Certainly the spirit of Christmas was upon him as he mingled with the ferreting, elbowing crowds pressed around the counters packed with crude toys which Western children would have consigned to the back of the cupboard. Mortimer remembered the shops in a little Sussex town, their windows cosy with cotton-wool snow. The mixing of the pudding, silver three-penny pieces wrapped in grease-proof paper, cards tumbling through the letter box, reedy carols in the evening, the smell of candles around a crib, his mother’s always-useful presents and prayers for snow that never came.
Christmas had always been haunted with sadness since the telegram on Christmas Eve when his father had been due home on leave from Korea. After that there was no escape from her annual grief: there was the date marked in every calendar.
Mortimer had tried bringing home friends and on one occasion a girl from Cambridge. But they had been embarrassed by the dedicated mourning. They had attempted mild festivities but even the detonation of a cracker seemed like a small explosion of bad taste. His mother never complained; she just smiled sadly and gazed at HIS empty chair. Once a girl whom he had forgotten to warn sat on the chair and his mother vanished upstairs sobbing audibly.
The girl, whom he had liked, said: ‘I’m sorry. Honestly I am. But you can’t carry on like this at Christmas time. It isn’t natural. I feel terribly sorry for your mother. But couldn’t she mourn her husband a few days before Christmas?’
And, although he didn’t blame her at all, he said: ‘If you feel so embarrassed then you’d better leave and spend Christmas somewhere else.’ She had left, as he had known she would, and he and his mother had been left to grieve and rejoice together.
Loyalty had always kept him close to his mother. But he had warned her when he went to the Foreign Office that one day he might leave to serve abroad; she had nodded understandingly and told him not to fret about her. But when he came to Russia he was accompanied by a feeling of guilt that he had abandoned her.
A woman powering her way towards a display of badges, red stars mostly, and buttons bearing astronauts’ faces, knocked him sideways and barged on without apologising. His face burned red beneath his shapka and his feet ached with the cold which was captured and imprisoned in his boots.
He bought a model rocket for the Masons’ son. Sparks flickered inside its red plastic shell when you pulled it along on a piece of string; its construction was as primitive as the Russians’ construction of nuclear rockets was sophisticated. He also decided to buy a wooden accordion and a carpentry set tied to a piece of cardboard but he was discouraged by the purchasing procedure. First the muscular effort needed to reach the counter. Then you queued, chose your toy and a morose girl calculated the bill on an abacus and gave you a ticket bearing the price, then you queued at the Kacca desk to pay, then—with the ticket duly stamped—you fought your way back to the counter and rejoined the queue to pick up your purchase wrapped and tied by another girl suffering from sleepy sickness. It took Mortimer half an hour to buy the rocket. Then he set out to buy a Christmas tree—or New Year tree—on the Tsvetnoy boulevard next to the circus.
Five minutes later he knew he was lost. There were no cubist landmarks, no Stalinist Gothic on the twilight skyline, to guide him. The streets lined with hunched wooden houses narrowed. He came to a corner café where the steam had frozen into lace on the outside and inside of the windows; but he sensed that there was hostility inside and he hadn’t the courage to put his senses to the test. He stopped a woman to ask the way but she didn’t understand him. The wind broke an icicle from a roof and it fell like a dagger in front of him; deep-frozen snow crunched under his feet; the cold, recognising an ally in his fear, embraced him.
He crossed a tram track and stood beneath a lamp swinging in the wind. If he waited long enough a taxi would be sure to come. Immediately one appeared, its illuminated green sign as bright as a Christmas tree light. Mortimer waved and shouted and cursed as the cab, its driver hating everyone with enough money to hail taxis, sped past.
The only pedestrians abroad seemed to be old people. They walked in survival kits of felt and fur, treading carefully on the cold jewels shining on the pavement.
Mortimer walked on with the fear of the shadows and his own private Christmas guilt sharp inside him. He rounded three corners and found himself in Trubnaya Square just down the road from the bright lights of the circus which looked like a theatre from the outside.
He went first to the indoor market, as cadaverous as a corn exchange, where the stalls were piled with bunches of pea-sized grapes, pears, peaches and pomegranates from Georgia, all exorbitantly priced. He bought two pomegranates for just under two roubles and admonished himself for forgetting that the soiled, yellow-brown notes were good, hard-earned money—he had just spent 15s. There was no holly so he bought six stems cut from a prickly bush on which plastic red berries had been tied with knitting wool; he haggled over the price and the big woman with shrewd eyes set deep in her smile knocked off ten kopeks. Immediately he had parted with the money Mortimer knew that he had again paid too much.
He went outside to a dark premises, like an empty garage, where they sold the trees. Two men, smoking cigarettes in cupped hands convict-fashion, watched as he sorted through the piles of trees, determined not to buy one that was crushed or moulting.
‘American?’ asked one of the men, illuminating his face as he sucked at his cigarette.
‘No,’ Mortimer said. He had decided they were gangsters.
‘English?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m English. And I don’t think much of these trees.’
‘Trees very good. Harasho.’ The man’s voice was hurt. ‘I help you.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, put the stub behind his ear and waded into the shrubbery. ‘This one good.’ He brandished a fine young tree, perfectly shaped.
Mortimer tensed himself for the price battle; he had determined not to pay more than five roubles. ‘How much?’ he asked.
The man shrugged and smiled. ‘One rouble fifty kopeks. For you—nothing. A New Year present for an Englishman.’
Mortimer laughed for the first time that afternoon.
‘Why do you laugh?’ asked the salesman.
‘I’m laughing at myself.’
‘It is good that you can laugh at yourself. We Russians should laugh at ourselves more.’
‘You speak good English. Where did you learn it?’
‘Many Russians speak English. I went to England during the German war. I meet many English people.’ He gave a man-to-man wink. ‘English girls very good.’
‘And Russian girls,’ Mortimer said.
‘Very meaty,’ the salesman said. ‘Much to get hold of.’ He repeated his remark in Russian to his companion who smiled wanly. ‘My friend is having trouble with a big girl,’ he said. ‘She is too strong and hungry for him. She eats too much bread and potatoes.’
‘I sympathise with him,’ Mortimer said. ‘And now, really, I must pay for this tree.’
‘No, you do not pay. We would be very hurt.’
Mortimer handed two roubles to the other salesman. ‘Buy your girl friend some slimming tablets,’ he said.
He took the tree and walked out into the street, his affection for Russia rekindled. As he emerged into the light of the street lamps an old woman selling ever-lasting flowers like dried red cornflowers on the pavement grabbed him by the arm and pointed urgently to his face. He jumped back and put a gloved hand to his cheek. She spoke so rapidly and excitedly that he couldn’t understand what she said.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked in his slow Russian.
She jabbered frenziedly, put her own fingers to her face and made rubbing motions.
The friendly salesman joined them. ‘She tells you that you have a touch of frost-bite,’ he said. ‘You must let her rub it for you. Sit down in here on my unhappy friend’s chair.’
Mortimer sat down and the old woman rubbed the side of his face energetically. Her fingers felt like warm dry bones.
&
nbsp; ‘Can you feel anything?’ the Russian asked.
‘Not much.’
‘Then she may have been right. Have you been wandering around this day? If you are not used to such weather and you have weak skin then you may have a touch of frost-bite. It is nothing to worry about. But it is very cold today even for us Russians. It seems to me that when it reaches a certain cold you do not notice if it becomes any colder.’
‘How did she see the frost-bite?’ Mortimer asked.
‘Many old women notice these things. They saw much frostbite in the war and in the poor days before the war. They often stop people and point it out. You or I would not notice it.’
The old fingers stopped and the woman peered at his nose. ‘Harasho.’ She jabbered again to the two salesmen.
‘She says to go home and keep your nose warm. But I shouldn’t worry too much. They make much of these things. I think a lot of it is in their memories.’
‘Could you thank her very much,’ Mortimer said.
‘I have already done so.’
‘And ask her to accept this.’ He handed the old woman a rouble note. She became even more excited, pushed aside his hand and hobbled away.
He caught her up outside. She put her hand to her eyes as if in shame, then took the note. To buy woollens, he told himself, to protect her grandchildren from the cold.
Sitting in the back of a taxi he thought: ‘One rouble. Eight shillings. Is that all I gave her?’ He rubbed his nose unhappily; he was very grateful to think that he could feel it.
On the home-made skating rink at Kutuzovsky the boys played hockey with sticks made by the compound’s carpenter. The girls completed figure eights with angelic grace and shrieked at the boys with earthy ferocity as they swept across the ice flicking the puck from one to the other. Small children on skates hobbled beside the snow piled high around the rink. In the light of the lamps outside the blocks the skates flashed like little yellow flames.
Mortimer paid off the taxi and gave the driver a ten kopek tip. There was no tipping in the Soviet Union but no driver had so far refused one. He walked, with his tree over one shoulder, his improvised holly in his other hand, his plastic rocket under his arm, studying the lighted windows on the dark canvasses.
Randall who had just parked his car, said: ‘Why, it’s Santa Claus himself.’
Mortimer didn’t reply. He was gazing at his own flat, high up on the canvas, which he had left in daylight. The light was on in the lounge and he thought he saw a shadow moving.
‘What’s the matter?’ Randall asked. ‘Is that Danish lovely stripping again?’
‘There’s someone in my flat,’ Mortimer said. His body was trembling.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so. I didn’t leave the lights on and there’s one on now. I saw someone move just now.’
‘We’d better go and see,’ Randall said. ‘Come on.’
One lift was out of action, the other was in use. When it came down a smart, middle-aged man wearing clothes too young for him, stepped out and nodded at Randall.
‘That could be him,’ Mortimer said.
‘I doubt it. He’s a correspondent for a West German newspaper.’
The lift began its ascent. Randall said: ‘I shouldn’t worry too much. It’s probably just the KGB making a routine check. They’ve got to earn their dough somehow.’
‘How should we tackle it?’
Randall said: ‘Just wander round the apartment and see if anyone’s at home. The only way out is the front door.’
Mortimer slid the rough copper key into the lock of the door which looked as if it had been kicked down a few times. He put down his tree, his foliage, his parcel and listened.
There’s no light,’ Randall said. He snapped on the switch in the tiny hall. ‘Let’s have a look around. You take the bedroom. I’ll look round the lounge.’
Mortimer opened the bedroom cupboard, frightened and fatalistic. The only occupants were his suits. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said.
‘Nor in here,’ Randall said. ‘Are you sure you were looking at the right flat?’
‘I’m pretty sure.’ He went over to the window. Far below a man was standing beside the militia box gazing up in their direction.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if someone had been here,’ Randall said. ‘But it’s unusual at this time of day. They would have first made sure that you had gone away for a long time. In any case it doesn’t smell as if there’s been anyone here.’
‘Smell?’
‘You can usually smell if anyone’s been in an empty room recently.’
Mortimer managed a tremulous smile. ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ he said. ‘You’ve been reading too many spy stories.’
Randall said: ‘Perhaps I have.’
Mortimer said: ‘I feel a bit of a fool. Would you like a drink?’
‘I’ll take a Scotch. The trouble with Moscow is that it’s an alcoholic’s paradise. A dollar fifty for a bottle of Scotch. It’s crazy. While you’re at it you’d better have one. You look as if you need it.’
They sat chinking the ice in their glasses. ‘You know,’ Mortimer said, ‘I sometimes wonder if I’ll manage to last out here.’ He found he could confide in this big, experienced American.
‘Of course you will. Moscow takes a hell of a lot of getting used to.’
‘I can’t take many more days like today. First I got lost, then a woman said I’d got frost-bite and then this.’
‘You certainly seem to attract action,’ Randall said. ‘Let’s have a look at this alleged frost-bite.’ He examined Mortimer’s nose. ‘There’s nothing there,’ he said. ‘I suppose some old woman stopped you in the street.’
‘She rubbed it for me.’
Randall grinned. ‘They’ll do more than rub your nose in the National bar,’ he said.
‘She seemed to be genuine,’ Mortimer said.
‘She probably was. But they’re a mite fanciful about frostbite. I shouldn’t let it worry you. As for getting lost, everyone does. I still do.’
‘I suppose so.’ In the little Sussex town now the shop-keepers would be locking up; all except the newsagents waiting beside their boxes of Christmas cards, berried, frosted and haloed with good cheer, for the football editions of the evening papers. The pubs would be open, warm and mulled and beribboned, and the carol singers would be knocking on the doors of the rich and often getting more money from the poor.
Randall said: ‘Cheer up. Have another drink. It’ll soon be Christmas.’
‘Every time we meet we seem to be involved in some sort of crisis,’ Mortimer said.
‘That’s Moscow,’ Randall said. ‘How’s that girl of yours? The one they were all so concerned about at dinner the other night.’
‘Diana? She’s all right.’
‘She’s a strong, healthy girl. She should look after you during the cold months ahead.’
‘It’s the years ahead I’m worried about,’ Mortimer said. ‘As it is the whole embassy’s as good as got us married.’
‘You could do worse.’
‘And I could do a damn sight better,’ Mortimer said with spirit.
‘You shouldn’t have dived in so quickly. There’s no shortage of girls here if you look in the right places. If I had been in your shoes I would have had a good look round the other embassies. The Scandinavians and the West Germans for preference.’
Mortimer said: ‘I didn’t come to Moscow to look for girls. I came here to start a career in diplomacy. Everyone here seems to be obsessed with sex. They’re either telling me who I shouldn’t go out with or recommending the ones I can go out with.’
‘Your embassy would like nothing better than to see you married off to some nice eligible girl. They’re none too keen on having young bachelors around. The married men envy you, the wives think you’ll lead their husbands astray—and everyone thinks you’re a security risk.’
Mortimer returned to the window but the man had left the militia box. The s
now fell lightly and steadily as if it would never stop. ‘Perhaps I am,’ he said.
‘We all are in our different ways. Garrulous wives, little men who want to boast big, cipher clerks with too much cheap booze inside them, frustrated bachelors trying to make the broads, old lechers like myself trying to make the broads, absentminded professors leaving their notebooks at Intourist offices, homosexuals who forget the efficiency of Russian photography. As I say, everyone’s a security risk in Moscow. Even ambassadors.’
‘I don’t think our ambassador is a security risk,’ Mortimer said.
Randall conceded the point. ‘The exception to every rule. He’s probably the best guy in town. I know the Russians treat him with respect. They have to—he’s got the best view of the Kremlin in town.’
‘So you really think there’s as much spying going on as everyone seems to think?’
Randall shrugged. ‘I don’t know any more than you do. People are certainly more spy-conscious here than anywhere else in the world. Because there’s no escape from it, I guess. We’re in a darned great city and yet we’re always thrown together at our compounds, our parties, our embassy dachas. You don’t mix with the ordinary people in the way you do in most other cities in the world and the result is that everyone thinks they’re being watched and bugged all the time. And the general East-West tension doesn’t help any. They’ve still got Garry Powers’ U2 on display, you know. And of course agents keep getting busted—Penkovsky and some of your own star turns like Greville Wynne and Brooke. I presume you’ve had the usual security lecture, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve certainly been warned about being discreet,’ Mortimer said.
‘Old Mason and Farnworth don’t waste any time. Farnworth knows his stuff. He’s even got the Russians worried. They can’t believe that anyone as extrovert as that can have anything to do with security.’
‘I didn’t realise his duties were generally known.’
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