Heydrich leaned back in his chair. “You will be telling me next that Anna von Holzbach is a Jew.”
“That is exactly what I am telling you, Herr General.”
“My dear Buelow, I doubt you would find a more obvious Aryan in all Germany. Frau von Holzbach is the daughter of the late Prince Alexei Bolugayevski of Bolugayen. And the late Prince of Bolugayen was actually the son of an Englishman, or rather, a Scot, named Colin MacLain, and his English wife, Jennifer Cromb. Her ancestry is impeccable.”
“I was thinking of Frau von Holzbach’s mother.”
“An American lady, also, as I understand it, a descendant of this Colin MacLain, and therefore actually English. Or rather, Scottish, I suppose. So you have obtained some evidence of incest in the recent past. My dear Buelow, without incest, all of the noble families in Europe, not to mention the royals, would have died out long ago.”
“With respect, Herr General, Frau von Holzbach was born in 1908. The Princess Dowager Bolugayevska was born in 1894, and was married to the Prince in 1912. Before this marriage,” Buelow went on, “Prince Bolugayevski had been married to a certain Sonia Cohen, a Jewess.”
“My God!” Heydrich remarked. “You are certain of this?”
Buelow tapped his file. “It is all here, Herr General. This Sonia Cohen is alive and living in New York at this time. Not only is she a Jewess, but she was the long-term mistress of Leon Trotsky, who was murdered in 1940.”
“Give me that file,” Heydrich said. Buelow passed it across the desk, watched his superior lock it in the safe which stood beside his chair. “Who else knows about this?” Heydrich asked.
“Only the people who researched it for me.”
“How many?”
“Two men and a woman.”
“Have them transferred to active service units in Russia.”
Buelow goggled at his superior. “I am not criticising you, Buelow,” Heydrich said. “Indeed, I congratulate you on your efficiency and thoroughness. But you have just handed me a political timebomb. Quite apart from not wishing to distract Major von Holzbach from his duties at this time, are you not aware that his wife moves in the highest circles? That she has been entertained by the Fuehrer himself?”
“But if we do nothing, Herr General, will she not continue to be entertained by the Fuehrer?”
“Certainly. And we will do something, at the right time. But for the moment, I wish nothing done, and I wish no one outside of this room to know of it. Do you understand me, Buelow?”
Buelow gulped. If he did not like the idea of sitting on such a political timebomb, as his boss had put it, he was far more afraid of his boss himself. “I understand, Herr General.”
“A colonel!” Anna said over supper. “Soon to be a general!” Her eyes shone.
“It is a beastly, unpleasant task,” Alexander said. “But it will have its compensations.” He told her about Tatiana.
“Gosykin’s daughter?” She jumped up and down. “Can I come with you, Alexander? I should so love to see Gosykin’s daughter executed. You’re going to be based in Brest-Litovsk. For Heaven’s sake, that’s hundreds of miles behind the front. You said I could join you in Moscow. Well, if we can’t be in Moscow together, surely we can be in Brest-Litovsk!”
*
“A letter from Joseph!” Priscilla swept into the drawing-room, waving the sheets of paper. She gave almost a squeal of joy. “Listen to this! Hopkins’ mission is returning home. But they are leaving a permanent secretariat in Russia. In Moscow, at least for the time being. And Joseph is to be its deputy head. Isn’t that marvellous?”
“You mean he’s staying there?”
“For the duration of the war. And he says I can join him, if I wish. If I wish! Well, actually, I asked if I could, a couple of months ago, and he said no. Now, he’s changed his mind. Oh, to return to Russia, and on the up. And we’ll all be together. Oh...!” she handed Sonia the last sheet and stood up. “There’s so much to be done.” Sonia bit her lip. Priscilla looked down at her. “Oh, Sonia! Listen, you can come too.”
“Do you think it is possible?”
“All things are possible, right now. They need us, Sonia. Leave it with me. I’ll organise it. But, you’ll have to promise: no thoughts of getting at Stalin!”
“What do you think we should do?” Alex asked his stepfather.
The initial impact of America being at war had worn off, and it was time to consider the future. But he was so busy that this Sunday in February was the first opportunity he had had to discuss the situation with Joseph. “You know I’m staying for a while? Until the end, as a matter of fact.”
“Yes, but you’re doing a job almost no one else can do.”
“Yours is pretty vital too,” Joseph pointed out. “Russia really isn’t too well off for good doctors, right now.”
“And what about the US Army?”
“I don’t think they’ll go short. There’s also the point that if you opt to leave, and set the whole thing in motion today, which is not possible, you still won’t get out of Russia for several months. If you join up it’ll be several months more before you’ll be considered sufficiently trained to be sent into a combat zone. We could be talking of more than a year. That seems to me to be a long time to be totally out of commission, as it were, at a time like this.”
“You think I should stay.”
“I do. I should point out that our entry into the war does not in any way affect your position. Your work here is still going to count towards your seniority when you get back home. Maybe more than if you served with the US Army and came out with a specified rank.”
“I wasn’t really thinking about that,” Alex said.
“It still needs to be thought about. There’s something else I should tell you: your mother is coming out to join me.”
“Mom is coming, here? To Moscow?”
“That’s right.”
“Isn’t that going to be very dangerous?”
“Yes. But Priscilla is not an easy woman to dissuade. It won’t be actually dangerous her being here. I mean, apart from the bombers. But getting here...”
“And you can’t absolutely forbid it?”
Joseph gave him an old-fashioned look. “I have never risked trying to forbid your mother to do anything, Alex. Therefore I am still in one piece. In any event, going by her letter, she has already obtained State Department permission and visas and what have you. She’s probably already left. Certainly she’ll have left by the time I can get a letter back to the States.”
“And you’d like her to be here. Well, then,” Alex said. “I stay, and look forward to welcoming Mom.”
“Good,” Joseph said. “I know your mother will love to see you, and in situ, as it were. What is that attractive girlfriend of yours going to do?”
“Whatever I do, I imagine.”
“You going to marry her?” Joseph asked.
“I don’t think either of us have made up our minds about that, yet.”
Joseph raised his eyebrows. “Not even while sharing this great adventure?”
“Well, we’re not actually doing a lot of sharing, right now. We’re both too damned busy, and when we do happen to have time off together, well, we’re both sleeping in a very crowded barracks. I mean, separately, of course: she’s in a women’s barracks and I’m in a man’s.”
“I did realise that.”
“So...I was wondering, the next time we do happen to be off duty together, well...”
“You’d like to use this hotel room.”
“That would be great.”
“You are a lucky young devil,” Joseph said. “But still a devil.”
“I am a Bolugayevski,” Alex pointed out.
“This is very disappointing,” Josef Stalin remarked, looking over the report on his desk. “The Germans are trumpeting that they have caught and hanged Gurianov, publicly, and now Solntsev. Those are two of our best partisan commanders. And what have we got to show for it? A few destroyed train
s. A few enemy outposts attacked. A few Germans killed...”
“Gurianov’s people killed well over five hundred Germans,” Ivan Ligachev pointed out.
“Is that so? Verify it, Ivan Ivanovich, and if it is true have him made a Hero of the Soviet Union. But these others...” Stalin gesticulated at the map of Belorussia. “They have done nothing. What about Tatiana and Feodor in the Pripet? Group One, we have called it. There has been not a word for over a month.”
Ivan nodded, sadly. “I very much fear they may have been taken by the Germans.”
“They have not been taken by the Germans, Ivan Ivanovich, for the very simple reason that the Germans would have said so. They have made this great publicity fuss about capturing and executing Gurianov. They have made a great fuss about the public hanging of Zoya Kosmodemianskaya, after having virtually tortured her to death. Do you not suppose they would have made a similar loud noise about capturing Tatiana Gosykinya?”
“But in the Marshes, in the dead of winter...they may just have perished. Jennie is very depressed.”
“Ha! Is there a woman in Russia who has not lost a loved one? And she does not even know that Tatiana is dead. I do not think she is. And even if she is, that entire group cannot have died. There are survivors, skulking. Have someone reach them, Ivan Ivanovich. Tell them we want to see action, results. Tatiana is sitting on a vital part of the German lines of communication. So she has blown up one train. Tell her there must be others.”
Ivan swallowed again. “I will see what can be done, Comrade Chairman.”
“No, no,” Stalin said. “Do it!”
“They will need to be re-equipped.”
“Then re-equip them. But have it done. Now!”
“Now, Comrade Chairman.” Ivan stood up, and checked as Stalin raised his head.
“How is your brother-in-law getting on?”
“He seems to be entirely on our side. At this moment.”
“You know he is staying on as part of their permanent mission in Moscow?”
“Yes. Jennie is pleased about that. Do you know that his wife is coming to join him?”
Stalin leaned back in his chair. “Priscilla Bolugayevska is returning to Russia?”
“She is Priscilla Cromb now, Comrade Chairman. Yes. Her visa has been applied for by the State Department. I can of course refuse it...”
Priscilla Bolugayevska, Stalin thought. He had only met the erstwhile Princess Dowager of Bolugayen once, and then briefly, but he had never forgotten her. He did not suppose any man meeting Priscilla Bolugayevska could ever forget her. Had he not been in the middle of sorting out all that treachery… Of course, that had been several years ago. Priscilla would be getting on for 50 now, but even so, he had no doubt she would be worth meeting again. “This means that all three members of that cursed family will be in Moscow together,” Ivan remarked.
Yes, indeed, Stalin thought. And the presence of her only son, were he in trouble or danger, might again bring Priscilla to his door. He would not pass up such an opportunity again. “Tell me about this so-called prince? I remember we considered the possibilities were he to be in Moscow when it was overrun by the Germans. Well, we both know that is not going to happen.”
“They will try again in the spring,” Ivan said gloomily.
“And we will be more ready for them in the spring. But I do not think that will be their main effort, in the spring. We already know that they have drawn off a large number of troops for the south. They are going to go for the oilfields of the Caucasus, Ivan Ivanovich. And we are going to have to stop them. However, let us discuss these partisans. I think it would be an act of great patriotism if the erstwhile Prince Bolugayevski were to serve with them.”
“Alex Bolugayevski is an American. By the terms of the agreement under which these people came here, he cannot be sent into a combat zone.”
“Ivan Ivanovich, haven’t we been through all of this before? He volunteered to serve in Moscow, did he not? I am sure, if he knew the full facts, if he knew, for example, that his long-lost cousin Tatiana is fighting for her life in the Pripet, he would wish to be at her side.”
“He already knows that. And Tatiana may be his cousin, but he has never laid eyes on her.”
“Such a lovely girl. Show him a photograph. Get these things done, Ivan Ivanovich. There is a time for everything, and now is the time to get rid of this upstart with the least comment.” He smiled. “Before his mother gets here.”
“It will not be easy to get him to do this,” Ivan said. “If I thought it would be easy, I would give the task to someone else, Ivan Ivanovich.”
Ivan stroked his chin. “But there may be a way...through his girlfriend.”
Stalin raised his eyebrows. “He has a girlfriend, already? Clearly he is not being worked hard enough.”
“She came with him. She is also an American.”
“Hm. But that rather negates any influence Tatiana may have. I mean, as regards sex.”
“I do not think that is important, Comrade Chairman. This woman of Bolugayevski’s is, from the reports I have received, a romantic who dreams of great accomplishments for Russia. Oh, no doubt it is Tsarist Russia she dreams of, thanks to Bolugayevski, but then we are all together now, are we not!” He hesitated, nervously, as Stalin commenced to fill his pipe. “I believe we may be able to set this woman up,” Ivan went on. “And where she goes, Bolugayevski will surely follow.”
“What is it you say in America?” asked the young man. “Another day, another dollar?”
Elaine was surprised, but she smiled. Igor Dorzhenski was an incredibly handsome young man. His features were lean and hungry, his eyes deep and intense, his body slender but powerful. On and off, they had worked together for the past four months, but this was the first time he had shown any interest in her. Well, she supposed everyone in the hospital knew she was Alex’s girl, but it was nonetheless gratifying to be noticed. “I didn’t know you knew anything about American customs or sayings,” she remarked.
“I am very interested in America. I read books on it.”
“Do you?” She was even more surprised.
“I am going to go there, after the war.”
“Will they let you?”
“Of course. Why should they not?”
“I can’t imagine why not,” Elaine confessed. Actually she couldn’t, save that she had been brought up to believe that the Soviet government was essentially a totalitarian state.
“But first,” Igor said dreamily, “there is the war to be won.”
“Absolutely.” Because it would be won, she knew, now that America was in it, even if at the moment there was no sign of the Russians winning their own war.
“And to win a war,” Igor went on, “one must be prepared to take risks, make sacrifices. I shall be leaving the hospital next week.”
“You can’t possibly be called up? You’re a doctor!”
“No, no, no call-up. I have...this must be a secret, between you and me. I should not be telling anyone.”
Elaine felt quite breathless. “I shall not tell anyone,” she promised.
“I have volunteered to work with the partisans.”
Elaine frowned. “Isn’t that terribly dangerous?”
“All war is dangerous. And it will be adventure, open air living, killing Germans, better than existing in this stinking hellhole waiting for a bomb to fall on us.”
He was revealing a point of view she longed to share. “I wish I could go with you.”
“Well, why not? A large percentage of the partisans are women, and I am sure they would prefer to have a woman doctor. In fact, where I am going the group is commanded by a woman. A relative of your boyfriend. Tatiana Gosykinya.”
“She’s in the Pripet Marshes, isn’t she?”
“Probably the safest of all partisan groups. The Germans can’t get in at them, you see. At least, not without waging a vast campaign, and they haven’t the time to do that, now.”
Elaine licked her li
ps. Of course she couldn’t possibly go without Alex, and she was sure he wouldn’t go for it. But it sounded such a delicious adventure. “But how would you get in, that far behind the German lines?”
“We’d be dropped by parachute.”
“I’ve never made a parachute jump.”
“They’d teach you. I’m having lessons next week.”
“But you said you were leaving next week.”
“Well, I only have to make the one jump. As long as they teach me how to do that, there is no problem. Now,” he said, glancing right and left, but for the moment they were alone in the corridor. “I shall kiss you goodbye, in case I do not have the opportunity again.” Elaine was left even more breathless.
*
“You have about the most accommodating stepfather in the world,” Elaine said, as Alex unlocked the door of Joseph’s hotel room.
“I would say it is because he likes you.” Alex locked the door again behind him. “He would like us to get married. After this is over, of course.”
“I’m sure that’s sensible. I wish we knew when it was going to be over.”
“Not for a while yet.” He poured them each a glass of vodka.
“Does this aid or retard sex?” she asked.
“I should think one would lower our inhibitions.” He sat beside her, kissed her. “It’s been so long I’m not sure I remember what to do.”
She kissed him back. “What time is your stepdad coming back?”
“Not for hours. There’s no need to hurry. We can pretend we are an old married couple.” But the vodka had lowered their inhibitions, and it was half-an-hour later before they felt like lying peacefully beside each other, like an old married couple. “You’ve heard about poor Dorzhenski?” Alex asked.
“What about Dorzhenski?” Faithful to her word, Elaine had not mentioned anything about Igor’s having volunteered to serve with the partisans, although she had been dying to discuss it. But if he had told Alex...
“He’s had the most absurd accident,” Alex said. “Fell down a flight of stairs in the men’s barracks, and broke his ankle.”
Elaine sat up, pushing hair from her eyes. “You’re not serious?”
The Scarlet Generation Page 13
