The Spy Net (26 page)

In the roof-garden of the hotel, palms, fountains, gipsy
entertainers, red-coated waiters darting between tables crowded with uniformed officers and lovely
élégantes
, were gone. I found nothing but half a dozen billiard tables installed; some Soviet youths, who looked like students, were crowded around the tables, all intent on those huge white Russian billiard balls, each at least four times the size of those used in other countries.

The only activity throughout Leningrad, in fact, seemed to be that of the university, where crowds of students were seen. The Soviets were doing their best to foster higher learning, and I was told that the laboratories of the university were splendidly equipped. Otherwise, Leningrad had all the appearance of a derelict city, a sorry sight with its buildings in disrepair, and with falling plaster and bricks scattered over the sidewalk.

As I drove down the Nevski Prospekt, now the Prospect of 25 October, in honour of the revolution, there was hardly a person in sight. In many places the wooden paving of the streets was caved in, leaving holes big enough to engulf cab and horse; and at night, in the darkness, the drive would have been made at the risk of one’s life. The dozens of deserted factories at the edge of the town bore out what I had learned in Moscow – that hundreds of works had been allowed to go to ruin during the earlier stages of the revolution, and that later many a costly plant which was beyond repair had been pulled down to furnish scrap for the Soviet Steel Works. In the distance the Winter Palace and St Isaac’s Cathedral stood out in regal majesty. Like the Kremlin, they defied the ravages of time and of the Soviets.

In the afternoon I dismissed my cab at a point discreetly distant from the hotel, and set out for my goal by a devious route on foot. In the course of it I got lost several times, not daring
to ask for any information, but at length I made my way to the dwelling of Prince M.’s father, which I found to be an apartment house. In response to my knock, the door was furtively opened by a person I could not distinctly see, but who, as soon as he learned I was from abroad, let me in quickly, as if he feared someone would see me on the staircase. I found myself facing a tall well-built man with white hair and a large moustache, whose sad and kindly eyes attracted me immediately. From the way he carried himself, and from his general air of good breeding and culture, I knew that I was in the presence of the father.

He brought me into a room where he introduced me to the rest of the family: the Princess his wife, still so lovely that I could believe the legend of his having killed his brother, her first husband, in a duel for her favour; his daughter, a very plain, masculine-looking woman, a marked contrast to her handsome brother, but also with a Scottish accent; and, finally, the daughter’s two sons, boys of about sixteen and fourteen years old. I was immediately plied with a battery of questions. For nearly an hour I was cross-examined by each of the family in turn. I had to repeat over and over again exactly how Dima, Prince M., looked, and I had to tell in detail everything I knew about him.

Finally, I called the father aside and asked to be allowed to speak with him privately. When the others had left the room, I told him about the mission from his son, and gave him the password. He uttered a sigh of relief. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘when I saw you, whether you were the person we had been expecting. We knew Dima would find someone.’

Without further ado, he took down from the wall an icon of the Virgin Mary, removed a small piece of wood from the frame,
and from a hole bored in it, poured out twenty-three huge emeralds and diamonds. I could not keep my eyes from them. They were flawless, and worth a fortune; no wonder the Bolsheviki had tried to find out what had happened to them. I smiled at the icon; it was certainly not the best spot for a hiding place. The Bolsheviki, with their avowed anti-religious policy, might have destroyed it; but the father, a typical superstitious Russian, evidently looked for divine protection through it.

‘How are you going to hide them?’ he anxiously inquired. I indicated the lining of the heavy travelling ulster with which I had come prepared. Goodness knows it was very inadequate; it would be the very first place I would have examined, if I myself had to conduct such a search, but it was the best and simplest carrier I had at my disposal. Audacity and the obvious are sometimes their own protection. The Prince called his wife in, and then while we anxiously looked on giving suggestions, she quieted her shaking fingers and sewed the stones into various parts of the coat – first securely stitching each stone into a separate piece of strong black linen, and then sewing these casings in the hems, under the turned over sleeves, and under the collar. After the last careful stitches were set in, and the father had given me various verbal messages for his son, chiefly about the disposal of the stones, we rejoined the rest of the family.

They pressed me to a supper of those small Neva fish which Russians know so well. They were excellently prepared, but humble fare for this old man, who had been in the old days equerry to the Tsar, and one of the richest men in Russia. It was sad to see him in a small three-room apartment, piled high with all his worldly belongings; but he was lucky, for in Moscow the
whole family would have had to put up with a single room. He told me, among other details, how once a week in this community building, which contained about twenty families, he had to take his turn at carrying garbage into the street for all the people.

They were living on the small sum which the Bolsheviki permitted Prince M. to send the family monthly. Before they had pressed their loyal governess to return to England and safety she had insisted on providing the household with sums from her savings, which, British fashion, she had put away in British banks; the cordial gifts of the family’s better days made her under the new regime far better off than they. Now the welfare of the family depended on the sale of the jewels, and hence – uneasy thought – on their safety with me. What worried the old nobleman most, however, was the education of his daughter’s two boys. ‘We have got to teach them at home,’ he said. ‘They won’t allow our sons to enter the university, and, of course, they cannot go abroad. A whole generation of families such as ours is lost to the civilisation we believe in.’ He thanked God, however, that he was still alive after his experience in prison; like most of the aristocracy who had remained in Russia, he had spent many months in prison without any charge being brought against him.

The next evening I left for Reval, glad to be on my way out of Russia, and in the early hours of the morning I reached the frontier. A GPU agent entered my compartment. Here was the ordeal I had mentally gone through a thousand times during my three weeks’ stay in Russia. After examining my papers, he carefully went through my bags. Impassively I watched him, having – oh so casually! – tossed my ulster into a corner of the seat to be out of his way. He looked at me closely, as if weighing whether or
not he should search my clothes. I was afraid he could hear the thumping of my heart. But evidently my face belied the turmoil of my mind, for he turned away with a sour grin, apparently satisfied that he had done enough. The train started, and within a few minutes I was in Esthonia. I don’t think I have ever in my life experienced such a relief.

In Reval, the seaboard capital of Esthonia, I found myself once again among people in individual clothes and with separate personalities; I saw smiling faces again, energetic movements of persons with some point to their
existence
, bands of active children on their way to school. The robot population of the USSR was behind me. Whether it was by contrast or not, I do not know, but the town seemed to breathe prosperity. The marketplace was crowded; people were buying and selling; money was changing hands. Most of the people were of German origin, and I found German spoken everywhere. I made for the first restaurant, and was happy to sit down to a good meal at a reasonable price. Shortly after, I ensconced myself in a comfortable
wagon lit
en route for London, via Riga and Berlin, feeling, I think, much as a man would feel who had safely returned from Mars.

Filled with this sense of lightness or ease or life resumed – whatever one wishes to call it – I set about the final discharge of my two Russian missions; the more personally pressing fortunately could come first, since I could dismiss it on the way to London.

The Baltic seaport towns were swarming with Russian spies, and as I did not wish to risk compromising Prince M.’s father in Russia, I refrained from telegraphing the Prince. Imagine his excitement, then, when he heard my voice over the telephone
in Berlin, announcing the success of our affair. I hastened to his apartment, and there I handed him the stones. He wept and embraced me when he saw them. ‘It is not for my sake that I am happy,’ he told me. ‘But it means that I shall have enough money to support my father in Russia for the rest of his days.’

The next day I set out for London somewhat despondent, for although I had the concession I had set out to obtain, it did not promise what either my friends or I had hoped for. I was considerably exercised in mind as to what I would do with the future.

My friends were remarkably kind. They had not been altogether unprepared for what I had to tell them. They assured me they had looked upon the trip as a gamble and so were not surprised at the terms granted me. What became of the concession papers I do not know. They are probably locked away in some safe. Perhaps one day they will be exhibited as historical documents – the first Soviet Trade Concession granted to the British.

As for myself, for the moment I had laid aside my cares. ‘Now for Yvonne and Brussels,’ thought I. ‘I have certainly earned a vacation.’

During the last two years I had seen Yvonne only at odd intervals. My thoughts always turned back to her, and we had corresponded regularly; but my affairs tied me down to Central Europe, while she had been confined to Belgium and other Latin countries by her theatrical engagements. On the rare occasions we had been together, we still got the same joy out of each other, we still were divinely happy, but I was ever aware of the antagonism of her parents. She was not only supporting them, but also her grandmother, and they watched her as if their lives depended on her.

The whole situation worried me. Even if she were to change her mind, and consent to marry me, I knew she was right: she needed Z. He was not only powerful enough to make or break her at the Brussels opera, but he was instrumental in arranging numerous fêtes for visiting royalty and celebrities; he was the one who chose the artists for these occasions, and could humiliate her by not selecting her or even by ordering the opera director to make her play a secondary role to one of her juniors. Although she was a superb artist, she owed her success entirely to Z, for there is a regular order of promotion in national opera companies, and at her age, in spite of her talent, she should normally still have been in the ballet.

She loved me enough to give up the stage if I had really insisted, but I knew it would break her heart. She had been dancing ever since she was four years old, and I knew her life was wrapped up in it. On my part, too, I knew that whatever my feelings toward her were, it was when I saw her dancing that I loved her most. Her entry on the stage always gave me a thrill. The whole atmosphere of the theatre and of the circle in which she lived entranced me. As I look back now, I realise that a great deal of what I attributed to her was part of my own imagination, something beautiful that I had created and fitted around her. The theatre and the ballet were all part of the staging; and yet without her gaiety, her sparkling wit, her great beauty, her sweetness of character, and her charming companionship, all would have faded away into the realm of unreality for want of an anchorage.

At the time of these events, I was incapable of seeing matters so clearly. I knew merely that I was on my way to Yvonne, and I could have gone singing. I was like a schoolboy setting
out on his vacation. As soon as we met, however, I realised that something was wrong. She was sad and wistful. Her mood was contagious, and we ate our dinner – as usual at the Savoy – in semi-silence. That evening it was
Faust
again that she danced, the ballet in which I had first seen her. Normally, it would have enchanted me, but now it only filled me with sadness, for she had promised that after the performance she would tell me the reason for her depression.

As we sat together in her house over the dying embers in the fireplace, she explained, with tears in her eyes, that she had promised not to see me any more. ‘Z is dreadfully jealous of you,’ she faltered, ‘and you know how dependent I am on him. Besides, I have seen you so rarely during the past few years. You have your career and I have mine. There are my parents and my grandmother, too; they have worried me incessantly about you until I cannot stand the strain any longer.’

I told her that I understood. I was to come and say goodbye to her on the morrow, to see her just once again. I would leave Brussels on the evening train. I kissed her good night, trying not to think of the last farewell so close upon us.

When her maid ushered me into her sitting-room the next afternoon, I was astounded to find Z there. Her eyes implored me; I knew he must have dropped in inadvertently. It was an extraordinary situation. I had never seen Z at her house before, though we had often met officially during the time I had been stationed in Brussels, and we both knew of each other’s affection for Yvonne. How should we not, when the whole of Brussels knew about it? We looked at each other without a word being spoken. Neither of us had the right to reproach the other. I knew
what he had done for her; he knew that I loved her, and that I had made her happy.

At last I broke the silence. ‘I am leaving Brussels tonight,’ said I. ‘Perhaps I shall never return. I have come to say goodbye to Yvonne.’ He shook my hand. ‘I understand,’ he replied; ‘I am dreadfully sorry.’

I kissed her farewell and left the room. Then my reason seemed to break. I could not leave her. I came back into the room, and took her once again in my arms. Again and again I kissed her, with the futile clinging of one who embraces the dying. At last she put me gently away from her, and I heard a door close. I stumbled blindly down the steps into the street.