Document Z (17 page)

They told anecdotes about clothes. Philip Kislitsyn said he'd once had a suit fi tted on Savile Row, every piece a different colour of bone, and no way he could afford it. The tailors had taken his picture-more accurate than a mirror, they'd said-and he'd used that as his out, declaring that the shades weren't as he'd hoped, maintaining this line over the photographer's protestations that the image being judged was blackand white.

Volodya lamented his old and trusted leather jacket, needlessly lost when the submarine struck them en route to Sweden because Evdokia had howled that it would sink him.

After the meal, they went to a café on Darlinghurst Road, where they listened to a violinist playing with a cellist. Evdokia paid for everything of Masha's: another unspoken agreement in accordance with the weekend's rules. Two bottles of champagne came to the table. The night was laughter and friendly jokes, the warmer notes of the cello murmuring as second thoughts in the wooden floor.

The Russians separated in the Buckingham's lobby, wishing each other happy dreams. The room Volodya had picked on the second storey faced the street, a suite with two windows, both left open, the room dark but an orange tint invading, some entirely urban glow. Evdokia wanted them to make love. She wanted to engage in a cosmopolitan act to the sounds she could now hear, just another intrigue in a city, humming. She put her hand inside his shirt then undid the buttons. His hair smelled like cigarettes, like hair should smell in the Big Smoke. The shirt came away. She kissed his shoulder, surprised to find it tense in a way unexpected. She took hold of the other shoulder and turned him. She sat on the edge of the bed and unbuckled his belt and made sure that he held her eyes. His breath was heavy with alcohol. Thick fingers fumbling with her blouse; she held them with one hand and undressed herself with the other.

A car's horn blared, jammed against the sounds of revelry nearby. The hotel itself had a sound. A heating system, perhaps. Pressure in the walls. He reached to draw the quilt over them but she stopped him. There was no breeze in the room. The windows open but no air moved.

The arcades had chequered floors. Shops that sold Hollywood cosmetics, women's clothes, babies' clothes. Whole stores just for chocolate. They walked through the laneways between the arcades. Every store had a doormat bearing its name. The windows were elaborate; window dressing, it was called. Lights and little platforms, small altars, spotless glass. She thought of Marx.
The mystical character of commodities
.

Anna tried on a hat in a basement that was full of hats. Hats on stands and tables, hats in boxes and on ceramic heads. The shop assistants came running. They saw your interest in a thing and it was their job to rush and help. Simple economic relations. Still, you felt included in a genuine way.

They ate at a place called Dawson's. Masha refused to use her poor English because she didn't want it upsetting their day. Across the road was His Master's Voice. A cleaner stood at the window with a cloth, removing lipstick kisses from the glass over a picture of Johnnie Ray.

They went into Her Majesty's Arcade, ‘The Arcade Women Prefer'. There was a fur shop and a tobacco store. There was a man operating a chair that balanced your body weight against a brass dish bearing small discs of varying load.

They were exceedingly aware of themselves: whether they looked different, what they said, how crazy they appeared in relation to these people in the arcade. Masha pointed and smiled. If she did speak it was hushed. She looked tranquil and happy but, underneath, seemed nervously afraid.

They went into a boutique. Anna bought a dress and walked out wearing it. She looked stiff, not exactly comfortable. Around the corner was a second boutique selling the same dress and she refused to go into the store.

They smiled when they paid for things. They tried to look comfortable while wondering whether these people were blind as to who they were.

They came to rest on an indoor bench. Prams going past, people carrying parcels. Evdokia saw for a moment the world of social hieroglyphics. The act of exchange. The reflex of the real. She tried to glimpse the labour of the individual asserting itself, part of the whole labour of society. Max Factor (Hollywood/ London). Kayser Sheerest Nylon.

They went back to the Buckingham, ate their evening meal at the hotel, and the next day got up and did it all again.

On the Monday morning, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested. Evdokia was filing papers when Prudnikov brought the shattering news.

‘Evdokia Alexeyevna, where is the ambassador?'

The cypher clerk was puffing, having sprinted down the stairs.

‘At the French embassy,' she said.

‘When does he return?'

She shrugged: he-doesn't-tell-me.

Prudnikov frowned. ‘Look,' he said.

It was a formal note to all foreign stations.
Lavrentiy Beria,
head of the MVD, has been found to be a bourgeois degenerate
and an agent of international imperialism
. The note was on the Foreign Ministry's letterhead. She looked at Prudnikov, a sick feeling welling in her stomach.

‘When did this come?' she asked.

‘This morning with the cables.'

‘Priority?'

‘No.'

He was looking to her, as part of the MVD clique; searching for some kind of indication as to how to react.

‘We need a staff meeting,' she said.

‘What does it mean?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Petrova.'

‘Let's not worry, Prudnikov. Let's wait and see.'

‘I have been a good worker for you.'

‘That's right. Very good.'

‘Loyal to the MVD.'

‘Yes, very loyal.'

‘Beria! This is bad news.'

She sought out Volodya. He and Kislitsyn were together in his downstairs office. The news caused a silence. The two men looked at each other and after a time they looked at her.

The staff meeting turned into a meeting of the Party. Kovaliev stood and read the charges, stale in his delivery, flanked by Generalov.

Lavrentiy Beria was working for British Intelligence.

He was working for American Intelligence.

He was working to re-establish capitalism within the Soviet state.

Lavrentiy Beria was a saboteur of Soviet industry.

He had undermined Soviet agriculture.

He had circumvented the presidium's authority.

Lavrentiy Beria had lost the character of a communist.

He was attempting to elevate the MVD to a rank above the government and the Party.

He was caught red-handed plotting attempts at ultimate power.

Lavrentiy Beria was a traitor.

He was guilty of the vilest, most abominable crimes.

He had subverted the police and the security forces and forged a terrorist organisation.

He was a terrorist without ideology or principle, a covert fascist fixated by treacherous ideas, intent on national betrayal.

His hypocrisy was monstrous.

He had tried to steer the GDR away from the course of socialism.

He was a friend of Tito and Rankovich.

He was an agent of external influences, guilty of espionage and high treason.

Spittle edged from Kovaliev's mouth. He sat down and Generalov rose. The ambassador said he was shocked by the scale of these charges. Who knew that the chief of the MVD was such a murderous reprobate? The magnitude of his crimes was sublime.

Vislykh, the new man in the economic section, said in a low voice that he'd heard rumours. Sexual deviance concerning forced liaisons with young girls.

Generalov nodded. ‘We must be vigilant,' he warned. ‘Only because he has been arrested are we now aware of Beria's corruption. It seems his influence has been pervasive. There are likely to be spies and loyalists in his organisation, men and women who pursue his ends even now, labouring in the shadows, unmasked.'

Evdokia looked at Prudnikov. He was watching the ambassador. She could tell he wasn't breathing. His shoulders were forward and his neck low between them. She'd seen the look before. Someone held frozen by new and hardening fear.

Volodya seemed indifferent, staring blankly into space. Whether he was playing at ignorance or simply believed Gener-alov's remarks were ordinary tedium, she couldn't say.

Philip Kislitsyn walked the Petrovs home.

‘Malenkov and Khrushchev,' he said. ‘Malenkov and Khrushchev have had the marshal deposed.'

‘You said Beria was destined to take control.'

‘Well. Who knows? How would I know?'

‘We should get
Pravda
. See how they're reporting the news.'

‘We're hearing about this now. It's likely he has been under arrest for days.'

‘What about those around him?'

‘Sparta.'

‘Sparta has been unusually quiet.'

‘We've had no messages for a week.'

‘Is it possible we've been marooned?'

They reached the corner of Lockyer Street; street lamps hazing in the diminished dusk, no cars on the empty road.

‘We shouldn't worry,' said Kislitsyn. ‘Realistically, how close are we to Sparta? We're a project on his books, that is all.'

‘The question is, how deep will it go? Any purge. How significantly close to the close do you need to be?'

Kislitsyn shrugged. ‘Our work is distant to the nth degree. We're discussing a high-level event. Curtained movements of the powerful elite. We stand at the fringes, uselessly, trying to comprehend events that probably even they do not fully understand.'

‘How deep is too deep?'

Evdokia interrupted them. She noted that Prudnikov was afraid.

Kislitsyn looked at her. ‘What does he have to fear?'

‘He walks a fine line,' she said, ‘between his loyalty to us and to the ambassador.'

‘It is not possible to opt out once you have joined. He knows this.'

She crossed and uncrossed her arms. ‘I'm saying we should be careful with him. That is all. Offer him our reassurance.'

‘No,' said Kislitsyn. ‘Reassurance is the final giveaway that one hasn't got a leg to stand on.'

The three talked until a car went by. Kislitsyn departed for his dinner. The Petrovs went into the house, surprised to find that the kitchen light was on. Both swore it should have been off. Volodya stood at the switch, flicking it back and forth, listening intently to the click. He checked the back door's locks and came and stood again at the switch and listened to its click.

Evdokia put water in a saucepan and began boiling it. She watched while her husband flicked the switch to hear the sound.

The remainder of the week was quiet—tabulations, cypherings, walking Jack in the mornings. On the Friday, preparations began at the embassy for a Sunday lunch. The women were commandeered by Generalova. Evdokia was assigned to the kitchen, alongside Anna Kislitsyna and Pipniakova. The menu wanted meat pies. The three went to work, shopping in Kingston, then arranging the kitchen as a factory, Anna and Pipniakova working on the fillings, Evdokia manning pastry and assembly. Pipnia-kova's radio set gave them Bing Crosby's voice to work to.

Generalova walked in and out of the room, staring, overseeing the operation in magisterial fashion. When the woman was out of earshot, Evdokia made snide comments about her shoes.

Anna chopped onions and sifted flour. Pipniakova gave herself a burn. They sang along to Bing together. Evdokia rolled the pastry and shaped the pies. She set the pies in rows, a queue for the oven. Generalova came and stood next to her, invading. Hot breath, fatness and germs.

‘Must you?' said Evdokia.

Generalova looked at the pies, then put her hands on one and reshaped it. Evdokia scowled. Generalova prodded the crust of another with her thumb.

Evdokia filled a pie, laid the pastry on top. Generalova sighed, lifted the pastry and rearranged it.

Evdokia broke an egg violently. She set the next pie the way she wanted and glazed it heavily. The pie went shunting across the bench top. Generalova eyed it as if she might still dare.

Anna dropped a metal spoon, a crashing sound on the concrete floor. The other two women were watching as if they weren't. Generalova turned and saw them. She made some inaudible comment, walked to the door and didn't return.

The truth behind events. Volodya was outside, working on something in the garage. Evdokia rounded the hedge, her feet crunching down the driveway.

‘Doosia,' he said. He was holding a small wrench, hands greased and black. He wore blue overalls, round at his tummy, grease marks on his nose. ‘What has happened?'

‘You are repairing the car? That is Sanko's job, repairing the car.'

‘The pie,' he said. ‘What happened?'

She stared at him. ‘The
pies
,' she said, ‘are cooling.'

He shifted his stance impatiently. ‘Doosenka,' he said, ‘Kislitsyn rang me. You threw a pie at Generalova.'

She felt herself looking stunned. How to react? Volodya wiped grease onto a cloth. They stood in the driveway, afternoon light casting her shadow down the line. Incredible.

‘That bitch,' she said. ‘That bitch is twice the bitch that Lifanova ever was.'

‘Why did you throw the pie?'

‘I didn't throw a pie.'

‘The pie missed her narrowly. It broke up in flight and parts of it have stained her dress.'

‘I wish I had thrown a pie. I wish now that I did.'

‘You quarrelled with her.'

‘The pies were in dishes. Is she suggesting I tried to kill her by hurling ceramics at her brain?'

‘She says she won't go near you. She's afraid of what you'll do.'

‘Who is it she's talking to?'

‘Kislitsyn heard it from Sanko who heard it from somewhere else.'

‘Sanko! Why are you repairing this car?'

He raised an open palm. ‘Generalov's scheduled a meeting. He wants a Party reprimand hanging over your head.'