Dr Berlin (39 page)

Koliakov lit a cigarette. ‘I cannot tell you what is bluff and what is not. All I can say is that I was present at the meeting described in those minutes. I can confirm that what you have read is an accurate record of what happened. The policy proposed by Colonel Medvedev was agreed.’

‘There is no doubt therefore that Professor Radin is dead.’

‘No doubt at all.’

‘Why is the Soviet Union so keen to conceal his death?’

Koliakov laughed. ‘I would have thought the answer was obvious.’

‘I would still like to hear your explanation.’

‘With Radin gone, our space programme no longer has its visionary driving force. Power will now move from a courageous and inspired leader to the bureaucrats. Do I have to describe the consequences?’

Carswell wrote on the paper in front of him. Koliakov waited.

‘What puzzles me,’ Carswell said quietly, ‘is why you are prepared to tell us this. Aren’t you giving us a very valuable secret?’

‘Of course.’

‘You don’t strike me as a defector or a traitor.’

‘I am neither.’

‘Then why are you doing this?’

‘I am giving you this information because I am a patriot.’

‘Some of your colleagues might find that hard to accept.’

Koliakov shrugged his shoulders. ‘That may be so.’

‘That doesn’t answer my questions.’

‘I am opposed to senseless slaughter.’

‘You believe that Soviet policy will lead to senseless slaughter?’

‘If Berlin explodes, yes.’

‘What brought you to such a view, Colonel?’

‘If I convince you, you will believe me. Is that it?’

‘Probably.’

‘Very well.’ Koliakov stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. ‘I must take you back a few years. In 1947, the Soviet Union was building its first nuclear bomb. It was a slow and difficult process. Our politicians were very unhappy at the pace of progress. We had to do something to make the West feel safe enough to slow its own hectic rate of development. So we manufactured an explosion in the laboratory where the bomb was being built. Many died, not
just technicians, civilians too. The news was deliberately leaked to the West through the spy Peter the Great whom, by this time, we had turned. The West’s assessment was that the Soviet Union’s nuclear policy was in grave difficulty. That was what we wanted you to believe, and for a time you did. And much to our advantage.’

‘I remember,’ Carswell said. There was an edge of bitterness in his voice.

‘Our deception was very successful. Its effect lasted for months. You slowed your nuclear development while we hastened ours. A sense of complacency emerged in the West. Little need to worry about the Soviets. They were far behind.’

‘The question I asked was what brought you to your current position,’ Carswell reminded him.

‘I am coming to that. Let me take you back to the so-called explosion. It was set up by members of the KGB at the instructions of certain members of the Central Committee. The men and women who died were real people, civilians. Old age pensioners mostly, who lived in a block of flats near the laboratory. They died in a separate explosion which was made to look as if it had been caused by the explosion in the laboratory.’

‘What happened?’

‘The old people were rounded up one night, driven to a forest clearing outside Moscow and murdered in cold blood. Their bodies were buried in a trench near where they were killed. My father was one of those who died that night.’

‘I see.’ Carswell puffed at his pipe.

‘I am a communist because I believe in the teachings of Marx and Lenin. I am opposed to the realisation of their goals through the senseless slaughter of civilians.’

‘A conflict in Berlin would come under your definition of senseless slaughter?’

Koliakov nodded. ‘Such a conflict would rapidly become nuclear. Many millions of our peoples would die unnecessarily. It is a sickening thought – particularly when one man’s
hubris will have caused so much destruction. Now do you understand why I call myself a patriot?’

‘Thank you, Colonel. You’ve been most helpful.’

*

‘Does the name Peter the Great mean anything to you?’ Carswell asked.

‘As a historical character?’ Berlin replied.

‘As a code name.’

‘Nothing, no.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

Carswell wrote in a notebook. ‘I understand you know Marshal Gerasimov.’

‘I have met him once.’

‘In a graveyard – am I right?’

Berlin nodded.

‘Tell me something about him that will convince me that what you are telling us is true.’

Berlin took his time to reply. ‘He is a convinced communist, an idealist. Communism for him is the only way to universal human justice. His wife was an artist. He discovered, after she was dead, that she destroyed many of her pictures to protect him.’

‘How?’

‘Because they showed too much truth. She painted life in our country as it is, not as our government would have us believe it is.’

Berlin saw the old man clearing the undergrowth from his wife’s grave and standing in silence before it. He knew now that Gerasimov was not remembering Yelena. That was not why he visited her grave. It was to rededicate himself to the need to act on the truth, not to be deceived by lies.

‘Every year he visits her grave to remind himself of what she sacrificed for him.’

‘What did his wife die of?’

‘Gerasimov would say she died of a broken heart. She sacrificed her painting to her love for him. In fact it was cancer.’

He thought back to the painting of the young man on his way to the front, and the mixture of anxiety and anticipation on his face. His father had disliked the picture. It had been too real for him. It brought back fears he had tried to banish from his life.

‘Gerasimov, you’re saying, is a humane man.’

‘He is opposed to the indiscriminate killing of civilians. He says our people have suffered enough.’

‘That certainly is true,’ Carswell said. He looked up at Berlin. ‘Thank you. You’ve told me all I need to know.’

*

‘What’s your verdict?’ Hart asked.

Carswell took his time to answer. ‘I think on balance Koliakov is telling the truth. He has a motive.’

‘And Berlin doesn’t?

‘I think he is lying. I have no doubt that he is who he says he is. I do not believe for one moment his story about Marshal Gerasimov. Nothing rings true. I think Berlin is a vain man who saw an opportunity to gain himself a role. The sooner he clears off back to Moscow, the better.’

Berlin looked out at the deserted court: the soft red-brick buildings, almost pink in the sunlight, were covered in places by dark green ivy, and flanked by neatly trimmed flower beds filled with late summer flowers, deep red roses, purple Michaelmas daisies and pink anemones; the well-cut grass was bisected by a worn stone path tucked in with cobbles; a clock over the entrance to the hall struck the half-hour, sounding the same note it had struck over the centuries.

‘Dr Berlin, sir? You’re wanted on the telephone.’

He came down the stairs two at a time and followed Wilkins into the porter’s lodge. He was sure it was Pountney.

‘Andrei? Gerry Pountney. Not good news, I’m afraid. I’ve seen Hugh Hart. In fact, I spent most of last night with him. I can’t get him to budge. I’m sorry about that. I think the Americans have got at him. It’s a setback, but it’s not the end of the line. Give me a few hours. I’ll be in touch, all right?’  

‘Thank you for trying,’ Berlin said. ‘I am grateful.’  

He put the phone down. The message was unequivocal. He had failed. His heart felt like stone.

They sit on steel-framed chairs in the airport lounge, holding hands. Occasionally she leans her head against him and he puts his arm round her. They say nothing – there is nothing new that can be said.

I am a convicted prisoner, she thinks to herself. I am waiting for the last minutes of my life to pass before my execution. Soon a voice will summon me and I will stand up, kiss the man I love for the last time, hold him briefly in my arms, and then I will walk away and that will be it, the end of everything. No more light, only darkness.

‘Will you write to me?’ she asks suddenly.

‘Yes.’

She squeezes his hand, a gesture of reassurance that she doesn’t feel. He may write but will the letters reach her?

There is an announcement over the tannoy that she cannot understand. He looks up at the board. The boarding sign is flashing against her flight number.

‘Is it time?’ she asks, knowing it is, but hoping for a reprieve.

‘Yes.’ He stands up. ‘You must go now.’

She has thought of this moment so many times, rehearsed it
in her mind with a thousand variations. Should she be brave and embrace him without crying? Should she break down with declarations of undying love? But what she has imagined is not what happens.

‘Come here,’ he says, gathering her in his arms. She feels his warmth around her. His lips are close to her ear and he is whispering urgently to her. ‘When you are alone, remember this. You made me understand who I am. There is no greater gift than that. I can never thank you enough. Never in a hundred lifetimes. I dedicate my life to you.’

Why
do
you
tell
me
this
now?
she wants to ask.
You’ve
never
said
anything
like
it
before.
What
does
it
mean?

Before her lips can frame the questions, she is walking away from him, holding her passport and her boarding card and a Russian bag that he has bought her. She refuses to turn round. She knows that if she does so something terrible will happen. All her energies must be concentrated on getting onto the plane. Nothing is more important than that.

‘Tell my father you’ve seen me,’ she hears a voice call after her. ‘Tell him I’m alive.’

As she walks across the tarmac, she hears the wind in the grass, sees the river flashing in the sunlight as it breaks over the stones; she watches dragonflies hovering above the reeds, fishing darting into the shadows, birds wheeling above her.

Suddenly she starts to sing quietly to herself.

For hours nothing has happened. The two sides have faced each other. But there has been no movement, no sound. Suddenly the eerie silence is broken by the firing up of an engine on the Soviet side. Will the tank move forward or back? Nerves are stretched to breaking point.

Pountney whispers into his microphone, as if any sound might cause the stand-off to end in a withering hail of file. ‘I
have lost count of the hours we have waited here, certainly twelve. But it’s more like fifteen, sixteen. Each side has stared down the gun barrels of the other. But no shots have been fired. There is total stillness. Now one of the Soviet tanks has started its engines. What will it do? Will it move forward or back?’

He watches. The Soviet tank remains where it is, its engine turning over. Then it is put into reverse, and it moves back five yards. It is no more than a gesture, but it is enough.

From somewhere a faint cheer breaks out.

‘Professor Stevens? Hello. You won’t know me. My name is Kate Buchanan. I’ve just returned from Moscow. I met your son while I was there. He asked me to tell you that he is well. I would like to come and see you, if I might. I wondered if we could arrange a time.’

*

What
shall
I
tell
Gerasimov?

Berlin stares out of the window. The plane has not moved. He looks at his watch. They are delayed, though no one has explained why. He tries to concentrate on what he can see from his window seat of the life of the airport but he sees nothing. His thoughts return to Marion and his eyes fill with tears. His arms are still warm from Marion’s embrace, his lips still burning from her kisses. How impossible it was to leave her – she had tears in her eyes and a startled, hopeless look on her face.

‘Come back,’ she had begged, ‘please come back. Don’t leave me alone.’

With each step he took as he walked away from her, he felt as if he was dragging the world behind him.

What
shall
I
tell
Gerasimov?

He has failed in his mission. Whoever caused those tanks to withdraw, it was not him. A historic moment that he wanted to claim as his own has nothing to do with him. He has saved no one, not even himself. That is the truth he will have to live with.

‘Well,’ the old general will say when they met in Moscow, ‘it worked, didn’t it?’