Secret Kingdom (7 page)

‘You’re my lover,’ she had said to him early in their affair. ‘My one true lover, for whom I was made, mind and body. No other man could do to me what you do. Never forget that, Joe Leman. No other man.’

Whatever else he may have done to her, he had never forgotten that. Not once in all the days they’d been together. She was his, too, he was made for her, only he never dared to tell her so. Surely she knew that? Surely she knew that he loved her?

He hurried on, dreaming of the woman with whom he shared so much of his life. So much, but not yet everything.

He was yards away from the steps that led up to the front door of the apartment building when two men got out of a car parked on the other side of the street. He had his hand on the rail when they caught up with him. One of them held him fast by the arm.

‘Herr Leman?’

‘Yes?’

‘Where were you? Why didn’t you answer the telephone? We’ve been trying to get in touch all day.’

So he was right, but the knowledge gave him no pleasure.

‘I arrived in Vienna a few hours ago.’

‘We were told you’d arrived on Sunday. We were to give you two days to settle.’

‘You were told wrong. Try me in a couple of days.’ He turned to enter the building.

‘We cannot.’ The grip on his arm tightened. ‘We have made arrangements to take you to your destination tonight.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘We have only minutes left. Then the plan is kaput.’

‘Kaput for tonight.’

‘Kaput, Herr Leman. This arrangement cannot be changed. It has been very difficult to make it. Much money has been spent. All is prepared. It is now or it is not at all.’

Oh,
God.

‘I have things in the flat.’

The restraining hand gave him the answer he did not want. ‘We have too short a time left and we have some distance to travel. You come now, this minute.’

They drove fast. Where they were heading he had no idea. What the hell was he to do? He couldn’t remember the telephone number of the apartment, he hadn’t been there long enough. Even if he had the chance, he wouldn’t be able to phone Anna. This was a mess, a real mess. If everything was going as badly wrong as this at the start, what hope was there for the rest of the journey?

That decided him. He would get to wherever they were taking him and then he’d say no, he’d changed his mind, the deal was off. He’d ask to be driven back to the apartment, right now, this minute. If they wanted more money, he’d pay them. He’d get it back off Sykes. It would be small change to him.

In the event, he had no time to think. With all the skill of the hangman organizing the last seconds of the condemned prisoner’s life, they pulled a scarf over his eyes and pushed him out of the car, down a ramp and on to a metal surface before he had time to draw breath. He smelled diesel fuel and something else, the sweet sickly smell of unrefined sugar. This was the Danube, he was on a barge, carrying sugar to where? Budapest? Beyond?

Hands reached up to guide him blindfold down more steps, wooden this time, a gangway, then the scarf was removed from his eyes. Somewhere above him, in the world he had left, he heard the doors of the car shut, the engine roar into life. Then he was aware of
the barge sliding smoothly away from its moorings, a slow, effortless movement sustained by the distant throbbing of the engine. He was guided through the gloom to a cabin.

A voice said: ‘You’ll be safe here. We will wake you in good time. Goodnight, Herr Leman. Get some rest.’

The door was locked behind him. He was in a dimly lit cabin, with a bed and a blanket, nothing else. No pillow, no porthole, nothing. He was shivering, not from cold but from fear. He sat down on the edge of the bunk and put his head in his hands.

The whistle blows.

Forward
to
your
marks.

Curl your toes round the edge of the platform. Balance on the balls of your feet. Push the body weight forward. Head down. Hands outstretched, fingers pointing forward, that’s right, thumbs together. Concentrate.

Are
you
ready?

Crouch low. Focus on the shiny blue surface of the water. That’s your world, where you rule. Hold still.

Go!

Spring up. Hold your body shape. That’s right. Now arch and down. Cut through the water and stay under. Glide with the movement, as far as you can. Now up to the light and break the surface. Don’t use the legs yet. Squeeze more from the dive. That’s right. Go with the legs. Now the arms. Don’t tighten or you’ll lose your stride.

Breathe to the right. Deep as you can. Keep the shape of the arms. Beat with the legs until it hurts. Don’t rush it. Even pace, that’s right.

Ready for the turn. Remember your technique. Bunch yourself into a ball. Turn and kick. Push off the wall. Both legs. That’s right. Glide now, let the movement take you forward. Now the legs. Now the arms. Last twenty metres. Show you rule here, show your power, your strength, your invincibility.

The muscles in your legs are on fire. Your shoulders are burning. With each stroke your arms get heavier. Breathe deeply. Your body is desperate for oxygen. Three strokes and breathe. That’s right. Keep the rhythm.

The pain is all over your body, screaming for you to stop. Your lungs are bursting. You can’t go on. Not another stroke. But you can’t stop, you can’t you can’t not yet you can’t. You’re going to die.

Five more strokes. Three more. Everything is white. You are outside yourself. You hear nothing, feel nothing. The world around you is unreal, you are floating in a misty silence, up towards the light. There he is, above you, the boy of your dreams. His lips are moving, you hear nothing, you know he is shouting your name. He is waiting for you, you reach out to him, you touch him and he’s yours.

There!

It’s over. You hang your arms over the corked lines that separate the swimmers into lanes. You retch with exhaustion, gasping for breath. There are voices around you, you can’t make out the words yet. As your lungs fill once more, the trembling in your legs and your shoulders begins slowly to diminish, your heaving chest to calm.

‘How was my time?’ you manage to gasp.

‘One second under your best,’ someone says. Is it Matyas? You still can’t see properly. Water in your eyes, and sparkling lights when you look up. ‘You did it on the second leg.’

‘Where did I come?’

‘You won. You won.’

You have beaten the great Soviet champion again. Talia Osanova ducks under the lane-marker, she has her arms around your neck, but it’s not a hug, you feel she wants to strangle you. She kisses you on both cheeks. ‘This time,’ she whispers, ‘I let you win. Never again, Magyar bitch. Never again.’

You clamber out of the water, your legs still weak as if they will give way under your weight. Matyas is smiling. He throws a towel around your shoulders and hugs you. You can smell his lavender hair oil through the chlorine.

‘Great second leg,’ he says. ‘Great finish. The turn you can do better. You lost time there.’

He waves his black notebook at her, the record of every length she has ever swum for him, every time she has recorded, the results of every race she has taken part in, every mistake she has made, every race she has won.

You shiver, not with cold, the air in the pool is always hot, but
with exhaustion. Matyas has his arm round your shoulder. ‘Get into something warm,’ he instructs.

Into the changing room. Osanova ignores you but you’re used to that. She hates you because until you arrived in Moscow she was the best there was. Now you have taken her glory and her records. She is not used to coming second. Too bad. She’ll have to get used to losing. You take off your bathing costume and walk into the shower. The Ukrainian girl looks at you again in that funny way. You don’t like her. She is always hanging around you, watching you, saying little. Maybe she was the one who stole your purse last week. She sits on the bench, holding her towel to her face. It wasn’t good for her today. She was sixth in her heat when she was expected to win. Now she won’t make it to the final. She won’t take her eyes off you. Cow. Take no notice. Turn your back. Let her stare at your bum if she wants to. Head up towards the nozzle. Let the water slowly draw away your pain.

You’ve done it. You’ve won again.

*

‘Fastest heat,’ Matyas says. ‘The other girl’s going to find it hard to live with that.’

He never mentions Osanova by name. He refers to her always as ‘the other girl’. It’s as if by not giving her an identity, he reduces the threat she poses.

‘You gained a metre in the last twenty,’ Julia says. ‘The others didn’t have a chance. You kept your form well throughout. You must have heard me screaming at you.’

You never hear anything. You never see anything. You are alone in your own world of agony, fighting the limits of your strength.

‘The start?’ You want to know about the start.

‘Pretty even, I’d say. Not much in it. Maybe a moment longer before breaking into your rhythm. Nothing we can’t put right.’ He has his arm round her again. ‘Squeeze another metre out of the start and you’ll better the time. Maybe as much as a second. Make it harder still for the others.’

Other coaches walk by and congratulate him, nodding or touching his shoulder. It is an acknowledgement only. There is no warmth in their greeting. Matyas smiles back at them, unaffected by their coldness.

‘They don’t like being beaten by a Hungarian.’ He makes no attempt to keep his voice down. ‘They’ll have to get used to it, won’t they?’

‘Drink this,’ Julia says. ‘You need it.’ She has filled a metal cup with water.

‘Look over there.’ Matyas points as the results board is raised. Her name is first. Her time. The distance. There is clapping around her, led by Matyas. She is attracted by clapping above her and some cheers. She looks up. On the balcony a group of young men in uniform are looking down at her and applauding.

‘Who are they?’ she asks.

‘Officer cadets,’ Matyas says. ‘They’ve been here all afternoon. Looking out for girls. Take no notice.’

She can’t help noticing one. He stands by himself, apart from the group. He is shorter than the others, more compact in build, with bushy black hair and a pale solemn face. He looks down at her and smiles briefly. There is something in his expression that attracts her, though she can’t say what it is. She smiles and waves. He waves back. She notices he is wearing a gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand.

Not all Russians hate me, she says to herself.

On a bright June morning, Martineau walked up the steps of the School of Economics, past the fluttering flags of the satellite states of the Soviet empire, past the unsmiling security men, into the great entrance hall on which the bronze busts of the School’s earlier professors looked down with frowns of puzzlement and despair at the rejection of theories they’d taught their pupils. Then up more stairs, under hanging banners with slogans that proclaimed the thought-denying truths of Marxist economic doctrine (MARCHING TOGETHER TO A GLORIOUS FUTURE, A LAND OF IRON AND STEEL, TOWARDS THE PERFECT SOCIETY) and into an airless lecture theatre, already stiff with cigarette smoke.

As the first speaker, a Romanian professor of economics, was ushered on to the platform amid applause orchestrated by a group of apparatchiks seated at the front of the hall, Martineau sat back, determined to do his best to stay awake while listening to the details of yet another five-year reconstruction plan, wishing like mad he was anywhere else.

Then, into his headphones, as if she was speaking only to him, came the sweetest voice he had ever heard. Hardly accented, faultless grammatical English, bestowing the doctrinal banalities of the speaker with undeserved meaning. He sat up, clasping his headphones to him in case the voice might escape and be lost for ever. He turned to see if the faces of the interpreters were visible in their cubicle, but he was too far down the auditorium to be able to catch a glimpse of more than the tops of their heads. He listened intently. It was a voice like no other, low, slightly husky, as if the speaker was recovering from a recent cold, sometimes breathless when she
hesitated briefly over the correct translation of a particular phrase. He was intoxicated.

To his relief, there was a break after the third speech. He leaped to his feet. When he reached the interpreters’ cubicle at the back of the hall, he found papers spread all over the work table, headphones and microphones with their curling leads, emptied cups of tea, full ashtrays, an opened packet of cigarettes, vacant chairs but no interpreters. The cubicle was deserted.

‘Damn. Damn.’

He looked round in desperation. The lecture theatre was emptying as the audience drifted out into the entrance hall.

‘Can I help you?’

It was the same voice, the very same voice he’d been entranced by, but now attached to a beautiful body, one whose shapes and surfaces he was beginning to know so well. She was smiling at him, a cigarette in her hand.

‘Brilliant translation,’ he said, nervously. ‘Brilliant.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I wanted to tell you so myself.’

‘That is kind of you.’

He’d only got a few moments with her. Better make it quick.

‘I missed one or two points. I have some questions.’ He pulled out of his pocket a crumpled piece of paper – a laundry receipt – to confirm the pretence that he had made a list.

‘A summary is being prepared. If you wish I can arrange for you to have a copy when the conference is over. Please leave your name at the desk at the end of this afternoon’s session.’

He considered the offer for a moment. ‘I’m not sure I can wait that long.’

‘By when do you need your answers?’

‘This evening.’

‘If you submit your questions in writing, I will see what can be done. But I cannot guarantee an answer by tonight.’

She looked nervously about her. She was still smiling but he saw an anxiety in her eyes. He knew that look. Was it safe to be seen talking to him? He hadn’t spotted the AVH goons yet but you couldn’t have an event like this without their presence. If someone was watching them, why the hell didn’t they bugger off? Surely there were bigger fish to fry?

‘Please,’ he said, the desperate plea in his voice now undisguised. ‘Forget the questions. Can we meet? When this is over? Ten minutes. A quarter of an hour. I have to speak to you.’

She laughed, misunderstanding his urgency, and his heart turned. ‘Do you wish me to bring my copy of the speech, so we may go through my translation line by line?’

‘By the main door,’ he said, hoping his message was getting through. ‘This afternoon. When the conference finishes. Wait for me there.’

‘My shift ends at lunchtime.’

He looked at his watch, a gesture of anxiety.

‘All right then. Lunchtime. By the main entrance. I’ll be there. Please.’

‘I must go. The conference begins again soon.’ She smiled out of courtesy, not assent, and he wondered if he would ever see her again.

The morning session was endless. How on earth could anyone believe that if you followed precepts that were clearly bonkers, in five years the economy would be transformed from a mire to a paradise? Were these people too stupid to spot the flaws in the system, or too stunned by the constant directives of Marxist-Leninism to question any of the unbreakable rules of ideological economics? His only consolation for the absurdity of what he was being told was the sound of the interpreter’s voice in his ears. When, finally, the lunch break came, Martineau raced to his position at the top of the steps by the main entrance, his heart pounding. To his relief he did not have to wait long.

‘I have the papers with me,’ she said. ‘Where shall we go?’

‘Anywhere,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter. Make it look as if we’re on business. You may be off duty but I’m playing truant. Let’s go and get something to eat.’

She was unwilling to have lunch with him at first, but he took her arm and explained with what he hoped was a convincing lie: ‘If an Englishman meets a woman at lunchtime, he has to offer to take her to lunch.’

‘If she refuses?’

Martineau feigned astonishment. ‘That would be very bad form.’

‘So I must behave like an Englishwoman, even though I am Hungarian.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ he said, grinning. ‘Otherwise there might be a diplomatic incident.’

He was disappointed she ate so little and drank nothing but mineral water. But he was pleased when she said: ‘I know your face for some reason. Why is that? We have not met before.’

‘In the Gellert,’ he said. ‘Two days ago. In the swimming pool.’

‘You handed me my bathing cap. I remember.’ She laughed, and his heart turned over again.

‘I’ve not seen you there before,’ he said foolishly.

‘I only go there when I am in a hurry,’ she said. ‘To swim seriously I use the Olympic pool.’

‘I thought that was reserved for the State Swimming Academy,’ he said, wondering how on earth he could follow her there.

‘You want to know how I earned the privilege?’ She smiled. ‘I used to swim for my country. I came to London for the Olympic Games in 1948. The Empire Pool, Wembley. That’s where we were.’ She laughs at the memory. ‘And you. What do you do?’

It was the first question she had asked him. ‘Me? I’m a diplomat for my sins. I work at the British embassy. I write reports, that sort of thing. My speciality is economics.’ How easy it was to lie. ‘That’s why I was at the conference this morning.’

She looked at her watch. ‘It has started again. Should you not be back in your seat?’

‘I’ve got a young colleague covering for me.’ More lies. Was this how it was going to be? ‘I’m fine for the time being. How about you?’

‘My work is over for the day.’

He could hardly believe it. ‘Why don’t we go swimming? Then we can have a drink. Then maybe dinner. Who knows?’

She looked at him, her face going serious for the first time. ‘It is not the economics you are interested in, is it?’ she said. ‘It is me.’

‘Yes,’ he said helplessly. This time it was impossible to lie. ‘It’s you I am interested in.’

‘What you said in the lecture hall was invention? An excuse to speak to me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe you aren’t what you say you are?’

‘Here’s my card,’ he said. ‘Ring the embassy.’

She reached over and touched his hand, ‘I am old enough to believe what I want.’

‘What do you believe?’ he asked.

‘That would be telling,’ she said, ‘I am ready to swim. I think the Gellert and not the Academy, don’t you?’

Martineau remembered nothing of that afternoon except the sense of intoxication that flooded him. If there were other people in the world, he did not notice them. His universe contracted to himself and his beautiful companion with whom he had fallen totally in love. They swam at the Gellert, sat out in the sun, talked, had a drink, talked more, arranged to go out for dinner. For some reason she would not let him accompany her back to her flat.

‘In England, that would be considered very ungallant,’ he argued, dreading the moment when she would leave him.

‘In the communist system, women are encouraged to be independent. I will meet you at the restaurant.’

‘Promise?’

‘I have said I will come. Why should I change my mind?’

Would she come? She might. She might not. He knew her name, Eva Balassi, but not where she lived. If she didn’t come, how would he get in touch with her again? If she didn’t come, should he get in touch with her again? In this awful country, she might be frightened of having dinner with him because of what she assumed he was: an Englishman infected with all the contagious bourgeois ailments of the West. He spent a tortured hour working out strategies to track her down if she failed to turn up at the restaurant.

She was already seated at their table when he arrived. ‘I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,’ he said. She had not worn make-up at the conference and she had been dressed in a plain white shirt and black skirt. Now she had done her face, washed her hair and had chosen a blue-patterned sleeveless dress that brought out the darker tones of her skin.

‘You look wonderful,’ he said, wanting desperately to touch her. ‘Quite marvellous.’

‘This morning I was in uniform, now I am in my own clothes. That is the difference. Now,’ she said, leaning forward and looking solemn, ‘I insist that we go Dutch tonight.’

‘Go Dutch?’ he laughed. ‘Where did you learn that?’

‘Is the expression wrong?’

‘No, not the expression, the thought,’ he said. ‘Impossible. An Englishman simply can’t allow it. Anyway,’ he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘the English taxpayer can foot the bill. I shall put you down to expenses.’

‘How will you justify that without lying?’

‘If we talk business,’ he said, hastily changing his position, ‘that is the justification. If we don’t, then of course, to charge you to expenses would be completely wrong.’

‘I think so,’ she agreed.

Did Martineau sleep with her that night? He wanted to all right. She let him walk back with her; at one point she even took his arm and his hopes rose. He pressed her hand with his. But at the entrance to Vaci Street, she stopped, turned towards him, kissed him lightly on the mouth and said: ‘No further tonight. This is where I leave you.’

He was about to argue but she put her hand gently on his lips. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I thank you for a wonderful day. I will go home now and dream about this unexpected pleasure.’

‘Can we repeat it?’ He hoped she wouldn’t detect the desperation in his voice.

‘I think that might be difficult,’ she said.

‘You mean, it ends here, on a street corner, before it’s begun?’

‘Oh, no,’ she laughed. ‘I mean days like today do not happen twice, unless you are very lucky.’

‘Will I see you again?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘When?’

‘If you will come to my flat tomorrow night, I will return your kindness and you can meet my daughter, Dora.’

‘Tomorrow night,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek. Was it his imagination or did he feel her pressing her body against his for a brief moment?

*

She sits alone on her balcony in the sunlight. The Englishman invades her consciousness now just as he ruled her dreams during the night. Can it be true that she has known him for less than one day? In the few hours since he came into her life, he has transformed it. For the first time in over a year the trials of her past are briefly obliterated.
For a moment or two she is liberated from the guilt, shame, fears and obligations that have controlled her life for as long as she can remember. Losing herself willingly in the unexpected intensity of her few hours with Martineau has allowed her to escape into a present of her own making. She feels as if two separate images of herself have been reconciled into one. Yesterday her happiness absorbed her pain, and she was free, an experience she had thought she would never have again.

There is danger in this relationship, she recognizes that. Is he more than he says when he tells her he works at the British embassy as an economics specialist? Would he lie to her? A voice inside her says yes, all men have lied to you throughout your life. Why should this one be any different? She denies her own instincts. She accepts he is telling the truth about himself. To ensure that she is not proved wrong, she will never again ask him anything about what he does. If there is a deeper truth to be denied, let it be denied for as long as possible. Nothing must spoil her happiness, even if the feeling lasts only a day or two. It is self-deception, she knows, which she justifies by telling herself she has earned a little respite from the harsh realities of her life.

What did happen yesterday? She smiled at him, laughed at his jokes (he certainly made her laugh), she touched his arm, she leaned against him once or twice – can he have noticed? She doesn’t think so. She put her arm through his. All right, she flirted with him at dinner. But he didn’t hold her in his arms. She didn’t kiss him. She didn’t sleep with him. Why does she feel so excited and so guilty? She has spent a few hours of her life with an Englishman and done less with him than she did with boys when she was fifteen. What can be wrong with that? But the rational processes of her mind disintegrate before the power of her emotions. Something did happen yesterday and she knows it. Dare she admit it to herself? No, she is afraid to utter the words. She refuses to acknowledge the truth of what she feels. It is too exhilarating. She smiles with pleasure.

*

Next day Martineau behaves like a schoolboy in love, excitable, volatile, voluble.