The Longest Pleasure (35 page)

‘I
agree, it is not in character. But that is what the British police say that he did. A man on the run is subject to many strange stresses.'

The lift stopped, the doors opened. Tigran Dus took Helena Isbinska by the arm, showed her along a corridor, this one carpeted, with murals on the walls. He opened a door at the end, showed her into a comfortably furnished sitting room. She walked to the window, her boots sinking into the deep-pile carpet, looked down at Moscow, turned, ran her fingers down the piano keyboard, gazed at herself in the full-length mirror on the far wall. Tigran Dus could almost see the nervous apprehension bubbling through her veins; she was preparing herself for the biggest scene of her life. This is very nice, Comrade Colonel,' she said.

'My private quarters,' Tigran Dus explained. *Explore, if you wish. There are two bedrooms, and a bathroom, and a kitchen.'

‘
You, alone, occupy a two-bedroomed apartment?' she asked, and then shrugged. 'But why not? You are a very important man, Colonel Dus. Perhaps I had never realised just how important before.'

Tigran Dus poured vodka, gave her a glass, touched it with his. To Alexander Petrovich.'

'Of course.' She drank, turned as there was a knock on the door.

'Come.' Tigran Dus sat down, crossed his knees, lit a cigarette.

A young woman entered. She wore uniform, saluted Tigran Dus.

This is Helena Isbinska, Ludmilla,' Tigran Dus said. 'She will need clothes.'

Ludmilla nodded, took a tape-measure from her breast pocket 'If you will stand over here, please.'

'I have clothes of my own,' Helena Isbinska said. But she stood in the centre of the room, allowed Ludmilla to remove her jacket.

'At home,' Tigran Dus agreed. 'But you do not want to go there, Helena, right at this moment. Nor do I wish you to go there. It is far better for everyone to suppose that you are still in prison, awaiting trial. That way, if you ever have to go back, no one will be disappointed. Except you, of course.'

Helena Isbinska extended her arms for Ludmilla to measure. 'I no longer understand any of this, Comrade Colonel. I shall not try any more.' .

'It is not difficult to understand,' Tigran Dus explained. 'Alexander Petrovich has not yet fulfilled his duty. Whether he wishes to or not, he owes that duty to the Soviet Union, to the memory of his dead mother, and to you, Helena. And to me, his superior officer. The only possible thing that can have happened is that he is, as you said just now, somewhat more devious, than I had supposed, that he was always working with these fascists, and that he used the American woman only as a means of escaping from Hastings, and then deserted her in
turn, and joined with these Hun
garian friends of his.'

'Alexander hated fascism in every form.' Helena Isbinska allowed her arms to fall to her sides. Ludmilla made notes.

Tigran Dus shrugged. 'I am perfectly willing to give him the benefit of any doubt there is. Perhaps he misunderstood their true purpose. In which case he is far
less
intelligent than I had supposed. In either event, we wish these people badly. I have been assigned to make contact with them, and Alexander is my only link.'

Ludmilla closed her notebook.
‘I
will have the clothes up here tomorrow morning, Comrade Colonel,' she said.

Tigran Dus shook his head. 'This afternoon, Ludmilla. We are leaving tonight'

The girl nodded, saluted. This afternoon, Comrade Colonel.' She closed the door behind her.

Tigran Dus refilled Helena Isbinska's glass. This time she sipped, held the glass in both hands, tucked in to her breast. 'He is certainly intelligent enough not to make any attempt to contact me, Comrade Colonel.'

'Do you think so? I would say that intelligence does not enter into that aspect of the situation, Helena. I know Alexander Petrovich very well Better than you. I studied him throughout the year he trained under me, ostensibly preparing himself for his role as an agent, when, as we know, he had already been encouraged to defect by you.
I
think perhaps he had already made up his mind to do so. But the thought of what would happen to you haunted him. Whether or not your estimation of my feelings for you was correct, the thought of leaving you behind, as my victim, for that is how he thought of the matter, was troubling to him. And I would say it is still troubling him. Perhaps more than ever now.'

Tigran Dus picked up th
e telephone. 'I will have lunch’, Vassi
ly. For two, yes. And I will have champagne.'' He replaced the receiver. 'We must toast your release. But these working clothes do not suit you, Helena.
'There is something for you to wear in the bedroom. Go and put it on.'

Helena Isbinska finished her vodka, placed the glass on the table. 'I refused to help you once before, Comrade Colonel. And that was when I was ignorant of how much you knew about me. You cannot seriously expect me to help you now.'

'I am not prepared to g
ive you any choice now, Helena,’
Tigran Dus said quietly. 'That day we lunched in the hotel, it was an agreeable charade. I merely wanted to confirm your hostility to my plans, your remarkable decision to place yourself in my power. I merely wished my men to identify you. But now it is no longer a joke. You will assist me or little Ewfim and little Alexander will also find themselves in prison. Prison is not a good place for children. They seldom receive the correct diet, and, being children, they are even more wayward than adults, and thus more likely to receive beatings. And then there is Ewfim himself. He will also have to be arrested. But, of course, you do not care what becomes of Ewfim, do you ?'

Helena Isbinska's cheeks flamed. 'I love my husband.'

'I have never doubted that, Helena. But you either love him too much or too little. You have never loved as man and woman; only as husband and wife. You have never broken down the barrier of propriety which lies like a bolster down the centre of your bed. The commandant described you as a proper bourgeois. She is right, you know. It is a state of mind. And Ewfim is content with that. He has a properly bourgeois conception of the place, the desires, the requirements of woman. But you, Helena, you know better. You have learned better, in the loneliness of your mind, the loneliness of your own bedroom, perhaps.'

'It is your pleasure, Comrade Colonel, to destroy your victim's self-respect.'

'Self-respect, Helena, is a luxury only those who are about to die can afford, because in the manner of their acceptance of death they can wash out all the shame of their lives. You are not going to die for a very long time. You say you love your husband? Then you should endeavour to preserve some of his self-respect. Imagine him bending over a trestle, Helena Petrovna.'

There was a knock on the door.

'Come,' Tigran Dus said.

An orderly pushed a trolley into the room, placed it before the settee. He uncorked the bottle of champagne, bowed to Tigran Dus, withdrew, closing the door softly' behind him.

'What will happen to Alexander?' Helena Isbinska asked.

'With you as a lever, he will co-operate with us, I am sure. Once we have made contact with Kirsten Moeller then he is free to do as he pleases. He is a troublesome young man, and not entirely suited for intelligence work. You have my word, Helena.'

Her head tilted backwards, so that the point of her chin was presented to him. 'And what is going to happen to me, Comrade Colonel?'

'You have set your feet upon a certain path, Helena Petrovna. Now you must keep on walking to the end. Go and change your clothing, and then we shall eat lunch.'

Helen Isbinska walked down the corridor. She opened the door, gazed at the neglige lying across the bed. She went to the window, looked down at the courtyard, forty feet below. Instinctively she tested the glass. Each sheet was half an inch thick. She licked her lips, unbuttoned her blouse, turned at the sound of his step.

Tigran Dus carried the champagne bottle and two glasses. He sat in the chair by the door, poured. 'If you do not hurry,' he said, 'our lunch will grow cold.'

‘
What do you look at,' Wendy
asked, ‘W
hen you stare out to sea?' She sat on her knapsack, her knees drawn up, and smoked a cigarette, vigorously and noisily. They were all smoking, except for Galitsin. The truck driver had given them half a packet

'Just the sea.' Galitsin stroked his beard. Unlike Bill and Jerry, his grew very quickly, was already softening, a fair forest, changing his appearance, in a remarkable way making him seem younger. 'The sea is the most fascinating thing I have ever seen.'

'More fascinating than people?' Jerr
y asked. ‘
Man, that don't make sense.' He rested his head on his washboard, had his eyes closed as he gazed up at die surprisingly warm March sun.

‘I
think so,' Galitsin said. 'People are too unpredictable. The sea is so strong, so tumultuous, and yet it is predictable. Especially the tides. I lived in Lyme Regis for a while, earlier this year, and I used to watch the tides for hours, so regular, coming and going.' He threw a stone over the edge of the cliff, crawled forward to kneel at the lip and follow its path downwards to the beach. 'It is fascinating to think that down there will soon be covered, and then a few hours later it will be uncovered again. It is a tremendous thought, that this has been happening for millions of years, will go on happening for as long as there is an earth at all.'

"Don't
do
that,' Janet protested. 'People looking over edges give me the willies.'

'You can't screw a wave.' Bill sat up. 'Come on. Time to get moving. Time for that decision, too. Do we tramp across Dartmoor or do we follow the coast?'

'What is the difference?' Galitsin asked.

'Maybe two days,' Bill said. "But we stand a chance of lifts, by the sea. Dartmoor is pretty empty this time of year.'

'And, man, is it bleak,' Jerry said. 'Talking about tides, standing on Dartmoor and watching the mist come swirling out of them valleys is like being cut off by the tide, and watching the water come gurgling about you. Hey, Bonzo, you ever been cut off by the tide ?'

'I never even saw a tide until this last year,' Galitsin confessed.

'Some people.' Jerry got up, hoisted his kitbag on to his shoulders. 'I vote Dartmoor.'

'Me too.' Janet dusted her jeans, took a last drag on her cigarette.

'Wendy?' Bill asked.

'What do you think, Bonzo?'

'I would like to see Dartmoor,' Galitsin said.

'Then Dartmoor it is. My turn for the bag.'

She insisted on being treated as an equal. Galitsin placed the heavy kitbag between her shoulder blades, adjusted the strap. Bill and Janet were already back on the road, and Jerry was strolling across the field, knuckles strumming his washboard. 'All set?' Wendy asked.

Galitsin gazed at the sea. It was a brilliant morning, and the blue sparkled, farther out, becoming green streaked with white as it moved towards the brown sand. He thought it odd that the sea should be so lacking in the truly dramatic colours, crimson, and deep green, and black, and yet be so dramatic in itself. So monstrous, so threatening. He wondered what it must be like to drown. He thought it might be rather like a truly tremendous orgasm, that, after all, it was possible to screw a wave. And then he wondered again at Alexander Galitsin, soldier, spy, rapist, traitor, thinking thoughts like that. But all life contained a great deal of absurdity.

Wendy kissed his ear. 'That really gets to you, doesn't it? English people see too much of the sea. Everyone goes to the seaside for their holidays. God knows why. It's nearly
always freezing cold and overcro
wded. And as for Jerry, according to him, if you walk from one end of the street to the other in the West Indies you're from one side of the island to the other as well.'

'Perhaps you would be fascinated by our steppes,' Galitsin said.

'I'd love to go to Russia. I'd like to get on that train which goes righ
t across to Vladivostock. Past th
at lake
...
what's it called?'

"Baikal. .It is a very long journey.
^’
Galitsin helped her over the stile.

The longer the better. I wonder if one day it would be possible to do that. When we are no longer enemies.' 'Are we enemies now?' Galitsin asked.

'Of course,' she said seriously. 'That's what makes you and me so interesting, don't you think?'

'I had not thought about it that way.' The road reached the top of a slight rise. He paused, and turned to look at the sea for a last time. In the few minutes they had been walking, more than half of the visible beach had already disappeared.