And then he’d be holding the basket with all the promises and it wouldn’t have cost him anything. Except that he was going for whoever succeeded Serada to be a caretaker for a younger man and it could be two or three years – maybe longer – before whoever that younger man was to emerge and become identified. He was sure Ann would understand.
‘Well?’ urged Hubble, uncomfortable with the long silence.
‘I’d like to think about it,’ hedged Blair.
‘Sure,’ conceded Hubble. ‘But not too long, eh?’
‘A couple of days,’ said Blair carelessly. ‘Just give me a couple of days.’
‘That’ll be good,’ said Hubble. Maintaining the earlier pressure, he said, ‘You might have a clearer idea then when you can go back, as well. And Eddie?’
‘What?’
‘You know what we want and you know how much we want it. How much the Director wants it. But there’s no catch. If you say no then we’ll understand. It won’t be held against you, later.’
Crap, thought Blair. The supposed guarantee had come out exactly as the man had intended, a threat. So much for friendship, he thought. Maybe that was unfair. Blair believed the other man that the pressure was coming from the seventh floor so Hubble couldn’t do much else but watch his own back. If the place were as political as this, maybe Langley wasn’t the place to come back to. Blair braked the thought. That reflection indicated he had a choice and he only had a choice if he accepted their offer. He said, ‘I understand.’
‘I know a lot of guys who’d sacrifice a lot of things to be in the position you are, Eddie,’ said Hubble.
‘Yes,’ agreed Blair. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘A couple of days, eh?’
‘A couple of days,’ promised Blair, unhappy now at the self-imposed time limit.
It was only when he was driving back down the Parkway that Blair fully realised that if he kept the schedule he had agreed with Hubble it would mean making the decision without any opportunity of talking it through properly with Ann. Of talking it through at all, really, because he didn’t think it was something he could discuss with her by telephone. Which reminded him. He should call her again. But not yet; not today. He had too much to think about and decide. In the event he didn’t call Moscow for two days – still undecided and having earlier talked to Hubble and got a reluctant extension on their time limit – arguing Paul’s impending court appearance as the need for him to delay. The line was better than it had been the first time. He said he thought things were going better than they were when he’d spoken before and that there was a date for the court hearing and because Ruth was out, taking her turn with the car pool he was able openly to say he loved and missed her. Ann asked when he was coming back and he said he didn’t know and she said she was looking forward to the Bolshoi with Brinkman, which he’d momentarily forgotten she was going to do. From Moscow Ann thought how limited her news was – nothing bloody well ever happened anyway – and from Washington Blair put down the telephone without mentioning the request to extend his posting in the Soviet capital.
Brinkman arrived promptly, which he invariably did, and insisted upon their drinking the champagne he’d brought, because it was his birthday. So she insisted on giving him the present she’d bought, an icon she had been assured was a genuine antique. He’d promised to stage the birthday party when he’d telephoned earlier, to confirm the arrangements and when she asked where they were going he said to his apartment because he didn’t want anything about the evening to be spoiled and therefore didn’t want to sit for hours in a Russian restaurant waiting for food he could prepare and cook better at home. Ann was glad. The Bolshoi was risk enough but she didn’t want to extend that risk by going somewhere public afterwards. There were a limited number of places that were embassy favourites and there would have been a possibility of their being seen and she didn’t want any stupid stories to begin when there was no basis for their existence.
‘Eddie called,’ she said, as they left the apartment.
‘When?’ asked Brinkman, at once attentive.
‘Day before yesterday.’
‘How is he?’
‘Fine.’
‘When’s he coming back?’
‘He still doesn’t know.’
What the bloody hell was it? thought Brinkman, in frustrated irritation.
Chapter Seventeen
The new production was superb. Ann did not think she had ever heard Tchaikovsky’s music sound so wonderful nor seen dancers appear so weightless and so synchronised. During the break there was more champagne and on their way to the bar they passed an exhibition of the history of the Imperial School, with prints and photographs of legendary figures like Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti and of principal dancers like Mathilde Kschessinka and Olga Preobrazhenska and Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina. Ann succeeded in identifying them all without having to see the notations and as she talked she became aware she knew more about ballet than Brinkman. The knowledge excited her because in the cloistered, formalised embassy life into which she had been thrust directly after her marriage she found she rarely knew anything more than anyone. She showed off, on purpose, and Brinkman let her, isolating another indication of her unhappiness by the thrown-away admission, as she talked, that because of her interest in dancing she’d studied the Russian art soon after she arrived in Moscow, ‘to fill the days’. She chattered on about the Summer Gardens performances in St Petersburg and the origin of the Moscow school based on children from the city’s orphanages and Brinkman recognised he was enjoying himself. There was still the ulterior motive in cultivating the friendship with the couple in the first place, getting himself next to someone whom Ingram designated the best. But it had moved on from the initial reason: he genuinely liked them now, better than he liked the Harrisons or anyone else in the Western enclave. And he liked Ann. He guessed Betty Harrison and her intimates might think Ann was gauche and he supposed she was, which was her charm. Despite what he now knew to be her inner feelings at being in Moscow, she had about her a freshness, of being genuinely interested and wanting to be involved with everything she did and everyone with whom she came into contact doing it. She held his arm as they wandered through the theatre, an unthinking gesture for her and Brinkman decided he liked the touch. Not only a freshness but a softness, he thought.
The conclusion surpassed the commencement. He stood, matching her enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of everyone else, clapping as loudly as anyone for the succession of curtain calls that went on and on. When the curtain finally came down they left the Bolshoi unhurriedly, as if reluctant to sever the moment absolutely by leaving the place.
‘Wasn’t that exquisite!’ said Ann. ‘I actually feel I’m floating, just like the chorus.’
‘Why the chorus?’ he said. ‘Why not a prima ballerina?’
She giggled, pleased with his lightness. ‘I could never be the lead; only ever the support.’
‘You can be my prima ballerina.’ Wasn’t he being gauche now?
‘I accept,’ she said.
She still had her arm in his. Immediately outside the Bolshoi they stopped together, not sure what to do and she said, ‘Let’s not go home straight away; let’s walk.’
‘OK,’ he said.
They went without positive direction, along Sverdlova, slowed by the crush of people near the metro entrance but almost inevitably went towards the Kremlin. Ann strained up at the huge illuminated red stars on top of the towers and said, ‘I’ve never been able to understand why they’ve done that.’
‘It is sort of odd,’ agreed Brinkman.
‘Looks like the biggest circus attraction in the whole world.’
‘Sometimes a good description,’ said Brinkman.
‘Want to know something?’
Damned right I do, thought Brinkman. He said, ‘What?’
‘Tonight I like Moscow.’
‘About time.’
