From his rocking-chair in the little conservatory beyond the kitchen Povin could see across the Moscow River to the pine-clad slopes of the hills opposite. The sun had gone half an hour ago and it was nearly dark. The general, hovering between wakefulness and sleep, could just hear the strains of the B flat minor sonata quietly played by Stolyinovich.
The music stopped. A moment later the pianist’s hand descended on to Povin’s shoulder and he opened his eyes.
‘That was very nice, Pyotr. Thank you.’
Stolyinovich drew up a chair and sat by Povin’s side.
‘Thank God for Chopin.’
Povin raised his eyebrows. ‘God, Pyotr Ivanovich?’ he said, with mild reproof. Stolyinovich was about to protest when Povin held up his forearms, crossed, and spread them with a sudden chopping movement, his lips set in a tight line. Stolyinovich was appalled.
‘Here?’
Povin nodded and placed a finger on his friend’s lips. ‘In the office, too,’ he whispered gently. ‘Things are bad. I’ll tell you sometime. Not now.’
Stolyinovich stood up and moved restlessly to the window. Povin’s words disturbed him. When generals were under suspicion, who was safe?
‘You’ve done it well,’ he said to the glass. ‘Champagne, caviar, fresh strawberries even. You must be broke.’
‘No. It comes from the club.’
‘What! You mean the KGB pays for all this at subsidised rates?’
Povin shrugged. ‘Of course. We all do it. Tonight it’s my turn. Did you see the oysters?’
Stolyinovich laughed. ‘Stepan, I congratulate you on your sagacity and resource. Look, your first guest is coming. Lights on the hill… let’s have some music.’
As Stolyinovich went back to the day-room Povin hauled himself out of his rocking-chair and stretched. He knew without seeing it that the car coming up his drive belonged to Michaelov. Nadia was ill, and her husband had promised to look in on Povin’s party for a short while on his way home from the office. Michaelov did not know this, but it was Nadia’s illness that had prompted Povin to give a party in the first place.
As Povin passed through the day-room Stolyinovich was beginning some Mendelssohn. Povin’s driver was doubling up as doorman this evening; the general went across the hall to find him helping Michaelov off with his greatcoat. The two officers greeted each other warmly. As they entered the day-room Povin, to his horror, heard Stolyinovich weave a phrase from the Khovantschina March into the melody of the Albumblatt. But if Michaelov noticed, he said nothing about it. Instead, he offered the pianist the kind of perfunctory bow which their difference in social function and standing required, and Stolyinovich gravely reciprocated.
‘Stepan, a quick word…’
Povin ushered his chief through into the little conservatory, closing the glass-panelled door behind them.
‘News?’
Michaelov shook his head despondently.
‘No. We’ve missed him, Stepan. I’ve got Belgium crawling with men, they couldn’t have failed to find him if he was still there. Kyril’s given us the slip.’
‘So it’s London,’ mused Povin. ‘And Sociable Plover…?’
‘Not a ripple.’
Povin smiled. ‘I’m really beginning to think it never left Stanov’s safe.’
‘You said that before and I laughed. Now I’m not so sure. But why, Stepan? Why go to all that trouble to fake a theft?’
Povin bit his lip. He seemed on the point of telling Michaelov something, then changed his mind.
‘Let me at least offer you some tea.’
They went back through the kitchen and into Povin’s dining-room. Two large tables laden with food were set against the far wall, and at the sight of them Michaelov’s eyes widened.
‘When you said a small party I didn’t realise you meant a feast.’
‘Look at this.’ Povin beckoned to one of the servants, supplied by the KGB along with the food. The man came up smiling, a dark green bottle in his hand. Povin took it from him and passed it to Michaelov.
‘See what Pyotr Ivanovich brought me back from France.’ Michaelov looked at the marc. He looked at the year. And he sighed.
‘Just a little drop in the tea,’ murmured Povin. ‘What d’you say?’
‘In the tea!’ Michaelov was outraged. Povin saw him hesitate and held his breath. ‘A thimbleful in a glass. Just to taste, you understand.’
‘Of course. A glass at once for General Michaelov!’
His chief took a cautious sip. ‘Magnificent,’ he said. ‘The best brandy I ever tasted.’ He knocked back the tiny glassful of spirit and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘Well,’ he said reluctantly, ‘I must be getting back to Nadia.’
‘Of course. How is she, by the way? I should’ve asked earlier.’
‘On the mend.’
‘I think I’ll have a glass of this myself, Valery, since you say it’s so good. I won’t offer you another, I know how it is with your health.’
‘I’ve been feeling much better lately, as a matter of fact.’
‘I’m glad to hear that, Valery.’
There was an embarrassed silence. Povin appeared suddenly to realise the consequences of what his chief had said.
‘Oh, but then why not have another little glass? For the road. I’ll join you.’ Povin waved away his chauffeur, who was standing nearby with Michaelov’s coat in his hands. ‘Sit down, do.’
‘Thank you, Stepan. I won’t stay long but it does a man good to get out of the house now and then.’
‘I’ve always said so. Pyotr…’ Povin leaned over the back of his chair and called through the doorway. ‘Play us something cheerful, something jolly.’
‘There’s this little song they taught me in France, comrade General. But it’s blue, does that matter?’
Michaelov slapped his leg. ‘The bluer the better!’ Stolyinovich launched into an obscene ditty about some French soldiers who come home on weekend leave and discover that all the girls in their village have signed on at a nunnery. As Michaelov leaned forward, straining to catch the words, Povin used the opportunity to top up his glass unobserved.
‘Lights in the drive, comrade General.’
‘Thank you. Stay here, Valery, and listen. I’ve got to see to new arrivals. There’s quite a crowd coming tonight, you know most of them. Excuse me…’
On his way to the front door Povin beckoned his driver. ‘Tell General Michaelov’s chauffeur to go home and come back later,’ he said. ‘Much later.’
By midnight Povin had reduced Michaelov to the precise state of intoxication he intended. It was no easy task. A slight miscalculation and his chief would either have fallen asleep or, worse, had another seizure and been carted off to the nearest hospital.
He had deliberately invited a lot of people to this party, most of them drawn from Moscow’s artistic sub-culture. By the time he lent Michaelov his shoulder in order to help him into the conservatory the mood of the evening was maudlin. Stolyinovich, who for some reason was now minus his shirt, poured out love songs in a tear-laden baritone to an admiring audience, mostly women, one of whom was sobbing her heart out. Three quarters of the food had disappeared and the champagne had given out in favour of neat vodka. Only with great effort had Povin managed to keep Michaelov on brandy.
He closed the door and slipped the lock before turning round to find Michaelov already slumped in the rocking-chair, his eyes closed. Povin took the brandy bottle from his chief’s fingers and swilled down a large tot. He was sweating profusely.
‘Listen, Valery…’
‘Wassup. Wassermatter?’
Michaelov’s head tilted backwards and he began to rock to and fro, a look of astonished delight on his face. ‘’S moving, Stepan, y’room’s moving. Dja know?’
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Oh Christ, Povin was thinking, don’t let him pass out on me, not yet. ‘Valery, old friend, I have to tell you something. I should’ve told you earlier, I nearly did, only I lost my nerve. Kazin…’
‘Warrer ’bout him?’
‘He was here. This afternoon.’
Michaelov stopped rocking. Povin watched anxiously as the first stages of cerebral activity manifested themselves on his coarse features.
‘Wha’… why?’
‘To see if I knew what was going on. What Stanov is up to. And he wants to get his hands on a copy of Bucharensky’s diary.’
Michaelov raised his hands to his temples. ‘What ’ja tellim?’
‘I said that the diary was impossible, out of the question, and as for anything else I had to ask you. He won’t talk to you directly because he knows Stanov is having you watched.’
‘What!’
‘Valery, we’re in deep trouble, you and I.’ Povin squeezed his hands together and went to kneel by Michaelov’s side. His chief’s face was flushed with drink but his eyes were no longer vacant. He looked like a survivor again.
‘Kazin says Stanov is on the way out… well, we always knew that. But he’s plotting something and using Bucharensky to see it through.’
Michaelov’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension.
‘Sociable Plover… it always was a fake, just like you said.’
‘But not in the way I originally thought. At first I couldn’t believe that Stanov was such a fool as to compile the plan. But he did. It exists. It’s the theft that’s a fake.’
Michaelov was rocking to and fro, his head still in his hands.
‘And this traitor, the British source in the KGB the diary talks of…’
‘It’s our source in London that Kyril knows. He’s carrying Royston’s name. And he’s going to use it to buy Stanov a place in the sun!’
Michaelov staggered up from the chair and started to blunder about the room, hands still clapped to his forehead.
‘Fools,’ he cried. ‘Why didn’t we see it?’
‘Ssh, please, Valery. It’s only a theory. But we have got to act. Do you realise what the loss of Royston would mean to us. Do you?’
Michaelov stopped in mid-stride and turned very slowly to face his deputy.
‘What?’
Povin chose his next words with care, infusing them with every ounce of sincerity he could command.
‘For us, it would finish England for the next ten years.’
There was a pause. The sentence seemed to percolate very slowly into Michaelov’s deeper consciousness. When at last he was quite satisfied he understood his deputy he raised his head and stared into Povin’s eyes.
‘An executioner. We must liquidate Bucharensky before he can do any more damage. An executioner, it’s the only way…’
Povin gnawed his lip. ‘It’s a hell of a risk.’
‘Yes, but… hey, wait a minute.’ Michaelov’s mind was by now functioning almost normally. ‘This is all rumour. Why can’t Kazin come out with it in the open? Why talk to you?’ His voice had a sudden edge of suspicion in it. ‘Why not come to see me? I’m the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB.’
‘I’ve explained all that. Kazin’s anxious not to endanger you by being seen in your company. We all know what Stanov thinks about Kazin, and if he thought you were associated with him in any way…’
‘But what proof do we have? Kazin is asking us to disobey a Chairman’s personal order and he won’t even put it in writing…’
‘He gave me… this.’ Povin slowly held up a key. Michaelov squinted at it. ‘What’s that?’
‘An earnest of the Politburo’s good faith. It’s a key to Stanov’s blue safe.’
Michaelov’s eyes bulged. ‘You’re kidding! That’s impossible. Not even the First Secretary of the Party has the right to ask Stanov to open the blue safe.’
‘Who said anyone had asked?’
Michaelov seemed about to retort, then fell silent. He was overwhelmed.
‘Kazin says that inside the safe we’ll find Sociable Plover. He’s seen it. He’s seen it since Kyril defected.’
Some of the colour drained out of Michaelov’s face.
‘It’ll mean trouble if we’re caught.’
‘I know. In effect we’d have to burgle the Chairman’s office. But Valery… think what it would mean if Kazin is on the level. We know that there is only one copy of Sociable Plover! According to Stanov – the only person officially in a position to know – Bucharensky has taken it. If it really is in the blue safe, all the time…’
Two murderous sparks burned at the back of Michaelov’s eyes.
‘Then we’ll know Kazin’s telling the truth… and if he’s telling the truth, Stanov is himself… a…’
‘We’ve been on the wrong track with Bucharensky, all along. He’s just a pawn. He doesn’t know anything, Stanov lied to him, told him any old thing… The famous diary. A fake. Stanov’s doing. He told Bucharensky what to write.’
‘But why?’
‘To divert suspicion from where it belongs – with him!’ There was silence while the two generals sombrely contemplated the significance of Povin’s revelation.
‘You work late at night, Valery, everyone knows it. You won’t cause any suspicion. Take a look one weekend, when it’s quiet. And if it’s there…’
‘Kyril’s a dead man.’
Povin played his last card.
‘Perhaps we should wait, Valery. Maybe we ought to try to take Kyril alive, like Stanov says…’
‘And risk blowing the whole KGB operation in England sky-high! Are you out of your mind?’
‘But there’s no proof…’
Michaelov’s face set into a mask of angry malice. He knocked aside Povin’s hand and stomped out to the kitchen. ‘Proof! No time like the present… Where’s my car?’ Provin signalled through the doorway and his chauffeur nodded.
‘It’s coming, Valery. Can you manage alone? You’ve got the key?’
He helped his chief on with his coat. From the dayroom he could hear the strains of a lugubrious cossack song with Stolyinovich leading a ragged chorus. ‘Go safely,’ he murmured.
As if struck by this farewell Michaelov paused in midstride and turned to face Povin, who was surprised to see how serious his chief’s face had suddenly become.
‘And you Stepan… you go safely also. This Kazin…’ He seemed to falter over his next words.
‘…He’s dangerous. A killer. He’d slit your throat, or mine, with his own hands and never think twice. Watch your back.’
Michaelov was many bad things but no coward. Povin looked uneasily away, and it was not until the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB was seated in the back of his official car that he began to relax.
This slight chill apart, he reckoned he had judged it perfectly. Michaelov was now sufficiently sober to run rings round the night watch at Dzerzhinsky Square while at the same time operating in the grip of a manic obsession. Povin stood on the steps and watched his car wind down the hill towards the river, and the road to Moscow, until the tail-lights were lost from view.
Back in the day-room the party was all but over. Most of the guests were asleep. Seeing Povin in the doorway, Stolyinovich stood up abruptly, leaving the music in the middle of a bar, and came over to him. A woman protested before consoling herself with a swig of vodka from the bottle in her hand.
‘It’s hot in here,’ murmured Povin, loosening his collar. The room was oppressive with smoke and the heat of many human bodies. ‘Let’s go for a walk. Bring that…’
He indicated an unopened bottle of petrovka standing on a nearby table. Stolyinovich obeyed, laughing. Outside in the hall they pulled on their boots and Stolyinovich donned his outrageous heavy mink coat, the gift of a besotted admirer high up in the Kremlin. The pianist stuffed Povin’s bottle of petrovka in one of its huge pockets and a bottle of brandy for himself in the other, and the two men set off.
Stolyinovich was hard-pressed to keep up with Povin, who strode vigorously up the hill behind the dacha as if he was on a route-march. Before long Stolyinovich found himself well away from the beaten track, almost up to his knees in snow, with Povin so far ahead that he was scarcely visible in the white moonlight. ‘Stepan,’ he panted. ‘For God’s sake…’
At the sound of his voice Povin stopped and waited for his companion to catch up. Stolyinovich found him resting with his back against a tree, hands held to his eyes. He reached out to touch him but Povin sensed the movement and shied away.
‘No,’ he cried hoarsely, and Stolyinovich checked himself. Were they tears that he heard rattle in Povin’s throat? Surely not.
‘Stepan,’ he said cautiously. There was no reply. ‘Stepan, what’s the matter?’
Povin turned to face the tree, resting his head on his arms crossed against the bark, and Stolyinovich heard him take half a dozen slow, deep breaths. The pianist was by now thoroughly alarmed. He looked around. He had no idea where they were or what the time was. Povin was acting entirely out of character. This could take some explaining if they were found.
‘I… I’m all right now.’
‘Stepan, what is it?’
Stolyinovich could not keep the fear out of his voice. If Povin cracked now… he forced the thought quickly out of his mind. What could have happened to reduce him to this miserable state?
Povin raised his head and moved away from the tree.
‘Vodka.’
Silently Stolyinovich handed him the petrovka bottle, and Povin drank. When next he spoke his voice was firmer.
‘You remember what I told you earlier… Things are none too easy just now.’
‘What… tell me?’
There was a long silence while Povin wrestled with the temptation to make a clean breast of everything to his friend.
‘Remember always, Pyotr, that what you don’t know you can’t tell them. I don’t feel I’m trusted any more, that’s all. And I… well, I’ve been used.’
‘Used?’
‘Stanov used me to pass on a… a certain message, last week. As if I were a dirty schpick learning the ropes in some Godforsaken embassy in the Third World. He did it to see how I reacted.
‘To see if I was loyal,’ he added, under his breath.
Stolyinovich chuckled and Povin gave him a hurt look. ‘You think that’s funny.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I and, well, you know, the people I talk to… we assume that kind of thing happens all the time in your job.’
There was silence while Povin thought about that. ‘Yes. It’s true. In a way. Oh Pyotr…’ Povin suddenly came close to Stolyinovich and laid his hands on the pianist’s coat. ‘…Pyotr, am I going mad, do you think?’
This time Stolyinovich laughed out loud. He was beginning to feel reassured. To him the question was itself a proof of sanity.
‘Sometimes I wonder if I am,’ Povin went on. ‘I look around me at what goes on, at the people who give the orders and the others who carry them out and I ask myself, what am I doing here?’
‘But Stepan, we’ve been through all this before.’ Stolyinovich’s voice was gentle. ‘You know that God places some of us in a position where we can only do good by stealth. It’s His will for us. He knows what it costs.’
‘Does he? Is there not to be an accounting, Pyotr Ivanovich? And when it comes, what am I to say?’
Povin moved away from his friend and spread his arms in a hapless gesture of appeal.
‘How many Jews have I… I, Pyotr Ivanovich… exiled to starve? Look out there!’ Povin flung his arms wide. ‘What do you see?’
Stolyinovich hesitated. ‘I see… darkness. The forest…’
‘And I see barbed wire. Hundreds and hundreds of miles of it. Watch-towers. Dogs. Kalashnikov machine-guns. Camps, Pyotr. How many godly souls rot on the archipelago tonight because of me?’
Again that strange wet rattle in Povin’s throat.
‘Stepan, Stepan.’ Stolyinovich shook Povin roughly, his former fears returning. ‘For the love of Christ! Pull yourself together. You’re over-reacting. You forget yourself.’ He glanced uneasily about him. ‘Even here… you forget yourself, who you are.’
Povin’s head lolled forward on to his chest and for several moments there was silence.
‘I am sorry, Pyotr. You should not have had to put up with that.’
Povin’s voice was calm, unnaturally so. Once more the lid was on and screwed down tight. Stolyinovich felt awkward.
‘No, it’s good to let loose once in a while. I’m sorry, Stepan, I should have listened, I…’
Povin dusted some snow off his friend’s coat.
‘It’s nothing. Let’s go back.’
He moved away; then, sensing Stolyinovich’s reluctance to leave it there, he stopped.
‘Don’t worry, Pyotr. I really am all right.’ He paused. When he spoke again his voice was sad, almost reproachful. ‘You’re not in any danger. You never were.’
Hearing these words Stolyinovich looked away, ashamed. They went down the hill more slowly than they had come up, Povin seemingly reluctant to go home. When they were in sight of the house, almost at the boundary fence, Povin stopped.
‘Do you ever wonder…?’
‘Eh?’ Stolyinovich’s thoughts were far away and he was confused by this unexpected arrest of their steady progress down the hill.
‘Do you ever ask… how far you would… how far you could go… to save yourself? Do you?’
Stolyinovich, failing to plumb the depths of this question, said nothing.
‘Would you kill, Pyotr?’
‘I don’t know, Stepan.’
‘But… could you?’
There was a long silence.
‘Yes. I believe so. If it meant… no pain.’
For a while this seemed to content Povin, for he said nothing. But he had not quite finished with Stolyinovich. ‘Do you ever feel that… we could do more?’
‘More?’
‘For the things we believe in.’
Stolyinovich fought to stifle his impatience. Although, like Povin, he was a Christian he was content to accept his lot in life without questioning overmuch. God had done well by him. He showed his thanks by rising early and practising for eight hours a day to perfect his divine gift. He was very tired, and the events of the last half-hour had drained him of resilience.
‘Stepan, we’ve been through that before. Remember how it goes? “God has plans for you, plans for good and not for evil”? You do His will in your daily life as far as you can. Sometimes I help you, I’m your secret messenger, and that’s my part. We get by.’
‘I wonder… You don’t know what I’ve had to contend with over the years, Pyotr. No one does. And sometimes I think to myself: you’d suffer less if just once in your life you came off the fence and did the whole of what you believed in…’
‘You’d suffer for less time,’ agreed Stolyinovich wearily. ‘They’d take you down to the Lubianka cellars and shoot you within the week.’
Povin shook his head and remained silent. But as he turned in at the gate of his house some troubled instinct warned Stolyinovich that the general was taking the first steps towards conscience, towards choice, an instinct so strong, and with consequences so terrible, that the pianist was seized with a sudden irresistible urge to reach out and stop him.