by John Gardner
There was a long pause, as Herbie braced himself for the Sunday punch he hesitated to deliver. Then—“If I tell you—on that particular night, all those years and months ago—I did not need to lie; would that make any difference? And the other night—would it make a difference if I told you I was going private, after this one job’s finished? If I told you my mind was made up; I was going to ask you to come and live with me. Maybe even marry? Cheeky of me, yes? Arrogant. Male chauvinist pig, yes? But I had made up my mind, Martha.”
She did not believe him. He could tell by the face; then the quick look away. With her head turned from him, she said, “You wouldn’t ask me now though. Not after this.”
“Don’t be sure, Matti. You should not be sure of this. I had a watch doubled on you—after the first time I came down. My chief will have the memos if you want to see them. I told him you’d been turned. I told him the bastards had turned you, and that you, of all people, could not live with it. I said you were on a knife edge, and existing in danger. When I got Vascovsky’s last tape—I presume you were the postman—I had them bring me back here double quick. You see, I had not heard that tape when I came down. I didn’t go near my flat. Came straight to you from my office.”
Her head turned fast. Too fast for whatever pain was there. She winced, wrinkling her brow and screwing up her eyes.
“They must have had something very big to hold over you, Matti. But you have to tell me. Everything you must tell.” Herbie leaned close. She smelled of antiseptic and doctors. Now Fincher was beside him for the last rites—the confession. Herbie felt a flare of fury at his presence.
“It’ll make no difference.” Her voice almost a whisper.
“You are wrong. Tell it all; tell it now, and I’ll put Vascovsky out like a light. That, I promise. Then we’ll talk about the future. Please, Martha, remember it’s me. Did I ever let you down?”
She tried to raise herself up on the pillows. Big Herbie put an arm around her and lifted. As he did so, her arms circled his neck. He bent low and kissed her, then gently laid her back.
She said nothing for a minute, which seemed like an hour. Then, with a slow inclination of the head, Martha Adler began to talk.
Michael Gold was having breakfast, in the National’s large dining room, when the Intourist girl came to his table, her face troubled.
“Mr. Gold?”
“Yes. We met last night. Tonight you said you’d have...”
“You mind if I sit down a moment?”
He rose, making a movement with his hand towards the spare chair, knowing what was to come; heart pounding, and manhood awakened even by the simple way she moved. He asked if she would like coffee, and the smile broadened. She ordered some for herself, then leaned over the table. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. I am sorry.” The smile did not change. Michael thought it was rather like an oriental who will sometimes say ‘yes’ and shake his head; or ‘no’ and nod.
“You have a brother, ’Erbert Gold?”
“It’s not Herbie?” He made it sound fast and anxious.
“No. Mr. ’Erbert Gold, your brother, telephoned our London people this morning—very early. You have an aunt. A Miss Amy Wilcocks, is that right?”
“Yes, Auntie Amy. She hasn’t been well.”
“Mr. Gold. I’m sorry. They felt a woman should tell you. Your brother said you were—how do you say it?—fond? Fond of your aunt.”
“She’s a bit like a second mother to me.”
“I’m afraid she is died, Mr. Gold.”
“Oh.” He paused for effect, and then said “Oh,” again. Then—“Poor Auntie Amy. She wasn’t well ... But ... dead?”
“I’m afraid so. They bury her on Saturday morning. Your brother thought you should be there because you loved her; and because of the reading of the beneficiaries ...”
“The will.”
“Yes. You are to get something it seems. Perhaps you will be rich, Mr. Gold.”
“I don’t think so. Just a little extra. Poor Auntie Amy. Who’d have thought it. Yes. Yes, I suppose I should be there. Saturday you say?”
She tried to be consoling, reaching out, touching his hand with the tips of her fingers. Then she withdrew them, as though burned. “Our London people have worked it all out with your brother ’Erbert. He says your aunt would not have wished you to miss your holiday. Not altogether.”
“No. No, she was like that, Auntie Amy. Can’t believe it. Went to see her; day before yesterday.” A voice in his head told him to cool it. The voice told him he was not Lord Olivier. He was not even a member of the cast of Dallas. Certainly not playing opposite this girl. Michael still could not understand how the sight and touch of her could throw his mind into such turmoil. Playing the newly-bereaved required a great deal of concentration.
“We have arranged you go to London tonight. Ten-past-six there is British Airways flight. If you feel like it, we can take you on today’s tour—the Kremlin. Your brother says you can return to your holiday on Saturday; after the burying, and the reading of beneficiaries. Intourist will pay your return fare because you would miss three days of holiday. You like to do this?”
Michael said, yes. Yes, he thought it a very good idea. The Intourist girl said again that she was so sorry about his aunt; but, when he returned to Moscow, on Saturday evening, she would be at Sheremetievo to meet him. “Personally,” she said. “You will be rich. Perhaps you like to take me to dinner?”
Would he not? At the moment, his mind turning circles, all he really wanted to do was talk with her, get to know her, hold her, kiss her. He was like a schoolboy with his first crush. This was deeply disturbing to someone like Michael Gold, who always thought he could take ’em or leave ’em: the old adage, find ’em, fornicate with ’em and forget ’em. But this girl? Christ, he did not even know her name. A tiny thought crossed his mind. Should he speak with someone in London? You heard about people being compromised. Oh, how the hell could this wonderful lady ... ?
Still like a blushing schoolboy he touched her hand, hesitantly. She put her palm in his and squeezed. “Thank you,” he said, then clumsily rose and went upstairs to pack before they left for the day’s tour.
It was a full, and exhausting, itinerary. They walked around the Kremlin Walls and saw all the towers—the Borovitsky Gate; the Tower of the Annunciation; the Tower of Secrets; the Beklemishev Tower; Tocsin Tower; Tsars’ Tower, and the others; they visited the three main cathedrals; saw the Queen of Bells—heaviest in the world—and the King of Cannons—“Which never has been shot,” the smiling Intourist girl said.
They tramped into the Praesidium, with its huge theatre; and, wearing muffs on their feet, padded around that most dazzling of artistic museums, the Armoury—or Palace of Arms—which contains treasures of untold wealth.
And throughout the day, she seemed to single him out; keeping near to him, flashing him smiles as though to signal an unspoken pact. Once, alone and apart from the rest, she shyly spoke. “I have good feelings for you. Take care and come back soon.” The pact, Michael Gold thought, was sealed. Oh hell, there was Stentor and all the cloak and dagger stuff, but he wanted to get back to see the girl. Could he, of all people, have been caught? Was this the stupid, foolish thing the sloppy books called love at first sight? Romantic piffle. Michael did not believe in love anyway. But this one? Well, she was different.
It took the full day, with a pause for lunch. By the time Michael had been driven out to the airport, and taken through the customs routine, he had mixed feelings about being on board the British Airways Trident: not a little surprised to find they had booked him executive class—“Courtesy of Intourist,” the steward told him. “Sometimes they have heart. Understand there’s been a death in the family.”
They had started in the usual way, Martha told Herbie. Softening her up for the feast: the question and answer routine, right down to the nice cop, and nasty cop business.
“You know—better than I do. They told me what I’d been up to; and
what you’d been up to as well; and they got it right. That’s the disconcerting part.”
Herbie agreed. For the subject, it was always worrying when the interrogators appeared to know every item. They would start by telling you they knew; then asking questions. You did not believe them; but, out of the blue, they told you, and did not ask questions. Then the questions started to come from a different angle.
“They asked me about things I couldn’t tell them: because I just didn’t have the knowledge.”
It was usual. The third phase: the fishing expedition.
“Then they began the turning; and I refused.”
“So things got difficult.” Herbie still held her hand, coaxing her through.
“Not to start with. They suggested things at first. Why didn’t I do some work for them? They could get me out: exchange me. I’d be free, though they would keep a good eye on me. Once over here, the British would almost certainly employ me in sensitive work—it was around then they told me you had sold out, by the way. You’d left everyone, and saved your own skin.” She gave a bleak, thin smile. “I didn’t believe them. Truly I didn’t.”
“Thank you. When did it get nasty?”
“Once they had made certain definite proposals and I’d flatly refused. I told them they could go to hell, and that I’d finished. I wouldn’t work for them. It was final.”
Good girl, Herbie thought. Good girl; though foolish girl. They obviously wanted her badly and, though she had no way of knowing it, for them to push that hard could only mean one thing—they could produce some kind of a hold.
“Drugs?” he asked, and she shook her head. No, not drugs. With her they took the old-fashioned scenic route.
“You sure you want to hear?”
Herbie said he was positive.
Vascovsky had done it. Three nights in succession, with about six of the strong-arm boys watching. Rape. “They say when it’s inevitable, just lie back and enjoy it.”
“You enjoyed?”
“No woman can. Oh, have no fear, Jacob Vascovsky’s a good lover. No doubt about that. But this was calculated rape. On the first two nights, anyway. He was violent, and they laid everything on—the plush bedroom; kinky undies for me; the whole thing. It was so obscene, with them watching. Obscene and degrading. I was on display, like some porn exhibition.” She looked pointedly at Tubby Fincher, who, to his credit, could not meet her eyes. “Then, on the third night, he came alone and tried to seduce me.”
“And you let him?”
“Of course. What else do you do?”
Herbie felt an odd pang of jealousy; blinking on and off like a leering wink. “I understand.”
“You have to act. I thought that might be the end of it.”
But it was only the beginning. On the following morning, they had brought breakfast in bed. Then Vascovsky told her to stay where she was. He would be back.
Only it wasn’t him. “They came, stripped me, and the sensory deprivation started.” She could not, even now, say how long it lasted. After all, that is partly the object of the exercise. She was put in a tiny, cold, airless cell. “You couldn’t stand up, or sit down, or lie down. I had no clothes; there was no light; no sanitary facilities. Only the noises. I managed to work out three days, after that it could have been a month, or a week. I’ve no idea. Couldn’t even tell by my own phases. All that stopped once they had me.”
She thought she was really going mad. It could happen quickly enough; Herbie knew, because he had done it to people. Not the nicest thing in the world, but it had a fearsome effect, and was always carefully monitored by a doctor—otherwise you ended up with a subject fit only for the booby hatch.
Martha was a gibbering wreck when they brought her out. “They asked me, again, if I would go over and do some work for them. Like a fool I said there was no chance. Anyway, I asked them how would they know if I doubled back on them. They just laughed and told me they had ways of dealing with that. Vascovsky himself said they had so penetrated the Firm, they would know within hours. Then they would finish me off.”
She recalled him saying that not only the Bulgarian Service had access to poisons like Ricin. She had not known what this meant until they explained it at Warminster. That was the kind of comment she was able to make during the short debriefing at Warminster. “I was surprised they didn’t dig deeper. Vascovsky warned me to expect a thorough going over by the Firm. In fact it was positively routine.”
Herbie must have been there at the same time as Martha Adler. Funny to think of that. “They kept their eyes on you. Thought you had gone through a lot and come out unscathed. So, Vascovsky threatened you with death—the long arm of Department V—if you tried to be clever.”
“They went on about it the whole time. Even when I was refusing every offer.”
She continued to refuse for a long time; and paid for it. “Odd days of sensory deprivation, alternated with the noise treatment.” She meant the other method of disorientation: hooded and placed in an uncomfortable position, then bursts of white noise poured through headphones; and, if that did not do the trick, they shut you in a soundproof, pitch-dark cell, and fed the most disconcerting, and painful, noises through high frequency amps.
“You cracked after that?”
Martha told him that she was rather proud of having lasted so long. She knew it was only a matter of time before she would agree to something. “I was right on the edge. It was like being staked out close to a crumbling clifftop.”
They must have been monitoring her very carefully, because the final hit came right on target.
Her face sagged, and the small light went out of her eyes. “We didn’t talk much about my family—in the old days, I mean. When we were in the East.” She stopped, asking for a glass of water. A nursing sister came in and made clucking noises. The patient has had enough. Mr. Kruger and Mr. Fincher should really go. Herbie’s look would have terrified even the most militant of hospital matrons.
“During the last days of the Battle of Berlin, I was separated from my family. I never saw them again. We were right in the path of the Russian advance. Logic told me they were dead—father, mother, and my young sister, Eva. But, somehow, I always had this odd feeling that they were alive. They were.”
Giving Martha up for dead, the Adlers had moved North, to Anklam, in Pomerania. Her father had been unfit for military service; a cabinet maker by trade. The authorities put him to work in a factory—making off-the-peg furniture. Eva married, and they all settled down together.
“Vascovsky had managed to find them. “She was weakening, finding it difficult to concentrate. Herbie had to push her on to the limit. After that she could rest. They would take her to the clinic in London, and she would get protection, with medical help of the best possible kind.
“I was ready to crack when they said I had visitors. I couldn’t believe it at first... I...” She faltered, then broke down, starting to weep. “My father had never been very fit; but you know what they say about creaking doors. He was thin, like a ghost; and my mother was frightened. Eva seemed fit enough, but they had just taken her from her husband and two young children. She pleaded with me to do whatever they asked. All she wanted was her husband and the kids.”
So Martha said yes—naturally.
“It was one of Vascovsky’s sidekicks—the Major, Kashov, the one I’d been screwing: the one who arrested me. He said I was to do as I was told. One job for them. They would know if I sold out—will they know, Herbie?”
Big Herbie shook his head. No, they would not find out. He was certain of that.
“They would know, Kashov said. If I doubled on them, I would die: suddenly and unexpectedly. But I would die in the knowledge that, after I had gone, my father, mother, and sister, would also die: slowly, and painfully, in one of their special hospitals in the Soviet Union. If I did as I was told, they would get me back. We would all be reunited and...”
“And you’d live happily ever after.” Herbie grunted. “You believed
all that? Yes, of course you did. And you thought you’d failed, when I did not give you any message.”
Her head moved, wearily, on the pillow, and she raised an arm to brush the long ash blonde hair from her eyes, wet with tears.
“What,” Herbie asked her, “were you to do for this paradise?”
“Be exchanged for one of their people. Go through the Firm’s debriefing, and do as they told me. Eventually I was to make contact with you and send you, by mail—or personally by hand—two tapes. They said you would react. There was no doubt. They believed it completely. You would react very quickly after I delivered the second tape. You did.” She managed a thin smile. “Only you hadn’t received it, even though I took it in personally. Did you know they had the dogs on your place in St. John’s Wood?”
Herbie said yes, he knew. She was very clever to get in and out without being spotted. “I would give you a message?” He pushed.
“Yes.”
“And you were to pass it on. How?”
She gave a long, tired, sigh. “The easiest way imaginable. They showed me how to manufacture a fault in my telephone; in case it was wired. I was to ask any clean friend if I could use their phone. A straight, and direct, call to Moscow with your message.”
“Cryptonyms?”
“I was Lara—as in Zhivago—which was somewhat ironic.” She gave a small sob of laughter. “You were Kolya.”
“Simple as that. What about Vascovsky?”
“Yuri. Vascovsky was Yuri. Yes, it was that simple. They said it would only be a matter of weeks, after I sent the message. A matter of weeks before they’d lift me.”
“Okay, Matti. Will you send the message? If you do, I’ll see to it that your parents are safe.” He paused, and she saw his great lumpy peasant face harden in bitterness. “I shall also see that Vascovsky’s balls are removed. One at a time, and without anaesthetic.”
He thought she would never answer him. The silence stretched on to a moment when Herbie, himself, could almost stand it no longer. Then she gave a small indication with hand and head. Herbie spoke quickly. “You need sleep; and I shall see you’re moved to safety, in London, while you sleep. But this has to be done quickly. Now. Just stay awake for a short time, my dear. Do it, and we’ll almost be there.”