Jack Higgins - Chavasse 02 (11 page)

“I wouldn't say that,” Hoffner said, “but it would be a great blow to me if I ever had to do without music. I had this piano carried in by caravan from India before the war. The lamplight flatters its appearance, mind you, but the tone is still quite good.”

He moved across to the piano, lifted the lid and sat down. He played a few chords, a snatch of a Chopin polonaise, and looked up. “Is there anything you would particularly like to hear?”

Chavasse was still standing at the fire, taking his time in lighting another cigarette. He blew out a long tracer of smoke and said casually in English, “Oh I don't know. What about some
music suitable for a May evening in Cambridge?”

Every wrinkle seemed to disappear from the old man's face, and for a moment, it was so quiet that Chavasse could hear the wind whispering against the wooden shutters outside the window.

“I knew there was something wrong about you,” Hoffner said calmly, also in English. “From the first moment you stepped into this room, I knew.”

“You sent a letter to an old friend some time ago,” Chavasse said. “You might say I'm his answer.”

“So Joro got out?” Hoffner said.

Chavasse nodded. “He's downstairs in the kitchen now. He's the Tibetan who's supposed to have saved my life from the bandits. You can see him later if you like.”

“You said something about music for a May evening in Cambridge?” Hoffner said.

Chavasse nodded. “A long time ago, you lost a bet to Edwin Craig, and he and the girl who'd chosen him instead of you sat in a quiet garden on a May evening while you played for them in the house.”

Hoffner sighed. “Sometimes I think it was a thousand years ago, and yet I can still smell the fragrance of the lilac, wet after the rain. I can even remember what I played.”

He started to play the opening chords of
Clair de Lune
and Chavasse shook his head. “I don't think so, doctor. It was the
Moonlight Sonata
.”

For a long moment, Hoffner sat there looking at him searchingly, and then a slow smile spread across his face. He rose to his feet and took Chavasse by the hand. “My dear boy, I wonder if you could possibly imagine just how delighted I am to see you.”

They crossed to the fire and sat down. Hoffner pulled his chair forward and they put their heads together. “Tell me, how is my old friend Edwin Craig?”

“In excellent health,” Chavasse said, “and very anxious to see you. That's why I'm here.”

“To see me?” Hoffner said, and a look of incredulity appeared on his face. “But that is impossible. For one thing, the Chinese would never let me go.”

“Never mind about that for the moment,” Chavasse said. “If it could be managed, would you be willing to try? I rather got the impression from our earlier conversation that you approved of what's been happening around here.”

Hoffner chuckled. “What on earth would you have expected me to say to a foreign correspondent of
Pravda
? Oh, Colonel Li has shown me a great deal of personal kindness, I can't deny that, and he really
has
done everything possible to ensure that I receive all the drugs and medical supplies I need for the clinic.”

“I must say he seems remarkably philanthropic for a case-hardened Communist,” Chavasse said.

“It's quite simple.” Hoffner smiled gently. “I
have succeeded in building up a certain standing in this country over the years, and the people have come to trust me. The reason that my clinic has not been closed down is that the Communists believe I not only approve of them, but that I am willing to cooperate with them.”

“And the only way to refute this would be to refuse to work at the clinic, which would mean no medical centre for the Tibetans,” Chavasse said. “Colonel Li certainly knows how to put people into a cleft stick.”

“A facility he seems to share with most good Communists,” Hoffner said.

“Which brings me back to my first question,” Chavasse told him. “If I could get you out, would you be willing to leave?”

Hoffner tapped ash from his pipe into the hearth and then started to refill it from an old leather pouch, a slight frown on his face.

After a while, he said, “Young man, I am seventy-four years of age. I'm also in rather poor health, which is no good augury for the future. I may not approve of the Communist regime as practised in this country, but they do at least allow me to continue to give medical treatment to a rather backward people who would otherwise have to manage without it. It would seem to me that my duty lies in continuing to offer it to them for the few years that remain to me.”

“And what if I said you were needed on the
outside more?” Chavasse said. “A great deal more?”

“I think it would help if you were to explain,” Hoffner told him, and smiled suddenly. “It would also help if I knew your real name.”

Chavasse shrugged. “It won't mean anything to you, but I don't see why not. It's Chavasse, Paul Chavasse.”

“Ah, French,” Hoffner said. “How interesting, but I hope you don't mind if we continue to use English for the moment. It makes a delightful change, I assure you.”

Chavasse lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “Many years ago you prepared a thesis for your doctorate in mathematics in which you proved theoretically that energy is space locked up in a certain pattern.”

Hoffner frowned. “But how did you know this?”

“You mentioned it to Craig in your letter. You also went on to say that you've now carried things a stage further—you've now proved that space itself can be changed into an energy field.”

“But I don't understand,” Hoffner said in surprise. “Why is Edwin Craig so concerned about what, at best, is an interesting new mathematical concept? All entirely theoretical, I assure you.”

“It was, until the Russians sent a man called Gagarin into space to orbit the world,” Chavasse
told him. “And then sent another to prove it was no fluke.”

Hoffner had been in the act of applying a lighted taper to the bowl of his pipe. He paused, and something glowed deep in his dark eyes. “It would be stupid of me to imagine that you are joking?”

Chavasse nodded. “The Americans have already emulated the performance. They're trailing slightly, but catching up fast. I wouldn't like to say who'll be first on the moon. One thing I
am
sure of. It won't be the Chinese. They aren't even in the race.”

“Which explains why here in Changu we have been kept in the dark.” Hoffner jumped to his feet and paced restlessly across to the window and turned. “For once in my life I feel really angry. Not only as a scientist, but as a human being. To think that while here one day has followed the next like any other, outside, in the world, man has already taken the first steps on the greatest adventure ever known.”

He came back to his chair and sat down. His face had become animated and flushed and there was a sparkle in his eyes. “Tell me about it,” he demanded. “Everything you know. What kind of propulsion are they using, for example?”

“Both solid and liquid fuels,” Chavasse told him. “Multistage rockets, of course.”

Hoffner shook his head. “But this is primitive, my friend. To take a satellite to the edge of
space is one thing, but to reach the moon or beyond . . .”

“That's where you come in,” Chavasse explained. “The Russians have been working for years on an ionic rocket drive using energy emitted by stars as the motive force. They're years ahead of the West. If they keep that lead, it means eventual world domination by Communism.”

“And Craig thinks that my new theory can take that lead away from them?”

Chavasse nodded. “I'm no scientist, but he seems to think that with your discovery, we could produce an energy drive for our rockets from space itself. Is he right?”

Hoffner nodded soberly. “Speeds greater than we have ever dreamed of, something essential if the universe is ever to be fully explored.”

There was a moment of silence before Chavasse said quietly, “I know your patients are important to you, but you must see now why it's essential that you return to the outside world.”

Hoffner sighed heavily and emptied his pipe. “I do indeed.” For a moment longer, he stared into the fire, and then he looked up and smiled. “I don't know how on earth you intend to manage it, young man, but when do we leave?” He frowned suddenly. “And what about Katya? I can't leave her behind.”

“Do you really think she'd come?” Chavasse asked in surprise.

Hoffner nodded. “She is anything but a political animal, and she has no ties here or in Russia, no family.”

Chavasse sighed. “It could be awkward. Let me think about it, but for God's sake don't tell her a thing. What she doesn't know can't be squeezed out of her. That's always important in an affair like this, in case anything goes wrong. There's no need to rush things. We've got five days before my plane returns. The only real problem will be in finding a way of getting you out of Changu.”

He had been subconsciously aware of a slight draught on his right cheek for several moments.

He turned and found Katya standing just inside the door, holding a tray on which stood a glass of hot milk.

He wondered how long she'd been standing there and, more important, just how much she had heard, but she gave him no sign. She moved forward, handed the glass of milk to Hoffner and said calmly in Russian, “Time for bed, Doctor. It's been a long day.”

Hoffner sighed, took a sip of milk and made a face. “You see, my friend,” he told Chavasse. “The wheel has come full circle. Like a schoolboy, I do as I am told.”

“I'm sure Comrade Stranoff knows what's best for you,” Chavasse said.

She smiled down at him enigmatically. “But of course, Comrade Kurbsky. In everything.”

For a moment, there was something strange in her eyes. Only briefly, but it told him what he wanted to know before she turned, crossed to the door and went out again.

 

It was pleasantly warm in the bedroom and someone had obviously made up the fire quite recently. Chavasse placed the oil lamp on the table beside the bed, opened the shutters and stepped out onto a covered balcony which ran the length of the house and overlooked the garden at the rear.

There was no rain, but the wind was moist and he inhaled the freshness of wet earth, and then the tiredness hit him and he went back inside and closed the shutters.

As he started to undress, there was a soft knock at the door and Hoffner came in. He carried an old bathrobe over one arm and, smiling, dropped it across the end of the bed. “I thought you might need one.”

There was something in his voice, a slight element of strain, that brought a frown to Chavasse's face. “What's wrong?” he demanded.

Hoffner sighed and sat down on the bed. “I'm afraid Katya knows everything.”

Chavasse lit a cigarette calmly. “You'd better tell me about it.”

“It's very simple. She heard rather more of the tail end of our conversation than we thought. For one thing, she speaks very good English; for another, she's no fool. She's just been to my room. Wanted to know exactly what was going on and who you really were.”

“What did you say?”

Hoffner shrugged. “That I'm a tired old man who wants to go home to die and that friends of mine have sent you in to help me get out.”

“And nothing more than that?”

“There didn't seem any point at the moment.”

“That was wise,” Chavasse told him. “After all, she
is
a Russian citizen. Helping you is one thing, but aiding and abetting in an affair, the success of which can only be to the ultimate harm of her country, presents her with a difficult psychological choice. In any case, as I said before, the less she knows, the less she can give out under pressure.”

“You know best,” Hoffner said, “but I don't think you need to worry. As I said before, she isn't interested in politics. She isn't even a Party member.”

“If anything goes wrong and Chinese intelligence gets their hands on her, she'll end up being anything they want her to be,” Chavasse told him grimly.

“I suppose you're right.” Hoffner got to his feet. “You'd better have a word with her in the morning; at the moment she is quite convinced I'd be committing suicide. That my heart wouldn't stand the trip.”

“I'll handle it,” Chavasse told him. “You get some sleep and don't worry. Everything's going to be fine, I promise you.”

The door closed softly behind the old man and Chavasse stood there for a moment, thinking about the whole affair, and then the tiredness hit him again, driving everything else from his mind.

He had barely sufficient strength to strip the clothes from his body and climb into bed. He blew out the lamp and, for a while, lay there, allowing each tired muscle to relax, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling, and then he was asleep.