“Are you a White Russian?”
For the first time Josef saw Lukas laugh. “Me? I’m not White nor Red nor any other bloody colour. I’m just a Russian who hates those bastards who broke up my body.”
Josef glanced at the paper cover of the yellow book that Lukas had handed to him. The legend on the cover, in Russian, described the contents as a résumé of the Twelfth Congress of the CPSU. He looked up at Lukas and said, “You’d better cover it up. Have you got some paper we can wrap it in?”
Lukas smiled and said quietly, “So you can read Russian, my friend?”
Josef shrugged. “Perhaps. What about the wrapping paper?”
Ten minutes later, with the document wrapped, Josef stood at the door and turned to look at the old man. He said in Russian, “You’re working against them aren’t you?” When the old man nodded Josef said, “I’m sorry about what they did to you. Some day it will change.”
“Goodbye, young man. But stop dreaming dreams. Nothing will change. But we can hurt them by letting the world know what they do to their own working-people.”
Major Johnson had asked him about the hour or so that he spent with Lukas. He listened intently as Josef told him what had been said, but he asked no more questions and had not pursued the matter. But when Josef was leaving Johnson said, “What did you think of Lukas?”
“He’s very lonely. And very sick.”
Johnson nodded but said nothing more.
It was almost four months later when Major Johnson asked him if he would be prepared to go to Paris for a few months to help Lukas, who found it more difficult to get around. Josef had pointed out that he spoke no French but Johnson said it didn’t matter. The only people he would be dealing with were Russians. It never entered his mind to refuse and he had left for Paris a week later.
But in that week Johnson had briefed him carefully about his new duties in Paris. His job would be to liaise with groups of Russians who were anti-Bolshevik. In some cases anti-Revolution as well. He was to pass funds and messages to them and tell them what London wanted in return. He was warned that they were not easy to deal with. Not only differing convictions and objectives but forceful, independent leaders who quarrelled bitterly among themselves. He was to keep an eye on what they were doing, interpret their usefulness to London and try and hold the peace between them.
Before he left for Paris a meeting had been arranged by Major Johnson. It was at the St. Ermin’s Hotel and the man’s name was Mason. Just the two of them. He was about the same age as Johnson but not so easy-going. He had asked Josef about his time in Moscow and Leningrad. He talked slowly as if he was slow in absorbing what was said, digesting it before he asked the next question. But as the chat went on Josef realised that Mason wasn’t slowminded or stupid, he was just a very clever interrogator. Never asking the same question twice as if he doubted the truth of what Josef said, but frequently crossing the tracks of what had been said, checking obliquely but with that innocent country-bumpkin look of trying hard to understand what he was being told. What also seemed odd was that, unlike this man, Major Johnson had never asked him about his time in Russia.
Johnson had seen him off on the boat-train at Victoria and had said that Mason was much impressed by Josef’s attitude. Josef had no idea what he meant. He hadn’t had an attitude. He’d just answered some questions. He’d been given a hundred pounds for his expenses in Paris, in cash. More money than he had ever handled in his life before.
The old man, Lukas, had helped him find a room for himself in the rue Mouffetard at the back of a butcher’s shop. He had paid for Lukas to see a doctor and gone with him to the surgery. The doctor had come out of his small office and told Josef that Lukas was terminally ill. He had no more than a few months to live.
But it was nearly two years later when the old man died and in the meantime Josef had consolidated his relationships with the various groups in contact with Lukas. It was all a vivid reminder of his early days in Moscow. The committees, the resolutions, the speeches and pamphlets and the rivalries. Nevertheless, the contacts those groups had in the Soviet Union were widespread and in all walks of life. Josef talked and listened and painstakingly typed out his reports and delivered them in sealed envelopes to a man at the British Embassy, to be forwarded to London via the diplomatic bag. From time to time London asked him to pursue certain items but there was no pressure of any kind. His wages had been increased to ten pounds a week when he moved to Paris and they paid the rent for his room in Putney while he was away.
Lukas died in the summer of 1927 and there was only Josef and Major Johnson at his funeral. The people in London had paid for everything. After it was over they went back to Josef’s room. Johnson said they should have a talk.
He was to be given a new name—Sanders, and he was to have new responsibilities. He would take over Lukas’s job and also be responsible for maintaining contact with anti-Bolshevik groups in Berlin.
Two years later he was pulled back to London with the suggestion that he should have formal education in the Russian language. He never saw himself as having a choice in how his
