by Ken Follett
‘Don’t ask,’ said Volodya.
On his desk was a decrypt from the radio section, the German words pencilled letter by letter under the code groups.
The message was from Werner.
Volodya’s first reaction was fear. Had Markus already reported what had happened to Irina, and persuaded Werner, too, to withdraw from espionage? Today seemed a sufficiently unlucky day for such a disaster.
But the message was the opposite of disastrous.
Volodya read with growing amazement. Werner explained that the German military had decided to send spies to Spain posing as antiFascist volunteers wanting to fight for the government side in the civil war. They would report clandestinely from behind the lines to German-manned listening stations in the rebel camp.
That in itself was red-hot information.
But there was more.
Werner had the names.
Volodya had to restrain himself from whooping with joy. A coup like this could happen only once in the lifetime of an intelligence man, he thought. It more than made up for losing Markus. Werner was solid gold. Volodya dreaded to think what risks he must have taken to purloin this list of names and smuggle it out of Air Ministry headquarters in Berlin.
He was tempted to run upstairs to Lemitov’s office right away, but he restrained himself.
The four subalterns shared a typewriter. Volodya lifted the heavy old machine off Kamen’s desk and put it on his own. Using the forefinger of each hand, he typed out a Russian translation of the message from Werner. While he was doing so the daylight faded and powerful security lights came on outside the building.
Leaving a carbon copy in his desk drawer, he took the top copy and went upstairs. Lemitov was in. A good-looking man of about forty, he had dark hair slicked down with brilliantine. He was shrewd, and had a knack of thinking one step ahead of Volodya, who strove to emulate his forethought. He did not subscribe to the orthodox military view that army organization was about shouting and bullying, yet he was merciless with incompetent people. Volodya respected him and feared him.
‘This might be tremendously useful information,’ Lemitov said when he had read the translation.
‘Might be?’ Volodya did not see any reason for doubt.
‘It could be disinformation,’ Lemitov pointed out.
Volodya did not want to believe that, but he realized with a surge of disappointment that he had to acknowledge the possibility that Werner had been caught and turned into a double agent. ‘What kind of disinformation?’ he asked dispiritedly. ‘Are these false names, to send us on a wild goose chase?’
‘Perhaps. Or they might be the real names of genuine volunteers, Communists and socialists who have escaped from Nazi Germany and gone to Spain to fight for freedom. We could end up arresting real antiFascists.’
‘Hell.’
Lemitov smiled. ‘Don’t look so miserable! The information is still very good. We have our own spies in Spain – young Russian soldiers and officers who have “volunteered” to join the International Brigades. They can investigate.’ He picked up a red pencil and wrote on the sheet of paper in small, neat handwriting. ‘Well done,’ he said.
Volodya took that for dismissal and went to the door.
Lemitov said: ‘Did you meet Markus today?’
Volodya turned back. ‘There was a problem.’
‘I guessed, by your mouth.’
Volodya told the story. ‘So I lost a good source,’ he finished. ‘But I don’t know what I could have done differently. Should I have told the NKVD about Markus and warned them off?’
‘Fuck, no,’ said Lemitov. ‘They’re completely untrustworthy. Never tell them anything. But don’t worry, you haven’t lost Markus. You can get him back easily.’
‘How?’ Volodya said uncomprehendingly. ‘He hates us all now.’
‘Arrest Irina again.’
‘What?’ Volodya was horrified. Had she not suffered enough? ‘Then he’ll hate us even more.’
‘Tell him that if he doesn’t continue to co-operate with us, we’ll interrogate her all over again.’
Volodya desperately tried to hide his revulsion. It was important not to appear squeamish. And he could see that Lemitov’s plan would work. ‘Yes,’ he managed to say.
‘Only this time,’ Lemitov went on, ‘tell him we’ll put the lighted cigarettes up her cunt.’
Volodya felt as if he might vomit. He swallowed hard and said: ‘Good idea. I’ll pick her up now.’
‘Tomorrow is soon enough,’ said Lemitov. ‘Four in the morning. Maximum shock.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Volodya went out and closed the door behind him.
He stood in the corridor for a moment, feeling unsteady. Then a passing clerk looked strangely at him and he forced himself to walk away.
He was going to have to do this. He would not torture Irina, of course: the threat would be enough. But she would surely think she was going to be tortured all over again, and that would terrify her out of her wits. Volodya felt that in her place he might go insane. He had never imagined, when he joined the Red Army, that he might have to do such things. Of course the army was about killing people, he knew that; but torturing girls?
The building was emptying, lights were being switched off in offices, men with hats on were in the corridors. It was time to go home. Returning to his office, Volodya called the military police and arranged to meet a squad at three-thirty in the morning to arrest Irina. Then he put on his coat and went to catch a tram home.
Volodya lived with his parents, Grigori and Katerina, and his sister Anya, nineteen, who was still at university. On the tram he wondered if he could talk to his father about this. He imagined saying: ‘Do we have to torture people in Communist society?’ But he knew what the answer would be. It was a temporary necessity, essential to defend the revolution against spies and subversives in the pay of the capitalist imperialists. Perhaps he could ask: ‘How long will it be before we can abandon such dreadful practices?’ Of course his father would not know, nor would anyone else.
On their return from Berlin, the Peshkov family had moved into Government House, sometimes called The House on the Embankment, an apartment block across the river from the Kremlin, occupied by members of the Soviet elite. It was a huge building in the Constructivist style, with more than five hundred flats.
Volodya nodded at the military policeman at the door, then passed through the grand lobby – so large that, some evenings, there was dancing to a jazz band – and went up in the elevator. The apartment was luxurious by Soviet standards, with constant hot water and a phone, but it was not as pleasant as their home in Berlin.
His mother was in the kitchen. Katerina was an indifferent cook and an unenthusiastic housekeeper, but Volodya’s father adored her. Back in 1914, in St Petersburg, he had rescued her from the unwelcome attentions of a bullying policeman, and he had been in love with her ever since. She was still attractive at forty-three, Volodya guessed, and while the family had been on the diplomatic circuit she had learned how to dress more stylishly than most Russian women – though she was careful not to look Western, a serious offence in Moscow.
‘Did you hurt your mouth?’ she said to him after he kissed her hello.
‘It’s nothing.’ Volodya smelled chicken. ‘Special dinner?’
‘Anya is bringing a boyfriend home.’
‘Ah! A fellow student?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m not sure what he does.’
Volodya was pleased. He was fond of his sister, but he knew she was not beautiful. She was short and stumpy, and wore dull clothes in drab colours. She had not had many boyfriends, and it was good news that one liked her enough to come home with her.
He went to his room, took off his jacket, and washed his face and hands. His lips were almost back to normal: Markus had not hit him very hard. While he was drying his hands he heard voices, and gathered that Anya and her boyfriend had arrived.
He put on a knitted cardigan, for comfort, and left
his room. He went into the kitchen. Anya was sitting at the table with a small, rat-faced man Volodya recognized. ‘Oh, no!’ Volodya said. ‘You!’
It was Ilya Dvorkin, the NKVD agent who had arrested Irina. His disguise had gone, and he was dressed in a normal dark suit and decent boots. He stared at Volodya in surprise. ‘Of course – Peshkov!’ he said. ‘I didn’t make the connection.’
Volodya turned to his sister. ‘Don’t tell me this is your boyfriend.’
Anya said in dismay: ‘What’s the matter?’
Volodya said: ‘We met earlier today. He screwed up an important Army operation by sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong.’
‘I was doing my job,’ said Dvorkin. He wiped the end of his nose on his sleeve.
‘Some job!’
Katerina stepped in to rescue the situation. ‘Don’t bring your work home,’ she said. ‘Volodya, please pour a glass of vodka for our guest.’
Volodya said: ‘Really?’
His mother’s eyes flashed anger. ‘Really!’
‘Okay.’ Reluctantly, he took the bottle from the shelf. Anya got glasses from a cupboard and Volodya poured.
Katerina took a glass and said: ‘Now, let’s start again. Ilya, this is my son Vladimir, whom we always call Volodya. Volodya, this is Anya’s friend Ilya, who has come to dinner. Why don’t you shake hands.’
Volodya had no option but to shake the man’s hand.
Katerina put snacks on the table: smoked fish, pickled cucumber, sliced sausage. ‘In summer we have salad that I grow at the dacha, but at this time of year, of course, there is nothing,’ she said apologetically. Volodya realized that she was keen to impress Ilya. Did his mother really want Anya to marry this creep? He supposed she must.
Grigori came in, wearing his army uniform, all smiles, sniffing the chicken and rubbing his hands together. At forty-eight he was red-faced and corpulent: it was hard to imagine him storming the Winter Palace as he had in 1917. He must have been thinner then.
He kissed his wife with relish. Volodya thought his mother was thankful for his father’s unabashed lust without actually returning it. She would smile when he patted her bottom, hug him when he embraced her, and kiss him as often as he wanted, but she was never the initiator. She liked him, respected him, and seemed happy being married to him; but clearly she did not burn with desire. Volodya would want more than that from marriage.
The matter was purely hypothetical: Volodya had had a dozen or so short-term girlfriends but had not yet met a woman he wanted to marry.
Volodya poured his father a shot of vodka, and Grigori tossed it back with relish, then took some smoked fish. ‘So, Ilya, what work do you do?’
‘I’m with the NKVD,’ Ilya said proudly.
‘Ah! A very good organization to belong to!’
Grigori did not really think this, Volodya suspected; he was just trying to be friendly. Volodya thought the family should be unfriendly, in the hope that they could drive Ilya away. He said: ‘I suppose, Father, that when the rest of the world follows the Soviet Union in adopting the Communist system, there will no longer be a need for the secret police, and the NKVD can then be abolished.’
Grigori chose to treat the question lightly. ‘No police at all!’ he said jovially. ‘No criminal trials, no prisons. No counter-espionage department, as there will be no spies. No army either, since we will have no enemies! What will we all do for a living?’ He laughed heartily. ‘This, however, may still be some distance in the future.’
Ilya looked suspicious, as if he felt something subversive was being said but he could not put his finger on it.
Katerina brought to the table a plate of black bread and five bowls of hot borscht, and they all began to eat. ‘When I was a boy in the countryside,’ Grigori said, ‘all winter long my mother would save vegetable peelings, apple cores, the discarded outer leaves of cabbages, the hairy part of the onion, anything like that, in a big old barrel outside the house, where it all froze. Then, in the spring, when the snow melted, she would use it to make borscht. That’s what borscht really is, you know – soup made from peelings. You youngsters have no idea how well off you are.’
There was a knock at the door. Grigori frowned, not expecting anyone; but Katerina said: ‘Oh, I forgot! Konstantin’s daughter is coming.’
Grigori said: ‘You mean Zoya Vorotsyntsev? The daughter of Magda the midwife?’
‘I remember Zoya,’ said Volodya. ‘Skinny kid with blonde ringlets.’
‘She’s not a kid any more,’ Katerina said. ‘She’s twenty-four and a scientist.’ She stood up to go to the door.
Grigori frowned. ‘We haven’t seen her since her mother died. Why has she suddenly made contact?’
‘She wants to talk to you,’ Katerina replied.
‘To me? About what?’
‘Physics.’ Katerina went out.
Grigori said proudly: ‘Her father, Konstantin, and I were delegates to the Petrograd Soviet in 1917. We issued the famous Order Number One.’ His face darkened. ‘He died, sadly, after the Civil War.’
Volodya said: ‘He must have been young – what did he die of?’
Grigori glanced at Ilya and quickly looked away. ‘Pneumonia,’ he said; and Volodya knew he was lying.
Katerina returned, followed by a woman who took Volodya’s breath away.
She was a classic Russian beauty, tall and slim, with light-blonde hair, blue eyes so pale they were almost colourless, and perfect white skin. She wore a simple Nile-green dress whose plainness only drew attention to her slender figure.
She was introduced all around, then she sat at the table and accepted a bowl of borscht. Grigori said: ‘So, Zoya, you’re a scientist.’
‘I’m a graduate student, doing my doctorate, and I teach undergraduate classes,’ she said.
‘Volodya here works in Red Army Intelligence,’ Grigori said proudly.
‘How interesting,’ she said, obviously meaning the opposite.
Volodya realized that Grigori saw Zoya as a potential daughter-in-law. He hoped his father would not hint at this too heavily. He had already made up his mind to ask her for a date before the end of the evening. But he could manage that by himself. He did not need his father’s help. On the contrary: unsubtle parental boasting might put her off.
‘How is the soup?’ Katerina asked Zoya.
‘Delicious, thank you.’
Volodya was already getting the impression of a matter-of-fact personality behind the gorgeous exterior. It was an intriguing combination: a beautiful woman who made no attempt to charm.
Anya cleared away the soup bowls while Katerina brought the main course, chicken and potatoes cooked in a pot. Zoya tucked in, stuffing the food into her mouth, chewing and swallowing and eating more. Like most Russians, she did not often see food this good.
Volodya said: ‘What kind of science do you do, Zoya?’
With evident regret she stopped eating to answer. ‘I’m a physicist,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to understand the atom: what its components are, what holds them together.’
‘Is that interesting?’
‘Completely fascinating.’ She put down her fork. ‘We’re finding out what the universe is really made of. There’s nothing so exciting.’ Her eyes lit up. Apparently physics was the one thing that could distract her from her dinner.
Ilya spoke up for the first time. ‘Ah, but how does all this theoretical stuff help the revolution?’
Zoya’s eyes blazed anger, and Volodya liked her even more. ‘Some comrades make the mistake of undervaluing pure science, preferring practical research,’ she said. ‘But technical developments, such as improved aircraft, are ultimately based on theoretical advances.’
Volodya concealed a grin. Ilya had been demolished with one casual swipe.
But Zoya had not finished. ‘This is why I wanted to talk to you, sir,’ she said to Grigori. ‘We physicists read all the scientific journals published in the West – they foolishly reveal their results t
o the whole world. And lately we have realized that they are making alarming forward leaps in their understanding of atomic physics. Soviet science is in grave danger of falling behind. I wonder if Comrade Stalin is aware of this.’
The room went quiet. The merest hint of a criticism of Stalin was dangerous. ‘He knows most things,’ Grigori said.
‘Of course,’ Zoya said automatically. ‘But perhaps there are times when loyal comrades such as yourself need to draw important matters to his attention.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
Ilya said: ‘Undoubtedly Comrade Stalin believes that science should be consistent with Marxist-Leninist ideology.’
Volodya saw a flash of defiance in Zoya’s eyes, but she dropped her gaze and said humbly: ‘There can be no question that he is right. We scientists must clearly redouble our efforts.’
This was horseshit, and everyone in the room knew it, but no one would say so. The proprieties had to be observed.
‘Indeed,’ said Grigori. ‘Nevertheless, I will mention it next time I get a chance to talk to the Comrade General Secretary of the Party. He may wish to look into it further.’
‘I hope so,’ said Zoya. ‘We want to be ahead of the West.’
‘And how about after work, Zoya?’ said Grigori cheerily. ‘Do you have a boyfriend, a fiancé perhaps?’
Anya protested: ‘Dad! That’s none of our business.’
Zoya did not seem to mind. ‘No fiancé,’ she said mildly. ‘No boyfriend.’
‘As bad as my son, Volodya! He, too, is single. He is twenty-three years old, well educated, tall and handsome – yet he has no fiancée!’
Volodya squirmed at the heavy-handedness of this hint.
‘Hard to believe,’ Zoya said, and as she glanced at Volodya he saw a gleam of humour in her eyes.
Katerina put a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Enough,’ she said. ‘Stop embarrassing the poor girl.’
The doorbell rang.
‘Again?’ said Grigori.
‘This time I have no idea who it might be,’ said Katerina as she left the kitchen.
She returned with Volodya’s boss, Major Lemitov.
