Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

Lloyd was in his pyjamas late one evening, trying to rock the grizzling Evie to sleep, and at the same time leafing through Life magazine. He noticed a striking photograph taken in Moscow. It showed a Russian woman, wearing a headscarf and a coat tied with string like a parcel, her old face deeply lined, shovelling snow on the street. Something about the way the light struck her gave her a look of timelessness, as if she had been there for a thousand years. He looked for the photographer’s name and found it was Woody Dewar, whom he had met at the conference.

The phone rang. He picked it up and heard the voice of Ernie Bevin. ‘Turn your wireless on,’ Bevin said. ‘Marshall’s made a speech.’ He hung up without waiting for a reply.

Lloyd went downstairs to the living room, still carrying Evie, and switched on the radio. The show was called American Commentary. The BBC’s Washington correspondent, Leonard Miall, was reporting from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ‘The Secretary of State told alumni that the rebuilding of Europe is going to take a longer time, and require a greater effort, than was originally foreseen,’ said Miall.

That was promising, Lloyd thought with excitement. ‘Hush, Evie, please,’ he said, and for once she quietened.

Then Lloyd heard the low, reasonable voice of George C. Marshall. ‘Europe’s requirements, for the next three or four years, of foreign food and other essential products – principally from America – are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help . . . or face economic, social and political deterioration of a very grave character.’

Lloyd was electrified. ‘Substantial additional help’ was what Bevin had asked for.

‘The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future,’ Marshall said. ‘The United States should do whatever it is able to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world.’

‘He’s done it!’ Lloyd said triumphantly to his uncomprehending baby daughter. ‘He’s told America they have to give us aid! But how much? And how, and when?’

The voice changed, and the reporter said: ‘The Secretary of State did not outline a detailed plan for aid to Europe, but said it was up to the Europeans to draft the programme.’

‘Does that mean we have carte blanche?’ Lloyd eagerly asked Evie.

Marshall’s voice returned to say: ‘The initiative, I think, must come from Europe.’

The report ended, and the phone rang again. ‘Did you hear that?’ said Bevin.

‘What does it mean?’

‘Don’t ask!’ said Bevin. ‘If you ask questions, you’ll get answers you don’t want.’

‘All right,’ Lloyd said, baffled.

‘Never mind what he meant. The question is what we do. The initiative must come from Europe, he said. That means me and you.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Pack a bag,’ said Bevin. ‘We’re going to Paris.’

24

1948

Volodya was in Prague as part of a Red Army delegation holding talks with the Czech military. They were staying in art deco splendour at the Imperial Hotel.

It was snowing.

He missed Zoya and little Kotya. His son was two years old and learning new words at bewildering speed. The child was changing so fast that he seemed different every day. And Zoya was pregnant again. Volodya resented having to spend two weeks apart from his family. Most of the men in the group saw the trip as a chance to get away from their wives, drink too much vodka, and maybe fool around with loose women. Volodya just wanted to go home.

The military talks were genuine, but Volodya’s part in them was a cover for his real assignment, which was to report on the activities in Prague of the ham-fisted Soviet secret police, perennial rivals of Red Army Intelligence.

Volodya had little enthusiasm for his work nowadays. Everything he had once believed in had been undermined. He no longer had faith in Stalin, Communism, or the essential goodness of the Russian people. Even his father was not his father. He would have defected to the West if he could have found a way of getting Zoya and Kotya out with him.

However, he did have his heart in his mission here in Prague. It was a rare chance to do something he believed in.

Two weeks ago the Czech Communist party had taken full control of the government, ousting their coalition partners. Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, a war hero and democratic anti-Communist, had become a prisoner on the top floor of his official residence, the Czernin Palace. The Soviet secret police had undoubtedly been behind the coup. In fact Volodya’s brother-in-law, Colonel Ilya Dvorkin, was also in Prague, staying at the same hotel, and had almost certainly been involved.

Volodya’s boss, General Lemitov, saw the coup as a public relations catastrophe for the USSR. Masaryk had constituted proof, to the world, that East European countries could be free and independent in the shadow of the USSR. He had enabled Czechoslovakia to have a Communist government friendly to the Soviet Union and at the same time wear the costume of bourgeois democracy. This had been the perfect arrangement, for it gave the USSR everything it wanted while reassuring the Americans. But