by Ken Follett
Katerina said: ‘Let me tell you something, my beloved son. Listen to me, now, and I don’t care if you never listen to your mother again, but hear this. Forget the stranger in America who once seduced a foolish girl. Look at the man sitting in front of you with tears in his eyes.’
Volodya looked at Grigori and saw a pleading expression that tugged at his heart.
Katerina went on: ‘This man has fed you and clothed you and loved you unfailingly for three decades. If the word father means anything at all, this is your father.’
‘Yes,’ Volodya said. ‘I know that.’
(iv)
Lloyd Williams got on well with Ernie Bevin. They had a lot in common, despite the age difference. During the four-day train journey across snowy Europe Lloyd had confided that he, like Bevin, was the illegitimate son of a housemaid. They were both passionate anti-Communists: Lloyd because of his experiences in Spain, Bevin because he had seen Communist tactics in the trade union movement. ‘They’re slaves to the Kremlin and tyrants over everyone else,’ Bevin said, and Lloyd knew exactly what he meant.
Lloyd had not warmed to Greg Peshkov, who always looked as if he had dressed in a rush: shirtsleeves unbuttoned, coat collar twisted, shoelaces untied. Greg was shrewd, and Lloyd tried to like him, but he felt that underneath Greg’s casual charm there was a core of ruthlessness. Daisy had said that Lev Peshkov was a gangster, and Lloyd could imagine that Greg had the same instincts.
However, Bevin jumped at Greg’s idea for Germany. ‘Was he speaking for Marshall, do you suppose?’ said the portly Foreign Secretary in his broad West Country accent.
‘He said not,’ Lloyd replied. ‘Do you think it could work?’
‘I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard in three bloody weeks in bloody Moscow. If he’s serious, arrange an informal lunch, just Marshall and this youngster with you and me.’
‘I’ll do it right away.’
‘But tell nobody. We don’t want the Soviets to get a whisper of this. They’ll accuse us of conspiring against them, and they’ll be right.’
They met the following day at No. 10 Spasopeskovskaya Square, the American Ambassador’s residence, an extravagant neoclassical mansion built before the revolution. Marshall was tall and lean, every inch a soldier; Bevin rotund, nearsighted, a cigarette frequently dangling from his lips; but they clicked immediately. Both were plain-speaking men. Bevin had once been accused of ungentlemanly speech by Stalin himself, a distinction of which the Foreign Secretary was very proud. Beneath the painted ceilings and chandeliers they got down to the task of reviving Germany without the help of the USSR.
They agreed rapidly on the principles: the new currency, the unification of the British, American, and – if possible – French zones; the demilitarization of West Germany; elections; and a new transatlantic military alliance. Then Bevin said bluntly: ‘None of this will work, you know.’
Marshall was taken aback. ‘Then I fail to understand why we’re discussing it,’ he said sharply.
‘Europe’s in a slump. This scheme will fail if people are starving. The best protection against Communism is prosperity. Stalin knows that – which is why he wants to keep Germany impoverished.’
‘I agree.’
‘Which means we’ve got to rebuild. But we can’t do it with our bare hands. We need tractors, lathes, excavators, rolling stock – all of which we can’t afford.’
Marshall saw where he was going. ‘Americans aren’t willing to give Europeans any more handouts.’
‘Fair enough. But there must be a way the USA can lend us the money we need to buy equipment from you.’
There was a silence.
Marshall hated to waste words, but this was a long pause even by his standards.
Then at last he spoke. ‘It makes sense,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The conference lasted six weeks and, when they all went home again, nothing had been decided.
(v)
Eva Williams was a year old when she got her back teeth. The others had come fairly easily, but these hurt. There was not much Lloyd and Daisy could do for her. She was miserable, she could not sleep, she would not let them sleep, and they were miserable too.
Daisy had a lot of money, but they lived unostentatiously. They had bought a pleasant row house in Hoxton, where their neighbours were a shopkeeper and a builder. They got a small family car, a new Morris Eight with a top speed of almost sixty miles per hour. Daisy still bought pretty clothes, but Lloyd had just three suits: evening dress, a chalk stripe for the House of Commons, and tweeds for constituency work at the weekends.
Lloyd was in his pyjamas late one evening, trying to rock the grizzling Evie to sleep, and at the same time leafing through Life magazine. He noticed a striking photograph taken in Moscow. It showed a Russian woman, wearing a headscarf and a coat tied with string like a parcel, her old face deeply lined, shovelling snow on the street. Something about the way the light struck her gave her a look of timelessness, as if she had been there for a thousand years. He looked for the photographer’s name and found it was Woody Dewar, whom he had met at the conference.
The phone rang. He picked it up and heard the voice of Ernie Bevin. ‘Turn your wireless on,’ Bevin said. ‘Marshall’s made a speech.’ He hung up without waiting for a reply.
Lloyd went downstairs to the living room, still carrying Evie, and switched on the radio. The show was called American Commentary. The BBC’s Washington correspondent, Leonard Miall, was reporting from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ‘The Secretary of State told alumni that the rebuilding of Europe is going to take a longer time, and require a greater effort, than was originally foreseen,’ said Miall.
That was promising, Lloyd thought with excitement. ‘Hush, Evie, please,’ he said, and for once she quietened.
Then Lloyd heard the low, reasonable voice of George C. Marshall. ‘Europe’s requirements, for the next three or four years, of foreign food and other essential products – principally from America – are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help . . . or face economic, social and political deterioration of a very grave character.’
Lloyd was electrified. ‘Substantial additional help’ was what Bevin had asked for.
‘The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future,’ Marshall said. ‘The United States should do whatever it is able to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world.’
‘He’s done it!’ Lloyd said triumphantly to his uncomprehending baby daughter. ‘He’s told America they have to give us aid! But how much? And how, and when?’
The voice changed, and the reporter said: ‘The Secretary of State did not outline a detailed plan for aid to Europe, but said it was up to the Europeans to draft the programme.’
‘Does that mean we have carte blanche?’ Lloyd eagerly asked Evie.
Marshall’s voice returned to say: ‘The initiative, I think, must come from Europe.’
The report ended, and the phone rang again. ‘Did you hear that?’ said Bevin.
‘What does it mean?’
‘Don’t ask!’ said Bevin. ‘If you ask questions, you’ll get answers you don’t want.’
‘All right,’ Lloyd said, baffled.
‘Never mind what he meant. The question is what we do. The initiative must come from Europe, he said. That means me and you.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Pack a bag,’ said Bevin. ‘We’re going to Paris.’
24
1948
Volodya was in Prague as part of a Red Army delegation holding talks with the Czech military. They were staying in art deco splendour at the Imperial Hotel.
It was snowing.
He missed Zoya and little Kotya. His son was two years old and learning new words at bewildering speed. The child was changing so fast that he seemed different every day. And Zoya was pregnant again. Vo
lodya resented having to spend two weeks apart from his family. Most of the men in the group saw the trip as a chance to get away from their wives, drink too much vodka, and maybe fool around with loose women. Volodya just wanted to go home.
The military talks were genuine, but Volodya’s part in them was a cover for his real assignment, which was to report on the activities in Prague of the ham-fisted Soviet secret police, perennial rivals of Red Army Intelligence.
Volodya had little enthusiasm for his work nowadays. Everything he had once believed in had been undermined. He no longer had faith in Stalin, Communism, or the essential goodness of the Russian people. Even his father was not his father. He would have defected to the West if he could have found a way of getting Zoya and Kotya out with him.
However, he did have his heart in his mission here in Prague. It was a rare chance to do something he believed in.
Two weeks ago the Czech Communist party had taken full control of the government, ousting their coalition partners. Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, a war hero and democratic anti-Communist, had become a prisoner on the top floor of his official residence, the Czernin Palace. The Soviet secret police had undoubtedly been behind the coup. In fact Volodya’s brother-in-law, Colonel Ilya Dvorkin, was also in Prague, staying at the same hotel, and had almost certainly been involved.
Volodya’s boss, General Lemitov, saw the coup as a public relations catastrophe for the USSR. Masaryk had constituted proof, to the world, that East European countries could be free and independent in the shadow of the USSR. He had enabled Czechoslovakia to have a Communist government friendly to the Soviet Union and at the same time wear the costume of bourgeois democracy. This had been the perfect arrangement, for it gave the USSR everything it wanted while reassuring the Americans. But that equilibrium had been upset.
However, Ilya was crowing. ‘The bourgeois parties have been smashed!’ he said to Volodya in the hotel bar one night.
‘Did you see what happened in the American Senate?’ Volodya said mildly. ‘Vandenberg, the old isolationist, made an eighty-minute speech in favour of the Marshall Plan, and he was cheered to the rafters.’
George Marshall’s vague ideas had become a plan. This was mainly thanks to the rat-like cunning of British Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin. In Volodya’s opinion, Bevin was the most dangerous kind of anti-Communist: a working-class social democrat. Despite his bulk he moved fast. With lightning speed he had organized a conference in Paris that had given a resounding collective European welcome to George Marshall’s Harvard speech.
Volodya knew, from spies in the British Foreign Office, that Bevin was determined to bring Germany into the Marshall Plan and keep the USSR out. And Stalin had fallen straight into Bevin’s trap, by commanding the East European countries to repudiate Marshall Aid.
Now the Soviet secret police seemed to be doing all they could to assist the passage of the bill through Congress. ‘The Senate was all set to reject Marshall,’ Volodya said to Ilya. ‘American taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill. But the coup here in Prague has persuaded them that they have to, because European capitalism is in danger of collapse.’
Ilya said indignantly: ‘The bourgeois Czech parties wanted to take the American bribe.’
‘We should have let them,’ said Volodya. ‘It might have been the quickest way to sabotage the whole scheme. Congress would then have rejected the Marshall Plan – they don’t want to give money to Communists.’
‘The Marshall Plan is an imperialist trick!’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Volodya. ‘And I’m afraid it’s working. Our wartime allies are forming an anti-Soviet bloc.’
‘People who obstruct the forward march of Communism must be dealt with appropriately.’
‘Indeed they must.’ It was amazing how consistently people such as Ilya made the wrong political judgements.
‘And I must go to bed.’
It was only ten, but Volodya went too. He lay awake thinking about Zoya and Kotya and wishing he could kiss them both goodnight.
His thoughts drifted to his mission. He had met Jan Masaryk, the symbol of Czech independence, two days earlier, at a ceremony at the grave of his father, Thomas Masaryk, the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia. Dressed in a coat with a fur collar, head bared to the falling snow, the second Masaryk had seemed beaten and depressed.
If he could be persuaded to stay on as Foreign Minister, some compromise might be possible, Volodya mused. Czechoslovakia could have a thoroughly Communist domestic government, but in its international relations it might be neutral, or at least minimally anti-American. Masaryk had both the diplomatic skills and the international credibility to walk that tightrope.
Volodya decided he would suggest it to Lemitov tomorrow.
He slept fitfully and woke before six o’clock with a mental alarm ringing in his imagination. It was something about last night’s conversation with Ilya. Volodya ran over it again in his mind. When Ilya had said People who obstruct the forward march of Communism he had been talking about Masaryk; and when a secret policeman said someone had to be dealt with appropriately he always meant killed.
Then Ilya had gone to bed early, which suggested an early start this morning.
I’m a fool, Volodya thought. The signs were there and it took me all night to read them.
He leaped out of bed. Perhaps he was not too late.
He dressed quickly and put on a heavy overcoat, scarf and hat. There were no taxis outside the hotel – it was too early. He could have called a Red Army car, but by the time a driver was awakened and the car brought it would take the best part of an hour.
He set out to walk. The Czernin Palace was only a mile or two away. He headed west out of Prague’s gracious city centre, crossed the St Charles Bridge, and hurried uphill towards the castle.
Masaryk was not expecting him, nor was the Foreign Minister obliged to give audience to a Red Army colonel. But Volodya felt sure Masaryk would be curious enough to see him.
He walked fast through the snow and reached the Czernin Palace at six-forty-five. It was a huge baroque building with a grandiose row of Corinthian half-columns on the three upper storeys. The place was lightly guarded, he found to his surprise. A sentry pointed to the front door. Volodya walked unchallenged through an ornate hall.
He had expected to find the usual secret police moron behind a reception desk, but there was no one. This was a bad sign, and he was filled with foreboding.
The hall led to an inner courtyard. Glancing through a window, he saw what looked like a man sleeping in the snow. Perhaps he had fallen there drunk: if so, he was in danger of freezing to death.
Volodya tried the door and found it open.
He ran across the quadrangle. A man in blue silk pyjamas lay face down on the ground. There was no snow covering him, so he could not have been there many minutes. Volodya knelt beside him. The man was quite still and did not appear to be breathing.
Volodya looked up. Rows of identical windows like soldiers on parade looked into this courtyard. All were closed tightly against the freezing weather – except one, high above the man in pyjamas, that stood wide open.
As if someone had been thrown out of it.
Volodya turned the lifeless head and looked at the man’s face.
It was Jan Masaryk.
(ii)
Three days later in Washington, the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented to President Truman an emergency war plan to meet a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
The danger of a third world war was a hot topic in the press. ‘We just won the war,’ Jacky Jakes said to Greg Peshkov. ‘How come we’re about to have another?’
‘That’s what I keep asking myself,’ said Greg.
They were sitting on a park bench while Greg took a breather from throwing a football with Georgy.
‘I’m glad he’s too young to fight,’ Jacky said.
‘Me, too.’
They both looked at their son, standing talking to a blonde girl about
his age. The laces of his Keds were undone and his shirt was untucked. He was twelve years old and growing up. He had a few soft black hairs on his upper lip, and he seemed three inches taller than last week.
‘We’ve been bringing our troops home as fast as we can,’ Greg said. ‘So have the British and the French. But the Red Army stayed put. Result: they now have three times as many soldiers in Germany as we do.’
‘Americans don’t want another war.’
‘You can say that again. And Truman hopes to win the Presidential election in November, so he’s going to do everything he can to avoid war. But it may happen anyway.’
‘You’re getting out of the army soon. What are you going to do?’
There was a quaver in her voice that made him suspect the question was not as casual as she pretended. He looked at her face, but her expression was unreadable. He answered: ‘Assuming America is not at war, I’m going to run for Congress in 1950. My father has agreed to finance my campaign. I’ll start as soon as the Presidential election is over.’
She looked away. ‘Which party?’ She asked the question mechanically.
He wondered if he had said something to upset her. ‘Republican, of course.’
‘What about marriage?’
Greg was taken aback. ‘Why do you ask that?’
She was looking hard at him now. ‘Are you getting married?’ she persisted.
‘As it happens, I am. Her name is Nelly Fordham.’
‘I thought so. How old is she?’
‘Twenty-two. What do you mean, you thought so?’
‘A politician needs a wife.’
‘I love her!’
‘Sure you do. Is her family in politics?’
‘Her father is a Washington lawyer.’
‘Good choice.’
Greg felt annoyed. ‘You’re being very cynical.’
‘I know you, Greg. Good Lord, I fucked you when you weren’t much older than Georgy is now. You can fool everyone except your mother and me.’
She was perceptive, as always. His mother had also been critical of his engagement. They were right: it was a career move. But Nelly was pretty and charming and she adored Greg, so what was so wrong? ‘I’m meeting her for lunch near here in a few minutes,’ he said.
