In fact, something else nags me, and I realize what it is just before the second intermission of Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi Theatre that evening, where Kedrov takes us as a cultural surprise. An extraordinary and moving performance, of course, in the most sublime surroundings. The bass in the title role is as big and fearsome as a Cossack. We sit in a gilded box with a couple of Politburo types and their wives, who don’t speak English and whose names I don’t remember. Kedrov sits on one side and Fox sits on the other, murmuring the occasional translation in my ear. My agitation increases by the moment. I sit there in an agony of impatience until the curtain drops, the lights illuminate. I snatch Fox’s hand and attempt to sweep him off for a moment of private conversation, but Kedrov steps between us, smiling his emollient smile, and insists we accompany him for a tour of the costume archives.
By the time we return to the hotel, the hour is just past midnight. A trace of gardenia perfumes the air, and a tray of caviar and chilled vodka sits on the sofa table in our suite. How nice. I kick off my shoes—unzip my long evening gown and kick that off, too—drag Fox straight into the bedroom—tug off his bow tie—purr, Let’s do what we did in Paris.
“What did we do in Paris?”
“Don’t you remember Paris, darling? I’ll show you.”
He catches on quickly. When we’re both in bed, covers over our heads, I whisper, “Something’s fishy over there, and I think you know it.”
“Your sister?”
“No. Him. He’s happy. He’s not going anywhere.”
Fox catches his breath. Our tent grows stuffy. I throw back the covers, suck in some oxygen, and moan, “Oh! Oh! Yes, oh God!”
Under the blankets again, I roll him over and bite his neck, so he shouts out the name of his Savior. Then I whisper in his ear, “I’m right, aren’t I? She’s the one who wants out. Which raises the question.”
“What question?” he gasps.
Stuffy again. I sit up and straddle him—tear the buttons off his crisp white formal shirt—oh, yes I do—because I want him off guard, you see—I want him to act and sound like a man making ferocious love to his wife—I want him to let slip something he’d never slip otherwise. His pale hair bristles against the white sheets. His hands find my hips. His eyes shut tight against the sight of Ruth Macallister wearing nothing but her creamy satin slip.
“God, yes, yes! More!” I howl. I roll him on top of me—not an easy feat, he weighs a ton—and draw the covers back up.
“What’s in it for you?” I whisper. “Why all this trouble for a housewife and her kids?”
“Not now!” he hisses back.
“Yes, now! Or I’ll—”
And I guess I’ll never know whether he does what he does next for my sake, for himself, or for the United States of America. Does it matter? He starts with a kiss, a real one. I kiss him back—why not? Down below, he’s just as formidable as you might expect, an advantage he wields so tenderly, so patiently, I fly a little out of my mind at one point and possibly confess a few things you shouldn’t confess to any man, even in bed. Afterward, he carries the caviar into the bedroom and feeds it to me in tiny spoonfuls. Allows me a little vodka to wash it down. Before we sleep, we do it all over again, and I imagine we leave those invisible listeners in no doubt of one thing, anyway, the authenticity of our connection, which might perhaps save our lives—who knows?
At five in the morning, the telephone rings. Fox untangles himself and answers it grimly. He returns with the news that Iris went into labor in the middle of the night and was taken to the Botkin Hospital in central Moscow, where she’s now calling for me.
Iris
August 1948
Dorset, England
The men had concocted a plan to sail to the Isle of Wight and meet some friend of Burgess’s who was throwing a sunset party right by the water. Aunt Vivian and Iris were invited; the children had to stay home with Mrs. Betts—it was that kind of party. What sailboat? Iris wanted to know. Not to worry, Burgess assured her, he’d already chartered one from a chap in Bournemouth who would sail it for them, too.
Iris hated sailing. She was not reassured.
Still, she and Aunt Vivian set about packing a robust and mostly alcoholic picnic for the journey. The restless sky had turned to drizzle, so the children stayed indoors, where Burgess drew them caricatures—he was really a clever artist—that left them in stitches of giggles. When the charm of that amusement faded, he and Sasha and Davenport gave them horsey rides all around the house, neighing and pawing and rearing and racing, culminating in the Honeysuckle Guineas around the drawing room, all furniture moved to the middle (Burgess won, piloted by a shrieking Little Viv).
Eventually someone looked at his watch and said Good God, we’re going to be late. Pandemonium. Sasha and Davenport pushed all the furniture back in place, on Iris’s orders. Aunt Vivian put on lipstick and changed her clothes. Iris scurried around the kitchen and the pantry chasing last-minute necessaries—napkins, champagne glasses, a knife for the cheese, a first aid kit because of knives and champagne—while Burgess did the necessary work of soothing Mrs. Betts’s frayed nerves after all this commotion.
As a result, they were almost an hour late making their way down the cliff path to the rendezvous. The schooner captain was understandably cross. He asked them whether they understood about tides and wind and how they were subject to change according to the time of day, and that he couldn’t possibly think of nipping up the Solent now—they’d have to tack around the entire damned island to reach Abingdon’s place.
Burgess looked at his watch and shrugged. “What’s another hour among men of honor?”
The journey started off well enough, after that dodgy beginning. Sasha and Davenport—both reasonably experienced sailors—helped the captain cast off, while Burgess opened a couple of champagne bottles. The rain lifted. Everybody came out from the shelter of the deckhouse and sprawled comfortably near the bow, drinking champagne and nibbling sandwiches. Iris lay on her stomach and stared at the gray-green water, rising and falling, until she realized she was getting seasick.
“Stare at a fixed point on the horizon,” Sasha said helpfully, so Iris stared at the white chalk cliffs of the island ahead of them and took long, slow breaths of the salty air, until her insides righted themselves.
Behind her, Aunt Vivian talked to Burgess about silkworms. Davenport came to sit beside Iris and sympathize. “Rotten show, seasickness. My brother’s a navy man, doesn’t bother him a bit. Cigarette?”
“No, thank you.”
He took one out and stuck it in his mouth. “Like Beauchamp, eh? Chap’s so chilly, he’s never required a smoke in his life.” He cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette and lit it carefully in the draft. “Intelligence man, you know.”
“Yes, I’d heard.”
“Had you? Well, so much for official secrecy and that.”
“You just told me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose I did.” He blew a long cloud of smoke into the draft and lowered his voice. “They say Beauchamp pulled off stunts you wouldn’t credit. Dropped him into France, you know, to stir up trouble. I knew a chap who ran a few of them. Told me one story that made my hair stand on end.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, some village in the occupied zone—not sure where, exactly. Beauchamp’s radio operator happens to be some local girl. Possibly he’s sleeping with her, c’est la guerre and all that, one doesn’t ask awkward questions. Anyway, the girl’s just been taken by the local Gestapo, put in some jail in the next village for questioning. I expect you know what that means.”
“They torture her, don’t they?”
“Yes, and if that doesn’t work they’ll drag in her parents, too, and torture them right in front of her, and by the end of it she’s singing like a canary, as you Americans say, and when she can’t sing any more they put her on the train for the prison camps.”
Davenport paused to suck on his cigarette. Iris couldn’t s
peak, couldn’t even ask what happened next. The sun had begun to set behind them, and it turned Davenport’s hair a fiery shade of red.
“Now, it so happens they’ve got a plane coming in two nights hence, a supply drop. They fly in on this ruddy old airplane called a Lysander, dark of the moon, collect the reports and drop off radios and money and cigarettes and that kind of thing. And sometimes personnel, too. Land some fresh agents and cart away the ones that have cracked up or had their covers blown. So Beauchamp’s got a plan. He’s going to rescue this girl from prison and take her to the rendezvous and put her on that plane for England.”
The cigarette was finished. Davenport dropped it in the sea and lit another. “You understand it’s his bloody radio operator, his ears and mouth, and who knows what she’s told the Germans by now. Besides which, someone has to keep an eye out for the Lysander, you know, guide her in with the flashlights, make sure there’s no ambush. So Beauchamp heads out to spring this girl out of Gestapo hands and tells his junior to stay. Junior does as he’s told, heads out of that basement and finds a barn, moves somewhere else the next night, and on the third night he heads out to the landing site nice and early, makes his recon, no Germans. Settles back and waits. Finally he hears the plane. Big loud propeller noise, rackety rackety rackety. He takes out his flashlight, signals them in. Ship’s coming to land. Gunfire.”
“But you said there weren’t any Germans!”
“Oh, I expect they dug in, too, biding their time. By now it’s too late to signal the plane, so the chap takes out his gun and runs toward the commotion.” Davenport paused and closed his eyes, while his thumb jiggled the cigarette up and down. “Long story short. Not only has Beauchamp sprung the girl out of prison, he’s rounded up her parents, too, because the Nazis would’ve taken them next, shot them in the village square pour encourager les autres. Beauchamp takes down the four or five Gestapo waiting at the landing site, all by himself, while the junior hustles that girl and her parents onto the Lysander and waves them off to Blighty.”
“My God,” whispered Iris.
“Quite. Of course that means neither Beauchamp nor his junior can get on the plane themselves, there isn’t room, and two hours later they run smack into a patrol, the same Gestapo patrol sent to find out why their men hadn’t returned from the landing site, and the pair of them wake up on a train to Mauthausen.”
“That’s a prison, isn’t it? A German prison.”
“Austrian, technically. But the damned thing is, Beauchamp springs them out of the prison camp a few months later, along with a few other men, and tracks down some resistance escape line into Switzerland.” Davenport patted his jacket pocket, as if he’d forgotten something. “Though I’m afraid I haven’t heard the details about that one.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Friend of mine, as I said. An old school chum. I say, I wouldn’t mind a little more champagne, would you?”
Iris wouldn’t have minded the entire bottle. She told herself it was the seasickness that made her legs wobble. She turned back to Aunt Vivian and Burgess, who had somehow moved from silkworms to the atom bomb. Burgess claimed to think it was immoral.
“You only think it’s immoral because we’ve got it, and you don’t like Americans,” Aunt Vivian said.
“Not true. I don’t dislike all Americans. I quite like you, Mrs. Schuyler, even though you entertain some bloody stupid ideas.”
“Besides, you weren’t a fighting man, were you? You spent the war sitting pretty at your nice safe Foreign Office desk. Ask Major Davenport here whether he’d like to be fighting hand to hand on some Japanese island right now.”
“I jolly well wouldn’t,” said Davenport cheerfully.
“There you have it. War’s an immoral business to begin with, Mr. Burgess, you can’t get around that. It comes down to how many of yours do we kill so you don’t kill ours.”
“But!” Burgess waved his cigarette. “But the women and children, Mrs. Schuyler! The awful consequences of radiation! How could a civilized nation do such a thing?”
“What about Burma? What about the poor Chinese? I’d say somebody had to give Japan a little of their own medicine.”
“Well, I can’t bear it,” Iris said. “I still can’t think about it.”
Aunt Vivian sent her a pitying look and poured more champagne. “Anyway, it’s done, and at least the damned thing is safely in our hands, as a deterrent to future war.”
Sasha smacked his fist into his palm. “But that’s the trouble! No single country should have the means to destroy the world. Who can stand against us?”
“My God, would you rather see the Soviets with the bomb?”
“Well, why shouldn’t they?” Sasha said recklessly, sloppily, red-faced, and Iris realized he was drunk.
“Sasha—” she started.
“The Soviets have only done what they’ve had to do. If you want to make an omelette—”
“Digby, you ass.” Burgess, sharp voice. “Have another drink and be quiet.”
Sasha’s pink face turned pinker. He stared at Burgess for a moment or two—flung his half-finished cigarette over the edge of the schooner—staggered to the champagne and found an open bottle.
The mood was ruined. The sun set, the Isle of Wight passed laboriously to port. The captain kept swearing at the tides and wind—Iris didn’t understand, she’d never liked sailing—and when Aunt Vivian offered advice, he swore at her, too. Sasha got drunker and drunker and brooded over the side of the boat. Iris tried to talk him out of it, but he snarled back and she retreated to Major Davenport.
Nine o’clock passed, then ten. The air grew chill and damp, and they hadn’t brought any coats. Iris sat on a cushion and wrapped her arms around her chest until Davenport gallantly offered his jacket. Sasha wanted to know what the hell was going on, why hadn’t they reached Abingdon’s place by now. He turned to Burgess, who reclined on the neat teak boards of the deck, smoking endless cigarettes and eating all the potted shrimp.
“You!” Sasha said. “This was your goddamn idea.”
“Seemed like a jolly sort of lark at the time. How was I to know about tides?”
“You pretend to know everything about everything else.”
Burgess shrugged. “Can I help being such a bloody clever chap?”
“Clever, my ass.”
The champagne was finished, all eight bottles. Burgess produced a bottle of gin. Aunt Vivian and Iris gave up on the weather and trooped into the tiny deckhouse, followed by Sasha, who slumped on a bench and closed his eyes.
“Iris, my dear,” said Aunt Vivian, “I’m beginning to think your husband’s some kind of Communist. You don’t suppose he’s an old friend of Mr. Chambers, do you?”
Iris glanced at Sasha. His eyes were still closed, his hands linked at the junction of his ribs. Her brain was too fogged by champagne and by the incessant cigarettes to think properly. “I doubt it,” she said.
“You’re sure about that?” Aunt Vivian looked at Sasha. “What do you think, cousin? Communist spies in the State Department?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about this Chambers fellow. Ever meet him?”
“Oh, stop. He’s drunk, can’t you see?”
“Frankly I think Mr. Chambers is a very brave man. I imagine the assassination orders are going down from Moscow Centre as we speak. I hope he’s got a decent bodyguard.”
“Fucking rat,” muttered Sasha.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sasha, don’t—”
Sasha struggled upward. The boat made some lurch and sent him spilling onto the deck—he staggered forward and caught himself on the edge of the small table—his eyes blazed. “He’s a snitch. Sell his soul for what? Approval from women like you—rich and idle—bigots—bluebloods—no idea what’s going on among regular people—”
“I imagine I know a lot more about regular people than you do, Sasha Digby. I was a typist when I
met Charlie, and your kind never forgave me for it.”
“Not because you were a typist. Because you married him for his money.”
“Stop it!” said Iris. “Both of you, just stop.”
“And your mother married for money, Sasha, and her mother before her. Every woman does—she has to.”
“Because the system’s corrupt.”
“No, because humans are corrupt. We are all of us selfish, ignorant beasts, loyal only to ourselves and our own kind, interested only in getting a leg up on others, whether it’s money or status or moral virtue. That’s why we’ve got religion, to discover our better angels, and in the absence of religion I guess you’ve turned to communism. All right. I mean, you’ve got to believe in something. Some people are just born zealots. But you’re wrong, my dear. Argue all you want, but you’re wrong, and what’s worse is that you’ll never admit it. Like that fellow who combs his last remaining hair over the top of his head and tells himself he’s not bald.”
Sasha turned and hurled the bottle of champagne through the deckhouse window.
The captain dumped them ashore at the nearest possible landing, about a mile from Abingdon’s place by the water. They argued for nearly an hour about which direction to take, until Aunt Vivian settled matters by saying she would follow an army major over a diplomat any day, and anyway Davenport was the most sober.
Sasha was quiet. Iris would almost have said contrite, except her husband was never really contrite, was he? She walked alongside him to make sure he didn’t say anything else, didn’t expose himself any more than he already had. Burgess kept up a merry conversation with Aunt Vivian and Major Davenport as they picked their way along the shingled beach, carrying the picnic basket between them.
“Buck up!” he called back to Sasha and Iris. “Nearly there! Can’t wait to see the look on old Abby’s face when we turn up at last.”
“Oh, he’ll be delighted,” said Aunt Vivian. “Everybody wants a gang of drunken louts to turn up at his home at two o’clock in the morning.”
Our Woman in Moscow Page 24
