The Red House

by Derek Lambert

  Elsewhere in Pierre l’Enfant’s dream city the beautiful, the ambitious, the dedicated, the sycophantic, the established and the insecure, pondered the invitations. Democrats and Republicans, the Chief Justice, the Secretary of State (thankfully committed to the White House), the Attorney General, several ministers, umpteen advisers, Congressmen, journalists, a pet author, a vivacious pop singer, some aristocracy from Britain, a couple of Italian diplomats of impeccable lechery, all the ambassadors and many of their henchmen, innumerable spies, innumerable courtesans, a general or two, lawyers seeking slander, some widows still game at sixty, a couple of Mafia junior officers disgusted by so much overt intrigue, the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the K.G.B., a blackmailer, one virgin, half a dozen TV producers, their sons and daughters, and there among them all maybe a future president or two.

  Almost everyone omitted from the White House invitation list elected to attend both receptions. Thus the problem became simply one of strategy: which to attend first? Because the implied insult of visiting one’s host second was worse than declining the invitation altogether. The in hostess decided to grace the Spanish reception first and explain to the French that she had been asked to deliver an urgent message to Prince Juan Carlos, heir apparent to the Spanish throne.

  At the Russian Embassy the debate was less refined. It was merely a question of who was to be let out on a leash for the night. Among the few given a pass was Vladimir Zhukov because his new duties entailed mixing with the Beautiful People.

  With his paranoid conviction that, like himself, everyone was a potential eavesdropper, Mikhail Brodsky chose an open-air venue for the briefing. They met on the steps of the Capitol.

  ‘Greetings comrade,’ Brodsky said in his imprisoned voice.

  Zhukov nodded, almost a first secretary now.

  ‘Shall we walk? It’s such a fine morning and Washington is a beautiful place on a day like this.’

  As indeed it was, Zhukov thought. Velvet buds enticed by the thaw, trees straining for summer, the Roman dome of the Capitol gleaming in the sunlight, Stars and Stripes rippling against the winter-blue sky, frost melting on the city’s recuperating carpets. Over all this nobility an airliner lingered like a spent match. He remembered Leningrad, another noble city, on mornings like this.

  ‘Why all this secrecy?’ Zhukov demanded. ‘I nearly didn’t come.’

  ‘You are perhaps feeling your authority now that you are nearly a first secretary?’

  Zhukov shrugged. ‘You, after all, are only a third secretary.’

  They turned into the Botanical Gardens. (Ninety varieties of azaleas, 500 kinds of orchid, Zhukov’s computer reminded him.)

  Brodsky was silent for a while. Smarter than usual in a light grey overcoat and plaid scarf. His hat and his poor shoes and, somehow, his gold-rimmed spectacles the give-away. Finally he said: ‘You are doing very well, Comrade Zhukov. But you mustn’t get drunk with power.’ He giggled.

  ‘A first secretary can hardly do that.’

  ‘But you mustn’t forget that position is nothing in the Soviet System. We do not recognize the cult of personality on any level.’ He tucked a lock of girlish hair under his hat. ‘And you mustn’t forget that some of the least significant members of the Party have certain other authorities.’ His voice iced up. ‘You could be demoted just as easily as you have been promoted. In fact, in certain circumstances, you could be put on a plane back to Moscow within a few hours. Tonight for instance.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Zhukov said without conviction.

  They walked slowly down Capitol Hill, and Brodsky assured him that no such move was anticipated because it was well known that Zhukov was a loyal servant of the Party and the Soviet Union. And he reverted to the tentative approaches made in Moscow about extensions of his official duties in Washington.

  Zhukov remembered the approaches. ‘You may be asked to mix a little. To make friends in the right places. To socialize just a little more than some of your colleagues. After all, we have to keep contact with our hosts and you are an excellent linguist …’

  Brodsky danced over a fallen branch. ‘They no doubt put it very vaguely. And, of course, at that time you were only going to be our second-string socialite. Until the Tardovsky fiasco. Now you have taken his place. Because you have a certain charm, because you are a man of sensitivity and comparative sophistication. In short, Comrade Zhukov, you are an attractive and articulate man.’

  ‘You are very kind.’ Perhaps Brodsky had some homosexual inclinations? ‘Do you mean you want me to become a spy?’

  ‘Nothing so dramatic. If we—they—had wanted you to become a spy your training in Moscow would have been far more rigorous. No, we do not want you to arrange any drops on the Bronx subway or under the railway bridge at Queens.’ He paused, conscious of vague indiscretion. ‘Those two drops, incidentally, have been abandoned.’ He stopped to light a cigarette. ‘No, it will merely be a matter of mixing. Becoming known as an unusually extrovert Russian, a valuable catch for the hostesses.’ He grinned sideways at Zhukov. ‘You may even recite some of your poetry.’

  They arrived at the Monument reaching for a fragment of cloud. ‘The tallest masonry structure in the world,’ Zhukov supplied. ‘And for what purpose am I to do all this socializing?’ Although, of course, he knew.

  You are not such a naïve man, Comrade Zhukov. However, I will elaborate.’

  A line of schoolchildren accompanied by a pretty and enthusiastic young teacher passed them, headed for the Monument fringed at its base with a circle of Old Glories. Brodsky regarded children and teacher with distaste.

  Zhukov said, ‘I presume you want me to assess opinion and trends.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ Brodsky said. ‘To take the pulse of Washington as it were. You will find many Americans and other diplomats anxious to make friends with you because a socializing Russian is something of a rarity in Washington.’ He squeezed Zhukov’s bicep for no particular reason that Zhukov could determine. ‘Most of us have to go straight home. In any case’—an explosion of mirth like suppressed laughter escaping in a classroom—‘can you imagine Comrade Grigorenko at a cocktail party?’

  Zhukov said he couldn’t.

  Brodsky continued: ‘Many of your new friends will, of course, be trying to feel the pulse of the Soviet Embassy through you. You will naturally supply their wants—after we have decided what they should be told.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Not quite.’ The saliva froze again. ‘In Washington there are always weak men in low places with access to valuable information. However diligently they are screened they manage to hide their weaknesses.’ He stared at Zhukov from behind his scholarly glasses. ‘We screened you very carefully but we could not reach your soul.’ He lit another cigarette—American, Zhukov noted. ‘Such people seem to flourish on the party circuit. Men and women. It will be your responsibility to listen for indiscretions, because these people respond to sympathy, particularly on the third Martini. You will make friends with them,’ Brodsky ordered.

  ‘So I am to be a spy?’

  ‘Far from it. Merely a specialist in judicious fraternizing. The social bear of the Soviet Embassy.’

  ‘An agent provocateur?’

  ‘A theatrical term and out-of-date. You’re hardly the type to be a masculine Mata Hari. In any case most of the spying is carried out by the lesser embassies these days. You will primarily remain a diplomat with an extension of duties which is not, after all, confined to Soviet diplomats. You will merely be our representative—or one of our representatives—in this field. You see,’ he explained, ‘we leave the heavyweight operations to the military attachés—every country does. The more devious work to our friends in other embassies. We carry out duties of a more dignified nature.’

  A women’s club passed by on their way to the Monument. Brodsky’s distaste deepened to disgust.

  ‘Supposing I am not fitted to these duties?’ Zhukov asked.

  ‘We—they—feel that you are. Or rather
you’re the best candidate there is in the embassy.’

  Zhukov knew that it was futile to refuse. ‘And what am I supposed to do about these … these weaklings, when I meet them?’

  ‘Report their weaknesses to us. Determine how they can be blackmailed. Men, women, alcohol, money … every American with two cars wants three, every American with a co-op wants a town house. But,’ he added, ‘I used the term weak loosely. You may meet strong men seeking only an outlet to contribute to the glorious cause of Socialism.’ His glasses glinted in the sunlight. ‘Their strength may be their determination to supply us with information despite the risks involved.’

  ‘Traitors, you mean?’

  The grip on Zhukov’s bicep was reapplied, unexpected strength in the delicate fingers. ‘Sometimes I am surprised by your reactions, Comrade Zhukov.’

  Zhukov shrugged—it wasn’t in his character to apologize. Then inspiration came to him on this inspired morning. ‘I have a daughter in the Soviet Union, Comrade Brodsky.’

  Brodsky looked surprised. ‘I am aware of that. As a matter of fact I was going to mention her …’

  ‘Mention Natasha? Why?’ Alarm curdled into nausea.

  ‘It doesn’t matter for the moment. What were you going to say?’

  ‘Tell me why you were going to mention Natasha?’ Sweet, innocent Natasha with her mother’s loveliness and her father’s questing spirit.

  ‘No, comrade, you first.’

  Zhukov’s voice faltered. ‘I was merely going to ask if you thought it would be possible for her to visit us here this year.’

  ‘You mean as a reward for your social activities?’

  ‘I thought it would be a wonderful experience for her …’

  ‘Anything is possible,’ Brodsky said thoughtfully. ‘It could be arranged.’

  ‘And now, why were you going to mention her?’

  ‘It seems that she has been keeping bad company in Alma Ata …’ And with relish Mikhail Brodsky recounted the arrest of Natasha’s lover with the true narrator’s relish of detail. Down to the shirt and underpants.

  Vladimir Zhukov sweated with self-consciousness and the effort to be suave, like a teenager dancing with a haughty girl. All the subjects in the universe available for discussion and all original comment—any comment for that matter—eluded him. He hated the setting, hated the people. He suspected that they regarded him as a curiosity, a peasant: he, the representative of the most powerful nation on earth; he an intellectual and a man of cultivated habits; he a man of forty-four staring at his drink and digging his nails into the palms of his hands like a kid of eighteen.

  The diplomat sent from the cultural section presumably to keep an eye on Zhukov was getting drunk and belligerent at the bar at the end of the ballroom. He didn’t seem to be a very cultured man despite his job, and when Zhukov noticed him through the heads and drinks and diamonds he was prodding a Czech in the chest with a karate forefinger.

  A baptism by fire, Brodsky had said. And it certainly was. Champagne among the Matisse still-lifes, the Sèvres nymphs and the Gobelin tapestries on French territory in Washington, followed by more drinks and dancing at the after-dinner reception on Iberian soil. He stroked the watered silk on the lapel of his tuxedo; very decadent, soft—like stroking a seal.

  ‘What do you think?’ The earnest and boring Rumanian with the crinkled forehead waited with anticipation.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Zhukov said.

  ‘Really? That is very surprising. Very surprising indeed.’

  Zhukov wondered if he’d contradicted Soviet policy on Rumania which had become a little recalcitrant of late. Tomorrow the contradiction would be relayed and worried over all day at the Rumanian Embassy. Had Zhukov made a deliberate leak? they would ponder. Was the Kremlin going soft on Rumania—fearful of the Chinese menace, perhaps?

  At that moment Zhukov didn’t care what interpretation they decided on. In the first place, he had no idea what the question had been; in the second his job was to fraternize with Westerners, not Kremlin lackeys; and in the third place his mind was slurred with the champagne and vodka he had drunk in abundance to oil his conversation. And he was desperately worried about Natasha. The message hadn’t been subtle: co-operate and produce results and Natasha can visit you; behave obstinately and she’ll be arrested like her lover.

  Zhukov looked down miserably at his intense companion. How did you circulate at these functions? If you managed to dispatch a bore then you stood the risk of being isolated—an inarticulate peasant stranded among the sophisticated and effete. So he endured the Rumanian’s pleas for enlightenment a little longer; hardly listening, checking on the clip behind his black tie, wishing he’d bought patent leather shoes.

  Across the room Zhukov’s watchdog, whose name was Dmitri Kalmykov, was becoming louder in his attack on the Czech; but the Czech, sustained by the new liberalism flowering like spring blossom in his country, was not cowering. He prodded back, answered with quiet contempt and infuriated the bulging, pudding-faced Russian. Interest and tension shivered in the air. A fine watchdog and instructor, Zhukov sighed to himself.

  To the Rumanian he said, ‘Get me another drink.’ He was not normally a curt man but such grinding platitudes could not be endured for too long. He thrust his empty glass at the Rumanian who crinkled a little more at the injustice of it.

  In the ballroom, with its walls draped with red silk and its splendid tapestries, Peter Duchin and his orchestra swung sibilantly into ‘Strangers in the Night.’ Above the music Zhukov heard Kalmykov’s voice, like an angry vocalist singing a different song.

  He gazed into the crevice of two plump breasts and revived somewhat. Their owner said, ‘You’re Russian, aren’t you?’

  Zhukov said he was, searching for supporting words like a badly-rehearsed actor.

  She was in her mid-thirties, English, faded, but still fruity—like a pear just beginning to go soft, Zhukov decided, taking the vodka from the Rumanian and dismissing him. He tried to typecast her; but, unlike the wives of most British diplomats, she didn’t fit into any preconceived slot. The usual stifling sense of decorum and protocol hadn’t affected her, unless it had accelerated the premature bruising of vitality, removed some of the bloom from the skin.

  ‘I could tell,’ she said, her voice blurred by drink.

  ‘Is it so obvious?’

  She leaned forward as if pulled by her breasts. They were firm but traced with delicate veins. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you are so masculine.’

  Vladimir wished valiantly for the presence of Valentina; but he had been told to operate alone as much as possible—‘you appear more attractive and more vulnerable that way.’

  The woman had fashionably pink lips—Zhukov preferred a scarlet cupid mouth—and dyed, straw-coloured hair, its lacquered height collapsing. Zhukov had seen photographs of the Duchess of Kent and this woman reminded him of the Duchess as she would be in a decade or so.

  ‘And you,’ he said, ‘you are English?’

  ‘How clever of you.’ She was more drunk than he had supposed. ‘My husband is over there somewhere trying to be an arrogant aristocrat and a sycophant at the same time. It’s very difficult for him, poor darling, because at heart he is a pure sycophant. I thought you should know,’ she confided, ‘that my husband is present because it’s always best that people should be absolutely honest with each other at this stage.’

  ‘What stage?’ There was no difficulty in making conversation with this one, Zhukov thought.

  ‘Where is your wife?’ she demanded.

  ‘At home. She doesn’t like parties very much.’

  ‘A sensible woman. Is she a sensible woman? A sensible Russian woman?’

  Zhukov didn’t want to talk too much about Valentina. She was a sensible woman, and he loved her. He smiled: it was strange that, by chatting with this middle-aged bedworthy flirt, he was carrying out the orders issued him that morning.

  Peter Duchin slid into ‘More.’ Kalmykov and
the Czech shouted frenziedly above the music. Anticipation gathered joyfully around them.

  Zhukov asked curiously, ‘What made you come and talk to me?’ With this woman you could ask anything; you could even confess insecurity or fear because, with all the hypocrisy around, confession would emerge as a strength.

  ‘You’re not very sure of yourself, are you, comrade?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I don’t mean in your life, your work. I mean here—among all these performers … I don’t blame you, Mister …?’

  ‘Zhukov. Vladimir Zhukov.’

  ‘I don’t blame you, Vladimir. But don’t forget—they’re all just as unsure of themselves as you. In fact they’re pretty scared of you. They don’t know what to make of someone like you. The Russian bear in their midst. They try to kid themselves that you’re boorish because of your blunt manners and your clip-on tie’—she reached out and touched the black propeller—‘but they’re really worried. For one thing you represent Russia—missiles, strength, the Iron Curtain, all that. For another you challenge all their standards.’

  Zhukov began to relax. ‘What standards, Mrs …?’

  ‘Massingham. Mrs Massingham. But you can call me Helen.’

  ‘What standards, Mrs Massingham?’

  She spread her arms. ‘All this talk, all this posturing, all this rehearsed wit. You make a mockery of it, Mr Zhukov, and they know it. Have you ever paused to think how much insecurity a wisecrack covers up? Probably not. And, of course, you even challenge their attitudes, the whole premise of their society, and this they do not like at all.’