The Relic (14 page)

Rakovsky drank another whisky. He would go to the Italians. He would attend the dinner and the theatre. He would smile and talk engagingly and hide his feelings. And then, when he was alone, he would get drunk enough to sleep without dreaming of his mother screaming.

Müller was a little early for the rendezvous. Rakovsky was visiting a Russian arts and crafts shop selling embroidery, pottery and lacquer work. Müller arrived ahead of him by twenty minutes and waited in the private room at the back. He thought the goods on display were crude and tasteless; but sometimes it was possible to find a little gem amongst the mass-produced dross. One small lacquer box had caught his eye. It was the work of an original craftsman. He asked to buy it. His wife liked little trinkets for her dressing table.

He was surprised at how much Rakovsky had aged when he came in. They hadn't seen each other for so long. They shook hands and then embraced like old friends. He
had
aged, Müller decided, noticing the puffy skin under his eyes. He looked as if he had hardly slept.

They drank tea together and Müller went over the report with him. Rakovsky was quiet, which was unlike him. He let Müller talk while he listened. He was not only older, but subdued.

Müller said suddenly, ‘You don't seem well, Viktor. Is anything wrong?'

‘It's been a heavy schedule,' Rakovsky said. ‘Too many parties every evening. Peter, I've decided to go to Geneva. I'm going to see this man, Brückner, and check his story for myself. I'll make the travel arrangements. What you must do is tell Irina to keep him in the clinic till I can come. And not to lean on him too heavily. I know her methods. They don't leave much at the end. I want to talk to him myself.'

Müller hid his surprise. Rakovsky had never visited the clinic. He knew Irina very well from her Moscow days. He had been instrumental in getting Volkov released so she could take up her appointment in Geneva. But he had left the running of the operation to Müller.

‘Of course I'll tell her.'

‘And Volkov? Still drinking?'

Müller shrugged. ‘Still drinking. She leads a hell of a life with him. And he's cheating, which is interesting.'

Rakovsky glanced up at him. ‘You mean with a woman? How do you know?'

‘I saw them together, by chance. Young, very pretty. They looked like lovers to me. Irina doesn't know. I saw no reason to tell her. She might do something stupid. She's still obsessed with him.'

‘It was her one weakness,' Rakovsky remarked. ‘Everyone warned her; her father, all his friends, but she would marry him. Her own career was at risk. Even her loyalty came under suspicion because of his activities. I remember her coming to see me and begging me to help when he was arrested. She was crying. She was an attractive woman, but I never thought she had a human feeling in her. To me she was just a brain, a scientific machine in a bedworthy body. She'd have agreed to anything to save his life and get him out. And this is how he's showing gratitude. Well!' He paused, then he offered Müller another glass of tea. Müller declined. He didn't like Russian tea.

‘Perhaps we'd better find out about the woman. Just routine, Peter, but we don't want that drunken fool getting into mischief. And we don't want Irina upset. She's much too valuable.' He finished his tea and stood up. He shook hands with Müller.

‘You were right to bring this to me direct,' he said. ‘I'm going home at the end of the week and I'll make arrangements to go to Geneva as soon as possible. And I'll authorize another payment for you. Look after yourself, my friend.'

‘And you, Viktor. I'll go out the back way.'

‘My love,' Lucy said. ‘He wants to speak to you.' Volkov hesitated.

‘Go on,' she urged. ‘He's waiting.'

He took the receiver from her. She had dialled the number in London.

‘Mischa is my father's oldest friend,' she said. ‘He worked so hard for you, getting signatures, writing to the newspapers.'

She had described Mischa to him, and his wife and his children. How they worked for the dissidents, raised money, edited a Ukrainian language broadsheet. Now he was going to talk to the man himself.

Lucy watched him; she came and stroked his hair with tenderness to give encouragement.

‘I love you,' she whispered, and then left him to speak.

He had changed so much in the time they'd spent together. He was still hesitant, still uncertain. His hands shook and he was suffering, but he didn't drink. Mother, mistress, friend, Lucy filled whatever role he needed, when he needed it. Her little apartment had become their home, where she cooked for him and they shared all the daylight hours together. He went back to prison at night. They were his words and as soon as he said them, she knew she had won him to freedom. Mischa was the next step. Mischa knew what to say. Lucy had primed him carefully.

She went out of the room while he spoke on the telephone. There was a fine line to walk between protecting him and urging him to self-reliance. If she crossed it, he regressed.

When she came back he had finished speaking. There was a little colour in his face and a brightness in his eye. He drew her close and kissed her gently.

‘You were talking for a long time,' she said.

‘He reminded me of so many things I'd half-forgotten. The way we used to fight at home; our little victories. I never realized how the world was watching us. That was the worst thing they did to you in prison. They said it every day. “Nobody even knows you're here. Nobody cares whether you're alive or dead. You're just a number. You'll be a number till the day you die.” It used to frighten me. I kept saying my own name so I wouldn't forget it. Your friend told me they held vigils outside the Soviet embassies all over the world when I was arrested and when Sakharov went on hunger strike. Lucy, how could I have abandoned people like that?'

‘You mustn't say that,' she said quickly. ‘All that is in the past; you're not to think about it. You've come back to lead them.'

He looked at her solemnly. ‘How can I lead them, Lucy? History's overtaken me. I've been left behind.'

She stood up and looked down at him. ‘When my father was at the camp at Spittal, another Ukrainian looked after him. He'd joined the SS. He'd done some dreadful things, but my father was only a boy and this man took care of him. He was sent back to be shot by the Red Army.' She paused for a moment. ‘Do you want me to go on?'

He nodded.

‘Before he was taken away, this man gave my father something he'd stolen during the war. He thought it was valuable and my father could sell it. He knew he was going to die. But my father kept it. Then, when my mother was so ill, he did try and sell it to get money for treatment for her. He told me that. He said, “The hand of God saved me, Lucy.” The jeweller didn't know what it was my father showed him. He saw an old paste cross and he wouldn't offer any money for it.' She slipped to the floor and knelt beside him. ‘My father came back with the cross; his friend, Major Hope, paid for my mother's treatment.

‘Before he died, he showed it to me. He'd kept it hidden for fifty years. He'd tried to sell the Holy Relic, St Vladimir's Cross. And what's why I came to Geneva. To find you and give it to you.'

She couldn't help herself; she burst into tears. He raised her up and held her.

‘No, my darling,' he said very gently. ‘That was destroyed. Everyone knows the Reds destroyed it.'

‘I have it,' she said. ‘In my house. It's the Relic. I can prove it to you.'

He left her early. He took one of the water buses that ferried across the lake. He needed to be alone. She understood and accepted it. When he left her she was very pale and quiet.

‘I'll be back,' he promised. ‘Just give me a little time to take it in.'

She had shown him the book where it was illustrated. And he had the article written a few years ago about the missing Tsarist treasures. It featured another illustration, large and faithfully depicted. The delicate gold filigree, the massive red gems.

Paste, the jeweller had said, refusing to buy the cross
. Missing from the cathedral at Kiev since 1919. It was a learned article; it went into details about the workmanship, the size and influence of Byzantine art on the beautiful object specially commissioned by Vladimir to mark his conversion from paganism. And the writer hadn't spared the legends, because it explained the Bolshevik obsession with the Relic. If the White armies could claim it, the Civil War might go in their favour. The Reds spread the rumours of its destruction, but there was no evidence to support this. There was evidence that despite torture and execution, the clergy at the cathedral had managed to conceal it.
There was no evidence of its destruction
.

Volkov had the article in his pocket, the pages scissored out of a famous art magazine. They were creased and folded, a little frayed at the edges. He looked at the cross. Besides the colour reproduction, there was an old scale drawing, and an enlarged section of a painting of the last Tsar's coronation, with the Relic in his right hand.

Lucy had said simply to him, ‘It's the real cross. This is the photograph my father took. Compare them. The scale is right, the goldwork is identical. No one ever copied that cross; it would have been blasphemous.'

He put the pages back in his pocket. There was a restaurant on board the ferry. All he had to do was get up and walk a few steps and he could escape it all.

He could be what his gaolers had told him he was. A number. No identity, no name, just a set of numerals. Numbers didn't have responsibilities. They weren't presented with ancient symbols of faith with powers to topple a tyranny. They weren't challenged to do anything. They hardly existed. Prisoner 36672. That's who he was. Five digits. One brandy would make him in to a number. His hands trembled. Sweat broke out all over his body, chilling him. One brandy. Then two and afterwards he'd lose count. He wouldn't remember his number even. He got up and went to the restaurant. He put money down.

The waitress said, ‘What can I get you?' She had very pale blue eyes. Not the same limpid colour as Lucy's eyes, but pale and blue.

He said, ‘A glass of mineral water, please. I'm thirsty.'

He had been gone for a long time. The little clock in the sitting room struck the hour. It could have been the span of her whole life. She paced up and down; she went backwards and forwards to the windows, stepping on to the little balcony where they sat together in the afternoon sun, peering down the street.

There was no sign of him. Other men walked along, passed underneath. But not Volkov. Volkov had gone away to think. Or to escape! To step backwards into the limbo of the last five years. If he drank, he would be lost for ever.…

She almost cried out in desperation and self-blame. She'd acted too soon, burdened him before he was ready. She went into the bedroom and gave way to a burst of weeping.

She heard the clock strike again. She washed her face and went wearily back to look out for him, but she was losing hope. She was leaning by the window, watching the first clouds creeping up from the horizon to challenge the sun, when the door opened. She heard her name.

‘Lucy?'

She turned and saw him. He walked towards her. He was steady, sober. She ran into his arms.

‘I took the water bus,' he said. ‘That's why I was so long. Were you worried? Did you think I wouldn't come back?'

Lucy held tight to him, ‘No,' she lied. ‘I knew you would.'

He didn't contradict her. In her place, he would have doubted, too. Then she managed to smile up at him.

‘That's not true,' she said. ‘But thank God you did.'

Later, he said. ‘I'm not going home tonight.'

‘You must. What will your wife think? Darling, you mustn't be reckless. You said she was dangerous.'

‘Dangerous to you,' he corrected. ‘But she doesn't know about you. I've stayed out before. I went to sleep at an all-night cinema once. I don't want to leave you tonight. We've got so much to think about. Will you let me stay?'

Lucy drew him down to her. ‘Kiss me,' she said.

Irina hung up in exasperation. She had been trying the apartment since seven o'clock. She had an emergency patient to attend to. A rich Italian suffering severe post-natal depression had been brought in by ambulance, having tried to kill her six-week-old son, and then taken an overdose. The family were following on in a state of high Latin hysteria.

Irina didn't know when or if, she would get home that night. There was no answer to her calls. He was either out and hadn't switched on the answering machine or he was tormenting her by ignoring the telephone. He sometimes did that.

She wondered whether he'd started drinking again. She hadn't taken him seriously when he said he was giving up. Even though he'd never said it before. Miracle cures for alcoholism didn't happen. He'd slip. It was inevitable. And he'd been more unkind than usual in this odd period of sobriety. That was a common symptom, but she didn't welcome it. Mute, drunken dislike was easier than the cold hatred of the last few weeks.

She put her unhappiness aside. She had a seriously ill patient to contend with and she'd just had a telephone message to say that Brückner's wife wanted to come up and visit him. She'd deal with that in the morning. Müller's instructions were clear. Keep him quiet, but don't disorientate him. Viktor Rakovsky wanted to talk to him. A most significant departure for someone so senior to involve himself personally. She had been right about the importance of Brückner's story. Right to overrule Müller's judgement. No doubt he had claimed the credit for himself. She would let Rakovsky know the truth.
I hate Müller
, she thought.
He ruined my happiness. If it wasn't for him, I'd have talked Dimitri round. We'd be living together like in the old days
.