Both sidewalks of the avenue were crowded with people. Shopping, window-gazing, talking in groups. He heard snatches of conversation in Yiddish and Russian. At the entrance steps to the subway he crossed the avenue and stopped to look in a junk-shop. There was a row of old-fashioned charcoal irons, a tray of dusty medals, odd pieces of decorated china, a concertina, and a violin without strings and an album of faded postcards with views of Petrograd. Serov moved on slowly, past a book-shop where he glanced briefly at the secondhand books arranged in rows. They were mostly Russian politics but in the centre of the front row was a book in English. Isaiah Berlin’s Karl Marx. As he passed on to the jewellers shop he stopped, standing still, thinking. It was the French translation of that book that the Soviet intelligence service used in France as a means of recognition. You asked to see the book. They told you it wasn’t for sale. You gave the password and then they gave you the meeting place, the time of the meeting and the day. For several moments he hesitated then he went back and looked again at the book. Then he looked beyond the book inside the shop. There was a dark-haired woman at a desk, typing slowly with two fingers on an old-fashioned typewriter.
As the woman pulled the sheet of paper from the typewriter she glanced briefly towards the window and Serov before she rolled another sheet of paper into the machine. Serov saw that she was extraordinarily beautiful. The calm face and the dark heavy-lidded eyes reminded him of someone. He couldn’t think who. Maybe it was some film actress he had seen. She didn’t look like an agent but he was tempted to see what happened.
The brass bell over the shop door clanged as he pushed the door open and the woman looked at him, smiling, “Can I help you?”
She spoke in English but Serov said in Russian. “I’d like to buy the biography of Karl Marx in the window.”
The smile on the woman’s face faded and for a moment she looked embarrassed. Then she said quietly, “I’m not sure how much it is. I’ll have to ask the manager. I won’t be a moment.”
He watched her walk to the stairway half-way down a narrow corridor. He looked around at the walls of the shop and the shelves of books as he waited, most of them were second-hand. But all of them obviously cared for. Then she came down the stairs followed by a tall man. And as the man came out from the shadow of the corridor he stood quite still, staring at Serov. They recognised each other immediately but there was disbelief on both their faces.
It was Serov who spoke first. “I can’t believe it, Andrei.”
Andrei smiled. “Me too, comrade, me too.”
They hugged and kissed, laughing, but there were tears on their cheeks and the woman stood watching them, smiling. Anna didn’t remember Serov from the days in Paris.
As Andrei poured a cup of tea for his visitor he wondered if Serov had been sent over by Moscow to check on him. And he wondered why Serov had grown a beard. It didn’t suit him. But he had no intention of asking him. It was Serov himself who said, “Are you still Comintern now, Andrei, or intelligence?”
“Why do you ask? You must know already.”
Serov shook his head. “I don’t know, Andrei. But I need an answer.”
“Why?”
“That means you haven’t heard about me.”
“About what?”
“I defected, Andrei. Walked out and asked the Americans for political asylum.”
“I don’t believe it. Why should you do that?”
Serov shrugged. “I’d had enough. The rivalries, the corruption and the terrible cost to the people.” He sighed. “Maybe over here you didn’t know what was going on. How often do you go back to Moscow?”
Andrei smiled. “Not as often as they want me to.”
“They’re like wild animals, Andrei. Living like Tsars while the people starve. There are millions in the slave labour camps. Stalin killed every officer from marshal down to colonels. When the war started the Red Army had no senior officers.”
“Why should he do that?”
“He saw plots everywhere. He was paranoid. Everyone was an enemy, a rival. You’ve no idea what it was like. All those dreams we had were just that—dreams.” He paused. “Tell me about you.”
Andrei shook his head, slowly. “That wouldn’t be wise after what you’ve just told me, would it?”
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“It’s not a question of trust. It seems that we’re now on different sides of the fence.” He paused. “Do you work for the CIA now?”
“I just evaluate documents in the French section.” He smiled and shrugged. “It’s not much more than a clerk’s job. I could leave if I wanted to. They weren’t all that excited at my arrival.”
“When were you last in Moscow?”
“About a month before I walked out. Roughly six months ago.”
“What was your job in Paris?”
“Spotting people of influence who could keep us informed on French policy and internal politics. And people of influence who could help put over the Party policy.”
“Were you successful?”
“Yes. I think so. I got commendations from Moscow. I was treated as one of the nomenklatura.”
“Did you marry?”
“No. That would have got in the way of my work.”
“There must have been something that made you change your mind. What was it?”
Serov looked towards the window and then back at Andrei. “When I realised that I no longer believed what I was telling other people. When I realised that good, honest people—Party members—believed what I said only because it was me who was saying it.” He shrugged. “I knew too much, Andrei. I knew what was really going on and I wasn’t prepared to deceive those people any longer. Nor deceive myself either.”
“Do you live in New York?”
“No. In Washington.”
“Do you want to sleep here for tonight?”
Serov
