The Tamarind Seed (14 page)

‘A man from our Embassy,' he explained. ‘With his friend, she is American. I've asked them to come to our table for a drink. In about half an hour, when we are tired.'

‘Half an hour? Feodor, stop blowing in my ear.'

‘Red would be a good colour for you,' he said. ‘You are always staying stop. Madame Molotov. No.
No.
NO. Why don't you become a Communist, and come to Russia with me?'

‘No thank you.' Judith twisted her head backwards, away from him. ‘Red doesn't suit me; politically I'm true Blue.'

‘True Blue,' Sverdlov repeated it. ‘What is that? Is it a political joke?'

‘No, it's quite serious to some people. True Blue means an ultra Conservative. It used to describe the heroes in Victorian novels; all loyal to the Queen and the Empire.'

‘That's funny,' he said. ‘Blue. True Blue. I must remember that.'

When they were sitting down, Judith was able to find the other Soviet diplomat and his girl friend. They were at a less exclusive table, half way to the edge of the dance floor. She thought the man looked over at Sverdlov as if he was waiting for a signal. He got up so quickly that it must have been given, though she didn't see it. The girl with him followed more slowly, picking her way towards them. He was a short, dark man, younger than Sverdlov, with spectacles. His companion was also young, and blonde, with heavily made up eyes and a mouth painted livid pink. Sverdlov introduced them; she heard the name Memenov, and the American girl was Miss Something or other; the discotheque was giving their eardrums hell at that time. The couple sat down; the younger man seemed awkward. He pulled out a chair and perched, rather than sat. He watched Sverdlov with unnatural concentration, giving one quick glance at Judith and a brief smile.

‘His English is not very good,' Sverdlov explained.

‘Excuse me,' the Russian said to her and lifted himself slightly from his seat. ‘I speak only little.'

Judith wondered how he managed with the blonde; so far she had said nothing beyond hello, and she was looking round the room, paying no attention to any of them. ‘You will excuse us if we speak Russian?' Sverdlov asked Judith.

‘Of course.'

He leaned close to her and said under his breath, ‘Only a few minutes; he won't stay long.'

A drink was brought for them, and Judith copied the American girl and relaxed, letting the two men get on with their conversation. As Sverdlov said, they didn't linger for long. He talked, and the younger man listened; there seemed to be little in the way of exchange. And she was interested to see how Sverdlov changed during the ten minutes the other man was with him. He leaned forward, talking quietly, but there was no smile, no easy gestures; he did not offer him a cigarette. In the pink light his face looked hard and the twisted mouth was grim. It was a different man to the one she knew. There must have been a second signal, a dismissal as discreet, but decisive, as the summons. The younger man swallowed his drink in one, and was on his feet, drawing out his girl friend's chair. She took her glass away with her.

‘I am sorry,' Sverdlov said. ‘That was very dull for you. I thought the girl might have talked to you, but she had no conversation.'

‘As he doesn't speak English, it wouldn't matter if she had or not.'

‘He doesn't want her for talking,' Sverdlov said. ‘She is good at other things. And harmless. We know all about her; she likes presents, not money. She likes a fur jacket, expensive handbags, a gold cigarette case. These she can show her friends, to prove how good she is with men.'

‘And how does a good Soviet Socialist get the money to buy fur coats and gold cigarette cases? It sounds a lot like Capitalism to me,' Judith said.

‘I give him the money,' Sverdlov explained. He was himself again; the mocking look and cynical grin were reassuring to see. Judith hadn't liked that other aspect of him. ‘I pay his expenses, because he is a good man, and loyal to me. He does what I tell him. I have told him to do something now, and I know he will do it.' He leaned back, his arm slid along the banquette; without Judith knowing he twisted a strand of her hair in his fingers. ‘Here is our food. It should be good; he recommended this place, because of the food.'

‘What did you tell him to do?'

Sverdlov was eating. He didn't answer immediately, and Judith put down her own fork and said: ‘Now I know what you're thinking. I just wondered, I'm not asking for anybody else. You don't have to tell me.'

‘I can always lie,' he said. ‘You don't speak Russian, you wouldn't know. He is going back to Russia on Wednesday. I asked him to find out something for me; about my secretary, who was sick while I was in Barbados. He was sent home. I have a new one who is not so good.'

‘“He”—you have male secretaries? No girls?'

‘I prefer men. They're more efficient; but now I have a girl. Very very pretty.'

‘Lucky you.' Judith pushed her plate aside.

‘So pretty,' he went on, ‘with golden hair and blue eyes, like a doll. Are you jealous?'

‘No; she's probably fifty, wears bifocals and has a huge bottom.'

‘You are jealous,' Sverdlov said. ‘But I tell you, I don't like her as much as you. I don't like blondes.'

He smiled at Judith and patted her knee. He had arranged to meet Alexis Memenov in the restaurant, that was why he had brought her there. It would look natural, to see a fellow staff member and invite him for a drink. He had lied when he said Memenov didn't speak English. But he had told the truth when he said he had entrusted the enquiry about Kalinin to him. Memenov was one of the young coterie in the Embassy, whose views on future Soviet policy agreed with Sverdlov's own opinions. He was an adherent, although the word was too strong to describe anything so tenuous as an instinctive sympathy of view. Memenov had spent two years in New York and eighteen months in London before that; he knew Western life and could see it without the violent prejudice of the older men, nurtured on the hate and blind suspicion prevalent in Cold War diplomatic service. He had gone out among the enemy, and remained a perfectly convinced and loyal Communist Party member, as well as an extremely patriotic Russian. He had learned to sleep with an American girl and enjoy the experience, without a sensation of national betrayal because he preferred her techniques to the inhibitions of his wife. He had learned that it was possible to co-exist, and like Sverdlov he believed sincerely that the victory of Soviet Socialism was a matter of course, provided that the process was not accelerated by means of a global war. He was not officially on Sverdlov's staff; but he had undertaken several delicate, though minor missions for him, when he had not wanted to use his own subordinates. The arranged meeting, and the few instructions passed across the table, were the safest means of investigating Kalinin's illness and the truth of what Golitsyn and the doctor had told him.

The loss of his secretary worried Sverdlov like a toothache. He knew Golitsyn hated him, he knew the old man watched and waited, even attempted a little private spying, in the hope that one day he could find a serious fault. But to replace Kalinin with a ‘dove', showed an alarming degree of confidence. He had never dared show his disapproval of Sverdlov before, even though Sverdlov was aware of it, as he was aware of everything which concerned his organisation and the working of the Embassy. Only Golitsyn's position, not unlike that of a national monument to the old Revolutionary Secret Police and the early fight against international Capitalist attacks on the Soviet, only his reputation and imminent retirement from Washington, prevented Sverdlov from ordering his recall. He was a young man, tough and confident in his ability to carry an old relic of the past, and survive his antiquated hatred. But now, suddenly the past had overtaken the present and was threatening to assume the aspect of the future. At home the leadership had changed, the moderates had lost temporary control; Russia was in a private ferment to determine the ultimate direction of her policy, both domestic and cosmic. Sverdlov's advice remained consistent; his power and his position could not be challenged on any legitimate count.

He would not serve, nor appear to connive at, the ideological form to which his wife adhered so passionately. Elena was of the very stuff of martyrs; it was this almost mystical obstinacy which had attracted him when they first met. He had seen it as a challenge, and believed that no woman could truly maintain it, without some leavening of humour or of female weakness. Equally he was prepared to be strong, ready to exercise the authority his State had given him to suppress a counter-revolution with the tank and the execution squad.

He had done this in Hungary, and it had thrust him upwards on the ladder of promotion and political influence. He had not minded shedding blood; he was Russian and the tradition was old, far older than the principles learned at the Intelligence School in Leningrad. The satellites of the Soviet Union could not be permitted to reject her or to seek independence. Sverdlov had done what his ancestors did in Poland in the service of the Tsars. He had put down the revolt of a subject people. In his way, he had reverted to his historical type as truly as the blindly obedient Golitsyn. For a year, after the Hungarian uprising, he and Elena had been truly happy.

It was an indication of the change which had taken place in him, that if she had been transported to the seat beside him, in place of Judith Farrow, he wouldn't have been capable of making conversation with her.

Memenov was lucky. He would go home with his girl. Sverdlov looked down at Judith and smiled. She had courage; silly courage, which could only get her into trouble. He couldn't imagine anyone at home refusing to do what one of his men suggested, like reporting on a Western diplomat they had picked up. But the circumstances were different. Trouble for Judith Farrow wouldn't mean imprisonment and a sentence of ten to fifteen years' hard labour. It was not a pleasant comparison, and he discarded it. She had a pretty chin, and a narrow neck, which he wanted to stroke with his fingers. He had seen her near enough naked on the Barbadian beach to know that without her clothes she would be smooth and beautiful to the hands. He wished that he could have taken her home somewhere.

He felt so disinclined to go back to the UNO Embassy alone, that he dragged out the meal with a dessert he didn't want, and urged more coffee and liquers upon her.

They danced, and he forgot his tension and uneasiness in taking little liberties with her, retreating only, as he whispered in her ear, like all good Russians, to advance another step. By the end of the evening he was happy, as if nothing had changed before he went to Barbados, and everything was the same when he came back.

‘Good night.' He had come to the entrance of the apartment with her. She had refused to kiss him in the car, and he hadn't persisted in case she became angry. ‘When will you see me again?'

‘Feodor, listen to me for a minute.' Judith paused at the door, one hand on his arm. A yellow light burned above their heads. It made them look garish and unreal.

‘There's no good your going on with me. I'm not having an affair with you. It's just a waste of your time. And think of all the complications; your people watching you, mine going after me. I fed I'm leading you on, and I don't think it's fair. We ought to say goodbye. Properly.'

Under the ugly light his face changed.

‘You don't want to see me again? What have I done?'

‘I've tried to tell you …' She shrugged at him helplessly. ‘You haven't done anything. But I'm just not—not prepared to see you and let you think I'm going to give in and go to bed with you. I'm not. Never.'

‘Because of the Englishman?'

‘Yes. I've had enough. I've been married, I've lost my husband, I've had a man living with me for six months who was just having fun at my expense. And now there's you. No, Feodor. I'm not coming out with you again.'

He did something she had never imagined he might do. He stepped back from her, turned round and walked quickly down the steps. Shaken, Judith put the key in the door. His car drove away, and he had not even looked back.

When she got into the apartment, Nancy's door was open, the bed not slept in. She often stayed with a man for the night if she felt inclined. Lucky, hard-headed Nancy. She wouldn't have sent him away and come back to an empty flat and cried herself to sleep. She was still crying when the telephone rang beside her bed. She was so startled that she picked it up, and said hello, her voice thick with tears.

‘I don't want to sleep with you,' he said into her ear. ‘You can stop crying. I'll be outside your office at lunch-time tomorrow.'

Judith was saying no, when she realised he had rung off. She got up and heated some hot milk to drink, made a grimace at herself in the mirror as she got back to bed, and fell asleep determined not to leave the UNO building in the lunch hour.

CHAPTER SIX

‘I find it quite revolting,' Margaret Stephenson said. ‘You and that dreadful little man, lunching together. What has come over you?'

He had called in on her before leaving his office in the Chancery, to say that he would not be at home for lunch. For someone who professed such contempt for him, his wife showed an inconsistent degree of curiosity about his movements. He had been forced to admit that he was meeting Loder in a restaurant in the centre of the city.

‘I could have invited him here,' he said. ‘But I didn't think you'd approve of the idea.'

‘Approve! I've got one of those dreary wives' luncheons—I don't want you here either, let alone that creature. What have you got in common with him?'

‘Nothing in particular,' Fergus said. ‘I feel he's rather a lonely person. Nobody pays much attention to him here and he's got a good brain. Which is rather rare these days.'