After the Cabaret

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘I’m very grateful that you’ve agreed to talk to me about Sally Bowles, sir,’ he began. ‘I’m sure anything you have to say would be enormously useful. I wonder – why have you decided to speak to me?’

  ‘Well, first,’ Pym said, ‘there’s no question of recording what I say. I hope you understand that. Do you agree?’

  ‘I’d have preferred to tape it,’ responded Greg. ‘But, of course, if you don’t wish me to …’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to ask you to be searched by Ivan on your way out.’

  ‘I assure you I’d never tape anything secretly,’ Greg said sharply.

  ‘I don’t believe you would. But I must be careful.’

  ‘I suppose so. I agree,’ Greg said. The idea of Ivan searching him was not one he relished, but having got as far as Pym’s apartment in Moscow he saw no point in refusing to jump the last fence.

  ‘Good,’ said Pym. ‘Now, will you pour me a Scotch, with just a little water? Make it a large one. And one for yourself, of course.’

  As Greg did so, he continued, ‘You ask me why I’m ready to co-operate with you, give you information for your book.’ As Greg bent to give the old man his drink Pym gave him a sharp look from his dimming eyes. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

  Greg took a step back. ‘What’s that, Mr Pym?’

  ‘I want to come back to England. It’s terrible here. Everything’s falling apart. My pension is sometimes unpaid. The hospitals are collapsing. Sometimes the doctor doesn’t come. I need to go back to Britain.’

  ‘You tried some years ago, I heard,’ said Greg. ‘Perhaps the British administration would be more sympathetic now Communism has gone from Eastern Europe. Have you made a request to them?’

  ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ Pym told him. ‘I want you to take a message to a certain person.’

  Greg’s eyes widened: this man was a fugitive traitor in exile from Britain, officially still subject to trial and even execution there.

  Greg turned over the problem in his mind. He knew that he was dealing with a notoriously cunning brain, that Pym was blackmailing him crudely. He was to act as Pym’s mouthpiece in return for Pym’s co-operation over his book. Greg was not surprised, and on the face of it there was no great harm in it from his point of view. On the other hand he had to recognise that Pym was almost certainly cleverer and more subtle than he was. Was he being led into more trouble than he could imagine? He played for time. ‘I’ll do as you ask, Mr Pym,’ he said. ‘But couldn’t you do it just as well, maybe better, yourself from here?’

  ‘They won’t talk to me, dear boy,’ Pym said. ‘I’ve become a subject they don’t want to think about. There are those who got away with it, you see, informing on me, pushing a lot of paper into the kitchen boiler, calling in a network of favours carefully built up over the years. These people want me here and quiet, far, far away.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid that I’ll agree to do what you ask and that after you’ve talked to me about Sally I’ll go back and forget about it?’

  ‘You won’t,’ Pym said, giving him a knowing, complicitous look, as if he knew more about Greg than he did himself. ‘No, that’ll be all right. I trust you.’

  That’s great, Greg thought, Adrian Pym, one of the most notorious spies of his generation, the man who had been the conduit for atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, who had been responsible for sending hundreds, thousands to their deaths, trusted him. Yet, he thought, having given his word, he would probably keep it, as Pym believed. Let’s face it, that was the type of person he was, even though he suspected the deal he was keeping would not be the deal he’d thought it was when he bought in. How could it be, when it had been made with this old, experienced spy, a byword for treachery, a name to be mentioned in the same breath along with Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot?

  He said, ‘So, Mr Pym, let’s say I know what you want me to do and that I’ll do it. Will you tell me something about Sally Bowles?’ He stood up and refilled Pym’s glass.

  ‘Sally? God knows why anyone would be interested in that ghastly slut. Still, I gather things have changed in the West, with women’s rights and all that. Hard to live with, I’d imagine. Well, Sally,’ he continued, recalling himself, ‘I remember her from Cambridge, in the early thirties when she was always hanging about. How she came to join us is a mystery. I believe her father had met Briggs’s father, in the First World War. Briggs’s father was the padre, of course, and the two men wouldn’t have known each other well. Of course, the minute Miss Bowles found Briggs, Pym and all the rest of us, Charles Denham, Francis Keene, Geoffrey Forbes and so forth up at Cambridge, she wouldn’t go away. We were too fascinating, the jeunesse dorée, we were going to do everything, change everything. Handsome, gifted, intelligent – strange, isn’t it, how it came out?’ He paused, then said, ‘First, she ran away from school to Cambridge. She was sixteen and had no money. Briggs had to rescue her and return her. She did it again. He found it a nightmare. She latched on to Theo, who was her first lover. After that, there was no stopping her. Theo encouraged her, of course. We kept telling him to get rid of her but he wouldn’t. Next thing, he took off for Germany, to work for The Times. I don’t know if he took her with him or she followed him. She began her career, so-called, as a singer. Even I, though, was never sure whether it was all as innocent as it seemed. Theo was a Communist. I don’t know if Sally was ever a Party member.’

  This was a statement Greg found hard to believe.

  ‘Still, who wasn’t, duckie, in those days?’ Pym said. Then he leaned over the side of his chair and, his hand unsteady, pushed the arm of an old-fashioned record-player. Loud, energetic music filled the room. ‘Prokofiev,’ declared Pym. Ivan stole into the room – to listen, perhaps. ‘Sit down!’ Pym said autocratically, and Ivan slid down the wall and sat on the floor, his legs in the faded military trousers extended in front of him.

  ‘We spend many hours together, listening to music,’ Pym remarked wearily.

  ‘Are you tired? Would you like me to go and return tomorrow, perhaps?’ Greg offered.

  ‘No, no, dear boy. Better out than in,’ he said. ‘I remember Henley. We all turned out for Theo – whites, boaters, what tarts we were, all for the Party, of course. Ladies in hats and floaty frocks, champagne, champagne, champagne. Green, green grass and tight-bummed oarsmen. I remember Sally there, in a little straw hat, all legs, looking as if she should still have been at school. Perhaps she was. She was on Theo’s arm, the handsome devil. He must have seduced her by then. God – I was in love with him. Funny – I was never in love with anyone else except, perhaps, myself, and in any case I was always drunk, but Theo…’ He paused.

  Greg remembered Bruno Lowenthal’s perception that some of Pym’s animosity towards Sally came from his thwarted love for Theo Fitzpatrick. ‘What a day. We were all young, we all believed we were working for a better world – you have to remember that all this sunshine and glamour was set against the background of the depression. There were millions out of work. Still,’ he said, ‘what a day! We wouldn’t have turned out to queen around like that if Theo hadn’t dictated we must improve our social standing, make our mark in circles that mattered. I suppose he’d had instructions.’

  ‘From the Russians?’ asked Greg.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t from the Portuguese,’ Pym stated, holding out his glass for more. ‘Hand me one of those cigarettes,’ he requested, and Greg, having replenished his glass, took a Marlboro from a packet on the table. He lit it for Pym, who started to cough.

  ‘I’ve not long to go,’ Pym gasped, when he had finished coughing. ‘Stress that when you talk to them in Britain.’

  Greg nodded. ‘Bruno Lowenthal remembers that day at Henley,’ he told Pym.

  Pym started to speak then began to cough again. Finally he got the words out, ‘That old bugger. Is he still alive? You’ve been talking to Lowenthal? How astonishing. I first met him in Berlin, after Briggs picked him up. That was when Theo and S
ally were there, him reporting for The Times, her singing and dancing in louche cabarets, all working for the Party, so in love. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive But to be young was very heaven,” as the poet remarked about the French Revolution, which was a considerably more successful effort. Christ – Lowenthal. Where is he?’

  ‘He runs a rather successful antique shop in Portobello Road.’

  ‘Bloody hell. That was where he elected to go when Briggs turned him out, wasn’t it? The last I heard was that he was selling rags and any old iron. I wouldn’t believe all he tells you – in fact, if I were you I’d believe very little of it. I’d hate to write a book based on Lowenthal’s distorted memories.’

  ‘He seems very acute,’ Greg said. ‘But, of course, I can’t assume that what he tells me is accurate.’ He decided to take a step forward. ‘He mentioned something about Sally’s going to France on a secret mission.’

  ‘To see von Torgau,’ Pym said absently. The music ceased. ‘Turn the record over and pour me another drink,’ Pym called over to Ivan, who, apparently understanding, did so. ‘Why the hell write a book about Sally?’ Pym asked. ‘She was nobody, you know, nothing and nobody.’

  Pym was not going to discuss Sally’s French venture, Greg suspected. He observed that his host was getting drunk. The music started up again, bold and dramatic.

  ‘It’s a method of approach,’ Greg told Pym. ‘A story that hasn’t been told and perhaps never will be, fully and completely, but I plan to add piece after piece to it, using Sally as my centre.’

  ‘You’ll never get away with it,’ Pym said blurrily. ‘And if you did you’d get it all wrong.’ There was a pause. Then he declared, suddenly, ‘You’d better go. But before you do just you remember this, Mr Innocent American, that – that … ’ he groped for his thought ‘… that, silly tart as she was, Sally Bowles was no political virgin. What do you imagine she was doing in Berlin all that time, nearly a year after war’d been declared? She was a “stay-behind”, wasn’t she? A lot of people were persuaded to stay abroad when war looked increasingly likely. God knows who she was working for by the end of the war. I don’t suppose she knew herself. I’ll never know how much she had to do with us, at the end, with all of it …’ His voice trailed off and his head sank sideways. In alarm, Greg looked towards Ivan, back on the floor by the door. Ivan shrugged, nodded towards the door.

  ‘Come back tomorrow,’ came Pym’s slurred voice. ‘Might as well get it straight … shtraight.’

  Greg got up and went quietly to the door. He said goodbye to Ivan, who was on his feet now and moving towards Pym. ‘He said I should come back tomorrow,’ he said to Ivan, trying to speak clearly.

  ‘Yes, sure. Tomorrow. You phone – OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Greg, handed him a few dollars and left him bending over Pym’s frail and shrunken form. He went, unsearched, down the stairs and out into the cold, grey, darkening Russian afternoon.

  Later he met Alistair for dinner in one of Moscow’s new luxury restaurants. The short walk through the darkness from their hotel had been disconcerting due to the beggars, buyers and sellers, lurkers in doorways. Now, warm and well seated, as a girl in traditional dress went from table to table playing the balalaika, Greg looked across the restaurant to see a gaunt face peering in through the window, and said, ‘It’s like a Muscovite New York.’

  ‘They always said the USA and the Soviet Union had more in common than anyone thought,’ Alistair remarked comfortably.

  ‘There’s a lot of poverty,’ Greg ventured, although he knew that this was not a word men like Alistair wished to hear.

  ‘Of course. Teething troubles of capitalism,’ he said.

  ‘It looks more like a serious illness.’

  ‘Well, that’s not for us to comment on, is it?’ Alistair said. ‘Internal problems, not our affair. We can only do what we can to set them straight, get them on board. So how did your meeting with Pym go? What’s he like?’

  ‘Old and frail but still very bright. He’s attended by a devoted young soldier.’

  ‘Not the first young soldier Pym ever met, I suppose.’

  ‘Maybe the last, though.’

  ‘Well, if he dies in the arms of a soldier I suppose you could say that’s how he would have wanted to go. He tell you anything good?’

  ‘He started, then he got drunk and sent me away, said I could go back tomorrow.’

  ‘Not a bad beginning, though,’ said Alistair, loading a piece of thin toast with caviare. ‘Yum, yum, yum,’ he said. ‘God, I love caviare. Have some?’

  But Greg had decided to skip it. He had a bad head after his afternoon’s drinking.

  ‘So, you asked him a few things,’ Alistair continued. He took a swig of vodka. ‘Did he ask you anything?’

  Greg stared at him. The question seemed to indicate that Alistair was a jump ahead, but he decided not to reveal that Pym had asked for help in his campaign to be repatriated. He told Alistair, ‘I was supposed to be interviewing him.’

  ‘I know,’ said Alistair, ‘but Hugh told me he was wondering if the old bugger was going to reopen his bid to spend his last years under an apple tree in Kent, kindly provided by the British Government. It’s obvious he might approach you to help fix it for him.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Greg. ‘Well, it’s an interesting thought.’ Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you, he thought. In these days of economic warfare whose side was Alistair on, apart from his own?

  ‘Only I wouldn’t get involved,’ Alistair went on. He looked up, ‘Goodie, here’s the food. Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about this but I’ve only got time for one course. Something came up unexpectedly this afternoon and I have to go back to the hotel to see a man. It’s a bore, but tonight’s the only time I can catch him. He’s leaving Moscow early tomorrow.’ He began on his Stroganoff. ‘You stay, of course. I’ll take care of the bill.’

  ‘No,’ said Greg, who had ordered the same dish. ‘This’ll do me. I’ll go when you do.’

  ‘Nonsense! Get stuck in, enjoy the experience.’

  ‘I’ll go back to the hotel and do some reading.’

  ‘Just as you wish,’ Alistair said, not pleased.

  ‘Business going well?’ Greg enquired.

  ‘So-so,’ replied Alistair. ‘Everything’s clogged over here. It’s like ploughing a swamp. I’m only here to open the conversation and try to assess the risks against the advantages.’

  ‘Do you really think you’ll set up in Moscow?’

  ‘God knows,’ Alistair said. ‘I wouldn’t like the job, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I should say it would be like opening a branch in Dodge City.’

  ‘That’s about right,’ Alistair agreed.

  ‘But people did it.’

  ‘They certainly did.’

  Back at the hotel Greg left Alistair in the bar and went upstairs. First he lay thinking, his arms behind his head, then fell asleep. He was awoken later by a dispute outside his door. He got out of his clothes, put on his Walkman, went back to bed and fell asleep again. At some point in the night he got rid of the headphones and woke early next day to see snowflakes drifting thickly past his window, like a moving white curtain.

  Alistair was not at breakfast, had perhaps not been in the hotel overnight. Greg spent the morning sightseeing in the snow, ate lunch, smoked fish, in a basement café, then went to Pym’s flat.

  Upstairs Ivan, still in his threadbare uniform, barred the door, looking big.

  ‘I’ve come for my appointment with Mr Pym,’ Greg explained, pointing towards the interior of the flat.

  ‘No, he is sick.’ Ivan touched his Adam’s apple and coughed, to indicate the nature of the illness. He produced a sheet of paper and handed it to Greg. ‘From Mr Pym,’ he said. He waved a hand dismissively. Greg stood still. Ivan repeated the gesture. ‘Go.’

  With no Russian and no alternative, Greg went out into the snow. Outside the building he leaned against the wall
and opened the piece of paper. ‘Dear Mr Phillips,’ it read, in a clear, though weak, hand, ‘I regret I’m unable to see you at present. I will telephone your hotel at four.’

  It was three thirty. Greg floundered away, peering through the stinging snow. The street was wide, with only a single car crawling by and a few pedestrians, heads down, forcing their way along. As he found himself at the verge of the park two men, stale-smelling, arrived suddenly, one at either side of him. At the same moment each of them grasped one of his forearms. Since he was almost opposite the house containing Pym’s flat, Greg considered wrenching himself free, and getting into the lobby. Then he saw himself being murdered there, out of sight of the street.

  He saw headlights in the road, slowly approaching on his left. Greg, who had been designated the most valuable player of his college football team for two years, knew how to move forward under restraint. He walked, boots and trousers soaked and freezing, heaving both men into its path. They were strong but surprised by the sudden movement. The car approached, ludicrously slowly, as in a dream. Greg reckoned the men had a few seconds, no longer, to bludgeon him down and rob him before the car was forced to pull up. Or would it steer round the episode? Why not? To his right, now, he heard the engine of another car, the swishing of tyres in snow. Trapped between the two approaching vehicles, he guessed the muggers were uncertain what to do. He wrenched his shoulders forward, sending one of his attackers lurching away. He turned his head and saw him blundering slowly through the snow, in the direction of the park. Then the other released him. The car pulled up in front of Greg and the driver, scarcely visible behind a windscreen where the wipers cleared, then cleared again, the snow driving against it, put his finger on the horn. Opposite Greg the other car slowed. He made out a sign on it that indicated it was a taxi. He went over, opened the door and got in.

  A few minutes later, still a little shaken, he went up the hotel’s stairs, and entered his room. The phone was ringing. He grabbed it. ‘Mr Phillips, Greg, dear boy,’ came Adrian Pym’s voice, unaffected by any cold or fever as far as Greg could hear, ‘I’m afraid it’s a little inconvenient to see you now. Well, actually – ever. I don’t want to go into details but it’s been mentioned to me that I shouldn’t talk to you. I feel it would be inadvisable to ignore the advice I’ve received. Things are very different here, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. I’m terribly sorry, after you’ve come all this way, but then, of course, you didn’t warn me of your arrival …’