The Russia House Read online

  ‘And what is the objective purpose of your life today, Comrade?’ Katya demanded of Sergey with mock ferocity as she straightened his collar once more.

  ‘To serve the people and the Party with all my strength.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Not to let Vitaly Rogov pinch my lunch!’

  More laughter as the twins ran away from her up the stone steps, Katya waving till they had disappeared.

  In the metro she saw everything too brightly and from a distance. She noticed how glum the passengers were, as if she were not one of them herself; and how they all seemed to be reading Moscow newspapers, a sight that would have been unthinkable a year ago when newspapers were good for nothing but toilet paper and closing off draughts. On other days Katya might have read one too; or if not, a book or manuscript for work. But today, despite her efforts to rid herself of her stupid dream, she was living too many lives at once. She was cooking fish soup for her father to make up for some act of wilfulness. She was enduring a piano lesson at the elderly Tatyana Sergeyevna’s and being rebuked for levity. She was running in the street, unable to wake. Or the street was running after her. Which was probably why she almost forgot to change trains.

  Reaching her office, which was a half-heartedly modern affair of flaking wood and weeping concrete – more suited to a public swimming pool, she always thought, than to a State publishing house – she was surprised by the sight of workmen hammering and sawing in the entrance hall, and for a second she gave way to the disgusting notion that they were building a scaffold for her public execution.

  ‘It’s our appropriation,’ wheezed old Morozov, who always had to steal a word with her. ‘The money was allocated to us six years ago. Now some bureaucrat has consented to sign the order.’

  The lift was being repaired as usual. Lifts and churches, she thought, in Russia always under repair. She took the stairs, climbing swiftly without knowing what the hurry was, yelling cheerful good mornings at whoever needed one. Thinking afterwards about her haste, she wondered whether the ringing of her telephone had drawn her forward subconsciously, because as she entered her room there it was on her desk howling to be put out of its pain.

  She grabbed the receiver and said ‘Da,’ out of breath, but evidently she spoke too soon, for the first thing she heard was a man’s voice asking in English for Madame Orlova.

  ‘This is Madame Orlova,’ she said, also in English.

  ‘Madame Yekaterina Orlova?’

  ‘Who is this, please?’ she asked, smiling. ‘It is Lord Peter Wimsey perhaps? Who is this?’

  One of my silly friends playing a joke. Lyuba’s husband again, hoping for a date. Then her mouth dried.

  ‘Ah well, you don’t know me, I’m afraid. My name’s Scott Blair. Barley Scott Blair from Abercrombie & Blair in London, publishers, over here on a business trip. I think we have a mutual friend in Niki Landau. Niki was very insistent I should give you a call. How do you do?’

  ‘How do you do,’ Katya heard herself say, and felt a hot cloud come over her and a pain start at the centre of her stomach just below the rib cage. At the same moment Nasayan strolled in, hands in pockets and unshaven, which was his way of showing intellectual depth. Seeing her talking, he hunched his shoulders and struck his ugly face at her in a resentful pout, willing her to get off the line.

  ‘Bonjour to you, Katya Borisovna,’ he said sarcastically.

  But the voice in the telephone was already talking again, pressing itself upon her. It was a strong voice so she assumed someone tall. It was confident so she assumed someone arrogant, the kind of Englishman who wears expensive suits, has no culture and walks with his hands behind his back.

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you why I’m calling,’ he was saying. ‘Apparently Niki promised to look out some old editions of Jane Austen for you with the original drawings, is that right?’ He gave her no time to say whether it was right or wrong. ‘Only I’ve brought a couple over with me – rather nice ones, actually – and I wondered whether we could possibly arrange a handover at some mutually convenient point?’

  Tired of glowering, Nasayan was picking through the papers in her in-tray after his usual habit.

  ‘You are very kind,’ she said into the mouthpiece, using her dullest voice. She had closed her face, making it lifeless and official. That was for Nasayan. She had closed her mind. That was for herself.

  ‘Niki’s also sent you about a ton of Jackson’s tea,’ the voice continued.

  ‘A ton?’ said Katya. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I didn’t even know Jackson’s were still in business, to be honest. They used to have a marvellous shop in Piccadilly a few doors down from Hatchard’s. Anyway, I’ve got three different kinds of their tea sitting here in front of me –’

  He had disappeared.

  They have arrested him, she thought. He never rang. It’s my dream again. God in Heaven, what do I do next?

  ‘– Assam, Darjeeling and Orange Pekoe. What on earth’s a pekoe? Sounds more like an exotic bird to me.’

  ‘I don’t know. I suspect it will be a plant.’

  ‘I suspect you’ll be right at that. Anyway the question is, how can I give them to you? Can I bring them to you somewhere? Or can you drop in at the hotel and could we have a quick drink and a formal presentation?’

  She was learning to appreciate his long-windedness. He was giving her time to steady herself. She pushed her fingers through her hair, discovering to her surprise that it was tidy.

  ‘You have not told me which hotel you are staying at,’ she objected severely.

  Nasayan’s head jerked round to her in disapproval.

  ‘Well, neither I did now. How ridiculous of me. I’m at the Odessa, know the Odessa? Just up the road from the old bath house? I’ve become quite fond of it. Always ask for it, don’t always get it. My daytimes are rather taken up with meetings – always the way when one’s over on a flying visit – but evenings are relatively free at the moment, if that’s any good to you. I mean how about tonight – no time like the present – would tonight be any good for you?’

  Nasayan was lighting one of his filthy cigarettes, though the whole office knew she hated smoking. Having lit it, he hoisted it in the air and sucked from it with his woman’s lips. She grimaced at him but he ignored her.

  ‘That is actually quite convenient,’ Katya said in her most military manner. ‘Tonight I have to attend an official reception in your district. It is for an important delegation from Hungary,’ she added, not sure whom she was meaning to impress. ‘We have been looking forward to it for many weeks.’

  ‘Great. Marvellous. Suggest a time. Six? Eight? What suits you best?’

  ‘The reception is at six o’clock. I shall come at perhaps eight-fifteen.’

  ‘Perhaps-eight-fifteen it is. You got the name, did you? Scott Blair. Scott like the Antarctic, Blair like a trumpet. I’m tall and seedy, about two hundred years old, with spectacles I can’t see through. But Niki tells me you’re the Soviet answer to the Venus de Milo so I expect I’ll recognise you anyway.’

  ‘That is most ridiculous!’ she exclaimed, laughing despite herself.

  ‘I’ll be hanging around the lobby looking out for you, but why don’t I give you my room telephone number just in case. Got a pencil?’

  As she rang off the contrary passions that had been gathering in her burst their banks and she turned on Nasayan with flashing eyes.

  ‘Grigory Tigranovich. Whatever your position here, you have no right to haunt my room like this, inspect my correspondence and listen to my telephone conversations. Here is your book. If you have something to say to me, say it later.’

  Then she scooped up a sheaf of translator’s manuscript on the achievements of Cuban agricultural cooperatives and with cold hands began leafing through the pages, pretending to count them. A full hour passed before she telephoned Nasayan.

  ‘You must forgive my anger,’ she said. ‘A close friend of mine died at the weekend. I was not mysel
f.’

  By lunchtime she had changed her plans. Morozov could wait for his tickets, the shopkeeper for his bars of fancy soap, Olga Stanislavsky for her cloth. She walked, she took a bus, not a cab. She walked again, crossing one courtyard after another until she found the down-at-heel blockhouse she was looking for and the alley that ran beside it. ‘This is how you get hold of me when you need me,’ he had said. ‘The janitor is a friend of mine. He will not even know who made the sign.’

  You have to believe in what you are doing, she reminded herself.

  I do. I absolutely do.

  She had the picture postcard in her hand, a Rembrandt from the Hermitage in Leningrad. ‘Love to you all,’ her message read, signed ‘Alina’, and a heart.

  She had found the street. She was standing in it. It was the street of her bad dream. She pressed the bell, three rings, then shoved the card under the door.

  A perfect Moscow morning, alight and beckoning, the air alpine, a day to forgive all sins. The telephone call behind him, Barley stepped out of his hotel and, standing on the warm pavement, loosened his wrists and shoulders and rolled his head round his collar while he turned his mind outward and let the city drown his fears with its conflicting smells and voices. The stink of Russian petrol, tobacco, cheap scent and river water – hullo! Two more days here I shan’t know I’m smelling you. The sporadic cavalry charges of the commuter cars – hullo! The belching brown lorries thundering through the potholes in pursuit. The eerie emptiness between. The limousines with their blackened windows, the unmarked buildings splitting before their time – are you a block of offices, a barracks or a school? The dough-faced boys smoking in the doorways, waiting. The chauffeurs, reading newspapers in their parked cars, waiting. The unspeaking group of solemn men in hats, staring at a closed door, waiting.

  Why did it always draw me? he wondered, contemplating his life in the past tense, which had recently become his habit. Why did I keep coming back here? He was feeling high and bright, he couldn’t help it. He was not used to fear.

  Because of their making do, he decided. Because they can rough it better than we can. Because of their love of anarchy and their terror of chaos, and the tension in between.

  Because God always found excuses not to come here.

  Because of their universal ignorance, and the brilliance that bursts through it. Because of their sense of humour, as good as ours and better.

  Because they are the last great frontier in an over-discovered world. Because they try so hard to be like us and start from so far back.

  Because of the huge heart beating inside the huge shambles. Because the shambles is my own.

  I shall come at perhaps-eight-fifteen, she had said. What had he heard in her voice? Guardedness? Guarding whom? Herself? Him? Me? In our profession, the couriers are the message.

  Look outwards, Barley told himself. Outwards is the only place to be.

  From the metro a group of teenage girls in cotton frocks and boys in denim jackets trotted purposefully to work or instruction, their glum expressions switching to laughter at a word. Spotting the foreigner they studied him with cool glances – his rounded, pop-eye spectacles, his shabby handmade shoes, his old imperialist suit. In Moscow, if nowhere else, Barley Blair observed the bourgeois proprieties of dress.

  Joining the stream he let it carry him, not caring which way he went. By contrast with his determinedly contented mood the early food queues had a restless and unsettled look. The grim-suited labour heroes and war veterans, their breastplates of medals jingling in the sunlight as they waded through the crowds, had an air of being late for wherever they were marching. Even their sloth seemed to have an air of protest. In the new climate, doing nothing was itself an act of opposition. Because by doing nothing we change nothing. And by changing nothing we hang on to what we understand, even if it is the bars of our own gaol.

  I shall come at perhaps-eight-fifteen.

  Reaching the wide river Barley again dawdled. On the far bank the fairytale domes of the Kremlin lifted into a cloudless heaven. A Jerusalem with its tongue pulled out, he thought. So many towers, scarcely a bell. So many churches, barely a spoken prayer.

  Hearing a voice close beside him he swung round too sharply and discovered an old couple in their best clothes asking him the way to somewhere. But Barley of the perfect memory had few words of Russian. It was a music he had listened to often, without summoning the nerve to penetrate its mysteries.

  He laughed and made an apologetic face. ‘Don’t speak it, old boy. I’m an imperialist hyena. English!’

  The old man grasped his wrist in friendship.

  In every foreign city he had ever been, strangers asked him the way to places he didn’t know in languages he didn’t understand. Only in Moscow did they bless him for his ignorance.

  He retraced his steps, pausing at unswept windows, pretending to examine what they offered. Painted wooden dolls. Who for? Dusty tins of fruit, or were they fish? Battered packets hanging from red string, contents a mystery, perhaps pekoes. Jars of pickled medical samples, lit by ten-watt bulbs. He was approaching his hotel again. A drunk-eyed peasant woman pushed a bunch of dying tulips at him, wrapped in newspaper.

  ‘Awfully kind of you,’ he cried and, rummaging through his pockets, found among the junk a rouble note.

  A green Lada was parked outside the hotel entrance, the radiator smashed. A hand-inked card in the windscreen said VAAP. The driver was leaning over the bonnet detaching the wiper blades as a precaution against theft.

  ‘Scott Blair?’ Barley asked him. ‘You looking for me?’ The driver paid him not the slightest attention but continued with his work. ‘Blair?’ said Barley. ‘Scott?’

  ‘Those for me, dear?’ Wicklow enquired, coming up behind him. ‘You’re fine,’ he added quietly. ‘Clean as a whistle.’

  Wicklow will watch your back for you, Ned had said. Wicklow, if anybody, will know whether you’re being followed. Wicklow and who else? Barley wondered. Last night, as soon as they had checked in to the hotel, Wicklow had vanished until after midnight, and as Barley had put himself to bed he had seen him from his window, standing in the street talking to two young men in jeans.

  They got into the car. Barley tossed the tulips on to the back ledge. Wicklow sat in the front seat chatting cheerily to the driver in his perfect Russian. The driver let out a great bellow of laughter. Wicklow laughed too.

  ‘Want to share it?’ Barley asked.

  Wicklow was already doing so. ‘I asked him whether he’d like to drive the Queen when she came here on her state visit. There’s a saying here. If you steal, steal a million. If you screw, screw a queen.’

  Barley lowered his window and tapped out a tune on the sill. Life was a romp till perhaps-eight-fifteen.

  ‘Barley! Welcome to Barbary, my dear chap. For God’s sake, man, don’t shake hands with me across the threshold, we have enough troubles as it is! You look positively healthy,’ Alik Zapadny complained in alarm when they had time to examine each other. ‘Why have you no hangover, may I ask? Are you in love, Barley? Are you divorced again? What have you been up to that you require to confess to me?’

  Zapadny’s drawn face examined him with desperate intelligence, the shadows of confinement stamped for ever in his hollowed cheeks. When Barley had first known him, Zapadny had been a dubious translator in disgrace working under other names. Now he was a dubious hero of the Reconstruction, dressed in a larger man’s white collar and black suit.

  ‘I’ve heard the Voice, Alik,’ Barley explained, with a rush of the old fondness as he slipped him a bunch of back-numbers of The Times wrapped in brown paper. ‘In bed with a good book every night at ten. Meet Len Wicklow, our Russian specialist. Knows more about you than you do, don’t we, Leonard Carl?’

  ‘Well, thank God somebody does!’ Zapadny protested, careful not to acknowledge the gift. ‘We are becoming so unsure of ourselves these days, now that our great Russian mystery is being held up to public view. How much do you know about
your new boss, by the way, Mr. Wicklow? Have you heard, for instance, how he undertook the re-education of the Soviet Union single-handed? Oh yes. He had a charming vision of a hundred million under-educated Soviet workers longing to improve themselves in their leisure. He was going to sell them a great range of titles about how to teach themselves Greek and trigonometry and basic housekeeping. We had to explain to him that the Soviet man-in-the-street regards himself as finite and in his leisure hours he is drunk. Do you know what we bought from him instead to keep him happy? A golf book! You would not imagine how many of our worthy citizens are fascinated by your capitalist golf.’ And in haste, still a dangerous joke – ‘Not that we have any capitalists here. Oh my God, no.’

  They sat ten strong at a yellow table under an icon of Lenin made in wood veneers. Zapadny was the speaker, the others were listeners and smokers. Not one of them, so far as Barley knew, was competent to sign a contract or approve a deal.

  ‘Now Barley, what is this total nonsense you are putting about that you have come here in order to buy Soviet books, please?’ Zapadny demanded by way of opening courtesies, lifting his hooped eyebrows and placing the tips of his fingers together like Sherlock Holmes. ‘You British never buy our books. You make us buy yours instead. Besides, you are broke, or so our friends from London tell us. A. & B. are living off God’s good air and Scotch whisky, they say. Personally I consider that an excellent diet. But why have you come? I think you only wanted an excuse to visit us again.’

  Time was passing. The yellow table floated in the sunbeams. A pall of cigarette smoke floated over it. Black-and-white images of Katya in photographic form came and went in Barley’s mind. The Devil is every girl’s cover story. They drank tea out of pretty Leningrad cups. Zapadny was delivering his standard caveat against trying to make deals directly with Soviet publishers, selecting Wicklow as his audience: the day-and-night war between VAAP and the rest of the world was evidently raging well. Two pale men wandered in to listen and wandered out again. Wicklow was earning favour by handing round blue Gauloises.