Russian Hide-and-Seek

by Kingsley Amis

  ‘What if I were such a person? Mightn’t I try to steal one or more of your contrivances?’

  ‘If you succeeded, which would be very unlikely indeed, you would still be unable to load, aim and fire it, because you haven’t had the necessary special training, which is extremely hard to come by. You couldn’t even arm one of our projectiles.’

  ‘That’s a relief. The whole thing is a responsibility, though, and you the junior officer. Was it because of…?’ said Theodore, and stopped.

  Alexander laughed heartily. ‘My father’s position? Well, in a way, though it’s complicated. There may be a shake-up soon, if Victor finally decides to get himself posted home.’

  ‘Is it as easy as that? A home posting on demand?’

  ‘After two years, yes, virtually. I’ll be eligible myself in a couple of months. But then I have a home posting already:

  England is my home.’

  ‘Then you’ve no desire at all to go back.’

  ‘For me it wouldn’t be back, Theodore. I’ve spent no more than a quarter of my life in Russia, and most of that was either as a young child or on visits that were too short for me to settle down. You don’t settle down anywhere when you’re being trained. I’m a stranger there; I have no responsibilities there.’

  ‘You speak as if you have responsibilities here, or…’

  ‘I consider I have. All of us have, by virtue of the position we hold in this country.’

  ‘You consider in other words that you owe the English something. I wonder how much, and how far you’d go to see that that debt was repaid.’

  ‘It’s not easy to be definite about the first part; you can’t measure an obligation. But perhaps what I say about the rest of it will be enough. I’d go as far as might prove necessary.

  Theodore struggled to control his breathing. A delicious excitement, compounded of joy and fear, possessed him. In one sense this was the highest point of his life so far; in another, he would have given everything good that might happen to him in the future not to be where he now was. The heat had gone; very soon it would be quite dark and, presumably, Leo and Victor would go out and start their shooting. But they were a long way from Theodore’s mind; he stared at the patched yellowish tablecloth, the wine-bottle with its would-be elegant label, his glass, empty, Alexander’s glass, still a quarter full, the purple arc where the base of Victor’s unsteadily-held glass had rested. These sights had a portentous quality, as if something – an explosion, an earthquake -were about to change them altogether, or more like the furnishings of a dream, which themselves carry such significance. It was half a minute before Theodore realised that he was waiting for some sound – a footfall, the striking of a clock – to mark the stillness. This idea seemed to him absurd, puffed-up; he started to speak at once.

  ‘You remember when we were talking last night and I was trying to get you to admit you’d fucked Mrs Korotchenko, and I made you swear by the honour of…’

  ‘Of my country and my regiment and my family. So?’

  ‘You swore falsely then. But over the question of being put on your honour not to tell your major about these shooting affairs – well, you haven’t. You implied that you’d like to, but couldn’t think of a way of doing it that didn’t point to you. Do you really expect me to believe that? Somebody with your low cunning, as you called it? No, you’ve kept quiet because you’d given your word of honour.’

  ‘What of it?’ said Alexander irritably.

  ‘Just, how do you resolve the contradiction? Not caring about the honour of your country and the others but very tender about your own.

  ‘Of course, you’re an intellectual, aren’t you, Theodore? I keep forgetting. It takes one of your sort to see a contradiction in what an ordinary person would regard as a simple difference. Swearing falsely by my country’s honour doesn’t hurt my country; it doesn’t even get to hear about it. I benefit to the extent that I encourage belief in my assertion and no one suffers. But if I’m on my honour not to tell what I know and then I tell, people suffer – from severe disciplinary action -and at best I suffer loss of esteem. Which is different, you see.’

  ‘Yes, I do see.’ Theodore had been listening so attentively that his pipe had gone out; he relit it. ‘I see that it’s very plausible. Till I remember another difference, between the chance of losing my bars of rank and the no less likely chance, in the end, of losing half my head. Then I see there’s an inconsistency somewhere after all.’

  ‘Are you saying I ought to go to the major in spite of everything?’

  ‘No I’m saying that for you to be put on your honour overrides everything. So I don’t think you were quite honest with me when you said just now that it was because you were naïve that you stood still after calling out to Leo and the others. It was really because you’d been put on your honour not to move.’ Busy with his pipe, he missed the oblique look and very slight smile that Alexander gave. ‘And you withdrew at that point because you’ve have had to go on standing still the next time and the next, if there’d been a next. Very sensible behaviour.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish, man. Listen, I’ve just thought of something you said last night. After you’d had me up before your court of inquiry about Mrs Korotchenko you congratulated me for something like steadiness under fire – thank you very much -and also apologised for having had to do it. I forgot to ask you what the devil you meant by that.’

  ‘You’ll soon see. Now, Ensign Petrovsky, I put you on your honour not to tell anybody what I’m going to tell you. I know already, having carefully tested you, that you’re very resistant to ordinary interrogation, no one of course being in the least resistant to extraordinary interrogation. All I ask is your word not to say anything voluntarily.’

  ‘You have it. You also have my congratulations, not for steadiness under fire but for making me believe in that arrested girl for nearly a minute.’

  ‘No longer? Now let me begin with a question. You said a moment ago that to repay the English what you feel you owe them you would go as far as might be necessary. If killing became necessary, would you lend your hand to that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alexander without hesitation.

  ‘Including your friends here? Including the major? Including your men?’

  This time it took a little longer. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very good. I now invite you to… What was that?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘It probably wasn’t anything. I’m sorry, Alexander, but I have an aversion to going into these matters except in private; it’s become second nature. Is there anywhere else we could go? Your bedroom’?’

  ‘My bedroom is overcrowded with just me in it. We could… Ah, I know the very place.’

  ‘Before we go, could I possibly have a drink? A serious drink? I can’t think why, but I suddenly feel like one.’

  The ante-room was deserted. Alexander poured two glasses of Johnnie Walker Black Label and made out the chit. He stood facing Theodore, who winked and said resonantly,

  ‘Welcome to the Northampton Music Society!’

  ‘Success to all its concerts!’

  They drained their glasses and, as if drilled beforehand, looked at each other, hesitated briefly and threw them into the empty hearth. They then embraced.

  ‘Ought we to have done that?’ asked Theodore, nodding at the scattered fragments. ‘Your servants aren’t going to have much fun clearing it up.’

  ‘Oh, they have a couple of English chaps in for all that kind of thing,’ said Alexander, picking up a pair of cushions from the sofa. ‘Come along – let’s have the rest of your story.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Outside. Where else?’

  ‘I’ve just thought we stand a chance of getting shot if we go out there.’

  ‘Not near the mess. If they’re going to shoot anybody, on the whole they’d be quite satisfied if it wasn’t Major Yakir having an outdoor pee.’

  In the open the air was still and pleasantly war
m and carried a faint odour of dry vegetation. The moon shone brightly and up and down the park windows were lit up, many of them uncurtained and shining out on to the nearby grass. Three uniformed figures were running down the steps of the main house, their footfalls on the stone just audible at this distance. Alexander led the way to a small Doric temple built nearly two centuries earlier and closely copied from a Hellenistic original at Pergamum in Asia Minor. The designer had made two visits there to ensure the accuracy of his reproduction.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Theodore as they passed between the central columns of the portico.

  ‘Some kind of summer-house, I imagine, It’s certainly the place to come on hot days.’

  Indeed, pleasant warmth almost at once gave place to pleasant coolness. A couple of metres inside the temple proper the floor rose in a high step, high enough to provide, with the necessary aid of a cushion, an unluxurious seat. The two were in shadow here, but strips of moonlit pavement lay all about them. What they would have called weeds, what others would once have called camomile and pimpernel, grew in the spaces between the stones.

  ‘From what you were saying to your father,’ began Theodore, ‘I gather you want England to be given back to the English in one piece, so to speak, without any phases or probationary periods or conditions; is that correct?’

  ‘Yes – unless it’s done like that it’ll never be done at all.’

  ‘Good, that’s the essential first step. So they must be put in full political control at a stroke. And someone must put them there. Someone must take the power away from where it is now and give it to the English. And whoever does that must be Russian – the English can’t come to power by themselves; they’ll follow, but at the beginning they can’t lead. It was with this in mind that Group 31 was founded in Moscow four years ago. Its first task was to get as many of its men as possible into the Cultural Commission and to try to win over the remainder. This has been spectacularly successful. Today two-thirds of the personnel are either of us or actively on our side, including all the section heads and deputies, and the remainder, including Commissioner Mets, are not expected to give any trouble.’

  ‘Are you saying that the whole Commission and the whole of the New Cultural Policy for England are nothing but a front for a revolutionary movement?’ Alexander sounded sceptical.

  ‘Certainly not, it’s all quite genuine. The two go together. We’ll go on with our work after we’ve put the English in control.’

  ‘If they want you to.’

  ‘I’m sure they will. They must. If I may continue, we’ve infiltrated all the departments of the administration. The civilian police have been particularly responsive – they’re underpaid, they get no privileges and of course they hate Director Vanag – and their support will make our job almost easy. They’ll simply arrest everybody on the other side who matters.’

  ‘What would you bet that Vanag’s men haven’t got your side infiltrated to hell?’

  ‘I thought it was your side too, Alexander.’

  ‘I’m sorry: our side. I have to ask these…’

  ‘No, no, you’re absolutely right to be cautious. Anything’s possible, but the tentative view of our leadership is that no infiltration has been suffered as yet. All right, you can’t prove a negative; even so, there is one striking and suggestive fact. What does a wise man do when he’s moving about among his enemies? He keeps looking over his shoulder to see if he’s being followed. Well, we’ve been looking over our shoulders, and there’s nobody there. Not one of us has noticed the slightest sign of unwonted interest in him, as it might be hearing by chance that somebody has been round the place asking questions. And we think we know the reason. Naturally we’ve been keeping a close watch on certain of Vanag’s men and listening to what they say in the pubs. The position seems to be that they’re so disaffected that if they should notice anything of what’s going on they wouldn’t follow it up and they wouldn’t pass the information to their superiors, who would only use it to advance themselves. Something of the sort may already have…’

  He stopped speaking as a sudden uproar broke out in one of the buildings further down towards the road. What sounded very much like female voices rose in protest, in mutual hostility, in fury; male ones remonstrated, tried to pacify, tried to quieten. Shrieks followed, then a bump as something fell and a crash as something broke. Men began to shout.

  ‘Are they allowed to bring women in?’ asked Theodore.

  ‘Certainly not, but nothing’s done about enforcing that rule unless something like this happens, a case of the old army don’t-let-me-catch-you understanding. But now I’m afraid the guard’ll have to intervene.’

  The noise continued, though not so loud or so near that it would have hindered their conversation, had they wanted to resume it; instead, both watched intently. The resemblance between what they saw and a stage performance was increased by their view of it framed between two of the pillars of the temple and by the intensity of the moonlight, which seemed to have grown since they had come out of doors. Behind the upstairs windows gesticulating human figures, some of them partly nude, came into view, milled about or grappled with one another, and vanished. Once, the shape of a man moved rapidly backwards across the entire breadth of the visible space, no doubt as the result of some blow. Sound effects included the smashing of glass, twice repeated, and a periodic thumping like the driving-in of nails with a heavy mallet. Little groups of men from other buildings were strolling over for a closer view, and there was something of an audience when four of the guard arrived under an NCO and shortly afterwards dragged off three women, all by now weeping loudly. The NCO stayed a moment to bawl promises of retribution at the occupants of the offending house, and then he too was gone.

  ‘What will happen to those girls?’

  Alexander made a disdainful noise. ‘Girls? They’ll be thrown out of the main gate when the, guard have finished with them.’

  ‘That seems a bit harsh.’

  ‘Not a bit of it; they’re lucky it’s a fine night.’

  ‘How will they get home?’

  ‘They’ll probably pick up a horse-bus. Why all the concern? They’re animals. How do I know? Because those fellows down there are no better and no worse than my fellows, and any female who’ll fuck any of my fellows has got to be an animal – anyway I hope she is for her sake. You were saying, about the… revolution.’ He brought the word out with an air of surprise.

  ‘Yes.’ It took Theodore nearly half a minute to collect his thoughts. ‘Well… on the night of 21st September, the last night of the Festival of Culture, when there’ll be celebrations and attention will generally be distracted, we strike. We seize the broadcasting station, the post office, the administration buildings and the other nerve centres. And we arrest Vanag and all his staff and other prominent figures, including I’m afraid your father, but he’ll be well treated and very soon confined only to his house and its grounds, which is no extreme hardship.’

  ‘No great matter if it were. Meanwhile I’m subduing the rest of the regiment single-handed. Lucky you happened to find me, isn’t it?’

  ‘We had and have something up our sleeves for the whole regiment, including you. Just before we move a fake message from London reaches your colonel telling him to confine all troops to quarters. At the same time we cut his communications with Northampton. Then at H-Hour two of us release TK into the park.’

  ‘Almighty God! How did you get hold of that? And the impellor?’

  ‘From Moscow,’ said Theodore lightly. ‘We’re constantly in receipt of deliveries of cultural equipment and stores.’

  ‘You know, Theodore, if the 4th were the only troops in England the thing might conceivably work.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so taken up with our local movement I forgot to tell you. We here are just part of an organisation that covers the whole country, the whole EDR. Surely you knew at least that the Festival was a national affair.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. I didn’t k
now anything about any of it. And if there’d been the slightest whisper in the regiment I’d have heard.’

  ‘The Guards’ morale is known to be high. And in rural districts like this one the military are isolated, impossible to mix with on any scale. It was decided that outside the larger towns, where circumstances are different, the safe course was to leave them alone and then neutralise them.’

  ‘With certain exceptions.’

  ‘You’re special, Alexander, you must admit. Son of the Controller, lover of the Deputy-Director’s wife – when are you seeing her again, by the way?’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon.

  ‘We’ll come back to her in a minute – and now somebody with the means of blowing up half England. We have to have you.

  ‘What would you like me to blow up?’

  ‘One can’t say yet. You must just be ready, prepared. You’ll be able to lay hands on some of those projectiles?’

  ‘With everybody else knocked unconscious for twelve hours I should be able to manage it, yes.’

  ‘What chance have they got of reaching their insufflators in time?’

  ‘None whatsoever. One whiff and you collapse, so suddenly that there’s often a high casualty-rate from men injuring themselves as they fall. Anyway, that’s what the manual says.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  After a brief pause, Alexander said, ‘Of course, fighting off the entire Russian army and air force the next day will stretch me somewhat.’

  ‘There I go again. I should have said much earlier that there’s to be a change of government in Moscow timed to coincide with all this.’

  ‘A coup in Moscow? Sweet Jesus! We’ll be having the Martians in next.’

  ‘A change of government is how it was described to me. The new leaders will be favourable to an autonomous, neutralised England. That’s all I know.’

  There was a longer pause. Alexander could be heard rubbing his cheek or jaw. In the distance a pane of glass broke suddenly and violently.