Slowly and gently the doctor checked over the body and the head of the man who lay there with his eyes closed, barely breathing, his teeth clenched tight as if he were resisting pain. Twenty minutes later the doctor gave his instructions to his two assistants and left them to their work.
In the small ante-room he joined Shapiro and Morton. He pulled up a chair and sat down looking at them both.
“In lay terms he’s suffering from exhaustion, starvation and various wounds. He may have broken bones or internal injuries but until he’s in a suitable condition for a proper examination I can’t be certain.”
“What’s it add up to, James?” Shapiro’s face was grim.
“Now I’ve looked him over, I’m more hopeful. With a transfusion, a clean-up and a controlled feeding regime a week will make a big difference so far as his body is concerned.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that I’ve no way of diagnosing what his mental state might be.” He paused. “It doesn’t look good. He’s in coma and shows little or no response to the preliminary neural tests—I’m afraid you’ll have to be patient and I’ll keep you in touch with his condition.”
Shapiro looked at Morton. “I’ll stay here with him, Hughie. You get back to London. They need you and there’s nothing you can do here that I can’t do.”
The doctor interrupted. “If you’ll excuse me I’ll get on with my job.”
When the doctor had left Morton said, “What do you think? Will he make it?”
Shapiro sighed heavily. “If you mean will he live—yes. I’d put my last dollar on it. But if you mean more than that—” Shapiro shook his head. “I don’t know. He looks bad to me. He’s going to need a lot of psychiatric help. You’d better warn them back in London.”
Morton stood up. “Get some rest, Joe. Get some sleep. Don’t dwell on it. Give it time. You’ve got to be patient.”
By the end of a week Shapiro was really worried and had asked for a second opinion and Morton sent over a neuro-surgeon who checked over the doctor’s notes and examined the patient. When he saw Shapiro afterwards he confirmed that the physical diagnosis was correct.
“Physically he’s recovered remarkably well. The broken ribs and the bones in his hands we can deal with in a few weeks’ time. But the central nervous system has taken a lot of punishment.” He paused. “As you know he’s no longer in coma. But his hearing is negligible and although there seems to be no damage to the vocal chords he doesn’t speak. He can see all right but at the moment he is literally both deaf and dumb. And I suspect that that is psychological—trauma. That’s going to take quite a time to treat. And it may or may not be curable. I just don’t know.”
“How long will it take to find out?”
“Months rather than weeks.”
“And to cure?”
The surgeon shrugged. “I’ve no idea. It could take years. But on the other hand he could recover overnight. Not from anything we can do. Just mother nature doing her stuff. Spontaneous healing.”
“And that’s all you can say?”
“I’m afraid so. But if it’s any consolation I should think that he will be fit enough to get up and walk around—with help—in a matter of days. He’s got an amazing constitution, that chap.”
Five days later there was a vast physical improvement. The man called Phoenix had put on weight and his ribs and hands had been strapped and the X-rays showed that the bones were knitting together satisfactorily. He walked slowly and uncertainly but without a stick or any other aid. The washed-out pale blue eyes stared rather than looked, and his mouth was always shut tight, the teeth clenched and the muscles taut at the sides of his mouth. But there was no visible response to the words or sounds. Sometimes Joe Shapiro reached out and gripped the man’s heavy forearm as they sat in the spring sunshine in the garden. The flesh was firm and warm but there was never any reaction.
Part Three
33
The man named Johnny had paid for a meal for them both and Josef felt uncomfortable in the hotel restaurant in his cheap, drab clothing, but Johnny didn’t seem to notice. They were drinking their coffee when Johnny said, “Did you see in the paper that Lenin died yesterday?”
Josef nodded. “Yes, I saw it.”
“What difference will it make?”
The young man shrugged. “The fight will be out in the open now.”
“Between who?”
“Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and maybe Rykov.”
“And who will come out on top?”
Josef laughed. “Lenin?”
“I don’t understand. Lenin’s dead.”
“Trotsky is finished, Stalin will cash in on Lenin’s reputation, Lenin will become a kind of Bolshevik saint, and the others will go along with Stalin.”
“I heard rumours that Lenin had recommended that Stalin had become too powerful and should be removed from the Central Committee.”
The young man looked at him for long moments before he replied. “You’re not a journalist are you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Only people right inside the Party know anything about rumours like that.”
“There are a lot of rumours going around about the Bolsheviks. Lenin was poisoned was one I heard. There were plenty of others too.”
“Yeah. But yours wasn’t a rumour. It was the real thing. And you know it was. A journalist isn’t going to get information like that.”
Johnny smiled. “You’ve got a sharp mind Josef. They must have taught you well in Moscow.”
“Maybe.”
“What are you going to do now you’re back?”
“Anything that will keep me alive and let me spend my free time making them pay for what they have done to me and my family.”
“How are you going to do that?”
Josef shrugged helplessly. “I’ve no idea. But I’ll find some way.”
“It won’t be easy, Josef. There are a lot of people in this country who believe
