Angels in the Snow

by Derek Lambert

  Like Harry Waterman, Boris Leonov had served time in a Labour camp for a barely specified crime; he may even have been there because of the aura of mystery which was inseparable from his presence: he would have been mysterious if his interests had been confined to baking pastry. But when he was released after the death of Stalin he prospered whereas Harry Waterman stagnated. Harry boasted of him as a friend and speculated behind his back about the sources of his income.

  Boris Leonov cultivated his Western friends and liked them all to meet from time to time under his roof. They were correspondents mostly, and a few special diplomats trying to find out about his business. They enjoyed his gin and Scotch, his hi-fi and the atmosphere of his home which was the most poignant taste of the West they could hope to experience in Russia. When they left, those who had gone to his home to investigate his business wondered if in fact he had not learned more about their business.

  Tonight Harry Waterman headed towards the dacha in unaccustomed style in Luke Randall’s limousine. Beside Luke in the front seat sat Richard Mortimer from the British Embassy. Harry was excited with the stature of the company and from the back seat he chattered eagerly away as if he had known them both since childhood. He was still shocked by Grechenko’s revelation; but the revelation had made him more determined than ever to ingratiate himself with people who might be able to help him.

  ‘Quite a guy, old Boris,’ he said. ‘He was in a camp like me, you know, Dick. He didn’t do as long as I did, the lucky bastard. But then he always was lucky was Boris. Look at him now—living off the fat of the land. Not that I hold it against him. It’s up to all of us to make our fortunes. It’s just that some of us are luckier than others. And Boris is luckier than most.’

  ‘I gather you’re close friends,’ Mortimer said.

  ‘We’re like that, Dick.’ In the darkness he entwined two fingers.

  But Boris Leonov was not noticeably pleased to see Harry. He welcomed Randall who introduced him to Mortimer. He nodded at Harry and told them to leave their coats with the babushka fluttering around the hall.

  Harry didn’t let him get away with it. He gripped Leonov’s hand and shook it vigorously. ‘Great to see you again, Boris,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  Leonov looked at him as if it had not been long enough. ‘Nice to see you, Harry,’ he said. ‘All of you come into the lounge when you’ve taken off your coats.’

  In the lounge they found a handful of diplomats from different embassies and their wives and a few journalists, Harry Green and Dick Hellier among them. Leonov liked to mix his guests; he and his wife were the only Russians present.

  Harry watched Leonov mix drinks. A middle-aged man with a youthful body dressed in an expensive Western suit a little too big for him as if he hadn’t been able to believe his own slimness. He had one gold tooth set in shining white neighbours, and soft fair hair that fell boyishly across his forehead.

  Harry tasted the opulence around him and thought of his stale flat. Of Marsha saving scraps in the kitchen, his mother-in-law lodged in front of a television set half the size of Leonov’s. He smelled the women’s expensive perfume and saw the flames from the fire dancing on their expensive jewellery. He watched their silly mouths chattering about nothing and he knew, as he had known for a long time, that he was an outcast from this society, or any other society for that matter.

  But he need not have been an outcast. He had been popular enough in his own circle before he joined the Army; and popular enough with the other soldiers because they appreciated him voicing their own discontent. If it hadn’t been for the monstrous bloody injustice that had ruined his life he would have been home with his own kind.

  Harry remembered Grechenko’s terms, the purpose of his visit to Leonov’s, and moved purposefully towards Richard Mortimer who was examining the hi-fi equipment.

  ‘Quite a drum, Dick, isn’t it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a nice house,’ Mortimer said. ‘It’s beautifully furnished.’

  Harry glanced around to see if Leonov was listening. But Leonov seemed to want to stay as far away from Harry as possible. Harry said: ‘It takes money to furnish a drum like this. I wonder where he gets it from.’

  ‘I suppose he works hard,’ Mortimer said.

  Harry sensed—as he had sensed many times before with his own countrymen in Moscow—that Mortimer was not warming to him. His envy of Leonov was too transparent; men like Mortimer became uneasy when someone else’s character was questioned. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I reckon Boris deserves every kopek he’s got. By God he’s worked hard. I only wish I’d had his guts.’

  ‘I understand you had a rough time,’ Mortimer said.

  A rough time. Was that what this whippersnapper with hands as soft as a baby’s arse called it? Christ, he and his kind made you sick. It was men like Mortimer who had kept the truth from him for twenty years.

  ‘It was pretty rough,’ Harry said. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had done anything to deserve it. But still it’s no good crying over spilt milk.’

  ‘That’s a very brave attitude,’ Mortimer said.

  ‘It’s the only attitude. As a matter of fact I hope to go home soon. Back to the Smoke.’

  ‘But you’re a Russian citizen, aren’t you?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean a bloody thing,’ Harry said. ‘Once an Englishman always an Englishman.’

  ‘That’s very true. But will the Russians grant you an exit visa? I mean aren’t they a bit sticky about people like yourself leaving the Soviet Union?’

  ‘I’ll get one all right,’ Harry said. ‘You see if I don’t.’

  ‘Well, I wish you luck. Now if you’ll excuse me a minute I think that chap over there from the French Embassy wants a word with me.’

  Harry panicked. He might not get another chance to speak to Mortimer alone. If only he knew exactly what Grechenko wanted from him. ‘Let me get you another drink,’ he said. ‘The French will be here for the rest of the evening.’ Shamelessly he sought Mortimer’s pity. ‘And it’s not often I get a chance of a chat with a fellow Cockney. You are from London, aren’t you, Dick?’

  ‘Sussex as a matter of fact,’ Mortimer said.

  ‘How are you settling down in Moscow?’

  ‘Not too badly, thank you.’

  Harry plunged. ‘You must come over to my place sometime,’ he said. ‘It’s not luxurious, mind you. But most people like to drop over for a drink from time to time. You must meet my wife, too.’ He winked. ‘You should marry a Russian girl, Dick. There’s nothing like them. These English girls don’t know what work is. Marsha keeps our place as clean as a new pin, goes to work and cooks a meal at night.’

  Mortimer glanced unhappily around the room. ‘I’d like to come over one day,’ he said. Mortimer wanted to escape: Harry knew the symptoms. He struggled on. ‘The trouble with you diplomats is that you never really see Russia. I bet you’ve never been inside a Russian home, have you, Dick?’

  Mortimer shook his head. ‘Only this one,’ he said.

  ‘This isn’t a Russian home. This is a palace.’ He gulped at his whisky frightened that any pause in the conversation would give Mortimer a chance to escape. ‘Which block do you live in, Dick?’

  ‘Kutuzovsky. Right opposite the Ukraine Hotel.’

  ‘Near where old Luke lives. Are you at the same entrance?’

  ‘No, I’m three along from Luke. Nearer the street.’

  ‘I’ll drop by and visit you one of these days,’ Harry said.

  Consternation appeared on Mortimer’s face as he realised where the conversation had been leading. ‘That will be nice,’ he said without conviction.

  ‘I often drop by that way. I might be a Russian citizen but I like to keep up my friendships with my buddies from the West.’

  ‘I’m not always there,’ Mortimer said. ‘It would probably be best if you phoned first.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll drop by on the off chance.’
<
br />   Harry Green came to Mortimer’s rescue. ‘I didn’t know you knew each other,’ he said. ‘Next to Len Wincott Harry’s the most interesting character in town.’

  ‘Who’s Len Wincott?’ Mortimer asked.

  ‘Another Brit who fell foul of Stalin,’ Green said. ‘Served in the Red Army in the siege of Leningrad and got put away in a camp for his pains. You’ve got a lot of people to meet yet.’

  ‘He’s going to,’ Harry said. ‘Dick’s coming round to my place for a noggin. I’ll introduce him to a few interesting people.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Green said. ‘Harry’s parties are always interesting.’ He grinned at Mortimer. ‘It gives you a chance to get away from diplomats. Now we’d better get some nosh while there’s still any left.’ He seemed to confine the remark to Mortimer.

  On the table there were plates of cold chicken and beef, salads, pickles and glasses of red wine. The guests took their plates and returned to their seats. Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin accompanied their eating while the two babushkas watched from behind the table.

  Harry made a point of sitting next to Leonov. ‘Not like the bad old days, Boris, is it?’ he said.

  Leonov who never talked about the bad old days said: ‘No, it isn’t.’ He turned to Betty Hellier who was worrying whether the children were all right back at their flat.

  But Harry was not so easily beaten. ‘How long was it you were inside for, Boris?’ he asked.

  Leonov turned back to him reluctantly. ‘I forget,’ he said.

  ‘Forget? You can’t forget a thing like that. I was in for nearly ten years and I can remember every stinking day.’

  ‘I think it is better to forget,’ Leonov said. ‘There is no point in remembering. It is all in the past. What is the point of resurrecting it?’

  ‘I don’t see why people should be allowed to forget it. People would forget what the Germans did to the Jews if they were given half a chance.’

  Leonov said: ‘Leave it alone, Harry. You just make trouble because you are an Englishman and I am a Soviet citizen and I want only that which is best for my country. Every nation has history it would rather forget—Britain as much as anyone. Terrible mistakes were made in the Soviet Union. I as well as anyone know that. Now we are doing our best to make up for them. We want to forget them. Let us leave it like that. Now if you will excuse me I must get some more wine for my guests.’

  Randall said: ‘I shouldn’t push it, Harry. After all you are a guest in his house.’

  Betty Hellier said: ‘Gee, I sure hope the kids are all right.’ She turned to Randall who was sitting next to Harry. ‘We’re having a bit of trouble with our nanny,’ she said.

  Hellier said: ‘Betty thinks she’s pregnant.’

  Harry inserted himself into the conversation once more. ‘You don’t have to worry about that in Russia,’ he said. ‘Abortion’s legal, you know. You just pop along to the clinic in the morning and you’re out again in the afternoon as right as rain.’

  ‘I couldn’t allow her to do that,’ Betty Hellier said.

  Harry persisted. ‘You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing,’ he said. ‘Some Russian women have three or four a year. But it’s got to be done within the first twelve weeks.’

  ‘No,’ said Betty Hellier. ‘She’ll just have to go home. And in any case we don’t really know if she is pregnant. She hasn’t said anything but I know she’s been sick in the morning.’

  Leonov’s wife sat down beside them. She was a plump woman with high-blown lacquered hair and a homely face which resented its lavish dressing of Western cosmetics. Unlike her husband she spoke bad English but when she floundered he was always there to rescue her. She was perpetually amazed at the riches that her husband had won for her.

  ‘You like the food?’ she asked.

  Harry nodded. ‘Not bad at all,’ he said. ‘The beef was a bit raw though. I like my food well cooked.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I too like it better cooked. My husband say that all Westerners like it bloody. Bloody—is that right?’

  Leonov looked pointedly at Harry. ‘Bloody is absolutely right,’ he said.

  ‘I think my English gets worse,’ said his wife. ‘I wish I could speak it as good as Boris. But he is practising all the time.’

  Harry said: ‘It’s a dry old ship this, Boris. Let’s have some more of your Western booze.’

  Randall said: ‘I guess it’s time to go.’

  But two hours later they were still there.

  Western diplomats rarely met Russians at parties. It must have seemed to them that they came all the way to Russia to meet more of their own diplomatic kind than they met at home. As they continued to meet each other at their own cocktail and dinner parties they became even more remote from the Russians than they were when they first arrived. Thus the representatives of little nations which had contributed nothing more to civilisation than cuckoo clocks or quaint drinks began to feel superior to their host country which had produced Pushkin, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Lenin, the first man in space and a rocket nicknamed ‘The Chicago Express’ which could obliterate their capital cities at the press of a button. The diplomats joked about Russian women doing all the work, they joked about mannerless men elbowing their way into the Bolshoi; and they read about Soviet achievements in space and inter-continental ballistics as if they were the handiwork of some other superior nation.

  And when they met a Russian socially, and when they had drunk sufficient liquor, they tended to become argumentative, pressing home their Capitalist arguments as if they were dealing with a peasant and not a representative of a great power. Sometimes, if they had drunk too much, they became childishly vituperative in a fashion that would not have endeared them to their foreign ministers.

  Thus, when he had poured them sufficient drink, Boris Leonov often became the target for their abuse of his country. Happily he was adequate to the occasion; in fact he seemed to welcome the exchanges; his blue eyes became hard and bright and his soft hair fell across his forehead. During the arguments he also oiled his words with liquor and the words became as derogatory as those of his adversaries. But they were backed by a dangerous quality which the taunts of his opponents lacked: they seemed to have the strength of some indefinable power and knowledge.

  But no one could ever accuse Boris Leonov of starting the arguments.

  Tonight, after the red wine had been replaced by brandy, he countered an attack from a Canadian with lazy competence, his eyes blinking myopically. Like other diplomats present the Canadian presumed that a Russian’s own home was not bugged and the opportunity to discharge views repressed since he arrived in Russia was irresistible.

  Harry listened to the Canadian approvingly and wished that the whisky had lighted similar articulate fires within himself. But when he tried to lend support his words were so eager to form sentences that they slid into each other.

  The Canadian, a second secretary not normally noted for belligerence, was becoming increasingly irritated by Leonov’s attitude. ‘Goddam it, Boris,’ he said, ‘I know you’re my host and I hope you’ll take what I’m going to say in the spirit in which it is intended.’

  ‘And what spirit is that?’ Leonov asked.

  The Canadian pondered. The men were assembled at one end of the room; the women had clustered in their chairs at the other. Occasionally Leonov’s wife who anticipated these social functions with dread, and other wives, glanced apprehensively at the men intent upon making fools of themselves. A Gershwin melody filled the void between the two groups.

  The Canadian said: ‘I guess you’d call it advisory. Yep, that’s what it is—advisory.’

  ‘And since when did we need to be advised?’ Leonov asked.

  ‘I figure everyone needs to be advised,’ said the Canadian. ‘But you’ve got to be big enough to take it.’ He squinted into his glass, proud of his philosophy.

  ‘And what do you wish to advise me about?’

  ‘Not just you, Boris. Eve
ry Russian living in this Goddam country. It’s about time you all got wise to yourselves. Fifty years and where have you got? I’ll tell you—nowhere.’

  ‘It seems to me that there are a few people who were alive in 1917 who would not agree with you.’

  ‘Come off it, Boris,’ said the Canadian. ‘You’re an intelligent man. You know that this great dream of equality is a lot of crap. You of all people.’

  The lazy eyes awakened. ‘Why me of all people?’

  The Canadian was not yet drunk enough to indulge in personal insults. ‘Come off it, Boris. You know what I’m talking about. Why, this country becomes more Capitalist every day of the year.’

  Leonov lit a cheroot brought back from his last trip to America. ‘And the States become more Communist every day of the year,’ he said.

  ‘Who the hell’s talking about the States? I’m a Canadian.’

  Leonov breathed smoke through his nostrils and shrugged. ‘It does not matter,’ he said. ‘The States or one of its satellites—it’s all the same.’

  Randall said: ‘Hear, hear, Boris. Well said.’

  The Canadian abandoned his diplomatic training and red blotches caused by indigestion or anger or both appeared on his pale face. ‘See here, Leonov,’ he said, ‘you can forget that sort of shit. I’m not going to stand here and have my country insulted by a Russian.’

  Leonov said: ‘I was only speaking in an advisory capacity.’

  And Mortimer said: ‘Luke, don’t you think it’s time we went home?’

  But Randall wasn’t listening.

  ‘You’re very clever,’ said the Canadian. ‘You should take a job at the United Nations.’

  ‘It’s true what I say,’ Leonov said. ‘Look at the thousands of American citizens who oppose United States’ policy in Vietnam. They might not be Communists now but if America continues its policy there they very soon will be.’

  The Canadian paused to work out how his advisory comments about life in the Soviet Union had developed into an attack on United States’ policy in Vietnam. He decided to pursue his original theme—whatever that had been. ‘What’s this Goddam revolution of yours brought you? That’s what I want to know.’ He swayed slightly and gazed defiantly around him.’