* * *
He turns from the window, scratching his head.
What to do with the time he has to spare? Certainly, it would not do to think too much. He has made up his mind, and cannot go back on it. Robert Bruce Lockhart, the closest thing to a friend he has left in Russia, is a very persuasive man.
Once, there were dozens of other Englishmen in the city. Journalists like himself mostly, men from the Telegraph, the Manchester Guardian, the Times, Reuters. They had welcomed him as a colleague when he arrived for the Daily News, though he knew nothing about being a journalist at the time. They’d had to show him the ropes, even down to how to write in telegraph language, using as few words as possible where every one cost a kopek.
He may have known little about journalism, but he was a writer, and he had one advantage over the other journalists: he knew Russian, having taught himself from Russian children’s books, working his way up to newspapers in three months flat.
Now, they’re all gone. All the journalists, and even his friend Will who’d worked for the Russian government under the old regime until his job had disappeared one day when revolutionaries stormed their offices. Will left even before the second Revolution, in October, when the Bolsheviks rose to power under Lenin and Trotsky.
* * *
Arthur decides what to do. He will do the most important thing in the world. He sits down at his desk and pulls out some paper, and three bottles of ink. The black, that he always uses, is getting low, but today he pulls out a bottle of red and a bottle of green that he saves for the most special letters, to Tabitha.
He writes a long letter to his daughter, using the colored inks to draw silly pictures, ones that he knows will make her laugh, and he ends by asking her if she’s read the book he wrote yet. A book called Old Peter’s Russian Tales, about an ancient but kindly Russian woodcutter and his two orphaned grandchildren, Vanya and Maroosia, who live in a hut in the middle of a hundred thousand snow laden fir trees.
5:40 P.M.
LETTER WRITTEN, Arthur spends a careful five minutes folding the paper neatly and sealing the envelope, writing the address as clearly as he can. It has become something of a ritual, as though, by taking immaculate care in the preparation of his letters, it will somehow protect them on their journey to England.
It was on his last visit home that he realized how few of his letters actually got through.
“Do you ever hear from that brother of mine?” he’d asked his mother one evening, and she’d showed him a shoebox where she kept letters from both her sons—Arthur in Russia, Geoffrey in France.
Arthur gazed at the few letters knocking around in the bottom of the box.
“He writes as often as he can,” his mother said as if justifying something. She smiled. “Just as often as you do.”
“But I’ve written countless letters. One a week, sometimes more. For years. There must be more than this.”
He picked up a letter, and marveled at it. There was his own handwriting, put on the envelope in Petrograd, and somehow the fragile little thing had made its way across Europe with less trouble than Arthur and a dozen trains and boats had. Others though, it seemed, had not been so lucky.
That evening, he sat in the drawing room and listened to the sound of the geese calling to fly south, leaving the hills and lakes for another winter, while his mother cooked in the kitchen. He went through the letters that had survived, and as he read, he began to wonder if there was some pattern, to which had survived and which had not. Letters where he spoke of mundane things, of friends and family, were, by and large, safe. But he could remember other letters where he’d written of the war, of the Revolution, of politics and Bolshevism, and it seemed to him that more of those were missing.
He inspected the envelopes of the letters with which he was now reunited. Had they been opened twice?
It was hard to tell.
* * *
Arthur looks at his watch again, then throws the letter to Tabitha on the bed. He’ll take it to the post office when he goes out later. He looks at it sadly, because he knows there’s another barrier for that letter to cross, and this time not some unseen governmental hand, but one that belongs to a woman he knows all too well.
Tabitha’s mother.
6:00 P.M.
ONE NIGHT IN MOSCOW. That’s all it’s come down to now. Just a few hours left before he’ll go and meet Lockhart, and yet, this single brief evening could last a week, a month, or a year. As his mind drifts, the evening expands to encompass all the years he’s spent in Russia, all the people he’s ever met. Miserably, he wonders if there will be a future after this evening, one in which he might have a chance to live and to love, but then he berates himself. He has no right to feel miserable; the time for feeling anything has passed.
Now, it’s time to act. If only there weren’t so many hours to kill. Four long hours.
* * *
When did it all start?
It’s hard to be sure. He wanders round his room, remembering the episode with his mother and the letters. He’d had a clue about things then, but he supposed it went way back before that. Maybe it had started when he’d met Lockhart for the first time, nearly three years ago. Lockhart had been posted to Moscow, and was dropped in at the deep end when the Consul-General went home to England suffering from ill health. Lockhart had been made Acting Consul-General, a younger man even than Arthur. They’d become friends immediately, though so different in nature. Robert, the Scot, practical, wise and yet passionate, too, Arthur felt so intimidated by his confidence, by his knowledge. In Lockhart’s presence he had quickly realized how naïve he was.
Maybe it had started then, as Lockhart had opened his eyes to the reality that not everyone is what they seem.
Or maybe it had started even before that, with the British Ambassador, Buchanan.
Arthur remembers one of their first meetings, long before the Revolution. As a British journalist, he naturally spent some time every day at the Embassy, up on the Neva embankment, gathering what news there was to be had.
He’d got talking to Buchanan, an old-school gentleman with a neat gray beard. Arthur worried that he was shirking his duty as an Englishman.
“My brother Geoff is in France,” he explained, “yet I’m here in the safety of the British Embassy talking to you. Shouldn’t I go and fight?”
Buchanan smiled.
“You don’t look like the fighting type,” he said.
“Who does?” Arthur said, and Buchanan conceded the point.
“Some do, I suppose. Many do not. And besides, there are other ways of fighting. You may come to be more use to Britain here than getting yourself killed in France. Did you hear the news about Ypres? I mean the real stuff, not what your lot print in your papers. All in all I think you can do more good here.”
“You mean as a journalist?”
There was a slight pause during which Buchanan seemed to be weighing something up.
“Yes, that,” he muttered at last.
A year on he’d gone to see Buchanan to ask for help.
“I’m off home. To England I mean.”
“What of it?”
“When I come back … The journey may not be as easy as last time. And even then it was damn hard.”
“What can we do?” said Buchanan.
“Have I ever shown you this?” Arthur asked, and pulled a folded and somewhat crumpled letter from his pocket. He handed it to Buchanan and was amused by the look of bewilderment that spread across the Ambassador’s face.
“This is all very interesting, Ransome,” he said, some of his customary charm slipping slightly. “But why are you showing me a letter written to you by the Imperial Lending Library of London, declaring that you have five books heavily overdue?”
“That letter,” Arthur said, “has helped me out of more sticky situations than I can tell you.”
Buchanan raised an eyebrow.
“Last year I was stuck at the Romanian border, and I started waving
that about; it got me through. Same thing in Finland, Galicia, and Russia. Anywhere they can’t read English. Passports and visas are all very well, but pull something mystifying like that out of your pocket and it can work wonders.”
A slow but gratifying smile spread across the Ambassador’s face.
“It does have rather a splendid crest, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Embossed, too, you’ll notice. Terrifying typeface. I think that and the one word they can read—London—is enough.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’d like me to write you a genuine version, a sort of passepartout.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Something like this?”
Now it was Arthur’s turn to feel baffled as Buchanan pushed an envelope across the leather of the desk. The envelope was not sealed and Arthur slid out a letter written on Embassy headed notepaper, thick and crisp.
He read it and swiftly held up his hand, acknowledging he had been trumped.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Anything else?”
“No … well, yes,” he said, indicating the letter. “But how did you know I’m heading…”
“Do you think there are any secrets in this city, Ransome?”
Arthur shook his head, as much in puzzlement as agreement.
“And this part here?” he said, looking at the last line.
“What of it?”
“I’ve assisted the Embassy for three years…?”
“Well?”
“That’s not strictly true, sir.”
“No, Ransome, but it’s not strictly untrue, is it? Oh and one more thing. Stop using that fool letter from the library. You’ll get yourself shot.”
* * *
No secrets in the city.
Slowly he had learned that there is a world beneath the visible one, and that people, some people at least, have a different life, that they carry inside them. Maybe if he’d been less innocent he would have seen earlier what was going on.
On the way back from England, after that short visit home, they’d already begun to make use of him, and once they’ve used you once, they think you’re theirs.
The journey from England to Russia, always a tortuous one, was made even harder by the fact that the Bolsheviks were now ruling Russia.
Before leaving London he’d had to get a permit to travel from the Foreign Office. An interview there with Lord Cecil was educational; he thought the chances of getting back to Russia were slim.
Arthur opened his mouth to protest, but Cecil raised a hand to stop him.
“Oh, we’ll give you your permit, Ransome,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. I mean simply that you may find it hard to convince the Bolsheviks to let you back in. Unless you know differently?”
Arthur didn’t really register this last remark, and merely thanked him for the permit.
“But we’ll do better than that,” Cecil replied. “Something that can get you as far as Stockholm without question. I have a bag, a diplomatic bag, that needs delivering to Sir Esmé Howard, our man there. If you undertake to carry it you’ll be guaranteed safe passage under diplomatic immunity. Do we have a deal?”
Arthur thought for a moment, but could see no point in refusing. Besides, he had read and written enough fairy tales to know that things come in threes. With this latest addition he would have three talismans to keep him safe; his letter from Buchanan, his permit from the Foreign Office, and Cecil’s bag. Enough to see him past three trolls, three dragons, or three witches, at least.
* * *
Cecil’s word was true. The bag got Arthur as far as Stockholm, but then he got stuck. Cecil had been right about the Bolsheviks, too. They refused him a visa to return to Petrograd. It was something of his own making that saved him.
6:00 P.M. CONTINUED
ARTHUR ROLLED AND RATTLED ACROSS Northern Europe on boats and trains; typewriter on one side, suitcase on the other, and now, a third bag, a slim leather briefcase, clutched in his lap.
He saw people looking at his typewriter box, and now he knew what it felt like, for he was every bit as curious about what was in the diplomatic bag on his lap.
At the British Embassy in Stockholm he waited for an hour for the minister to meet him, and then, with a brief nod, Sir Esmé took the briefcase and was gone, without a word. Arthur stood about feeling like an idiot, then slunk outside, wondering what the hell had been in the bag. A letter from the pompous old man’s mother? Some dreadful novel perhaps? Both of those seemed unlikely. State secrets? If that were so, just what did that make him?
* * *
He spent the next three days walking from one end of Stockholm to the other, trying to find out who he needed to talk to, to get back into Russia. It was a gilded cage affair. He didn’t see the beauty of the wonderful old city spread across dozens of islands, like a fleet of floating buildings, and he didn’t see the beauty of the buildings themselves, or the pretty Swedish girls who served him breakfast at the hotel. He knew he had to get back to Russia, to get on with his job, and that was all he could think about.
At last he discovered that he needed to get permission from the Bolshevik emissary to Sweden, a man named Vorovsky, but Vorovsky flatly refused to see him. He persisted for another couple of days, and still got nowhere, but then one day there was a note waiting for him at his hotel.
It was from Sir Esmé, and apparently Arthur was to join him for lunch the following day.
Somewhat mystified, Arthur presented himself at the Embassy at the appointed hour, wondering what trouble he was in now. He hadn’t touched the contents of the bag; they were sealed and he’d not even so much as thought about breaking the seal, not seriously.
He was shown into a sumptuous dining room where a feast lay spread. Sir Esmé was waiting for him, and this time he was smiling.
“Ransome!” he declared, as if Arthur had returned from the moon. “Good of you to come. I’m so very glad you’re still in Stockholm.”
Behind the minister, two children stood nervously peeking out from behind his back, a boy and a girl, both more or less Tabitha’s age, he thought.
Arthur began to wonder what was going on, but Sir Esmé was talking again.
“Why on earth didn’t you say who you were, man?”
“But I did, I…”
“I mean the book. Why didn’t you say you were that Ransome?”
Something began to dawn on Arthur, and he smiled.
“I didn’t think … I mean why would you be…”
“Well, never mind. I’m just relieved you haven’t left. When I mentioned your name at supper the night before last I was nearly lynched by these two!”
He turned to his children.
“Isn’t that right?”
They giggled.
“Children! Meet Mr. Arthur Ransome.”
Now Arthur knew what to do; he was on familiar ground. He bowed low and solemnly, and then straightened, winking at them.
“They’re big fans of yours, you see,” Sir Esmé said. “So won’t you join us for some lunch?”
Arthur smiled at the children.
“Well now,” he said. “You must be Maroosia, and you must be Vanya, yes?”
They squealed with delight, and then all four sat down to eat.
* * *
Arthur stayed all afternoon, and earned his keep by telling stories, lots of stories, ones there hadn’t been room for in the book, and other ones entirely, from Africa and India. But it was the Russian stories they liked the best.
By the end of the afternoon, he left behind two happy children and came away with a letter of introduction from the minister to Vorovsky, and three days later, got his visa to return to Petrograd.
6:10 P.M.
ARTHUR REALIZES THE POST OFFICE will be shut long before he’s due to meet Lockhart, and with a sigh puts his light summer jacket on again. His shoulders ache as he pulls it on, and he wonders how he got like this. He’s still young, so why is it that he feels like a very
old man?
His hand is on the doorknob when he hears a noise outside in the corridor. He freezes, holding his breath, straining to hear. Nothing. But he waits anyway, makes himself count to a minute before he dares move.
Then, there it is again. A faint scuffling sound somewhere close outside.
Inch by inch, Arthur bends over to peer through the keyhole, only to discover that with the key still in it he can see almost nothing.
The noise comes again and he can bear it no more; he whips the door open and bursts out not knowing what he will do if there is a Cheka agent brandishing a gun, only to find an old man leaning against the wall. It’s a neighbor from along the corridor. He looks at Arthur, bemused, but smiles.
“These stairs will kill me one day, I swear to God!”
He sighs, and having caught his breath, shuffles off down the corridor.
Arthur shakes his head.
* * *
It’s not far to the post office, even though the Bolsheviks have moved it from its old home. He scurries along the Moscow streets, with high pavements and dirt roads. The ancient capital is somehow less stark than Petrograd; maybe it’s the architecture. Petrograd, barely two hundred years old, was built to a formal plan as stipulated by Peter the Great; Moscow has grown organically and as a result is less regimented, less imposing somehow. Maybe it’s to do with buildings, but Lockhart says it’s the people who make Moscow more welcoming. Arthur doesn’t agree and anyway, he thinks it as odious to compare them as it would be to compare one man’s wife with another’s.
He looks at his watch and hurries on; the post office is supposed to stay open until half past six, but there’s never any guarantee in Russia that people will stick to the appointed times.
* * *
Damn you, Lockhart.
The words run through his mind and as soon as they do he tries to push them away. He’s made his decision, he can’t go back on it. He can’t let Robert down.
Yes, he thinks, as he joins the queue in the post office, it was Lockhart who got him into all this, though certainly Buchanan had started the ball rolling even before the Scot turned up in Petrograd.
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