Comrade Charlie

Chapter 10

Berenkov stood politely as the woman entered his office and went halfway across the room to greet her, escorting her to the overly ornate visitors’ chair he’d moved specially, to bring her closer to his desk, not to its front but to one side. That was the extent of the relaxation: there was a less official area of chairs and couches to one side, near the window, but Berenkov decided it would have been going too far.

‘Welcome, Natalia Nikandrova,’ said Berenkov. ‘Welcome indeed.’

‘Comrade General,’ responded Natalia. Her voice was higher than it should have been but he would expect some apprehension at the personal interview. She put her hand up to the thick-rimmed spectacles before she realized she was doing it and stopped the nervous gesture; it would have seemed like a fatuous wave. Why this clumsy, artificial politeness? Where were the escorting guards and the stenographer, to note the interrogation for later production as evidence at a trial?

‘There has not been the opportunity before for me to congratulate you upon your promotion.’

Nor the need, thought Natalia, further bewildered. Unable to think of anything better, she said: ‘Thank you, Comrade General.’ There was an approach taught like this at the training academy: the soft, beguiling beginning, lulling into a sense of misleading security. Everything was undoubtedly being recorded by hidden microphones so she supposed there was no necessity for official stenographers.

‘Well deserved,’ said Berenkov. Truthfully he added: ‘I’ve spent time considering your entire career. It is extremely commendable.’

She and Charlie had tried to prepare for an encounter like this. It was imperative, Charlie had insisted, that she remain unshakable in her story of never imagining he intended to return to the West until the very day she’d denounced him. She could go as far as admitting their affair — which she had done to Kalenin — but insist it was contrived by her, without any real affection, to trick him into some indiscretion to confirm her growing suspicion of his loyalty to Moscow. Survive, Charlie had repeated again and again: Think of nothing except surviving. Cautiously, stiffly, she said: ‘I am gratified you should think so, Comrade General.’

‘And your son is an exemplary student at the military academy,’ said Berenkov.

The alarm flared through her. The beginning of the pressure, the remainder of what she had to lose? She said: ‘He appears to be doing well.’

‘But away for most of the time now? No longer needing his mother’s guidance?’

Which direction was this? A hint at how vulnerable Eduard was? Or the first move to take the apartment away from her? ‘That is so,’ she conceded. She was terrified of the moment coming but she almost wished, fatalistically, that the bloated man would stop playing with her and come out openly with the accusation.

‘So there is no personal reason against your taking another job?’ Definitely nervous, decided Berenkov. But controlling it well. Then again, she had been educated to control her emotions.

‘I’m afraid…I don’t quite…another job?’ stumbled Natalia, badly. ‘Forgive me,’ she recovered, more forcefully. ‘What job could I have different from what I already do…for which I have been particularly schooled?’ She was now totally bewildered, too confused to anticipate or guess at anything Berenkov might say.

‘Everyone and everything has to adjust to the times through which we are going,’ said Berenkov. ‘Ourselves included. I fully recognize that yours has until now been a specialized subject and that you might not have considered any other field. But there is one; one for which your language expertise fits you very well indeed.’

What was all this! Certainly not, apparently, what she’d feared. Natalia stopped the relief, before it had time properly to form. Everything was still far too uncertain, too jumbled, for her to feel relief. ‘What else could I do but debrief?’

There was suspicion, gauged Berenkov. There should have been apprehension, at being called to the Director’s office and there should have been surprise, at what he was nebulously offering. But suspicion didn’t have a place. He wanted very much to produce Charlie Muffin’s name, to observe her reaction. But he couldn’t, he accepted; she always had to remain the unknowing bait, against her warning him if Charlie Muffin did respond. He said: ‘You can listen. Expertly, the way you’ve been taught. Understand the nuances beyond the flat words.’

‘Listen to whom?’

‘Official ministry delegations, to the West. They are going to increase, in the coming months, under the new order at the Kremlin.’ Berenkov was leaning forward on his desk, intent upon her. Pinpricks of colour came to her face, the way people become flushed when they are excited.

The West! Somewhere she’d never imagined herself ever being able to reach, somewhere where Charlie…Natalia stopped determinedly. Rigidly professional, she said: ‘There are always interpreters…other people from our organization forming part of the support staff as well. I would have no proper or useful role.’

An intelligent objection, accepted Berenkov; the woman was fully controlled now, demure hands in the demure lap of her stern black suit, hair tightly in a bun at the back of her head, in a style he found oddly antiquated. She wore no make-up, either. As if she were dressing down or not bothering with her appearance. ‘We think you would: a very useful role. Interpreters have access at all times and at all levels but as I’ve already told you we don’t expect from you the translations of what is said. The others can provide that. From you we want the analyses, independent of the other various ministry opinions.’

‘Supplied to whom?’ queried Natalia. ‘The ministries? Or here?’

‘Here, of course,’ smiled Berenkov. That had to be the way for any uncertainties in her mind to be satisfactorily allayed.

‘I would be a KGB spy upon the delegations, in fact?’ queried Natalia directly.

Berenkov shook his head. ‘Others form part of every overseas group to ensure proper behaviour: you said so yourself, a few moments ago. All we seek is what I’ve asked for. Independent analysis.’

Natalia supposed that with so many changes happening in Moscow it made practical, understandable sense for the KGB to know first hand as much as possible of such overseas visits, properly to formulate their own forward policies. She wouldn’t have thought it needed a change of leadership before the necessity was realized, however. She said: ‘So I am being officially transferred?’

‘How would you feel about such a move?’ said Berenkov, conveying the impression she had a choice.

‘It is too sudden…too unexpected…for me properly to be able to answer that…’

All the early unease had gone now, assessed Berenkov. She was a woman capable of adapting remarkably quickly. Making it obvious there hadn’t really been a choice at all, Berenkov said: ‘You will begin immediately.’

Recognizing the dismissal, Natalia stood and said: ‘I hope I will fulfil what’s required of me.’

‘I hope that too,’ said Berenkov, in a remark of which she was never to understand the true meaning.

Natalia had completely recovered from all the doubts by the time she left Berenkov’s suite, able to think and rationalize. That initial reaction, immediately associating Charlie with the West, as if there were a chance of her seeing him again, was perhaps natural but in reality quite foolish. There would never be a chance of a reunion. How could there be?

Charlie underwent one routine interrogation and, more expert than his questioners, he guessed within minutes that they were merely going through the required motions and that the investigation had already been resolved. And if it had, in a little over a week, he knew, too, that he’d been correct about the episode at the Hampshire nursing home.

His formal notice to return to Westminster Bridge Road came during the second week but the date for that return was not until the the end of the month, giving the vague semblance of a proper inquiry. Charlie surmised the truth to be that Harkness was trying to delay the inevitable confrontation and considered making contact with Laura to find out what he could. Not fair, he dismissed at once: if he’d succeeded in escalating everything to the level he hoped, he could get Laura fired out of hand for even speaking to him. He could wait, Charlie decided: he had all the time in the world.

‘What’s their explanation?’ demanded the outraged Harkness. In his anger his face had gone from its usual pink to bright red.

‘It’s most unfortunate,’ said Witherspoon, unhappy at being caught in the middle. ‘I briefed them thoroughly but no one expected the story of their being from the Ministry of Pensions to be checked so thoroughly.’

‘The man Muffin is a confounded nuisance; an embarrassment and a nuisance,’ insisted Harkness. ‘Now I’ve got to provide an explanation. Can you imagine that!’

‘A great nuisance,’ agreed Witherspoon.

‘This department — this service — has got to be rid of him!’

‘Yes,’ said Witherspoon in further agreement.

‘And I want your help in achieving it.’

‘Whatever I can do,’ accepted Witherspoon at once. He knew Charlie Muffin laughed at him: despised him even. There would be a great satisfaction in being the one who laughed, for a change.