Blood Red, Snow White (11 page)

There was something else Lockhart was driving at, but Arthur let it pass, and let him talk.

“You need to be careful, Arthur. And I need your help, so you’ve got to stay out of trouble.”

“My help?”

“I may now be the official channel from Britain to the Bolsheviks, but you know them in a way I don’t. You can get me into places, get interviews, contacts.”

“That’s fine. I can do that.”

“Yes, you can, but only if you’re not locked in a prison cell.”

He picked up his spoon again and began to work on the soup once more.

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It might be, but it’s not from me. However, there are those who think you are not to be trusted, Arthur. There are even some who think you are an agent.”

“An agent?” Arthur said, doubtfully.

“Dammit, Arthur,” Lockhart whispered across the table fiercely. “A spy! Do you understand me? A Russian spy.”

Arthur nodded gently, and there was no laughter on his lips this time.

“Who are these people?” he asked.

“Some ministers. The head of Scotland Yard. People at the Foreign Office, the Secret Service. Oh, and some of the Americans.”

“Americans?” Arthur spluttered.

“Keep your voice down,” said Lockhart. “Yes, Americans. Listen, I told you that this is a strange world. You may be what you seem, but not everyone else is. You know Sissons?”

“Head of the American Mission?”

“Head of the American Mission, and a spy to boot. He has formed the opinion that you are also an agent; the only difference is that he can’t make up his mind whether you’re a British one or a Russian one.”

Arthur shook his head in disbelief. He had little time for Sissons, but nonetheless had spoken to him frequently over the last few days. With a dead weight in his stomach he remembered that they’d even arranged to meet the following day to get passes for the Constituent Assembly. He began replaying all his conversations with him, trying to recall what he’d said and what it could mean.

“I’d stop that if I were you,” Lockhart said, having guessed what he was doing. “You’ll go mad that way. Just be careful from now on. Because I need you.”

8:10 P.M.

ARTHUR LIES IN THE BATH.
He has propped his pocket watch on the side of the sink, but can’t make out the time as the face has steamed up. For a moment he panics, then forces himself to relax. He can’t have been in the bathroom for more than an hour at the very most; that still gives him nearly two hours to get dressed and go to meet Lockhart.

He waits for his heart to stop thumping.

*   *   *

The meeting point is fifteen minutes away, at a stroll; a small seedy bar called Finland. And then on to wherever Lockhart has set up his denouement. For that’s how it feels to Arthur, it feels like a finale, an end game.

The analogy with chess springs to his mind again. It was Radek who made the comparison first, wasn’t it? Or Trotsky? It doesn’t matter now, whichever of them said it, it’s true. Arthur loves a good chess puzzle, he’s played games at the strangest times, and found it clears his head and calms his mind. Once, years ago, when he was away at the front near Tarnopol, he played chess with a young officer even as shells fell in the distance. They’d played one game that Arthur had won by a lucky stroke, then the officer had had to mount up and ride away.

“I’ll give you a rematch when I get back,” he’d called, but Arthur never saw him again.

Arthur sits up in the bath and props his shaving mirror behind the cold tap. He soaps his chin. If I am in a chess game, he thinks, I know which piece I am.

A pawn.

Bizarrely, though, he’s still not sure which side he belongs to. He’s a pawn in no man’s land, caught between the white British knights and the red Russian rooks. But each side thinks they own him, and that scares him. He thinks of the move in chess called the pawn sacrifice. A pawn is of little worth, and can easily be expended if there is a chance of a greater reward to be had.

*   *   *

No, he tells himself.

No, he’s on the British side. He’s agreed to Lockhart’s scheme, for good or for bad, and it’s too late to start dithering about it now.

8:20 P.M.

ARTHUR GETS OUT OF THE BATH CAREFULLY,
feeling at least a hundred. As he stands he sees his body in miniature in the shaving mirror. God! He’s so thin. Even the relative comfort of the Elite is not providing him enough to keep him well fed.

Too bad, he thinks. There are people worse off, all across Moscow, across Russia. There are stories coming in from the unknown depths of Samara province that people have resorted to the ultimate taboo, and are eating meat of a very familiar nature. Not everyone believes the stories of cannibals, but there are those who do. Even in the bleakest winter days back in Petrograd such an idea would have been unthinkable.

Arthur wraps a towel around his waist, drapes his greatcoat across his shoulders and makes his way back down the corridor to his room, now completely oblivious of scraps of paper, door frames, and even unseen gunmen.

Closing the door behind him, he slips the coat back onto its hook, and checks he has put out all the clothes he will wear, as if preparing for some magical ritual.

*   *   *

It was only a couple of months after Lockhart returned to Russia that they moved to Moscow.

“You and I have been speaking the same language,” Lockhart said to Arthur, as they had a drink in the bar of the Astoria. “You and I. We both think that the best thing that our government could do, for Russia and for the war, is to help the Bolsheviks. Yes?”

“Are we alone in that view?” Arthur asked.

“Things are changing,” he said. “Good God, things are changing all the time. Our government, Arthur, is trying to make up its mind whether to ignore the Bolsheviks, or invade Russia and restore the Tsar and the rest of White Russia.”

“Invade? But that would be…”

Lockhart ignored the pointless remark. He sat opposite Arthur, their knees almost touching, but staring at his hands as he spoke.

“Red or white, white or red. Who knows which color pieces they’ll choose…? And everything is changing, every day. Everyone is leaving.”

“Everyone?” Arthur asked. Lockhart glanced up at his friend, seemed to shake himself, and got back to business.

“The Bolsheviks are leaving Petrograd. The new German front line is a short train ride from here; the Reds are moving their capital to Moscow, as of old. Napoleon never managed to capture it. I think they figure that since Napoleon failed, the Kaiser will, too. But it was the winter that stopped Napoleon, and spring is almost here. Anyway, they’re going to up and run to Moscow, and everyone else is simply running away. The French, the Chinese, the Japanese Ambassadors are leaving.”

Everyone. The Bolsheviks had decided that Petrograd was too close to the German army, who were advancing in fits and starts toward the city. When the Bolsheviks went, so did everyone else; all the foreign embassies, the Japanese, the Germans, the French, the British; and so did anyone else with any interest in them. Lockhart and his mission. The few remaining journalists. Arthur. There was nothing left for him in Petrograd. He shut his flat up, having given his landlady an exorbitant sum of roubles to keep it on for him, just in case. He was happy enough to be fleeced by her, it was only money, and there were more important things than money.

Evgenia had gone, too, following Trotsky to Moscow with the other Bolsheviks. He hadn’t even seen her before she went; he’d been sent on some wild-goose chase by Lockhart. In the event of a German invasion of Russia, and the British having to leave Moscow, they needed a bolthole halfway to the northern coast. Lockhart had asked Arthur to go to a godforsaken town called Vologda, and to “claim” a building there suitable for use as the British Embassy if need be.

“Claim it?” Arthur had asked.

“Stick a flag on it, man!” Lockhart said.

“And where do I get a flag from?”

“Use your ingenuity. And get a move on.”

“I only earn a journalist’s wages, you know.”

“All your expenses will be covered,” Lockhart assured him, “by the British government.”

Arthur did as he was told.

In the end, he had borrowed a flag from one of the British cruisers imprisoned by the frozen waters of the Neva, and had made the fruitless journey to Vologda. He had learned one thing from the trip, though, one very important thing. While there, muddled news from the peace talks with Germany led Moscow to think that a German invasion was imminent. Lenin of all people had telegraphed to Arthur and his traveling companions to let them know the news, so they might take whatever action they saw fit. For the foreigners, this meant running for home. Arthur read the telegram with disbelief, not at what Lenin had to say, but at an extra message tacked on the end, addressed purely to him.

It was from Evgenia.

“As this means war,” she said, “you will no doubt have to travel again. But you have my best wishes for a happy journey.”

Why on earth would Trotsky’s secretary have the impertinence to adulterate Lenin’s telegram with a message to an English journalist? Unless that Englishman meant something to her?

*   *   *

He found her again, his very first day in Moscow.

Lockhart got him a room at the Elite, but Arthur discovered that all the Bolshevik party were staying at the National Hotel. The plan was to move into the Kremlin, but with their sudden arrival from Petrograd, it wasn’t yet ready.

Arthur found the Bolsheviks in disarray at the National, and was treated to the sight of Lenin sitting on a pile of packing cases in the lobby. Lenin called him over.

“Comrade Ransome! What are you British doing now?”

Arthur feigned ignorance, but he knew what Lenin was talking about. Lockhart had told him unbelievable news. An admiral and a company of British marines had landed at Murmansk and captured the town. Lockhart didn’t seem to know their further intentions, but it was hard to see it as anything other than an expeditionary invasion force.

Lenin wasn’t fooled.

“Your government refuses to talk to us, and the moment we seem to sign a peace with Germany, you invade our country!”

“I’m sure the British government is only seeking to help Russians.”

“Maybe so, Comrade Ransome. But which Russians? Red? Or White?”

Arthur shifted uncomfortably, and as his gaze shifted, his eyes fell on the person he’d really come to find. He made a few limp excuses and as casually as he could, walked over to Evgenia, his head full of nothing to say.

She turned.

“You came back!”

Arthur smiled, then laughed. It felt difficult at first. Then wonderful.

“Of course I did,” he said. “It was the only way to make a happy journey.”

Evgenia looked puzzled.

“You wished me a happy journey. One that comes back to you.”

He paused, trying to ignore the people milling around them.

“I had to come back. To see you. To be with you.”

Evgenia blushed, showing Arthur a vulnerable side he’d not seen before. Fighting the urge to put his arms around her and kiss her, he put a hand lightly on her sleeve. Already he could see Lenin looking in their direction, and a warning bell rang in his head.

“Listen,” he whispered. “Lockhart’s throwing a party at the Elite. Tomorrow night. Say you’ll come?”

She smiled, and before he could react took a quick step toward him and brushed his lips with hers.

She nodded, and hurried away.

This is what you want.

Arthur stood alone in the busy hallway, trying to blot everything from his mind but the feel of her lips on his, before the memory slipped away for good.

8:50 P.M.

ARTHUR DRESSES, SLOWLY.

Was this how a knight would have felt, before going into battle? Each piece of clothing he puts on feels like a piece of armor. His trousers are cuisses; his socks are greaves. His shirt is a cuirass, the collar a ventail. His boots are sabatons, his jacket a surcoat. But if he thinks he is armoring himself, it is an illusion; a bullet will sail clean through his armor and his skin to burn the flesh beneath.

Nevertheless, it helps. It’s just another talisman, but he’s taking all he can get.

He knows he is no knight, though at least, like the hero in a fairy tale or romance, he finally knows what his quest is. His purpose.

*   *   *

He checks his watch, for the twentieth time.

Not long.

He runs over the plan once more, or as much as he knows of it. He wonders if Lockhart has held anything back. Maybe he doesn’t trust him entirely.

They’ll meet at ten, at the Finland bar. Then Lockhart will tell Arthur where to go and meet the two Latvians, and where to take them.

Simple.

So simple.

Arthur ties his tie. It’s the only one he has now; the rest are all in the flat in Petrograd. As he ties it memories return of the last time he wore it; Lockhart’s party downstairs in the hotel dining room. He turns and looks at the bed, and smiles.

He got there early.

The first guests were arriving at the dining room of the Elite, which had been turned into an impromptu cabaret. Tables were being moved into place, a few early diners being seated, and Lockhart surveyed everything. The hotel knew what it was doing, but tonight it was only doing so with Lockhart’s money.

Arthur saw Lockhart and headed for him, something on his mind.

“I thought Robins was Head of the Red Cross.”

“He is,” Lockhart said, waving at someone across the room. “Look, do we have to talk business tonight, Arthur?”

“Yes, we do. I’ll leave you alone, just answer me some questions. We were out walking this afternoon and we were stopped by some Red Guards. Routine check. I opened my coat like a good boy. Robins legged it and escaped over a wall.”

Arthur hesitated, staring hard at Lockhart.

“He’s a spy, isn’t he?”

Lockhart whipped around and glared at him, though no one was in earshot.

“Just how stupid are you going to be?” he snapped.