“I suggest a hundred thousand rubles, initially,” Walter said coolly. “Preferably in gold ten-ruble pieces, if you can get them.”
“The kaiser would never agree.”
“Does he have to be told? Zimmermann could approve this on his own authority.”
“He would never do such a thing.”
“Are you sure?”
Otto stared at Walter in silence for a long time, thinking.
Then he said: “I’ll ask him.”
After three days on the train, the Russians left Germany. At Sassnitz, on the coast, they bought tickets for the ferry Queen Victoria to take them across the Baltic Sea to the southern tip of Sweden. Walter went with them. The crossing was rough and everyone was seasick except Lenin, Radek, and Zinoviev, who were on deck having an angry political argument and did not seem to notice the heavy seas.
They took an overnight train to Stockholm, where the socialist Borgmastare gave them a welcome breakfast. Walter checked into the Grand Hotel, hoping to find a letter from Maud waiting for him. There was nothing.
He was so disappointed that he wanted to throw himself into the cold water of the bay. This had been his only chance to communicate with his wife in almost three years, and something had gone wrong. Had she even received his letter?
Unhappy fantasies tormented him. Did she still care for him? Had she forgotten him? Was there perhaps a new man in her life? He was completely in the dark.
Radek and the well-dressed Swedish socialists took Lenin, somewhat against his will, to the menswear section of the PUB department store. The hobnailed mountain boots the Russian had been wearing vanished. He got a coat with a velvet collar and a new hat. Now, Radek said, he was at least dressed like someone who could lead his people.
That evening, as night fell, the Russians went to the station to board yet another train for Finland. Walter was leaving the group here, but he went with them to the station. Before the train left, he had a meeting alone with Lenin.
They sat in a compartment under a dim electric light that gleamed off Lenin’s bald head. Walter was tense. He had to do this just right. It would be no good to beg or plead with Lenin, he felt sure. And the man certainly could not be bullied. Only cold logic would persuade him.
Walter had a prepared speech. “The German government is helping you to return home,” he said. “You know we are not doing this out of goodwill.”
Lenin interrupted in fluent German. “You think it will be to the detriment of Russia!” he barked.
Walter did not contradict him. “And yet you have accepted our help.”
“For the sake of the revolution! This is the only standard of right and wrong.”
“I thought you would say that.” Walter was carrying a heavy suitcase, and now he put it down on the floor of the railway carriage with a thump. “In the false bottom of this case you will find one hundred thousand rubles in notes and coins.”
“What?” Lenin was normally imperturbable, but now he looked startled. “What is it for?”
“For you.”
Lenin was offended. “A bribe?” he said indignantly.
“Certainly not,” said Walter. “We have no need to bribe you. Your aims are the same as ours. You have called for the overthrow of the provisional government and an end to the war.”
“What, then?”
“For propaganda. To help you spread your message. It is the message that we, too, would like to broadcast. Peace between Germany and Russia.”
“So that you can win your capitalist-imperialist war against France!”
“As I said before, we are not helping you out of goodwill-nor would you expect us to. It’s practical politics, that’s all. For the moment, your interests coincide with ours.”
Lenin looked as he had when Radek insisted on buying him new clothes: he hated the idea, but could not deny that it made sense.
Walter said: “We’ll give you a similar amount of money once a month-as long, of course, as you continue to campaign effectively for peace.”
There was a long silence.
Walter said: “You say that the success of the revolution is the only standard of right and wrong. If that is so, you should take the money.”
Outside on the platform, a whistle blew.
Walter stood up. “I must leave you now. Good-bye, and good luck.”
Lenin stared at the suitcase on the floor and did not reply.
Walter left the compartment and got off the train.
He turned and looked back at the window of Lenin’s compartment. He half-expected the window to open and the suitcase to come flying out.
There was another whistle and a hoot. The carriages jerked and moved, and slowly the train steamed out of the station, with Lenin, the other Russian exiles, and the money on board.
Walter took the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and wiped his forehead. Despite the cold, he was sweating.
Walter walked from the railway station along the waterfront to the Grand Hotel. It was dark, and a cold east wind blew off the Baltic. He should have been rejoicing: he had bribed Lenin! But he felt a sense of anticlimax. And he was more depressed than he should have been over the silence from Maud. There were a dozen possible reasons why she had not sent him a letter. He should not assume the worst. But he had come dangerously close to falling for Monika, so why should Maud not do something similar? He could not help feeling she must have forgotten him.
He decided he would get drunk tonight.
At the front desk he was given a typewritten note: “Please call at suite 201 where someone has a message for you.” He guessed it was an official from the Foreign Office. Perhaps they had changed their minds about supporting Lenin. If so, they were too late.
He walked up the stairs and tapped on the door of 201. From inside a muffled voice said in German: “Yes?”
“Walter von Ulrich.”
“Come in, it’s open.”
He stepped inside and closed the door. The suite was lit by candles. “Someone has a message for me?” he said, peering into the gloom. A figure rose from a chair. It was a woman, and she had her back to him, but something about her made his heart skip. She turned to face him.
It was Maud.
His mouth fell open and he stood paralyzed.
She said: “Hello, Walter.”
Then her self-control broke and she threw herself into his arms.
The familiar smell of her filled his nostrils. He kissed her hair and stroked her back. He could not speak for fear he might cry. He crushed her body to his own, hardly able to believe that this was really her, he was really holding her and touching her, something he had longed for so painfully for almost three years. She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears, and he stared at her face, drinking it in. She was the same but different: thinner, with the faintest of lines under her eyes where there had been none before, yet with that familiar piercingly intelligent gaze.
She said in English: “‘He falls to such perusal of my face, as he would draw it.’”
He smiled. “We’re not Hamlet and Ophelia, so please don’t go to a nunnery.”
