She stepped back, holding both his hands as might a little girl. “Hello again, John August Spencer II.”
“Hello sestra.”
“No, not sister. Podruga. Dear friend.”
“Friend.”
“Friends enough to have dinner? I’ve had nothing, nothing I could keep down, all day.”
“Yes. Yes indeed. We’ll go to the Metropole. It’s just the other side of Red Square. Would you like to walk? Do famous actresses walk?”
“Yes they do. Especially when they are with legendary journalists in the heart of Moscow.”
“Has Chesley been telling you legends about me? I’d more likely expect nasty stories.”
She put her arm in his and they began to walk, hurriedly, as though to avoid the fact of Chesley. There was a wind blowing and, without her boots, it was bitter against her legs.
“You did well in Leningrad?”
“The last performance was not as glorious as the first.”
“Just like life, Tatty. And how is my ex-wife?”
“I haven’t seen Chesley in weeks and weeks. The last time was at a party in Greenwich. We only talked for a few minutes. As usual, she was the most beautiful woman there.”
“Rubbish. How is Christopher?”
Chesley had won full custody of their son and had not been generous with visits. It was possibly two years since Jack had seen him.
“I gather he’s fine. I’ve not seen him since last Christmas. Chesley has him in boarding school.”
“I know. He sent me a letter from there once.”
“I’m sorry, Jack, that all that hasn’t gone better for you.”
He shrugged. “It’s gone as I should have expected. But tell me of your Russian triumph. How is it you’re dating the dirtiest old man in the Soviet Union?”
“How did you hear about that?”
“Gossip. The Soviet Union is all police and gulags, corruption and gossip. Today’s gossip has you in it. Especially over at the embassy.”
“To what effect?”
“That the almighty deputy party secretary has become a stage-door Johnny.”
“That’s all?”
“Some versions have Comrade Griuchinov becoming a successful stage-door Johnny.”
“Which he certainly has not.”
“Of course not.”
They were in the center of the square, and the wind had risen full against them. The floodlit colors of St. Basil seemed more intense, as though whipped into their brilliance like a fire flame by the blasts of cold air. She pulled him closer, till their arms touched.
“And what did you say? Did you tell them that was nonsense? That you were my brother-in-law and ought to know?”
“Actually, I’ve kept that a secret, Czarina. Otherwise they’d all be perstering me to arrange dates.”
“Griuchinov is a swine.”
“Is he? I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed the best of the bunch, a matter of some import with the premier having heart problems again.”
A military vehicle, a small truck of sorts with four headlights blazing, came over the hill and proceeded across the square, rapidly but without urgency.
“He fondled my knee.”
“Goodness gracious, Tatty. Your knee.”
The Metropole Hotel and its adjoining restaurant were in Marx Prospekt, a major thoroughfare leading east from the square. The dining room, like the hotel lobby, was extremely old-fashioned but quite pleasant. The china and silver were also old. Tatty’s plate was cracked, and her knife a little tarnished. She looked away from it, up into Spencer’s candlelit face. His eyes were an odd light brown; the candle flame brought out the green in them, but accentuated also the shadows beneath.
“You look tired, Jack.”
“Not tired, Tat. Bone dead weary. I’ve had too much Russia.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Nearly a year. It’s enough. I’m a newspaperman, sestra. I’ve covered four wars and the Iranian revolution. I’ve gotten drunk with the prime minister of Ireland. Now here I am at the epicenter of the greatest menace to civilization since the mongol hordes, writing feature stories about cultural exchange, and occasional political pieces based on gossip, pieces that almost always turn out to be wrong.”
The waiter, wearing a near-floor-length apron in the old world style, had brought them each a small carafe of vodka set in bowls of ice. Spencer drank, then turned to look at the dance floor, a raised stage at the rear of the room with a large band playing to one side.
“You make it sound so dreary.”
“Not dreary, m’dear. Bleak.”
“Why did you come?”
“I was told to. My newspaper chain has been threatening to fire me for a long time, Tatty. I don’t argue with them, much. My bureau chief in Washington tried to look out for me as best he could. When the Moscow slot opened up, I suppose he thought it was a good place to keep me on ice. Everyone on the Moscow beat drinks.”
“Are you drinking more than before?”
He smiled, to himself.
“Probably not, Tatiana. I’m just getting older. Getting old.”
Tatty was distressed, in large part for selfish reasons. Jack Spencer had been the warmest, wittiest person she had ever known. She had been counting on him to lift her out of her depression. Instead, he was dragging her down into his own.
She took his hand.
“You’re so sad, Jack. Is it because you’re still in love with Chesley?”
“No.” He shook his head for emphasis. “No, I’m not in love with Chesley, anymore. It’s a question I’ve pondered as much as I have death and eternity. Do you believe that? It’s true. She was all my life, Tatty.”
“All?”
A guilty grin came and went. “Those girls and ladies were, just what they always were. They had nothing to do with my marriage.”
She almost said, “But everything to do with your divorce,” yet could not. He was still holding her hand. She in no way wanted to increase his unhappiness.
“I’m not in love with Chesley. That’s all drained and empty, what’s left is cold and hard. That’s what makes me so sad, Tat. Not that I love her but that I no longer do. I cannot understand how this has happened to me. What in bloody hell could have taken my love for Chesley away?”
He had let his shoulders slump. He straightened them, leaning stiffly against the back of his chair, his eyes watching her expression. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is a desperate place, Russia. It pulls the emotions close to the skin.”
She squeezed his hand. “You don’t need to apologize to me. Good Lord, Jack. Think of all the times I came to cry on your shoulder. You’re entitled to at least one such occasion yourself.”
He squeezed her hand back. “Sestra.”
“No, not sestra. Podruga. Friend.”
“Podruga. Not quite accurate. A term insufficient.” He turned in his chair again, observing the whirling and clomping on the dance floor as though it were an elaborate entertainment intended just for them. One couple dominated the stage, a tall attractive blond girl in a shapeless long dress and what appeared to be army combat boots, and a much taller black man in a blue suit and green turtleneck sweater, doubtless an exchange student from one of the leftist African countries. They looked utterly absurd, yet danced so beautifully together that one didn’t notice. With such dancing, they would have looked marvelous dressed in clown suits. Tatty felt jealous. For all her running and body care, she was a clod at dancing. This lack of a basic talent had cost her not a little in her career.
Spencer was watching the girl, appraising her face and form, perhaps calculating what chance he might have if he were to make some move on her. Could he possibly be thinking that, here in the company of his exquisite sister-in-law, reunited with her after so long a time? Chesley, very bitter, had said he was such a man, but Tatty had not believed it. Did she now? She didn’t know.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked, suddenly very debonair.
“Not to this wild stuff, thank you. Perhaps if they play something slow. Do you think they will?”
“It won’t be Peter Duchin, but I expect they will.” He paused as the waiter served their food, chicken Kiev and potatoes for her; blini, pancakes with salmon, caviar, and sour cream, for him.
“You see,” she said. “Russia isn’t all gulags and police, corruption and gossip. It’s food and drink, song and dance, too.”
“Not to speak of ICBMs and yellow rain. And missiles that shoot down civilian airline passengers.”
She ate her potatoes first, making it possible for her stomach to accept the rest. Such a wanton indulgence in calories. She hadn’t gone running in weeks. Much more of this and she’d begin to plump. What was going wrong with her? She glanced up at Spencer. He was staring at her, adoringly.
“Stop that,” she said, “or I’ll start giggling.”
“No, please. It’s not a night for giggles.” Yet he continued to stare. “Do you hear what they’re playing, my dear. I believe they’re playing our song.”
“Why, so they are. What is it?”
“‘Kalinka,’ or as close to it as they can come.”
“It’s not exactly slow.”
“I don’t think they’ll get much slower. Everyone here seems bent on a good romp.”
“Very well, then. Let’s have a good romp.”
They danced with some clumsiness, and too slowly for the music, but she didn’t mind. She was happy to be in his arms. She had last danced with him at a summer party, on someone’s terrace, but the woman with whom he was cheating on Chesley that night had cut in. The blond Russian girl in the combat boots was looking at Tatty and Spencer intently. Tatty was pleased that she was looking. Tatty would not let her cut in. Not anyone.
As they walked back across Red Square, he put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. The wind had subsided, but it was much colder nevertheless. Somewhere off in the black she could hear a distant but sharp ringing sound, as though someone were striking a club against the pavement. It was followed by another, and then another, the interval exact.
Spencer stopped, looking up at the clock face on the nearest Kremlin tower.
“Is this cold too much for you?” She shook her head. “There’s something here you should see. The face of Russia. Of Soviet Russia.”
He took her hand and led her toward the Kremlin wall and the Lenin mausoleum, all the way up to the chain and posts that marked the edge of the square.
There was still a soldier standing in the entranceway, stone still, his immobile face etched in shadow and the rimming glare of reflected floodlight. He was staring—at her, past her, through her—his eyes in the darkness lifeless and unblinking, the look of the dead.
The sharp, ringing blows continued, and drew nearer. They were footsteps, the fall of heavy boots, in slow march. She and Spencer looked to their left as toward them came a group of four soldiers, moving in exaggerated slow motion. In unison their legs swung out, and as their boots came down with that shattering crack, their left arms would swing up till their hands touched their rifle stocks, then fall back as their other legs were brought forth. This slow procession brought them to the tomb at precisely a minute to the hour. They stood at attention for a moment, then two of the soldiers, moving in the same slow, exaggerated step, made their formal way to their posts, one to the side of the mausoleum and the other to the entrance, arriving just as the two men they were relieving joined the formation. After another moment’s pause, the formation turned about face and commenced its funereal retreat. Standing in the formation, the soldier now in the entrance looked no more than eighteen. His too was the face of death.
“He’ll stand like that for an hour, never moving,” Spencer said. “There are more than two million in the Soviet Army just like him. In Peter the Great’s day, everyone served but the gentry, and conscription was for life. Now it’s only for two years, but eighty percent of the population serves.”
“You were drafted, weren’t you Jack?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t a soldier like that.”
She steeled herself for one last look at that young dead face in the entranceway, then pulled Spencer away and toward the hotel. When they reached it, he hugged her, kissing her gently on the neck just beneath her ear. Then he stood back, smiling in his sad, weary way.
“One of the more memorable nights of my life, Czarina. I thank you.”
“I thank you, friend. Cher friend.”
“I hope I’ll see you again before you leave.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“And all the days. Can’t you, Jack?”
“We have a sort of death watch on. It’s possible the premier had a heart attack. But if he should succumb, we’ll be the last to know. They’ll no doubt call us in to hand us two-day-old copies of the Paris Herald Tribune with the story. If I’m with a VIP like you, I might get a beat on it.”
“Can you be with me tomorrow?”
“What about your high-ranking Sovietski swain?”
“I’ve not heard from him since Leningrad. I passed out in a restaurant with him; fell face first into a plate of Russian hors d’oeuvres.”
“And you a Greenwich girl.”
“He may never ask me out again.”
“Tatty, when I first met you, two sloe gin fizzes was a big night. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Jack. Can you come after breakfast tomorrow? I have this Intourist woman who no doubt has tours of seventeen museums planned, but I can get rid of her.”
“Not after breakfast. I have an interview with the oldest man in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. After lunch. That’s fine. What about lunch?”
“Lunch. Twelve?”
“Oh dear. My interview is out in some nursing home in the country. It’s scheduled for eleven, but as always they’ll be late. I probably won’t be back in Moscow until one. Why don’t I call you when I get back? No. That means you hang around your room. This is so damn difficult. I’m sure they’ll have you off on all sorts of official tours anyway.”
“I’ll do what I want.”
“I’ll call you, Tat. Let’s leave it at that.”
He backed away, bringing two fingers to his brow in farewell. He was all somber again, a man with dark looks in dark coat and dark hat. Behind him was dark Russia, ready to swallow him up. He seemed so forlorn, hurt, and lonely. She suddenly felt very angry with Chesley.
He moved off, with yet another odd wave.
“Jack!”
“Yes?”
“It’s too cold a night. You need brandy. I have some brandy in my room. Please join me in one.”
He halted. His eyes sought the depths of hers. She lowered her lids, protecting her thoughts.
“French brandy?”
“No. Armenian.”
He pursed his lips and nodded, approvingly.
“There is one good fact about the Soviet Union. The Bolshies can lay claim to most of Armenia. If it weren’t for them, it would be in thrall to the heathen Turks, and those bastards would outlaw brandy.”
“I have a wonderful view of a courtyard,” she said.
“The world’s largest airshaft,” he said, stepping forward and taking her hand. “I will come and marvel at it with you for a while.”
They entered the hotel like an imperial husband and wife. Tatty took her key from the spasibo lady outside her room without an instant’s notice of the disapproving grimace that accompanied it. Entering the large chamber, which was basically a bedroom, Tatty slammed and bolted the door behind her, turned on the lights, clicked on the radio set in the wall, and turned the tuner to the one station of the available three that was playing balalaika music, very romantic balalaika music. She pulled off her heavy red coat, then went to the bureau. In addition to the wine and brandy, there was a fresh carafe of vodka and a sealed full bottle of Stolichnaya behind it. And another calling card. She flicked it to the floor.
&
nbsp; “People seem to come and go in my room as they wish,” she said, “and one of them has left Stolichnaya. Would you like some instead of brandy?”
He had taken off his hat and coat. He put a hand to her waist and turned her around. “Give me a moment to think about it,” he said. He pulled her close and kissed her, as she had hoped, prayed, and hungered he would do all evening, as she had wanted him to for all the years he had been part of her family life. She moved her hands to his back and, clinging tightly, moved them up to his still strong shoulders. He pulled her even closer, lowering his left hand to pull up the hem of her dress and, slipping it beneath, running it up the back of her leg to her hip and the top of her panty hose, reaching to her buttocks, lifting her, reaching further until his fingers touched the moistening warmth of her vagina.
“Not podruga, Jack,” she said, reaching for his belt, stopping to take his kiss, then frantically pulling the buckle free. “Lyubov. Love.”
They fell onto the bed. He knelt to free her of her clothes, then tore off his own with some violence. Yet when he came to her side again, his touch was gentle, his kisses tender. He touched and kissed her everywhere. At length he knelt once more and came forward, massaging the nipples of her breasts with the tip of his wonderfully enlarged penis. He placed it between her breasts and squeezed them hard. Kissing her less tenderly now, he slid down upon her and moved his hand once more to her vagina, his fingers working her, playing her, with a virtuoso’s touch and skill. She tried to hold herself back, wondering why he wasn’t joining her, but he had taken her too far. Her hips began to pull and push, her pelvic bone riding beneath his hand. She began to make sounds she would never have thought herself capable of making. Her legs were trembling, shifting. Her chest was heaving. She reached for his shoulders, begging, but he kept on, till her entire body was in motion, till she had lost all thought, all perception of time and place, till she was driven to an agony of pleasure. Then at once he slid between her thrashing knees, moving her legs apart with his own and then, taking hold of her buttocks, thrust himself violently inside her, again and again and again, recapturing and recharging her pleasure just as it had begun to slip away, bringing it to a new intensity, his great force relentlessly producing a final flow of joy. At that last moment he pressed himself hard against her, his strong hands gripping her bottom till she feared his fingers might break through her skin, gasping, then relenting and relaxing and unfolding and finally rolling, with a happy sigh, onto his side.
Blood of the Czars Page 14