Cold Blood (8 page)

I said to my wife without lip movement, “Make my spine narrower. Armour-plate it or something. Don't just sit up there and pray for me, woman, help.” And she did. She must have.

I'd left my mushroom tray on the table at which my tormentor sat: had set it down to prove to him that it didn't hold a grenade. He flung it after me with a shout, “Take it with you, trickster.” It clattered down the steps and struck my heel. Should I pick it up? I did, thinking, Glebov can't fail to look now. I said to Elizaveta, “Preserve me from a common death. I want to die in a rocket, tearing through the heavens towards you, not from a bullet in the back fired by the man who led your rape.”

I took longer than I needed to get the strap snug round my neck. I was Sepp the mushroom seller, not a spy. I couldn't afford to show what a hurry I was in. Then I continued down the steps.

Here is a curiosity worth mentioning: that all the time this was happening, which was about two minutes, I had a really strong itch in the centre of my back, exactly where Glebov would have aimed, which is the sixth thoracic vertebra.

I also want to say this about expecting to be shot in the back, that if it had been pre-announced, if Glebov had shouted down to me, “I know who you are! Eight paces of life, that's all I'll give you. Walk, Doig. One, two . . .”—and thus I knew it was coming—death would not have been unpleasant. Smack! And down I'd have tumbled, seeing at the last not a human but whatever bit of the sky I'd have chosen for the moment of departure.

But no bullet came. What happened was that as the mushroom tray rattled down the steps behind me, a soldier threw a whiz-bang into the bonfire to celebrate the victory of the Soviets and everyone looked towards him, not me.

A roar of laughter went up and I went a little faster, saying to myself, Once I reach the soldiers milling around at the bottom, I'll be safe.

But no sooner had I thought this than I realised Glebov was toying with me. He was waiting until I thought I'd got away. Lenin and Trotsky were standing up there holding their sides for laughter as he winked at them and at last drew his pistol.

I thought, But maybe I deserve death? What I did to Elizaveta—

Sweat was pouring off me, even though it was an autumn night. With every pace bang went a drop off the end of my nose. Forget everything I've just said about death from behind being not unpleasant. I was hating the idea. I had my eyes tight closed for those last few steps.

Then suddenly, without being aware that my legs were taking me there, I was through—past the soldiers, past their bonfire, past the sentry boxes, past the lorries, the couriers and their motorbikes, and the dogs scavenging for scraps. I never ran. I had enough self-discipline left for this. But as the Smolny arc lights faded, I walked faster and faster until the trees in the square loomed darkly before me. I darted into them with the utmost gratitude, like a man reprieved on the scaffold. I was exhausted. My breath was coming in surges. I leaned against the nearest tree and kissed its dank bark with open lips.

T
HE TIME
was a little after two in the morning when I got back to Nevsky. My brush with Lenin and Glebov had used up all my juices. I needed a drink.

I entered the basement of the Makayev, which stank of sweat and tobacco smoke. There I found something left in a bottle of Abrau, the cheap Kievan champagne. I gulped it down, not taking the bottle from my lips, my whole arm shaking uncontrollably. Only the owner was in the place, sitting at a round corner table. His arms were folded across his chest. A pistol lay on the dirty tablecloth. Tears were coming from his eyes and dribbling down his unshaven cheeks.

I offered to sit with him and commiserate. He waved me away and I left. In the small basement courtyard a man in a black overcoat was having a woman against the wall. Her skirt was up to her waist, her thighs gleaming like enamel. She waved to me over his shoulder, maybe to book me for the next round. Ignoring her, I went quickly up the steps.

Almost in front of me, three young Red Guards walked out into the street and with hand signals stopped a private automobile. No conversation was needed, no explanations, no orders. The driver, from his dress one would say an opera-goer, and his distraught, fur-bundled wife got out of the car instantly and the Guards drove off.

I leaned against the railings of the Armenian church, watching. It occurred to me that I should start to say my goodbyes: the conditions I'd been brought up in from childhood were on the brink of disappearing. First I would go to the Rykov mausoleum, which was in the cemetery beside the Botanical Gardens—in
the northern part of the city. The living one can deal with as one goes along. But for the dead a special effort must be made, even if it's only to say cheerio. What counts is the respect shown by the action. It clears the slate of everything that's happened in the past and tidies up the relationship between the dead and the living, which is always tricky.

Most of the Rykovs were there except Elizaveta and my cousin Nicholas, whom I'd buried side by side, and Mama, whose English death, from flu, had gone virtually unrecorded. Papa was there, cleansed of the plague. A native of Dundee, he'd never have believed that he'd end up in a private mausoleum in Russia. In particular I would go and honour him.

Having reached this conclusion, it was easy to decide that I too would commandeer a car.

Within two minutes, I saw the very one coming down Nevsky from the Admiralty. Its headlights, the size of kettledrums, were ablaze. It was being driven in the middle of the street, in the space reserved for shovelled-up snow and horse cabs. No sane person had done such a thing before. When I'd danced down it I'd been drunk and crazy. Yet here was this immense automobile cruising down the centre of Nevsky as if it owned it. And on the morning of the First of Lenin!

A man walking past said to me in disgust, “There's our new leaders for you. Just look at the swine. Already!”

I stepped off the pavement. I had the blood of Scotland and the Rykovs in my veins—hot, scarlet, elite blood, which also means discontented. I wanted better than a dingy Wolseley saloon, better than something that Lenin's sisters used. This was my car, the vehicle toddling down Nevsky behind its vast headlights. I ran out to cut it off, drawing my Luger.

The driver's white face bore down on me. I aimed at a headlight then shifted to the figurehead on the bonnet, a swooping woman. I'd do the Bolshies a favour. It was too opulent, it had no future in a Russia that belonged to the proletariat.

The woman flew off at my second shot. The car glided to a halt.

Lowering the window, the chauffeur—bakelite eyes, blue chin—said in a tone of utter resignation, “Look here, Ivan, old pal, do me a favour, will you? Leave his nibs' bleeding car alone
until this time tomorrow, when I'll be on a boat back to Blighty. Blimey, what a go! It's the last time I sign up to deliver a car to Russia.”

This Luger of mine is such a beautiful weapon. When you stick the snout of its long barrel against someone's head, he understands one hundred per cent that the bullet's for him: it simply can't go anywhere else. And you both know that with nine inches of rifling it'll have real velocity behind it.

“Who's inside?”

“My Lord Boltikov,” he said gloomily.

“He's dead.” I was thinking of Boltikov the sugar king, the man who'd gatecrashed the party that my father gave before Mother and I took the train to our English exile.

“Must be his son. Ever so rich.”

“Fat and pink?”

“You've said it. Tsuh!” He jerked his chin upward, to inform me that in his opinion the young Boltikov was a bum.

“So what are you doing in Nevsky? Haven't you heard there's a revolution?”

“Opera first. Then a slap-up dinner. Now he's insisting on saying his goodbyes, him and his woman...”

“Wife?”

“No, mate, no. This is a German lady. Looks after his children or something... Mister, let me get on. He's got the same sort of temper as his other rich friends. It's a wonder he's not shouting already. Please, do me a favour—” Suddenly his eyes swivelled to something behind my shoulder. “Quick, mate, Bolshies coming. Jump in or get off, whoever you are.”

The Rolls had an outside brake. He dropped his hand and slacked it with a thud. The car jerked forward. One foot on the running board, I wrenched open the passenger door. The chauffeur accelerated: tipped me in head first. Lurching, I grabbed for a strap, missed it and fell.

I knew the car had a carpet: I'd glimpsed it as I opened the door. I expected to land on it. Instead I went smack into a body that was soft and shrieking. In fact I knocked her over, and as I sorted it out, I thought, What the hell was she doing kneeling on the floor of a Rolls-Royce, was she praying or what?

T
HE BLINDS
were drawn and latched. I could make out Boltikov's head. Two-thirds of the way down his face, a cigar blossomed. I felt the force of the smoke on my cheek. It had a distinguished, exotic aroma. His voice came rasping out of the semi-darkness.

“A visitor, Liselotte.”

“He fell on me... it hurts...”

She was squirming under my shoulder. It was hard to tell which limb was where. I felt around, found Boltikov's shoes, then the edge of the seat. I hoisted myself to my knees.

The collar of his opera cape was still up. He was wearing a boiled shirt—stiff collar, white tie. It was all I could be certain of in the gloom. He said, “I was listening to what you said. There's an instrument in the glove compartment that picks up everything. I don't trust that English shuvver of mine. How did you know my father? Who are you?”

“Charlie Doig.”

“The son of Irina Rykov? You are the famous traveller?”

“Yes.”

“Liselotte, I've cooled down. This man will be enough entertainment for the moment.”

My eyes were now accustomed to the light. He was sitting in the centre of the back seat, his arms outstretched along the back. His cigar glowed mutely between his fingers. Below, like a white blanket on which a moulting black wolfhound has been lying, spread his hairy stomach. His thighs were naked to below his knees. Here one met the top band of his sock suspenders and the corrugations of his woollen underpants.