The Lost American

Chapter Nineteen

They had known, of course, that it wouldn’t be easy. They’d even tried to rehearse the problems and the uncertainties in the last few weeks, when Orlov’s recall had been confirmed, imagining they already had all the training necessary in avoiding a lot of difficulties because their affair had existed for more than a year and that hadn’t been easy either because Russians at the United Nations, even at Orlov’s rank, exist under severe restrictions and surveillance. But Harriet knew now how ill-equipped they’d been. How ill-equipped, at least, she’d been. She didn’t know about Pietr. Which was the problem. Not knowing. Naturally they’d considered it, with everything else. There’d been a long conversation about it on one of their last nights, when Orlov had managed to slip away from the Soviet compound and come to the Second Avenue apartment. Harriet looked around the apartment now, trying to recapture the evening, because memories were important, the things she lived by. They’d eaten in, as they did almost always because to go out was dangerous, and then they’d made love, with the anxiousness of lovers soon to be parted and then he’d talked about their not being able to make contact – except in the most extreme and dire emergency – and told her not to make monsters out of shadows. His words, she remembered; ‘Don’t make monsters out of shadows.’ Christ, she’d tried hard enough! It hadn’t been too bad in the early weeks; months even. There’d been an unreality about most things – practically a lightheadedness when she wasn’t working, when she was never lightheaded – but she was initially prepared for the parting and the loneliness and the not knowing. Ironically – the stupidity of it – the problem of not knowing had started, insidiously, by knowing!

Harriet Johnson was unusual – freak had been a friendly jibe at Oxford – someone with an outstanding talent for languages. Her Russian was impeccable – she was actually able to be colloquial – and extended to tongues within the country, Georgian – which she spoke always with Orlov – and Estonian. She was fluent, too, in Czechoslovakian and Hungarian and German, again with a mastery of some internal dialects. The natural outlet of such ability was interpreting and Harriet was outstandingly able at that, too, within three years of her joining already at senior, supervisor grade. And as a senior, supervising translator, reading – alert for variations in usage or some new, technical term – was as essential as talking the languages. And so she read whatever she could from the countries she was called upon to interpret. Predominantly it was Russian, one of the official languages of the Assembly. Which meant she read not only the yawningly boring handouts and communiques and the officially-issued booklets but daily Izvestia and Pravda. Which was where – in greater detail in Pravda than in Izvestia – she read about Orlov’s promotion.

That possibility had never entered any of their preparing conversations. They had expected his United Nations ranking – and the unquestionable successes he’d achieved there during his posting – to be adequately rewarded but never speculated beyond perhaps a deputy role within the Foreign Ministry. But he’d been elevated way beyond that. Harriet – who was conscientious – read far more than the controlled Soviet newspapers, the English as well as American publications. So she’d seen the speculation about Serada and the Politburo jostling and knew from her own interpretation of Soviet politics – apart from the long, political conversations she’d had with Orlov – that there definitely was a power struggle going on. A power struggle into which her beloved, adored Pietr had unexpectedly been thrust.

So what difference did it make? He loved her – she was sure he loved her – here in New York. But he wasn’t in New York any more. He was in Moscow at the very centre of things and his election could only mean that he’d been picked out to go even higher. And he was an ambitious man. He denied it – insisted she was wrong – but Harriet had never been able to convince herself that if everything worked as they planned it would work the greatest agony later for Orlov would not be that he had abandoned his country and abandoned Natalia but that he had abandoned his ambitions. Would it be as easy for him to choose now as he’d said it was, months ago? Months ago he hadn’t realised the opportunities with which he would be presented. Or seen Natalia. Harriet believed his argument for going back – loved him the more for it – but didn’t the fact that he’d insisted on returning officially to divorce and distance himself from the woman, to spare her any retribution, mean that he still loved her, too? Felt strongly for her, at least. Strongly enough to consider what he had – and might have – against what he would be giving up.

Harriet had taken the apartment specifically for its convenience to the United Nations building. She emerged promptly at ten, as she did every morning when she was on day duty, turned left, and began walking down Second Avenue, another habit, a tightly-coiffeured, tightly-suited career woman. Was she prepared to give everything up? she asked herself. They’d tried to imagine that – like they’d tried to imagine the parting – but were either of them prepared for an existence as official criminals, hiding under assumed names and supposedly guarded by strangers? She was, decided Harriet. She knew it wouldn’t be anything like they thought because being apart wasn’t anything like they thought – like she thought at least – but she was prepared to go through with it, no matter how bad it became. Harriet turned at Forty-Second Street. But was Pietr? If only she knew!

Harriet reached the top of the incline, able to see the green-glassed skyscraper of the United Nations building jutting upwards from the side of the East River. What about the plans they’d made to establish contact, giggling at the theatricality of everything, and not really sure if it would work? Only in the most extreme and dire emergency, she remembered. This wasn’t an extreme and dire emergency. This was Harriet Johnson not having properly prepared herself and making monsters out of shadows.

Harriet showed her identification at the security check and walked familiarly into the building. If only, she thought, everything wasn’t so damned difficult.

Which was precisely the reflection of Pietr Orlov, 6,500 miles away in Moscow. Natalia appeared resigned to the divorce – reluctantly agreeable even – and the guilt was lessening, but everything else was developing into a nightmare. Every week – every day – he was being inexorably drawn deeper and deeper into the inner workings of the government. Realistically Orlov accepted it would make his acceptance easier in the West, when he chose the moment, but his reputation from the United Nations would have been sufficient for that. More realistically he recognised what it would mean to Yuri Sevin when that moment came. Orlov suspected that it was becoming accepted by others now that Sevin regarded the grooming and eventual election of his protege to be his final achievement, the triumphant swansong of one of the last of the true Bolsheviks. And Yuri Sevin was a true Bolshevik, reflected Orlov, another guilt growing. The man had embraced and fought for the revolution, believing in it and in the true philosophy of Marx and Trotsky and Lenin and then seen Lenin and Stalin and Krushchev and Brezhnev and Andropov ignore any other sort of philosophy than that practised by the Czars, the right of the select few to rule. Orlov knew – without conceit – that Sevin saw him as someone who might, after far too long, initiate the change. He knew it because since his return he and Sevin had engaged in enough discussions, sweeping debates and arguments deep into many nights. Just as he knew that Sevin, a pragmatic realist after so long and so many disappointments, didn’t expect that change to be anything than simply initiated, for others to follow, like a major river eventually changes course because of the first, chipping erosion of an existing bank.

Already Sevin’s influence had manoeuvred him on to two committees, one the prestigious – and reputation-making – central planning body. And already – always – there was the preparation, the rehearsal and advice, the influential members identified, the fading ones pointed out, the recommended stances to take and the stances to avoid. Orlov thought he was a puppet and he felt like it: he felt that his arms and legs and head were tethered, so that he had to jerk and twist when someone else pulled the strings. He had to cut those strings soon. He had to cut them and escape before everything engulfed him.

There had been a committee meeting in the morning, where he had recited his lines and backed those he should have backed, and in the afternoon he tried to concentrate upon a policy paper on the agricultural difficulties that were going to bring Serada down. Orlov knew it was regarded as the most pressing difficulty of the moment and that while whole groups – in cases entire committees – of agronomists and experts were also trying to evolve fresh approaches, his appointment should have gone to someone more senior and more experienced. Sevin again, he thought.

His contact with the man had become predictable, summonses most evenings, about which he was ambivalent: while it enmeshed him deeper and deeper into things of which he wanted no knowledge, it created reasons to delay his return to the tense unnaturalness of life with Natalia.

The call came, that evening, and Orlov made his accustomed way through the corridors to reach the old man’s office, recognised now by the secretaries and attendants. They’d gossip, Orlov knew: had done already.

Sevin greeted him with the self-satisfied smile of a man in a position to know all that was going on below and around him.

‘The decision has been made,’ he announced, at once.

‘When?’ said Orlov.

‘This afternoon.’

‘Is there to be an announcement?’

Sevin nodded. ‘Within the week. It will be that Serada has been replaced, to be succeeded by Chebrakin.’

Orlov frowned. ‘What about ill-health?’

‘No,’ said Sevin. ‘Just that’

‘Publicly disgraced, like Krushchev,’ remembered Orlov.

‘He doesn’t deserve anything more,’ said Sevin. Impatiently he brought his hands together, in a tiny clapping gesture. ‘But Serada and his fate aren’t important, not any more. What’s important is you and the next two or three years.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Orlov, anguished at the repeated game.

‘How’s the agricultural policy shaping?’

‘It’s going to take a long time,’ avoided Orlov. ‘This time it’s got to be right.’

‘Exactly!’ said Sevin, someone seizing the truth. ‘It’s got to be right and it’s got to be seen to be right. It’s going to be the first step for you, Pietr.’

But not in the direction in which I want to walk, thought Orlov. Orlov had done nothing about getting another place to live, accepting the difficulty that it created between himself and Natalia because although the whole purpose of returning was to spare her later, he did not want to draw any wrong attention to himself and he feared trying to get separate accommodation might have created some curiosity. The guards and attendants and secretaries by whom he was now surrounded had other functions than to make his life easier, Orlov knew.

He and Natalia had settled into a formal existence, an attitude of acquaintances temporarily brought together beneath the same roof but knowing it would only be for a limited period. They were considerate to each other, in the way of acquaintances, neither irritated nor happy at anything the other did.

But they were very conscious of each other and immediately Orlov entered the apartment, late after the discussion with Sevin which had become a detailed examination of the agricultural options, Orlov was aware of a difference in Natalia’s demeanour.

‘I’ve been waiting,’ she said. ‘Waiting to see if you would change your mind. I still love you, you know.’

‘No,’ said Orlov, tightly. ‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

‘Then to go on like this is pointless, isn’t it? We might as well get the divorce.’

‘Yes,’ he said. He’d imagined a feeling of relief at the agreement. Instead he felt a deep sadness.

‘Will you make the arrangements?’

‘Yes,’ said Orlov. He looked around the apartment. ‘You’ll have this, of course.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It shouldn’t be difficult,’ he said.

‘Accepting it and not understanding why is going to be difficult,’ said the woman.