‘You win,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I bother. But God help this Australian you’re helping this evening.’
‘It is very good of you to allow me to work for him,’ she said. You are very good to me, Gaspadeen Randall.’
‘Too good,’ he said.
He changed his suit and shaved for the second time that day because he was meeting Michele. The face peering from the shaving mirror was, he thought, far too old to lie on a pillow beside hers. But if she didn’t care then he didn’t. But what would those two faces look like in ten years’ time? He could hear people saying: ‘He’s far too old for her—I don’t see what she sees in him.’ Always presuming that she was still with him in ten years’ time.
Then, to distract his attention from himself, he considered the problem posed by Richard Mortimer who, according to Russian contacts to whom he paid considerable sums of money, had become more deeply involved with the Russian girl than he had imagined. He would have to talk seriously to Mortimer before it was too late. Although he was not sure how he could do this without revealing that he had Russian informers in his pay. Really it was none of his business what happened to Mortimer; in fact the American Embassy would be quite happy to see the British collect some bad publicity—if that’s what the Soviets were after. But his feeling for Mortimer, part brotherly and part paternal, was strong.
He let himself out of the flat and waited for the lift, a middle-aged young man on the way to meet his girl.
The floating restaurant moved gently on the river swell and the water gurgled against the landing stage. Through the window they could see the reflections of the restaurant lights pulled out across the sleek water. Even inside he could smell the river.
They drank warm Russian beer from small brown bottles with barley sugar patterns on the glass while they waited for their steaks and pretended that the restaurant was gliding downstream to the sea. Every table was crowded. Russians queued on the landing stage but Randall had been ushered in on the crest of the magic word Intourist. He felt guilty about it, but not too guilty.
The steaks arrived, tough and raw, and they sent them back. The gold-toothed waitress obeyed without emotion—Westerners always sent their food back; it was one of their customs.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Randall said. ‘What’s the matter?’ A premonition of unhappiness surfaced, killing his appetite.
‘Nothing,’ she said. The uncertainty in her voice exposed the lie.
‘You might as well tell me,’ he said.
She was wearing a dark green raw silk dress and jacket. Her face was pale and her eyes shadowed. She looked very small and unhappy.
‘It’s all so hopeless, isn’t it?’ she said.
He had just told her about the latest letter from his wife.
‘It’s no more hopeless than it has ever been,’ he said. ‘Nothing has changed.’
‘And nothing ever will change.’ She sipped at her beer in the tinted glass.
‘This is a very sudden change of mood.’
‘Not sudden,’ she said. ‘It is gradual. I think it has something to do with the end of summer.’
Helplessly Randall set about hurting them both. ‘You mean that it was just a summer idyll,’ he said.
‘No, I don’t mean that,’ she said. She looked as if she might cry.
‘What do you mean then?’
‘We never discussed the fact that I might have to leave Moscow.’
‘It never occurred to me,’ Randall said.
The waitress returned the steaks. They made no attempt to eat them.
Michele gazed across the water, black and silver now that dusk had deepened into night. ‘I have been posted to another embassy,’ she said. ‘I have to leave very shortly.’
‘You too? Everyone is leaving. Surely you can volunteer to stay here?’
‘I do not know. I don’t think so. But in any case, what is the point? I love you and it would only make it harder in the end. I want to marry and have children. It is almost as if I am being sent away because someone is looking after me. I love you very much but even now I might be able to get over it. It will take a long time and I will never really forget you. But one day perhaps I will meet someone and marry him and have children like other women. This is so hopeless. I am sorry. All I can say is that I have never been so unhappy in all my life.’
Then it was over, he thought, and the thing to do was to pay the bill and drive her home. Finish it cleanly. But no one ever did. So he lingered at the table, wondering whether to plead with her, not knowing how, accepting that she was right and that he was ruining her life, knowing what he should do and lacking the determination to do it.
He said: ‘I’m sorry I’ve made you unhappy.’
‘You have made me very happy,’ she said. ‘More happy than I believed possible.’
‘If we follow the script,’ he said, ‘my next line should read, “And you’ve no regrets?’”
‘It is only in the script because those are the things people say. I will follow the script—“No, I have no regrets.”’
‘I suppose we ought to go. There’s no point in prolonging this.’
‘You haven’t eaten your steak.’
‘And you haven’t eaten yours.’
‘I’m not hungry anymore.’
‘Nor am I.’
They stared at the tablecloth, at the other diners, at the slow shining water outside.
‘I can’t believe that it is all over,’ she said. ‘In the summer I thought that it would last for ever.’
Some of his old strength returned. ‘Moscow,’ he said, ‘is strictly seasonal. Where are you going incidentally? I forgot to ask.’
‘They are sending me to Bonn,’ she said. ‘But first I will spend some time with my family in Paris.’
‘I’m taking some leave, too,’ he said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Back home to the States, of course, to see my wife and kids.’
So that, he thought, was how such affairs ended—with a final barb of unnecessary cruelty.
‘That will be nice for you,’ she said.
He asked the waitress for the bill. She gave it to him and stood looking at the table shaking her head. To order food, to pay for it and to leave it untouched was a Western custom which she had not come across before.
Randall dropped Michele at her apartment and headed for the National bar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Richard Mortimer planned to see Nina once more. He would tell her that she was to come no more, and somehow he would let her know that he still loved her and what he was doing was for her sake and the sake of her brother. He would, perhaps, ask her aloud—for the benefit of the hidden audience—to take him around the Kremlin. And while they wandered around its cathedrals and towers, and its mellow squares beneath snug clusters of gold cupolas, he would explain.
But Nina didn’t come for his next lesson. Instead when he opened the front door he was confronted by a sleek-haired young man with spectacles and an apologetic air.
Mortimer said: ‘Where is Nina Bashkirova?’
The young man said: ‘She is ill. I have been sent in her place. My name is Igor. I hope you do not mind.’
Fear suffused him. He presumed that she had been arrested by the police and that he was to blame. ‘What has happened to her?’ he asked.
The young man was surprised by his vehemence. ‘All I know,’ he said, ‘is that she is ill. I do not think it is anything serious. I know she is a very good teacher, Gaspadeen Mortimer, but I assure you that I have all the qualifications to teach you my language. Do you not want your lesson?’
Mortimer looked through the spectacles and thought he saw slyness in the myopic, unwavering gaze. ‘Of course I do,’ he said.
But the lesson was not a success. The new teacher was inquisitive about his relationship with Nina and Mortimer was totally unreceptive to the niceties of pronunciation.
Next day he phoned UPDK and asked for more detail
s about Nina’s illness.
A remote woman’s voice said: it is not usual to answer such questions. But as far as we know she is suffering from bronchitis. It seems to me that when she has recovered she may convalesce in a sanatorium on the Black Sea.’
‘Is it possible,’ he asked, ‘to know where I could contact her?’
The voice became prim and shocked. ‘No, that is not possible. It is something we never do. Could I ask, please, why you want to know?’
‘I just wanted to drop her a note hoping that she gets well soon.’
‘I’m afraid that will not be possible,’ said the voice. ‘I hope your new teacher is satisfactory.’
‘He is very good,’ Mortimer said. ‘I have no complaints.’
As he put down the receiver he heard the young French voice calling up to him through the walls. If there was any such voice.
He believed that he would never see Nina again. That, he knew, was the best way. But although his reason could accept this solution his emotions could not. At first he thought that she had been murdered, then he decided that she had been transported to some remote town in Siberia. But why? If, as Mikhail insisted, they were using her for subversion within the British Embassy they would hardly remove her from her contact. Last night Randall had warned him about the dangers of his association with Nina and he was alarmed at the extent of Randall’s knowledge.
The nights expanded pushing aside the belts of dawn and dusk which only a few weeks earlier had tried to erase the darkness. As he lay in bed beneath the shifting shadows he tried to burrow swiftly into the dark cave of sleep; but the entrance retreated, and when he finally managed to enter the cave it was filled with threatening dreams.
Then one morning when he had crossed the highway to send a birthday cable to his mother from the Ukraine Hotel he met Nina’s brother again.
He was glancing at the bright new stamps, the thin, coloured postcards and the copies of the Morning Star which many Russians seemed to think was Britain’s principal newspaper, when Mikhail sauntered across the foyer and stood beside him. ‘Again we must talk,’ he said. ‘Please meet me outside. You go first and I will meet you in a few minutes time.’
Mortimer walked slowly past the marshalling yard of luggage by the reception desks, past the queues of travel-stunned guests which never seemed to shorten and pushed through the heavy doors into the mist now lying in wait for winter.
Five minutes later Mikhail joined him. ‘I must be quick,’ he said, ‘because I believe I am being followed.’
‘What is it? Has Nina come to any harm?’
Mikhail shook his head impatiently. Already he was wearing his shapka as if at any moment the mist might crystallise into snow. ‘The silly girl has not come to any harm,’ he said. ‘It is just that she has chest trouble and cannot work. This mist would kill her. But she is afraid that you will not understand why she has not visited you for your lessons.’
Mortimer shivered with relief and pleasure. ‘But why have you come to tell me this? I thought you never wanted us to see each other again.’
‘I want your association to end—for my sister’s sake. But I thought that during her illness your resolve might have softened. I also think that she may realise by now that it is I who have advised you to end your friendship. So you must be cruel and brutal in the way you act. Behave as if it is your wish. As if you want to be rid of her for your own sake.’
‘How is Nina?’ Mortimer asked.
‘She is much better,’ Mikhail said. He looked behind him as they crossed the bridge and began to walk towards the tall butterfly shape of the new Mutual Economic Aid building. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I am being followed. I must leave you now.’
Mortimer looked round. ‘I can’t see anyone,’ he said.
‘How would you know? I have seen this man ever since I left my home. Good-bye Richard Mortimer—you know what it is you have to do now.’
‘Was there no other message from her?’
‘I should tell you that there was none. But I am a bad liar. She sends her love—I could not keep that from you. I am afraid I will be no good under interrogation.’
‘And will you tell her that I love her?’
Mikhail replaced the scowl on his face. ‘It is not possible. She must be made to believe that you have grown tired of her. It seems to me that the time is ripe for you to end your association. Now please turn about and return to your apartment.’
Mikhail hurried off into the mist and Mortimer turned, glancing at the faces which had been behind them. But each was expressionless, each with its own intent—reaching home, meeting a girl, following a rebel writer.
The film was called Ring of Spies. It was about the breaking of the Lonsdale espionage network in Britain. It was a British picture and it was being shown in Moscow at the British Club.
Mortimer watched the police closing in on the Soviet spies and felt fear thick and sour inside him. But he knew that he must see Nina once more; if he didn’t then she would believe for the rest of her life that he had deserted her.
In the row in front of him Mason nodded at each confirmation on the screen of Soviet chicanery; further along the row Giles Ansell sighed as his wife giggled in the wrong places. Diana squeezed his hand as the police pegged down the net around the spies.
When, as usual, the film broke down during a tense sequence Diana said: ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, to think of all this sort of thing going on in London and here we are in Moscow unaware of spies or secret police or anything like that.’
Mortimer nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it.’
The film restarted with no sound. In the back row someone whistled and Mason turned round reprovingly. ‘Hallo Richard,’ he said. ‘This film just goes to show you can’t be too careful, doesn’t it.’
‘It does,’ Mortimer said.
The film started again with sound and vision synchronising. Mortimer watched without seeing and returned to the forest and to the village where he had chanced upon a lonely figure shyly worshipping God in the darkness of a decayed church. Had Nina been under orders then to ensure that their friendship lasted? The sense of sharing from that day returned to him, strongly yet subtly, like the scent of a flower. Surely she had not then been acting?
Mortimer knew that he had to hear her tell him that she had loved him that day. Even if all else was hopeless he had to know that.
The spies were caught and the lights came on.
Mason turned round. ‘We’ll wait till the mob’s gone and then we’ll have a drink,’ he said. His ears glowed pink around their brown thistles. He had never mentioned their visit to Leningrad since their return.
‘Lovely,’ Diana said. ‘I’m dying for a drink, aren’t you, Richard?’
‘I wouldn’t mind one,’ Mortimer said.
The Ambassador’s footmen retired to the bar end of the club to play darts. A few junior diplomats, some embassy clerks and a handful of harassed businessmen set about trying to make the atmosphere as British as the film had been. But, like the atmosphere in a tea or rubber planters’ club, it was stubborn. The men drank pints of imported draught bitter, the women gin and tonics; the barman and his wife spoke with Cockney accents; but no one ever forgot that they were in Moscow.
Ansell and his wife joined them.
‘The film was a lot of old cobblers, wasn’t it?’ Ansell said.
‘It happened to be true,’ Mason said. ‘You should never forget, Giles, that these things do happen.’
Ansell remembered Mason’s seniority. ‘Of course they do,’ he said. ‘I wonder if the Russians know what we were watching tonight.’
Mason spoke patiently. ‘Of course they know,’ he said. ‘They know what you had for dinner tonight.’
‘God help them,’ Ansell said.
Mrs. Ansell said: ‘And just what do you mean by that? Honestly, Giles, I sometimes think you bring me out just so that you can humiliate me.’
‘It was a joke,’ Ansell said. And
to keep the peace he added: ‘Actually the dinner was jolly good.’
Mason brought drinks to their table from the bar. ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Here’s to us catching a few more rats like those in the film.’
Diana said: ‘So many of them seem to escape after they’re caught, don’t they?’
‘Do they?’ Mason said. ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’
Diana stumbled on. ‘This chap Blake got away,’ she said. ‘And he’s in Moscow, isn’t he?’
‘Is he?’ Mason said.
‘I thought he was,’ Diana said. ‘It’s funny to think that there might be spies in this room right now, isn’t it?’
They looked at her dumbly. Then Mason raised his pint and everyone followed his lead. The subject was drowned.
Ansell turned to Mortimer. ‘You’re very quiet tonight,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter? Meditating on your first year in Moscow?’
Mortimer tried to smile, ‘Is it a year?’ he said. ‘I hadn’t realised.’
Diana, thankful for the change of topic, said. ‘That reminds me, my lad, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.’
‘What’s that?’ Mortimer asked.
‘I see you’ve put in for leave.’
Mortimer nodded. ‘I thought I might take a little time off. I was going to tell you about it. I only applied today.’
Diana smiled triumphantly. ‘That’s all right, Richard,’ she said. ‘I’ve put in for leave at the same time. Where shall we go?’
Ansell prodded him. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘where are you going to take Diana?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mortimer said. ‘Sweden perhaps.’
‘It’s damned pricey,’ Ansell said.
‘Giles never takes me farther than the diplomatic beach,’ said Mrs. Ansell.
‘Never mind,’ Ansell said, ‘we’ll be off back to the UK soon and then off to Rome.’
‘Not before time,’ said Mrs. Ansell. ‘I’d go mad if I thought I had to stay here any longer. I sometimes think I have gone a little crazy.’ Her lips twitched in her small doggy face.
Ansell bought more drinks. At the other end of the room the footmen applauded a spectacular feat at darts. An American serviceman left with a Finnish nanny loudly proclaiming his intention to take her straight home, but no one believed him. They left the British in sole occupation of their own Club. Then, when all the foreigners had left, the British left. But not before all the lights had blacked out.
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