‘How is Olga?’ was his final question.
‘Fine. Not here at the moment. She’s spending the week at the dacha. Working on one of her books.’
‘Ah yes.’ Ligachev glanced at the bookshelf where several of Madame Zavarova’s mathematics textbooks were on display. From there his gaze shifted to the Steinway grand piano and the cluster of silver-framed photographs arranged on its lid. One particular picture, faded with age, dominated the group. Zavarov thought his eyes lingered for a moment on it. Then the rosy-cheeked politician turned back to him.
‘Mikhail Sergeyevich sends you his warmest regards.’
Zavarov grunted. ‘Nice to hear I’m in his thoughts. I reciprocate.’ He smiled coldly. ‘Did he mention the matter of my establishment?’
‘No.’ Ligachev pursed his lips. ‘That’s not what I’m here to talk about.’
Before Zavarov could say anything, Ratushny appeared with a fresh tray of coffee. He had changed his uniform. The marshal took the coffee and sent him away. He set the tray down on a side table and began pouring two cups.
‘My establishment, Yegor,’ he pursued as the door closed behind the major-domo, ‘is something you may not want to talk about, but I do. You know the score as well as me. When Chernenko made me chief of staff and brought me onto the Politburo as an alternate member, he promised that I could expect full voting establishment in a year or so. Nothing could have been clearer.’
Ligachev looked increasingly uncomfortable but said nothing.
‘Gorbachev hasn’t the slightest intention of confirming my establishment. Has he?’
Still no response. The marshal clattered Ligachev’s cup down on the table by his elbow. A little pool of coffee slopped into the saucer. Ligachev stared at it and then up at Zavarov. He sighed.
‘Mikhail Sergeyevich holds you in the highest regard. It’s just that now isn’t the best time.’
‘Don’t patronise me. If Chernenko had lived another year or two, Gorbachev would never have got the leadership. We both know that.’ Now Zavarov’s voice dropped to a low growl. ‘You might have got it yourself.’
Ligachev coloured. ‘Ancient history.’
‘Why have you stopped thinking for yourself, Yegor? Why do you let Mikhail Sergeyevich do it all for you?’
‘Careful, Georgi. Your sharp tongue presumes on my friendship too much.’
‘Friendship? You used to be a friend. I’m not so sure any more.’ Zavarov returned to his armchair, ran a large hand over his grizzled hair and lit an unfiltered English cigarette. ‘We made you Gorbachev’s second-in-command as a safety harness, to rein him in. But it isn’t working. You’ve become his creature instead – his little dancing bear. He plays the music, you jig to it.’ The marshal began clapping his heavy hands together, lilting a fairground tune at the same time. The cigarette dangled from his lips, puffs of smoke punctuating the new words he set to the old tune. ‘See how Yegor twists and turns! La-la-la! La-la-la! Jump, Yegor! Higher, Yegor! La-la-la-la-la!’
It was a humiliating performance, one that belonged in a drunken NCOs mess, but Ligachev suffered it in silence, merely averting his gaze from Zavarov’s and waiting patiently for him to finish.
‘It’s a question of economics,’ he managed finally.
Zavarov snorted with derision. ‘It’s not a pay rise I’m looking for.’
‘What country can keep funding military expansion if there’s not enough money to pay for it?’
‘Would you rather we let the Western imperialists clean up everywhere?’
‘Of course not. But perhaps it’s time we learnt to use other methods than brute force of arms. We must become stronger economically. That’s what today’s battlefield is.’ For the first time a defiance had appeared in Ligachev’s eyes. ‘To take that battlefield we need to make a few changes.’
The marshal expelled cigarette smoke through flat lips and eyed him with suspicion. ‘Changes? What did you have in mind, you and your Mikhail Sergeyevich?’
‘The country doesn’t have a bottomless purse. We need to spend our money where it makes us strong tomorrow – rebuilding our industries. It means there’ll be less for military investment.’
Zavarov could hear Ratushny rattling dishes in the kitchen. Suddenly he felt cold; he shivered, wishing the man had lit the fire.
Ligachev was in control now. His voice purred on. ‘Georgi, I’m just telling you the facts.’
‘As you see them? Or as comrade Gorbachev sees them?’
‘If military issues are going to take a back seat, we need to get that message across to the country. Not just in speeches. In action. That’s why this would be the worst possible time to confirm your establishment. Then there are the Americans and the question of arms cuts.’
Zavarov spat out some shreds of tobacco and wiped his lips. ‘Make them a few promises and let them go to hell.’
‘No. Mikhail Sergeyevich wants real reductions. Not just nuclear either.’
Zavarov’s head had begun to pound. ‘Men and hardware,’ he muttered. The pressure from the new leader had been building all year. ‘That’s what he’s after.’
Ligachev nodded. ‘We start with a substantial nuclear agreement with the Americans. Then we move on to conventional forces. Troops and equipment renewal costs – those are the biggest financial problem.’
Now the politician reached into an inside pocket and withdrew a white envelope.
‘Which brings me to this.’
He handed it across to Zavarov. The marshal’s name was typed across it, along with the injunction Confidential. In the bottom left-hand corner was the single red star with the hammer and sickle picked out in gold within it that was the crest of the office of the General Secretary.
‘You’re to leave for Afghanistan at once. Your visit will be described as an appraisal of the operational readiness of our units.’
Zavarov rammed the cigarette between his lips and tore the envelope open.
‘I’ve got a score of commanders there to tell me all about operational readiness. As Mikhail Sergeyevich well knows. What the hell is he up to?’
Ligachev drew a deep breath. ‘It’s all in there. You’re to brief the command to begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal. It’s only a plan at this stage, of course …’
‘No!’
Zavarov scanned the one-page letter. It was as Ligachev said. On a separate sheet Gorbachev had listed specific points on which he sought the marshal’s views after his first-hand appraisal: how many regiments could be withdrawn, over what period, from which regions, at what risk.
‘As I said, it’s partly an economic issue,’ Ligachev was saying. ‘But it ties in to our negotiations with the Americans as well. Afghanistan is one of the side issues that always get added to arms control agendas – human rights, Jews, the so-called political dissidents. You know how the White House likes to play holier than thou. With Afghanistan, it suits us to show willing this time.’
Zavarov let the letter fall to the table; as he looked up at Ligachev, he made no attempt to hide his scorn.
‘Do you really go along with all this, Yegor?’
For the second time that morning, Ligachev avoided his gaze. ‘Mikhail Sergeyevich will win the Western public opinion battle with moves like this. That puts tremendous pressure on Western political leaders.’
The cigarette, now a butt, suddenly tasted foul; Zavarov flung it into the fireplace, where it sparked against the dry wood. When he looked up, he found that Ligachev had risen to his feet.
‘I can let myself out,’ the politician said.
Zavarov stared grimly up at him. ‘On that, at least, we agree.’
*
A few minutes later, his distasteful duty discharged, Ligachev lay back against the headrest of the Zil and gazed out of its smoked-glass window with half-closed eyes. But he wasn’t seeing the streets of Moscow or hearing its noises.
‘Why must I take the letter, Mikhail Sergeyevich? Why not call him in and tell him to his
face? Or send an officer of your personal staff.’
‘It would be better if you went, Yegor Kuzmich. You’re old friends.’
‘He’ll only cross-examine me about his establishment.’
‘Exactly. It’s time he knew my thinking. Naturally, you have my authority to answer him in full. That’s why I want you to go. It’ll be a hard blow for him; a friend can explain it more sympathetically.’
‘With respect, General Secretary, I doubt that.’
‘Are you unwilling to do this simple commission for me, comrade?’
‘Of course not.’
Ligachev closed his eyes fully, the better to study the guilt in his soul. Zavarov was merely the latest in his list of betrayals. That was how he thought of them these days. Why pretend? The process had been going on for months. Ever since he had begun to weaken under the relentless force of Mikhail Sergeyevich’s arguments about the changes that needed to be made in the country.
He was responsible for Personnel Affairs in the party. In the old days that had brought him great power. No one got elected – which meant appointed – to a key position anywhere in the hierarchy without his approval. Since high party standing was a ticket to all the best jobs and privileges in the country, he had been able to dispense and withdraw patronage like a tsar of old, with consequent advantages to himself.
He also had encyclopaedic knowledge of party operations and of everyone who mattered in them. That was what had made him so valuable to Mikhail Sergeyevich. Looking back now, he could see that those who had nominated him as the ‘safety harness’ had actually played right into the new leader’s hands. They had put close to him the man best qualified to guide his hand in the countrywide purge of key party positions that Mikhail Sergeyevich needed to build up his power base.
That was how the betrayals had started. Each one drew him deeper into Gorbachev’s camp and further away from his old loyalties. For all Zavarov’s coarse bluster, he had assessed his old friend’s quandary with chilling accuracy.
Except for one thing. Ligachev hadn’t stopped thinking for himself.
That was what made it all such agony.
*
As for Zavarov, the rest of his morning slid away in a fug of French brandy. Ratushny came in to clear the coffee tray, saw the brandy balloon in the marshal’s bearpaw of a fist, and retreated quickly to the kitchen again.
Hair of the dog, Zavarov told himself initially, a pick-me-up after last night’s session. Nothing to do with Ligachev or his visit. After two generous glasses, however, the excuse was wearing thin. So the marshal abandoned it and fetched the bottle; thereafter it never left his hand all morning.
Noon found him slouched over the Steinway. No longer the proud soldier. Just an old man with too much brandy in his belly. Slumped on a piano for fear of falling over. A piano that Olga no longer played for him. It was over twenty years now since she had touched its keys in his hearing. He knew why.
His thick fingers reached out to trace the curve of the silver picture frame, its reflection gleaming in the dark sheen of the piano lid. The picture showed a soldier of the Red Army with captain’s boards on his shoulders. Taller in those days. Slimmer too. No brandy in his belly then. Broad shouldered. A proud, good-looking wife by his side. One who played the piano for him.
He clenched his eyes tight to shut out the rest of the picture. But it didn’t matter: he knew what it contained anyway. For a few minutes he gave in and let the past live again: his foot tapped out tunes that he no longer heard Olga play, the picture in the silver frame moved and he was in it.
The escape was all too brief. When it was over, the picture was only a faded print after all, his hair was grey again and his waist too thick, and the empty brandy bottle and his headache were still there.
The letter too.
He picked it up again. There it was, nicely buried in the middle of the last paragraph:
Please make your arrangements to leave at your earliest convenience; your headquarters staff in Moscow will, I am sure, be able to cover adequately in your absence.
Whatever else it looked like, it was a command: get out of Moscow at once.
Afghanistan. He knew the distances, the journey times. Within twenty-four hours he would be scrambling over the dunghills of Nangarhar or Herat.
On the seventh of November.
Where he would not be, maybe never again would be on any seventh of November, was on the reviewing stand by the Lenin Mausoleum, with everybody else who was anyone, watching his own soldiers, tanks, hardware and missiles file past on Red Square. Taking the salute on Revolution Day.
Exactly where he, the chief of staff, should be.
But there was worse. Not only would he not be there; he would be seen not to be there.
Was that the kind of message Gorbachev wanted to send to the country and the West?
Wanted to send to him as well?
‘Bastard,’ he growled fiercely, swallowing the last of the brandy.
‘Bastard,’ he said again, louder, as he flung the empty glass with all his strength into the fireplace. The empty bottle followed.
‘Comrade Marshal?’ ventured an anxious Ratushny, rushing in from the kitchen to see what the noise was.
‘The bastard!’ Zavarov roared before storming off. Behind him the letter fluttered to the floor.
3
London
Morning came wet and slow to the capital, the grey dawn creeping slowly over the jumbled rooftops. River and sky were the colour of lead. Scraps of wastepaper and takeaway wrappings, rained on in the night to near disintegration, clung to the roads and pavements. In the slice of west London bounded by Chiswick High Road and the Uxbridge Road, tube trains rumbled over the elevated tracks above the narrow streets; lights still burnt in kitchens and bedrooms. Like the rest of the city, the streets were waking to another day.
In the narrow terraced house in one of these narrow streets, Edmund Knight let go of the bedroom curtain and closed the scene from view. One thought filled his mind, as it had on so many other days of late, and it brought enough bleakness in itself. Twenty years, he was thinking: twenty years was enough to ask of any man. He had served his time and now he was tired. If they challenged him, if they said that so far he had only been required to wait, well then, to hell with them. He had given his readiness. For half his life. The waiting was as bad as doing, they knew that. It was time to finish.
Behind him the bedroom door opened and the woman came in. He watched her cross the room.
‘Eva.’
Leaning against the window frame, he spoke her name quietly and she smiled fleetingly at him. She was used to his moods, his silences and stray words. He stood there watching as she turned away and switched on the lamp by the bed.
She wasn’t his wife, he’d never had one, but she had come as close to him as he would allow any woman, wife or not. She would never know all of him; he would spare her that.
She was tall, almost as tall as himself, and her body, still damp from the shower, glowed in the lamplight when the white dressing gown slipped to her feet. She began to comb her wet hair, her whole body shifting from side to side as she parted the fair tresses with long, smooth strokes.
Eva. The name was unspoken this time, locked behind his lips.
Eva, whose home this was; who shared her bed with him and sometimes the big old house in Berkshire that he called home. Who shared the same masters as he did.
Or some of them.
Eva, whom he loved. Who might be all he had now.
She felt him still watching her and glanced around.
‘There isn’t time, Edmund,’ she said, smiling. Her voice was quiet, deep and soft. She knew there was always time. Her head flicked up suddenly, tossing her hair over her shoulders like a dancer, and her face half-turned back to him.
‘You’re a crazy man.’
He thought about the grey city and the drenched streets. Hated this miserable morning and this ache that was inside him, had been insid
e him for too long. Then he was behind her, taking the comb from her hand and setting it down. Her back arched and her wet hair was pressing against his unshaven cheek.
‘I’m crazy,’ he agreed.
Not meaning it; not meaning it at all.
*
There was one thing he had to tell her. The moment he chose was when they were dressed and almost ready to set out. He had made them late; she was in a hurry and assumed he was too. No time for too many questions.
‘I’m going to resign,’ he said.
She was bending down by the dressing table to put on her lipstick; her gaze swept up to meet his in the mirror, her mouth still set in the round o-shape. After a moment she tilted her head and returned her attention to her lips.
‘Good for you.’ She said it with perfect nonchalance.
‘I’m serious.’
‘You’re always serious, Edmund. For the last year you’ve been serious. Ever since we started.’ She took a last critical look at her handiwork, dropped the lipstick into her handbag and put on the jacket that she’d laid out on the bed. Then she turned to face him.
‘Once a month you tell me one of us has to resign. Or both of us. I don’t find this any easier than you – I know the rules just as well as you do. But let’s enjoy it while we can, what do you say? If we’re found out, we’re found out. Don’t make an even bigger thing of it. If you want to resign, resign. But not on my account, and not on this relationship’s account. Oh!’ She had seen the time. ‘Get a move on.’
They left the house and set off in his car for Turnham Green station. The rain had slowed the traffic down and the streets around the common were slow going.
‘Is it because of Sir Marcus?’ she asked him. ‘Have you got the blues because of tonight?’
The reception to mark the retirement of their outgoing Director General, Sir Marcus Cunningham, was that evening. They would both be there; it would be a strain, the usual pretence, carefully ignoring each other; but they both thought too much of Sir Marcus not to go.
Patriots Page 3
