Trial Run

10

Frank followed me to GUM the following morning.

When I had gone in through the main door without once looking back, I stood still in the shadows, and watched, and presently he appeared, hurrying a little.

At breakfast, upon Natasha’s insistent enquiry, I had said I was going to see some more horse people, but before that I was going to GUM to buy a new hat, as I had lost my last one.

The tiniest frown crossed Frank’s face, and he looked at me with a shade of speculation. I remembered that when he had followed me into the hotel the evening before, after I had ostensibly said good-night to Stephen, I had been wearing the hat. How careful one had to be, I thought, over the most innocent remarks.

‘Where did you lose your hat?’ he said, showing only friendly interest.

‘Must have dropped it in the foyer or the lift,’ I said easily: ‘I don’t really know.’

Natasha suggested I ask at the desk. I would, I said; and did. One learned. If not fast enough, one learned in the end.

I turned away from GUM’s main door while Frank was still a little way off, and saw the red woollen hat with a white pompom immediately. Below the hat there were two blue-grey eyes in an elfin face, and straight hair in escaping wisps. She looked too young and slight to be married and a mother, and I could see why nine storeys up with no lifts was a crying disaster.

‘Elena?’ I said, tentatively.

She nodded a fraction, and turned to walk purposefully away. I followed a few paces behind. For talking to a foreigner she would have to pick her own moment, and it suited me well for in to be out of Frank’s sight.

She wore a grey coat with a red scarf falling jauntily over her shoulder, and carried a string bag with a paper-wrapped parcel inside it. I shortened the distance between us and said so that she could hear, ‘I want to buy a hat.’ She gave no sign of understanding, but when she stopped it was, in fact, outside a shop selling hats.

The inside of GUM was not a department store along Western lines but like those in the Far East; a huge collection of small shops all under one roof. A covered market, two storeys high, with intersecting alleys and a glassed roof far above. Drips of melted snow fell through the cracks in the heavens and made small puddles underfoot.

I bought the hat. Elena waited outside in the alley displaying no interest in me, and set off again when I came out. I looked carefully around for Frank, but couldn’t see him. Shoppers blocked every long perspective; and it worked both ways. If I couldn’t see him, very likely he couldn’t see me.

Elena squeezed through a long queue of stolid people and stopped outside a shop selling folk arts and crafts. She transferred the plastic carrier to my hand with the smallest of movements and no ceremony whatsoever. Her gaze was directed towards the goods in the window, not at me.

‘Misha say give you this.’ Her accent was light and pretty, but I gathered from the disapproval in her tone that she was on this errand strictly for her brother’s sake, and not for mine.

I thanked her for coming.

‘Please not bring trouble for him.’

‘I promise I won’t,’ I said.

She nodded briefly, glancing quickly at my face, and away.

‘You go now, please,’ she said. ‘I queue.’

‘What is the queue for?’

‘Boots. Warm boots, for winter.’

I looked at the queue, which stretched a good way along one of the ground-floor alleys, and up a staircase, and along the gallery above, and away out of sight. It hadn’t moved a step forward in five minutes.

‘But it will take you all day,’ I said.

‘Yes. I need boots. When boots come in shop, everyone come to buy. It is normal. In England, the peasants have no boots. In Soviet Union, we are fortunate.’

She walked away without any more farewell than her brother had given on the metro, and attached herself to the end of the patient line. The only thing that I could think of that England’s bootless peasantry would so willingly queue all day for would be Cup Final tickets.

A glance into the tissue-wrapped parcel revealed that what Misha had sent, or what Elena had brought, was a painted wooden doll.

Frank picked me up somewhere between GUM and the pedestrian tunnel under Fiftieth Anniversary et cetera Square. I caught a glimpse of him behind me underground: a split second of unruly curls and college scarf bobbing along in the crowd. If I hadn’t been looking, I would never have noticed.

It was already after ten. I lengthened my stride and finished the journey fairly fast, surfacing on the north side of the square and veering left towards the National Hotel.

Parked just beyond the entrance was a small bright yellow car, with, inside it, a large Russian in a high state of fuss.

‘Seven minutes late,’ he said. ‘For seven minutes I sit here illegally. Get in, get in, do not apologise.’

I eased in beside him and he shot off with a crash of gears and a fine disregard for other traffic.

‘You have been to GUM,’ he said accusingly. ‘And therefore you are late.’

I followed the direction of his gaze and began to feel less bewildered by his clairvoyance: he was looking at the printed tissue-paper inside the string bag which Elena had given me. How cautious of her, I thought, to have brought Misha’s souvenirs in a wrapping to suit the rendezvous, in a bag any foreign tourist could acquire. A bag, too, I thought contentedly, that friend Frank would not query. The secret of survival in Russia was to be unremarkable.

Yuri Ivanovich Chulitsky revealed himself, during the time I spent with him, as a highly intelligent man with a guilt-ridden love of luxury and a repressed sense of humour. The wrong man for the regime, I thought, but striving to live honourably within its framework. In a country where an out-of-line opinion was a treachery, even if unspoken, he was an unwilling mental traitor. Not to believe what one believes one should believe is a spiritual torment as old as doctrine, and Yuri Chulitsky, I grew to understand, suffered from it dismally.

Physically he was about forty, plumply unfit, with pouches already under his eyes, and a habit of raising the centre of his upper lip to reveal the incisors beneath. He spoke always with deliberation, forming the words carefully and precisely, but that might have been only the effect of using English, and, as on the telephone, he gave the impression that every utterance was double-checked internally before being allowed to escape.

‘Cigarette?’ he said, offering a packet.

‘No... thank you.’

‘I smoke,’ he said, flicking a lighter one-handed with the dexterity of long practice. ‘You smoke?’

‘Cigars, sometimes.’

He grunted. The fingers on his left hand, resting on the steering-wheel with the cigarette stuck between them, were tanned yellowish brown, but otherwise his fingers were white and flexible, with spatulate tips and short well-tended nails.

‘I go see Olympic building,’ he said. ‘You come?’

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘At Chertanovo.’

‘Where?’

‘Place for equestrian games. I am architect. I design buildings at Chertanovo.’ He pronounced design like dess-in, but his meaning was clear. ‘I go today see progress. You understand?’

‘Every word,’ I said.

‘Good. I see in England how equestrian games go. I see need for sort buildings...’ He stopped and shook his head in frustration.

‘You went to see what sort of things happened during international equestrian games, so that you would know what buildings would be needed, and how they should best be designed for dealing with the needs and numbers of the Olympics.’

He smiled lop-sidedly. ‘Is right. I go also Montreal. Is not good. Moscow games, we build good.’

The leisurely one-way system in central Moscow meant, it seemed to me, mile-long detours to return to where one started, but facing the other way. Yuri Chulitsky swung his bright little conveyance round the corners without taking his foot noticeably off the accelerator, the bulk of his body making the car’s skin seem not much more than a metal overcoat.

At one point, arriving at a junction with a main road, we were stopped dead by a policeman. Yuri Chulitsky shrugged a trifle and switched off the engine.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

The main road had, I saw, been totally cleared of traffic. Nothing moved on it. Chulitsky said something under his breath, so I asked again, ‘What’s the matter? Has there been an accident?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘See lines in road?’

‘Do you mean those white ones?’

There were two parallel white lines painted down the centre of the main road, with a space of about six feet between them. I had noticed them on many of the widest streets, but thought of them vaguely as some sort of no-man’s-land between the two-way lines of traffic.

‘White lines go to Kremlin,’ Chulitsky said. ‘Politburo people drive to Kremlin in white lines. Every people’s car stop.’

I sat and watched. After three or four minutes a long black car appeared, driving fairly fast in lonely state up the centre of the road, between the white lines.

‘Chaika,’ Chulitsky said, as the limousine slid lengthily past, showing curtains drawn across the rear windows. ‘Is official car. Chaika, in English, is seagull.’

He started his engine, and presently the policeman stepped out of the middle of the side road and waved us on our way.

‘Was that the Chairman?’ I asked.

‘No. Many politburo peoples go in Chaika on white lines. All people’s cars always stop.’

Democratic, I thought.

The small yellow car sped south of the city, along what he told me was the road to Warsaw, but which to my eyes was plainly labelled M₄.

He said ‘Nikolai Alexandrovich Kropotkin say tell you what you ask. You ask. I tell.’

‘I’m looking for someone called Alyosha.’

‘Alyosha? Many people called Alyosha. Nikolai Alexandrovich say find Alyosha for Randall Drew. Who is this Alyosha?’

‘That’s the problem,’ I said. ‘I don’t know, and I haven’t been able to find out. No one seems to know who he is.’ I paused. ‘Did you meet Hans Kramer, in England?’

‘Da. German. He die.’

‘That’s right. Well... he knew Alyosha. The autopsy said Kramer died of a heart attack, but people near him when he died thought he was saying that Alyosha had caused him to have a heart attack. Er... have I said that clearly enough?’

‘Yes. Is clear. About Alyosha, I cannot help.’

I supposed I would have been surprised if he had said anything different.

‘You have been asked before, about Alyosha?’ I said.

‘Please?’

‘An Englishman came to see you at the Olympic committee building. He saw you and the two colleagues who went with you to England.’

‘Is right,’ he agreed gruffly. ‘Is writing for newspaper.’

‘Malcolm Herrick.’

‘Da.’

‘You all said you knew nothing at all about anything.’

A long pause; then he said, ‘Herrick is foreigner. Comrades not say things to Herrick.’

He relapsed into silence, and we drove steadily along the Warsaw highway, leaving the city centre behind and making for another lot of egg-box suburbs. Some light powdery snow began to fall, and Yuri switched on the windscreen wipers.

‘Today, tomorrow, it snow. This snow not melt. Stay all winter.’

‘Do you like the winter?’ I said.

‘No. Winter is bad for building. Today is last day is possible see progress of buildings at Chertanovo. So I go now.’

I said I would be most interested in the buildings, if he felt like showing me round. He laughed in a small deep throaty rumble, but offered no explanation.

I asked him if he had personally known Hans Kramer, but he had spoken to him only about buildings. ‘Well... Johnny Farringford?’ I asked.

‘Johnny... Farringford. Are you saying Lord Farringford? Is a man with red hairs? Ride in British team?’

‘That’s the one,’ I said.

‘I see him many times. Many places. I talk with him. I ask him about buildings. He is no good about buildings. I ask other peoples. Other peoples is more good.’ He stopped, obviously unimpressed by the planning ability of earls, and we drove four or five miles while he seemed to be thinking deeply about anything except my mission: but finally, as if coming to a difficult decision, he said, ‘Is not good Lord Farringford come to Olympics.’

I held my breath. Damped down every quick and excited question. Managed in the end to say without even a quaver, ‘Why?’

He had relapsed however into further deep thought.

‘Tell me,’ I said, without pressure.

‘It is for my country good if he come. It is for your country not good. If I tell you, I speak against the good for my country. It is difficult for me.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

After a long way he turned abruptly off the M₄ to the right, along a lesser, but still dual-carriageway road. There was, as usual, very little traffic, and without much ado he swung round in a U turn across the central reservation to face the way we had come. He pulled in by the roadside and stopped with a jerk.

On our left the road was lined as far as the eye could see with rows of apartment buildings, greyish white. On our right there was a large flat snow-sprinkled space bordered on the far side by a stretch of black-looking forest of spindly young trees packed tightly together. On the side near the road there was a wire fence, and between the fence and the road itself, a wide ditch full of white half-melted slush.

‘Is there,’ Yuri said, pointing into this far from promising landscape with a gleam of relaxed humour, ‘equestrian games.’

‘Ye gods,’ I said.

We got out of the car into the bitter air. I looked away down the road in the direction we had originally been travelling. There were tall concrete lamp standards, electricity pylons, dense black forest on the left, white unending impersonal apartment blocks on the right, a grey double road with no traffic, and, at the side, wet white snow. Over it all softly fell the powdery forerunners of the winter freeze. It was silent and ugly and as desolate as a desert.

‘In summer,’ Yuri said, ‘forest is green. Is beautiful place for equestrian games. Is grass. Everything beautiful.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ I said.

Further along, on the side of the road where we had stopped, there were two large hoardings, one bearing a long announcement about the Olympics, and the other sporting a big picture of the stadium as it was one day going to be. The stands looked most ingenious, shaped like a Z, with the top and bottom ranks of the seats facing one way, and the centre rank facing the other. Events, it appeared, would take place on both sides of the stands.

Yuri gestured to me to return to the car, and he drove us through a gate in the wire, on to the site itself. There were a few men there driving mechanical earth-movers, though how they knew what they were moving was a mystery to me, as the whole place looked a sea of jumbled mud with pools of icy slush amid the usual broken white blanket of half-melted snow.

Yuri reached into the space behind my seat and brought forth a huge pair of thigh-high gumboots. These he put on by planting them firmly outside the opened car door, removing his walking shoes, wrapping his trousers round his legs, and sinking his feet into the depths as he stood up.

‘I talk to men,’ he said. ‘You wait.’

Superfluous advice, I thought. Yuri unfastened his ear-flaps against the chill wind and talked to his men, trudging about and making sweeping gestures with his arms. After a fair while he returned and reversed the gumboot process, tucking the now wet and muddy objects in behind his own driving seat.

‘Is good,’ he said, lifting the centre of his lip and giving me a gleam of teeth. ‘We finish foundations. In spring, when snow melt, we build quickly. Stadium,’ he pointed. ‘Stables.’ He pointed again. ‘Restaurants, buildings for riders, buildings for officials, buildings for television. There,’ he waved an arm at a huge slightly undulating area bordered by forest, ‘is crosscountry for trials, like Badminton and Burghley. In summer, is beautiful.’

‘Will everyone who wants to come to the Games get visas?’ I said.

‘Da. All peoples have visas.’

‘It isn’t always like that,’ I said neutrally, and he replied in the same level tone. ‘For Olympics, all peoples have visas. Stay in hotels. Is good.’

‘What about the Press?’ I said. ‘And the television people?’

‘We build Press building for foreign Press. Also television building for foreign television peoples, near Moscow television building. Use same...’ He described a transmitting mast with his hands. ‘Foreign peoples go only in these buildings. In England, we ask Press peoples about Press buildings. We see what Press peoples need. We ask many Press peoples. We ask Herrick.’

‘Herrick?’ I said. ‘Did you ask him in England, or in Moscow?’

‘In England. He help us. He come to Burghley. We see him with Lord Farringford. So we ask him. We ask many peoples about buildings. We ask Hans Kramer about buildings. He was...’ Words failed him but gestures did not. Hans Kramer, I gathered, had given the Russian observers a decisively rude brush-off.

He tied up the ear-flaps of his hat without taking it off. I spent the time scanning the road for anything that looked like a following car, but saw nothing of note. A bus passed, its tyres making a swishing noise on the slushy tarmac. I thought that the low level of traffic on most roads would make a following car conspicuous: but on the other hand there seemed to be very little variety in make, so that one car tended to look exactly like the next. Difficult to spot a tail. Easy, however, to follow a bright yellow box on wheels.

‘What sort of car is this?’ I said.

‘Zhiguli,’ he said. ‘Is my car.’ He seemed proud of it. ‘Not many peoples have car. I am architect, have car.’

‘Is it expensive?’ I asked.

‘Car expensive. Petrol cheap. Driving examination, very difficult.’

He finished the bow on his hat, checked that his boots were inside, slammed the door, and backed briskly out on to the road.

‘How is everyone going to get here?’ I said. ‘Competitors and spectators.’

‘We build metro. New station.’ He thought. ‘Metro on top of ground, not deep. New metro for Chertanovo peoples. Many new buildings here. Chertanovo is new place. I show you.’

We set off back towards the Warsaw highway, but before we reached it he turned off to the right, and drove up another wide road where apartment blocks were springing up like mushrooms. All whitish grey; all nine storeys high, marching away into the distance.

‘In Soviet all peoples have house,’ Yuri said. ‘Rent is cheap. In England, expensive.’ He shot me an amused look as if challenging me to argue with his simplistic statement. In a country where everything was owned by the state, there was no point in charging high rents. To enable people to pay high rents, or high prices for electricity, transport and telephones, for that matter, it would be necessary to pay higher wages. Yuri Chulitsky knew it as well as I did. I would have to be careful, I told myself, not to underestimate the subtlety of his thoughts because of the limitations of the English they were expressed in.

‘Can I make a trade with you?’ I said. ‘A bargain? One piece of information in exchange for another?’

For that I got a quick, sharp, piercing glance, but all he said was, ‘Car need petrol.’ He pulled off the road into a station with pumps, and removed himself from the car to talk to the attendant.

I found myself taking off my glasses and polishing the already clean lenses. The playing-for-time gesture, which was not at that moment needed. I wondered if it had been intuitively sparked off by Yuri’s purchase of petrol, which seemed hardly urgent as the tank was well over half full, according to the guage.

While I watched, the needle crept round to full. Yuri paid and returned to the car, and we set off back towards the city centre.

‘What information you exchange?’ he said.

‘I don’t have it all yet.’

A muscle twitched beside his mouth. ‘You diplomat?’ he said.

‘A patriot. Like you.’

‘You tell me information.’

I told him a great deal. I told him what had really happened at the Hippodrome, not Kropotkin’s watered-down version, and I told him of the attack in Gorky Street. I also told him, though without names or places or details, the gist of what Boris Telyatnikov had overheard, and the inferences one could draw from it. He listened, as any faithful Russian would, with a growing sense of dismay. When I stopped, he drove a good way without speaking, and in the end his comment was oblique.

‘You want lunch?’ he said.