The Human Factor (36 page)

He left Castle standing in the entry and strode away into the snow and was lost to Castle's eyes for ever.

3

The next night, while Castle was reading
Robinson Crusoe
by the radiator, someone knocked at his door (the bell was out of order). A sense of distrust had grown in him through so many years that he called out automatically before he opened, ‘Who is it?'

‘The name is Bellamy,' a high-pitched voice answered, and Castle unlocked the door. A small grey man in a grey fur coat and a grey astrakhan hat entered with an air of shyness and timidity. He was like a comedian playing a mouse in a pantomime and expecting the applause of little hands. He said, ‘I live so near here, so I thought I'd take up my courage and call.' He looked at the book in Castle's hand. ‘Oh dear, I've interrupted your reading.'

‘Only
Robinson Crusoe
. I've plenty of time for that.'

‘Ah ha, the great Daniel. He was one of us.'

‘One of us?'

‘Well, Defoe perhaps was more an M15 type.' He peeled off grey fur gloves and warmed himself at the radiator and looked around. He said, ‘I can see you're still at the bare stage. We've all passed through it. I never knew where to find things myself till Cruickshank showed me. And then later, well, I showed Bates. You haven't met them yet?'

‘No.'

‘I wonder they haven't called. You've been unwrapped, and I hear you're having a press conference any day now.'

‘How do you know?'

‘From a Russian friend,' Bellamy said with a little nervous giggle. He produced a half bottle of whisky from the depths of his fur coat. ‘A little
cadeau
,' he said, ‘for the new member.'

‘It's very kind of you. Do sit down. The chair is more comfortable than the sofa.'

‘I'll unwrap myself first if I may. Unwrap – it's a good expression.' The unwrapping took some time – there were a lot of buttons. When he was settled in the green wicker chair he giggled again. ‘How is
your
Russian friend?'

‘Not very friendly.'

‘Get rid of him then. Have no nonsense. They
want
us to be happy.'

‘How do I get rid of him?'

‘You just show them that he's not your type. An indiscreet word to be caught by one of those little gadgets we are probably talking into now. Do you know, when I came here first, they entrusted me to – you'll never guess – to a middle-aged lady from the Union of Writers? That was because I had been British Council, I suppose. Well, I soon learned how to deal with
that
situation. Whenever Cruickshank and I were together I used to refer to her scornfully as “my governess” and she didn't last very long. She was gone before Bates arrived and – it's very wrong of me to laugh – Bates married her.'

‘I don't understand how it was – I mean why it was they wanted you here. I was out of England when it all happened. I didn't see the newspaper reports.'

‘My dear, the newspapers – they were quite awful. They
grilled
me. I read them in the Lenin Library afterwards. You would really have thought I was a sort of Mata Hari.'

‘But what value were you to them – in the British Council?'

‘Well, you see I had a German friend and it seems he was running a lot of agents in the East. It never occurred to him that little me was watching him and making my notes – then the silly boy went and got seduced by a quite awful woman. He deserved to be punished. He was safe enough, I would never have done anything to endanger
him
, but his agents . . . of course he guessed who had given him away. Well, I admit I didn't make it difficult for him to guess. But I had to get away very quickly because he went to the Embassy about me. How glad I was when I put Checkpoint Charlie behind me.'

‘And you are happy here?'

‘Yes, I am. Happiness always seems to me a matter of persons not of places, and I have a very nice friend. It's against the law, of course, but they do make exceptions in the service, and he's an officer in the KGB. Of course, poor boy, he has to be unfaithful sometimes in the course of duty, but that's quite different from my German friend – it isn't
love
. We even have a little laugh about it sometimes. If you're lonely, he knows a lot of girls . . .'

‘I'm not lonely. As long as my books last.'

‘I'll show you a little place where you can pick up English language paperbacks under the counter.'

It was midnight before they had finished the half bottle of whisky and then Bellamy took his leave. He spent a long time getting back into his furs, and he chattered all the while. ‘You must meet Cruickshank one day – I'll tell him I've seen you – and Bates too, of course, but that means meeting Mrs Union-of-Writers Bates.' He warmed his hands well before pulling on his gloves. He had an air of being quite at home, although ‘I was a bit unhappy at first,' he admitted. ‘I felt rather lost until I had my friend – like in that chorus of Swinburne's, “the foreign faces, the tongueless vigil and” – how does it go? – “all the pain”. I used to lecture on Swinburne – an underrated poet.' At the door he said, ‘You must come out and see my
dacha
when the spring comes . . .'

4

Castle found that after a few days he even missed Ivan. He missed having someone to dislike – he couldn't in justice dislike Anna who seemed to realize that now he was more alone than ever. She stayed a little longer in the morning and pressed even more Russian names on his attention with her pointing finger. She became even more exigent too over his pronunciation: she began to add verbs to his vocabulary, beginning with the word for ‘run', when she made motions of running, raising her elbows and each knee. She must have been receiving wages from some source for he paid her none; indeed the little store of roubles Ivan had given him on his arrival had been much diminished.

It was a painful part of his isolation that he earned nothing. He began even to long for a desk at which he could sit and study lists of African writers – they might take his mind for a little from what had happened to Sarah. Why hadn't she followed him with Sam? What were they doing to fulfil their promise?

At nine thirty-two one evening he came to the end of Robinson Crusoe's ordeal – in noting the time he was behaving a little like Crusoe. ‘And thus I left the island, the nineteenth of December, and I found by the ship's account, in the year 1686, after I had been upon it eight and twenty years, two months and nineteen days . . .' He went to the window: the snow for the moment was not falling and he could see clearly the red star over the University. Even at that hour women were at work sweeping the snow: from above they looked like enormous turtles. Somebody was ringing at the door – let him, he wouldn't open, it was probably only Bellamy or perhaps someone even more unwelcome, the unknown Cruickshank or the unknown Bates – but surely, he remembered, the bell was out of order. He turned and stared at the telephone with amazement. It was the telephone which was ringing.

He lifted the receiver and a voice spoke to him in Russian. He couldn't understand a word. There was nothing more – only the high-pitched dialling sound – but he kept the receiver to his ear, stupidly waiting. Perhaps the operator had told him to hold on. Or had he told him – ‘Replace the receiver. We will ring you back'? Perhaps a call was coming from England. Unwillingly he put the receiver back and sat on beside the telephone waiting for it to ring again. He had been ‘unwrapped' and now it seemed he had been ‘connected'. He would have been ‘in touch' if only he had been able to learn the right phrases from Anna – he didn't even know how to ring the operator. There was no telephone book in the flat – he had checked that two weeks ago.

But the operator must have been telling him something. At any moment he was sure the telephone would call to him. He fell asleep beside it and dreamt, as he had not dreamt for a dozen years, of his first wife. In his dream they quarrelled as they had never done in life.

Anna found him in the morning asleep in the green wicker chair. When she woke him he said to her, ‘Anna, the telephone's connected,' and because she didn't understand, he waved towards it and said ‘Ting-a-ling-a-ling', and they both laughed with pleasure at the absurdity of such a childish sound in the mouth of an elderly man. He took out the photograph of Sarah and pointed at the telephone and she nodded her head and smiled to encourage him, and he thought, she'll get on with Sarah, she will show her where to shop, she will teach her Russian words, she will like Sam.

5

When later that day the telephone rang he felt certain it would be Sarah – someone in London must have conveyed the number to her, perhaps Boris. His mouth was dry when he answered and he could hardly bring out the words ‘Who is that?'

‘Boris.'

‘Where are you?'

‘Here in Moscow.'

‘Have you seen Sarah?'

‘I have talked to her.'

‘Is she all right?'

‘Yes, yes, she is all right.'

‘And Sam?'

‘He is all right too.'

‘When will they be here?'

‘That is what I want to speak to you about. Stay in, please. Do not go out. I am coming to the apartment now.'

‘But when will I see them?'

‘That is something we have to discuss. There are difficulties.'

‘What difficulties?'

‘Wait till I see you.'

He couldn't stay still: he picked up a book and put it down: he went into the kitchen where Anna was making soup. She said, ‘Ting-a-ling-a-ling', but it wasn't funny any more. He walked back to the window – snow again. When the knock came on the door he felt that hours had passed.

Boris held out a duty free plastic sack. He said, ‘Sarah told me to get you J. & B. One bottle from her and one from Sam.'

Castle said, ‘What are the difficulties?'

‘Give me time to get off my coat.'

‘Did you really see her?'

‘I spoke to her on the telephone. At a call box. She's in the country with your mother.'

‘I know.'

‘I would have looked a little conspicuous visiting her there.'

‘Then how do you know she's well?'

‘She told me so.'

‘Did she sound well?'

‘Yes, yes, Maurice. I am sure . . .'

‘What are the difficulties? You got
me
out.'

‘That was a very simple affair. A false passport, the blind man dodge, and that little trouble we arranged at the immigration while you were led through by the Air France hostess. A man rather like you. Bound for Prague. His passport wasn't quite in order . . .'

‘You haven't told me what difficulties.'

‘We always assumed, when you were safely here, they couldn't stop Sarah joining you.'

‘They can't.'

‘Sam has no passport. You should have put him on his mother's. Apparently it
can
take a lot of time to arrange. And another thing – your people have hinted that if Sarah tries to leave she can be arrested for complicity. She was a friend of Carson, she was your agent in Johannesburg . . . My dear Maurice, things are not simple at all, I'm afraid.'

‘You promised.'

‘I know we promised. In good faith. It might still be possible to smuggle her out if she left the child behind, but she says she won't do that. He's not happy at school. He's not happy with your mother.'

The duty free plastic bag waited on the table. There was always whisky – the medicine against despair. Castle said, ‘Why did you fetch me out? I wasn't in immediate danger. I thought I was, but you must have known . . .'

‘You sent the emergency signal. We answered it.'

Castle tore the plastic, opened the whisky, the label J. & B. hurt him like a sad memory. He poured out two large measures. ‘I have no soda.'

‘Never mind.'

Castle said, ‘Take the chair. The sofa's as hard as a school bench.' He took a drink. Even the flavour of J. & B. hurt him. If only Boris had brought him a different whisky – Haig, White Horse, Vat 69, Grant's – he recited to himself the names of the whiskies which meant nothing to him, to keep his mind blank and his despair at bay until the J. & B. began to work – Johnnie Walker, Queen Anne, Teacher's. Boris misunderstood his silence. He said, ‘You do not have to worry about microphones. Here in Moscow, you might say we are safe at the centre of the cyclone.' He added, ‘It was very important for us to get you out.'

‘Why? Muller's notes were safe with old Halliday.'

‘You have never been given the real picture, have you? Those bits of economic information you sent us had no value in themselves at all.'

‘Then why . . .?'

‘I know I am not very clear. I am not used to whisky. Let me try to explain. Your people imagined they had an agent in place, here in Moscow. But it was we who had planted him on them. What you gave us he passed back to them. Your reports authenticated him in the eyes of your service, they could check them and all the time he was passing them other information which we wanted them to believe. That was the real value of your reports. A nice piece of deception. But then came the Muller affair and Uncle Remus. We decided the best way to counter Uncle Remus was publicity – we couldn't do that and leave you in London. You had to be our source – you brought Muller's notes with you.'

‘They'll know I brought news of the leak too.'

‘Exactly. We couldn't carry on a game like that much longer. Their agent in Moscow will disappear into a great silence. Perhaps in a few months rumours will come to your people of a secret trial. It will make them all the more certain that all the information he gave them was true.'