his politics an international platform.
Kuzmin gestured at the projectionist.
– Here is footage taken from a speech he gave in Memphis in 1937. Watch carefully. There’s no translation but keep your eyes on the audience’s reaction.
The reel was changed. The projector whirred. The new footage showed a concert hall filled with thousands of people.
– Note that the entire audience is white. There were laws in the Southern states of America requiring audiences either to be all white or all black. There was no integration.
Mr Austin was on stage, dressed in black tie, addressing the large crowd. Some of the audience members walked out, others heckled. Kuzmin pointed to some of the people leaving.
– Interestingly, many of the people in this white audience will happily sit through his music. They will sit and clap, even give him a standing ovation. Howeve, Mr Austin is unable to end a concert without also giving a political speech. As soon as he starts to speak about Communism, they stand up and leave, or shout abuse. Yet watch Mr Austin’s expression as they do.
Austin’s face showed no dismay at their reaction. He seemed to relish the adversity, his gestures becoming more assertive, his speech continuing.
Kuzmin turned on the lights.
– Your assignment is a crucial one. Mr Austin is under increasing pressure from the American authorities for his unwavering support of our country. Those files contain articles written by him and published in American Socialist newspapers. You can see for yourself how provocative they are to a conservative establishment, calls for change and a demand for a revolution. Our fear is that Austin might lose his passport. This could be his last visit.
Leo asked:
– When does he arrive?
Kuzmin stood at the front, crossing his arms.
– Tonight. He’s in the city for two days. Tomorrow he’ll be taken on a tour of the city. In the evening he’s giving a concert. Your job is to make sure nothing goes wrong.
Leo was shocked. They’d been given so little time to prepare. Cautiously, he channelled his concerns into the question:
– He arrives tonight?
– You are not the only team to be given this assignment. It was a late whim of mine to ask you to be involved. I have a good feeling about you, Demidov. It would be understandable for our guest, finding himself under such scrutiny at home, to question his loyalty to our nation. I want my best people working on this.
Kuzmin gave Leo’s shoulder a small squeeze, intended to convey both confidence in his abilities and the gravity of his assignment.
– His love for our country must be protected at any cost.
Moscow House on the Embankment 2 Serafimovich Street
Leo’s was one of three teams working independently to ensure Austin’s itinerary went according to plan. The danger was not to his life, but to his high opinion of the State. To that end, the principle of three overlapping teams, each tasked with the same objective, was to inject a competitive element into the operation as well as factoring in redundancy – should one team fail another team would pick up the slack. The extraordinary precautions underscored the importance of his visit.
They’d been given the use of a car. It was only a short drive from the Lubyanka Square, the headquarters of the secret police, to Serafimovich Street and the exclusive residential complex where Austin was staying. It had been expected that he’d take a room in the Moskva Hotel, on the fifteenth floor with a view over Red Square, but he’d declined, stating his desire to stay in one of the communal housing projects, preferably with another family if there was a spare bedroom. He wanted to be:
Neck deep in reality.
The request had caused great anxiety since their role was to e that Austin was shown a projected vision of Communist society, a representation of its potential, rather than the reality of that society as it stood now. A principled idealist, Leo reconciled the dishonesty by rationalizing that the Revolution was still very much a work in progress. The time of plenty was only a few years away. Right now, a spare bedroom was unheard of in a city suffering from a chronic housing shortage. As for the idea of living with a Russian family: it was too much of a risk. Aside from the conditions, which were typically cramped, they might speak out of turn. Creating an idealized family for the benefit of Austin was too difficult to stage-manage at this short notice. Mr Austin had only requested the change on the way from the airport.
In panicked improvisation they’d put him here, at No. 2 Serafimovich Street. It was an outlandish notion, passing off a housing project designed for the political elite at the cost of over fourteen million roubles as typical of the many communal housing projects being built. In contrast to the layout of most apartment blocks, with small rooms side by side, shared cooking facilities and outside toilets, this had only two large apartments on each floor. The living room alone covered one hundred and fifty square metres – a space that would normally have been home to several families. In addition to the extra space, the apartments were furnished to the highest specification, equipped with gas cookers, running hot water, telephones, radios. There were antiques and silver candlesticks. For a guest sensitive to inequality, Leo was troubled by the proximity of an extensive network of servants who provided residents with everything from laundry to cooking and cleaning. He had managed to persuade the other residents to allow the servants time off during Austin’s visit. They’d agreed, for no matter how powerful or wealthy a citizen, they feared the secret police as much as the poor, if not more. The previous occupants had hardly been ordinary citizens of the Soviet Union, including Communist theoretician Nikolay Bukharin and Stalin’s own children, Vasily Stalin and Svetlana Alliluyeva. The life expectancy of the occupants was perhaps even less than those living in the worst kind of deprivation. Luxury was no protection from the MGB. Leo had himself arrested two men from this building.
Having parked the car, Leo and Grigori hurried through the snow towards the grand entrance. Stepping inside, Leo unbuttoned his jacket, showing his identity papers which were checked against a list of those granted access to the building. They headed downstairs, into the basement, where a cellar housed a team of agents maintaining twenty-four-hour surveillance, technology that had been in place long before Austin arrived. Since these apartments were home to some of the most important people in Soviet society it was essential the State knew how they behaved and what they spoke about. Austin was staying five floors above, in an apartment wired with listening devices in every room. Among the surveillance team was a translator – one of three, working eight-hour shifts. In addition, an attractive female agent had been posted to the apartment itself, in a separate bedroom, ostensibly as the occupant. She was pretending to be a widow, prepared with a story about how her husband had died during the Great Patriotic War. According to their profile of Austin such a story would be particularly endearing. He hated Fascism above all else and had many times stated that the defeat of Fascism was largely a Russian victory, bought with Communist blood.
Leo glanced through the transcripts of all Austin’s conversations since he’d arrived – a chronology of his ten hours in the apartment. He’d spent twenty minutes in the bath, forty-five minutes for dinner. There were exchanges with the female agent about the Patriotic War. Austin spoke excellent Russian, a language he’d sought to learn after his visit in 1934. Leo considered this an additional complication. The agents would not be able to communicate openly. Austin would understand any slips. Flicking through the transcripts, it seemed their guest had already questioned the discrepancy between the enormous apartment and the single occupant. The agent had made a reply about it being a reward for her husband’s valour in battle. After dinner, Austin had phoned his wife. He’d spoken to her for twenty minutes. AUSTIN: I really wish you could be here. I wish you could experience the things I’m experiencing and tell me if I’m being blind. I worry I’m seeing things the way I want them to be and not the way they are. Your instincts are what I need right now.
