The Longest Pleasure (39 page)

'I understand, Comrade Colonel.'

'Good. And this pistol of mine is remarkably accurate at considerable distances. However, in view of the visibility, I think the distance should be twenty yards, Alexander Petrovich, and be sure that you approach no closer than that. Because out here we can also speak in very loud voices, and no one will hear those either. Am I not right?'

‘
Yes, Comrade Colonel.'

'So off you go, Alexander Petrovich'.'

Galitsin retreated into the mist. Tigran Dus allowed him to go some distance, and then waded across the stream.

'So now, Alexander Petrovich,' he said. 'Confess to me your reasons for bringing me out here.'

Alexander Galitsin walked, slowly, away from the stream and into the mist 'As I said, Comrade Colonel, I wished to speak with you alone.'

Tigran Dus kept parallel with him, both hands still in his coat pockets. 'Why so especially? And why this alone? You would have been just as safe on a, crowded London street. Safer, perhaps.'

'Crowds frighten me, Comrade Colonel. They always have. I would like to know what will happen to me if
I
return to work for you.'

'That depends entirely upon what you now have to offer me, Alexander Petrovich. But you must understand that there is little in your record, or in your recent behaviour, to convince me that you are politically reliable. As it happens, I chose you for this particular mission just because you were unreliable. But the number of assignments upon which a politically unreliable -agent can be usefully employed are necessarily limited. I can offer you a desk job in Moscow as an interpreter. The opportunities for promotion are limited, but you will not be able to get yourself into quite so much trouble. You will be able to see Helena whenever you wish.'

'Ah,' Galitsin said. 'Helena. And is she still worth seeing, Comrade Colonel? As a sister?'

'You are resentful, Alexander Petrovich? She is the same woman you left behind, because you never understood what sort of a woman she was. Sh
e is somewhat wiser, perhaps. I
think she will be a better wife and mother. Every woman needs such an experience. As a sex they are cursed with the blight of romanticism, and this interferes with their efficiency. But this is academical. Your return to Moscow as a successful agent must depend on the information, you have to offer me.'

'And if my information is not sufficient for you, Comrade Colonel?'

Tigran Dus sighed, and shrugged. 'Then, as I am quite sure that you have no intention of submitting to arrest, which will involve a return to that cell of yours, I will have to shoot you, Alexander Petrovich. You understand that it would distress me to have to do this. I took you from the streets of Buda, a frightened boy, and I made you into a man. My instincts told me that one day you would be of great value to me. And my instincts were right. If you are not now going to be of value to me it will be because of some basic flaw in your character, perhaps
a
result of your international background. But the outcome will be the same. You will have been a mistake, a waste of food and air and money and effort, for thirteen years. You will also know too much about the workings of the Fourth Bureau, and I could not permit you to roam about the world with such knowledge. You do not
mind my being frank with you? I
have always been as frank as possible with my operatives.'

'I am grateful for your frankness, Comrade Colonel.' Galitsin looked over his shoulder. Ray Gut had disappeared into the mist Now the s
ounds of the Thames, the whistl
e of the buoys, the cries of
the gulls, the occasional hoot
ings of the steamers, were closer at hand, but even they were muted. There was only sand, and mud, and occasional gullies filled with water. He glanced to his left Tigran Dus walked, erect as ever, twenty yards from him, watching him, both hands deep in his pockets. He did not doubt that Tigran Dus possessed enormous powers of concentration. His strength was the knowledge that Dus had been born in the mountains of the Caucasus, not so far from the sea as Pobredikov, certainly, but far enough.

'Well, Alexander Petrovich,' Tigran Dus said, 'we have been out here for over an hour. We cannot walk forever.'

'No, Comrade Colonel,' Galitsin agreed. 'But it will take
a
while.'

'Then commence.'

Galitsin talked. He began with Nancy Connaught, with Irena Szen coming to Hastings. He talked about the day he left Lyme Regis, about what had happened, about Martle and about Barnes. He told everything he could remember about the preceding three months in every possible detail. And he did not lie, except at the very end, when he told Tigran Dus that his beating had taken place not in the warehouse but in Irena Szen's apartment

'I find that strange, Alexander Petrovich,' Tigran Dus. said. 'Was there no noise? Did you not make
a
noise?'

'I think I made
a
noise,' Galitsin said. .'I kept trying to cry out. I must have managed a noise. But, you see, Kirsten Moeller owned the house. And the tenants as well, I should think, just as she owns Irena. Under her English name of Christine Hamble, of course.'.

'Christine Hamble,' Tigran Dus said. 'I thank you, Comrade Captain. The name should be sufficient.
The
name,
added
to the house where the Szen lives, should be more than sufficient. And after the treatment that woman handed out to you I am sure that you wish her no well.'

'It is hard to decide, after being beaten like that,' Galitsin said. 'To hate Kirsten Moeller, for doing that to me, would
be
to allow myself to become consumed by hatred.'

'It is not
a
bad thing to hate,' Tigran Dus pointed out. 'Hatred can be
a
great source of strength. Kirsten Moeller is a case in point. And hatred of those who have used you for their own ends, and injured you into the bargain, is perfectly justifiable. A little bit of hatred, Alexander Petrovich, might well be the making of you. You are a singularly placid young man. Far too placid for either a soldier or an agent of the Fourth Bureau. I look forward to
a
change in your personality.'

'I thank you, Comrade Colonel,' Galitsin said.

'And now, if you don't mind, we will turn back,' Tigran Dus said. 'Isn't that water over there ?'

Alexander Galitsin peered into the mist. 'Yes, Comrade Colonel,' he said. 'And I think we should hurry. The tide must have turned.'

Kirsten Moeller showered, brushed her hair, broode
d at herself in the mirror. She
wished she had thick hair; her own wisped, and seemed to grow thinner with every year. She thought she must see her hairdresser about a piece. Something she had considered for a good many years, but never had found the time to consider seriously.

She perfumed herself with great care, ears, throat, br
easts, groin, put on her né
gligé
, sat on the chaise longue and looked out at the river. It was four o'clock on a misty, damp afternoon, but in here it was as warm as toast. Four o'clock was the most sexy part of the day. It began after lunch, after a good lunch, with a full wine and the slightest sensation of having overeaten. But it had to be resisted, then. An immediate leap into bed, even with Irena, led to indigestion rather than satisfaction. Resisted, while the afternoon dwindled and seemed to grow longer, desire expanded. And if you managed to sleep, your dreams were always erotic, sometimes dramatically, originally, even uniquely so. And men, on awakening, it was an imperative necessity.

Even with Irena Szen. There was a foolish thought.

She swung her legs off the chaise longue, stood up, listened to the knuckles on the door. 'Come.'

Barnes closed the door behind himself, stood, to attention. She could feel his eyes, all the way across the room.

"Did you have a good day?'

‘
Yes, madam. Maisie says there was a police officer here.'

Kirsten Moeller nodded. 'A routine matter, boy. Do you remember Miss Smith?'

Breath
whistled in Barnes' nostrils. ‘
Yes, madam.'

'It seems she is in hospital. With gout. Is that not amusing? And the silly bitch was carrying my name and address in her handbag. Really, I suppose we should have searched, her before we kicked her out.'

'Yes, madam.'

Kirsten Moeller glanced at him. "You would have liked that, Wouldn't you, boy? You were disappointed when
I
just let her go?'

"Yes, madam.'

‘
You like to get your hands on anything in a skirt, don't you, boy?'

‘
Yes, madam. What did you tell the police?'

Kirsten Moeller shrugged. 'That she had once been a tenant of mine. That was all. I am a very truthful woman. I would like a cigarette.'

Barnes lit a cigarette, placed it between her lips. She curled her fingers around his wrist.

‘I
think it is time I forgot all about Irena Szen, don't you, boy? She was here, and now she is gone.
I
do not think she is even pretty any more.'

She watched Barnes breathing. He was still unsure. She had encouraged him so many times before, only to slap him down at the last moment. She watched excitement seeping up to the veins of his neck to flood his face, felt something of it in her own body. 'She never was pretty, madam.'

‘D
id no one ever tell you beauty is in the eye of the beholder? She was beautiful to me. Am I beautiful to you, boy?'

'You are everything to me, madam.' The words sounded incongruous coming from Barnes' lips. His face had changed, too. The contemptuous veneer was peeling away, and with it his age. He was only a boy, a child, really. She turned away, so as not to look at him, an
d his hands came up, over the négligé
, seizing her breasts. Grabbing. Like a boy offered a lollipop, and unsure when the offer would be withdrawn.

She made herself stand still, allowed his hands to range at will. She could imagine his fingers, like flickering whips, bringing blood to the surface of the pale skin wherever they reached. Her nipples, which had always leapt erect at the very smell of Irena, remained disinterested. But he wanted so very badly, there had to be an end. A desirable end. An end which would be an end of one thing and a beginning of another.

She sh
rugged her shoulders, and the négligé
stayed in his hands. She walked to the day bed, and lay down, her inner leg up, her inner arm draped over the back of the couch, her outer arm dangling at her side, her knuckles brushing the floor, her outer leg straight. There could hardly be a more compelling picture anywhere in Barnes' memory.

He sat on a chair, pulled off his boots. His movements were too quick, too jerky. They were no longer attractively, brutally precise. Like the hands scraping at her nipples, they were sloppy paws. She thought that this could be an interesting experiment, that she should have a camera standing by, recording every moment, and an eager secretary scribbling notes. The disintegration of a man. But that was man's trouble. Disintegration. The Russians had already disintegrated, back in Pest, on the dirty floor. For how long had they been disintegrated? Disintegrated men, disintegrating everything around them.

Barnes stood up. He was naked except for his socks. Perhaps he had forgotten them. Perhaps he never took them off. How much did one have to know about a man before granting him ownership, allowing vacant possession of the property? And he was small. Kulomsin had not been small. However vicious, he had filled every nook and every cranny. He had hurt her, but of his manhood there had been no doubt. She wanted to laugh, but the disintegration had reached his eyes, and she knew how close behind the disintegration there came the anger. She sucked air into her lungs, and he knelt on the bed, stooped to kiss, but quickly, and without interest. There was a tongue, but that, too, was smaller than Kulomsin's, and it was not interested in Kirsten Moeller. There was a day bed, and on the day bed there lay a woman, an accumulation of flesh and blood and bones, and breasts and belly and buttocks, and legs and room in between the legs, all of which he now claimed as his own. But there was no feeling in the woman. And now there was no feeling in the man, either. That which had been so small had become invisible, and the room instead was filled with pride, which welled out of the muscles and the smiling lips, and the gleaming eyes.

Barnes went to the washbasin and ran water. Strange cleanliness; his socks were not even crushed. Kirsten Moeller breathed through her mouth, and closed her eyes. Perhaps with her eyes closed she could improve things, replace Barnes with another. With anyone. But not with Irena. Never with Irena, now.