In Moscow the pick-ups used the National bar; but they were mostly K.G.B. pick-ups.
When Zhukov got back to the girl she’d been joined by a friend with long lustreless hair and short-sighted eyes who tried to make up for her handicaps by wearing no bra. ‘This is Jean,’ the first girl said. ‘Jean, Vladimir. And my name by the way is Holly.’ Which Zhukov thought was unlikely.
Melancholy was fast overcoming Zhukov. It was like being on the subway in this bar except that no one was going anywhere. Even the sexuality seemed spurious, the older women seeking someone to eat breakfast with rather than to copulate with; the younger ones seeking experience before they settled for a small car, husband and a mortgage.
‘What part of Russia are you from?’ the girl called Jean asked. Her voice was low and deliberately bored because she was used to losing men’s attention.
‘Moscow,’ he said, looking for the doorway through the bodies.
They sensed escape and Holly said quickly, ‘You know something? You’re a very attractive guy. Different from all these creeps here.’ She dismissed all the creeps she’d come to meet.
‘I suppose you’re married,’ Jean presumed, because the men she met always were.’
‘Yes, I’m married.’ He felt a little sick. All those faces with the mouths opening and shutting. Beside him a man was stroking a girl’s breast watching her face for reaction.
‘And I suppose your wife doesn’t understand you,’ Holly said.
‘She understands me very well.’
They both found this very funny.
Jean said in her funereal voice, ‘I like honesty in a man.’
It seemed to Zhukov that they were now vying with each other for his attention: he wasn’t flattered.
A young man built like a football-player pushed his way up to them. ‘Say what goes with you dames? I buy you a drink and you leave me holding them?’
‘We didn’t ask you for them,’ Holly said primly. ‘You just went and bought them. We didn’t say we wanted drinks, did we, Jean?’
And while the young man complained Holly confided to Zhukov, ‘That’s the kind of jerk you meet in this dump. One drink and they presume they can lay you. Still,’ she glanced stealthily at Jean and the young man, ‘maybe they’ll make it together and that’ll leave you and me. Would you like that, Vladimir?’
‘Oh fuck off,’ said the young man. He had long brown hair and the beginnings of a beard on his sulky face; he wore jeans and a grubby sweatshirt and his biceps bulged like oranges.
‘Don’t you use language like that to me,’ Jean moaned.
‘And who’s this guy anyway?’
Holly said, ‘This is Vladimir. He’s a Russian.’
‘A Russian? A white Russian or a red? Jesus, why did I have to buy drinks for two dumb broads like you. I suppose he’s got snow on his boots.’
‘No,’ Zhukov said, ‘no snow.’ He smiled with relief because instinct told him that there would be a fight: he suspected that, for all his muscular plumage, the young man might try and back down. But you didn’t take that risk; and the young man might have allies. In Army brawls in Leningrad the winner was the man who got in the first punch. And in any case Vladimir Zhukov, poet and diplomat, found that he wanted a fight: to drive his knuckles against the tanks lurking in the streets. He thought he felt sober.
‘No snow, eh? What part of the Village you from, mister?’
‘Village?’
The lout sighed dramatically, looking around for an audience. ‘The Village. Greenwich Village.’
‘I come from Moscow,’ Zhukov said, feeding him.
‘Moscow, eh? Hear that?’ Addressing a couple who reluctantly began to pay attention. ‘This guy says he comes from Moscow.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Hey, Vladimir,’ Holly said. ‘Don’t try anything stupid. This jerk is half your age.’
Zhukov was grateful for her concern: the decency beneath the sad smart face.
‘Sure I believe you,’ sneered the young man, indicating that he didn’t.
‘Perhaps you would like to see my credentials.’
‘Sure. Why not?’ But he sensed that he was losing face. ‘Show us your credentials, brother. Expose the whole Goddam works if you insist.’ He looked around seeking laughter. There was none, but a miniature arena had formed, the faces in the expensive seats silent and intent.
Zhukov showed him his identity card enclosed in yellowing plastic.
‘Wow,’ Holly said. ‘You’re a diplomat. A real Russian diplomat.’
A hint of desperation was apparent in the voice of the young man who, Zhukov thought, hadn’t got the guts to be a total hippie. ‘So you’re one of the great team that just invaded the Czechs, uh? Shit. You must be pretty proud of yourself, comrade.’
To his surprise Zhukov found himself defending the Soviet Union. His country, his belief. Snow smoked in the wind in the infinite white pastures of Siberia, guitars played martial music on the river beaches; the proud strut of soldiers’ boots on the cobblestones of Red Square, the green and red splutter of anniversary rockets dripping from Kremlin skies.
How was this hooligan to know that his anger encompassed both his belief and his tears for the oppressed.
I have the right to criticize: not you, friend.
Zhukov said, ‘I am very proud.’
Somewhere in the confused background the voice of one of the young man’s allies said, ‘Aw, knock it off man—he ain’t doing you no harm.’
His antagonist looked around for a more specific saving grace but none was forthcoming. Desperately he plunged on through the minefield of his own laying. ‘Yeah, you must feel pretty proud. Beating up a few defenceless Czcehs. I wish to God there was a Czech here tonight to show you what they think of the Russian bullies in Prague.’
He looked around again. ‘Is there a Czech in the house? Please?’
Zhukov said, ‘Unfortunately for you there isn’t. There’s just you. And me.’
Holly squeezed his arm. He thought he could love her just for her loneliness and for her decent, disguised ways. ‘Knock it off, Vladimir. He isn’t worth it.’
Zhukov pushed aside the snouting muzzle of a tank-gun.
The young man combed at the belligerent streamers of his beard with broken fingernails. ‘Can you stand there in front of all these people,’ he indicated the masses who showed no alignment, ‘and have the nerve to say you agree with what the Reds have done in Czechoslovakia?’
‘By Reds I presume you mean Socialists?’
‘Commies. Goddam Commies—that’s what I mean.’
‘The people of Czechoslovakia are Communists,’ Zhukov said. ‘And to answer your question, yes, of course I agree with them. We went to their help.’
Creed against creed, nation against nation, village against village, neighbour against neighbour. What next? Planet against planet?
‘You’re a fucking hypocrite,’ said the young man, his voice as indecisive as his beard.
The bar was very quiet now. The gong about to sound.
‘Would you like to repeat that?’
Zhukov allowed him half a repetition. Then hit him hard just below the ribs, with all the power of the accumulated despair of the past few days gathered in his knuckles.
The young man doubled over. Then stretched up, sucking for breath. ‘You shit. That’s the way you fucking bastards fight. Hitting the little guy in the gut …’
Jean’s voice rose an octave. ‘You aren’t exactly little …’
‘You keep out of this.’ He swung like a baseball pitcher, and Zhukov dodged with brief alcoholic agility. His opponent’s fist k.o.’d the wall. Zhukov clipped him neatly under the jaw and he fell to the floor.
When he got up he was holding a knife. ‘Okay, you sonofabitch. This is yours.’
Zhukov kicked and sent the knife flickering over the mob like a leaping salmon. Then feinted with his left and clobbered the bearded man with a right that pole-axed him.
/> Now to get out. He patted Holly’s arm. ‘Thanks,’ he said. And pushed his way through the crowd, sweat trickling down his face, heart stamping in protest.
The K.G.B. were waiting for him outside.
19
THE fires of summer began to cool and with them the fires of rebellion. The Czechs weren’t crushed: they were suffocated. Press censorship was re-imposed, the Czech Presidium reshuffled and it was announced that the withdrawal of Soviet troops would take several months. Tass continued to attack and Pravda’s Sergei Kovalev asserted, ‘The weakening of any of the links in the world system of Socialism directly affects all the Socialist countries which cannot look indifferently upon this.’ The President of the Czech National Assembly looked upon it differently. He said, ‘We never thought we would have to pay the price we paid the night of Aug. 20–21.’
But it was all academic, freedom had received another kick in the teeth from a jackboot and wouldn’t get up again for a long time.
World communism was, by and large, upset by the invasion: the escapist future of equality had been jolted. Some parties protested and disassociated themselves from the intervention; the Kremlin remained unapologetic and little moved by the disapproval because history had proved its transience: you didn’t easily forego shop stewardship in the Capitalist factory.
In Washington, New York and London the futility of collective outrage was acknowledged: another defeat for organized idealism, another victory for bondage. If Russia were to be punished then best leave it to the Chinese. The shame was filed.
America returned to the Presidential elections and Vietnam (inseparable for the most part—especially during the anti-war demonstrations accompanying the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago), student unrest and a forthcoming space shot in which three astronauts were to orbit the moon.
In Washington it was a delicate period for the society hostesses building the structures of election platforms beneath the cold buffets of their receptions and parties. With honey-tans and spun-sugar coiffures, they presided regally over their screened guests, ensuring their husbands’ futures—and terminating a few—and thus their own. Launching rehearsed rumours of villainous enemy activity with the pop of a champagne cork, casually disclosing sacrificial good deeds of the allies over a glistening lick of caviar.
In the Soviet Embassy in mid-September plans for the party to celebrate the Great October Socialist Revolution got under way. Booze: vodka of course, bourbon, Scotch, brandy, Georgian wine, Russian beer and champagne. Food: caviar of course, chicken, pheasant, duck, veal, beef, lobster, sturgeon of course, ham, salmon, crawfish, shrimps, Russian salad, potato salad, turkey, chocolate eclairs, ice-cream, chocolates and a sumptuous cake.
In other embassies reserves of aspirin and Alka-Seltzer were ordered.
Vladimir Zhukov continued to read his newspapers, but without appetite; waiting, without contrition, for his punishment; seeing little to celebrate this anniversary.
While the machinery of retribution clanked away, he was allowed one more reception, at the embassy of Kuwait—six diplomats and a four million dollar headquarters off upper Connecticut built of brick and white marble with panelled walls and Islamic arches.
Neither Massingham nor his wife was there. As if, Zhukov thought, they had heard he could no longer be of any use to them. He drank two glasses of warm orange squash and left early.
At the Embassy they left him alone, not wishing to be contaminated before the judgement. Although judgement seemed to be a long time coming, with psychology that he didn’t attempt to analyse.
At home the atmosphere was as portentous as an autumn fog before a long cold winter. At first Valentina raged. Throwing away his future—their future. A common drunk, brawling, getting himself picked up by New York tarts, shooting off his mouth to strangers who were probably C.I.A. agents. Compromising the Zhukov name, compromising the Soviet Union. But after she had laid the egg of her fury she went broody, behaving with the long-sufferance of a libertine’s wife.
Natasha stayed at home. She alone extended understanding but it was a remote quantity. Although he was not contrite about his protest he grieved for what he might have done to her.
One Sunday when Valentina was helping at a children’s party he said to his daughter, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good father, Natasha.’
‘You’re a wonderful father,’ she said. She wore no make-up and her hair was captured in an untidy ponytail.
But he wasn’t. And wondered if he ever had been? Their alliance had always been a bloc within the tripartite of their family. That was no way to bring up a child.
‘This is a bad time for us,’ he said. ‘But’—he paused uncertainly—‘is there anything else wrong? You seem very quiet. Like a girl whose lover has been sent to the wars maybe?’
She began to speak but Zhukov stopped her. Almost certainly there were ears in the walls now. ‘Let us go for a walk.’
‘Very well.’
He noticed that she wore the Russian clothes she had arrived with.
They drove to Potomac Park on the far side of the Tidal Basin where the dusty leaves were yellowing and the roots of the grass showed like string. Some boys played baseball, some old folk watched, a circle of hippies lolled about counting grains of dry soil, couples necked. But it was an exhausted place.
They walked slowly, neither bothering to see if they were being followed. It didn’t matter.
‘Is there something else?’ Zhukov asked his daughter.
‘The usual sort of thing,’ she said.
‘A man?’
‘A man.’
‘An American?’
She nodded, ponytail jogging.
Zhukov considered this, ashamed that he had consigned all his compassion to the Czechs and not retained any for his own daughter.
‘And what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
He looked at her and saw tears gathering.
‘You should have told me before.’
‘I was frightened. And, in any case, you have your problems. You act,’ she added, ‘as if you have all the problems of Mankind.’
‘Does this American want to marry you?’
‘He says he does.’
‘And do you want to marry him?’
‘No,’ she said. The tears on her cheeks looked very wet this dusty afternoon.
‘I don’t believe you, Natasha, my daughter.’
‘How can I marry him?’
‘It wouldn’t be so difficult. You would probably have to choose between your country and your lover. I know it sounds dramatic but that’s the way things are.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘You mean you would encourage me to run away? To elope, to defect?’
‘It’s a sad world when marriage is described as defection,’ Zhukov said. ‘But I’m afraid that’s what it would be. And it would require a lot of bravery. You would be followed and pestered by Soviet agents seeking your return. And you would be pestered by Americans seeking publicity and prestige. Your love affair will be exhibited all over the Western world. But if it is love and not just another Georgi …’
They sat on a bench a hundred yards from the hippies. To the right the flaccid waters of the Basin, ahead the barb of the Monument above the tired trees.
‘Tell me,’ Natasha said, ‘would you have encouraged me, say, two months ago? Before Czechoslovakia?’
‘Who knows? Maybe not. I believe in what we have inherited, Natasha. And I believe you do, too. But in a different way to your mother. Not the belief that becomes stupidity because of its blindness.’
‘I suppose so. But I also believe in the movement of youth, the energy for change. I believed in those young faces in Prague. I felt I should have been there with them.’
‘Ah so.’ That was all over, the bud blighted. ‘This young man of yours, what’s he like?’
‘He isn’t my young man any more,’ she said. ‘But he’s very American, clean-cut, all the rest
of it. He drives a car that looks a bit like a crouching green frog. And his ears are a bit too large for him. They listen too much,’ she added.
‘What happened?’ Zhukov asked, guessing the answer.
‘He was spying on me. He wanted me to find out things from you. I refused.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘He told me,’ Natasha said.
‘I see.’ The attic door opened a fraction; inside a few pressed flowers from long-ago mountains. ‘He must love you very much, this American.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Has it occurred to you, Natasha, what it must have meant to him to tell you? His instructions presumably were to seduce you, to get you so infatuated that you didn’t care who you betrayed just to be with him. Your father even. But it seems to me that he didn’t try very hard. He doesn’t sound like a very cold-blooded spy. It sounds to me as if he’s the one who has had to do the betraying—because of you.’
‘All that time,’ Natasha said, ‘he was being dishonest with me. Even when we …’
‘Even when you slept together?’
‘Yes,’ she answered quickly, ‘even when we were together like that.’
‘But he told you the truth. It must have been very hard. You don’t realize, Natasha, what dishonesties men have to perpetrate to exist. To bring home food for their families and to pay the rent. Every clerk, every engineer, curbs his tongue when he’s in the presence of a superior. That’s a form of dishonesty. Some fawn and grovel to get the money to buy their wife new clothes, their sons toys. That’s all dishonesty in different forms. It’s not so disgusting, this dishonesty. You only despise it when you haven’t had to use it. In fact,’ he said, ‘some of the biggest liars are those who rant on about honesty.’
‘But you’re not dishonest. You’re the most honest man I know.’
He shook his head. ‘I wish you were right,’
The Red House Page 28