Red Joan (38 page)

She marvels at her own capacity for contradiction. (She will not call it deception. That is too personal.) Is it normal, she wonders, to feel the way she does for Max, to love him and cook for him and peel oranges for him at dinnertime so that he does not get his fingers messy, handing him the segments on a plate with a napkin, while also knowing exactly how much information about his secret project she has already given away?

But then there is the question of his wife. His wife will not let him divorce her, nor will she agree to divorce him. He has offered her everything: the house, money he does not have, any lies she wants to tell, but she will not agree to any of it. It is bad for her reputation, apparently, to either petition him for a divorce on the grounds of his unfaithfulness to her—‘people will think I'm unsatisfactory'—or—‘good grief'—on the grounds of her unfaithfulness to him.

Ah, Joan thinks, now there's the crux. If this is something he can live with, then surely she is entitled to her own contradiction. Perhaps, when they are lying together in bed and he is telling her he loves her as he winds his fingers through her hair and she is gazing back at those pure sea-blue eyes, perhaps his deception is the worse of the two. Hers is not personal, after all. It is political.

And this is how things seem set to continue. It is a happy, sunlit span of time. Later, Joan will look back at these months and wonder at her own naivety, because she should have known that this sort of thing cannot go on indefinitely.

A
nd then it all seems to happen at once.

First of all, Lally announces that she is getting married the week before Christmas. She has a ring and a dress and a suitor called Jack.

The second thing happens much further away. On the dry grasslands of the Kazakh steppe, a bomb explodes above a village. The houses in the village have been hastily constructed from wood and bricks, and there is something ghostly about the vastness of the place. There is a huge bridge thrown down across the Irtysh River. No roads lead onto or away from the bridge as it is not expected to last. Nobody lives here except animals: sheep and chickens and goats, more than a thousand of them brought to the steppe in petrol-guzzling trucks as part of Stalin and Beria's grand experiment. They scuff about in groups now, pinched-looking and tired and resigned to their fate. The labourers have left so there is no one to feed them. The construction projects are complete, and the men who made them are now rattling back across the steppe towards Siberia, watching the land change from dust to forest.

The hot Kazakh sun will not come up today, or at least, it will come up, but it will not be seen. There is nobody here to see it. Yes, there are people living here and this is known to the research centre, but the inhabitants of these remote villages are not recorded on any official census. No evacuation orders are sent down from the Kremlin, because if they are not official then they do not count. The fallout is uncertain, in any case. Why go to extremes to protect people who may not need protection? Details, details, as Beria might say.

But of this bomb, not a single detail has been neglected. Each of the detonator capsules, the component which guarantees simultaneous explosion of the neutron fuse, explode within 0.2 microseconds of each other. This is as it should be. It guarantees an explosion big enough to rival the Little Boy Hiroshima bomb. The blaze and the roar of the bomb are registered fifty miles away from the test ground. In the report sent back to Moscow, it is concluded that the test has been an enormous success; fifty per cent more effective than anticipated in theoretical trials. It is a bomb to make Stalin proud. It is a bomb to hold up to the West, to say, ah-ha yes, we've got you now. It is a bomb to make everyone stop, hold their breath, keep a finger hovering on the trigger, aiming but not firing, waiting to see who's going to blink first.

 

These two events, while differing in magnitude, are both announced in the same issue of
The Times
. On the one hand, the delay is caused by the need for a date to be set for Lally and Jack's wedding, and on the other, the delay is more a symptom of disbelief than anything else. Conservative estimates had put the Soviet bomb project as at least four years behind Britain but now there is incontrovertible evidence that this is not the case. How could they have succeeded so quickly, so suddenly?

Eventually a statement is issued by 10 Downing Street declaring that His Majesty's Government have evidence that in recent weeks an atomic explosion has taken place in the USSR. The left-wing press are mutedly jubilant, claiming that the West can no longer arrogantly continue their programme without finalising some international system of control. This will force their hand. Russia's new power will have to be recognised. Concessions will have to be made.

Joan goes into the small kitchen and locks the door behind her. She leans against the wall, shaking her head slowly, incredulously. Was this because of me? she wonders. Did I do this? She feels a pinch of fear at the enormity of what she has done. It swirls inside her, a terrible giddiness that forces her to steady herself against the tiled wall. She thinks of Hiroshima, of the heat, the bodies, the terrible mushroom cloud of ash above the city, of Leo's words back at the beginning of it all: there are no sides any longer, not once this thing exists.

But she has seen the strength of it. Can Stalin really be trusted with such a weapon? Would he really keep such a powerful thing in reserve and never use it? She is suddenly unsure, and a hot sweat breaks out across her back, a creep of fear at the thought of what an explosion of that magnitude might do in Britain.

How she wishes Leo were here now. She thought that being with Max had cured her, that she had done all her crying for him long ago, but now here she is, standing in the kitchen, squeezing a handkerchief and biting her knuckle to stifle her tears.

Karen knocks on the door. ‘Joan? Is that you?'

Joan turns on the tap. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. She hears Karen's feet shuffle on the tiles outside.

‘Are you all right?'

Joan presses cold water into the corners of her eyes. She can't go out like this. ‘I'll be fine in a minute,' she says.

Karen pauses. Joan imagines she can hear her face break into a sympathetic smile. ‘Take your time. I'll cover for you if anyone comes looking for you. It's a shock for all of us.'

Her kindness makes Joan's heart heavy. If she only knew, Joan thinks. If any of them knew. What would they think of her? Would any of them understand? And Max . . . Oh, she cannot bear to think of it.

‘Thank you,' Joan whispers.

She hears Karen's footsteps fading along the corridor. She closes her eyes and clasps her hands together as if in prayer, an involuntary, calming movement. She remembers the despair on her father's face as he lay in bed, his hand limp in her own, and the thought of him makes her strong. It's done, she thinks. We've done it.

And then she thinks: I can stop now.

Later, as more information comes out, the British will say that it was based on the American design. It was not a Soviet design, but a Manhattan Project design. But this is not quite true. The American design has a horizontal reactor running through the middle. The Soviet design does not. And the British design does not. This is not conclusive—in some ways it sounds like simply being one of two obvious options—but there are documents in the archive that suggest the USSR project was heavily influenced by the British design. Impossible, Britain will declare in talks with America, we're tight. But neither of them will believe it. They know there is a leak. And they have to find it.

 

Max is sitting at the desk with his head in his hands. He has been sitting in this position ever since the announcement was made. Occasionally he will stand up, walk to the window and thud his forehead against it, leaving it there until the glass frosts and clouds under his breath, and then he will sit down again, tap his pen, shuffle his papers, put his head back in his hands. He has not attempted to gather everyone together as he did on the day of Kierl's arrest. He does not seem to have the heart for it this time. He cannot take it in, that his project has been trumped like this.

Even when Joan appears at the door, slipping around it and pushing it shut behind her, Max does not move. She leans against the door to keep it closed. ‘They're here.'

He gazes up at her, momentarily mute. There is a long silence. ‘Who?'

‘The police.'

His head drops to rest on his arms, so that his voice is muffled when he speaks. ‘I still can't believe it.'

‘They're not in uniform but they're the same ones as before.'

‘I didn't mean them.' He sighs, and stands up abruptly, pushing his chair back from his desk. ‘I wanted us to succeed. I wanted us to do it first.' He looks at her and then looks away again, almost shy. ‘Childish, isn't it?'

‘Max, I don't think you understand. The police are here. They want to see you. They have a warrant for your arrest.' She hesitates. ‘I told them I thought you were on a telephone call so you've got a minute or two.'

‘For God's sake,' he says. ‘What do they want from me? Got to keep the bloody Yanks happy, I suppose.'

Joan feels a heart-thud of fear. He doesn't understand, she thinks. He has no idea what's happening to him. She finds herself suddenly caught up in a strange, giddy panic: a combination of anticipation and fear, a swelling across her throat and chest. ‘Oh Max,' she whispers. ‘I'm sure it'll be fine.'

He looks at her, puzzled. ‘What are you talking about? I haven't done anything wrong. We lost the race, that's all.'

Joan nods. ‘I know you haven't.' She holds out her hands to him and he takes them in his, pressing them in a manner which seems to be intended to reassure her. He is not taking her seriously. She pulls him towards her. ‘But they think you have. They think there's a leak at the top.'

‘That's ridiculous. Surely they need some evidence to make that kind of assertion.'

Yes, she thinks. They do. And perhaps they have. But at the same time, she has to hold on to the possibility that there cannot be any real evidence, not yet, as if there was, surely it would be her they would want, not Max? And Sonya would have warned her, wouldn't she? Or William? Didn't William say he would? She can hear footsteps approaching along the corridor and she has to suppress a sudden urge to sweep the door open and hold out her arms in a Messianic surrender—I am finished!—but it is a fleeting thought. She knows she will not, cannot, do it. Not now. Not now that she's got away with it for this long and it is so nearly over. If they take Max for questioning, it will only be temporary. She just needs to trust that they can get through this now, her and Max, and then that'll be it for ever; over.

Max takes a step towards her. They look at each other, enclosed in this moment of time that seems to float and lengthen and Joan feels her lower lip begin to quiver. ‘Don't cry,' he whispers. ‘It's just routine.'

Joan gulps. Her heart shudders in her chest. The sky outside is scudded with clouds. Max's hands are pushing down into his pockets, his shoulders rounded and hunched. His eyes are closed. There is a sort of resigned weariness about him, as if he knows that he must be stronger than he feels. He glances up, his eyes searching to meet Joan's gaze, and then he leans forward and kisses her softly, gently, on the lips.

‘Ready now,' he whispers.

‘Are you sure?'

He squints at her, rubs his hand gently over his chin, and nods slowly, decidedly. ‘I might as well get it over with. I've never been the running type.'

 

Interrogation of Max DAVIS by Det. Supt. Minchley

 

Cambridge Police Station, 24 September 1949

 

Having reached this stage of the interrogation, I alleged to Max DAVIS that he had been in touch with a Soviet official or a Soviet representative and had passed to that person information bearing upon his work. DAVIS's first response was to open his mouth as though surprised, and then to shake his head quite vigorously and say, ‘I don't think so.' I then said to him, ‘I am in possession of information which shows that you have been guilty of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.' DAVIS again replied, ‘I don't think so.' I told him this was an ambiguous reply, and he said, ‘I don't understand. Perhaps you will tell me what the evidence is. I have not done any such thing.'

I then told DAVIS that I was not really questioning him about this matter but that I was stating a fact. I should however want to question him about the manner in which he gave the information, how he made the contact and the full extent of his guilt. He repeated that he was quite unable to assist me, and strongly denied that he had ever been responsible for such a leakage. He said that it did not make sense, since he had done all that he could to help win the war. He was perfectly satisfied to be in the vanguard of progress of this new scientific development, and could not think it at all likely that he would have any reason for passing the information. He knew quite well that a decision had been taken to exclude Russia from sharing the information. He thought this was a ‘jolly good idea' from a scientific point of view, since the British were well equipped to make all the necessary experiments, and he was not concerned with the political motives underlying this decision.

The interrogation was broken from about 1.30 p.m. until just after 2 p.m., while we had lunch, and I deemed it prudent to allow DAVIS to lunch alone and think about what had been said. Upon his return he had nothing fresh to tell me, and this remained his attitude in spite of the many opportunities I gave him to confess. In addition, I sought to make it quite clear to DAVIS that the decision as to whether he would remain at the laboratory, having regard to the delicate relationship to be maintained with the Americans, was one that the Ministry of Supply was actively considering. I felt quite sure that whatever the Ministry decided, we should advise that a big risk would be taken by the continued employment of DAVIS on this top-secret work under such conditions. Whether the Ministry would take our advice or not would be a matter for them.