Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow (14 page)

‘Wot's me nyme, is it?' she continued. ‘Well, you can bloody well go and look it up in all them flippin' papers I've signed to get meself into your rotten country. “Sign 'ere, sign there. Wot's yer nyme? Let's 'ave a look at yer passport. Where's your visa? 'Ave you got your ticket?” If yer don't know me nyme by now yer never will so you can go and bloody well look it up in all them there papers.'

There was a moment's shocked pause which gave Mrs Butterfield time for an intake of breath and she being, as noted, rotund, had the lung capacity for a good and lasting supply on one draw.

‘And wot's more if yer can't run a bleedin' country you ain't got the right to take good money from furriners to come over and look at it. Call yerselves a country? That's a laugh. Try and get a decent mouthful of food 'ere wifout an hour and a half's wait, stone cold when it gets there and a dirty look from the waitress thrown in. Manners? You got words in yer rotten language for please and thank you, but I ain't never 'eard 'em yet. “Be 'ere, go there. Get in the bus, get out of the bus, don't talk. Wait 'ere.” Yer call that a 'oliday?'

It was time for another breath. Mrs Butterfield gulped at it. ‘And yer bloomin' 'otel. You call them 'otels where when you pull the flush on the loo all you can get out of it is Sweet Annie Laurie and then water starts fallin' out of the shower. I ain't seen a tap that's worked like it should or a towel that wasn't so dirty you wouldn't want to shine yer shoes wif it. Your lifts ain't worth the powder to blow 'em up and that's what yer need to get things blinkin' going. I don't know what you fink yer tellyphone's for but they ain't for speaking into or 'earing what anybody's got to say. Maybe you got 'ere what they call helectricity but you ain't got enough to light a lamp a person can read by. Lumps
in the bed, dust in the cushions and moth 'oles in the blanket.'

Another inspiration, and this to Ada's horror, for Mrs Harris had no doubt but that if they had not been doomed before they certainly would be now. It gave Mrs Butterfield the additional adrenalin to wave one fat forefinger under the nose of Chief Inspector Dugliev. ‘What's more I want to know the meaning of descending with a bloody army upon an innocent working woman standin' in the street doin' no more 'arm to nobody than 'olding the words of Jesus in 'er 'ands. It would be a lot of good if all you whiskered 'eathen would pay a little more attention to what the good Lord says and does for you. You got a city full of churches and nobody goes in 'em except tourists for an extra sixpence or a bob. So, it's a crime, is it, to raise me voice in praise of the Lord from whom all blessings flow including yer own? 'Oo do you fink gave you all them gems and jewels and sparklers you got tucked away there? Where do you fink yer daily bread comes from? Yer ought to be down on yer knees 'arf of the day givin' thanks to Him that looks after the ugly lot of yer.'

Mrs Butterfield took aboard another generous helping of the stale smoke-filled air of the interrogation room and continued.

‘And wot's all this me friend 'ere tells me about searching through our private belongings and lookin' down on us through 'oles in the ceiling?
What's that kind of a way to treat visitors comin' over 'ere to see all them plyces like in them lovely photygraphs? And then bein' treated like spies. That's a good one. What would anybody want to be spyin' on a country for that gets its plumbing mixed up with its electricity. And as for us bein' follered about by comedy cops that any six-year-old kid could reckernize was dressed up for the part. It's me nyme you want to know, do yer? Well, it's Violet Mabel Ernestine Butterfield and yer can all kiss me royal …'

Mrs Harris was just in time to choke off the conclusion of the sentence by laying her hand on her friend's arm and saying, ‘Violet,' for she had been observing the mounting choler in the Colonel which now burst. It was Mrs Butterfield's last remark appertaining to the operatives of his own beloved department which had pierced Colonel Dugliev to the marrow and with a thunderous thump of his fist on the table and a shout of ‘Quiet! You are both under arrest.
We
are asking the questions,' and here he banged his fist once more this time upon a pile of folders and dossiers some three inches thick. ‘You will be lucky if you do not spend the rest of your life in a labour camp. We know you are spies and couriers.'

He now rounded upon Ada. ‘Your name?'

She recognized that the Colonel was in no mood for further lecturing and replied, ‘Ada Millicent Harris.'

‘Give me your handbag. Afterwards you will both be more thoroughly searched.'

Violet Butterfield turned a sickly green. All the fight had gone out of her for she knew what was inside the bag and so did Ada Harris who thought to herself,
That's it. We're done for. What a bloody fool I've been
.

For she was still carrying Mr Lockwood's allegedly tender missive to his girlfriend, but goodness knows whether that's what it actually was and not a call for comrades to arise in revolution. If they arrested you in Moscow for raising your voice in praise of the good Lord anything more incriminating and you were for the high jump.

She had not even any longer the forlorn hope that her little silly ruse would succeed for what she had done was to cover the outside of the envelope with little notes such as ‘Send postcards to Frank, Johnny and Aunt Mary', ‘Buy doll for Annie', ‘Fur coat', ‘Gum Store', ‘Souvenirs', several addresses in London and other such memory joggers which gave the envelope a character of a bit of scrap as a shopping list and reminder. But all the things that had been happening since their arrival, the search, the shadowing, and now the arrest served to make her realize that this was far more serious than she had thought and what was more the detectives who had been tailing them might be comedy characters but these grim men in this grim place were not. What
she had marked upon the envelope wouldn't fool them for a second and even if it did the envelope was sealed and they would most certainly open it. They were lost.

The Colonel had his arm outstretched to seize the handbag when there came an interruption first in the form of footsteps and voices off and the clanging of iron doors, torrents of voluble Russian in which the voice of a young woman could be heard mingling with those of the police. It culminated in the door of the interrogation room flying open and momentarily framing the face and figure of a lovely girl neatly clad and wearing the Intourist badge and on her youthful face a look of indescribable perturbation.

For a moment she remained thus while all stared at her and the next moment she had flung herself into the room and fallen upon her knees before Mrs Harris.

‘Lady Char!' she cried. ‘I am so glad to have found you at last. But what has happened? Why are you here?' She arose and faced the KGB and police group suddenly white with fury and demanded in Russian, ‘What is the meaning of this? Are you aware of who this is and what you have done?'

One of the less bright policemen replied, ‘They are members of a forbidden religious group and have been arrested for …'

The KGB Colonel said, ‘Religious group nothing.
These are dangerous spies and who are you and what is the meaning of this interference?'

Not in the least intimidated the girl turned upon them with still greater anger and in Russian scolded them, ‘Spies? You must all be out of your minds. You have laid your hands upon one of Britain's most important aristocrats, Lady Char. The Special Branch for International Culture has been searching for her since she arrived and I have been delegated to look after her,' and then switching to English, ‘My dear Lady Char, however can you forgive us? Someone has muddled your papers but now that I have found you all will be well. We must hurry as you are on the list of guests for the Foreign Office reception which begins in an hour. You will just have time to change.'

What had seemed like a simple solution to the problem
they
had been pursuing had suddenly taken such a bizarre turn that the KGB Chief, instead of having the girl thrown out or arrested, said, ‘What nonsense are you talking about an aristocrat? And how dare you interfere in KGB affairs? This pair here is dangerous …'

Apparently the girl was not impressed by the Colonel's manner, his voice or his speech. She must either have been highly courageous or have known the firmness of the ground upon which she stood or both for she now lost her temper and said cuttingly, ‘I assume that having reached the rank of Colonel
you must have learned to read at some time. Then please read these,' and she slapped down the documents she had been holding on to the table. The Colonel, the Inspector, the Captain of Police and the interpreter leaned over and examined them. The first was the set of applications of Ada Harris, Lady Char, and her attendant, Violet Butterfield, for visas to join a five-day tour of Moscow, covered with official stamps and various Russian versions of ‘OK', of ‘Examined and Passed', and ‘Special Treatment', etc. The second was a document of instructions from the Special Branch for International Culture advising all and whomever that Ada Harris, Lady Char, and her attendant were special guests of the Soviet Union and were to be shown every courtesy at all times. Both of these documents bore the likenesses of Ada Harris, Lady Char, and her personal servant, Violet Butterfield.

The silence as these two formidable pieces of paper were fingered, examined and read was broken only by a slight rustling and Mrs Butterfield murmuring, ‘What's all this? 'Oo's this Lady Char?' and a hissing rejoinder from Mrs Harris, ‘Shut up.'

The Colonel was suddenly worried and had calmed down; the documents were undeniably genuine. He said, ‘There must be a mistake. We happen to know about these ladies and besides which, my girl, one does not speak in this fashion to
the KGB if one is in command of one's senses. This matter will have to be further looked into.'

The girl went up in flames again, Russian flames which Ada could not understand but gathered was all on their side. She had stolen a look at the papers and to an old hand as astute as she it was no problem to see if one moved just one word one would get Ada Harris, Lady Char. And in this case the paper indubitably identified her and her picture as a member of the British aristocracy singled out for special treatment.

‘Mistake!' shouted the girl. ‘It is you who have made it. I have no further time to argue. My job is to present these ladies at the reception. If you wish to ignore these documents you will do so at your own risk when the Presidium hears about it,' and then once more in English to Ada and Mrs Butterfield. ‘My car is waiting outside. We will move you and your belongings immediately to the quarters reserved for you at the Hotel Rossia where you will receive the personal apologies of the Assistant Vice-Commissar of the Special Branch for International Culture.' She picked the papers up off the table and with the same gesture got Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield to arise. ‘Come,' she said. ‘We will go.'

The Colonel hesitated and was lost. He represented one of the most powerful agencies of terror and coercion in the world, in a sense an entire administration in itself responsible only to the
Presidium. But he also knew that while the Presidium wielded the KGB as a deadly instrument it also had its pet and that was the Special Branch for International Culture whose purpose was to charm British milords and ladies, Italian dukes, Oriental princes, South American and North American millionaires to the point where they would be flattered into giving Communist Russia the best of everything it needed and wanted. The Colonel knew that, if anything, the Chiefs of State were slightly more inclined to bend towards the cultural organization which was only a cover name to achieve its aim of a
détente
which would not only be to Russia's commercial benefit but would also blind the West to the total conspiracy of destruction being conducted by the KGB. If the girl was right, and certainly the documents looked genuine, he could be in considerable trouble. The young Intourist guide, followed by Mrs Ada Millicent Harris and Mrs Violet Mabel Ernestine Butterfield, marched through the door, out of the front entrance, boarded the Intourist limousine and were off to freedom. The guide said, ‘We will go first to this inferior hotel and move you to your proper quarters.'

Mrs Harris said nothing and Mrs Butterfield, having been told to shut up in no uncertain terms, remained shut. They made the halting rise in the jerky elevator, received a key from Mrs 'Orrible, who quailed under a withering look from the girl,
and entered the quarters that had been occupied by the two travellers.

When the door had been closed Mrs Harris turned quietly to the young girl and said, ‘Hello, Liz.'

When the letter had been read, and apparently Mr Lockwood had not misled Mrs Harris as to its contents, and the crying, the laughing, the jubilation, the hugging and kissing and hysterics were over, Lisabeta Nadeshda Borovaskaya dried her eyes and in deference to concealed microphones, whispered, ‘Oh, Lady Char, you have made me the happiest girl in the world. I have never stopped loving Geoffrey but life has been agony not knowing whether he was alive or dead or in prison or perhaps had stopped loving me and found someone else. Oh, please, milady, may I kiss you again for what you have done for me? I should be grateful to you and the good God for all the rest of my life and never, never doubt or be unhappy again. Oh, I must not even think of it but, perhaps you,
milady, might be able to help me to leave the country and go to Geoffrey.'

The thought that arrowed through the mind of Mrs Ada Harris in view of what they had just been through plus their other experience was
not bloody likely
, but in consideration of the girl's ecstatic happiness at having at last heard from her lover, she could not bear to discourage her and she said, ‘We'll see.' It all wasn't over and somehow she might really yet see. However, there was another imminent danger to occupy her mind and which had to be dealt with. Violet Butterfield was a woman, a large one, who therefore entertained a larger supply of normal female curiosity. She had heard her old friend and co-worker suddenly addressed as Lady Char and milady, rescued from the clutches of the secret police, fawned upon, hugged and kissed while she herself had been commanded to shut up. Also Ada was aware that what must be biting Violet was that in this weird and obviously ridiculously erroneous muddle Mrs Butterfield had been relegated to the position of lady-in-waiting or rather personal servant to Lady Char. She was not going to be able to remain shut for very much longer and Ada knew it. At any moment this peculiar game which had suddenly popped up in the very nick of time might be blown.