Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow

by Paul Gallico

  ‘Not at all, ladies, not at all. An unexpected pleasure.’ His speech was that of the re-educated ex-cockney. He opened the door to show that attached to the unusual head was a spry little body snappily clad in the latest Savile Row style. He didn’t click his heels together but it seemed almost that he might have done so as he invited them to enter with a wave of his arm half theatrically and grandiose, half rather charmingly enticing.

  The grating voice of Mrs ’Orrible spoke from the pulpit. ‘Is not allowed for ladies to visit gentlemen’s rooms.’

  This brought back a momentary flash of Ada’s dander as she turned upon her. ‘Oh, come orf it,’ she said. ‘At our age what do you fink’s going to ’appen? The gentleman’s invited us for a drink and sucks to you.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Mr Rubin enlarging his gesture of welcome so that he now struck the attitude of a dancing master. ‘Don’t pay no attention to her. She’s new anyway. I don’t know what happened to Annie. That’s the other one used to be on this floor. Annie was a little bit of all right. Knew how to close an eye. Probably having a day off. Come in, come in.’

  The two sailed in beneath the malevolent glare of Mrs ’Orrible and as soon as the door had closed behind them she reached for the telephone and dialled the number of the superior directing her activities.

  ‘Pavel? Tashka.’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘They have made contact.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘With the Jew, Rubin, in 701. They went into his room.’

  ‘Ah!’ Pavel’s voice grew heavy with sarcasm, ‘Right under your nose? And you did not try to prevent it?’

  ‘I have no orders to resort to violence, Comrade.’

  ‘That is true. Besides, the orders are to be very careful with the foreigner, Rubin. It is a sensitive area. There are two Ministries involved.’

  The obese woman breathed a slight sigh of relief that apparently she had managed to keep out of the middle of something. She said, ‘Then perhaps it is all for the best for you will be able to monitor everything that is said in the room where they will surely disclose the nature of the contact.’

  There was rather too long a pause from the other end of the telephone and then the sound of a throat being cleared, followed by, ‘There have been some temporary complications. The necessary repairs have not yet been made. That department has never been co-operative. Install, yes. Repair, no. Not interested.’ He said a fine Russian swear word and then asked, ‘Where is their guide, Praxevna Lelechka?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Find her. She must assume control over them again.’

  ‘Boris and Anoutchka are on the floor. Boris has a listening device. Do you want him to attach it to the door?’ Boris was the KGB man concealed with the chambermaid and quarrelling with her behind the service door.

  Pavel’s voice spoke sharply, ‘Don’t be a fool, Tashka. I told you the Rubin area is highly sensitive. If it ever comes out why he is here we will be taking residence in Siberia. Find Praxevna Lelechka and get those two out of there.’ This was followed by another expressive oath after which the phone at the other end was hung up.

  Within the confines of Room 701, which was in the same state of crumbling Victorian glory as that of Violet and Ada’s, Mr Rubin was saying, ‘How do you like yours?’ holding in his hand a glass and a bottle of Gordon’s Gin.

  ‘With just a drop of water,’ replied Mrs Harris, ‘and me friend ’ere likes it neat. Ain’t that right, Vi?’

  Mrs Butterfield said, ‘If the gentleman doesn’t mind.’ She was not wholly at ease for she could not adapt herself as quickly as Mrs Harris and any and every unusual situation in which she found herself was always fraught with possible doom.

  While Mr Rubin was pouring, Ada’s bright, mischievous eyes were exploring the room to see if she could guess who and what this attractive little man might be. Salesman, was the answer she rang up from a pile of sample books she saw upon a table though she could not see as to samples of what, and to her amusement scattered on a sofa she caught sight of several porno magazines. There was also a dish of apples and oranges on the table.

  Mr Rubin raised his own glass of clear liquid and said, ‘To you ladies,’ and then half under his breath added, ‘and Ivan.’

  The two women raised theirs and Mrs Harris replied to the toast, ‘Your very good ’ealth, sir, and we’re very much obliged to you for your kindness,’ and then her curiosity getting the better of her she asked, ‘ ’Oo’s Ivan?’

  ‘Ah, Ivan,’ repeated Mr Rubin and the gay expression upon his mixture of features changed to one combining a kind of introspective reverie and love. ‘Ivan, the Ripoff King of the Hotel Tolstoi. Master of the hot ruble. He’s the hotel porter. You want it, he’ll get it for you if you’ve got the lolly. But the hard stuff – you know – foreign currency.’ He held up the gin bottle. ‘Where do you think this came from? I can’t stand that vodka.’ He pointed to the table. ‘Have you seen any oranges anywhere else in this rotten city? Or maybe you ain’t been here long enough yet.’ At the use of the word ‘rotten’ Mrs Butterfield began to show signs of agitation. ‘Or them,’ and he pointed to the porno magazines. ‘You can borrow some if you like. It’s all illegal but Ivan’s the boy and like I said, Annie – Annie’s what I call her but her name is Anoutchka – knew when not to look. I don’t know how this new bag is going to work if she stays on permanent.’

  Mr Rubin needn’t have worried for the new bag had been briefed to let anything except shooting irons or people go through into 701 for not only was Ivan, the hotel porter, a pillar of the thriving black market but he was also a trusted connection of the KGB which had ordered him to see that Mr Rubin was supplied with anything he wanted to keep him in good temper and quiet until a situation should have resolved itself. The fact that Ivan was compelled to split half of his hard currency take from Room 701 with his KGB contact was neither here nor there, but of none of this was Mr Rubin aware.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said and raised his glass once again. ‘And what are you two ladies doing in this Godforsaken town?’

  This last phrase increased Mrs Butterfield’s agitation to the point where she took a big gulp of straight gin and went into a splutter.

  ‘We won it in a raffle,’ replied Mrs Harris. ‘I mean the trip. We wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise. I work as a daily in London and me friend ’ere looks after the ladies in the Paradise Club.’

  Again Mr Rubin raised his glass, the sweet smile once more returned to his face and he toasted, ‘The salt of the earth. Britain’s bulwark. I love you both.’

  Mrs Butterfield’s perturbations now took on a similarity to the ones she had shown in her own apartment down the hall.

  Mrs Harris didn’t quite know how to take Mr Rubin’s last affectionate declaration but put it down to the gin which he was also having straight. She said, ‘And nice of you to say so, Mr Rubin.’ Her glance travelled to the sample books and she inquired, ‘Just what is it you travel in, Mr Rubin?’

  ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘So you’ve guessed. By the way, you can call me Sol. Sol, Violet and Ada and ’ere’s to the three of us,’ and he took another solid slug. As the gin took effect it tended to eliminate his ‘h’s, and then he said, ‘Paper. I’m the biggest bloody paper concern in the whole United Kingdom.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ada Harris as her cunning little mind made a lightning calculation. ‘Paper,’ she repeated. ‘And what they ain’t got any of is …’

  ‘Exactly,’ concluded Rubin. ‘And if they knew that I was admitting to you or anybody else that such was the case they’d be ’aving seven different kinds of fits or maybe put me away. They got a lot of stinkers running this country and you never know.’

  Here Mrs Butterfield exploded into her pantomimic dance of the bug.

  Rubin threw back his bushy head and laughed uproariously. ‘Oh, them,’ he said. ‘I’ve got ’em all. Nothing else to do to amuse myself. Do you know how long I’ve been ’ere? Eight we
eks! While they’re trying to make up their mind. I could give you a guided tour of Moscow off the top of me head. The Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, all that junk in the museums,’ and he went into a guide’s voice, ‘And here on the right you see the beautiful old painted carriage presented to Ivan the Terrible by our gryte Queen Elizabeth the First and after lunch we will visit the glorious Pushkin Gallery of Fine Arts. I’ve seen the old boy Lenin they’ve got laid out in that marble blockhouse over there five times. And let me tell you ’e don’t improve with age.’ The gin by now had taken a firm grip and Mr Rubin’s speech was back amongst the Bow bells, which rather comforted the two women. ‘They’re gonna have to take ’im out and freshen ’im up again pretty soon. When I go out alone there’s this KGB bloke on my tail all the time. Occasionally we sit down and ’ave a drink together but since he don’t speak English what’s the good of that? So mostly I stick to me room and try to amuse myself. This last lot they don’t even seem to have tried to repair. Here, I’ll show you.’ He took the two women on an electronic tour of the premises and showed them a number of interesting places where minute microphones and other listening devices had been installed and each one with the wires carefully snipped.

  Mrs Harris was fascinated. ‘ ’Oo’d have believed it? But are you sure you got them all?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Rubin, ‘you get used to it. It’s a little like the Evening Standard crossword puzzle. After a while you get to know their minds. They must be ’aving a fit downstairs what with the old bag trying to keep you out of the room.’

  ‘But what’s the big secret?’ Mrs Harris asked trying to equate all that was being revealed in this strange manner. ‘I would ’ave thought …’

  ‘Ha!’ interrupted Rubin, ‘“Nekulturni”. That’s a word I picked up here. Not cultured. The Russ is trying to impress everyone with ’is culture. It’s not cultured to be caught with your pants down without a single … begging your pardon, ladies, I wasn’t meaning to …’ He interrupted himself here momentarily as Mrs Butterfield was showing signs of becoming somewhat coyly embarrassed notwithstanding the nature of her own place of business. But then there were no gentlemen present there.

  ‘It’s not like it was only here,’ Rubin continued. ‘Did you know that they were queueing for it in Japan, the Chinese have a mission in London right now trying to buy and a half dozen of them new little countries in Africa that never had it before are clamouring for it? Shortages all over and me sitting on three ’undred and eighty million rolls.’

  ‘Blimey!’ ejaculated Mrs Harris, unable to form a concept of such a mountain, ‘then why don’t you sell it to them?’

  ‘That’s what they sent for me for,’ Rubin replied. ‘I’m the only firm that’s got it. The Ministry of Supply winkled us out, but the Minister of Purchase doesn’t like Jews and won’t okay the tab. The big boys in the government don’t want to know and are letting ’em fight it out, and I’m stuck ’ere.’

  The ever practical minded Ada asked, ‘Why don’t you scarper and sell it to somebody else?’

  ‘Can’t,’ snapped Rubin. ‘They’ve picked up me – my passport.’

  Mrs Butterfield gave a little shriek and cried, ‘See, Ada, I told you what they were like.’

  Ada, torn between calming her friend’s ever present fears and not denying Mr Rubin said, ‘But they’ve got to give it back to you …’

  Rubin snorted, ‘Not them. We’re in Russia, ladies, where anything can ’appen. I’ll give you an example. They had their own factory where they made their own rolls – enough to supply the big cities anywhere. Well, the bloke that managed it was expecting a big shipment of paper allocated to him by the Supply boys. It never got to ’im.’

  ‘What ’appened?’

  ‘The chappie that runs the big greeting card syndicate got to somebody in the bureau first and diverted the load to his own factory. So now they’ve got a couple of billion greeting cards and no tissues. You know what they did? They shot the first feller for failure to deliver his quota. The other one got the Gold Medal of the Soviet Economy.’ And as the two women just stared uncomprehending he concluded, ‘I know, shot the wrong man. But like I’m telling you, this is Russia. They figured the first guy was dumb to let himself be ’ijacked and the second smart to have whipped the consignment. But greeting cards ain’t what you need when …’

  ‘I think we’d better be going,’ put in Mrs Butterfield. ‘The guide said she’d be taking us to dinner.’

  ‘Just one more little drinkie then first,’ urged Mr Rubin. ‘Everybody flies on three engines today.’ His face was somewhat flushed since, although he had poured in a seemly manner for his two guests, he had been having his by the half tumblerful. Having replenished, he raised his glass and said, ‘To paper!’ and took a large gulp.

  At which point, to add to Mrs Butterfield’s fears and tremors, something seemed to burst inside the little man at the word he had just pronounced. The pupils of his eyes enlarged behind the lenses of his glasses and his moustache suddenly seemed to stiffen and sprout straight out from his upper lip.

  ‘Paper!’ he shouted, ‘blasted, bloody, blooming paper! There ain’t enough of it to go round. Everybody wants paper! You can’t buy it, you can’t find it and there won’t be enough trees left to make it. You know what your Express and Evening Standard and all them newspapers you read every day and throw away use up? Two million tons! Where’s it all to come from? Buyers by telephone, and telegraph. Everybody’s after us for paper, paper, paper. You know how many million people have been taught to write letters that never wrote ’em before and put ’em in envelopes with stamps? And you know what they write ’em on and what the envelopes and stamps are made of? Paper!’

  By now too, his bushy hair was standing up straight as he became completely carried away by his subject: ‘Wrapping paper! Greaseproof paper! Wallpaper! Paperbacks! Paper towels! Nobody blows ’is nose into a good old-fashioned ’andkerchief any more. No, you got to blow it into paper what comes from those poor blinking trees. I tell you there ain’t no end to it! Blotting paper, legal paper, lining paper, paper napkins, paper cups and plates, postcards, calendars, election broadsheets, advertising throwaways, billboard posters! Paper hats on New Year’s Eve!’

  Mr Rubin suddenly seemed to run either out of breath, or of paper, he appeared to collapse slightly, but hung on to his glass and glared at his two guests almost balefully, increasing Mrs Butterfield’s tremors, and even slightly alarming Mrs Harris due to the sudden change in him, though she had never known a gentleman in drink that she couldn’t handle.

  Rubin inflated himself with another gulp of gin and air. ‘Do you know what’s going to happen?’ he shouted. ‘There ain’t going to be any more paper in a few years more. Not a scrap. And what’s old Sol Rubin going into? I got it all worked out and me lines laid. There’ll be plenty of clay left. Ceramics, porcelains,’ he paused a moment to give import to the forthcoming secret of success in the future. ‘Biddies! Nobody’ll be able to get along without one.’

  Mrs Butterfield, baffled, repeated, ‘Biddies?’ but Mrs Harris, who laboured amongst the gentry, twigged. She said, ‘I know. Only Lady Dant calls them “B-Days”, like we said D-Day in the war.’

  There was a stiff rap on the door which then opened without anyone replying to it, revealing the dead-tree figure of their guide. Behind her at her desk loomed Mrs ’Orrible. It was a depressing sight.

  The guide said, ‘Ah, so you are here. Did I not say to you to stay in your room until I come?’

  Mrs Harris was not tiddly, but just nicely relaxed. She replied, ‘Did you now, dearie? I suppose we must ’ave forgot. Me memory ain’t what it used to be.’

  Mr Rubin waved. ‘Come in! Come girls and have a drink.’ He waved the gin bottle. ‘Plenty more where this came from. I’m the fair-haired boy until those stupid bastards can make up their minds whether they want to dicker with me or not.’

  The two Russians exchanged glances in which there was both anger and b
afflement. Whatever was being cooked up by the KGB with regard to the two Englishwomen and instructions with regard to same, this scene was not included.

  The guide finally said, ‘Is not time for drinking. Is time for eating. Come, I take you. Good Russian dinner.’

  Violet said, ‘Maybe we’d better, Ada,’ and then to Rubin, ‘Thanks ever so.’

  Ada added, ‘It’s been a treat and we’re much obliged. I ’opes as you makes out wiv the you-know-what.’

  Mr Rubin waved them out of the door. ‘It’s been a pleasure. See you around sometime. I might be ’aving another look at His Nibs in his box over there to cheer me up.’

  The exit was managed with fair dignity.

  When they returned upstairs after their meal their guide was still with them. Another Cerberus was at the desk, Madame ’Orrible apparently having gone off duty. She was a nondescript Russian woman and merely handed over the key silently. Madame Praxevna Lelechka, who to Ada and Violet had become ‘Auntie Praxie’, hung about to Mrs Harris’s annoyance. She had sat at their table during dinner talking a great deal in what was obviously a direction to be ‘friendly’ with tourists, but Ada hadn’t been sure that in some manner they weren’t also being pumped.

  ‘Come,’ said the guide, ‘I take you.’