Cold Blood

by James Fleming

  He glared at me, his eyes festering with disbelief.

  Suddenly there was a terrific racket below. A lorry had broken down and was preventing another of the usual black saloons from getting in. It was sorted out with a lot of shouting. Then the driver of the car, even though there were only fifty yards to go, put on maximum revs in order to draw attention to himself and to make people leap aside.

  The car door flew open, kicked from inside. A soldier put up his rifle in alarm. “Password! Now!”

  It was a thin, youngish man who came sliding out, galoshes first. He stood up—tall, six foot four, let’s say—planted a black fedora on his black hair and said in an American style of Russian, “Christ, Ivan, I haven’t a clue. At midday, when I went out, it was chyerf—worm in English, which I thought a good choice for a revolution. But midday”—he looked at his watch— “that was a lifetime ago. Between then and now we’ve changed the world... Jee-sus... Can you believe it, Ivan, that we’ve changed every number in the equation? It’s a goddam miracle, that’s what it is.”

  “Password, papers,” said the soldier stolidly.

  The man flapped a reporter’s notebook at him. “That’s all I’ve got for papers, the rest are in the hotel. Reed’s my name, representing the finest socialist newspaper in the United States. That should be enough for you.”

  He put the notebook back and with one hand braced against the car roof, leaned down and said to the person inside, “Here we are then, comrade. Go easy on it, one step at a time and we’ll get there.”

  Crash! Rifle butts were being slammed against the flagstones behind me—for Lenin, back onstage, as calm and commanding as before. He paid me no attention this time. With him was Trotsky, unmistakable on account of his athletic hair and pointed beard. Behind his steel-rimmed spectacles, his eyes glowed. Victory was to the Bolsheviks and he knew it.

  Their four hands were in their coat pockets. My Kriegsmarine was a semi-automatic. I’d have had time to shoot them both. That’s another dream I often have.

  They strolled in front of me, blocking my view of Reed. I heard him shout up, “Comrade Ulyanov-Lenin, wonderful news—the Telephone Exchange, the Telegraph, the Military Hotel...”

  Lenin murmured to Trotsky, their heads converging, “Our tame American. A useful man. He should be humoured.”

  Trotsky, hands now clasped behind his back, swaying on the balls of his feet, said, “He could be paired with your sister Maria. That would be an international dimension we could exploit.”

  “I would tell her it was historically inevitable. She would obey me. Is he a homosexual? It would be easier for him if he were.”

  “I’ll have one of our female followers discover... Ah, here comes Prodt at last. Which of those two is our greater friend, would you say, Vladimir Ilyich, Comrade Prodt or the American?”

  “Friend? I don’t think we need speak in those terms,” and they moved to one side as Reed trotted up the steps towards them.

  Halfway up he paused and looked back: “Comrade, you doing all right back there?”

  The man they were calling Prodt was limping, head bent so that only broken views of his face were visible, never the whole thing. But I didn’t need to see it all. There were at least ten things about him that told me instantly who Prodt was.

  Up the steps he laboured towards Lenin and Trotsky. He was making heavy weather of it. He’d put on weight while his leg was healing.

  I’d hoped... I can’t tell you what exactly. That I’d catch Glebov alone in an office or in the darkness of the night, something like that. As it was, he had only to raise his eyes and I was butchers’ meat. I was up there with Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev, me and my tray of mushrooms. Just the four of us, the soldiers and my tormentor being a few yards away in the opposite direction.

  I heard the hiss of Elizaveta’s indrawn breath and a little catch in her voice as she whispered in my ear, “I know that man. Now’s not the place for heroics, Charlie. Scoot and make it fast.”

  He was wearing a military cap with a scarlet band. His mouth was working. He was in pain from his leg, was having to use a stick. I had to study him. I was unable to do otherwise—for a few seconds I was hypnotised and stared at him in the most obvious way. Then Lenin and Trotsky moved forward to greet him. I heard the smooth, welcoming tones of their voices—and came to my senses.

  “Right you are, Lizochka, scoot’s the word,” and I melted away, sliding behind one of Smolny’s bright blue pillars.

  Lenin must have seen the movement from the corner of his eye. He called out to me, “Sepp of Estonia, you’ve nothing further to give us. You’ve played your part. So go back to your city and tell them that tonight the proletariat has triumphed. Yes, Mr Arno, triumphed!” He raised his fist in salute. “Tell them that, Mr Arno Sepp.”

  Reed had his arms outspread to embrace Lenin. He was still a step or two below him. Glebov was tucked into Reed’s shadow. The American shouted, “Kerensky’s had enough! Fled! The revolution’s certain!” He got to the top—skipped the last two steps in one.

  He embraced Lenin and then Trotsky. Suddenly, as he stood back, the whole tableau shifted and regrouped so that I was no longer concealed. I was out there in the open. No more than thirty feet separated me from Glebov.

  I looked down as if searching for a coin I’d just dropped— risked another glance. He had four steps to go, was leaning heavily on his stick, still had his head down. When he got to the top he’d take a breather, then he’d line up beside Lenin and Trotsky. The three of them would face out over Smolny Square to field the applause and unburden themselves of a few speeches. I’d be up there with them, only feet away—tall, young, distinctive—

  “For Christ sake, Charlie, scoot!”

  There’ll be a musical direction for how I walked down those steps: neither too fast nor too slow. But no such direction can speak of what was going on between my shoulder blades.

  I said to my wife without lip movement, “Make my spine narrower. Armour-plate it or something. Don’t just sit up there and pray for me, woman, help.” And she did. She must have.

  I’d left my mushroom tray on the table at which my tormentor sat: had set it down to prove to him that it didn’t hold a grenade. He flung it after me with a shout, “Take it with you, trickster.” It clattered down the steps and struck my heel. Should I pick it up? I did, thinking, Glebov can’t fail to look now. I said to Elizaveta, “Preserve me from a common death. I want to die in a rocket, tearing through the heavens towards you, not from a bullet in the back fired by the man who led your rape.”

  I took longer than I needed to get the strap snug round my neck. I was Sepp the mushroom seller, not a spy. I couldn’t afford to show what a hurry I was in. Then I continued down the steps.

  Here is a curiosity worth mentioning: that all the time this was happening, which was about two minutes, I had a really strong itch in the centre of my back, exactly where Glebov would have aimed, which is the sixth thoracic vertebra.

  I also want to say this about expecting to be shot in the back, that if it had been pre-announced, if Glebov had shouted down to me, “I know who you are! Eight paces of life, that’s all I’ll give you. Walk, Doig. One, two . . .”—and thus I knew it was coming—death would not have been unpleasant. Smack! And down I’d have tumbled, seeing at the last not a human but whatever bit of the sky I’d have chosen for the moment of departure.

  But no bullet came. What happened was that as the mushroom tray rattled down the steps behind me, a soldier threw a whiz-bang into the bonfire to celebrate the victory of the Soviets and everyone looked towards him, not me.

  A roar of laughter went up and I went a little faster, saying to myself, Once I reach the soldiers milling around at the bottom, I’ll be safe.

  But no sooner had I thought this than I realised Glebov was toying with me. He was waiting until I thought I’d got away. Lenin and Trotsky were standing up there holding their sides for laughter as he winked at them and at last drew his pistol.


  I thought, But maybe I deserve death? What I did to Elizaveta—

  Sweat was pouring off me, even though it was an autumn night. With every pace bang went a drop off the end of my nose. Forget everything I’ve just said about death from behind being not unpleasant. I was hating the idea. I had my eyes tight closed for those last few steps.

  Then suddenly, without being aware that my legs were taking me there, I was through—past the soldiers, past their bonfire, past the sentry boxes, past the lorries, the couriers and their motorbikes, and the dogs scavenging for scraps. I never ran. I had enough self-discipline left for this. But as the Smolny arc lights faded, I walked faster and faster until the trees in the square loomed darkly before me. I darted into them with the utmost gratitude, like a man reprieved on the scaffold. I was exhausted. My breath was coming in surges. I leaned against the nearest tree and kissed its dank bark with open lips.

  Ten

  THE TIME was a little after two in the morning when I got back to Nevsky. My brush with Lenin and Glebov had used up all my juices. I needed a drink.

  I entered the basement of the Makayev, which stank of sweat and tobacco smoke. There I found something left in a bottle of Abrau, the cheap Kievan champagne. I gulped it down, not taking the bottle from my lips, my whole arm shaking uncontrollably. Only the owner was in the place, sitting at a round corner table. His arms were folded across his chest. A pistol lay on the dirty tablecloth. Tears were coming from his eyes and dribbling down his unshaven cheeks.

  I offered to sit with him and commiserate. He waved me away and I left. In the small basement courtyard a man in a black overcoat was having a woman against the wall. Her skirt was up to her waist, her thighs gleaming like enamel. She waved to me over his shoulder, maybe to book me for the next round. Ignoring her, I went quickly up the steps.

  Almost in front of me, three young Red Guards walked out into the street and with hand signals stopped a private automobile. No conversation was needed, no explanations, no orders. The driver, from his dress one would say an opera-goer, and his distraught, fur-bundled wife got out of the car instantly and the Guards drove off.

  I leaned against the railings of the Armenian church, watching. It occurred to me that I should start to say my goodbyes: the conditions I’d been brought up in from childhood were on the brink of disappearing. First I would go to the Rykov mausoleum, which was in the cemetery beside the Botanical Gardens—in the northern part of the city. The living one can deal with as one goes along. But for the dead a special effort must be made, even if it’s only to say cheerio. What counts is the respect shown by the action. It clears the slate of everything that’s happened in the past and tidies up the relationship between the dead and the living, which is always tricky.

  Most of the Rykovs were there except Elizaveta and my cousin Nicholas, whom I’d buried side by side, and Mama, whose English death, from flu, had gone virtually unrecorded. Papa was there, cleansed of the plague. A native of Dundee, he’d never have believed that he’d end up in a private mausoleum in Russia. In particular I would go and honour him.

  Having reached this conclusion, it was easy to decide that I too would commandeer a car.

  Within two minutes, I saw the very one coming down Nevsky from the Admiralty. Its headlights, the size of kettledrums, were ablaze. It was being driven in the middle of the street, in the space reserved for shovelled-up snow and horse cabs. No sane person had done such a thing before. When I’d danced down it I’d been drunk and crazy. Yet here was this immense automobile cruising down the centre of Nevsky as if it owned it. And on the morning of the First of Lenin!

  A man walking past said to me in disgust, “There’s our new leaders for you. Just look at the swine. Already!”

  I stepped off the pavement. I had the blood of Scotland and the Rykovs in my veins—hot, scarlet, elite blood, which also means discontented. I wanted better than a dingy Wolseley saloon, better than something that Lenin’s sisters used. This was my car, the vehicle toddling down Nevsky behind its vast headlights. I ran out to cut it off, drawing my Luger.

  The driver’s white face bore down on me. I aimed at a headlight then shifted to the figurehead on the bonnet, a swooping woman. I’d do the Bolshies a favour. It was too opulent, it had no future in a Russia that belonged to the proletariat.

  The woman flew off at my second shot. The car glided to a halt.

  Lowering the window, the chauffeur—bakelite eyes, blue chin—said in a tone of utter resignation, “Look here, Ivan, old pal, do me a favour, will you? Leave his nibs’ bleeding car alone until this time tomorrow, when I’ll be on a boat back to Blighty. Blimey, what a go! It’s the last time I sign up to deliver a car to Russia.”

  This Luger of mine is such a beautiful weapon. When you stick the snout of its long barrel against someone’s head, he understands one hundred per cent that the bullet’s for him: it simply can’t go anywhere else. And you both know that with nine inches of rifling it’ll have real velocity behind it.

  “Who’s inside?”

  “My Lord Boltikov,” he said gloomily.

  “He’s dead.” I was thinking of Boltikov the sugar king, the man who’d gatecrashed the party that my father gave before Mother and I took the train to our English exile.

  “Must be his son. Ever so rich.”

  “Fat and pink?”

  “You’ve said it. Tsuh!” He jerked his chin upward, to inform me that in his opinion the young Boltikov was a bum.

  “So what are you doing in Nevsky? Haven’t you heard there’s a revolution?”

  “Opera first. Then a slap-up dinner. Now he’s insisting on saying his goodbyes, him and his woman...”

  “Wife?”

  “No, mate, no. This is a German lady. Looks after his children or something... Mister, let me get on. He’s got the same sort of temper as his other rich friends. It’s a wonder he’s not shouting already. Please, do me a favour—” Suddenly his eyes swivelled to something behind my shoulder. “Quick, mate, Bolshies coming. Jump in or get off, whoever you are.”

  The Rolls had an outside brake. He dropped his hand and slacked it with a thud. The car jerked forward. One foot on the running board, I wrenched open the passenger door. The chauffeur accelerated: tipped me in head first. Lurching, I grabbed for a strap, missed it and fell.

  I knew the car had a carpet: I’d glimpsed it as I opened the door. I expected to land on it. Instead I went smack into a body that was soft and shrieking. In fact I knocked her over, and as I sorted it out, I thought, What the hell was she doing kneeling on the floor of a Rolls-Royce, was she praying or what?

  Eleven

  THE BLINDS were drawn and latched. I could make out Boltikov’s head. Two-thirds of the way down his face, a cigar blossomed. I felt the force of the smoke on my cheek. It had a distinguished, exotic aroma. His voice came rasping out of the semi-darkness.

  “A visitor, Liselotte.”

  “He fell on me... it hurts...”

  She was squirming under my shoulder. It was hard to tell which limb was where. I felt around, found Boltikov’s shoes, then the edge of the seat. I hoisted myself to my knees.

  The collar of his opera cape was still up. He was wearing a boiled shirt—stiff collar, white tie. It was all I could be certain of in the gloom. He said, “I was listening to what you said. There’s an instrument in the glove compartment that picks up everything. I don’t trust that English shuvver of mine. How did you know my father? Who are you?”

  “Charlie Doig.”

  “The son of Irina Rykov? You are the famous traveller?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liselotte, I’ve cooled down. This man will be enough entertainment for the moment.”

  My eyes were now accustomed to the light. He was sitting in the centre of the back seat, his arms outstretched along the back. His cigar glowed mutely between his fingers. Below, like a white blanket on which a moulting black wolfhound has been lying, spread his hairy stomach. His thighs were naked to below his kn
ees. Here one met the top band of his sock suspenders and the corrugations of his woollen underpants.

  He began to rearrange his clothing. “Excuse me, Doig, it’s not every night that one says farewell to the city of one’s birth— to one’s country. One’s emotions become excessive, especially after the opera. Liselotte has certain skills—liebchen, what are you doing? Stop scrabbling round down there. Come and sit beside me. We have company.”

  I’d sent her flying against the far door. She said the door handle had bruised her ribs. She had a final snivel and crawled over the carpet to Boltikov.

  “Your pardon, barin ...”

  I was in her way. I pulled down a jump seat from the division for myself.

  Boltikov was thirty-five or so. He laughed across at me. “Liselotte is the governess of my son. She teaches him German in the morning and French in the evening. This part of her job is a penance for the evil Germany has inflicted on us—to be exact, for paying Mr Lenin to come here and start his revolution. She volunteered for this evening, of course. What do you say to that, Doig?”

  “To Liselotte?”

  “Lenin.”

  “Only an hour ago I was speaking to him.”

  “You should have shot him. He’ll finish our class. Tonight is for goodbyes. Tomorrow Liselotte and my secretary and I drive across the border to Finland. My wife and boy are already there. From Finland this idiot shuvver of mine goes home. If I find there’s trouble in Finland, I simply drive over the border to dear old Sweden. No one will stop a man in a Rolls-Royce. Wherever I get to, I’ll start again. I have good contacts.”

  “The reason I didn’t shoot him was that I didn’t want to be killed myself.”