina,’ she said. ‘Not a very pretty name, I’m afraid. Now, please, we must run. I think your friend is signalling to you.’

  Diana was waving to him frantically. ‘You men,’ she said playfully. ‘Leave you alone for a minute and you’re chatting up some other bird. I’m blowed if I’m going to miss the ballet because my escort’s found himself a foreign dolly.’ She paused. ‘She was foreign, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Russian,’ Mortimer said.

  ‘Oh la la,’ said Diana incongruously. ‘Chatting up the Russian birds now. You’d better watch your step or else Hugh Farnworth will have you on the carpet.’

  They rushed into their seats just as the woman attendant was inflating herself to bar any more late-comers.

  Awe and reverence settled on Mortimer. He peered almost fearfully at the gold tiers of balconies sculptured into the walls and serried with peering faces, at the chandeliers and the big empty box opposite the stage where those who were welcome and important sat with the Kremlin leaders on duty visits to the ballet. It was, he thought, like the inside of a great red and gilt wedding cake. An aristocratic anachronism in which only tiaras and polished shirt-fronts were missing.

  Directly below them the orchestra was tuning up.

  Diana said: ‘The musicians are supposed to be the only Russians in the Soviet Union who wear evening dress.’

  Her voice irritated Mortimer. ‘What about actors?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, those too,’ Diana said.

  He gazed around the stalls in the hope of seeing the Russian girl. But there was no sign of her. He would, he thought, have liked her to be sitting beside him; in repentance he squeezed Diana’s hand. She responded with enthusiasm.

  The conductor mounted the rostrum, smoothing his dark, ruffled hair with one hand. The applause, then the expectant calm, excited Mortimer; and the music released inside him dormant emotions, the distillation, he felt, of all human suffering and joy. And on the stage, it seemed to him, the dancers beckoned and tried to embrace those emotions with as much grace as God—who gave grace to animals and brains to men—had allowed them. He wept inwardly for unconquerable human aspiration, and for those around him who had shed the poverty of their lives for the evening to share the beauty.

  After the first act Diana said: ‘That was beautiful, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was very beautiful.’

  ‘I’m going to ballet classes,’ she said.

  ‘Good grief,’ Mortimer said. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  The bounce left her voice. ‘Yes I am,’ she said. ‘What’s so surprising about it? Everyone goes—even the Ambassador’s wife.’ She blew her nose. ‘You know, Richard, you can be very hurtful sometimes.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a glass of champagne. I believe they sell it in the foyer.’

  On the other side of the foyer he saw Nina staring around her as if she were looking for someone. She held the arm of an aggressive-looking young man in a black suit.

  ‘There’s your girl friend,’ Diana said. ‘Why don’t you call her over?’

  Mortimer waved and the girl walked towards them, tugging at the young man’s arm.

  ‘This is my brother Mikhail,’ she said. ‘I told him we might meet you but it seems to me he is shy because you are a diplomat and he is only a writer.’

  Mortimer was glad that he was only her brother. ‘I wish I could write,’ he said.

  ‘I only write in my spare time,’ Mikhail said. ‘My work is with the Komsomol. I do not think you would enjoy that sort of work so much.’ Hostility edged his voice.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Mortimer said. ‘But I’m not a political animal.’

  ‘You are a diplomat. All diplomats are politicians.’

  Nina intervened. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘my brother is like an angry Russian bear. I do not know why it is.’

  Diana said: ‘Richard, why don’t you buy your friends some champagne.’

  Mikhail and Mortimer glanced at each other, two males in the grip of the opposite sex, and some of the antagonism faded. They smiled at each other over the glasses of champagne.

  ‘Some Westerners say it is not as good as French champagne,’ Mikhail said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think it is just as good,’ Mortimer said. ‘In fact I wouldn’t know the difference.’

  ‘It’s synthetic, isn’t it?’ Diana said. ‘I mean it’s not vintage like French champagne. I know m
ost people at our embassy prefer to import the French stuff.’

  ‘That must be a great hardship for them,’ Mikhail said. ‘Do they import their caviar too?’

  Nina said: ‘Now Mikhail is being funny. Take no notice of him.’

  Mikhail said: ‘Who is your favourite Russian poet?’

  Mortimer tried to think of the name of one Russian poet. Nina helped him. ‘Yevtushenko, perhaps,’ she said. ‘I think he is very popular in the West.

  ‘Yes,’ Mortimer said. ‘Yevtushenko.’

  Mikhail gulped the last of his champagne and Mortimer knew that Nina had named the wrong man. ‘He is not my idea of a poet,’ Mikhail said. ‘He has even taken to writing verse about the Chinese in the Press. He has become a propagandist instead of a poet.’

  ‘I saw him at a party once,’ Diana said. ‘I thought he was wonderful. He read some of his poetry.’

  ‘He would,’ Mikhail said.

  ‘And now it is time for us to return to our seats,’ Nina said. ‘I hope we shall meet again soon.’

  Mikhail became immensely polite. He shook hands and thanked Mortimer for the champagne. ‘I, too, hope we meet again,’ he said. But Mortimer didn’t believe him.

  When they were back in their seats Diana said: ‘Some of these people have got such a terrible inferiority complex, haven’t they?’

  ‘Have they?’ Mortimer said. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  It wasn’t an inferiority complex, he thought. It was a mixture of pride in their own spartan achievements and envy of Western luxuries which they had been taught to deride. It was only apparent in those Russians who had been in contact with the West. They asked questions and listened, with morbid pleasure, to the anticipated answers.

  ‘Nina seems a very nice girl,’ Diana said.

  ‘She’s very sweet.’

  ‘But just a little bit naïve.’

  ‘I didn’t think she was naïve,’ Mortimer said. ‘You can get the wrong impression of people, you know, when they’re speaking in a language which is foreign to them.’

  ‘I wonder if that really was her brother,’ Diana said.

  And, although he could think of no reason to doubt their relationship, Mortimer then wondered, right until the end of the ballet.

  When Diana wanted to rush for their coats he insisted on staying for the curtain calls. And he felt again the stir of latent emotions close to his soul.

  In the cloakroom the woman handed him his coat and pointed to the tear, neatly mended with black wool. He tried to give her a rouble, then 50 kopeks, but she refused. And Richard Mortimer, with a girl on his arm, music in his heart and champagne in his belly, strode into the white crystalline night in love with Mother Russia.

  They ate in a new restaurant, bleak and bright, upstairs in the old Metropole Hotel. Like the bar in the National its object was to detach hard currency from visitors with a minimum of effort. The enticement was balalaika music played by saturnine musicians who gazed upon the diners with contempt.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’ Mortimer asked. ‘Or was the champagne enough for you?’

  ‘It certainly wasn’t enough,’ Diana said with determined gaiety. ‘I’d like some vodka. I’ll probably get tiddly and rape you over the table.’

  Mortimer smiled uncertainly. ‘And then,’ he said, ‘I think we should have some stew. I’m told it’s the only thing to eat here.’

  Half an hour after they had ordered a waitress brought a half bottle of Stolichnaya and two bottles of Narzan. Half an hour after that she brought the stew.

  ‘God the service in this bloody country is awful,’ Diana said after her third vodka.

  The vodka was also affecting Mortimer, inspiring his new infatuation for Russia, urging him to defend it with uncharacteristic belligerence. Strengthening his resolve to make love later to Diana whom he did not love. If he was going to be partnered with her whether he liked it or not, so the vodka said, then he might as well use her body. He would not put up with any coy resistance: if there was one type of woman he could not stand it was a teaser.

  Diana said: ‘I wish you’d stop looking at me like that. It’s embarrassing.’

  He tossed back a vodka and followed it with a gulp of mineral water to quench the flames. He stared at her and wondered—for the first time in his life—how the Foreign Office so often managed to recruit the worst representatives of the country to represent them abroad. He thought of Giles Ansell and others like him. Until tonight, until the meeting with Nina and her brother, until the meeting of the champagne and vodka, this had never occurred to him.

  He said: ‘I think Giles Ansell should have been employed selling ladies’ underwear in a department store.’

  ‘Old Giles? There’s nothing wrong with him really. Nothing that a good holiday away from his wife wouldn’t cure. He’s quite a sexy old devil on the quiet is Giles.’

  ‘The ugliest word in the English language,’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Sexy.’

  Diana tackled her stew hungrily. ‘You’re in a funny mood tonight,’ she said. ‘I think you’ve drunk too much vodka.’

  Sitting at the wheel of his Anglia, Mortimer was inclined to agree with her. He felt an irresistible desire to drive fast, to hear Diana plead with him to slow down. But she didn’t. Once a blurred figure materialised out of the snow and wavered, black against white—like the negative of a ghost, he thought—in front of the car. He swerved and caught a glimpse of a bleary face peering at him. Christ, he thought, if I hit a Russian that’s it: the end of my Russian experience, the end of my career. He tried to marshal his powers of concentration but they leapt flightily away and it wasn’t until they arrived outside Diana’s block that he discovered that the hand-brake was still on.

  ‘I think we need some coffee,’ Diana said. ‘Black and strong.’

  In the lift he kissed her clumsily. The lift stopped. ‘Now you’ve done it,’ Diana said. ‘We’re stuck.’

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ Mortimer said. ‘We’re not, are we?’ He reviewed the possibilities of making love to her in the lift. It would be a bit cramped and the mechanism might not stand up to energetic movement. He imagined them crashing to the ground, their bodies joined in copulation.

  She manipulated the buttons behind him. ‘Men,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you’d do without us. You pressed the stop button with your elbow when you kissed me.’

  The lift laboured up to the next floor, then accelerated.

  Inside the flat Mortimer found, to his chagrin, that there was no need to be forceful. She disappeared into her bedroom for a few minutes; and when she called him she was lying on the narrow bed naked. A reward for his attention and patience, a seal of their future relationship.

  ‘Is that what you’ve been waiting for?’ she asked.

  He nodded, unsure of his voice.

  ‘Have you got anything with you?’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘You know—those things.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Oh dear, you men,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, then—I think it’s safe.’

  He made love inexpertly and was surprised by her clinical expertise.

  Afterwards she said: ‘There, that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said; and wished he was alone in his own bed.

  ‘You did enjoy it, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, as if he were thanking her for cooking Sunday lunch. He closed his eyes and his mind reeled. Never again, he swore to himself, would he drink vodka.

  ‘You don’t really like that Russian girl, do you?’ she said.

  ‘She’s a nice enough girl,’ he said, and fell asleep with his face against her breasts.

  He awoke at 4 a.m., dressed and left her asleep with her mouth open. When he reached his own bed he was still worrying about the truth of the relationship between Nina and Mikhail.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Richard Mortimer went Christmas s
hopping on a Saturday afternoon, as the light was fading and a wind from the Arctic was roaming the Moscow streets crisping the brown snow on the pavements and snapping icicles from the roofs.

  He went first to one of the commission shops where Russians sold their antiques and the State took a cut. It was hung with old oil paintings—portraits of aristocrats so melancholy that they must have anticipated their fate at the hands of the Bolsheviks—and crammed with gilt bears and birds of prey, de-gutted marble clocks, simovas spoiled with new chrome, china oddments, foggy glass and tarnished jewellery. Here you could also buy yellow-toothed pianos, gas-cookers, deaf hearing-aids and dumb radios. You would have had trouble selling any of it at a jumble sale in Britain, Mortimer thought; but here, despite the high prices, the shops were always full; according to rumour priceless relics had been picked up in the past and the customers never gave up the hunt.

  Mortimer looked around for presents; hand-painted china eggs perhaps, fashionable among diplomats just now, or a miniature nestling among the sad, cracked faces on the wall. But he found nothing and walked to Dyetski Mir, the huge children’s store opposite Lubyanka prison. There on one side of the square youth and innocence wandered among the toys: on the other side resided prisoners and guards who shared the old evils of the world. Rumours about Lubyanka were part of Moscow conversation. Executions were frequent but it was never said publicly how they were carried out. One theory was that the condemned were given the choice of working unprotected in a radio-active mine where they would die slowly or being shot in the head as they walked along a white-tiled corridor deep in the bowels of the jail. Whatever the physical truth of Lubyanka in this 50th anniversary year of the October Revolution the ghost of Beria was still in occupation.

  One counter in the store was covered with papier maché models of a pink-cheeked, white-bearded old man who looked like Father Christmas. Mortimer knew better: it was Grandfather Frost who visited Russian children at the New Year. The models, the tinsel made from dull, metal foil, the bangers which exploded in a shower of confetti when you pulled a cord—all these were for the New Year, not for such bourgeois festivals as Christmas. And yet Mortimer felt that, although they had postponed the feasting for a week, it was still Christmas that they were seeking with the illumined trees on the tops of the hotels, the looping paper chains and excitement in the shops.