Prague Spring

by Simon Mawer

  Malevolent seemed to find this amusing. “You have no business swimming here, Mr. Diplomat,” he said, and Sam recognized the accent, from long days spent at the language school in Cambridge. Not only the words but the intonation, the cadence, the timbre. It was part of his psyche. Russian.

  “Well, maybe we should go somewhere else.”

  “Maybe you should.” The man thought for a moment, then looked past Sam to the lieutenant. “Bring the girl.”

  “Hey, that’s not necessary—”

  Malevolent raised his hand to silence him. The soldier went and a few moments later a car door slammed and the sound of Lenka’s voice was raised in some kind of protest. Protest had become a new habit amongst her generation. They felt they ruled the streets and the meetings. They could answer the police back, snap at officials, demand rights they never even knew existed. She came round the corner of the vehicle flushed with anger. Anger and fear, a dangerous combination. Sam gestured her to be quiet but it was Malevolent who achieved that. “Shut up!” he demanded, and she did exactly that, startled by his peremptory command: Sklapni! The lieutenant took her papers and glanced at them. “Student,” he told Malevolent, as though that explained everything. He passed the evidence over.

  Sam took her hand, willing her to be silent, pulling her close to give her some kind of comfort. Her hand was damp with sweat. He seemed to feel her fear, crawling beneath his skin like the scurrying of insects.

  “And at the moment Miss Konečková is studying English, is she, Mr. Diplomat?” Malevolent said.

  “I help her with her English, yes. And she helps me with my Czech.”

  “I’m sure she does. And with your swimming.”

  “And with my swimming.”

  “Once upon a time a comrade had to report any contact made with a foreigner, you know that?”

  “Things have changed now.”

  “Yes, they have.” He seemed to consider the changes, for good or for ill. Finally he handed Sam’s documents back. “But some things do not change. This is an exercise of the Czechoslovak People’s Army and you may not pass. I suggest you go home now how you came, to good cuppa of English tea. You are lucky—understand this clearly—you are lucky I do not arrest you for spying.”

  Sam nodded, as though the point was fair. He turned to Lenka. He could see sweat glistening on her brow, beads of moisture on her upper lip, trapped in the faint blonde down. “We’d better go.”

  “My papers,” she said.

  There was a moment of stasis. Malevolent pondered the matter, tapping Lenka’s identity card in the palm of his hand and looking at the girl. You could see the conflict in his expression—he knew his power over her and his weakness in the face of Sam’s diplomatic status. The radio jabbered something and the operator hastily put his earphones on. Finally Malevolent nodded, passed Lenka’s identity card to the lieutenant, who dutifully handed it back. “Comrade Konečková should think herself lucky,” the lieutenant said.

  She was about to reply. She was about to explode with anger at being talked to like that. Sam took her arm. “Discretion,” he murmured, “is the better part of valor.”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just walk away.”

  Holding her tightly he measured their steps round the armored car and over to the Mercedes. Sam held the passenger door open for her. By the time he got round to the other side, her anger had abated, along with her fear. He started the engine and screwed round to back the car up the track. “I thought they would arrest us,” she said quietly.

  “They don’t arrest diplomats. Not unless they want to cause an international incident.”

  “Me, then. Why didn’t you just turn away right at the start?”

  “Because I wanted to see for sure.”

  “See what? That soldiers are shits? That if you put a reasonable man in uniform he turns into an ape?”

  They reached an opening off the track where he could turn the car. “Didn’t you notice?”

  “Notice what?”

  “They’re Russian.”

  “Russian?”

  “You heard what I said. They’re Russian. There’s that Czech officer as a front man but the others were Russian. No insignia on their uniforms, nothing. A Red Army reconnaissance unit of some kind. That guy spoke near-perfect English, but his accent was Russian. Whoever heard of a middle-ranking Russian officer speaking English? He’s GRU.”

  “What’s GRU?”

  “Soviet military intelligence.” They drove on in silence, bumping over the rough track the way they had come, before turning onto the tarmac road. “Where are we going?” Lenka asked.

  “Back home.”

  “Why?”

  “Got to see a man about a dog.” He attempted to render it in Czech but met, as he expected, only bewilderment.

  “A dog?”

  “It’s an English saying. Rather old-fashioned. Means I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “It’s about the Russians, isn’t it?” And she nodded an answer to her own question. “It’s always the fucking Russians.”

  * * *

  Back in his flat he offered her some records to play. Steffie’s Sgt. Pepper or something by the Incredible String Band. He wasn’t really sure of her taste. Janáček, if that was what she wanted. Or anything from the small collection of classics that he had. Mozart, surely she’d be happy with Mozart. There was the Prague Symphony, or was that too obvious? Then he shut himself in the bathroom to develop the film. It didn’t take long. He was practiced at fiddling around in the changing bag, rolling the film onto the spiral by feel, before shutting it away in the developing tank secure from the deadly intrusion of light. Then the solutions, that little bit of alchemy that always fascinated him—developer, fixer, wash, each carefully measured and warmed to 20°C, each procedure timed with the clock brought in from the kitchen. It was the chemistry he had missed out on at school, a few simple chemicals turning blank acetate into tiny negative shadows of past moments: light rendered dark, black painted white. From the sitting room came silence as Lenka changed a record before the blaring trumpets of Janáček’s Sinfonietta broke the peace. He waited while the brass sounded and the clock ticked out the seconds and the developing solutions performed their magic. When the time was up he extracted the film from the tank, unwound it from the spool and hung it over the bath just as Steffie had once hung knickers and stockings. A plastic squeegee took the wash away. He held up the film to the light and examined the negative images: Lenka sitting on the rug; Lenka smoking and laughing; Lenka frowning; Lenka standing naked in the river, white trees in the background, her flesh dark, her buttocks almost black. If you caught the negative at the right angle to the light, you could achieve the small miracle of glimpsing it in reverse, in positive, just as it would be when printed. A ghostly effect that vanished as soon as you changed the angle. He’d print them when he had time, but for the moment he took scissors and cut off the last three frames. These were not for private contemplation. Not for his memories.

  “A stroll in the garden, Harold,” he suggested on the phone. “Got something that might amuse you.”

  * * *

  In the embassy garden, surrounded by the bushes and the trees, Sam passed over the small fragments of film. “Some more pictures for you, Harold. Developed it myself this time, but no time to print.”

  Harold didn’t deign to look at the negatives, merely sequestered them in his pocket. “What do they show?”

  “Nothing particularly exciting, I’m afraid. Not like the Sukhoi I got for you last year. Just an armored car. But here’s the thing—it’s got no markings and neither had the crew. No unit insignia, no rank badges, nothing. They were trying their best to be Czech, even had a Czechoslovak liaison officer with them. But they were Russian. GRU, I guess. Special forces reconnaissance team. What are they called? Spetsnaz.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Upriver from here.” He gave the place. He could show him on the map if
necessary. “They’re here, Harold. Little more than half an hour’s drive away. A nasty bugger speaking almost perfect English—”

  “You spoke with them?”

  “Of course I did. I’m a diplomat. Diplomats speak to people. It’s what we’re good at—in fact it’s almost the only thing we’re good at. And all they saw was a bumbling dip, out for a bit of hokey-pokey with his Czech girlfriend.”

  “That was your cover?”

  “Hardly cover, old chap. The plain and simple truth. By the way, quite unprompted she told me everything about her dalliance with the minister. More innocent victim than Mata Hari. You can rule her out as an agent.”

  Harold made a small grunt of skepticism. In the bushes the dog crouched in that strained and slightly self-conscious way they have when relieving themselves. “That’s H.E.’s dog, you know that?” he said. “Surely they shouldn’t let it shit in the embassy gardens.”

  “If he’s the ambassador’s dog, I presume he can shit wherever he pleases.”

  Harold sniffed disapprovingly. “These Russians. How can you be sure?”

  “I’m a Russian specialist. You know that. I know my Tolstoy from my Turgenev, and I certainly know a Russian stoy from a Czech Stůj.”

  “The whole country has been crawling with Red Army. Those so-called spring maneuvers. Why should your encounter be anything special?”

  “Precisely because the last Soviet units were meant to have returned to base by now. Wasn’t that part of the agreement at Čierna nad Tisou? And because they were pretending not to be Russians. As I said: no unit badges, no insignia, with a Czechoslovak liaison officer positively flaunting his. And the fellow in charge, the fellow I spoke to. Excellent English. You tell me what the chances are of finding a random Russian officer who happens to speak good English. Zero. So, GRU.”

  The secretary appeared, calling for the dog. “Come on, Rumpus.” The dog came, but only because she was holding out a treat for him. As she led the animal away towards the embassy building, she waved at Sam. “Have you heard from Steffie?”

  “A few days ago.”

  “That’s good. We had a postcard from somewhere in West Germany and Angela got one from Henley or wherever she is. But nothing more. Give her my love when you write.”

  “Of course I will.”

  A curious concept: love as an asset to be packaged in an envelope and passed on to a third party. Linda sends her love, even though she lets the ambassador’s dog crap in the flowerbeds.

  But does Sam also send his?

  “Write it up,” Harold told him. “For my eyes only. Everything that happened—it’s all grist to the mill. Shame you didn’t get more photos.”

  * * *

  “Someone,” Dorothy said when Sam got back to the office, “has got to do a bag run.” She looked up at him over her spectacles, as though he might be able to organize such a thing even if her boss couldn’t. “There’s all this stuff to go.”

  “Nuremberg?”

  “Munich. The consulate-general.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “I thought you were ever so busy.”

  “I am, but I’m prepared to make a sacrifice to get you out of a hole.”

  She blushed faintly. “Do I book you a hotel for the night?”

  “Surely you’re not suggesting that I can go there and back in one day.”

  V

  18

  It’s the random element of hitchhiking that appeals. Like the tossing of a coin, your progress depends on the workings of pure chance. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for life, then—random encounters, random occurrences, random partings on to which you try and impose the logic and thrust of a narrative. Thus they reach the border at a bridge where the River Saar converges with one of its tributaries and where they move from Germany across the border into France as much by the machinations of chance as through any conscious choice. A cursory examination of their passports on the German side is followed by a sharp, officious one on the French side where the uniformed official handles their documents with the manner of a health worker handling clothing contaminated with anthrax. He asks, “Where are you going?” as though staying put was certainly not a possibility.

  Ellie plucks a name out of the air. “Strasbourg.”

  “Paris,” he suggests.

  “J’ai dit Strasbourg. On va à Strasbourg.”

  He sniffs. He knows their destination is Paris, where they will cause mayhem on the Boul’ Mich’. Turning to James he demands his rucksack, and for a few minutes rummages through the chaos of things inside, finding nothing more offensive than old socks and worn underpants. Then he points to Ellie’s pack, flipping his middle finger upwards in a gesture that is almost, but not quite, obscene. “Ouvrez.”

  Ellie unslings her rucksack and begins to take out her scant possessions—rolled T-shirts, folded underwear, a wash bag, the battered tin of Gold Flake, a couple of paperback books, a small towel, not much else—and lay them out. The policeman prods them thoughtfully before tapping the Gold Flake tin. “Ouvrez.”

  James’s heart lurches. Ellie does as she is told, levering open the lid to expose golden, mossy shreds of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers. The policeman raises the tin to his nose and sniffs while Ellie smiles beatifically at him; only James recognizes the true message behind that smile. It says, as plain as a raised middle finger, “Fuck you.”

  Thoughtfully, the policeman hands the tin back and contemplates the pair of them with distaste. Then he cocks his head dismissively. “Allez, filez.”

  And so they move on into the vasty fields of France—Eleanor’s quotation, of course—and go where the lifts take them. But lifts are rare. The road is their world, the verge their environment. There are wild flowers amongst the grasses—peas, vetch, catchfly. Bees hum around them, butterflies flicker in the sunlight like scraps of foil blown by the wind. It is a kind of idyll, despite their rucksacks and their sweat-stained shirts and blistered feet. They feel both free and captive, trapped by their straps and the load of their packs and the distance they can walk, yet unburdened of all other encumbrance—parents or work or any obligation except to themselves. And gradually—this is the absurd thing—James comes to feel an enormous gratitude towards Eleanor for bestowing on him this sensation of detachment and contentment. Just the delight of being there in the midst of this vast and peaceful countryside without any bonds between himself and home. It is as though he has been transformed into something entirely new—ageless, careless, indifferent.

  “You know what?”

  “What?” They sit on the verge watching an empty route départementale stretch away into the distance in either direction. She is lying back against her rucksack. Her eyes are closed and the sun has caught her face, smacked her cheeks pink, given her a dusting of pollen. Her T-shirt is splashed with a tie-dyed sunburst, damp with sweat in the armpits. He thinks, because he is an incorrigible romantic, that she looks entirely lovely. And, although instinct tells him how dangerous this thought is, how vulnerable it leaves him, he thinks also that he may be in love with her.

  “I feel really happy.”

  She opens her eyes and smiles. “How sweet,” she says. “Naive, but sweet.”

  So there they are, Eleanor and James, by the roadside in the midst of the peaceful and bucolic delights of a countryside, a country, a continent, apparently, although not actually, untouched by political dispute. Fando and Lis on the road to Tar, Lis at the moment unfastening the waistband of her jeans and reaching her hand inside her underpants to pull out the stash. Fando watches in fascination as she rolls, with that fluid-fingered dexterity, a joint, lights it, drags meditatively on it, holds the smoke inside her head and then slowly, reluctantly, like someone surrendering to the inevitability of death, lets it out.

  “Here.” She hands the joint to him. And he wonders, as he takes it and draws the cloying smoke inwards, whether there is going to be a repetition of what happened two days ago in the cherry orchard. Could it happen even out her
e in the open air, his hand pushed down the front of her jeans where she hides that other, infinitely delicate, infinitely supple and surprising stash?

  You never know your luck.

  Lying side by side they smoke, passing the joint back and forth, watching the sky and the hills. Slightly zonked out, slightly high, laughing at things that probably aren’t really that funny, he imagines, remembers, sees shapes in the clouds that remind him of—

  She leaps to her feet.

  “Hey, what you doing?”

  “A lift, you twit.” She yanks out her thumb. The vehicle—a battered van, one of those ugly Citroën things that looks like a pig—grows larger in the perspective of the tarmac, flies past them at some speed, before skidding to a halt fifty yards down the road.

  Ellie pinches off the glowing end of the joint, snaps the dead remainder away in her Gold Flake tin, grabs her rucksack and gives James a kick in the side. “Come on, shift your arse.” He shambles to his feet and struggles after her, fighting a vague hilarity within, the sense that this doesn’t matter, this striving after progression, feeling instead that things are what is really important—the flowers buzzing in his brain, the ant crawling up his arm, the clouds gathering in the sky above, the warm declivities of Ellie’s body that have gathered in his imagination.

  “This is fucking silly,” he calls out as he runs. His brain seems to undulate within his skull, as though it were on gimbals. Suddenly he feels sick. “Why don’t we just—?”

  “Hurry up!”

  The door of the van slides open. She has thrown her backpack inside and is urging him on. He runs, stumbles, trips, feels the taste of smoke in his gut and an abrupt sensation of rebellion immediately below his diaphragm. And then the flavor of vomit, sour and bilious, erupts into his mouth. He turns, bends forward and heaves the scant contents of his stomach into the ditch.