by Kim Newman
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Back in the USSA
"What?" she exclaimed. "That's ridiculous! You wish you were my what? I hope this line isn't being tapped, Mr. Windsor." Cinzia ..
"Good night and God bless."
She hung up and took the phone off the hook. Thinking about it, she put the receiver back and waited. It did not tinkle again.
She waited...
She was woken up by a knock at the door. She had fallen asleep in her clothes and not dreamed.
She could reach and open the door without getting out of bed. She huddled back against pillows as her visitor entered.
It was not who she had expected.
Sir Anthony Blunt looked down on her as if she were a forged painting. Or, worse, a real one by someone of whose work he disapproved.
"Miss Bronstein, I'll come to the point..."
"You do that," she said, prepared to be outraged.
Blunt took a manila envelope out of his jacket. It was bulked out fatly.
"One million roubles. You can count it if you like."
She felt expensive and yet cheap.
"Who do you represent?"
"Interests, Miss Bronstein. We have a great deal tied up in the Imperial Wedding, and we are not going to lose it through your wayward amours"
He dropped the envelope on the bed. It bounced.
"It's yours if you leave the country, and don't come back for six months. At least."
She touched the envelope as if it were a big squashed slug.
"There are other ways of dealing with you."
There was a chill in the room. She looked closely at the long face and cold eyes and was frightened. All courts had people like this: hatchet men.
"Think of it as a patriotic duty. Your influence is making the Duke of Cornwall unhappy with things that must be."
She shoved the envelope away, angrier now than she was scared.
"You've a low opinion of me, Sir Anthony."
He stepped into the room, bumping his head on the low lintel. He seemed a giant, bowed under the ceiling. His big hands reached out, long fingers closing around his money.
"You won't be missed. In a month, he won't remember your face. No one will."
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"I'd advise you to be careful with your words, Anth," said a male voice, in English. Someone else stood in the door. "You never know if a room is bugged these days. Especially in the Russias."
The newcomer was Harold Philby, looking cheerfully unkempt as if he had been at the picnic all night. He had turned up before, like Blunt. They seemed to know each other. Sir Anthony froze with detestation as Philby slipped into the room.
They were all seriously cramped now.
"Hello, Miss," Philby said, kindly. "You shouldn't mind what grumpy old Anth says. He's all wind. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Couldn't, in fact. Not when some of us know his home truths."
Blunt might have been swallowing hemlock frappe.
"Don't he look British?" Philby said, nodding at Sir Anthony. He sat on the corner of the bed and patted her knee with an avuncular, conspiratorial look. "With his title and all, and so close to the dear old Royal Family. So valued, so trusted."
Blunt hissed like an angry cobra.
"He's not so trustworthy, though. Used to be a spy for the Americans. Caught Communism at Cambridge, read his Marx and Debs between sodomy and champagne. Ferreted out secrets and posted them off to Uncle Al Capone. During the War, he was careless and got found out. Wasn't sent down because strings were pulled on his behalf. Besides the jolly Yankee Red Americans were Allies back then. Shoulder to shoulder against the beastly Nazis and all."
"This is all very educational," Blunt said. "But..."
"How'd it be, I wonder, if I were to write it up in the Times. The Duchess of York's closest adviser in the pay of the Americans since the 1930s. Somebody's nice comfortable life would go down the drain. You'd make lots of close friends in prison, though."
Blunt glared fire.
"No, not a very happy thought is it, Anth. Now, beetle off back to the Duchess and the Tsar and tell them this young woman has no intention of disrupting anything."
Blunt got up and barged out, rigid with rage. Philby shrugged and smiled as the door slammed.
"Why are you doing this?" Cinzia asked.
"Think of me as a Fairy Godmother," Philby said. "No, that has associations. A good Samaritan, then. Fear not, all will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire, you know."
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"Candide. And it's meant ironically." "Good girl. Better than Charlie deserves."
She thought he might try to kiss her but he didn't. Philby patted her knee again, got up, and slipped out of the door. Now she was just confused.
"The Metropolitan is waiting in the chapel," the Tsar bellowed at the closed door of Grand Duchess Ekaterina's suite. "Paradjanov says he will lose the light through the stained glass windows. Katiusha, you must come down."
Cinzia, summoned by imperial messenger, joined the queue in the corridor. The Tsar was at its head, like a desperate man waiting for his turn in the lavatory. Behind him, in full fancy dress, was Ensign Chekhov.
Paradjanov was at a window, sternly looking at the sun, mentally forbidding it to rise further. Today, the director wore a medieval padded hunting jacket studded with tiny crystal balls, and tight-like leggings cross-gartered, with scarlet rope sandals and an embroidered codpiece.
"You, girl" said the Tsar, pointing at her...
...this was it, an imperial decree of banishment or death. Perhaps with torture.
"...you are the only one she will see."
Thank the Saints, it was only Ekaterina being unreasonable. She was still not found out.
"Your friend is here, Katiusha" said the Tsar, signalling furiously that Cinzia should approach.
The would-be autocrat of all the Russias was sweating heavily and seemed to have lost bulk. If he could not rule one daughter, his chances of ruling most of two continents were looking weaker.
There was a whining mumble from behind the door.
"We could charge when she opens up, imperial highness," said Chekhov, thinking like a cavalry officer. "Strike fast and establish a beachhead."
"We are trying to coax this minx to a church service, you idiot. Not mounting an offensive patrol on the Mekong Delta."
Chekhov was put in his place.
The door opened a crack and Cinzia slipped in. Ekaterina, in a short nightie with Misha the Bear on it, slammed and locked the door behind them. Her rooms were dark and she had obviously been crying.
The Grand Duchess hugged her and sobbed into her shoulder.
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"There, there...um, Ekaterina."
"Call me Ek."
"There, there, Ek."
That set her sobbing again.
"He calls me Ek."
Kindly, she sat her down and began wiping her face with a tissue.
There was a serious conflict of interests here, but first she must calm this poor girl. Maybe the Grand Duchess would be less likely to ask for her head later.
"This is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone, Cinzia. I shall have to enter a convent."
"Come on, Ek."
"No, I have been true to my heart and betrayed my country. I'm torn in two."
"There's a lot of that about."
"I can't understand it. Andropov must have known, but he had Pavel Andreievich transferred from the space program."
Cinzia's head hurt.
"Andropov? Of the Okhrana?"
Ekaterina nodded miserably.
"What's he to do with Ensign Chekhov?"
"Yuri Andropov is in charge of all personnel attached to the Royal household for the period of the Imperial Engagement. It's some silly security measure. When I first felt, ah, stirrings, I tried to have Pavel Andreievich sent away. I tried, Cinzia. I tried to do my duty."
>
The kopeck was beginning to drop.
"You and Pavel, you are..."
"We are lovers, Cinzia. I could not help myself. And neither could he."
Cinzia could have been listening to herself.
"I'm so miserable. I don't want to be a Grand Duchess and end up a pink elephant like Great Auntie Anastasia. I want to go to Star City and watch Pavel Andreievich take off in his rocketship for the final frontier. I want to go to the moon with him. I want to make love in zero gravity."
Cinzia could imagine the possibilities.
"But I have to marry this cold fish from England and live in a freezing palace in Scotland. What is to be done?"
Cinzia had often heard of people wringing their hands, but had never actually seen anybody do it. Ekaterina buried her face in slightly chubby fingers and keened like a gutted seal. It was not pretty.
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Suddenly calm, Cinzia got up and unlocked the door. The Tsar's face hung outside, a mask of wretchedness. Cinzia detected a goaty smugness in Chekhov. The Grand Duchess and the cosmonaut would make an interesting couple, zero gee or not.
"Imperial Highness," Cinzia said, "there's a problem with the wedding."
At the end of the corridor, standing beside Paradjanov, was the veiled lady, Princess Flavia. Cinzia wondered if this woman would end up ruling the country.
"I think you'd better come in and listen to your daughter."
In the corridor, everyone listened. Ekaterina's tiny voice was indistinct, but the Tsar's bellow would have been clear through ten inches of lead shielding.
"What do you mean, you love someone else? Who is this foul adder of a betrayer?"
Chekhov was pale with fear.
Cinzia was quite enjoying this. It made a change for other people to have a miserable, complicated love life.
Paradjanov had given up on the chapel and summoned a crew to snatch shots of expectant courtiers. He was especially keen on images of Flavia drifting mysteriously like a ghost past huge paintings.
To complete the cast, the crowd was swelled by Grand Duchess Anastasia and the Dowager Duchess of York, Sir Anthony Blunt (who looked at Cinzia with loathing), the Earl of Balham and Lady Balham, Harold Philby and Yuri Andropov (spies!), some British dignitaries gone astray from the chapel, a couple of Okhrana footmen, and, at last, Charles.
"A cosmonaut" yelled the Tsar.
Chekhov fell to his knees and began praying.
Charles looked at Cinzia, and she shrugged. It was possible the Imperial Engagement would fall apart without her taking the blame. She felt sorry for Chekhov.
"I hear an unmanned probe is leaving for Jupiter next month," Balham said to the Ensign. "Maybe you should volunteer to be on it."
There was a quiet moment.
The door opened and Tsar Nicholas issued orders. "Everybody, in here. And somebody bring me a revolver."
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The Tsar looked around at the faces. Paradjanov's cameraman had hefted his instrument on his shoulder. Andropov ordered him to turn it off and, at a nod from the director, the functionary fiddled with some switches and pointed the lens askance at the room. The little red light was still on, suggesting that for an ITV man a director outranked the Okhrana.
"I want you all to bear witness to the shame of my wretch of a daughter," thundered Nicholas. "Tell them, Katiusha."
"I can't go through with the marriage," Ekaterina said, directing herself to Charles. "I'm in love. With someone else."
The Grand Duchess looked at Chekhov.
"With him, in fact. Pavel Andreievich Chekhov."
Anastasia fainted dead away in the arms of Sir Anthony Blunt. The Duchess of York looked intensely jealous.
"Oh dear," said the English Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Nicholas waved his revolver for emphasis. Chekhov flinched as the barrel pointed in his direction.
"Bad show, what?" Charles said. "Fearful disappointment. One will try and get over it."
He was trying not to laugh, the rat.
Balham snapped a photograph.
"One for the album there, Chas. I call it Disappointed Bridegroom."
Cinzia tried to suppress hysterical giggles and hoped the Tsar didn't notice.
With quiet determination that made her seem a little like Tsarina Tatiana, Ekaterina said, "I am prepared to give up my title to marry the man I love."
She held out her hand and took Chekhov by the glove, pulling him to her. Balham took a photograph. Paradjanov, weeping openly, nudged the cameraman to frame the shot perfectly.
Ekaterina stood up, regal in her nightie, beautiful through teary smudges, and kissed Ensign Chekhov. Anastasia, revived, fainted again.
Extraordinarily, Philby stepped in front of Paradjanov's camera and began talking in Russian.
"For those of you joining us late and expecting to see Prince Yussopoff hosting the Metropolitan's Engagement Mass from Tsarskoye Selo, we have a change of program. In a dramatic reversal, it has been announced that questions are being asked about the impending wedding of Charles, Duke of Cornwall, and the Grand Duchess Ekaterina..."
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Cinzia realised this was going out live. She had never been on television before. She suppressed an urge to wave to Mother. She would have stayed home to watch the mass and must now be as stunned as Anastasia.
The Tsar pointed his revolver at Philby's head—did he even know who the Englishman was?—but Flavia laid a hand on his arm and made him drop his aim.
"I, too, have an announcement," Charles said, in English. Philby translated for the viewers.
Paradjanov waved at a minion— Andropovl —to open the curtains. Glorious light flooded the room as Charles tugged Cinzia to him.
"Since my engagement to the Grand Duchess is at an end, I wish to ask Cinzia Davidovna Bronstein to be my bride."
There was cheering. Out of camera range, Flavia gave the Tsar a squeeze.
"Cinzia, will you marry one?"
The camera swerved her way.
"Marry one what?"
"Urn, Duke of Cornwall."
"No," she said.
Mouths fell open. Paradjanov was chewing his hat.
"I'll marry Charles Windsor," she said. "The man, not the title."
In the Happy Guys Club, Charles was recognised but not given special treatment. After all, the waiters and cigarette girls all wanted to work in tele and he could do a lot less for them than the producers and directors who swanned through.
For the first time, the big television set in the upstairs room was tuned not to ITV but to Soyuz. Since Georgi Sanders and Isaac Asimov began to broadcast opposite ITV's Nine O'Clock News with an irreverent current affairs program called Not a Pack of Lies, ITV's ratings monolith had been dented. With the departure of Talia Gurdin and the defection of Yul Brynner to the movies, The Rostovs was pulling in fewer viewers than Soyuz' rival "realistic" beet opera, The Lower Depths.
Cinzia sat with Charles and Balham, watching Sanders interview Harold Philby. The Englishman explained that he had been obliged to take advantage of the situation atTsarskoye Selo and provide a commentary on the extraordinary events that had been broadcast.
"I still don't understand what that man was up to," Cinzia said. "He seemed in with Andropov."
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"I've been giving it a bit of an old think with the mighty brain-box, Cind. Putting it all together, I think I've come up with the real story."
"Everybody likes a love story, Georgi," said Philby. "I'm just a softie."
"Chas, your starter for ten," Balham began. "Who is Andropov working for? The Tsar or the politicians?"
"Pass," said Charles.
"My theory is that our Gospodin Andropov is in fact Comrade Andropov. Working for the Americans. He's a communist."
"What?" said Cinzia, "the head of the Okhrana a communist?"
"Why not? The British secret service is rid
dled with reds. Last year, it came out that Sir Alexander Waverly, head of MI6, was a commie. Philby used to work for Waverly."
On tele, Isaac admitted that Philby's future was shrouded in mystery. "Like my past," the Englishman commented.
"I'll bet he's a commie too. Anyway, assume Philby is a red. Doesn't it strike you queer that he and Andropov are hob-nobbing with one another?"
"What about Blunt?" Cinzia asked. "Philby told me he was the communist."
"Tones got caught. Dead embarrassing. And, unlike Philby, he's got lots to lose. If he's found dabbling in political intrigue again, he'll spend the rest of his life in the Scrubs. Blunt enjoys the life he has too much. If he had to live under communism there'd be no more champagne and fine art for him. Just Bourbon and Norman Rockwell prints. He's no more a commie now than I am. He's just the loyal servant and tool of the Dowager Duchess of York, God bless her and all who sail in her. Dear old mum-in-law."
"So they are reds," said Charles, "What were they up to?"
"Trying to put the kibosh on your nuptials, dear boy. All the time you and Ek were on tele, you were doing a propaganda job for Royals everywhere. Meanwhile, Tsar Nick was drip-dripping all this dirt on the politicians. Why do you think he owns a television station and twelve newspapers? He was, and perhaps still is, preparing a coup d'etat. Everyone knows that. The big wedding, with its orgy of pomp and grandeur, was to be the first step in the restoration of an absolute monarchy."
It was news to Cinzia.
"Nick was going to seize power, like Tsars of old. His nice, clean, new government could rule by decree. He'd get out of Indo-China at once, which would make him hugely popular. He'd also send every corrupt
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politician and bureaucrat to Siberia and crack down on any discontent. Russia would effectively become a dictatorship. It'd be unpleasant but, for the next few years at least, very efficient. Nick is not an idiot. He'd be a very effective ruler. The gnomes in Debs D.C. would far prefer it if their rival superpower was run by incompetent crooks."
"And they achieve this by stopping my marriage to the Grand Duchess?"
"Not completely, but it goes a long way towards it. Now the wedding is off, the masses realise you and Ek were never in love. They see what a sham the whole thing was. People who were loyal monarchists realise they've been sold a lie by the Tsar's own tele station. They won't like that. They'll start looking to the politicians for their salvation again. Stupid bastards."
