The Russia House (30 page)

He’s funked it, thought Barley in relief as he entered the park. The sun broke clear of the clouds. He’s chickened and who can blame him?

But by then he had spotted him. Goethe, precisely as advertised. Goethe, the great lover and thinker, seated on the third bench to your left as you enter the gravel path, a nihilist who takes no principle for granted.

Goethe. Reading his newspaper. Sober and half his original size, dressed in a black suit certainly, but looking like his smaller, older brother. Barley’s heart sank, then leapt, at the sight of such sheer ordinariness. The shadow of the great poet was extinct. Lines of age marked the once-smooth face. The mercurial had no place in this clerkish, bearded Russian taking his midday air on a park bench.

But Goethe nonetheless, and seated amid a cluster of warring Russian shrines: not a pistol shot from the fiery statues of Marx, Engels and Lenin, who forced their bronze scowls on him from strangely separated plinths; not a musket shot from the sacred Room Sixty-Seven, where Lenin had set up his revolutionary headquarters in a boarding school for the better class of Petersburg girl; not a funeral march from Rastrelli’s blue baroque cathedral built to ease the declining years of an empress; not a blindfold walk from the Leningrad Party Headquarters with its oversize policemen glowering at the liberated masses.

Smola
means tar, Barley recalled stupidly in this continuing moment of monstrous normality. In Smolny, Peter the Great stored his tar for the first Russian Navy.

Those nearest to Goethe were as normal as the man himself. The day might have started dull but the new sunlight had worked miracles and the good citizens were stripping off as if a common urge had seized them. Boys bare to the waist, girls like thrownaway flowers, hulking women in satin brassieres lay sprawled at Goethe’s feet, playing radios, munching sandwiches and discussing whatever it was that made them grimace, ponder and laugh in swift succession.

A chip path ran close to the bench. Barley launched himself upon it studying the
Informationen
at the back of the folded map. In the field, Ned had said, in a session devoted to the macabre etiquette of tradecraft, the source is the star and the star decides whether to make the meeting or abort.

Fifty yards separated Barley from his star but the path joined them like a ruled line. Was he walking too fast or too slowly? One moment he was pressing up against the couple in front of him, the next he was being shoved aside from behind. If he ignores you, wait five minutes then try a second pass, Paddy had said. Squinting over his map, Barley saw Goethe’s face lift as if he had scented his approach. He saw the whiteness of his cheeks and the unlit hollows of his eyes; then the whiteness of the newspaper as he folded it together like a camper’s blanket. He saw that there was something angular and not quite reconciled about his movements, so that he resembled in Barley’s racing mind a figure of over-orderly clockwork in a Swiss town: now I will lift my white face, now I strike twelve with my white flag, now I stand up and march away. The newspaper folded, Goethe put it in his pocket and gave a pedagogic glance at his wristwatch. Then with the same mechanical air of being someone else’s invention, he took his place in the army of pedestrians and loped among them towards the river.

Now Barley’s pace was set, for it was Goethe’s. His quarry was following the path towards a row of parked cars. Eyes and brain clear, Barley walked after him and, reaching the cars, saw him standing against the fast-flowing Neva, his jacket puffed out by the river breeze. A pleasure steamer passed but the passengers gave no sign of pleasure. A coaling boat hobbled by, dappled in red lead, and the filthy smoke from its funnel was beautiful in the dancing river light. Goethe leaned over the balustrade and peered down at the current as if calculating its speed. Barley headed towards him, slurring his feet while he orientated himself from his map with increasing diligence. Even when he heard himself addressed, in the immaculate English that had woken him on the verandah in Peredelkino, he did not immediately respond.

‘Sir? Excuse me, sir. I think we are acquainted.’

But Barley at first refused to hear. The voice was too nervous, too tentative. He went on frowning at his
Informationen
. Must be another tout, he was saying to himself. Another of those drug-pedlars or pimps.

‘Sir?’ Goethe repeated, as if he himself were now unsure.

Only now, won over by the stranger’s insistence, did Barley reluctantly raise his head.

‘I think you are Mr. Scott Blair, sir, the distinguished publisher from England.’

At which Barley finally persuaded himself to recognise the man addressing him, first with doubt then unfeigned but muted pleasure as he thrust out his hand.

‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said quietly. ‘Good God. The great Goethe, as I live and breathe. We met at that disgraceful literary party. We were the only two people sober. How are you?’

‘Oh, I am
very
well,’ Goethe said as his strained voice gathered courage. But his hand when Barley shook it was slippery with sweat. ‘I do not know how I could be better at this moment. Welcome to Leningrad, Mr. Barley. What a pity I have an appointment this afternoon. You can walk a little? We can exchange ideas?’ His voice barely fell. ‘It is safest to keep moving,’ he explained.

He had grasped Barley’s arm and was propelling him swiftly along the embankment. His urgency had driven every tactical thought from Barley’s mind. Barley glanced at the bobbing figure beside him, at the pallor of his racked cheeks, the tracks of pain or fear or worry that ran down them. He saw the hunted eyes flicking nervously at every passing face. And his only instinct was to protect him: for Goethe’s own sake and for Katya’s.

‘If we could walk for half an hour, we would see the battleship
Aurora
, which fired the blank shot to launch the Revolution. But the next revolution shall begin with a few gentle phrases of Bach. It is time. Do you agree?’

‘And no conductor,’ said Barley, with a grin.

‘Or maybe some of that jazz you play so beautifully. Yes, yes! I have it! You shall announce our revolution by playing Lester Young on the saxophone. You have read the new Rybakov novel? Twenty years suppressed and therefore a great Russian masterpiece? It is a rape of time, I think.’

‘It hasn’t appeared in English yet.’

‘You have read mine?’ The thin hand had tightened on his arm. The pressed-in voice had fallen to a murmur.

‘What I could understand of it, yes.’

‘What do you think?’

‘It’s brave.’

‘No more than that?’

‘It’s sensational. What I could understand of it. Great.’

‘We recognised each other that night. It was magic. You know our Russian saying “One fisherman always sees another from afar”? We are fishermen. We shall feed the thousands with our truth.’

‘Maybe we will at that,’ said Barley doubtfully, and felt the gaunt head swing round to him. ‘I have to discuss it with you a bit, Goethe. We’ve got one or two problems.’

‘That’s why you have come. I too. Thank you for coming to Leningrad. When will you publish? It must be soon. The writers here, they wait three, five years for publication even if they are not Rybakov. I can’t do that. Russia has no time. Neither have I.’

A line of tugs drew by, a two-man scull flicked cheekily in their wake. Two lovers were embracing at the parapet. And in the shadow of the cathedral a young woman stood rocking a pram while she read from the book she was holding in her spare hand.

‘When I didn’t show up at the Moscow audio fair, Katya gave your manuscript to a colleague of mine,’ Barley said cautiously.

‘I know. She had to take a chance.’

‘What you don’t know is that the colleague couldn’t find me when he got back to England. So he gave it to the authorities. People of discretion. Experts.’

Goethe turned sharply to Barley in alarm and the shadow of dismay spread swiftly over his fraught features. ‘I do not
like
experts,’ he said. ‘They are our gaolers. I despise experts more than anyone on earth.’

‘You’re one yourself, aren’t you?’

‘Therefore I know! Experts are addicts. They solve nothing! They are servants of whatever system hires them. They perpetuate it. When we are tortured, we shall be tortured by experts. When we are hanged, experts will hang us. Did you not read what I wrote? When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats. You have betrayed me.’

‘Nobody’s betrayed you,’ Barley said angrily. ‘The manuscript went astray, that’s all. Our bureaucrats are not your bureaucrats. They’ve read it, they admire it, but they need to know more about you. They can’t believe the message unless they can believe the source.’

‘But do they want to publish it?’

‘First of all they need to reassure themselves you’re not a trick, and their best way to do that is to talk to you.’

Goethe was striding too fast, taking Barley with him. He was staring out ahead of him. Sweat was running down his temples.

‘I’m an arts man, Goethe,’ Barley said breathlessly to his averted face. ‘All I know about physics is
Beowulf
, girls and warm beer. I’m out of my depth. So’s Katya. If you want to go this road, go it with the experts and leave us out. That’s what I came to tell you.’

They crossed a path and struck out across another segment of lawn. A group of schoolchildren broke ranks to let them through.

‘You came to tell me that you refuse to publish me?’

‘How
can
I publish you?’ Barley retorted, in turn fired by Goethe’s desperation. ‘Even if we could knock the material into shape, what about Katya? She’s your courier, remember? She’s passed Soviet defence secrets to a foreign power. That’s not exactly a laugh a minute over here. If they ever find out about the two of you, she’ll be dead the day the first copy hits the stands. What sort of part is that for a publisher to play? Do you think I’m going to sit in London and press the button on the two of you here?’

Goethe was panting, but his eyes had ceased to scan the crowds and were turned to Barley.

‘Listen to me,’ Barley pleaded. ‘Just hold on a minute. I understand. I really think I understand. You had a talent and it was put to unfair uses. You know all the ways the system stinks and you want to wash your soul. But you’re not Christ and you’re not Pecherin. You’re out of court. If you want to kill yourself, that’s your business. But you’ll kill her too. And if you don’t care who you kill, why should you care who you save?’

They were heading for a picnic place with chairs and tables cut from logs. They sat side by side and Barley spread his map. They bent over it, pretending to examine it together. Goethe was still measuring Barley’s words, matching them against his purposes.

‘There is only
now
,’ he explained finally, his voice not above a murmur. ‘There is no other dimension but
now
. In the past we have done everything badly for the sake of the future. Now we must do everything right for the sake of the present. To lose time is to lose everything. Our Russian history does not give us second chances. When we leap across an abyss, she does not give us the opportunity for a second step. And when we fail she gives us what we deserve: another Stalin, another Brezhnev, another purge, another ice age of terrified monotony. If the present momentum continues, I shall have been in the vanguard. If it stops or goes back, I shall be another statistic of our post-Revolutionary history.’

‘So will Katya,’ Barley said.

Goethe’s finger, unable to stay still, was travelling across the map. He glanced round him, then continued. ‘We are in Leningrad, Barley, the cradle of our great Revolution. Nobody triumphs here without sacrifice. You said we needed an experiment in human nature. Why are you so shocked when I put your words into practice?’

‘You got me wrong that day. I’m not the man you took me for. I’m the original useless mouth. You just met me when the wind was in the right direction.’

With a frightening control Goethe opened his hands and spread them palms downward on the map. ‘You do not need to remind me that man is not equal to his rhetoric,’ he said. ‘Our new people talk about openness, disarmament, peace. So let them have their openness. And their disarmament. And their peace. Let us call their bluff and give them what they ask. And make sure that this time they cannot put the clock back.’ He was standing, no longer able to bear the confinement of the table.

Barley stood beside him. ‘Goethe, for God’s sake. Take it easy.’

‘To the devil with easy! It is easy that kills!’ He began striding again. ‘We do not break the curse of secrecy by passing our secrets from hand to hand like thieves! I have lived a great lie! And you tell me to keep it secret! How did the lie survive? By secrecy. How did our great vision crumble to this dreadful mess? By secrecy. How do you keep your own people ignorant of the insanity of your war plans? By secrecy. By keeping out the light. Show my work to your spies if that’s what you must do. But publish me as well. That is what you promised and I shall believe your promise. I have dropped a notebook containing further chapters into your carrier bag. No doubt it answers many of the questions the idiots wish to put to me.’

The breeze of the river washed over Barley’s heated face as they strode along. Glancing at Goethe’s glistening features, he fancied he glimpsed traces of the hurt innocence that seemed to be the source of his outrage.

‘I shall wish a book jacket that is only letters,’ he announced. ‘No drawing, please, no sensational design. You heard me?’

‘We haven’t even got a title,’ Barley objected.

‘You will please use my own name as the author. No evasions, no pseudonyms. To use a pseudonym is to invent another secret.’

‘I don’t even
know
your name.’

‘They will know it. After what Katya told you, and with the new chapters, they will have no problem. Keep correct accounts. Every six months, please send the money to a deserving cause. Nobody shall say I did this for my own profit.’