Goodbye to an Old Friend

Chapter Two

‘I’m bored.’

Adrian smiled at the immediate greeting from the plump, sparse-haired Russian who sat hunched in the armchair, his glasses reflecting the exhausted sun collapsing over the Sussex Downs.

‘Good afternoon,’ he began, politely.

‘I said I’m bored,’ repeated Bennovitch, petulantly. ‘Bored and lonely. How much longer am I going to be cooped up in this place?’

Adrian looked with appreciation around the room. The house was a Queen Anne mansion that had been surrendered to pay off the death duties of a duke with no money, and taken over by the Home Office for occasions such as this, housing in complete, guarded safety people whose presence Britain might find an international embarrassment.

‘It’s a rather nice house,’ he offered.

‘Bourgeoisie,’ dismissed Bennovitch. ‘I’ve answered all the questions. You know everything now. I want to meet your space scientists, your experts … talk to people who interest me. My mind is going numb here, with only you to talk to.’

Adrian remained smiling, unruffled.

Only when he was debriefing was Adrian completely sure of himself, utterly confident of his control of the interview, his thoughts and questions always comfortably ahead of his subject. Bennovitch was easy to handle. He’d reached that conclusion at their first meeting five weeks before, and enjoyed proving it at every subsequent interview. Like a bell meant food to Pavlov’s dogs, praise meant co-operation from the small, almost dwarflike Georgian, whose personality had been warped by the constant privileges and reminders in the Soviet Union of his importance to their space development.

Binns had decided the value of psychology very early in their relationship and insisted that Adrian undergo several courses. Bennovitch, Adrian diagnosed, was a manic depressive. No. He corrected himself, immediately. Not yet. Not quite. But he would be. Perhaps five years, maybe a little longer. All the symptoms were rippling beneath the surface.

The Russian stood up and began prowling the room, the baggy Russian suit he still refused to discard — the need for association with the known past, identified Adrian — flapping around him, the trousers puddling at his ankles.

His fingers, already puffed and swollen from the perpetual nail biting, were constantly to his mouth and Adrian saw he had developed the habit of removing his glasses for needless cleaning, his hands clenched in tight, scouring motions, as if the spectacles had lacked attention for weeks. Like Macbeth, wiping the guilt of defection from his hands, mused Adrian.

Bennovitch slumped in the window-nook, staring out over the barbered lawns towards Petworth, hidden by the woodland that made the house so attractive to the Home Office.

‘Warm, isn’t it?’ suggested Adrian, setting out on a charted course.

‘In Georgia, we have better weather.’

Adrian smiled again, ignoring the invitation to pointless disagreement.

‘I’d like some more help,’ he said, taking the next step.

‘I’ve helped you enough. I’m tired. No more. Finish.’ Bennovitch made chopping gestures with his hands to emphasize the finality.

‘I thought you worked sixteen hours a day in the final stages of the Soyuz programme.’

‘We did,’ admitted Bennovitch, swallowing the bait.

‘Surely my simple questions can’t tire an intellect as developed as yours.’

Bennovitch shrugged, agreeing with the argument. He began cleaning his spectacles.

‘Tell me about Pavel,’ said Adrian, sure of his catch.

Bennovitch turned back into the room. ‘I told you already. We worked together, always. A team, we were … on Soyuz … Salyut … the Mars probe …’

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ interrupted Adrian. ‘That wasn’t what I wanted to know. Were you at his wedding?’

Bennovitch stared at him, analysing the stupidity of the question. ‘Of course,’ he said, his arrogance mounting. ‘I’ve told you all this. He married Valentina, my sister. I was witness.’

‘When was the wedding?’

Bennovitch glared. ‘Why?’

‘It’s important, really.’

‘You don’t believe me,’ Bennovitch suddenly challenged, his basic insecurity erupting. He scurried across the room and stood in front of Adrian. Even sitting, the Englishman was practically face to face with the defector. Sweat bubbled on Bennovitch’s face and his hands clenched, convulsively, bellowing open and shut in his anger.

‘You think I’m an imposter, a phoney. You’re checking me against some information your embassy in Moscow has sent …’

‘Alexandre, stop it,’ said Adrian, his voice relaxed and even. ‘You know I don’t think that. We’ve accepted you completely. Here.’

He produced the document from his pocket and handed it to the Russian, who took it and frowned down, lips moving to form the words.

Exasperated, he snapped suspiciously, ‘What is it? You know I don’t read English well.’

‘It’s official notice from our Home Office that we’ve granted you asylum. It’s being announced today. You can stay here as long as you like.’

Bennovitch smiled up from the paper, his anger evaporating as Adrian had calculated it would.

‘Honestly?’

‘Believe me,’ said Adrian. ‘We have no doubt, no doubt at all.’

‘Why do you want to know about Viktor then?’

‘We’re curious,’ said Adrian, casually. ‘Just curious, that’s all.’

‘We’re friends,’ said Bennovitch, reflectively, holding the paper before him as if he were reading from it. ‘Viktor was like … like a father to me, I suppose.’

The cliché came naturally, without any artificiality.

‘He’s older then?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied the Russian, immediately. ‘He’s fifty-nine. His birthday is on the same day as his son’s.’

‘Georgi?’

Bennovitch nodded. ‘He’s very worried about the boy. He’s in the army, way down on the Chinese front. It’s a bad place to be. If a third world war starts, it’ll start there.’

‘Was it a good wedding?’

Bennovitch seemed almost unaware of the prompting, deep in his reverie.

‘Hah!’ he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. ‘What a wedding! It was cold, even for Moscow, maybe ten degrees below …’

‘It was winter then?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied Bennovitch, ‘December 25th. Valentina is a religious woman, although we don’t admit it, of course. She chose the 25th — Christ’s birthday.’

‘It was cold,’ coaxed Adrian.

‘Freezing,’ picked up the defector. ‘And I decided upon some pepper vodka, to warm us up. Have you ever had pepper vodka?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing like it for a cold day. Anyway, we had one, then another. And then another …’

The Russian broke up, convulsed by the memory. ‘Valentina had to come all the way from the Hall of Weddings, to see where we were. Viktor could hardly stand at the ceremony … He doesn’t drink as a rule and he was swaying like a tree in the wind …’

Bennovitch’s own laughter cut off the story. ‘… We went back to the flat,’ he continued, ‘Viktor hadn’t been given all the honours then and we were all sharing with another family … the Rogovs … he passed right out on the bridal bed. He kept everyone awake all night with his snores …’

He stopped and Adrian joined in the laughter, as if amused by the recollection. He sighed, happily, a man completely content with his job. Why wasn’t everything so easy?

‘Think you’ll miss him?’

‘Yes.’ Bennovitch stopped laughing, immediately serious. ‘Yes.’ He repeated the confession, slowly.

He hesitated, searching for an expression. ‘I thought about this … coming across, I mean … for a long time. Really it was easier for me than it has been for others who decided to defect. I only had Valentina as a family who could suffer and I knew that Viktor’s position would protect her … that no trouble would be caused. But you know, it’s Viktor I miss even more than my own sister. He did so much for me … encouraged me in physics, helped me. Whenever I needed him, Viktor was there.’

He looked directly at Adrian. ‘I love that man,’ he said, simply.

‘Look.’ He burrowed into his hip wallet, producing a picture of a narrow-faced, serious-looking man, the photograph the expressionless sort of image taken for official documents. ‘I carry it always,’ said Bennovitch.

Adrian took the proffered picture and studied it hard for several moments before returning it.

‘Such friendships are rare,’ conceded Adrian, who had never known one. He stood up, content with the information, anxious to terminate the interview.

‘You’ll get your wish soon,’ he said. ‘Our scientists are fed up with learning of things at second hand, through me. They want to meet you personally. It was to have been next week, but a slight hitch has developed. But it’ll be soon, believe me.’

The Russian smiled, holding out the official notification. ‘Can I keep this?’

Adrian nodded. Part of the inferiority psychosis or a Russian’s respect of officialdom? He shrugged, dismissing the mental question.

‘I’d like to see you again this week,’ said the Englishman. ‘Maybe Thursday. O.K.?’

The Russian laughed. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Adrian, but the Russian didn’t reply. As Adrian left the room, Bennovitch was staring down at the picture, deep in recollection.

Adrian dumped the Supermarket carrier-bag on the partition dividing the kitchen from the dining area and neatly began stacking his purchases for examination.

Halfway through, he decided he’d forgotten the eggs, waited until the bag was empty to confirm it and then stood, helpless and angry. He checked his list and realized he’d omitted to mark them down in the first place and grew angrier.

Fortunately he’d remembered cornflakes. A light breakfast in the morning. It didn’t really matter. What did?

He stored the supplies away in cupboards that were still new to him and wandered aimlessly around the unfamiliar rooms, reminding himself as he had for the past month that he didn’t like the flat. It was a box, he thought and liked the metaphor, expanding it, a box where he put himself away for the night, for safekeeping and to prevent dust gathering and from which he reappeared in the morning. Nine o’clock. Unlock the boxes. Take out the Adrian Dodds and start the day. Without eggs.

He switched on the rented television set, waited for it to warm up and then punched the selector buttons. ‘Panorama’, Andy Williams and archaeology in Greece. He turned it off again and completed another tour.

He lit the single-bar electric fire, waited expectantly and then grimaced as the smell of disuse rose up with the heat. Adrian looked at his watch. Eight o’clock. Food suddenly occurred to him and he tried to recall the canteen lunch, consciously having to think to remember tepid beef, thin, like tracing paper and just as tasteless.

He opened the cupboards and examined the tins, like an amateur marksman selecting targets at a weekend funfair. Every shot a winner, calories and nutriment guaranteed, roll up, roll up.

Adrian sighed, closing the door. It would have to be heated and then he’d have to wash up and the whole thing was too much trouble. He was suddenly glad he’d forgotten the eggs. Breakfast wouldn’t take so long to clear up, either.

He stared fixedly at the oven, then twisted the taps, experimentally. Gas hissed into the kitchen and then he caught the smell, thick and sweet. But not unpleasant, not like the electric fire. It would be so easy, so very easy.

He snapped the taps shut and went back into the lounge, and sat down on a couch that he’d never encountered in furniture shops, only in cheaply rented flats, with seats that ended halfway along his thighs, so that his legs went numb if he sat too long.

He didn’t have a clean shirt. The thought arrived, unprompted, and he shrugged, examining the one he was wearing. Too late to get to the cleaners now to collect his laundry. Miss Aimes would notice. So what? Damn her.

He snorted, despising himself. Any other man would have brought to mind a better oath than ‘Damn’, like … like … He halted the process, aware it would be unnatural and false to conjure another swear-word. Who on earth was he trying to impress with manly thoughts, anyway? Himself?

Suddenly Adrian Dodds, sitting quite alone in a shabby flat in the Bayswater Road, with its smelling fire and uncomfortable couch, began to cry. At first he dragged his hand across his face, embarrassed, and then realized there was no one in front of whom he had to feel ashamed and so he sobbed on, tears edging down his face and adding more marks to the front of the only shirt he had.

So what?

‘We’ve made quite a fuss,’ recorded Kaganov.

‘Was it wise to threaten the recall of our ambassador in Britain?’ queried Heirar.

‘Essential,’ insisted Minevsky. Then, almost reciting, he went on stiffly. ‘Britain has opened its arms to our top space scientists. We’ve got to make the greatest possible protest.’

He paused and smiled. ‘At this stage, anyway.’

The other two joined in his amusement.

‘Will we carry it out?’ asked Heirar.

Kaganov shrugged. ‘I thought we’d explore the idea before the full committee tomorrow. My idea is to recommend his being brought home for consultation. The Western press would snap at that and say we were making good our threats and we’d still have room to manœuvre him back.’

‘That’ll be important, later,’ said Minevsky.

The other two nodded. Minevsky wondered what it was like in England for Pavel and Bennovitch. No security committees, no K.G.B., no Lubianka prison, no parrot-like propaganda.

He sighed. ‘I bet Pavel and Bennovitch are regretting their defection now,’ he said, for the silently revolving tapes that would be heard by others later. ‘Under detention, ruthlessly interrogated.’

Heirar smiled again, admiring the remark.

‘Are we seeking consular access to Pavel?’ he asked.

‘In two days,’ said Kaganov. ‘We’ve gambled on waiting two days, to get the maximum publicity for our protests.’

Minevsky laughed suddenly and the other two looked at him.

‘What’s so amusing?’ asked Kaganov.

‘I’m sorry,’ apologized the deputy chairman. ‘It was just your choice of the word “gamble”. ’

The other two grinned, sharing the joke.