Young Philby (21 page)

“When and where did you last see Miss Friedman?”

“In Paris. During what the papers took to calling the Phony War. I was covering the British Expeditionary Force from Arras. Litzi—Miss Friedman—met me for b-breakfast at La Coupole. She’d come over to try and sell two small charcoals by an Italian painter named Modigliani. Our reunion was extremely civilized. She turned up with her lover. Decent sort. Journalist, I gather. Georg something or other.”

“Honigmann.”

“Sorry?”

“His name was Georg Honigmann.”

“Ahhh. That sounds about right. He and Litzi spoke German to each other.”

“That, too, sounds about right. Is he a Communist?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Miss Maxse. Though knowing Litzi, who is very much a Communist, he could well be.”

“Are you suggesting all of her lovers have been Communists?”

“I am not suggesting anything of the sort. Surely my failure to keep track of my former lover’s lovers will not be a black mark against me.”

“Are you a Communist, Mr. Philby?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“It is a question I am obliged to put. We have read all the articles published by
The Times
from its special correspondent in Spain. You obviously had little sympathy for the Republican side. In one article you justified the Nationalist bombing of Barcelona docks on the grounds that Soviet supplies were off-loaded there. In another you suggested that Republican mines and not Nationalist firebombs caused the destruction of the town of Guernica.”

“I must admit to being flattered by your attention to the details of my dossier.”

“Whilst in Spain, you had another liaison.”

“You are referring to the Canadian actress Frances Doble. We slept together. We copulated. Often, actually.”

“I am relieved to hear it, Mr. Philby. Is Miss Doble a Communist?”

Mr. Philby laughed silently. “Frances is to the right of Franco, which is to say she is a royalist who looks forward to the return of Alfonso to the throne he fled when the Spanish Republic was declared in 1931.”

“What is your relationship nowadays?”

“We occupy separate b-beds in separate rooms in separate hotels in separate cities in separate countries. She has decided to wait out the war in P-Portugal. Intercourse of any sort, most especially sexual, is difficult under these circumstances.”

“I like your spunk, Mr. Philby. You seem to have survived the Phony War, not to mention the subsequent shooting war, in fine fettle.”

“Only just muddled through. Still can’t figure out why the French strung their Maginot Line along the border with Germany but stopped when they reached Belgium, leaving the northern flank of the country dreadfully exposed.”

“They supposed Herr Hitler’s tanks would be unable to negotiate the Ardennes Forest,” I said.

“French got it terribly wrong, didn’t they? B-but all that is history.”

“‘What’s past is prologue,’” I said. “Sorry ’bout that, I don’t make a habit of quoting Shakespeare. Saw John Gielgud doing
The Tempest
the other night. The line lodged in my mind.”

“Indeed, what’s p-past most certainly
is
p-prologue.”

“I expect it must have seemed like the end of the world to someone like yourself who witnessed the debacle.”

“It was the end of the world we knew,” he said. I seem to recall his looking off to one side, his eyes focused on bitter memories. “In hotels, guests stopped setting shoes outside the d-doors of their rooms to be shined whilst they slept—nobody knew if the guests, or the shoes, or the shiners of shoes would still be in town come morning.”

“Between Austria and Spain and France, you will have seen more than your share of violence, Mr. Philby.” He nodded in grim agreement. I changed the tone of the conversation with, “Do you have stomach for more?”

“I abhor violence, Miss Maxse.”

“That’s a declaration. It’s not an answer to my question.”

“I am incapable of killing someone, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

“Nobody would expect you to kill someone with your bare hands. But could you betray an agent to torture and almost certain death in order to achieve specific objectives?”

“You are asking me if ends justify means.”

“I am.”

“In certain situations, certain ends justify certain means, yes.”

“Well put, Mr. Philby. Welcome to the world’s second-oldest profession.”

“Ahhh. I shall need to give notice at
The Times
.”

“I will take care of that detail for you. Consider yourself to be on gardening leave. Report to Caxton House between Broadway Buildings and this hotel Monday at seven. There will be two security men at a desk inside the door. They will be expecting you. Show them your passport, sign their ledger book. They will send you to a room where your photograph will be taken for an identity badge. Do try to keep a straight face for the photographer. I cringe when I see colleagues smiling at me from identity badges.”

“I shall not make that mistake, Miss Maxse.” He cleared his throat. “I hate to raise the banal question of salary—”

I took the liberty of interrupting him. “Material questions are seldom banal. Your salary will be fifty pounds a month, which you are not expected to report to Inland Revenue.”

“Can you give me an idea of what I shall be doing when I come on board?”

“I should think you’ll join your friend Mr. Burgess, who only recently came over to us from the F.O. He has been assigned to Section D. The D stands for Destruction. He will take you under his wing, show you the gents’ room, show you where spare typing paper and carbons can be had. The two of you will join Colonel Grand’s team—they are recruiting some serious talent, including Mr. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge, Mr. Graham Greene. You will all be brainstorming about how we might sabotage German railway lines. We’re looking for weak points in the German resupply system that can be attacked from the air or from the ground by partisans. Railroad bridges. Key junctions. Marshalling yards. That sort of thing. At the same time you will be learning the tricks of the trade—simple ciphers, secret writing techniques…”

“The art of getting lost in a crowd even in the absence of one.”

“I
am
impressed, Mr. Philby. I can see you have a natural talent for intelligence work. Down the road, when you’ve learned the ropes, I have no doubt, what with your knowledge of the Iberian Peninsula, you’ll fit nicely into counterintelligence.”

I spotted a waiter in the entranceway of the forecourt and made a sign that he was to add the tea to our running tally. Philby stirred uneasily in his chair. “May I put a last question, Miss Maxse?”

“Please do.”

“Is there a handbook I might read? Something along the lines of how one becomes a Secret Intelligence Service spy?”

“Dear boy, do get ahold of Somerset Maugham’s
Ashenden.
It will tell you everything you need to know and then some.”

12: LONDON, DECEMBER 1940

Where Mr. Burgess Lets the Cat Out of the Bag in an Interoffice Memo

Kim old sod,

Bloody marvelous being a member of His Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. It doesn’t take long for the cockteaser crowd to suss out one has a secret life. When they ask what I mean by war work, I smile knowingly. I am the teensiest bit more forthcoming with chaps who have security clearances. I mumble something about Caxton House, and if they have the dimmest idea what that might be I name-drop Section D into the conversation, though I never say the D stands for Destruction. I have, after all, been sworn to secrecy. Beats me how you managed a straight face when they took your photograph for the identity badge. I was hard put to stifle a grin, though two or three of my absolutely closest mates have remarked the gleam in my eye. Christ, it’s exhilarating to not be able to talk about what one does for a living! To let the cat out of the bag, espionage is an aphrodisiac. (Best keep this hush-hush lest Miss Maxse become swamped with postulants.) On top of which, we’re helping win this bloody war, you and I, Kim. When I fucked one of the code breakers at Bletchley Park and he let slip the date of the German invasion of Soviet Russia, I thought I was really contributing, like you when you rode off to Vienna.

You will tell our mutual friend on the park bench it was me who got the date from the code breaker when you pass it along?

I say, Kim, do remember to burn this note immediately once you’ve read it.

Guy

13: LONDON, JANUARY 1941

Where the Soviet
Rezident
Gorsky Proves He Is a Spy After All

My comrades in the
Rezidentura
at the Soviet Embassy could not remember a colder winter. Several had taken to joking about having been posted east to Siberia instead of west to Great Britain. The iciness gripping London City had frozen the Gentlemen’s Bathing Pond on the Highgate side of Hampstead Heath. Young men in gymnasium costumes and their lady friends in woolen leggings and flaring thigh-length skirts were spending Sunday afternoon ice-skating. “Do they skate in Russia?” Sonny inquired. He was sitting on the crabgrass, his back against an old oak, his overcoat, its collar up, buttoned to the scarf around his neck, his hat balanced on a knee, his head angled toward the arctic sun.

“They do,” I said, settling onto the ground next to him, my back against the same tree. I leaned toward him and lit a cigarette on the embers of the one in his mouth. For a moment our faces were quite close. I detected alcohol on his breath. “We have a park named after the late Maxim Gorky,” I said. “Muskovites skate when the pond in the park freezes over. At night some hold flaming torches. The police light fires in trash cans on the pond’s edge so the skaters can warm their hands. Old
babushkas
peddle hot wine from thermos bottles. You would like it.”

“The wine?”

“The scene.”

“I hope I never get to see it,” Sonny said. “It would mean my cover had been blown and I’d run for it.”

“It will not come to that if we are all careful,” I said.

Sonny took a swig from a flask. Wiping the mouthpiece on his palm, he offered me a drink. I sniffed at it before I pushed away his hand. “Smells like real whiskey,” I remarked.

“Whiskey it is,” he confirmed. “The good stuff. B-bonded. Aged in wood kegs for ten years, so they allege on the label.”

“Where do you get it? At the Soviet Embassy all we have is Russian vodka.”

“State secret,” he said with a humorless laugh.

“You should be careful about your consumption of alcohol,” I said.

“I told you last time you raised the subject, I need my ration. Steadies my nerves. Everyone at Caxton House stashes a b-bottle in the b-bottom drawer of his desk. Nobody notices whiskey on your breath because they have whiskey on their breath. I should think they would notice if I
didn’t
drink.”

“Black market whiskey is expensive. Surely you have trouble making ends meet if you’re drinking most of your salary.”

“My sainted father, who has taken up residence in Great Britain for the duration despite the everlasting rain that affects his gout, slips me a hundred quid every so often.”

“Might I suggest you switch to vodka? It’s cheaper. And it can’t be detected on your breath.”

“You do take a personal interest in your agents. Can you suggest a diet to help me lose a bit of the inner tube round my waist?” Turning toward me, Sonny smirked in embarrassment. “Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate your concern, not to mention your tradecraft. Tell me something, Anatoly, is Gorsky really your name? Guy Burgess supposed it to be a pseudonym.”

“State secret,” I said. “But I will share it with you. Gorsky was my grandfather’s family name, but not my father’s and not mine. Under the tsars, the second son was always conscripted into the army, so families with a second son farmed him out to a family without sons and the name was changed. That’s how grandfather Gorsky avoided military service under the Tsar Alexander Three.”

The blade of one of the skaters broke through thin ice and his left foot sank into water up to his ankle, eliciting a howl of laughter from the other skaters. In the bare branches over our heads jackdaws cawed as if in derision. I studied Sonny as he took another swig of whiskey. At twenty-nine, he cut a fine figure—lean despite his claim to have an inner tube round his waist, suntanned even in winter, the livid trace of a war wound on his forehead immediately above his sunglasses. “What are you reading?” I asked, nodding at the book in his lap.

“Turgenev’s
A Nest of Gentlefolk
in the Garnett translation,” he said.

“I know his
Otzi i Deti.
You don’t speak Russian, do you? You should learn. It’s a rich language.
Otzi i Deti
means
Fathers and Sons
. Turgenev invented the term
nihilism
in that novel. I fail to comprehend how someone who believes in nothing can look himself in the mirror when he shaves. I understand a Fascist better than I understand a nihilist—at least a Fascist believes in
something
.”

“I was told you’d been b-back to Moscow.”

“Whoever told you that should have minded his tongue. I was visiting family.”

“Didn’t know you had one.”

“Many things you don’t know. Better that way. Compartmentalization.”

“When you were in Moscow, did you see Otto?”

“No. Our paths didn’t cross.”

“What happened to Otto? Why was he suddenly recalled to Moscow?”

“Nothing
happened
to Otto. I heard he’d been promoted to captain and posted to the Second Chief Directorate. It’s what
Rezidenti
dream about. Someone mentioned he was living in a village near Moscow and commuting.”

“So he’s in good health?”

I nodded. “Why wouldn’t he be in good health?”

“I liked Otto.”

“He liked you.” I cleared my throat. “What do you have for me today?”

“Something quite important, I should think. The date of the German invasion of Soviet Russia. It’s scheduled for dawn on the twenty-second of June.”