Dr Berlin (27 page)

She is whispering, as if they might be overheard. Vinogradoff doesn’t answer at first. She knows why. He is weighing up whether he can trust her with his secret.

‘Yes.’

‘Was that the first time you’ve heard it played?’

The question seems to take him aback. He clearly wants to say as little as possible, to close the incident as quickly as he can, to get on with his life as if the last few minutes had never happened.

‘I have heard it in my head many times but never before played by someone else.’

She is astonished. ‘Why did you give me the privilege? I’m your newest student – I’m not even Russian.’

‘I thought you might understand it,’ he says. ‘I did not know it at the time, but the way you played, I might have written the music for you.’

‘How can I thank you?’ she asks.

‘By telling no one.
No
one
. By keeping my secret.’

He has taken a huge risk letting her play even this small part of his composition, and now she has to convince him that she – a foreigner – knows the importance of what he is saying to her, that his secret is safe with her. In this strange society that she is struggling so hard to come to terms with, she has discovered that there are harsh penalties for private acts that would go unremarked at home in England. Betraying a secret can lead to arrest, trial, years of imprisonment or worse.

‘Promise me you will tell no one that you have played this. No one, however close.’ There is a desperate appeal in his eyes that she has never seen before. ‘This must remain our secret. In this strange country, one can never be sure who one’s friends are. If people learned about what we have done this morning, it might be difficult for both of us.’

She looks away, unable to absorb the probing intensity in his expression. How can music, the pure, gentle sound of a cello, pose any kind of threat? What kind of madness rules their lives?

‘I promise I will never tell anyone,’ she says. ‘You may trust me to be silent.’

The tic in his face relaxes. He returns his composition to the depths of his briefcase.

‘If I had not believed that, I would never have taken the risk of letting you play my music.’

He takes her hand and kisses it. How terrible that playing a piece of music can make them conspirators. In this world of secrets, she now has a secret too.

Avoiding Bill proved more difficult than Marion had imagined. She hadn’t anticipated his frequent telephone calls, nor the frantic notes he left in her pigeonhole. She found the increasing volume of his appeals painful to ignore.

I
have
to
see
you
,
Marion
, he wrote.
It
is
very
important
.
When
can
we
meet?

She imagined her silence was sufficient reply. She had not allowed for his persistence nor his desperation. Early one morning, she answered a ring at her doorbell and there he was, a tired, unshaven figure, looking as if he hadn’t slept for a week.

‘I’m sorry, Marion. I know it’s early. Please forgive me. But I must see you.’

‘Come in.’

She led him into her small sitting room and drew the curtains. He sat down. She perched on the arm of the sofa, pulled her dressing gown tightly around her and waited. When he spoke his words burst out of him. What he was telling her, he said, he had told no one else. She felt cold at the thought of how central to his life she remained.

‘They told me last night that Jenny’s never coming out of that dreadful place; she’s been declared insane. She has no understanding of the present any more, she’s lost all connection with reality. She doesn’t even recognise me when I come to visit – she screams when she sees me and tries to hide. She
thinks I’m someone who’s come to kill her. Her doctors have asked me not to visit for the time being because my presence so upsets her. She’s vanished into a fantasy world of her own invention, and she’s never coming back.’ He paused for a moment to catch his breath. ‘I felt like an executioner, leaving her there on her own. I know it’s for the best but that doesn’t stop me feeling guilty.’

‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Bill. It must be awful for you.’

He reached for her hand and held it against his cheek. ‘Marion, please—’

‘No, Bill, don’t. It’ll only make the pain worse.’

‘You must hear what I’ve got to say.’

‘Of course.’ She hated herself for agreeing, but how could she not?

‘I’m going to divorce Jenny. She won’t know anything about it, thank God. I signed all the papers a few days ago. I will be free soon, Marion. We can have our life together, the life I’ve dreamed of. We can help each other write the books we’ve always wanted to write. Without Jenny I can rebuild my career. I know I can – but only if I have you, Marion. I must have you beside me. You’re my hope, my strength. I can’t do this without you. You’re the only one who can bring me back to life.’

He stared at her, tears filling his eyes. She slowly removed her hand.

‘Bill, Bill.’ What could she say? How to break it to him without destroying him?

‘Listen to me. We’ll get married as soon as the divorce is through. I love you, Marion. You know that. I’ll always love you. What more can I say?’

‘Please don’t go on, Bill.’

If he heard the note of rejection in her voice, he took no notice. ‘You can save me, Marion. You can help me resurrect my career. Everyone thinks I’m finished but you know I’m not. You’re the only one who still believes I’ve got something original to say. You’ve always known the truth, that until this
terrible situation with Jenny was sorted out, there was nothing I could do. Well, Jenny’s gone now. That part of my life is over, done with. I’m ready to start again. I want to come back. I want to do all those things I promised myself when I was young that I would do, and never got round to because of Jenny. Now we can do them together. Can you understand what that means to me? You’re the only person who can bring me back, Marion. You must help me. You must.’

It was breaking her heart to see his anguished face, the desperation in his eyes. He knew she would never agree. He’d known when she didn’t answer his notes, before he had rung her doorbell. He knew as he spoke to her now, pleading with her to change her mind. All she could do was pity him and hope he would survive the pain she would inflict on him.

‘Oh, Bill, Bill,’ she said softly. ‘Oh, Bill.’

She held his head against her and drew her hand slowly through his hair.

*

Had she ever been in love with him? She was walking home through the quiet evening streets after dinner in hall. In the very early days the illicit nature of their relationship had increased the emotional excitement. She had thought of little else but Bill; she had waited for his visits with an uncharacteristic expectation. If he had to cancel their date, she would be plunged into despair. But once they had started meeting regularly, that excitement had quickly evaporated. Their commitments – he to his sick wife, she to her career – meant their affair could make no demands on either of them beyond the stolen hours they spent together each week. It meant an hour and a half on Wednesdays at lunchtime, and occasionally on Fridays between tea and dinner, hasty lovemaking, a snatched conversation usually about faculty business while they bathed afterwards, a bite to eat or a quick drink, a moment’s careful consultation of their university diaries to plan their next encounter (a simple cross and a time, no names) and he was
gone, while she was left to remake the warm, crumpled bed. The relationship was doomed, she saw that clearly now, because what they had together simply wasn’t enough. At least, not for her.

She opened the door to her flat. This was home, her sanctuary, where she could be what she was. Thank God her aunt had left her enough money to afford the place. She hadn’t liked living in college, it had never allowed her the independence she craved.

Since her arrival at Cambridge as an undergraduate, her experience of love, she conceded, had been both limited and perfunctory. There had been a research student in her third year, a historian like herself, who had wanted to marry her. The physical side of their relationship, she remembered, had been a series of embarrassing blunders. When he told her excitedly that he had been appointed to a research fellowship in Tasmania and would she come with him, she demurred. She had an elderly widowed mother in Northampton. Hobart was too far. She felt no regret in ending the relationship, but out of guilt she went to Southampton to see him off. She didn’t bother to stand and wave a handkerchief as the ship moved slowly away. In that crowd he’d never have seen her anyway. She hurried to the train and found herself a seat. He’d promised to write once he’d settled in, but she never heard from him again. His absence made no more impression on her life than his presence had done.

She had been teaching for more than two years when one of her students made clear his feelings for her, but she had never been interested in men younger than herself. To avoid embarrassment, she arranged for him to be farmed out to one of her colleagues who was teaching the same subject. There had been one or two short-lived brushes with romance since, and a wild and unexpected weekend in Barcelona with a visiting Spanish academic, but until Bill the emotional side of her life had been largely barren.

Now Bill had gone. They would see each other across a
table at faculty meetings; perhaps they would be on the same examining board. But their relationship was over, it had ended this morning. Why did she not feel more distress? Her heart had never been truly touched, not by Bill, nor, if she was honest, by anyone. That was the truth she had to face. Perhaps it never would be.

‘This is Koliakov.’

The voice on the other end of the telephone was hoarse and tired. Perhaps he was suffering from a hangover. If there was any justice, then he should be feeling decidedly ill this morning.

‘Gerry Pountney.’

‘Ah, Mr Pountney. Good morning. What can I do for you?’

‘I was wondering if we could meet.’

‘That would be a pleasure. Though—’ his voice suddenly faltered. ‘If this is about appearing on your television programme, I shall have to refuse.’

‘No, no,’ Pountney reassured him. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

‘Very well. When would you suggest?’

They had dinner in a restaurant in Sidney Street. By the time they had reached the coffee, they’d exhausted Pountney’s list of subjects: the reasons for the uprising in Budapest, British colonial policy in Africa, growing tensions between East and West in Berlin. Time to get down to business.

‘I gather you know Georgie Crossman.’

If Koliakov was surprised by the remark he didn’t show it. ‘We have known each other for a little time. Is she a friend of yours too?’

Pountney shook his head. ‘Aren’t you playing with fire?’

‘You will have to explain that expression. I am sorry. I do not understand.’

The atmosphere had suddenly gone cold. Pountney was
certain the Russian knew exactly what he was driving at. Asking for explanations was simply a way of buying time.

‘I think your Mr Smolensky would be very interested to hear about your new friend, wouldn’t he?’

‘Smolensky is my driver.’

‘He’s registered as your driver. But we both know what he does for a living. He’s the Kremlin’s man in your camp. He reports on your behaviour to Moscow, those moments of weakness when you slip from the high standards that are expected of you, those indiscretions you would rather no one knew about, like your visits to a certain mews house in Knightsbridge. We don’t mind you sleeping with Georgie Crossman, what we worry about is how you’re paying for the pleasure. Miss Crossman’s favours don’t come cheap.’

Koliakov lit a cigarette. ‘I have a sense, Mr Pountney, but correct me if I am wrong, that you are trying to put me under pressure. Could that be because you want something from me?’

‘Shall we say, I have a proposition for you.’

‘In my experience,’ Koliakov said, ‘such a phrase means you are proposing a bargain. Am I right?’

‘I won’t give Smolensky details of your habits, if you tell me what I want to know.’

Koliakov took his time in replying. ‘Isn’t there a word for what you are proposing? Isn’t that word “blackmail”?’

‘If it is, I suspect you’re more familiar with the practice than I am.’

It was as if they were the only two people in the restaurant. Koliakov played with the spoon in the sugar bowl.

‘What is it you want?’ he asked.

‘Information.’

‘Information I presume you can get in no other way.’ Koliakov was talking to himself. ‘Therefore information my country does not want you to have.’

He looked up at Pountney. His eyes were ice cold. His
expression confirmed Hart’s verdict that beneath the sophistication lived a very different man.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Is Viktor Radin alive or dead?’

‘Viktor Radin? Who is he?’

‘The time for games is over. You’ve got forty-eight hours. If I don’t hear from you by then, I will be forced to send those interesting details to your colleague at the embassy. Is that clear enough for you?’

He was fully awake now, and his arms were around her. He was kissing her again and again, whispering that their separation was only for a time, that there was no force strong enough to keep them apart for ever, no obstacle they could not overcome. He would find a way for them to be together.

‘Yes, yes,’ she murmured, wanting to believe that his words were true, while her tears fell on his face.

‘You mustn’t cry,’ he said, ‘we must be strong for each other.’ Nothing could defeat them, not politics, not ideology, no physical or mental barriers, not even their time apart now. Love bound you together so completely that your identities merged in the mystery of making love, he told her, and out of that something glorious and wonderful and everlasting was created that no power on earth could destroy, not even death.

She knew he was using his passion to bury the consciousness of loss that was making her cry, just as she knew that to comfort her he was saying the opposite of what he believed. But little by little his words worked their magic, and she slipped from the brightness of the morning sun that flooded the bedroom into a waking dream of love, where he showed her that she was the centre of his world and that nothing would ever shift her from that place.

‘To find your one true love,’ he told her, ‘is to discover yourself. You have given me the strength to know who I am.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, not knowing what he meant. After a while, her tears stopped.

*

As the train steadily gathered speed out of Kirov Station, Berlin lifted the blind in their compartment so that Kate could see the lights of Moscow disappearing in the distance. The billowing snow disturbed by the movement of the train caught the illumination from the carriages and looked like stars flying around them. He stood with his arms around her as they passed through ghostly birch woods, the branches laden with snow bending under the weight. When they had left the city far behind and the dark night had turned the window into a mirror reflecting the image of a young woman leaning against her lover, he took her to the restaurant car and gave her dinner. Afterwards in their compartment he made love to her.

She lay awake listening to the sound of the train while he slept in the bunk above her. Of course I love him, she told herself. How could I not? But does he love me? Will I ever I know?

As the train raced through the icy December darkness, her question remained unanswered.

*

‘Helsinki,’ she told Berlin, ‘is like living in a painting of a winter night.’

They sat at a table in the Kapelli Restaurant, a delicate nineteenth-century pavilion of wood and glass, a fragile galleon floating in a sea of snow in the Esplanadie Gardens. Kate looked out at the mysterious world of lights that danced before her eyes, flickering candles that, reflected in the window, appeared to stretch far into the snowy terrace beyond, and street lamps that emerged in the darkness like illuminated balloons. Now she understood the fixation with light in this city of winter darkness. Candles in windows were a reminder of days past and days to come; living symbols of
summer light and life in the depth of winter, when the world seemed to have halted its progress towards the vernal equinox, when these northern people believed they were trapped in darkness for ever.

‘This is a little-known city at the crossing point between East and West,’ Berlin told her as she ate reindeer meat for the first time, or
poronliha
as he taught her to call it. How like her father he was, always giving her history lessons, explaining what he thought she needed to know, never letting her find out for herself. Now he was recounting the history of Finland, a country that was without a national identity until the middle of the nineteenth century, when Elias Lonnrot wrote down the local folk tales that he published as the
Kalevala
, the myths and sagas that gave Finland a sense of its own culture from which the nationalist movement grew. It triumphed in 1917 when the Revolution gave Finland the opportunity to declare her independence from Russia and become a country in its own right. He told her about the poet Runeberg – on their way to the restaurant he had pointed out his statue – about the architects Aaltonen and Saarinen, who had given the country a style and a sense of itself. He told her how General Mannerheim had returned from the Russian army to lead his country; about the Winter War in 1940, when for a hundred and twenty days the small Finnish army in Karelia had resisted the vastly superior Soviet forces before Mannerheim had surrendered to save further loss of life. He recounted how the Finns had declared their neutrality after the war and now trod a delicate tightrope between independence and subservience to the Soviets, honourable brokers of the possibility of dialogue between East and West.

He respected the Finns, he told Kate. They were a little-understood people who deserved to be more highly valued. He loved this city, and all its secret delights that the world knew so little of.

Outside it had begun to snow again.

*

Berlin awoke. The bedroom was flooded with a pale light. He got out of bed and went to the window. It must have stopped snowing some hours before, and an icy wind off the sea had driven away the clouds, transforming the sky into a huge cavern illuminated by sparkling points of silver light, like the decorated ceiling of a vast basilica. Wherever he looked, the snowbound city was illuminated by moonlight, everything tinted with shades of blue – blue roofs, blue buildings, blue streets. Helsinki, city of night, had become a city of dreams.

Was he mad to have brought her here? How much easier it was to conceal their relationship in Moscow. By day, she studied at the Conservatoire and he at the Institute of Contemporary History. After dark, she came to his apartment. Occasionally they went to the cinema or theatre together. Sometimes he introduced her to those of his friends he could trust. It was an uneasy, circumscribed relationship, and he struggled to keep her in ignorance of the dangers she ran associating with him, and out of sight and knowledge of those who might disapprove of the relationship.

Suppose her presence here was betrayed? Perhaps there were spies in the hotel – the hall porter, the chambermaid – who had reported Kate’s presence in Helsinki. Perhaps instructions had already been cabled from Moscow to arrest the English girl. They’d wait until the early hours, then they’d force their way into the room. She would scream his name as they led her away. He would struggle to save her and they would hold him back, threatening to shoot him if he moved. He would stand there listening to her cries for help and his heart would break.

These were night thoughts, running out of control. He refused to allow them supremacy over his reason. For a few moments he stood by the window admiring the view in an attempt to calm himself. Then his fears for her safety – and his pain at his own guilt in putting her at risk – reinserted
themselves into his consciousness by a different route, and his wild speculation set off again.

Kate would be accused of any number of invented crimes – spying for the British Government, attempting to sabotage the Soviet state – it didn’t matter how absurd the charge might sound, they could convict you for anything. This beautiful English girl who slept beside him now in complete innocence of the possible dangers he had led her into, who played the cello so wonderfully, would be dragged before the world’s press and humiliated, the innocent victim of
his
selfishness.

They would use
her
to hurt him – that would be his punishment for daring to bring her to this winter city. Her suffering – and they would make sure she experienced extremes of pain and shame – would be intended to remind
him
that you can never challenge the authority that controls your life. Her punishment, ultimately, would be expulsion from the country, and he would never see her again. All she would remember, perhaps for the rest of her life, was that he had broken the trust she had so willingly given him. Her love for him would turn to hate because all she would remember was that he had betrayed her by bringing her here when he knew the risks. He would be denied the chance to explain what had happened. He would have to live with the guilt of his selfishness for the rest of his life.

Why had he got involved with this English girl? He was attracted to her – how could you fail to be? She had thick blonde hair that covered her shoulders, blue eyes, soft full lips, a sweet, captivating smile, a long beautiful neck. There was an innocent optimism about her that reminded him of the expression on his mother’s face in the first portrait that his father had sculpted. Was she just another student, or was he truly in love this time? Had she stirred in him those deeper feelings that told him existence without her was impossible? Had she taken over his mind so that he could think of nothing else?

The overwhelming emotion that wouldn’t allow him to
imagine a moment without her remained as elusive as ever. He wanted her for her smile, her eyes, her innocence, and because she reminded him of what he might have been. But even when he was with her he remained in control of his own destiny when he desperately wanted to lose it, to offer his life to a force stronger than any he had encountered. Once more he had failed to find what he was searching for. He felt a familiar shadow of sadness settle over him.

He had never truly been in love, not even with the beautiful Zinaida all those years ago. He had married her imagining that they would live happily in a dream of love, only to discover that physical attraction can never bridge the gap when two minds live in different worlds. He understood too late that he had nothing in common with Zinaida, and what a mess that caused. The intimacy he had dreamed of became a nightmare from which he could not escape fast enough. Now he could look back over his life and say without fear of contradiction that he had chased dreams of love again and again, his heart full of hope, only to be disappointed when those dreams had disintegrated.

Kate’s innocence touched him. He knew she had committed herself and that he held her happiness in his power. Knowing that, how could he risk everything by bringing her to this city on the border between the two ideologies that divided the world? A more prudent man would have recognised the dangers and left her behind. He shivered. How could he have been so irresponsible? He was racked by guilt at what he had done, yet he was unable to imagine sleeping in this room without her.

He got back into bed. The girl stirred and sat up. He lay still, watching her. She went to the basin to pour herself a glass of water. On her way back to bed, she too saw the transformation outside. She walked to the window and looked out. The blue light fell over her naked body, transforming her pale skin into shimmering marble. She became in that moment a being of infinite beauty, delicate and mysterious,
hardly of this world. Once more he felt overwhelming desire for her.

*

The lecture was due to start at five-thirty. Despite the cold he decided to walk. He left Kate at the hotel. She was tired, she told him, and wanted to rest. She had not asked where he was going nor whether she could come with him. He was struck by her sensitivity to the circumstances in which they found themselves. He had never once had to say anything to her of the risks of their being together, though that did not prevent him from being continually vigilant.

On arrival, he was directed to the third floor. He took the stairs. This is my last lecture, he thought. After that we will have two more days here before we must return. Two whole days to ourselves.

Perhaps if he had not been thinking of Kate, he might have noticed that there were no lights on in the lecture theatre. Some instinct might have caused him to hesitate for an instant before pushing open the door. By the time he realised something was wrong, it was too late. He was inside the room, and in the darkness someone had moved behind him to close the door and lock it. He felt a gun in his back and a voice said quietly in Russian: ‘If you offer any resistance I will be forced to shoot you.’

‘I wouldn’t be so foolish,’ Berlin replied.

The lights came on. The lecture theatre was deserted, except for two men, one guarding the door, the other covering him with a revolver fitted with a silencer.

‘I see you have not lost your reputation for punctuality.’ The man with the gun was the senior. He smiled grimly. ‘Your lecture was planned to take an hour. With questions – and for so distinguished a speaker, there will always be questions – the whole process will take an hour and a half, shall we say? Very well’ – he looked at his watch – ‘in exactly
one hour and twenty-nine minutes we will release you. If you do as we tell you, you will be able to walk from here unaided.’

The girl, Berlin said to himself. For an hour and a half they’ve got the girl to themselves. They’d set a trap for him, and he had fallen into it without a second thought. Now she would suffer and he would be unable to protect her.

The photograph was where he had always kept it, protected by a brown paper envelope and tucked away at the back of his edition of Lenin’s
Collected
Works 
– surely the last place anyone would look. He removed it carefully. He had taken the picture one afternoon at the swimming pool in the Dynamo Stadium. Eva had emerged from the pool, dripping wet and exhausted after a training session. She was laughing, her arm round her friend Julia, complaining breathlessly that she was not fit to be photographed. That hadn’t stopped him pressing the shutter release. If he’d had the courage, he would have taken a hundred pictures of her then. There had been another figure in the photograph – Alexei Abrasimov – but Koliakov had long ago cut out his image and thrown it away. If he looked carefully he could just see a disembodied hand around Julia’s waist. If only that was all that remained of his memories of Abrasimov.

He looked at the smiling girl, her rich auburn hair released from her bathing cap and tumbling down over her shoulders, the ends wet where the water had leaked into her cap, her skin shining from the pool. He could see the outline of her breasts through her bathing costume, her flat stomach and strong legs. She had the ideal body for a swimmer, compact and muscular, with powerful shoulders and thighs.