The Red House
Page 6
‘Their houses, I think,’ Zhukov said.
‘The houses? In what way?’
‘The way they live in units. Isolated, if you like from each other.’ Zhukov felt his way with caution. ‘I just don’t see how they can ever understand us. The communal soul of Russia, I mean. Their characters are so different, so self-sufficient …’
Together they saw the hibernating family and friends around a stove in a wooden village hut; the city apartments with their communal kitchens and bathrooms; the old and the new settings of shared gaiety, love and strife.
‘An unusual first impression, Comrade Zhukov. But I don’t think for one second that they want to understand us. It is we who should try and understand them—it is we, after all, who are trying to spread Marxist-Leninism throughout the world.’
‘You are right, of course,’ Zhukov said. ‘But it seems a shame …’
‘I believe,’ said Zuvorin, skirting the tortuous alleys that might lie ahead, ‘that you speak excellent English. That is how you came to be given this post. Where did you learn the language? I must confess I am a little jealous.’ He waited.
‘Your English is perfect,’ Zhukov said.
Zuvorin nodded happily. He did enjoy flattery. But at his age was it not forgivable?
‘I studied languages at the university,’ Zhukov said. ‘Then I became an interpreter in the Army. I improved my English when we met the British and Americans in Berlin.’
‘Ah so. Our allies. They should have followed Patton’s advice. Where would we be then, comrade?’
Zhukov said he didn’t know where they would be.
‘So that is all that has impressed you about Washington—the houses?’
‘I have, of course, been struck by the standard of living.’
‘Of course you have,’ Zuvorin murmured. He offered Zhukov a cigarette. Sometimes he was surprised that more of his staff didn’t defect, because he knew perfectly well that many of them contemplated it when they first tasted the milk and honey. But they were deterred by family hostages ‘held’ in Russia, by language difficulties, by the knowledge that after the headline glamour of defection they would be misfits. Also loyalty was encouraged by promises of promotion to other Western fleshpots; and when they visited the Soviet Union they were big men, regarded with as much awe as football players or movie stars. But, the ambassador sensed, Zhukov’s temptations would be different: he would taste and savour freedom of expression. And he spoke excellent English. A man to watch; but, of course, he was already being watched as, perhaps, was Valentin Zuvorin himself.
‘I have formed the impression,’ Zhukov continued, ‘that they are a nation bent on suicide. Too much food, too much smoking, too much alcohol, no exercise. And,’ he added, ‘I have been very impressed by the fact that they never walk anywhere. Then they wonder why so many die from heart attacks.’
Zuvorin massaged his chest with two fingers and stubbed out his cigarette. Officially he was supposed to suffer from asthma. He managed a deep melodious laugh. ‘You are an original man, Comrade Zhukov. A dangerous thing to be a few years ago. But now many things have changed. Your originality—and your excellent English—has been recognized. You are to be promoted. Although you will have to wait some time before you officially become a first secretary.’
Zhukov expressed surprise. ‘I am honoured. But I have only been here three weeks …’
‘You have been fortunate,’ the ambassador said. He stood up and paced the gracious room. ‘A first secretary called Tardovsky has been recalled to Moscow at very short notice. A question of health …’ He glanced at Zhukov to see whether he had heard rumours; Zhukov remained impassive. ‘Tardovsky spoke excellent English also. You seem to be the man to take his place.’
The ambassador wondered whether to confide in Zhukov. Such a confidence might be interpreted as weakness in himself; perhaps even Zhukov himself was a senior member of the K.G.B.—second secretary at forty-four did not seem to be much of an achievement for such an intelligent man. You could never tell; nor could you equate seniority in the K.G.B. with diplomatic seniority. Although Valentin Zuvorin was fairly sure of his authority.
To hell with such furtive considerations: he, Valentin Zuvorin, occupied the most important post in the Soviet overseas diplomatic service. He sat down again near the piano. ‘Tardovsky,’ he said, ‘was on the point of persuading a neurotic American from the State Department to hand over secret documents about American intent in Vietnam and the Middle East. The Americans thought Tardovsky might defect—he had no such intention, of course. Anyway the C.I.A. and F.B.I. got wind of it. There was a squalid scene in a bar on 14th Street’—no need to elaborate—‘with the result that Tardovsky has lost all credibility and therefore all usefulness to us in Washington either as an agent or a diplomat. So he has been recalled through no fault of his own.’ Although, Zuvorin thought, his future has not been enhanced.
‘I see.’ Zhukov pondered the fortuitous factors of success.
‘Is that all you have to say, comrade?’
‘I am deeply honoured, of course. But …’
‘But what?’
‘Does this mean that I will have to carry out similar subversive duties?’
Zuvorin almost patted him on the head. ‘Don’t worry yourself about such matters. It is sufficient that you have been chosen to fill an important diplomatic post. That is all that matters for the moment.’
For who am I, the ambassador asked himself, to say whether or not you are to become a spy?
Zhukov found that his new office duties were really an extension of his old ones. Only now the emphasis was more political. He still translated American newspapers, magazines, government reports, but his reading was more selective and he was expected to be more interpretive—hooking nuances of meaning lost in flat translation. He was also asked to translate government directives that somehow reached the Embassy before publication, and some that were never published at all. These were given to him by Mikhail Brodsky, and Zhukov only typed two copies of his translation, one for the ambassador, one for Brodsky. More deference from the rest of the staff, an office of his own, the satisfaction of responsibility: these were the perquisites of the new job, and they were balanced by the demands for industry and punctuality of Ambassador Zuvorin who answered similar demands from Moscow.
Most of the day Zhukov sat at his desk in his high-ceilinged Pullman office where perhaps once a nanny had put the children of rich parents to bed. He drank gallons of tea made with lemon and Narzan mineral water imported from Russia. At night he took his work home and slept with dreams dominated by United States policies, and sometimes in his waking moments wondered what other duties might lie ahead.
One Saturday shortly after his promotion Vladimir Zhukov, on the advice of several well-wishers from within the Embassy, took Valentina for a drive into the ghetto. Time, they said, to see the other side of the coin.
First he buzzed over the Potomac, a humble bug among all the limousine dragonflies, to take a look at the Pentagon. From the parking lot he gazed at one of the five sides of the complex, built in classic penitentiary style, with qualified admiration.
‘There you are,’ he said to Valentina, ‘the United States Department of Defence. Or War,’ he added.
Unsolicited statistics lit up in his brain like figures on a computer. ‘The world’s second largest building,’ he recited. ‘Did you know that they take 190,000 phone calls a day in there? And that they have 4,200 clocks and 685 water fountains?’
‘Really?’ The sarcasm was gentle. ‘And how many cups of coffee do they drink a day?’
‘Thirty thousand,’ Zhukov said promptly, grinning apologetically.
‘It’s strange to think they could be speaking to the Kremlin right now.’
Zhukov looked at his watch. 3 p.m. ‘They probably are. Every hour on the hour they test the teletype machines. The messages are very reassuring. I read, for instance, that one test message from the Americans on the hot line was a four-
stanza poem by Robert Frost—“Desert Places”.’
‘And what did the Kremlin reply with?’
‘Excerpts in Russian from a Chekhov short story about birch trees. I understand twenty messages passed between Washington and Moscow during the Arab-Israeli war. They probably averted a world war on those teletypes.’
‘Who sent the first message?’
He patted her knee. ‘Premier Kosygin.’ He was pleased about that, too. ‘And the President keeps the messages in a green leather album as a memento.’ Statistics and trivia for ever accumulating in the filing cabinet of his brain; substitutes for the sonnets he once planned to deposit there.
He pointed the Volkswagen towards the ghetto. Losing himself a couple of times in the graceful geometry, driving along 15th in which a flourishing bookshop was separated from the White House by the protective bulk of the Treasury Department; finding 14th and following its route, its lament, to the Negro quarter.
In the Saturday afternoon quiet it was an abandoned place. A discarded screen set, a pool scummy with neglect. Tenements leaning, small shop windows rheumy. A few blacks strolling to nowhere; not a white face in sight.
Valentina said, ‘Can we get out and walk?’
Zhukov shook his head. ‘They advised me not to.’
‘We wouldn’t come to any harm.’
‘Why not? Because we’re Russians? Red Panthers? How would they know? You can’t explain after you’ve been knocked unconscious.’
‘I think it’s exaggerated. They don’t look very dangerous.’
Like many women she had the knack of converting discretion into cowardice. ‘The ambassador’s wife in New York thought the dangers of Central Park were exaggerated and she was mugged there.’
‘Mugged? You sound very American, Vladimir.’
‘I try to speak their language—it’s my job.’
They stopped at a red light, the stubby car vulnerable in the listlessly hostile street. An old Pontiac slid up beside them, the black driver grinning at them without friendliness. A snap-brimmed hat was tilted on the back of his head, one elbow rested outside the window with self-conscious nonchalance. But you couldn’t see his eyes; only your own reflection in the mirrors of his glasses. Chewing, grinning, he spat towards the Volkswagen as the lights changed and took off fast, tyres screaming, briefly victorious over white trash.
This flaking road, Zhukov thought, led to the deep south. There were still mounds of soiled snow on the sidewalk, but the disease of the place was tropical, leprosy, sleeping sickness, the wasting of cholera.
He turned into a residential street where pride was resurrected. Terraces of clean red brick and portals and verandas for summertime courting and grizzled remembering. And cars slumbering outside.
He drove on, rounded a block, returning to 14th.
Waiting for the lights to change, a girl of sixteen or so danced to the beat of distant rhythms. Dressed to kill in a black leather micro skirt with tassels swinging and a red breasty sweater; no coat on this cold and dead day. She may not have known she was dancing—as conscious of her rhythm as she was of her heartbeat. Words unwritten—‘I don’t give a damn, I don’t give a damn.’ Breasts bobbing, buttocks taut under black leather. Fingers flicking, orange baubles of ear-rings bouncing. She felt them staring; the rhythms froze, the smile, a snarl. She said something but they couldn’t hear. An obscenity, no doubt, in this hopeless place.
Valentina sat tensely. ‘It was like this,’ she said, ‘before the Revolution. Streets like this are deceptive. This is where it’s happening.’ She pointed behind shutters, behind walls. ‘And why not? Compare these streets with the streets of Bethesda, Georgetown, Alexandria.’
‘At least the Government is trying to do something about it.’
‘They. Trying? It’s not even their city, Vladimir. Where are those statistics of yours? How many Negroes and how many whites in Washington?’
‘Five hundred thousand Negroes,’ Zhukov admitted. ‘And 300,000 whites. Something like that. But they are trying, Valentina. Schools, housing, black mayors, black politicians. What more can they do?’
‘Get out of Vietnam and use the money to help their own people.’
For God’s sake, he wanted to cry out. Stop strangling yourself with politics. To hell with bloody politics. Wasn’t Russia doing the same as America? Grabbing millions of roubles for armaments and the race into space while her people stood in line for shabby overcoats, steel teeth, sprouting potatoes, shoes like polished cardboard. What’s more, if Russia had been faced with a crucial problem none of the black dissident meetings behind closed shutters would have been allowed. The rebels would have been chopping wood and sinking mines in the lost camps of Siberia. (He was surprised that he permitted such thoughts.)
He wanted to hurry away from the ghetto where all sympathy was spurned. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘you would like an apartment here among the blacks.’
She didn’t reply; his Valentina, companion for twenty years, mother of their only child, Natasha. Valentina—the soul of mother Russia, her wild song confined to a monotone by rules. So that she hardly recognized her own small hypocrisies any more.
‘Would you like that?’ he persisted. ‘Would you like an apartment here? You could do a lot of good work among these people.’ He rubbed her cheek lightly with the back of his hand.
‘Don’t be foolish, Vladimir. You know it would be impracticable.’ But she smiled at him and held his hand to her cheek for a moment. ‘How could a diplomat live in a Negro ghetto?’
Another red light stopped them. Vladimir noticed a group of black teenagers lounging in the doorway of a dead-eyed shop. Apprehension stirred. He peered to the left and right to see if he could jump the light. Indisputably with more cowardice than discretion. The spirit of Leningrad, Vladimir Zhukov! He wound down the window of the bug with bravado.
The young men were gathered on the opposite side of the intersection. One of them, hair combed out in black wings around his ears, held up a clenched fist. ‘Hello, whitey,’ he shouted. Too much to hope that they would recognize the diplomatic plates. Vladimir Zhukov, soldier and diplomat, called back, ‘Hallo there.’
‘Why,’ said the leader in a brown leather jacket, ‘this chalk wants to be friendly. A friendly whitey! Ain’t that something. What do you want, whitey—a nigger chick to screw?’
Zhukov implored the lights to change, but they remained steadfastly red.
‘Please drive on,’ Valentina urged him.
‘I thought you wanted to get out and walk. Meet the people.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Vladimir. Drive on before they attack us.’
Zhukov wound up the window. But he refused to drive on against the lights. Why, he couldn’t determine. Some gritty Soviet, Kazakh perversity. Had the lights jammed?
From the pocket of his pink satin jeans the leader took a slingshot. Sighted with deliberation and pulled back the lethal rubber.
The lights changed. Zhukov jammed his foot on the accelerator, the stone smacked the windscreen drilling a small hole and frosting the glass.
But they were away. As he drove Zhukov punched out the glass. His hands were shaking and his foot on the accelerator was wobbly.
In the driving mirror he saw them in the middle of the road, fists raised in panther salutes, faces triumphant.
‘Do you still want to live here?’
‘Please, Vladimir.’
He noticed a trickle of blood on her cheekbone.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Is it serious?’
‘It’s nothing. The stone just grazed me.’
‘Shall I take you to a hospital.’
‘I told you—it’s nothing.’ She reached back and picked up the stone lying on the back seat. A small sharp flint.
On the sidewalk Zhukov saw a drunken old man with a folded black face and a jockey cap picking up a cigarette butt from the gutter. Through a vista ahead he briefly saw the tip of the noble white dome of the Capitol.
6
At the black-tie affairs in the mansions and palaces around Massachusetts Avenue—held simultaneously with clandestine meetings in the ghetto where they were plotting to overthrow the whole elegant caboosh—the organization was as smooth as a butler’s voice. Although this evening there was some unfortunate coincidence because there were affairs at both the French and the Spanish Embassies and a select dinner at the White House garnished with rumours that, over liqueurs, there might be an important leak about the President’s intentions in the election. (During the day, Richard Nixon, vying for the Republican nomination, had promised in a speech in New Hampshire to finish the war in Vietnam with these words, ‘I pledge to you that the new leadership the Republicans offer will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific.’)
God knows how the clash occurred. The French and the Spaniards were both highly desirable invitations for palate and prestige and it was surely a prima facie case for establishing a clearing house for such occasions. Even the current in hostess (wife of a Mid West crusading senator), whose blunt wit had made her some sort of reputation was in a quandary. She had planned first a few pithy but serious words of advice for Franco which would be relayed to the Generalissimo; then the French invitation had arrived and she had composed some saucy directives for de Gaulle; then, deciding to visit both and fearing that she might confuse her messages, she had resolved to crystallize her words into two well-timed cracks that could apply to either leader. Thank heavens, she thought under the drier at Jean-Paul’s, that through some bureaucratic oversight they had forgotten to invite her to the White House dinner.