Comrade Charlie

48

‘Exceptional!’ said Valeri Kalenin. ‘Absolutely exceptional!’

‘Thank you,’ said Berenkov. This wasn’t the first praise. Berenkov was accustomed to it, so the attitude was practised, humble deference. But today was particularly important to him. Berenkov was glad their friendship had been restored, the suspicion between them – more Kalenin’s suspicion than his – swept away. He’d been fortunate, Berenkov accepted: incredibly fortunate. But only he knew it: would ever know it. Luck comes to the daring, he thought. He didn’t think he would attempt to be the daring again. To himself – but only to himself – Berenkov conceded that he’d been badly frightened until that last drawing arrived from England in the diplomatic bag.

‘Not my words,’ allowed Kalenin honestly. ‘The opinion of the commendation from the Praesidium itself. We’re secure, Alexei. Secure. And you made us so.’

‘Everyone is being extremely generous,’ said Berenkov, remaining modest. So Kalenin, who’d been prepared to avoid the responsibility, was happy to be sharing the credit. Berenkov felt no resentment.

‘I did not expect Guzins simply to be deported as he was,’ qualified Kalenin. ‘The British made an incredible mistake there. Over the whole affair, in fact.’

Further luck, reflected Berenkov. He said: ‘I expected him to break: make a full incriminating confession.’

‘So all we’ve lost is Petrin.’

‘Always an acceptable sacrifice, like Obyedkov,’ pointed out Berenkov. ‘We can repatriate them, in time.’

‘And we’re permanently rid of Charlie Muffin!’

Berenkov smiled. The newspaper reports of Charlie Muffin’s trial had been brief, dictated by the restrictions of the hearing, but he’d had them all sent to him from London. He said: ‘Ten years. He’ll never be able to endure ten years.’

‘It was still a very great risk, doing what you did,’ said Kalenin soberly.

‘Calculated risk,’ insisted Berenkov.

‘It worried me,’ admitted Kalenin.

Not as much as it worried me, at the very end, thought Berenkov. ‘It worked,’ he said, the conceit creeping through.

‘What are you going to do about the woman?’

‘Nothing,’ said Berenkov. ‘The function she fulfils is useful. Maybe I’ll transfer her back to debriefing, but not immediately.’

‘Did it ever occur to you that she might have defected, to be with him?’

‘It was a possibility,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘But we always had her son as a hostage. She would have known that.’

‘It’s unimportant now,’ judged Kalenin.

‘What’s the missile schedule?’ asked Berenkov.

‘Extremely advanced,’ said Kalenin. ‘The Foreign Minister is to make an announcement of our capability at a meeting on conventional weapons in Geneva next week. When the uproar subsides – we’re estimating a week – there’ll be the invitation to the Western media to witness the actual launch. All the Western ambassadors are going to be invited to Baikonur, as well…’ Kalenin smiled. ‘The intention is to make a big spectacle of it.’

‘We’ll certainly achieve that,’ said Berenkov.

‘I want to apologize to you, personally,’ declared Kalenin. ‘I was quite wrong to doubt you as I did.’

‘It is forgotten,’ dismissed Berenkov. ‘Friends can doubt each other occasionally, can’t they?’

‘Never again,’ assured Kalenin. ‘Never again.’

‘We’re going up to the dacha next weekend,’ said Berenkov. ‘Georgi is home. Valentina would like you to come up with us.’

‘I’d enjoy that,’ accepted Kalenin. ‘I’d enjoy that very much indeed.’

It was better now than when she had first returned: no one but Natalia would have been aware of the remaining scars because she’d rearranged an easy chair to cover the carpet burn and paid an odd-job man in the Mytinskaya apartment block to replace the shattered cabinet door in the kitchen.

It had been appalling when she’d got back. Like an animal cage from which the beasts had escaped or been driven. There had even been an animallike smell, a gagging stench of the crowded-together bodies of whoever Eduard had brought back with him for his leave while she had been away. Apart from the carpet burn – a large, through-to-the-floorboards hole where something had been allowed to smoulder for a long time – and the smashed cabinet there had been empty bottles strewn throughout the kitchen, the sink filled with unwashed crockery, and the toilet bowl blocked with unflushed faeces. But that wasn’t what caused Natalia’s greatest offence. That had been her own bedroom. Eduard had allowed someone to use her bed. And not merely someone – a single person – because it had really been used, the sheets marked and stained. Natalia had felt violated, abused. She’d stripped the bed, heaving with revulsion, but hadn’t washed the sheets because she’d known she wouldn’t ever be able to sleep in them again, not even if they were clean: she’d rolled them up into a ball and thrown them out and scoured and scalded everything in the flat and finally scoured herself in the hottest bath in which she could bear to immerse herself, trying to wash away the feeling of being befouled.

And cried.

The state of the flat had been the excuse that night. And for some nights after, but she couldn’t call upon it any more, not after all these weeks. Not that she wept so much, not any longer. Only when she let herself think back to those nights: remembered the tenderness and the words they’d said to each other, the promises made but not kept. Like now. Natalia felt her eyes begin to fill but didn’t care because she was quite alone in the apartment, as she was resigned to being for ever.

‘Why didn’t you come, Charlie?’ she sobbed aloud. ‘Oh dear God why didn’t you come!’