Churchill's Triumph (16 page)

Uncle Joe’s been brilliant about Poland. Full of praise for FDR’s suggestion about bringing Poles to Yalta—he makes it sound as if the whole thing’s an American initiative—and then he says he can’t find the words to express his sorrow at not being able to achieve it. Apparently, he’s been trying to telephone them in Lublin, but they’ve gone to Kraków or Lodz or Timbuktu, and they’re not answering the phone. And as for the Poles on the list that the President suggested, he hasn’t got their addresses. Hah! So he trots out his excuses, and FDR sits there nodding, either in agreement or in sleep, it’s difficult to tell which.

But to show he’s willing, Uncle Joe announces that he’s written a paper on Poland, which he thinks will take in all our wishes but—would you believe this?—it’s still being typed! He pulls a face as if he’s been up all night clattering away at the keys himself. He really is the most awful brigand; it’s one of the reasons I like him so much. And just at the moment Winston spies his chance and is gathering breath to intervene, Uncle Joe suddenly sidesteps and suggests that while we’re all waiting we should use the time to clear up any final points about the United Nations! In other words, he’s proposing a deal. An old-fashioned horse-trade. He’ll let Franklin have pretty much what he wants with his United Nations in return for not pushing Russia too hard on Poland. All fine and dandy, except what the hell does that leave Winston to take home?

Yet Winston’s up to something. Been talking all afternoon about the role of France in the post-war world, wanting it restored and strengthened, barreling on about how the British people would never accept a situation in which France was demeaned and diminished. What utter claptrap. We’ve devoted a thousand years of British history to getting one over on the French—why, it’s a national pastime. And now that Johnny Frog’s spent yet another war with his head stuck up his own rump and his hands raised high in surrender, it seems strange that Winston wants to prop him up all over again. Uncle Joe’s got the right line. De Gaulle is a wanton
prima donna
with only a handful of troops and not even a pinch of grace. The French deserve him, but damned if the rest of us do. What
is
old Winston up to? I can’t fathom him. He’s like a man taking a walk with his thoughts, and never quite making it home.

He’s about to wind himself up again, launch us all upon a new tidal wave of emotion, but he’s not to get his chance, not yet, at least. The President has turned an unpleasant shade of green and has asked for a ten-minute recess. Is he unwell, or has he merely discovered a brilliant new tactic for keeping Winston quiet?

❖ ❖ ❖

Words. More words. Blasted words. They had been such a mighty part of his life, the means by which he had carved out his place in the world, his steps to fortune—and throughout his life he had made almost as many fortunes as he had spent. The first shillings had come from his labors as a war correspondent, and since then there had been histories, biographies, commentaries, lecture tours, newspaper articles, even a novel. Words had sustained his ambition, but they had also defined it. They had been the foundation of his politics, the bonds of his friendships, the weapons with which he had fought off the devils throughout those times when all had seemed lost. Words mattered to Churchill, very much, but his words had become superfluous, powerless, irrelevant—even the young Pole Nowak had said so. Nobody wanted to listen.

Yet Winston Churchill was too old to change.

As Churchill saw the Russian leader heading for the door, he grabbed the arm of Birse, his interpreter. “Come with me!” he instructed, and set off in pursuit.

He tracked him down in a lavatory. The Russian leader was occupying himself in one of two wood-paneled stalls with the door wide open. Quickly, Churchill installed himself in the other, leaving Birse hanging around in some embarrassment immediately outside.

Churchill had never sat in such a place. Nothing had been changed. The paneling was of the most intense walnut, the handles huge and brass, the blue-and-white bowl crafted in Delft and several inches higher than normal, as though its user should never be asked to bend as low as ordinary men. A chandelier glittered down upon their labors; even the paper-holder had a tsarist crest embossed proudly upon it. Everything was fitted out with old-fashioned fussiness.

“Birse, are you ready?” Churchill shouted, heaving shut the door of his own stall.

“Yes, sir,” the Scotsman responded, clearly uncomfortable.

“Generalissimo, I have a favor to ask,” Churchill called through the partition.

“Ask away. Favors are permitted among friends.”

“The other night at the President’s dinner, you seemed most reluctant to toast the health of my king.”

“We’re not much in favor of the health of kings,” the Russian grunted.

“But he is more than a king to us. He’s almost a spiritual figure, the head of our Church.”

“Ah, I understand. You speak to your king, and the king speaks to God.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, we Russians have simplified the process. We’ve cut out the middle man.”

Churchill knew the bastard was smiling in condescension but refused to be diverted. “All I would ask is that you treat him on formal occasions in the same way as I do your own head of state.”

“What—Kalinin? He’s a useless old fart.”

Churchill had seen Stalin’s treatment of his head of state during a dinner in the Kremlin. President Kalinin was elderly, some way down the road to decrepitude and largely blind. He had been unable to find his food without help, and had added nothing to the conversation. Yet when he had picked up a cigarette, Stalin had barked at him, “Don’t smoke that. It’s a capitalist cigarette!” The old man’s face had fallen to his knees and he had trembled so much that the cigarette had tumbled from his fingers to the floor. He was being mocked, but no one had laughed, until Stalin did, and at that precise moment every Russian at the table had joined in, including Kalinin himself.

“Nevertheless,” Churchill continued, trying to push the memories of the needless humiliation from his mind, “he is the head of your state and so long as he remains in that position I shall treat him with respect. Why, if we were to judge all heads of state on their merit we’d never invite a single one of them to the table in the first place. Apart from Mr. Roosevelt, of course.”

“True enough.” Stalin snorted.

“I have a compromise to suggest. When we raise our glasses, rather than toasting kings or presidents, we should toast the heads of state—all three of them. You could manage that, couldn’t you?”

“You think the words make a difference?”

“Yes, I do think words make a difference, Marshal Stalin.”

“Won’t make your king not a king. And won’t make Kalinin any less of an old fart.”

“Words can cement an alliance.”

An epic, primeval grunt emerged from Stalin’s cubicle. “Well, if that’s what you want. If that’s what it’ll take to keep England in the fight, you can have your words and I’ll raise my glass and drown your king in vodka every night of the week. Hell, I might even get Molotov to marry into royalty—now there’s an idea! A princess, perhaps. I’m sure you’ve got a few to spare. Some good may come of it. His current wife’s a Jewess, and none of that lot likes me. There I am, saving what’s left of their race from the clutches of bloody Hitler, yet still they turn on me. Keep talking about how they want a motherland—when they have one right here! Odd. Very odd. Betrays bad thoughts. So, better a princess than a Jewess, eh? Fewer of ’em!” He laughed and pulled with sudden violence at the chain.

The water was still gurgling its way through the ancient system of plumbing when the two leaders found themselves standing side by side in front of a marble washstand, their images reflecting back at them from an oversized mirror that hung in an ornate gilt frame.

“Something else I would like to ask you informally, outside the plenary session, Generalissimo,” the Englishman began, splashing water over his hands while the Russian examined his moustache. “A difficult matter, something that is beginning to bother public opinion back home. And you know how difficult that can be. . . ”

Stalin looked on in utter incomprehension.

“… particularly in the run-up to an election.”

“Ah, now I understand! But of course you will win. I have been told.”

“We hear all sorts of rumors about the treatment of women in the countries you are liberating. Like Poland. There is talk of excesses, of women being subjected to all sorts of indignities.”

“Indignities?”

“I feel sure that, man to man, I don’t have to spell out the details.”

“If I may also speak frankly, man to man?”

“Of course.”

“Why do you listen to those who chatter like women over the rooftops? I feel insulted you should ask these things.”

“I intend no insult. But I, too, will be asked about these things when I return home.”

“Then tell whichever fool who asks you that they should be ashamed of listening to a viper’s nest of lies. Damnable lies for which they will burn. God forgive them, those stinking Polish
émigrés,
for that’s where these lies come from. You shouldn’t have given them house-room all these years. They take advantage of you, invent these absurd stories and pretend they are the innocent victims, even as their terror fighters in the Home Army are sneaking about massacring Russian soldiers, stabbing my poor bastards in the back while they’re liberating the Polish homeland. They want to start a civil war. And you ask me to toss with these men about the future of Poland, to take them into the new Polish government? Well, I’m a simple man and I’ve got a simple answer to that.” He then uttered a word that Birse found great difficulty in translating, until Churchill told him not to bother. He understood.

“So there is no problem?” Churchill persisted.

“I wouldn’t call a few unhappy women a problem. Hell, we men can scarcely breathe without upsetting some woman or other. It’s the story of life. And of war. Russian soldiers have marched a thousand miles through blood and fire and over the bodies of their dead comrades—so what are we to do? Shoot them every time they take some trifle and have a little fun with a woman? Why, Prime Minister, I hear that even your own son Randolph isn’t averse to a little poking around in the shrubbery when he can. No, there may be a few sour-faced old hags in Poland, but they should be on their knees thanking God they’re still alive rather than sniveling on their sleeves because some soldier in the Red Army forgot to say please.”

Stalin’s tone remained calm, as if he were discussing the functioning of the postal service or the finer points of wheat yields. In the mirror, Churchill could see the other man clearly: the peasant face, the black and irregular teeth, the stern, mirthless eyes. Churchill imagined this face, or a face like it, the face of a soldier, red and sweating, staring into the terrified face of one of his own daughters. Somehow he couldn’t see it as a trifle.

“The Poles are all crooked, like fishhooks,” Stalin continued, his voice rising, playing to his audience. “They’ll do anything to drop the good name of Russia in the shit. Why, if they had their way, the next time your wife came to Moscow and I kissed her hand I’d be charged with attempted rape. The Polish
émigrés
will accuse my men of any type of crime—they even accuse me personally. Me! Stalin! Of every sort of wickedness.” Then he laughed, an empty, soulless sound. “But not buggery, eh? I leave that to your English gentlemen.”

“Those same Englishmen have a vote. It’s a right for which they have fought ferociously. I need to be able to respond to those who will question me.”

“Have no worries. I’ll make sure you return home with more than enough bones to silence the yapping dogs.”

“I would prefer to give them the truth.”

“Your trouble, Prime Minister, is that you believe in the power of truth. But power
is
truth. You win, history says you’re a great man; you lose, and they drop you down the nearest mineshaft. Bury you in new truth. We Russians know it, and if the Poles don’t know it yet, they’re about to find out. They lost. Didn’t defend their country, failed to liberate it. So they must take what they get.”

“Just like your soldiers, taking what they can get.”

The remark might have lost something in translation, or it might have been that Stalin had grown bored with this conversation, for he simply laughed, and left.

With exaggerated care, Churchill finished washing his hands. The Russian hadn’t even started.

❖ ❖ ❖

There were to be more blasted words. Russian words. Words that would change the world.

When they returned to the great hall to complete their plenary session, it was Molotov who took centre stage. The Russian Foreign Minister, unlike Stalin, wasn’t much of an actor, but he had to his credit an impressive list of roles. He was nicknamed Stone Arse by his colleagues because of his impenetrable nature and prodigious capacity for both work and alcohol. In his wire-framed glasses he gave the appearance of being little more than a gentle academic, yet he was very much the hands-on operator. It was Molotov who had planned the destruction of the
kulaks,
deporting and obliterating millions of innocent people long before Hitler did the same. It was Molotov who had given orders that the troops must shoot starving peasants who stole even a handful of their own grain. It was Molotov’s pen that had signed the decree permitting the execution of children as young as twelve, and which had endorsed the massacre in the forests at Katyn. It was that same pen that had signed the pact with his German counterpart, von Ribbentrop, and flung the world into war. Now, little more than five years later, he began to tell the others how that same war would be finished.

He told them he had news that would give them comfort, and some they might find disappointing. The good news was that, during the few minutes of the recess, the Russians had finished typing out their proposals on the future of Poland. It would, he assured them, satisfy almost all the points that had been raised, in particular those by President Roosevelt. However, in spite of the repeated efforts of their communications experts, they had failed to make contact with any of the Lublin Poles. It was a pity, but there it was. The chaos of war—and of victory. So he doubted whether there would be time now to summon them before the conference closed. “We shall have to try to get on with matters as best we can without them,” he announced, without a flicker of irony. The Pole’s warning about dirty laundry made little retching sounds in Churchill’s brain.