Goodbye to an Old Friend

by Brian Freemantle

  But the major benefit would be for Ebbetts and Britain. That, supposed Adrian, was the meaning of statesmanship, the successful manipulation of everybody and every country and everything to your own advantage.

  He wondered if statesmen and prime ministers and diplomats ever regretted afterwards the concessions and compromises and ruthlessness necessary to earn their reputations. Probably not. The end always justifies the means, unless the end deviates from the expected success, and then the inbuilt protection is brought forth, and the mistakes can be shown as those of others.

  Life, thought Adrian, the sort of life he lived, was a shit. Everyone was a shit, him and the people he dealt with and even the things he had to do. A shit.

  He sat, half listening to the two Russians, enjoying the description. Everything was certainly changing. That was a word that would not have presented itself three weeks before. Adrian Dodds, you’re growing up. He sighed. Growing up. But too late. A shit. He brought the word to mind again, consciously, enjoying his mental graffito, like a fourteen-year-old inscribing his adulthood on a lavatory wall. But my way is safer than lavatory walls, thought Adrian. I can’t get caught.

  Pavel was nodding, accepting Bennovitch’s argument, and the younger man was smiling shyly. If he had a tail, thought Adrian, he’d wag it.

  The Englishman suddenly became conscious that they were recognizing his presence in the room and began to concentrate.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ said Bennovitch testily, eager to prove his attitude towards the interrogator.

  Adrian smiled. There was no point in constantly defeating the tiny man.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, deferentially. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘When will we be allowed to be together all the time?’

  ‘Soon,’ said Adrian, vaguely. ‘It’s pointless occupying two houses. It’s obviously better for you to be together. I’ll make the recommendation tonight.’

  ‘And the debriefing takes so much less time, doesn’t it?’

  The cynicism of three days before emerged unexpectedly and Adrian looked at Pavel.

  ‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘so much less time.’

  ‘We’ll go to America, won’t we?’ asked Bennovitch. He seemed anxious to prove himself constantly to the other Russian. A son with an inferiority complex trying to compete with a brilliant father, decided Adrian.

  ‘That depends.’ He began to hedge, but Pavel intruded, abruptly.

  ‘Oh no it doesn’t,’ he contradicted. ‘What use would we have in Britain, whose space programme is limited to a firework on the Woomera rocket range?’

  You’d be surprised, thought Adrian. He smiled at Pavel. ‘Of course America wants you,’ he said. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that. Washington has officially asked that their embassy here be given access to you as soon as possible. They intend making you an offer, obviously. And it’ll be a good one.’

  ‘Sought after,’ mocked Pavel, speaking to the other Russian. ‘We’re being fought over, Alexandre.’

  Bennovitch misunderstood the irony and smiled happily, pleased that they were being considered together, each as useful as the other. A year, judged Adrian perhaps eighteen months at the outside before Bennovitch had a breakdown.

  One of the security men entered and nodded and Pavel said, still sarcastic, ‘Visiting time is up. Time to go.’

  Bennovitch looked from him to Adrian and then back again, trying to gauge the feeling that existed between them and failing.

  Adrian nodded to Bennovitch. ‘It’s time to go, Alexandre,’ he said. ‘You’ve been here three hours.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ asked the younger Russian.

  ‘Of course. Perhaps for good.’

  Bennovitch smiled and turned back to Pavel. They embraced again and as Bennovitch began to move back Pavel held him, the affection almost embarrassing.

  Adrian sat unspeaking with Pavel for several moments after Bennovitch had gone. He felt unsettled. He couldn’t isolate the cause or harden the feeling beyond a vague impression. And he wasn’t allowed impressions any more, by direct order from the Prime Minister.

  ‘You have a lot, haven’t you?’ said Pavel.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can tell by the freedom with which Alexandre talks that he’s told you a lot.’

  ‘He’s been helpful,’ allowed Adrian, guardedly.

  ‘And with us together, it’s one hundred times better, isn’t it?’

  ‘You seem to be a fantastic team,’ admitted Adrian.

  ‘We are,’ said Pavel, without conceit, ‘we are.’

  Silence settled again. The feeling persisted in Adrian. Pavel stood up, wandering without direction around the room, and Adrian was reminded of an actor rehearsing his lines. When Pavel sat down, it proved an apt simile.

  ‘I don’t want to see Alexandre again,’ he began.

  So his impression had been right. That was his immediate reaction, the knowledge that he was going to be proved right. He had warned of something unusual happening and here it was. Adrian wondered what Ebbetts’s response would be.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said I don’t want to see Alexandre any more.’

  ‘But why …?’ Adrian forced the question, aware of the answer.

  Pavel got up and completed another tour of the room before he answered. Then, spacing the words as if anxious there should be no misunderstanding, he said, ‘I want to go back.’

  Adrian stared at him. He’d known the unexpected would happen, told them even. It had been an impression and now it was a fact. It had to be stretched, explored to the fullest degree. Ebbetts had to know how accurate his assessment had been. That’s vanity, thought Adrian, suddenly. O.K., so he was going to be vain.

  ‘Go back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But …’ Adrian paused, aware of the artificiality. ‘But why? What good will it do?’

  ‘My family are being persecuted.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  Pavel snorted a laugh. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘You know it and I know it and everyone knows it. They’re tried, convicted and condemned.’

  ‘But what good will your going back achieve?’ queried Adrian. He stopped, considering, thinking beyond the need to justify himself at any later meetings with Ebbetts. Whatever happened, he was to be fired. That was inevitable. But if he managed to keep Pavel as well as Bennovitch then he would have performed a service. The noun rang in his mind, like church bells on Sunday. A service. To what or to whom? To Britain. The pomposity jarred him. It sounded like a line from one of the memoirs, one of those ‘why I did it’ accounts from a politician anxious to write his own history. ‘I did it for my country.’ It didn’t sound right without a trumpet fanfare. All right, Adrian decided, to Britain. But to himself as well. No one else would know, certainly. Miss Aimes would still despise him and so would Anita and Ebbetts and Sir William. And perhaps even Sir Jocelyn. But he wouldn’t despise himself. He would have tried and it would be something to recall with … yes, with pride and he was going to need some memory to support himself in the coming months.

  ‘Viktor,’ he began, slowly. ‘Now let’s think about this. When we began talking, four days ago, we established a code, an understanding if you like. I was honest with you and you respected it. And I’m being honest now, completely honest. You abandoned them. You discarded your wife and Georgi and young Valentina and you decided to come here. What good will you do by going back? It can’t save them. Nothing can, not now. Going back would be an empty gesture.’

  ‘I’ll be with them.’

  Adrian waited, preparing the moment. God, he thought, what a shit. His new word. His new self-description. Adrian Dodds, shit.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Viktor,’–even the protest sounded false – ‘what does that mean? What good will it do? If they’re on trial, your going back won’t stop the proceedings. It will just add another person in the dock.’

  Pavel began another tour of the room. ‘I’
ll be with them,’ he insisted, doggedly. ‘I’ll die with them.’

  Adrian’s attitude hardened.

  ‘Viktor, believe one thing. Believe and accept that you’ve lost whatever influence you had in the Soviet Union. The day – that day – when you walked away from the Paris show, you destroyed everything – your prestige, your importance, your ability to dictate terms. You’re lost now. You’re a traitor, a defector. To Russia you’re a “nothing” man. It’s over, Viktor. Four weeks ago, you were the most important man in Russia. Today, you’re nothing.’

  ‘Except a target.’

  The reply surprised Adrian. ‘No one knows where you are. You’re safe.’

  He gave the cue to Pavel. ‘But they’re not. I want to go back. The embassy man said if I went back, everything would be as it was before I left.’

  ‘Oh Viktor,’ rebuked Adrian. ‘You don’t believe that and neither do I. If you go back, you’re dead.’

  ‘So are they.’

  ‘So they are, whatever happens.’

  ‘But I can die with them.’

  ‘That’s a stupid attitude.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck for your opinion of my attitude.’

  Pavel used the Russian expression and Adrian thought it sounded better than English.

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ insisted Pavel. ‘The embassy official said if I wanted to go back, there was no way you could prevent it.’

  Adrian sighed. ‘No Viktor, there isn’t. We can’t hold you against your will.’

  He hesitated, then pressed on, brutally. ‘They’ll die,’ he said. ‘Valentina and Georgi and your wife. They will be tried and put into a labour camp and there they will die. It will happen whether or not you go back. Don’t be so bloody stupid. There’s only one way you can attack the Soviet Union for what they’re going to do. That is by staying here, in the West.’

  ‘If I go back, I’ll be killed,’ said Pavel, bluntly.

  Adrian thought he was wavering.

  ‘Probably. Or sent to Potma for twenty years.’

  Adrian had wrongly assessed the Russian’s remark.

  ‘So I’ll go back,’ said Pavel, ‘I’ll go back and die, with my family.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ repeated Adrian, feeling he was losing the argument.

  For a moment, Pavel looked at him. Then he said, ‘Don’t lecture me about love.’

  I’m the last person to imagine I have the qualification, thought Adrian, I’m an accepted failure.

  ‘I wasn’t lecturing about love. I was arguing against the stupidity of it all.’

  ‘Love isn’t stupid,’ said Pavel.

  ‘No,’ agreed Adrian, ‘no, it isn’t.’

  ‘I’m going back,’ insisted Pavel. ‘I’m going back to die. I’m not going to tell you another thing. From this moment, our co-operation ends. I want to see the man from the embassy again.’

  ‘You’re stupid,’ shouted Adrian.

  Pavel remained silent.

  ‘So everybody dies,’ said Adrian, trying for a shock effect. ‘It’s so pointless.’

  ‘Everything is pointless, without people you love and who love you,’ retorted Pavel.

  Adrian winced at the Russian’s remark. A discussion about romance from a space scientist. He hadn’t expected that.

  ‘What does it prove, to die?’ asked Adrian.

  ‘Nothing,’ admitted Pavel, immediately. ‘But don’t be obtuse. I’m not trying to prove anything, not to you, anyway. If my family die, I’ll die with them. I’ll have proved something to myself, that’s all. I’ve a lot of people to make amends to.’

  ‘There’s no argument I can put up, is there,’ said Adrian, resigned.

  ‘No. None at all.’

  For a long while, neither spoke. Then Adrian said, ‘It’s odd. I think we could have been friends.’

  Pavel considered the remark. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think we might.’

  ‘Others will try and persuade you to stay, after me,’ warned Adrian.

  ‘Tell them not to bother,’ said Pavel. ‘It won’t do any good.’

  ‘I’ll try. But they might not take any notice.’

  The Russian came back and sat opposite. ‘Has this been a personal failure for you?’ he asked, with sudden awareness.

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Adrian.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was hardly your fault.’

  Suddenly Pavel extended his hand. Adrian sat for a moment, staring at the Russian. Then he took it and they shook hands.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Pavel.

  ‘There’ll be other meetings,’ said Adrian.

  ‘But they’ll be different from today’s.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Adrian. ‘They’ll be different.’

  ‘So – goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Sir Jocelyn’s secretary handed him the cup and he smiled appreciatively, enjoying the aroma of the Earl Grey. Sir Jocelyn is making amends, he decided.

  ‘So you were right,’ said the Permanent Secretary.

  Adrian made a dismissive gesture and sipped his tea. ‘But I don’t know why or how I was right,’ he said, modestly.

  ‘Could it be that there isn’t any other reason for his wanting to return, other than this fantastic feeling he has for his family?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Adrian, slowly. ‘Yes, it could be. If you can accept that for four or five days, through some mental aberration, he relegated that love to be the last rather than the first consideration.’

  Binns smiled. ‘Here we go again,’ he said. ‘Around and around on the roundabout without knowing where to get off.’

  ‘I wonder if we’ll ever know,’ mused Adrian.

  ‘He hasn’t tried to influence Bennovitch in any way, has he?’ asked Binns, suddenly. ‘I mean, there hasn’t been anything that has not been made clear on the tapes, any pressure for the other man to return to Russia as well?’

  Adrian shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing at all. There has never been a moment when they’ve been alone together. I’ve been with them all the time. Naturally they’ve discussed the family: after all, Valentina is Bennovitch’s sister. But from what Pavel said about the purge that followed Bennovitch’s defection, it would be a deterrent rather than an encouragement to return.’

  ‘I don’t suppose …’ Binns began and then stopped, shaking his head at a ridiculous thought.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, nothing. It’s too stupid to consider.’

  ‘The whole thing is stupid,’ prompted Adrian.

  ‘I just wondered if Pavel had come to do any harm to his former partner.’

  ‘Physical harm?’ queried Adrian, and when Binns nodded, said immediately, ‘Oh no, that’s impossible too. Nothing has passed between them, like any drug or anything like that, because they’ve both been searched before and after each meeting. That would have uncovered any weapon, too. And what would it have gained? Physical violence would have given us a reason for holding Pavel indefinitely and keeping him away from his family. But the idea of Pavel harming Bennovitch is unthinkable for one main reason – apart from his family, I would think there is no one Pavel loves more than Bennovitch. Their feeling for each other is almost unnatural.’

  And I should know about unnatural feelings, he thought. I’d probably be considered an expert.

  Binns sighed, shaking his head. ‘I told you it was stupid,’ he said.

  The Permanent Secretary toyed with a paper-knife for several moments. Then he said, ‘You know Pavel has asked to see you again?’

  Adrian nodded. The meeting at which Pavel had said he wanted to return to Russia had been three days before and immediately Ebbetts had learned of the request, he had suspended Adrian from the debriefing of the older Russian.

  ‘How have the other meetings gone?’ asked Adrian.

  Binns smiled. ‘Disastrously,’ he said. ‘The Prime Minister has tried everything. He sent down two separ
ate men to take up where you’d left off and then when they failed, he allowed two men from the American embassy to go down.’

  ‘He let the Americans go in?’ asked Adrian, surprised.

  ‘He was desperate,’ said Binns. ‘And so were they. I’ve never heard so many offers made in a shorter period. If Pavel had accepted, only the President would have been more important than he was.’

  Adrian smiled at the sarcasm. ‘But he didn’t accept?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Binns. ‘He treated them all with complete contempt. He’d been well briefed by his own embassy man. He merely parried all the questions, as if he were playing with them almost, and then repeated his request for consular access to his embassy, telling us it was illegal to hold him. The only positive thing he’s said is to ask for another meeting with you. He refers to you as the only intelligent Englishman he’s met since he came here.’

  Adrian grimaced at the flattery. ‘How does the Prime Minister react to that when he hears it on tape?’

  ‘With whitefaced silence,’ replied Binns. ‘I would have thought he owes you an apology.’

  ‘But I doubt that I’m going to get it.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Binns. ‘He wants to see you too.’

  Adrian was surprised. ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s been arranged for Pavel to be handed over to the Russians this afternoon. I thought you could see him, travel part of the way back to London with him and then we’d go over to Downing Street at about four. That’s the time the P.M. has suggested.’

  Adrian remained frowning. ‘Is there any chance of a change of mind about my staying in the department?’

  The question seemed to embarrass the Permanent Secretary. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Nobody has said anything.’

  Adrian leaned back comfortably in his chair.

  ‘Do you know what I think?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think that the Prime Minister, who might owe me an apology, has an altogether different role selected for me. Somebody has got to be blamed for this. And I think I’m going to be the one.’

  Binns shifted uncomfortably in his chair.