Comrade Charlie
Page 25
The bar seemed even more crowded than the previous evening. The two KGB men were there, the aloof, get-to-bed official by himself as usual, the untouched mineral water in front of him, the fidgety one being rebuffed from group to group, like before. There was a small but competing group of English tourists entrenched by the far window and some separate individuals as well, and the barman was really having to work. There was little danger of drinking too much: it would have been difficult to get too much if he’d wanted it.
Abruptly Natalia was there.
Intent though he’d been, concentrating upon nothing or no one else, Natalia was over the threshold and already on her way into the bar before he fully realized it was her. With one realization came another – that she was not alone but escorted by a sparse-haired, plump man who was actually holding her cupped elbow proprietorially – and Charlie felt an immediate stab of jealousy. There was only passing recognition with the other delegation members ahead of them and they made no effort to join anyone. Natalia turned along the bar, which brought her facing completely towards him, but as she did so she twisted to speak to the attentive man with her and didn’t look at Charlie at all. There was one vacant stool, about five yards from where Charlie was hunched, and Natalia took it. The man stood close beside her and put his hand upon the low back, still proprietorial. Charlie’s jealousy grew.
The barman returned behind the bar after a few moments to serve them – white wine for Natalia, beer for the man – and while he was there he refilled Charlie’s glass and said: ‘This looks like being twice as bad as last night.’
‘Why not get some help?’ Charlie’s throat felt clogged and he had to force himself to speak normally.
‘I’ve asked. The manager says it’s an unusual situation that doesn’t arise often enough.’
‘I feel sorry for you.’ It had been easier to get the words out that time.
‘I remember when this country had unions!’ bemoaned the man, hurrying away.
He was behaving ridiculously, Charlie thought: losing his professional priorities again. Why the hell shouldn’t she come into a bar with someone else on the delegation! What conceivable significance need it have! If he were so frightened of what might be, why stop there? Why the hell couldn’t she be married or involved or utterly uninterested in him, after so long! Charlie looked up from his drink, not at her but at her angled reflection in the bar mirror, and found she was looking at him in precisely the same way, avoiding any chance of anyone guessing a connection between them. She gave no facial reaction either, but Charlie, who remained completely expressionless as well, didn’t need any. It could only have been seconds but it seemed much longer and then Natalia broke the gaze, turning to catch something her companion said.
Charlie straightened slightly on the stool, decisively finishing his drink, and looked around for the barman, who was some way away getting an order from the English group. Charlie put two pounds beside his empty glass and as he left the room paused almost directly behind Natalia’s chair and made a miming gesture for the man to charge the drinks to his room.
‘Thirty-five,’ he called out and the barman nodded.
In his room Charlie experimented, closing the door just before the point of engaging the lock, frustrated that he hadn’t practised earlier to ensure it was feasible. The first time he took his hand away the door swung too far inwards, making it obvious it was unlatched, but it was better on the second attempt.
Charlie retreated further into the room, slightly raising and then lowering his arms as if he did not know what to do with his hands, which he didn’t. He stared around the room, for no particular reason, caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and saw that his hair was like a windswept cornfield again. He pushed an uncertain hand across it but it sprang back up so he stopped trying. Would she have heard? Understood? It had seemed perfectly natural – and more importantly, undetectable to anyone else – when she’d positioned herself so near to him at the bar but there was no absolute guarantee she would have picked up the room number because he hadn’t been able to make it a positive shout and there’d been a lot of noise. What could she do if she’d missed it? If she didn’t come he’d have to think of something else to try tomorrow. But what if…? Charlie never reached the end of his own question because there was the softest sound against the door and then tentatively it was pushed open and Natalia stood framed in the doorway, smiling nervously at him. Her hesitation was only brief, a second, before she slipped in and properly closed the door behind her. Having done so she stayed with her back against it, as if she were frightened to come any further, and Charlie remained where he was, as if he were frightened, too.
‘Hello,’ said Charlie.
‘Hello.’
‘I…’ he started and stopped. Then he said: ‘I should have thought of something better to say but I haven’t. Christ, I’ve missed you!’
Natalia came to him then, in a rush, and they clung to each other and kissed – awkwardly in their eagerness, more colliding than kissing at first – and Natalia pulled away breathlessly and said: ‘Oh my darling I’ve missed you too! I’ve missed you so much!’
Charlie looked around the small, inadequately furnished room and then, holding both her hands in his, started back towards the bed for them to sit. Natalia didn’t move, resisting him. He shook his head at her and said: ‘I didn’t mean…’
‘…I know,’ stopped Natalia, putting her finger to his lips. ‘I can’t stay. I’ll be missed.’
‘When?’
‘Later. Just wait for me.’
‘The thin one who doesn’t drink watches everyone,’ warned Charlie, remembering the conversation with the barman.
‘Bondarev,’ she recognized. ‘I can get away. Don’t worry.’
‘I love you,’ blurted Charlie.
‘And I love you,’ said Natalia.
Charlie waited. He guessed it would be for several hours and that he could have gone out to eat but he didn’t want to: he didn’t feel like eating or drinking or doing anything. Just waiting, to be there when she returned. It had happened, he realized, with something approaching surprise. They were together again and it was like it had been before. No, not like it had been before: before in Moscow it had been quieter, not frenzied. But the anxiousness, the snatching out for each other, was just a disbelieving excitement, that it had happened. It would be like it was before, soon enough. I love you. Her words – the way she said them – echoed in his mind. So there was no new husband, no involvement, no impediment. I love you. How would they…Charlie started to think and then stopped. He wouldn’t plan, couldn’t plan, how they would do anything. They just had to take every minute – grab every minute! – as it came. No forethought, no speculation. Just be together.
It was past midnight when Natalia came back. There was the same soft sound, the door opening and closing in an instant, and he was holding her again but calmer this time, less hurried. They were still by the door and Charlie felt out and locked it.
Natalia smiled at the precaution and said: ‘I won’t try to get away.’
‘I don’t want you to, not again.’
Her face straightened. ‘Not yet. Let’s not talk about anything yet.’
At the beginning, horrified, Charlie did not think in his anxiety that he would be able to make love to her. Natalia realized it and was very patient, coaxing and soothing, and he finally did and it was as perfect as they both wanted it to be. They climaxed in complete harmony, Natalia making tiny, muffled pleasure sounds, and Charlie wanted to do it again almost at once and it was perfect the second time. Afterwards they remained locked tightly together, as if to part would break the mood, Charlie with his head against Natalia’s neck, stroking her thigh and running his hand up to her breast and then back again, Natalia feeling his face in the darkness like someone without sight etching his features into her mind.
It was Charlie who finally spoke, still not moving from how he lay against her. ‘There’s a lot to say.’
‘Did you guess I’d get to you?’
‘I hoped.’ She wished he’d stop.
‘I meant it. About your not getting away again.’
Natalia moved her fingers just slightly on his face to put them against his mouth, in the quieting gesture she’d made when she’d first come to him. ‘ Later.’
‘Why later?’
Because I know it’s a decision I have to make and now I’ve got to make it I’m frightened, thought Natalia. ‘Please!’ she said.
‘OK! All right!’ said Charlie, hurriedly retreating. He was wrong to pressure and crowd her so soon. They were together, which neither had believed ever to be possible, and that should be enough for the first night.
‘Don’t be angry,’ pleaded Natalia, concerned she was spoiling the moment.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Charlie. ‘How long can you stay?’
He felt her shrug. ‘Not too long. Bondarev is very diligent.’
‘What’s your room?’
‘Six twenty. But don’t try to come: it’s a sealed floor.’
‘I know,’ said Charlie. ‘What about tomorrow?’
‘You’ll have to wait for me, like tonight.’
‘Be careful.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ said Natalia. ‘You want to know something?’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t believe I could ever be this happy any more.’
The problem that developed was caused by Yuri Ivanovich Guzins and in a way no one had foreseen.
The scientist’s nervousness had worsened, not improved, as the days passed in the Kensington house, not helped by his refusal ever to leave it, so unreasonably frightened was he of British counterintelligence detection. Although it was of his own choosing Guzins felt increasingly imprisoned and like a lot of imprisoned men his objectivity distorted. His constant preoccupation became the responsibility imposed upon him by his having to approve each drawing before its dispatch to Moscow in the embassy diplomatic bag. The breaking point came with a query relayed back from Baikonur on a drawing he had already sanctioned and too brusquely put by Vitali Losev, himself preoccupied by the conflict with Alexandr Petrin. It was actually a misunderstanding by a junior technician at the Soviet space complex, with no reflection at all upon Guzins, and corrected in minutes. But Guzins misconceived criticism in Moscow and decided that if he were to protect himself in future he had to go exhaustively through every tracing, practically debating every line with the American, before releasing it.
The language difficulty meant each question and answer had to be put either through Losev or Petrin, and the insistence delayed Krogh so much that he was only managing to complete half instead of an entire drawing at each session.
By the night of the reunion between Charlie and Natalia, just three miles away across Hyde Park, the backlog of drawings for which Guzins was withholding permission had reached six and there hadn’t been a shipment to Moscow for two days.
‘It’s impossible to go on like this!’ protested Losev.
‘Then get instructions from Moscow that I don’t have to arbitrate any more,’ said Guzins hopefully.
34
The next day Charlie walked all the way to Marble Arch, where he finally succumbed to the protests from his feet. From there, on impulse, he took a cab to his home territory and The Pheasant. There the landlord, who knew him, suggested it was a nice day and Charlie said he’d known better. He didn’t eat, because he didn’t feel like it, and back at the hotel he avoided the bar in the evening. Natalia slipped into his room before midnight.
Charlie said: ‘I worried like hell, all day.’
Natalia kissed him and said: ‘There was no need.’
‘We’ve got to talk.’
‘Yes.’
‘You first,’ urged Charlie.
‘What?’
‘Everything. From the day I left you.’
Natalia’s shoulders rose and fell. ‘The strange thing is there doesn’t seem a lot to say. I thought there would be but there isn’t.’ There was another shrug. ‘I know that’s silly and there must be but I can’t think of it. All I can think of is being with you again.’
Charlie pressed her into the only easy chair in the room, perched himself on the edge of the bed directly in front of her and said: ‘Tell me what there is. What you can think of.’
Natalia started hesitantly, unprepared. She talked of being finally admitted by Kalenin the day Charlie fled and of recounting the story they had rehearsed and of how frightened she had been, but how she’d been believed. ‘Actually congratulated,’ she volunteered.
‘What happened to Edwin Sampson?’ interrupted Charlie.
‘I don’t know. I told Kalenin he was a plant to infiltrate the KGB, like you said I should, but I never learned the outcome.’
‘Poor bastard,’ said Charlie softly.
‘I thought you despised him.’
‘He was a plant,’ disclosed Charlie, telling her because there was no further hurt the man could possibly suffer. ‘I didn’t know it. I really thought he was a traitor from the very heart of our service but he wasn’t. He’d been prepared for years, built up his credibility by leaking a lot of good stuff to convince Dzerzhinsky Square he was genuine. The idea was to embed him deeply into your Moscow headquarters to be the best source we’d ever had.’
‘He would have broken under interrogation,’ said Natalia distantly. ‘It’s easier to understand now why my story was accepted so readily.’
‘I hope he did confess quickly enough,’ said Charlie. ‘There wouldn’t have been any point in his resisting: in suffering. But he wouldn’t have known that, would he?’
‘No,’ agreed Natalia, conscious of Charlie’s guilt. ‘Like you said, poor man.’
‘I didn’t know,’ repeated Charlie.
‘What about you?’ demanded Natalia quickly. ‘What was your part in the operation if you didn’t know about Sampson?’
Charlie hesitated, and wondered why he did. He said: ‘My being there was nothing to do with Sampson at all. I’d trapped Berenkov here in England and we knew he had been promoted through the KGB after he was repatriated. Our Director General guessed Berenkov, being the sort of man he was, would befriend me in Moscow, which he did. The hope was that by my running back he’d come under suspicion in Dzerzhinsky Square: maybe even be discredited. That was something else I didn’t know, until I returned. I was told to make a series of contact meetings with a source whose identity I didn’t know but that if the source didn’t turn up – which of course he didn’t, because there wasn’t one – to get back here.’
‘Which you did,’ reminded Natalia pointedly.
‘I’ve wished I hadn’t, a million times,’ said Charlie, just as pointedly.
‘Berenkov wasn’t discredited,’ she revealed. ‘He’s still head of the First Chief Directorate. It was he who transferred me from debriefing.’
Charlie’s hesitancy now was from his uncertainty how to guide the conversation. He said: ‘Berenkov appointed you personally?’
‘When I was summoned I thought it was to do with us: that they’d found out something we hadn’t thought of and that I was going to be punished, after all.’
‘What is your function now?’ demanded Charlie.
Natalia told him of Berenkov’s appointment interview and of the overseas visits she had already made and of which Charlie was already aware. She said: ‘Berenkov regards the move as worthwhile: my assessments have proved accurate so far.’
‘Are there often department changes like this within your service?’
Natalia lifted and dropped her shoulders again. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard of them.’
Neither had he, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Weren’t you surprised?’
/> ‘Very,’ conceded Natalia at once. She smiled and added: ‘Pleased, too. I never thought it possible but I prayed for this.’
Enough, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Who’s the man you were with?’
‘Man?’ frowned Natalia, puzzled.
‘Last night, in the bar?’
Natalia smiled again, shaking her head this time. ‘His name is Golovanov. He’s the chief aeronautical engineer from the Ilyushin plant and I’ve only known him for two days and he gropes a lot. OK?’
Charlie smiled back at her, shamefaced. ‘I wanted to know.’
‘There isn’t anyone, Charlie. There hasn’t been, not at all.’
‘Good.’
‘And?’
‘No,’ assured Charlie in return. ‘No one.’ What about Laura? Not the same, he told himself: not the same at all.
‘I wondered,’ admitted Natalia. ‘Worried, which was stupid. Not my business, I mean.’
‘Isn’t it your business?’
‘We’ve talked enough tonight.’
‘Why avoid it?’
‘I’m frightened.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘I know.’
‘So?’
‘Please, Charlie!’
‘No,’ he refused.