The sleep that had begun to envelop him receded. He was glad that there were no shadows moving on the ceiling, no cries climbing inside the wall and finding him alone in his bed.
He looked at his watch. Six more hours to Leningrad. Outside the trees thinned out and faded into dark fields. There was no moonlight, no stars. There was little comfort for loneliness or fear in the Soviet Union.
During the last lesson they had left the apartment together for the first time. They visited the panoramic painting of the Battle of Borodino and both agreed that the excursion was a legitimate part of his education.
‘There,’ she said as they stood on the platform surrounded by the oil-painting of the battle, ‘is it not just as if we were there fighting the French?’
He looked around at the cannons, the gunsmoke, the soldiers dying. And Napoleon watching it all mounted on his white horse. Depth and life were coaxed from the paints by the curve of the walls.
‘It is,’ he said.
‘You know who the Russian general was, of course?’
‘I should do,’ Mortimer said. ‘I live in his street.’
Walking back along Kutuzovsky he wanted to hold her hand like other men out with their girls. But the lesson was over. At the entrance to the compound she said: ‘I’m afraid our time is up. I have to go now to teach a German. He is not a very nice man.’
Mortimer hated the German. ‘Why don’t you like him? Not just because he’s German I hope?’
‘He is just not very nice. You know how some men are.’ And she left him.
In the train taking him to Leningrad Mortimer looked at his watch again and found that only half an hour more had passed. He climbed stealthily out of bed to go to the toilet. As he opened the door Mason snapped upright in bed and said, ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s only me,’ Mortimer said. ‘I’m just going down the corridor.’
‘I thought someone was coming in.’
‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
When he returned Mason had switched on the light and was smoking a cigarette. ‘Can’t you sleep?’ he asked.
‘Not very well,’ Mortimer said. ‘It’s the first time I’ve slept in a train, I think.’
‘I can sleep anywhere.’ Mason was chatty after his sleep. ‘And I can be fully awake at the sound of a footstep.’
‘I wish I slept a little better.’
‘Why, there’s nothing wrong, is there? You’re not nervous about anything, are you?’
‘No,’ Mortimer said hastily. ‘There’s nothing to be nervous about. It runs in the family. We’re all light sleepers.’
Mason appeared satisfied. He inhaled smoke deeply and luxuriously. ‘How are you settling down in Moscow?’ He asked the question almost every day.
‘Quite well, thank you. You can’t be bored. There’s something new every day.’
‘I’m glad you’ve taken that attitude. So many of our young men get bored too easily. They’ll never make good diplomats. How’s your Russian coming along?’
‘Quite well, thank you. I can read Pravda pretty well these days.’
Mason nodded. ‘I understand you take lessons.’
‘Yes, a teacher comes in twice a week.’
‘You’ve got the girl, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve got a girl,’ Mortimer said.
‘I know the one,’ Mason said. ‘Quite pretty with reddish hair. She used to hang around the National bar once upon a time.’
‘Did she?’ Mortimer said. ‘I didn’t know.’
The train drew into Leningrad station at eight sharp. Mortimer followed Mason and the other crumpled passengers and tried to file away his first impressions of the city for future reference. But his mind would not leave Mason’s words alone. If only he had not heard men discussing the tarts in the National—plump, dirty, easy The wound which Mason had unknowingly inflicted suppurated. Not that it meant anything just because she had been seen in the bar; it was just like Mason to exaggerate—he had probably seen her there once. But with whom? Jealousy and revulsion smothered his ability to appreciate the scene around him; he observed without absorbing.
Outside the station the streets ran with water. Rush-hour crowds filled the taxis and fought to get into the buses. Mortimer and Mason queued for half an hour before a cab with a bleak, unshaven driver picked them up. Mortimer, still tormenting himself with suspicions of which he was ashamed, had a vague impression of tall old buildings with paintwork and masonry beginning to crumble like dry Stilton.
They booked into the Astoria, a big hotel marbled and roomy inside, equipped with an antique lift, a dance band, a dollar bar, vast rooms and a staff who were as shyly eager to please as they were inefficient. Waiters served the meals and waited fatalistically while their Western customers went through the familiar routine of surprise, consternation and anger before returning a dish which they had not ordered. It had become part of the meal-time routine and the waiters would have become restless without it. Often they returned with a second dish which the diner had not ordered.
Mason and Mortimer shared a corner bedroom and lounge with a bathroom big enough to accommodate a football team and a supply of brown water that looked as if such a team had already bathed in it.
Mason put his finger to his lips and began his usual inspection. He examined the pink plastic lamp shades, the marble bust of a sad-looking woman, an old fretworked radio, an ancient phone, a still-life of juicy apples and oranges. Again he found nothing and seemed content with the result. ‘They’re more clever than they used to be,’ he said.
The room on the third floor overlooked a disused cathedral, rather like a miniature St. Paul’s, with a museum air about it. Wings of snow still patterned the grass and the small people below seemed to have a more leisurely movement about them than the people of Moscow.
‘Let’s go down and have some breakfast,’ Mason said. ‘Then I must go about my business. You can have a look around the town. It’s just a break for you really. I brought you along because we always have to have a travelling companion.’
They ordered orange juice, eggs and bacon and coffee. Half an hour later the waiter brought grape juice, ham omelettes and tea. He waited expectantly for the indignant rejection and walked away shaking his head unhappily when they didn’t protest.
‘See you back here at one,’ Mason said. He rose suddenly and disappeared on his secret business.
Mortimer walked along the embankment beside broad waters jostling with broken ice and sunlight; he smelled the sea and thought of men buying girls outside the National. He roamed the picture galleries of L’Hermitage in the Winter Palace, lingered in front of the Rembrandts and afterwards remembered nothing of them.
He was vaguely aware that he was in a handsome city with comfortable graces that Moscow did not possess. The old, dignified buildings were part of the place: not ancient monuments preserved for tourists as they were in Moscow. And its spirit was more free—or so it seemed with the breeze from the sea airing its streets, sailors eyeing the girls and girls eyeing the sailors, brighter clothes, shops that invited you in even if they had little to sell.
But it was only dignified by comparison: it was still a city in the Soviet Union. And outside a basement café its citizens queued in the slush—as people had queued in war-time—for stews and soups, bread and potatoes.
Mason was waiting outside the hotel restaurant. They sat beside the empty stage and ordered vodka, caviar and steak. After forty minutes they were served with vodka and Meat Julienne which they accepted. The waiter made a last attempt to maintain routine and brought sturgeon instead of steak. Again they accepted it without protest and the waiter sighed unhappily at this latest affront to tradition.
‘How do you like Leningrad?’ Mason asked, eating briskly and efficiently.
‘It’s a much more pleasant city than Moscow,’ Mortimer said. ‘Saint Petersburg suited it far better than Leningrad.’
‘We might set up a consulate here one of these days.’
>
‘You really like it here in Russia, don’t you.’
‘I like it, yes. It’s a challenge. Why, don’t you, Richard?’
‘I’m enjoying it immensely.’ He smiled to himself for the first time that day. ‘It’s an experience.’
‘This is the finest city in the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact I’ve got a little surprise for you tonight.’
Mortimer had planned to drink too much whisky in the dollar bar and bury himself in sleep. ‘What’s that, Henry?’ he said.
‘We’re going to a little jazz club I know of.’
‘A jazz club? Are you joking, Henry?’
Mason looked sheepish. ‘As a matter of fact I’m very fond of jazz,’ he said. ‘I used to play the piano a bit when I was younger.’
Mortimer wondered what other surprises lay beneath Mason’s spry business efficiency. ‘I didn’t know there were any jazz clubs,’ he said.
‘It’s called the White Nights. But don’t expect too much. It’s not Oxford Street.’ He leaned forward confidentially. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve got a little confession to make. I brought you along because you’re a bachelor and you seemed to be the sort of chap who might appreciate the White Nights. There aren’t a lot of people at the embassy I can take to a jazz club. But don’t talk too much about it when we get back to Moscow, will you, Richard?’
‘Of course I won’t,’ Mortimer said. Anything could happen with a man like Mason, he thought. With sufficient encouragement he might even start chanting ‘It’s off to the Yemen with you’ again.
The White Nights was not far from the hotel. A locked door and a couple of windows patterned with night frost in a dimly-lit street—that was all that could be seen from the outside. Half a dozen Russians waited patiently in the street for someone to open the doors.
Mason, ear bushes bristling and face polished by the night air, rapped on the door as if the queue didn’t exist.
The door opened slightly and a pale face swore at them. Mason listened carefully before firing his ammunition—Intourist, diplomatic privilege, UPDK. The door opened wider and they squeezed in watched by the unquestioning queue.
Inside they handed in their coats and listened to the man with the pale face explaining that there were no seats in the café where the band was playing and so they might as well leave.
A waxen-faced youth with pale curls watered and brushed flat spotted them waiting in the hallway and left his seat in the café where a five-piece band was hammering out the jazz of the twenties.
He came up to Mortimer and said: ‘You American?’
Mortimer shook his head. ‘British,’ he said.
‘That is good,’ said the youth. ‘I think you want a seat near the band?’
‘Anywhere,’ Mortimer said. ‘Why, can you get us a couple?’
‘I can get you anything,’ the youth said. He guided Mortimer towards the café.
Mortimer felt Mason watching them. ‘I don’t want anything,’ he said. ‘I just want a couple of seats. And even those needn’t be near the band.’ He listened to the music for a moment. ‘In fact the farther away the better. All we want is somewhere to sit down.’
The youth nodded with the presumptuous understanding of every tout, pimp and spiv anywhere in the world from Moscow to Tokyo to New York to London. Then he started trying to sell his principal commodity—roubles. ‘You have dollars?’ he asked.
Mortimer was pleased that the spiv had approached him. He may have flouted one cardinal rule and fallen in love with a Russian girl: he was not likely to flout another and get involved in a currency deal. Two American tourists had recently sold a few dollars at a good rate: one had been heavily fined, the other was in jail. ‘I’ve got a few dollars,’ he said. ‘But mostly sterling and roubles.’
The youth, who wore a shiny grey suit with trousers amateurishly tapered and a black bow-tie tucked inside his collar, said: ‘Sterling is very good money.’
‘Very good,’ Mortimer said. Mason’s frown reached across the foyer and tickled his neck.
‘Yes, it is very good. I give you good rate.’
‘I don’t want any roubles,’ Mortimer said. ‘I’ve got plenty of them.’ He wondered if the seedy young man was a professional racketeer or an agent provocateur employed by the State to catch and pillory greedy Westerners.
‘It seems to me I can give you the best rate in Leningrad.’ He slipped his hand in his pocket and showed Mortimer a fat wad of roubles. ‘How much sterling have you?’
‘Enough,’ said Mortimer savouring the strength of will which a fundamental lack of interest in financial gain permitted. Horses and greyhounds would never ruin him.
‘How much?’
‘Just like you I can buy more for sterling in the Berioska shops than I can with roubles, so what’s the point of selling it? All we want is a couple of seats in the café.’
‘You will not do trade with me?’
‘That is correct—I will not do trade with you.’
The young man grimaced, then brightened. ‘I will buy your shirt,’ he said. ‘How much?’
‘I’d look pretty silly walking around without a shirt.’
‘That can be arranged. If you like I will buy your shoes. I will be frank with you—shoes in the Soviet Union cost a lot of money. But you Westerners can buy them cheaply. I will give you a good price.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mortimer said. ‘Now what about a couple of seats.’
‘You are a hard man,’ said the youth. ‘But come with me, you and your friend, and I will find you seats.’
‘How much?’
‘A rouble. You are an honest man. You can have two seats for one rouble.’
Mortimer beckoned to Mason who was still arguing with the doorman. The youth disappeared and returned with two wooden chairs which he put at the table where he had been sitting.
The bare, brightly lit café was packed with young people. Pale young men in woollen shirts and plump girls with stiff back-combed hair. They tapped the tables to the rhythm of the loud, bouncing jazz and stared curiously at Mason and Mortimer.
‘What do you think of it?’ Mason asked.
Mortimer almost said, ‘It’s an experience.’ Instead he said: ‘It’s quite gay, isn’t it.’
‘Great music this. A bit dated, I suppose. More my cup of tea than yours.’
‘I wish they’d play a little softer,’ Mortimer said.
‘Nonsense. This music was composed to be played loud. I wouldn’t mind having a go on the piano myself.’
Heaven help us, Mortimer thought. Mason looked incongruous enough as it was with his silk hair retreating at the temples, his formal grey suit and club tie. ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ he said without enthusiasm.
‘I wouldn’t mind, Richard. I expect I surprise you, don’t I?’
‘A little,’ Mortimer said. ‘I must say I didn’t imagine you playing the piano in a Leningrad jazz club when I first met you.’
Mason smiled happily. ‘Still waters run deep, Richard. Incidentally I hope you didn’t get involved in anything with that young villain who found us these seats.’
‘No fear,’ Mortimer said. ‘Not after what happened to those two Americans. Do you think the American Embassy will manage to get him freed?’
‘I expect so—for the right money. The Russians say they don’t like Americans but they’re not too fussy about taking their dollars.’
They ordered fizzy fruit water. The youth who had brought them the seats sat down beside them and regarded them fondly as if they were in his charge. ‘I like you,’ he said.
‘I wish I could say the same about you,’ Mason said.
‘You like this place?’
‘It’s fine,’ Mortimer said.
‘You like girls?’
‘Here we go,’ Mason said. ‘I really shouldn’t be here at all, you know. I’m trusting you, Richard, not to say anything about this little excursion when we get back to Moscow. I only come here for the music.’
Mortimer didn’t reply. He was thinking about Nina, her vulnerable neck, her red hair, her slim body. She was leaning against the bar at the National laughing with a group of businessmen. Then she was outside climbing into a taxi with one of them.
‘Are you listening?’ Mason asked.
‘I won’t say a word,’ Mortimer said.
The youth said: ‘I know very good girls in Leningrad. They will do anything you like. I can get them now if you like.’
‘And I can get the militia,’ Mason said. ‘Have you ever been inside a labour camp?’
‘You joke with me,’ said the youth. ‘You Americans and British are always joking.’
‘It’s no joke, I assure you,’ Mason said. ‘I don’t like pimps.’
The band swung inevitably into ‘Mack the Knife’. Couples danced on the floor, jiving as they had in the West in the forties. The young men took girls from other groups and returned them after the dance and no one seemed to mind. Often girls took men from the partners they had brought and still no one minded. A girl with a ruined bouffant hair-style took the microphone and sang ‘The Birth of the Blues’. Her voice was strident, saved by its youth and zest.
The youth was quiet and thoughtful.
Mason said: ‘I don’t suppose you expected to find anything like this in Russia. It sends the Komsomol crazy.’
‘Why? They’re only enjoying themselves. It all looks quite harmless to me.’
‘Because it’s all copied from Western dancing. They keep trying to introduce new Russian dances but they never catch on, thank God.’
‘I didn’t realise they had such a capacity to enjoy themselves.’
‘Given half a chance they’d enjoy themselves a damn sight more than us. They’re great people, Richard.’
The youth had come to a decision about his puzzling new acquaintances. He smiled at his previous stupidity. ‘You do not like girls,’ he said. ‘You like men. I know some very nice men. Some from the ballet.’
‘You stay here, Richard,’ Mason said, ‘I’m going to call a militiaman.’
The youth jumped to his feet knocking over his glass of fruit water. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘I have a sick mother.’
Angels in the Snow Page 23
