Russian Hide-and-Seek

what you’re so afraid of and…send you to Coventry. Yes, I’ve learned a little about pre- wars over the years. I was brought up here, you know. Perhaps Dr Wright told you that.’

Glover had put his hands over his face. He said something in a pathetic whimpering tone to Wright, who looked consideringly over at Alexander. Finally he spoke, but his voice was hard and cold.

‘He says it’s worse being lonely when you’re eighty and it’s harder to be brave too.’

‘I believe him. I don’t quite see why you’re talking to me in that strain, doctor. Mr Glover is in my debt. He can now do his duty without fear.’ When Wright said nothing to that, Alexander went on more loudly,’ Am Ito take it, sir, that Commissioner Mets is welcome to call’?’

Wright turned to relay this but Glover was already nodding his head. Alexander got up and adjusted the hang of his tunic.

‘So you’ve got what you wanted,’ said Wright, not quite so coldly as before.

‘It seems so. And what I wanted is in the general interest. For once. Is Kitty at home’?’

‘I hope she is. She’s meant to be cooking the dinner.’

‘I’ll call on her. I won’t stay.’

‘I’ll be along in an hour. Why aren’t you at the grand levee given by that thieving grocer of yours?’

‘It’s not my sort of party.’

‘Really. I should have thought that that was just what it was.’

‘Off my home territory it’s hard for me to shine as I like to do with all those important people there. I might look in late when most of them will have gone.

Wright laughed without merriment. ‘You’re a fraud, Petrovsky, but quite a clever fraud.’

‘I call that handsome of you, doctor. And I might surprise you one day about the fraud part.’

‘Everything’s possible.’

Alexander nodded, clicked his heels and called, ‘Good night, Mr Glover.’

After a long pause the old man said, ‘Good night. Thank you.’

A little later, in Wright’s house, in the sitting-room next to the conservatory, Alexander and Kitty were vigorously kissing and caressing each other.

‘Oh darling, you make me so happy,’ she said.

‘I love you.’

‘And I love you, but it’ll have to wait a minute or two – I’ve got to take the bean salad off the stove and dress it while it’s still warm.’

A little later yet they were lying side by side in the bed upstairs.

‘What are you thinking about?’ said Alexander.

‘Just wondering what’s going to happen to us. I mean will you be coming to see me like this in a year’s time, or in ten years’ time, or what? Will we be married? I’m not asking you to, just wondering what you think will happen.’

‘Darling, I couldn’t marry you – I can’t marry you. The law won’t have it.’

‘They might change the law. Things are getting easier.’

‘Yes. Well, if they ever do change the law, of course we’ll get married,’ said Alexander, who never minded making this sort of promise, or indeed any other. He added deftly, ‘That’s if you still want to.’

‘Oh, of course I will, of course I will. Where would we live?’

‘In a grand house somewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said rather irritably; this sort of imagining bored him. ‘Where would you like it to be’?’

‘Don’t laugh, dearest, but where I’d really like it to be is Moscow.’

He stared at her in unaffected surprise.

‘I know it could never happen,’ she went on wistfully, ‘but I keep imagining it. The Kremlin and the Kitai Gorod and Red Square and Lenin’s tomb and the Praise of the Holy Virgin church. There’s not a day goes by but I think of it all and wish I were there.’

‘Why? From your point of view it’s a foreign place at the other end of Europe where you’ve never been.’

‘That’s just it, it’s so remote and mysterious and romantic. The great city in the snow. The last citadel on the road to Asia. After all it is the centre of the world.’

11

Though closed down, like all other public meeting-places, at the time of the Pacification, the theatre had never been converted into another use. Only three years previous to that event, it had been partly rebuilt and completely reseated to accommodate nearly four hundred people, its lighting system modernised and an apron stage installed. The structure was sound and dry. All this had meant that the theatre-section official in charge of premises had had to do little more than give the place a thorough spring-clean and replace the movables that had been confiscated or looted. By the time Alexander saw it, rehearsals were in their third week.

He went into the auditorium, where there was a faint, pleasant smell of the twentieth century. On the stage were two middle-aged men with an academic air to them, a third, younger man and a girl in her middle twenties with a book in her hand listening to Some point one or other of the men was making to her. Alexander looked round casually and without result for Theodore and then less casually at the girl. She was what Nina would have called his type except that her expression was not so much sulky or bad-tempered as reserved and watchful, which made little difference to him; she was also rather tall, rather snub-nosed and very dark-haired. He moved right to the front of the house and cleared his throat in the hope of catching her attention, but failed to do so for the moment and settled himself on an aisle seat. Of the couple of dozen other people scattered about, none took notice of him, no doubt because he was wearing civilian clothes. The deliberations on the stage were suspended, the girl walked into the wings, emerged again almost at once and read from her book:

‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

To wards Phoebus’ lodging: such a waggoner

As Phaeton would whip you to the west,

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these eyes, untalked of and unseen!’

That on ‘waggoner’ she dropped her voice, linked ‘in’ with ‘cloudy’ rather than with ‘bring’, stressed ‘close’ and showed misunderstanding in several other places made as little difference to him as the nuances of her expression; he listened with only half an ear, no more than was needed to assure himself that her voice was suitable for a young female, and concentrated his attention on how she looked and behaved. After speaking for a couple of minutes she stopped and glanced expectantly at the men. One of the academics said with warm approval in his voice and manner,

‘That’s very good, Sarah. Remember not to attach too much importance to individual words – it’s the overall effect that matters.’

‘I see, sir. I’m still not quite clear about Phoebus and Phaeton. What are my feelings towards them?’ The girl’s Russian was excellent.

‘I think you regard them with great respect,’ said the other academic. ‘You’re rather proud to be a fellow- citizen and neighbour of two such distinguished figures.’

At this point an inconspicuous door beside the stage opened and Theodore descended a short flight of stairs into the auditorium. Beside him was a big man of about forty with a closely-trimmed black beard and large, very dark eyes that fastened directly on whatever they looked at. Alexander knew him by sight as Aram Sevadjian, holder of some senior post in the Commission, in fact, as it very soon transpired, head of its theatre section. Led by him the three settled themselves at the end of a row near the back, where they conversed in suitable undertones. On stage an older woman had joined the girl.

‘What do you think of our play?’ asked Sevadjian.