After Zenda

by John Spurling

  It struck me that the Count, by unwillingly putting the luxury of his castle and car at Michael’s disposal, had sapped the rebellion at source more effectively than the army could have done with a frontal assault.

  The cave was deep but not all that broad, its mouth concealed with boulders and stunted trees and facing a wall of rock, so that it must have been invisible from the air as well as from below. Inside, there were signs of its former use: empty ammunition boxes and kerosene cans, a makeshift fireplace near the entrance and a few bits of litter in corners. There was even an ancient telephone - it looked pre-war -connected to the house. The interview was done on the small flat area in front of the cave, where there was still a layer of snow and the light was good. The soldiers sat or stood around among the boulders and made a martial background, but I kept out of the picture by standing behind the cameraman.

  Michael didn’t give a good interview from the point of view of his own cause, though he was a natural from the viewer’s angle. He looked nasty and he sounded vicious and intransigent. It was the sort of interview cameras usually get for only about ten seconds, before the corrupt official, gun-runner, crooked businessman or whoever has offended society’s norms bangs the door or makes a snarling getaway in his car. But here the man revelled in making a bad impression. Believing his opponents to be wholly and inexcusably evil, he considered that whatever means he used to destroy them could only be justifiable and admirable. When Clare asked him about the sufferings of civilians and people caught in the middle he showed no sympathy at all. The cause of Slav freedom from German oppression was so unarguable that nothing could sully it except failure. He was prepared, he said, to sacrifice his own life to it and he thought no life more valuable than his own. Clare, ruthless as she was herself in her own way, was quite unprepared for this sort of image-damaging honesty and kept trying to put a decent liberal gloss on his replies.

  ‘You feel that no compromise is possible, that the German interests in Ruritania are not ready to sit down and discuss Slav grievances?’

  ‘I’d never sit down with those people. It would be a betrayal.’

  ‘But surely, when it comes down to it, you are all Ruritanians?’

  ‘We are. They are interlopers.’

  ‘Wasn’t there always a partly German population in Ruritania?’

  ‘I’m not interested in the past, only the future. The future I see is a Slav Ruritania.’

  ‘Do you mean ethnic cleansing?’

  ‘I don’t use those dictionary words. We have to defeat the Germans and give Ruritania back to its Slav people.’

  ‘But it you succeed, what happens to the German part of the population?’

  it will be a Slav country. Anyone who wants to be German can go and live in Germany.’

  ‘But we’re speaking German,’ said Clare, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘I wasn’t aware you could speak Rumanian, Mrs Studebaker.’

  ‘No, I don’t, of course. But do you, Captain?’

  ‘Certainly I speak some Ruritanian. This is part of what we have to do. First we make a Slav nation and then we make a Slav language. But the nation must come first. I am not a language-teacher, but a soldier. I will do my part, then let the language-teachers do theirs.’

  I began to understand why the military court in Kapitsa had taken such a dim view of my fighting for Michael. Certainly I never would have fought for him if I’d heard this interview first. It wasn’t a cause anybody could identify with, it was just this man’s way of putting himself on the map.

  When the interview was over, I got a word with Michael myself.

  ‘I have a message from Yelena. Can we speak privately?’

  I drew him away into the cave.

  ‘Why doesn’t she tell me herself?’

  ‘She’s still in hospital. In Vlod. We arrived in Kapitsa just as the attack was starting.’

  ‘You’ve brought a letter?’

  ‘No letter. We thought - she thought a verbal message was safer.’

  ‘How can I trust you? You always act for yourself alone. Why did you come here? Weren’t you afraid? You cheated on me, you cheated on Fisher.’

  ‘How did I cheat on you?’

  ‘You took Yelena for yourself.’

  ‘She was ill, very ill. You agreed she had to go into hospital.’

  ‘Before that. You took her at Sebrikov.’

  ‘I’d say it was the other way round. She got me out of Kapitsa and had them bring me to Sebrikov.’

  ‘What difference does it make? She wanted you or you wanted her?’

  I never think of myself as all that clever, just reasonably quickwitted, but now I felt really stupid. This was the first time I understood that we weren’t talking politics but sex. The rivalry between him and me and perhaps also with Fisher took on a new dimension.

  ‘Michael,’ I said, ‘you’ve got it wrong. I wanted her, of course, but she wouldn’t have me. Not at all. She actually wrote me a letter to say so, to give me the brush-off. I wish I had it to show you. It ends up never to be yours, Yelena , underlined.

  The man suddenly looked happy. His smile was still essentially a sneer, but a happy sneer.

  ‘It’s true?’

  ‘Absolutely true. Anna could confirm it - she was there when I read the letter.’

  I remembered then that Anna was dead and that reminded me that in my wallet I still carried the bunch of hair and the picture of the Virgin she’d restored to me. Perhaps she’d understood the situation a lot better than I had and her remark about ‘amore’ simple meant she thought I still had a better chance than either Fisher or Michael. We were standing well inside the cave, with the silhouettes of the soldiers and the TV team outlined against the light at the mouth. Clare came into view at this moment and called in English into the cave:

  ‘Karl? Are you there?’

  ‘Is this your woman?’ said Michael.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said in a low, sly tone of the kind I thought he’d appreciate, ‘but I have hopes.’

  He actually patted me on the arm.

  ‘Good!’ he said. ‘She is English. She’s best for you.’

  Clare should have recorded this - further damning evidence of his unabashed racism.

  ‘Karl?’

  ‘With you in a moment!’ I called back.

  ‘It’s lucky we talked,’ said Michael, holding my arm as we began to move towards the entrance.

  ‘But that’s why I came - because I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘You took a risk. You could easily have died.’

  ‘I thought I could trust you.’

  ‘I hadn’t made up my mind. But Fisher thinks you’re a mad dog.’

  I told him then about my encounter with Fisher in the watch-tower and the whole history of Fisher and the statue. When he objected that Fisher didn’t need money, I pointed out that his funds came from the members of his church and that he was obviously hoping to make a private profit from the statue. We were still talking in low voices just inside the cave, but had to break off when Clare joined us.

  ‘Everyone’s freezing,’ she said. ‘Can’t we go down now?’

  She looked from one to the other of us suspiciously, hating to be left out of the action.

  Back at the house it was growing dark. While Clare and her team were warming up and getting something to eat, I went out with Michael into the cloister. It was cold but private and we could be sure of spotting anyone who tried to eavesdrop. At the centre of the courtyard there was a fish-pond with a thin layer of ice over its surface and a small fountain with naked cherubs playing under the frozen water-spout. I wondered if it had been put there by the communist big-wig or was another of Fisher’s artistic acquisitions.

  Michael by now had started to hate Fisher so much that, cheated of one assassination, he was seriously considering a substitute. The best thing you could say for Michael was that he wasn’t devious; and deviousness in others was something he couldn’t forgive. It was because he thought me treac
herous that he’d seen me as rubbish and now he’d simply crossed Fisher off his list of human-beings. We left Fisher telling Clare about the True Faith and the Disciples of the First Instance and how their doctrines coincided or differed, but he too was obviously biding his time until he could get a private interview with Michael. The way he’d looked at me and then at Michael as we returned from the cave told me very clearly that he’d fully expected the party to be reduced by one on the way down. If he’d noticed us slip away into the cloister he probably assumed Michael was intending to dispose of the mad dog there.

  I didn’t feel as murderous towards Fisher as he did towards me. On the whole I thought it was better his relationship with Michael should remain undisturbed until the guerrillas had played their part in my plans. It was not easy to persuade Michael of this. He needed Fisher’s funds, of course, but not right away; for the moment he had all the military supplies he needed or could cope with, given the rawness of his troops. More vehicles and some light artillery would have been useful, but they couldn’t be brought in over the mountain border anyway. His view was that Fisher should be flown back to the folks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a wooden box, with a note explaining how he’d meant to betray, for private gain, the trust that both the Disciples and the True Faith had placed in him. I found myself defending the man, pointing out how much he must have done to make the rebellion viable in the first place, that he hadn’t actually succeeded in removing the statue, that he probably regretted the whole episode now and that he’d done no harm to the cause except to sour relations between Michael and me. Greed, I pointed out sanctimoniously, was something that took hold of most people from time to time and distorted their outlook; Fisher was probably not rich himself and was worrying about his retirement. Michael’s response was that, since he himself would be quite incapable of concealing what he felt about Fisher, even if Fisher was able to hide things from him, he didn’t see any future for their relationship; but he said he’d give himself time to think about it.

  It was almost dark now and I was afraid we’d be interrupted, so I plunged into the business I’d really come for. I’d been uncertain before whether I could risk telling Michael about the Cossacks, but there was no alternative if I wanted a co-ordinated plan. Now we were on such good terms I felt no hesitation. His reaction was mixed. He didn’t like the idea of the Cossacks sharing the action and taking a greater part of the glory with their greater resources, but he did see that it would radically alter his own prospects for success. I didn’t mention the ‘circus’ element, but left him to believe - what I hoped everyone would believe - that sixty fully operational tanks would leave the barracks in Plotia and move west; and I pressed him harder by presenting the plan as Yelena’s, not mine. This, I said, was the message she’d sent with me and Michael’s vanity glowed at the thought that Yelena and he were still the protagonists and I the mere go-between.

  At this point I saw we were no longer alone. Somebody had emerged into the cloister from the door on the far side. There was no time for further argument, but Michael still hadn’t given me a definite answer. I peered across at the intruder, wondering how I could clinch Michael’s agreement, thinking of Yelena perhaps pacing round the cloister while she prepared for Christmas and made herself ill in the process. It was an extremely cold place and would have been even colder then. Inspiration came. I turned my back on the shadowy person opposite, opened my wallet and removed the little bunch of Yelena’s hair in its rubber-band.

  ‘She sent you this, Michael,’ I said, holding it out to him.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Rather than hold it up to the light, I took his hand and put the hair in his palm, much as Anna had done for me.

  ‘She knew you’d find it difficult to trust me,’ I said, ‘but she was sure you’d never fail her.’

  He remained for several moments without moving, then his hand went to his heart. He was stowing the hair just where I’d kept it, in his shirt pocket. I hoped he wouldn’t lose it in the wash as I so nearly had on at least two occasions.

  ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘Tell her I got the message and now I do trust you, Karl.’

  ‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘Do you think that’s Fisher across the way? He may be getting the impression we’re too friendly. If you’re friendly to me he’ll hardly credit your friendship for him.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Michael called out. ‘Is that you, Fisher?’

  ‘It’s me, Michael. The TV people are waiting to go. What’s kept you?’

  ‘Why not take a shot at me?’ I suggested. ‘It would make him feel happier. I’ll break away and dodge round the cloister and trust you to miss. Otherwise - you’re such an honest man - you’ll never convince him we were agreeing.’

  He laughed. It was almost the first time I’d heard him do it, but like his sneer-smile it was more sinister than cheerful.

  ‘Run, then!’ he whispered, ‘and trust me!’

  He took the revolver out of his holster and moved the safety-catch. I ran straight down the cloister as he fired. The noise was very loud. The bullet struck a pillar somewhere ahead of me. I turned the first corner.

  ‘Save your shots, Michael!’ said Fisher. ‘He’s got to make for this door. I’ll head him off and you can corner him.’

  As I reached the second corner, I saw Fisher coming towards me down the cloister and Michael running diagonally across the courtyard. It looked as if I’d misjudged him - he was going to take Fisher’s advice. I hesitated - whether to double back or fling myself straight at Fisher. As I decided on the second, Michael fired again and Fisher stumbled.

  ‘I missed him,’ Michael said, as Fisher collapsed slowly with some sort of pain-laden groan. ‘But I didn’t miss you, you greedy, treacherous bastard!’

  He shot him again through the head and put his gun away in his holster. Soldiers were piling through the door now. Michael simply pointed to the body and led me back into the house.

  Clare and her crew were waiting there aghast, looking even more so by the light of the oil-lamps. Michael ignored Clare’s questions.

  ‘Private business,’ he said and hurried us all out to the cars. ‘The only solution,’ he said to me, gripping my hand as I got into the car.

  ‘Shall I tell Yelena?’ I asked.

  He put his hand on his heart.

  ‘Just thank her for this! And say, O.K.’

  He shut the door on me, banged peremptorily on the car’s roof and the driver pulled hastily away.

  ‘My God!’ said Clare, ‘that man gives me the shivers.’

  ‘I saw his better side,’ I said. ‘He shot the man that gave me the shivers.’

  27 Manipulating the Media

  Clare had booked us into a hotel in Chostok. Over dinner I gave her and the others an expurgated account of the death of Fisher John. The quarrel, I said, arose over a valuable work of art which Fisher was trying to export illegally. Michael, with his pathological hatred of any breach of trust, had killed Fisher in a moment of anger. On the face of it, it was a true account, but it left out Yelena altogether and I was fairly certain myself that the living virgin of Chostok had as much to do with Fisher’s fate as the wooden one. Clare, of course, wanted the rest of the world to know the story right away and, since there was no communication with the outside world from Karapata, was anxious we should be on the road to Strelsau as soon as it was light.

  ‘This is something, Karl. The Bilavice stuff and the interview with Michael may be dynamite for Ruritanians, but it’s after all only what the West expects of a bleeding fragment of the former Soviet Empire. Whereas, when this same guerrilla chieftain goes straight home and puts a bullet into an American missionary, who has been trying to steal Ruritanian heritage - this begins to be world news. If I add that I’d been speaking to the victim myself minutes earlier and that the only witness to the shooting is an Englishman who just happens to be . . .’

  ‘You don’t add that,’ I said in English, ‘and you don’t even mention it in front of our fr
iends here.’

  I realised now that Clare, who I’d intended to be an embarrassment to the government with her report on the hardships in Karapata, was likely to be a much more severe embarrassment to me. Even if she kept my identity secret - and I doubted if she considered any verbal promise sacrosanct when measured against the claims of Almighty News and her career - the last thing I wanted was to have the world’s attention drawn to Ruritania at this delicate juncture. Fisher, at that rate, would reach out beyond the grave and have his revenge. I let the back of my mind tackle this problem while I asked Clare what Fisher had said about the True Faith.

  ‘What he said was quite contradictory. He told me the Virgin Mary did appear in front of large numbers of people on several occasions. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to think there was anything miraculous about that. The True Faith doesn’t believe in miracles as such, though it also believes that from time to time these divine reincarnations occur. I suppose it just doesn’t call them miracles.’

  ‘Did he meet the lady himself?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘And what was his own view?’

  ‘He said she was very beautiful, very dedicated and very lovable.’

  ‘Lovable?’

  ‘That was his word. He said he would have done anything for her, as all her followers would, but this was human, not divine charisma. Physically she was completely human.’

  ‘Where did he think she was now?’

  ‘He thought she’d left the province immediately after Christmas. She tended to come and go, he said, but that didn’t mean she was para-physical or extra-terrestrial. We were talking souls not bodies. All souls live in human bodies - the only question was whether this soul was special.’

  It was strange to get Fisher’s version of Yelena like this - doubly distorted. Evidently he’d kept very quiet about his part in making her soul special.

  ‘Did he tell you anything about how he first became involved with the True Faith?’ I asked.