In the Company of Spies

by Stephen Barlay

  Schramm did not need to be reminded of that. He had already decided to alert a few people, just quietly for the time being, to search for Rust. But he would soon have to make it all official and accept responsibility for the delay.

  *

  This time it was a Cognac and Armagnac tasting party in No. 2 Granovsky ulitsa. The heavily decorated general raised his glass. “Comrades, I have reason to believe that the matter we’ve approached with considerable concern is being concluded — just about now.” The other two generals and the two civilians present avoided the eyes of each other. They stared at walls or the floor gravely, not giving away the slightest sign of elation. If the general was right, the hare-brained scheme of gambler Khrushchev would soon be in ruins. The missiles in Cuba were not yet ready to threaten America. If Kennedy acted firmly within a week, Khrushchev’s power would evaporate by mid-October. Yes, Cuba might be lost, but the generals and all those in favor of a strong traditional army would gain an unassailable influence. Their power position, pay and pensions would be restored; creeps like Furtseva would be no menace to any of them anymore.

  Glasses were clinked and brandy snifters were drained unceremoniously.

  As was his habit, the general fingered his Order of Lenin, then dusted his Stalingrad medal with a quick succession of flicks. The hognosed man with the sweaty baby face watched him surreptitiously. Yes, it seemed that the general, or rather his men, had done a good job. No doubt Kennedy could be expected to intervene without delay. Get out, you spongy Ukrainian peasant, or we’ll rap your stubby fingers. That’s what the President would say if it was up to me, he thought. And then, under new management, the age of sanity will dawn. Sanity will mean quiet and systematic but total re-equipment with porokhovyye konfety and other modern weapons until nobody, but nobody, can argue with us. Yes, the general’s done a good job. But what he did could be regarded as treason. And if he’s done it against Khrushchev, he might do it again, against others. He must not be trusted. He and the others in the room.

  The others refilled their glasses and waited for hognose to speak. If Brezhnev succeeded Khrushchev, this man would wield vast influence. But if the bid for power failed, if Suslov, Mikoyan and the rest of the kingmakers withdrew their backing, the mere fact that these men in the room were known as booze brothers at the Bureau of Passes could ruin them all. Hognose raised his glass: “To Mother Russia, may she keep us in Napoleon V.S.O.P. forevermore.”

  As they knocked back the fine brandy in single gulps, the rattle-and-croak of the brass horn outside seeped through the windows. Nikita Sergeyevich must be on his way from the Kremlin. The men in the room turned to watch the street and reassure themselves that he was coming to Granovsky only to visit the red-brick building opposite.

  *

  “Mr. Rust?”

  Rust nodded.

  “Lieutenant Lanigan at your service, sir. Colonel Mann’s been delayed but will be here soon. If you need anything, I’ll be outside, patrolling the grounds.” He nodded stiffly toward Anna. “Ma’am.”

  “It’s cold in here,” she said when the door closed behind him. She looked at the yawning fireplace and the wood piled high next to it. “You think we could build a fire?”

  “Why not?” Rust was determined to sound casual. “We’ve nothing better to do.”

  Kneeling side by side, they began to work together. Inevitably, their hands touched. Both withdrew hastily. “It’s strange,” she said.

  “What?”

  “To be with you in daytime. I remember you only in moonlight.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Go and sit over there.” He blew furiously at the faint glow at the end of some twigs.

  “I only wanted to help.”

  “Well, don’t.” Rust’s eyes nursed the infantile flames. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “I know.” She moved to stand up. “Oh, my knees.”

  “What’s wrong?” He reached out to help her up.

  “Only old age.”

  “What old age?” He feasted on the sight, still holding her arm, as they stood in front of the reluctant fire.

  “D-day, or rather the longest day plus six years, give or take a few months. And don’t say that it doesn’t show.”

  “It does. To your advantage.”

  She stood still, looking up at him. “Thank you.” Then, after a pause, she took his hand to remove it from her arm. “As I once said, we should have met earlier and in different circumstances.” She held his hand until he snatched it away.

  “But we didn’t. And we’d better not forget it.” She walked away and lit a cigarette. He watched her neck — was her hair shorter now than it used to be? — and cursed himself for remembering every curve, every bulge, the color and the fragrance of her skin. “In the six years, nothing has changed, Anna. Nothing. So let’s not play games.” He turned back toward the fire.

  He heard some noises. The clasp of her handbag. The rustling of paper. Then soft steps. A slip of paper slithered under his arm. Then the steps moved away. He looked at the paper. And it made him smile. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, doyling.” Up-curving lines — fat, cursive letters. “I never meant no haym, I pyomise. Let’s make up and be friends again. Pleese, pleese, pleese!” The note and her peculiar, individual handwriting brought back memories. In Leningrad she used to put such notes next to his bed to greet him in the morning, should he wake up before her. He found “I love you” memos in his shoes, and “Still love you, doyling” stuck to the soap. She used to spell out sounds, but that was because her spelling was atrocious, and she knew it: the “jokes” were a cover-up. When he laughed now, she laughed with him.

  He dropped the note into the fire and watched it burn. “That’s the last one ever, okay?” She did not answer. He walked over to her. “Can I have a cigarette, please?”

  “You don’t smoke.”

  “I do now.”

  She offered him her own cigarette. “Have a puff. See if you like it.”

  He only touched it to his lips. “I do.”

  “So do I.”

  “Ell shouldn’t have sent you here.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to come. But he insisted. He said he was worried about you and this was a favor to him. I told him it would be a very special favor because, as I’d told him again and again over the years, I’d always disliked you. He kept asking why. I said there was no reason. I said I couldn’t understand it myself. But somehow, for some reason, we … we just never hit it off. There was this … this odd animosity that I felt toward you from the moment we’d met.” Once more, she offered Rust her cigarette. He held it between his lips for a couple of seconds, then gave it back to her. She pressed the stub to the corner of her mouth, without smoking it, until it began to burn her fingers. “I thought I’d faint when he introduced us in the restaurant.”

  “I noticed.”

  “You were a real bastard. You shouldn’t have allowed it to happen. Not ever.”

  “Couldn’t help it. Believe me.”

  He returned to the fire and shoved more twigs in with furious energy.

  She lit another cigarette. “You never told me what happened at that lunch.”

  “I never had a chance to tell you. I hoped I never would.” She turned to face him. “Tell me now.”

  “There’s no time. Lanigan will be back soon. What was the name of that colonel?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Mann? Is he Ell’s friend? Mann. Colonel Mann.”

  “Fuck Mann. Tell me.”

  “Better not. Ell is my brother.”

  “And don’t I know it? Didn’t I keep away from you just as much as you kept away from me? But your brother’s making it more and more difficult. He’s … he’s as if he was schizophrenic or something. It’s getting real hard to live with him. I even heard that he’s doing some odd things at work. People talk. I always try to silence them, but in my job I keep hearing things
.”

  “What things?”

  “Better if you don’t know. He’s your brother, remember?”

  “What things?”

  “No dice. Not unless you tell first.”

  “What?”

  “About that lunch.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, then kept his hands busy with the fire. “It was a couple of months after Leningrad. I had to visit Washington, and he took me to lunch. He was a changed man. Lighthearted, bubbly and optimistic, everything that used to be alien to him. I attributed it to his new job. He was going up in the world. I was delighted. But he told me that it had nothing to do with his job. There was something else. Or rather, somebody else, to be precise.

  “He ordered champagne. ‘Here’s to me,’ he said. I’m getting married.’ He drank, and I kept my eyes away from the wheelchair. I didn’t want to pry, but it was a question mark. I mean, he might have visited call girls sometimes, but he never mentioned it. And I never knew if his injuries had made him impotent or not. So I drank to his engagement heartily, but he read my thoughts. ‘And if you’re worried about me or if you think that my disablement may prevent us from having children, don’t. I can reassure you that it’s been checked out in more ways than one.’ He said it with a childish, mischievous smile. Every time I think of him, I see him with that smile. And I remember the words. They keep coming back.”

  He was squatting, staring at the fire, and Anna sat down next to him. She offered him her cigarette. He hesitated, then gently pushed her hand away.

  “Did he tell you right away who he was about to marry?”

  “No. That was the worst of it.”

  “He mentioned Bobby Kennedy or that I was on a Senator’s campaign staff or that I had just been to Leningrad, and you guessed.”

  “Worse. He kept saying what a wonderful girl She was. Never mentioning the name, always referring to Her and She with a capital H and S. She’s fantastic. Everybody looks up when She comes in. Everybody listens when She talks. And She doesn’t mind the wheelchair. She says it’s a good thing because it’ll slow him down chasing other girls. And he spoke about his great love. ‘Imagine, Helm, She’s jealous of me. As if I wanted anyone else. As if She left me anything to spare for even a one-night stand with any other girl. She wants it all to herself.’ Ell’s words, not mine.” Rust paused, and the creases on his face grew deeper. The old scar attained a red glow. “In a way, I enjoyed listening to his panegyrics about Her, because it was marvelous to see how happy he was. And then he leaned across the table and lowered his voice to make a confession. ‘Look, Helm, I know we never talk about such, such personal things, but I must talk now, I must share the joy, and there’s nobody else to whom I could say this without being suspected of boasting. I mean She, She’s just crazy about me. I never thought it could happen. Can you imagine, in bed, She, She gets into a sort of frenzy. She scratches and beats my chest, kisses me all over, and tells me again and again that She’s never felt such a thing before, that She has some sort of irresistible’ — ”

  “Stop it,” she interrupted Rust.

  “I haven’t finished.”

  “I’ve heard enough.”

  “No, no. You wanted to know what happened at that lunch. Now you’ve got to hear what Ell said to me. He said that his fiancée had some sort of irresistible craving for his sperms. That she wanted them inside her, everywhere. And that if he died, she’d always want to remember him by the taste of his sperms. That’s exactly what he said. So there was no need for me to guess, right? I had heard those sentences before and remembered them clearly.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “And I can’t blame you.”

  “That’s kind of you.”

  “And I don’t think you’d ever believe me if I explained what happened.”

  “No, I don’t think I would.” He left her at the fire and poured himself two fingers of bourbon. “You haven’t touched your drink yet.”

  “It’s too early for me.”

  “You asked for it.”

  “I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to say.” She took the glass and drank up. “But about that … craving — I really meant it at the time.”

  “Every time?”

  “Bastard.”

  “Sorry. I was only trying to clarify it.”

  “I said what I felt.”

  “At the time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Pity you had to add that you had never felt like that before. Because at least in my case it wasn’t true.”

  “It was more true then than ever before or after.”

  Rust watched her lighting her umpteenth cigarette. “It really hit me at the time,” he said. “I mean, hearing your words from Ell. It was stupid, because there had been no reason to believe you in the first place. But it hurt. Even though I knew why. Because of plain and simple male vanity. And I knew how gullible we tend to be when it comes to seemingly genuine praises of our sexual prowess. And it still hurt, even though I knew perfectly well that professional whores had always exploited that imbecile gullibility.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I hated myself.”

  “Yourself?”

  “Yes, because I still found it difficult not to love you. At the time.”

  “I’ll have another drink now.”

  “I thought it was too early for you.”

  “Not today. It doesn’t seem too early for anything.”

  Rust poured. “It was thoughtful of Ell to make the bourbon Kentucky for me.”

  “It was my choice.”

  “How did you guess that I liked it?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you mentioned it in Leningrad. No, I think you drank Kentucky at the end of that lunch. I joined you for coffee, remember?”

  “Yes. You appeared just on cue.”

  “And when I came in, looking for Ell, and saw you with him, I almost died. Too bad I didn’t.”

  “Why? You had nothing to fear. I think I even managed to say how delighted I was to meet you at last.”

  “You said more than that. Ell guided my hand into your palm and said, ‘Anna, meet my big bad brother in the flesh.’ Then he told you that I was the dream girl. And you were so sweet it almost made me puke. ‘Pleased to meet you, Anna, I’ve heard such a lot about you that I feel I’ve known you well for quite a long time. Congratulations to you both. An excellent choice, Ell, she’ll be a dream of a sister-in-law to me.’ That’s what you said. Correct?”

  “Probably.”

  “And we just smiled as he explained why he hadn’t mentioned to me before my trip that you were in Russia. Simply because he wanted to be there when we met. And because he was afraid that we might meet accidentally at the Moscow embassy, he never mentioned that his brother’s name was Rust, not Repson.”

  “He wasn’t the only one to blame, Anna. You never mentioned his name either in Leningrad.”

  “Why should I? You were meant to be only a — yes, don’t smirk — a fast fling. Too bad that it turned out to be more. But I wouldn’t have broken it up with Ell. And you wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

  “No.”

  “Because he was more vulnerable than you.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You were a fool. You should have pushed him off a cliff or something. Anything to get rid of him and let us be happy. But no. You were the considerate brother. You chose to disappear. And you resigned right away. From everything. Even from life.”

  “I survived.”

  “Why did you opt out altogether?”

  “It seemed the best choice. If I worked with him, if we had mutual friends in the same town or even if I had to just visit Washington from time to time, we’d have met now and then. And I didn’t want that.”

  “Everybody says you threw away a great career.”

  “That’s kind of them.”

  “Even the little occasional help
you still gave Ell helped him to make a career he didn’t deserve.”

  “I didn’t help much. It’s you he ought to be grateful to. You made him a different man. You brought out the best of his talents in every direction.”

  She ignored the undertone. “Yes, he’s done very well for himself, at least until recently.”

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s hard to put my finger on it.”

  “Try.”

  “It’s unfair.”

  “To him?”

  “To both of you.”

  “You promised. It was a deal.”

  She drank and held out her glass for more. “I don’t know what’s happening. He may be under a lot of pressure, but he’s changed. He’s acting strangely. He’s become big-headed. He always knows best. Everything. I heard somebody saying that he wants to judge and decide everything by himself. You know what I mean. He gets some orders — he may or may not carry them out. He hears something, gets some information — he may or may not pass it on. He loses things. He forgets things.” Rust was staring at her hard. She did not seem to notice. The words “loses things, forgets things” kept echoing in his brain.

  “Don’t misunderstand me.” She stepped closer to him. “He’s a wonderful man and I wouldn’t ever want to hurt him. Or leave him.”

  “I hope you never will.”

  “But what if he left me?”

  “He won’t.”

  “You don’t know. You haven’t seen him for a long time. And I know it may happen. And if it does, could we … could we meet again?”

  “Don’t be silly. It was wonderful at the time, and it hurt when it ended, and again for a while after that lunch, but it’s over.”

  “You never think about me?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not even in Russia?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ell said you’d just returned from there.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t know I was there.”

  “Well, he must have known.”

  “But why did he mention it?”

  “Ask him.”

  “I will.”