by Paul Gallico
For a moment Agronsky tried to bluff it out. ‘Birdseed? Paper? I don’t know what you are talking about. You must have gone out of your mind, my good woman.’
Nobody could challenge Mrs Harris’s veracity. ‘Come orf it,’ she snapped. ‘Out of me mind, am I? There ain’t a roll of loo paper in Moscow or for that matter the ’ole bloomin’ country and you ain’t the only ones. They’re queueing up for it in Japan and the Africans ain’t got nuffink but palm leaves. Don’t you fink I read the newspapers? So, you buy up the ’ole load we got lyin’ in our warehouses only you ain’t got the guts to say so and so you ship it in as birdseed.’
Sir Harold Barry now had to turn his back or explode with laughter.
‘Who told you this monstrous lie?’ croaked Agronsky.
‘Monstrous lie, me foot,’ said Ada. ‘Mr Rubin. He got drunk once too often and if you want me to I’ll give you the nyme of the birdseed company it’s comin’ in under. And I know all about that feller you shot and the others you’ve got in nick over this; the ’ole bloomin’ story.’
The Vice Foreign Minister once more wiped the sweat from his face, took a deep breath to regain command of himself and said, ‘Sir Harold, I should like to speak to you a moment privately. Could we perhaps …’
‘But of course,’ agreed the British First Secretary. ‘If you will come up to my office.’ He turned to the two ladies and said, ‘If you will excuse us for just a moment,’ and since his back was turned to Agronsky he was able to throw Mrs Harris the largest wink that any owl or man had ever achieved. As they left, for the first time Mrs Harris began to suspect that she had struck the mother lode.
Once there and the doors carefully closed, Sir Harold clicked a small switch by the wall.
Agronsky barked, ‘Please, no tape recorder.’
Sir Harold said, ‘Of course not. This is our switch that cuts off your tape recorder and the rest of the bugs you’ve installed.’
Agronsky nodded, satisfied, and the two men then sat down, lit cigarettes and smoked quietly for several minutes gathering their resources for the duel that each knew was about to take place.
Agronsky came to the point immediately. He said, ‘The woman, of course, cannot now be allowed to leave. You realize that, don’t you?’
Sir Harold nodded gravely and replied, ‘From your point of view, yes.’
‘Somehow they have come into the possession of a piece of information which if disseminated might do enormous damage to the prestige of the Soviet Union. It is cruel and heartless indeed but as a diplomat whose country will have done equally cruel and heartless things at other times you will understand. You know the KGB. Two women, travelling alone, they disappear …’
Sir Harold again nodded and said, ‘Yes, I can see that, but how do you plan to make me disappear?’
‘What?’ queried the Russian sharply.
‘Well, you see,’ replied Sir Harold mildly, ‘now I know it too. That makes, let me see, Mr Rubin, Mrs Harris, Mrs Butterfield and myself.’ He played with his cigarette for a moment contemplating it gravely before he continued. ‘Unless, my dear Anatole, you’re carrying a pistol in your pocket which I very much doubt and then in the best manner of the late Ian Fleming’s James Bond are prepared to produce it and shoot me dead on the spot. Within two minutes of your departure from here his Excellency the Ambassador will have to be informed. The coding secretary who prepares our messages will know. So will the decoder in London and after that the Foreign Secretary and all others would have the information. That makes quite a gathering in which the Mesdames Harris and Butterfield become rather insignificant except perhaps for the charwomen’s underground. You see of course by now, dear boy, that any talk of these two innocents vanishing is quite ridiculous.’
The Russian official second in command to the Soviet Foreign Minister had no gun in his hip pocket. Had he possessed one it was questionable whether he would have shot his friend, but quite possible. Lacking it he was at that moment reeling under the apprehension of the complications that faced the government from a few words spoken by a London cleaning woman.
Sir Harold stubbed out his cigarette and leaned back in his chair. He said, ‘Now that we have the thriller trash disposed of, Whitehall could put a stop to the sale which would not be a catastrophe for you. A leak to the press, however, would be. Birdseed. Whatever made you people hit upon something quite so utterly absurd?’
Agronsky had nothing to say. His agile mind was trying to cope with every contingency and at the same time searching frantically for a solution.
Sir Harold now switched to a pipe and, after an irritatingly slow motion imitation of a man who is quite comfortable filling it, said, ‘You will remember our discussion in the park, to the effect that abuse heaped on another nation by the foreign press is not worth the paper nor the ink nor the energy used to get one upon the other. But I do not think that your top boys would very much enjoy becoming the laughing stock of the world which indeed you would when the birdseed story was printed. Not even the Japanese, who are in the same fix as you are, have thought up anything quite so bizarre. And can you visualize the cartoonist’s field day not only in the British press but in Europe as well? Der Spiegel, Le Canard Enchaîné, La Stampa. Oh my dear fellow!’
The Vice Foreign Minister of all the Russias broke and like the good Communist that he was made the usual appeal for assistance from on high. He put his hand to his face and groaned, ‘Oh my God, what shall I do? I shall be blamed. The KGB will see to that.’
Sir Harold leaned over his desk and with the leisurely movement of a man who has nothing better to do extracted an oversize match from a box, set it afire and when he had lit his pipe and was satisfied that it was drawing properly said quietly, ‘Make a deal.’
The Russian’s hands came away from his face and he said, ‘What?’
‘Make a deal,’ Sir Harold repeated. ‘Send the girl back with Mrs Harris. In exchange she and her friend will keep their mouths shut. It’s just that simple.’
The Russian stared. Suddenly an avenue seemed open. He said, ‘But how could you trust – you said yourself – the charwomen’s underground …’
Sir Harold said, ‘Hadn’t you noticed? Mrs Harris is a woman of honour. If she gives her word she will keep it.’
For the first time colour came back into the face of Agronsky. He said, ‘Do you really think … ?’ and then ‘But what about you? You said yourself, you too now know. The Ambassador, the Foreign Office, your duties …’
Sir Harold took a long and contemplated drag at his chimney and then said, ‘If Mrs Harris’s plea failed to touch you, Anatole Pavlovich, it reached me. Send the girl back and I will give you my promise along with that of Mrs Harris and the Butterfield woman that what transpired here will go no further. The secret will be safe. You have the power and the courage. Within twelve hours you could arrange for an exit visa for Lisabeta Nadeshda.’
Agronsky’s mind revved up another hundred rpm’s. A short cut here, a word there, a fiddle there, quick, quick, quick, fast work and the visa could be produced. Then he had a black moment. He said, ‘The KGB …’
Sir Harold said, ‘Forget it. The KGB at the moment is rattled. It’s behind the pace. As our American friends would put it, they boobed and haven’t yet found out just where. If you work speedily the girl will be out of the country before they know what’s happened.’
The dark cloud passed from Agronsky.
The Adviser on Russian Affairs of the British Embassy in Moscow tapped some of the ashes from his pipe, arose and said, ‘Shall we go along and talk to the girls?’
16
Sir Harold picked up the telephone and said to a secretary, ‘Send the guide, Lisabeta Nadeshda Borovaskaya, to join Mrs Harris and her friend.’ And a few moments later Liz was there, shy, worried, confused and, when she saw Agronsky, was frightened and turned pale.
Mrs Butterfield was blubbing and Mrs Harris hardly dared look at her. She, too, was in a state of some confusion as to what
was going on.
Agronsky was casting quick looks about the reception room in which they were gathered and said to Sir Harold, ‘Is it safe here – I mean, well, you understand?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Sir Harold, ‘though we’re never very much worried about this room. However, we will have our little conference in the Turkish Bath.’
‘The what?’ said the Foreign Office man.
‘Well, it gets a little stuffy in there sometimes after a while and so we’ve named it the Turkish Bath, but it’s the one room in the Embassy that can’t be bugged. It’s been specially built. I think it floats on something or other, but the point is you can rely on it.’ They went down several corridors and passages and then entered a room through double doors that had a curious kind of corrugated threshold in between. The room was compact, comfortably furnished with a small conference table and chairs. Sir Harold closed and locked the inner door, pressed the small button beside it and a red light appeared over the top. He remarked cryptically, ‘We’re shooting,’ and then switched on an air-conditioning apparatus, ‘and soundproof,’ he said. ‘Sit.’
They did as bidden and Sir Harold, after a moment’s embarrassed silence, said, ‘Well, someone’s got to start this.’ He turned to the girl, Lisabeta. ‘If you were given permission to leave the country would you of your own free will like to go to London into what is known as political asylum, that is to say you would be accepted there as a resident and be allowed to live unmolested in freedom?’
The girl stared at him as though she could not believe what she had heard and indeed she couldn’t, and asked, ‘Can you mean it? Are you serious? Or is this just another form of torture?’
‘No,’ replied Sir Harold. ‘I mean it.’
An emotional dam burst within the girl and she cried, ‘Oh yes, yes, yes! Yes, please. Oh, I would give anything, anything.’
Mrs Harris had straightened up in her chair as alert as a terrier and her shrewd mind was working furiously. They weren’t gathered in this soundproof chamber in the British Embassy for nothing.
‘Another question,’ said Harold throwing a side glance at Agronsky. ‘Have you any relatives living in Russia? Who and where is your father?’
Liz looked at the Vice Foreign Minister for an instant, saw that his face was expressionless and replied. ‘He disappeared when – when I was three years old.’
Sir Harold made a rapid calculation. The girl must be in the neighbourhood of twenty-four. That would make it about 1952. A lot of people were disappearing in 1952. ‘And your mother?’
‘She died two years ago. I have an uncle who lives in Kiev, but he has never concerned himself with me. I doubt whether he even knows if I’m alive.’
‘Well,’ said Sir Harold, ‘you heard the girl, Minister. No coercion, no problems. I suggest you make your proposal.’
Agronsky now addressed Mrs Harris and said, ‘Sir Harold and I have had an opportunity to discuss your request and plea for this girl in private. It was indeed touching and under the circumstances we are prepared to let her go with you.’
With a cry of joy Liz threw herself upon Mrs Harris and was kissing the small lined face and saying, ‘You, you, it is you who have done it. Oh, I always knew you were a wonderful person. How can I thank …’
Mrs Harris gently disengaged herself from the girl and said, ‘ ’Ang on a minute, luv, until we ’ear wot the catch is.’
Agronsky now said to Mrs Harris, ‘There is one condition.’
Ada nodded and said, ‘There’s always one. Let’s ’ear it.’
There now took place something which the average person would have said was impossible, a meeting of the minds of a highly trained, highly educated, highly sophisticated diplomat and an uneducated and supposedly ignorant working-class widow. Of the five persons in the room there was one who knew nothing about the secret purchase and its ramifications. This was Liz. For a moment Agronsky appraised Mrs Harris, looked through her and into her and Mrs Harris looked right back. Agronsky said carefully, ‘What exactly do you know about the – what was it – mentioned a little while ago? Yes, I remember – birdseed.’
Oh yes, they were in harmony, the two minds, for everything that Mrs Harris had seen and heard since she had been swept into the Embassy now clicked and she replied, ‘Nuffink.’
‘Nothing at all?’
Mrs Harris said, ‘I can’t remember the subject bein’ referred to.’
‘And your friend here?’
Mrs Harris looked over fondly at Mrs Butterfield who had now enveloped Liz to her bosom, was rocking her and saying, ‘Now, now, don’t take on so. Didn’t you ’ear? Everything’s goin’ to be all right. You’re comin’ ’ome wif us.’
Mrs Harris said, ‘You needn’t worry about ’er.’
‘And you?’ asked Agronsky, and in his breast was feeling the most curiously delightful connection between himself, his own inner self and the little woman sitting opposite him who knew and understood exactly his meaning and what was going on.
Mrs Harris said, ‘I give me word.’
Agronsky said, ‘I can trust you,’ and Ada, looking squarely into his broad face, said quietly, ‘Are you arskin’ me or tellin’ me?’
The Russian let out a long sigh and replied, ‘Telling you. The girl will be allowed to go home with you.’
There occurred another damp interlude in which Liz, upon her knees before Mrs Harris, clutched at her, crying, ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it. Oh, I’ve never been so happy.’
‘You may believe it all right, luv,’ said Mrs Harris and stroked the girl’s hair for a moment, her own heart full, before she added slightly grimly, ‘I’ve got the password.’
Agronsky sighed again. Could he trust that common, ordinary woman not to betray him once she was safely in England? And regarding her again he knew that she was neither common nor ordinary but a warm and gallant human being, a valiant fighter in the battle for survival. He said, ‘We will have Lisabeta Nadeshda Borovaskaya at the airport at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.’
Sir Harold said, with just the slightest emphasis upon the first word, ‘We will have Miss Borovaskaya at the airport at eleven tomorrow along with Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield. You just bring along the visa and passport.’
Agronsky smiled at his friend and said, ‘Very well. Actually, if I were in your situation I should do the same.’ He suddenly felt that sweet feeling of lightness, happiness and relief in his breast. The deal, on his own initiative, might be a black mark against him but on the other hand when the details reached the top via the Foreign Minister he knew that the hardheads in the government would realize that he had had no choice and had done the right thing.
Freed now momentarily from the cast iron suit of bureaucratic armour Anatole Pavlovich Agronsky said, ‘You know, you are really a most remarkable woman, Mrs Harris, and I am happy to have known you. By a set of extraordinary circumstances you were in control of a situation which would have affected the reputation of the Soviet Union and yet you made no attempt to use this information for your own advantage or even that of this girl here. When the opportunity presented itself you asked nothing for yourself but only for the happiness of two young people. Is there nothing that you would like for your own, some appropriate little gift or memento? Now that I have heard what has happened to you since your arrival I realize that you have been very much put upon and I feel ashamed for us.’
Ada Harris was sitting up straight and replied levelly, ‘Nuffink, thank you sir. Look what you’ve done already,’ and she pointed to Liz’s head in her lap, still sobbing with joy and relief. ‘Wot you’ve done for me ’ere is the greatest thing that ever ’appened to me and I’ll never forget it or you neither as long as I live, and I’m sayin’ thank you.’
And then suddenly a most curious expression came over the face which a moment before had been so full of almost the grandeur of dignity. The old mischievous, apple-cheeked, twinkle-eyed Mrs Harris reappeared and she said, ‘Begging your pardon,
sir, come to think of it, and since you’ve ’ad the kindness to make the offer, there is somefink I’d like.’
‘Ah, good,’ said the Vice Foreign Minister of all the Russias. ‘What is it?’
‘A fur coat,’ replied Mrs Harris.
Agronsky was conscious of a sudden chill of disappointment and felt that he had fallen victim to a fantasy which had elevated Mrs Harris slightly too high in his estimation. In offering her a gift he had not known exactly what was in his mind. It would not have been shoddy or cheapjack, but rather something small, valuable and of beauty and the sudden demand for a fur coat shook him. There was a certain greediness and vulgarity about it. It made him suppress a sigh and the thought Oh well, what did you expect? In the end they’re all alike. He said, ‘I see. A fur coat.’
Mrs Harris said, ‘It’s not for me, sir, but for me friend ’ere. I s’pose it was all my fault. She’s been wantin’ a fur coat for years, she ’as, and savin’ up for one but the stores keep gettin’ ahead of ’er. Inflytion, they calls it. Every time she thought she ’ad the money the price was twenty quid up. Well, sir, it was me persuaded ’er she could buy a fur coat cheap in Russia like it said in them little booklets you get out with all the beautiful photygraphs and all the things you could buy in that special store with foreign money. She didn’t want to come on this trip because she was frightened, but I said, “Look ’ere, Vi, ’ere’s yer chance of a lifetime to get your fur coat cheap. It’s the Russians have got the most furs of anybody anywhere.” But, gor blimey, when we got ’ere – the prices. ’Oo’s got that many rubbles I’d like to know, for what they cost? Two and three thousand quid! That’s naughty, ain’t it, but then a lot of things you say in them pamphlets you wouldn’t want to swear to on a stack of Bibles, would you? And after all that ’appened after we got ’ere and what was done to me friend by the perlice.’
She hesitated for a moment as though struck by another thought and said, ‘It ain’t nothin’ like them in that shop I’d be arsking for ’er, but just the kind maybe a girl like Liz would buy for ’erself ’ere when it got cold in the winter-time.’
