Russian Hide-and-Seek

by Kingsley Amis

  ‘Sir, sir, there’s a crowd of soldiers outside. I think you’d better-’

  ‘It’s all right, my good man,’ said Alexander blandly. ‘They’re my chaps.’

  At the door he found to his mild surprise that he had taken his cap off; he could not remember having done so. On his reappearance Ulmanis called to the men to tighten girths and be ready to march, and Warsky gently shooed away the small crowd of children who had gathered to sit in the saddles and to beg £10 pieces. Alexander announced a tactical exercise for the return journey, naming a map-reference as assembly-point; no prizes were offered for first arrival there. Within a minute the churchyard was empty and the sound of hooves had faded. Suddenly the note of a bell came from the steeple, was repeated three or four times and then ceased, and the children on their way home wondered what it was.

  7

  When his day’s work was done, Ensign Petrovsky walked slowly across the park to ‘B’ Squadron mess. This was a small farmhouse built about the middle of the nineteenth century. On the ground floor there was a dining-room just big enough for the seven officers and up to three guests, a comfortable, low-ceilinged ante-room with a small bar in one corner, and an extensive kitchen and attachments. The upper floors provided good accommodation for the squadron commander, Major Yakir, and for his second-in-command, and accommodation for five subalterns. As one who slept out of mess except when too drunk or lazy or cross with his family or disinclined to face the weather to ride home, Alexander had the worst bedroom, according to him at his own wish, but in fact the major had so ruled without consulting him.

  This evening, as on all such evenings, his standard-dress uniform, the military equivalent of a lounge suit, had been laid out on his cot by a brother-officer’s batman in return for money. He showered in the tiny second-floor bathroom, put on the uniform and went down to the ante-room, feeling, after his varied and strenuous day, as well physically as he had ever felt in his life. His mental and emotional states were hardly if at all more complicated: Theodore Markov was coming over that evening – was due shortly, in fact – and he knew he would be able to think of plenty of things to say to him.

  A pleasant breeze was fluttering the blue-and-white gingham curtains of the ante-room. As Alexander came in, a handsome dark-haired young man of about his own age looked up from the long chintz-covered sofa that faced the window, his expression changing from a sullen gloom to a rather rigid cheerfulness. There was an empty glass on the arm of the sofa beside him.

  ‘Good evening, Victor, how are you making, old chap?’

  ‘Hallo - would you very kindly get me a vodka? I’ll pay you for it. The major kicked up a bit of a fuss about my mess bill last month.’

  ‘Kind words of good advice would be wasted on you, would they?’

  ‘Completely, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Then I’ll save my breath.’ Alexander turned to the under-corporal mess waiter. ‘A vodka and a beer.’ Tonight was not an occasion for drinking deep. When the time came he signed the chit, carried a glass of dill-flavoured Ochotnitscha across to the other officer and took a thirsty pull at his own lager. This resembled only very generally the sometime product of the Northampton brewery whence it came, a famous drink made to a Danish formula under Danish direction and enjoyed all over what had been the kingdom. ‘We’ll call that six hundred quid.’

  ‘I’ll give it to you tomorrow; I seem to have left my cash upstairs. And it’ll be easier to settle up all at once.’

  ‘What? Oh, you mean you’d like another one.’

  ‘For the time being, yes.

  ‘Is this just on general principles, or has something out of the ordinary come up?’

  ‘Both, really,’ said Victor, at once reverting to his gloomy manner. ‘All days stink, but today stank specially.’

  ‘I thought all days did that too.’

  ‘That pig Ryumin – he told me this morning that if I didn’t pull myself together, as he chose to call it, he’d apply for a posting. I’d been giving him more or less a free hand with the troop, I thought that’s what somebody in his position would like, after all he’s been a sergeant longer than I’ve been commissioned, and now he says the troop is the worst mounted in the regiment and it’s all my fault. And before he’d finished one of my corporals came into the office and he didn’t stop.

  ‘That was very wrong of him.’

  ‘It was all very wrong of him. Dear God, perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps he was quite right. I can’t wait to get away from this vile country.’

  ‘Are you joking? It’s a beautiful country. Just look out of the window.’

  ‘Everybody’s miserable.’

  ‘Nonsense, that’s just how you’re feeling yourself at the moment. When you’re in the right mood you’ll see there’s nothing wrong with the place at all.’

  ‘Alexander, not everything done and said is because of someone’s mood. Sergeants don’t have moods.’

  ‘Of course they don’t; what do you think makes them into sergeants? With us, you’ll find moods are about as good a way of looking at things as any. You’ve finished that one too, I see. Why not have another? On me this time. – Ah, Boris, you’ve turned up at exactly the right moment as usual. What can I get you to drink?’

  The newcomer was thirty years old, with close-cropped hair and a face that would have served unimprovably as the model for the Russian entry in some illustrated catalogue of racial types. Each epaulette of his standard-dress jacket, which was of inferior cut and material to those of the other two, bore a pair of nickel bars enclosing a rhomb, for this was the lieutenant-commissary of the squadron. He answered Alexander’s question in a deep, deliberate voice, and hesitantly. ‘It’s most kind of you, but do you think you should? The major doesn’t approve of treating.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t really mind as long as it isn’t flaunted in front of him. Come on.

  ‘Oh, very well. I beg your pardon, Alexander, I mean of course thank you very much. I’ll have a beer.’

  ‘Two beers, corporal, and one Ochotnitscha. Large. -Actually this is early for you, isn’t it, Boris?’

  ‘I suppose it is, yes.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be. What I mean by that is that you ought to give yourself more time off; I’ve told you before.’

  ‘I’m grateful that you bother about me, but this is just when I can’t, with George on leave.’ The commissary referred to the second-in-command.

  ‘No, you can’t. I think everybody else I know could quite easily. It’s a good job the army’s too stupid to realise what you’re worth, or you’d shoot up to colonel-general and we’d never see you again.’

  Boris sent Alexander a devoted look that made Victor want to kick them both. The trouble was that Alexander would kick back painfully and Boris would not kick at all, would do nothing except look noble and guileless. Luckily there was no time for these feelings to rankle very much, because just then one of the camp guard brought a guest to the front door of the mess building.

  In a moment Theodore had come into the ante-room, trying with fair success to hide his feelings of constraint. By nature he was quite at ease in most social encounters, but he had discovered early that the Commission aroused little in the way of amiability or respect among the civilians of the administration, and had not yet had enough experience of the military to know whether they were any better disposed. As it soon turned out, none of the three officers to whom Alexander introduced him – the third had followed him in almost directly – had as much as heard of his and his superiors’ business. That third, in his mid-twenties and already running to fat, made a rather disagreeable impression with his loose mouth and habit of twisting it in a smile or sneer for no perceptible reason. He was called Leo, Alexander alleged, adding that it was all first names in the mess, except of course for the major, and shortly afterwards that, with one man on leave and another serving as officer of the day, the company was now complete, except again for the major. Neither of these additions proved fully accurate, for when Maj
or Yakir in due course arrived he had with him another civilian whose name, first or last, Theodore for one never learned. Host and guest were remarkably similar to look at, both short and stout, both all but bald, both heavily moustached, guest however blemished on the right cheek by a purple birthmark that host lacked. Neither seemed to have much to say to the four younger men.

  At dinner, Theodore was placed between Alexander and the ensign called Victor. Asked how he had made the journey from Northampton, he answered truthfully enough (though perhaps in needless detail) that he had come on one of the power-assisted bicycles scantily available to members of the Commission for recreational purposes. A discussion of fuel policies and prospects naturally followed. Alexander committed himself to the opinion that the new synthetics were proving ruinously expensive to produce, that Moscow was at its wits’ end and that mechanical transport would soon run down, perhaps even by the end of the decade, and Victor agreed with him. All this was said quite roundly and openly, as was natural, even to be expected; nobody thought anything of such talk these days. Actually it might have been that Victor did not so much agree as find it convenient to behave in one way or another while he drank. On his other side, Leo seemed to be thinking along these lines, to judge by the contemptuous glances he sent his colleague’s way, unless these were in some way mechanical. Boris the commissary, on Major Yakir’s left, said little and drank less; the major was silent, nodding now and then at what his guest, inaudibly to the others, was saying. When the mess waiters had taken away the dishes, Leo said in a loud teasing voice,

  ‘Does anybody fancy a small portion of gambling tonight?’

  It was instantly clear to Theodore that this remark was not to be taken at its face value and that its true meaning must at all costs be kept from the major. A glance at Alexander showed him to favour saying nothing. Victor spoke after a short silence.

  ‘All right, I’ll give you a game if no one else will.’

  ‘Are you sure you really feel like a flutter?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Very well, on your own head be it. Alexander, are you going to take a hand?’

  ‘No thank you, Leo, I have my guest to consider.’

  ‘He’s more than welcome to join in.’

  ‘I couldn’t allow it, he has an appalling head for cards.’

  ‘I suppose we must let him off, then. But you’re with us, Boris?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I have some things to clear up before the morning.’

  ‘You always have some confounded excuse. I reckon you’re afraid. Of losing your money.

  ‘You know it isn’t that,’ said Boris in a hurt voice.

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Victor indignantly. ‘The thing is that they don’t gamble in Kursk, and what they don’t do in Kursk must never be done anywhere. That’s it, isn’t it, Boris?’

  For a moment Boris’s heavy features showed him to be on the edge of changing his mind. Then he shook his head energetically. ‘No, I must go and work.’

  ‘Spoil-sport,’ said Victor. ‘Well, it’s just you and me then, Leo.’

  The major looked up at that point and said, ‘You may take tea,’ evidently a form of words permitting junior officers to leave the table.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Good night, sir.’

  Leo, Victor and Boris rose, clicked their heels and departed. Theodore had started to follow their example, but Alexander put a hand on his arm, saying they had some wine to finish. After a minute or two Major Yakir and his companion also left and Alexander dismissed the remaining waiter.

  ‘Well?’ asked Theodore.

  ‘When it’s really dark, Victor and Leo will go outside and shoot at each other with old-fashioned revolvers.’

  ‘Shoot at… At what range’?’

  ‘Oh; thirty metres? Twenty metres? It’s not certain death at any one time – you don’t show yourself, not deliberately at least: you call out and the other man fires at your voice. But they’ll go on till somebody’s killed, one of them or a passer-by.’

  ‘Where do they do this? The sound of the-’

  ‘Silencers. I went with them once; I thought it was a joke. It was no joke. There were four of us, me and those two and the other subaltern, the one that’s on duty. The first time I shouted I was standing at the corner of a building in deep shadow. One bullet hit the wall beside me and a splinter cut my cheek and I heard another go past about shoulder-high and less than a metre away. I started running and I didn’t stop till I was back in the mess. If that’s cowardice then I’m a coward.’

  Theodore shook his head. ‘Only a fool goes looking for danger.’

  ‘You may be wondering why they don’t kill somebody every night if the shots they got off at me were average. I was so naïve I hadn’t realised that when they put you on your honour to keep stock-still after you’ve shouted you aren’t meant to take it too literally. But when I found out my mistake I didn’t try it again. I’m worried about Boris. He’s just the sort to take it literally for however long is sufficient. Of course they may never talk him into it, his training and temperament are dead against anything of the sort, but he has this obsession about being smart and dashing which Victor works away on. Victor-he’ll be out there soon, blazing away. At least Leo’s sober. Which is worse, I suppose.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell your major?’

  ‘They put me on my honour for that as well, before they explained the game. Some game!’

  ‘Anonymously?’

  ‘They’d still know it was me. I’m worried about the major too, in a different way. You don’t know him, but he has plenty to say for himself as a rule, and he seems to like all of us, even Leo. Well, you saw him keeping his mouth tight shut, and I don’t know whether you noticed the look he gave me when he said good night, but it wasn’t friendly, whatever else it was.

  ‘Perhaps he resented having to put up with that guest of his.’

  ‘Poor Major Yakir,’ said Alexander. ‘He’s always having to return hospitality he never wanted in the first place.’

  Just as he finished speaking the door opened abruptly and the man with the birthmark came in and walked straight across the room to where he had been sitting at table. As he moved he spoke in a monotonous voice and with a perceptible accent, Theodore thought Czech or Polish. ‘I am sorry to come bursting in on you like this, gentlemen, but I foolishly left my spectacle-case behind, at least I think I did. Ah yes, here it is under the table by my chair. What a relief. And now I apologise for this intrusion and I leave you in peace and again I wish you good night.’

  ‘Good night, sir.’

  The door shut with some emphasis.

  ‘Do you think he heard anything?’ asked Theodore.

  ‘What if he did? Let him fuck his mother.’

  ‘By all means, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t be the end of him.’

  ‘What?’ said Alexander rather crossly.

  Without answering, Theodore got to his feet, overturned the chair lately occupied by the man in question and began closely examining its legs and the underside of its seat.

  ‘How romantic.’ Alexander sounded amused now. ‘Enemy agents planting concealed microphones. Or is it time-bombs? It really takes me back. Admit it, Theodore: you made the last part of your journey here by parachute.’

  ‘It’s no joke, I’m afraid. There is a risk that Vanag’s men are taking an interest in me, a slight one, but it’s there. Well, this thing’s clean.’

  ‘What about the table?’

  ‘He didn’t touch the table, I was watching. I’d better check the floor.’ And Theodore went down on his hands and knees and peered at the rug.

  Alexander sniggered. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t take this seriously. Hidden microphones in a-’

  ‘Can you suggest what he was doing if he wasn’t planting something?’

  ‘Fetching his spectacle-case.’

  ‘Don’t talk balls.’ Apparently the rug was clean too. ‘All right, fetching something else that wasn’t his sp
ectacle-case.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Theodore, frowning and staring.

  ‘It’s the only other possibility.’

  ‘But what could he have been fetching?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s your department. Why might Vanag’s men be interested in you?’

  ‘Last night a girl in my section was arrested. I know her because she’s in my section. Nothing more. What she’s supposed to have done, whether she did it, even who arrested her – very likely the ordinary civilian police, not the Directorate at all – everything else: no information. But there is that possibility. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘I see.’

  Theodore produced his pipe and looked at it without friendliness. ‘I must give this up; it’s much too expensive. Are you the junior officer here?’

  ‘Yes, to Victor by six weeks,’ said Alexander in a serious, literal-minded tone, one he maintained when answering subsequent questions. His manner was that of a witness intent on establishing the truth and altogether without parti pris. If he suspected that some of the information he gave was already known, he betrayed no sign.

  ‘But you have men under your command?’

  ‘Yes, so have we all except Boris. A Guards squadron is in effect a double squadron, with four troops. 5 Troop is the senior; Leo’s lot. That’s a rifle troop, though what they carry isn’t exactly rifles. 6 and 7 are the same.’

  ‘Which is yours?’

  ‘8. 8 is a cannon troop; there’s one in every squadron. But what we… have isn’t exactly cannon.’

  ‘What, then?’ asked Theodore, pressing down the tobacco in his pipe.

  ‘Projectile-launchers, eight of them, designed to operate singly or in pairs. They can destroy any visible man-made object, and quite selectively too, with the improved sonar sight.’

  ‘My dear Alexander, should you be telling me this?’

  ‘Oh yes. If there were such a person as somebody wondering whether it might be a good idea to fight us or neutralise us, which I’m sure there isn’t, it would be very useful to us for him to know the fire-power he’d be facing. It’s official policy not to be excessively discreet in these matters.’