Edge of Eternity (86 page)

The dance steps were energetic, with much clapping and twirling. Lili was pleased to see Karolin entering into the spirit of the dance, smiling and laughing. She already looked better.

But the folk dancing was only a token, something to talk about in response to hostile inquiries. Someone put on ‘I Feel Fine’ by the Beatles, and they all started to do the Twist.

After an hour they paused for a rest and a glass of Vita Cola, the East German Coke. To Lili’s great satisfaction, Karolin looked flushed and happy. Odo went around talking to each person. His message was that if anyone had any problems, including issues about personal relationships and sex, he was there to listen and give advice. Karolin said to him: ‘My problem is that the father of my child is in the West,’ and they got into a deep discussion until the dancing started again.

At ten, when the record player was switched off, Karolin surprised Lili by picking up one of the guitars. She gestured to Lili to take the other. The two had been playing and singing together at home, but Lili had never imagined doing it in public. Now Karolin started an Everly Brothers number, ‘Wake Up, Little Susie’. The two guitars sounded good together, and Karolin and Lili sang in harmony. Before they got to the end, everyone in the crypt was jiving. At the end of the song, the dancers called for more.

They played ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and ‘If I Had a Hammer’, then for a slow dance they did ‘Love Is It’. The kids did not want them to stop, but Odo asked them to play one more number then go home before the police came and arrested him. He said it with a smile, but he meant it.

For a finale they played ‘Back in the USA’.

37

Early in 1965, as Jasper Murray prepared for his final university exams, he wrote to every broadcasting organization in the US whose address he could find.

They all got the same letter. He sent them his article about Evie dating Hank, his piece on Martin Luther King, and the assassination special edition of
The Real Thing
. And he asked for a job. Any job, as long as it was in American television.

He had never wanted anything this much. Television news was better than print – faster, more engaging, more vivid – and American television was better than British. And he knew he would be good at it. All he needed was a start. He wanted it so much it hurt.

When he had mailed the letters – at considerable expense – he let his sister Anna buy him lunch. They went to The Gay Hussar, a Hungarian restaurant favoured by left-wing writers and politicians. ‘What will you do if you don’t get a job in the States?’ Anna asked him after they had ordered.

The prospect depressed him. ‘I really don’t know. In this country, you’re expected to work for provincial newspapers first, covering cat shows and the funerals of long-serving aldermen, but I don’t think I can face that.’

Anna got the restaurant’s signature cold cherry soup. Jasper had fried mushrooms with tartare sauce. Anna said: ‘Listen, I owe you an apology.’

‘Yes,’ said Jasper. ‘You damn well do.’

‘Look, Hank and Evie weren’t even engaged, let alone married.’

‘But you knew perfectly well that they were a couple.’

‘Yes, and I was wrong to go to bed with him.’

‘You were.’

‘There’s no need for you to be so bloody sanctimonious. It’s uncharacteristic for me, but it’s just the kind of thing you’d do.’

He did not argue with that because it was true. He had on occasion gone to bed with women who were married or engaged. Instead he said: ‘Does Mother know?’

‘Yes, and she’s furious. Daisy Williams has been her best friend for thirty years, and has also been extraordinarily kind to you, letting you live there rent-free – and now I’ve done this to her daughter. What did Daisy say to you?’

‘She’s angry, because you caused her daughter such pain. But she also said that when she fell in love with Lloyd she was already married to someone else, so she does not feel entitled to too much moral indignation.’

‘Well, anyway, I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Except that I’m not really sorry.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I went to bed with Hank because I fell in love with him. Since that first time, I’ve spent almost every night with him. He’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, and I’m going to marry him, if ever I can nail his foot to the floor.’

‘As your brother, I’m entitled to ask what on earth he sees in you.’

‘Other than big tits, you mean?’ She laughed.

‘Not that you aren’t good-looking, but you are a few years older than Hank, and there are about a million nubile maidens in England who would jump into his bed at a snap of his fingers.’

She nodded. ‘Two things. First, he’s clever but undereducated. I’m his tour guide to the world of the mind: art, theatre, politics, literature. He’s enchanted by someone who talks to him about that stuff without condescending.’

Jasper was not surprised. ‘He used to love to talk to Daisy and Lloyd about all that. But what’s the other thing?’

‘You know he’s my second lover.’

Jasper nodded. Girls were not supposed to admit this sort of thing, but he and Anna had always known about each other’s exploits.

She went on: ‘Well, I was with Sebastian almost four years. In that length of time, a girl learns a lot. Hank knows very little about sex, because he’s never kept a girlfriend long enough to develop real intimacy. Evie was his longest relationship, and she was too young to teach a man much.’

‘I see.’ Jasper had never thought this way about relationships, but it made sense. He was a bit like Hank. He wondered whether women thought him unsophisticated in bed.

‘Hank learned a lot from a singer called Mickie McFee, but he only slept with her twice.’

‘Really? Dave Williams shagged her in a dressing room.’

‘And Dave told you?’

‘I think he told everyone. It may have been his first shag.’

‘Mickie McFee gets around.’

‘So, you’re Hank’s love tutor.’

‘He learns fast. And he’s growing up quickly. What he did to Evie, he will never do again.’

Jasper was not sure he believed that, but he did not voice his misgivings.

*  *  *

Dimka Dvorkin flew to Vietnam in February 1965 along with a large group of Foreign Ministry officials and aides, including Natalya Smotrov.

It was Dimka’s first trip outside the Soviet Union. But he was even more excited about being with Natalya. He was not sure what was going to happen, but he had an exhilarating sense of liberation, and he could tell she felt the same. They were far away from Moscow, out of range of his wife and Natalya’s husband. Anything could happen.

Dimka was feeling more optimistic in general. Kosygin, his boss since the fall of Khrushchev, understood that the Soviet Union was losing the Cold War because of its economy. Soviet industry was inefficient, and Soviet citizens were poor. Kosygin’s aim was to make the USSR more productive. The Soviets had to learn how to manufacture things that people of other countries might want to buy. They had to compete with the Americans in prosperity, not just in tanks and missiles. Only then would they have a hope of converting the world to their way of life. This attitude heartened Dimka. Brezhnev, the leader, was woefully conservative, but perhaps Kosygin could reform Communism.

Part of the economic problem was that so much of the national income was spent on the military. In the hope of reducing this crippling expense, Khrushchev had come up with the policy of peaceful coexistence, living side by side with the capitalists without fighting wars. Khrushchev had not done much to implement the idea: his quarrels in Berlin and Cuba had required more military expenditure, not less. But progressive thinkers in the Kremlin still believed in the strategy.

Vietnam would be a severe test.

On stepping out of the plane Dimka was assailed by a warm, wet atmosphere unlike anything he had experienced. Hanoi was the ancient capital of an ancient country, long oppressed by foreigners, first the Chinese, then the French, then the Americans. Vietnam was more crowded and more colourful than any place Dimka had ever seen.

It was also split in two.

Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh had defeated France in the anti-colonial war of the fifties. But Ho was an undemocratic Communist, and the Americans refused to accept his authority. President Eisenhower had sponsored a puppet government in the south, based in the provincial capital of Saigon. The unelected Saigon regime was tyrannical and unpopular, and was under attack by resistance fighters called the Vietcong. The South Vietnamese Army was so weak that now, in 1965, it had to be propped up by 23,000 American troops.

The Americans were pretending that South Vietnam was a separate country, just as the Soviet Union pretended that East Germany was a country. Vietnam was a mirror image of Germany, though Dimka would never dare say that aloud.

While the ministers attended a banquet with North Vietnamese leaders, the Soviet aides ate a less formal dinner with their Vietnamese opposite numbers – all of whom spoke Russian, some having visited Moscow. The food was mostly vegetables and rice, with small amounts of fish and meat, but it was tasty. There were no female Vietnamese staffers, and the men seemed surprised to see Natalya and the two other Soviet women.

Dimka sat next to a dour middle-aged apparatchik called Pham An. Natalya, sitting opposite, asked the man what he hoped to get from the talks.

An replied with a shopping list. ‘We need aircraft, artillery, radar, air defence systems, small arms, ammunition and medical supplies,’ he said.

This was exactly what the Soviets were hoping to avoid. Natalya said: ‘But you won’t need those things if the war comes to an end.’

‘When we have defeated the American imperialists our needs will be different.’

‘We would all like to see a smashing victory for the Vietcong,’ said Natalya. ‘But there might be other possible outcomes.’ She was trying to broach the idea of peaceful coexistence.

‘Victory is the only possibility,’ said Pham An dismissively.

Dimka was dismayed. An was stubbornly refusing to engage in the discussion for which the Soviets had come here. Perhaps he felt it was beneath his dignity to argue with a woman. Dimka hoped that was the only reason for his obstinacy. If the Vietnamese would not talk about alternatives to war, the Soviet mission would fail.

Natalya was not easily deflected from her purpose. She now said: ‘Military victory most certainly is
not
the only possible outcome.’ Dimka found himself feeling proud of her gutsy persistence.

‘You speak of defeat?’ said An, bristling – or at least pretending to bristle.

‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘But war is not the only road to victory. Negotiations are an alternative.’

‘We negotiated with the French many times,’ An said angrily. ‘Every agreement was designed only to gain time while they prepared further aggression. This was a lesson to our people, a lesson on dealing with imperialists, a lesson we will never forget.’

Dimka had read the history of Vietnam and knew that An’s anger was justified. The French had been as dishonest and perfidious as any other colonialists. But that was not the end of the story.

Natalya persisted – quite rightly, since this was the message Kosygin was undoubtedly giving Ho Chi Minh. ‘Imperialists are treacherous, we all know that. But negotiations can also be used by revolutionaries. Lenin negotiated at Brest-Litovsk. He made concessions, stayed in power, and reversed all those concessions when he was stronger.’

An parroted Ho Chi Minh’s line. ‘We will not consider negotiations until there is a neutral coalition government in Saigon that includes Vietcong representatives.’

‘Be reasonable,’ Natalya said mildly. ‘To make major demands as preconditions is just a way of avoiding negotiations. You must consider compromise.’

An said angrily: ‘When the Germans invaded Russia and marched all the way to the gates of Moscow, did you compromise?’ He banged the table with his fist, a gesture that surprised Dimka coming from a supposedly subtle Oriental. ‘No! No negotiations, no compromise – and no Americans!’

Soon after that the banquet ended.

Dimka and Natalya returned to their hotel. He walked with her to her room. At the door, she said simply: ‘Come in.’

It would be only their third night together. The first two they had spent on a four-poster bed in a dusty storeroom full of old furniture at the Kremlin. But somehow being together in a bedroom seemed as natural as if they had been lovers for years.

They kissed and took off their shoes, and kissed again and brushed their teeth, and kissed again. They were not crazed with uncontrollable lust: rather, they were relaxed and playful. ‘We’ve got all night to do anything we like,’ Natalya said, and Dimka thought those were the sexiest words he had ever heard.

They made love, then had some caviar and vodka she had brought with her, then made love again.

Afterwards, lying on the twisted sheets, looking up at the slow-moving ceiling fan, Natalya said: ‘I assume someone is eavesdropping on us.’

‘I hope so,’ Dimka said. ‘We sent a KGB team over here at great expense to teach them how to bug hotel rooms.’

‘Perhaps it’s Pham An listening,’ Natalya said, and giggled.

‘If so, I hope he enjoyed it more than the dinner.’

‘Hmm. That was kind of a disaster.’

‘They’ll have to change their attitude to get weapons from us. Even Brezhnev doesn’t want us involved in a massive war in south-east Asia.’

‘But if we refuse to arm them, they could go to the Chinese.’

‘They hate the Chinese.’

‘I know. Still . . .’

‘Yes.’

They drifted off to sleep and were awakened by the phone. Natalya picked it up and gave her name. She listened for a while then said: ‘Hell.’ Another minute went by and she hung up. ‘News from South Vietnam,’ she said. ‘The Vietcong attacked an American base last night.’

‘Last night? Only hours after Kosygin arrived in Hanoi? That’s no coincidence. Where?’

‘A place called Pleiku. Eight Americans were killed and a hundred or so wounded. And they destroyed ten US aircraft on the ground.’