The Tamarind Seed (11 page)

Paterson saw at once where he was leading. He had finished his cigarette, and he rubbed it out carefully in the ashtray on the corner of the desk.

‘Yes,' he said. If he balled it up now, Stephenson could put a serious mark down against him. It could affect his next job. He made a quick decision, based on his judgement of the man in front of him. The very worst thing would be to lie. He looked at Stephenson.

‘I was hellish lonely,' he said abruptly. ‘Also, to be honest, things were very uncertain between Rachel and me at that time. She didn't want to be uprooted from England, and I cared about this posting too much to give it up.

‘I'm afraid I made rather a fool of myself as a result of all this. Is that what you want to discuss with me, sir?'

‘I don't want to discuss it with you at all,' Fergus said. ‘The last thing I wish to do is pry into your private affairs, Richard. I have never believed that anyone has that right. Unfortunately, it's out of my hands. You became very friendly with a girl in New York, I understand?'

‘Yes,' Paterson admitted. ‘I did. I used to fly up and see her regularly, every week. May I ask how you know about this?'

‘I'm afraid not,' Fergus shook his head.

‘I can probably guess.' Paterson took out his own case, offered it to Stephenson, and the smell of his distinctive Turkish cigarettes drifted through the room. ‘A security check was run on me. I suppose I should have expected it.'

‘I find it just as nauseating as you do,' Fergus said. ‘Absolutely nauseating, the whole idea of spying and playing Peeping Tom on our own staff. But none of us are exempt from it, if that's any consolation to you. What I've got to tell you, Richard, is simply this. Firstly, we don't want any scandal from the Embassy point of view; I mean, your wife is expecting a baby, I hear, and the Ambassador is very sticky about this sort of thing. But apart from that, and what is really important, is that this girl you've been going about with is now considered a security risk. You have got to sever all connection with her. At once.'

He saw the shock and astonishment on the younger man's face; it was a good-looking face, sharp featured and clean cut, rather the type his wife admired. It was changing colour, turning a dull red, the mouth had actually slipped a little open.

‘Security? But that's impossible, sir! I don't believe it!'

‘I'm afraid that's not relevant,' Fergus remarked. ‘I don't believe half the things security tells me either, but I've got to accept their word and act accordingly. Mrs. Farrow is under suspicion. Justified or otherwise, she's been classified as unreliable. If you have anything more to do with her, you will be recalled. Our security will see to that.'

‘My God,' Paterson said. He was obviously shaken, and Fergus left him a moment or two to get over it. He wondered whether he had been in love with the girl. His own instincts, sharpened to these things by years of observation in his own home, doubted that the emotional entanglement had been very complex. Men like Paterson were more in love with themselves than with women. He knew the type.

‘I'll have to ask you for your assurance. Nothing in writing, just your word.'

‘Of course,' Paterson said. He was beginning to feel angry. Unreliable. What in God's name could that mean? What could it have meant in relation to their sleeping together, to his trusting her and talking …?

‘You can have my word of honour, sir. I'll never see or communicate with her again. We had in fact, broken off,' he added. ‘About three weeks ago. My God,' he said again. ‘I can't believe it.'

Suddenly his head came up. ‘She works for Sam Nielson at UNO,' he said. ‘Do our security people know that? That's a very confidential job!'

No, Fergus decided, not a very deep relationship on Paterson's part. Definitely not in love with her. ‘I'm sure they know everything necessary about her,' he said.

‘Nielson should be told,' Richard was going ahead, angrily pursuing her. At the same time he was trying to remember if Judith had ever asked him questions or shown any interest in his work. She could have ruined him by the association.

‘I should leave all that to the bloodhounds,' Fergus said. He was beginning to dislike Paterson.

‘She never got anything out of me, I needn't tell you that,' Richard said. ‘And to be fair, I'm sure she never tried.'

‘She's not a spy,' Fergus interrupted. ‘Don't get this out of proportion. She's regarded as a risk, but that has many implications. I should forget all about this, if I were you. I should certainly forget all about Mrs. Farrow.'

‘Oh don't worry, I intend to do just that.'

‘Thank you, Richard. I hope it hasn't been too unpleasant for you. It's not exactly the sort of interview I enjoy myself.'

‘You let me down extremely easily, sir.' Paterson got up. He held out his hand. Fergus shook it. ‘Thank you very much for the warning. Have a good day in New York.'

‘I shall have a very bad day,' Fergus answered. ‘Very dull, sitting as an observer through the frightful opening session of the equally frightful Security Council. I've been invited by our UNO Embassy and I couldn't refuse.

Loder had spent the previous evening with him. He had invited Loder himself, and Margaret Stephenson refused to come down and observe the civilities by having a drink before dinner with him.

‘Vulgar little beast—he ought to be out directing the traffic somewhere instead of working in an Embassy with decent people. If you have him in the house, that's your affair. Not mine!' She had said that before she walked out, banging the door after her as usual. Fergus had for-born to remark that it was in fact
her
affair which had brought Loder into their circle in the first place. And Loder's tact, so unusual in a man of his type, had placed Fergus deeply in his debt. It had been one of the worst experiences Fergus could remember, that half an hour with Loder in his office, trying to find the words to tell him that his wife, Margaret, had been informed of confidential information, and had refused to say who gave it to her. All the questions and answers were there, trumpeting themselves in the silences between the two men. Loder had never asked them. There had been a leak. Naturally Mrs. Stephenson didn't want to get the person into trouble. But it wouldn't be difficult to find out who the culprit was. The Minister could leave that side of it to him. Neither he nor Mrs. Stephenson would be troubled over it again. It was so gently done that Fergus over-compensated for his previous dislike of the man. He asked him to dinner. Loder tried to refuse, sensing that this was a way to thanking him for all that he had left unsaid. But Fergus had insisted, and so they had dined together, alone, the night before his interview with Richard Paterson.

To his surprise, Fergus Stephenson had enjoyed it. He gave Loder time to get over being shy, a little on the defensive; he went out of his way to make him feel that he was being a success, and the man began to display himself, cautiously at first, and then with greater confidence. He had a remarkable brain; he had a genuine love for the classics which was so unexpected that Fergus encouraged him to go into a long dissertation about the merits of Tacitus as a social as well as a military historian. It was a curious exposition, pedantry alternating with a vulgarity of expression which somehow gave everything he said originality. Fergus forgot the time; Loder never even thought about it. Both discovered that they shared more than a devotion to classicism; for a time Loder had introduced a course in medieval music during his term at university. Stephenson possessed a fine collection of early Gregorian church music. They ended by listening to some of his records. As he left, Loder had turned and held out his hand. His face was flushed, making an ugly contrast of his reddish hair, his eyes were pinker than usual. He had drunk nothing but water, otherwise Fergus might have thought he had been affected by alcohol.

‘I've had a most enjoyable evening,' Loder said. ‘The best evening since I came to Washington. It's quite taken me back to my time after the war. Thank you very much, sir. It's been a real pleasure.'

‘And for me too,' Stephenson said. He had meant it. ‘You must come again.' He had gone upstairs to his own room; his wife's door was ajar and her reading light was on. Her voice came through, angry and dictatorial.

‘Fergus! Don't go to bed yet. Come in!'

He had gone inside, just inside the door, no further. She was sitting up in bed, her face bare and handsome without make-up, the eyes with the eternally contemptuous look in them. ‘And how did the evening go?' She mimicked Loder's accent. ‘Did he tell you who it was, this time?'

‘No,' her husband answered. ‘He never mentioned your friend. And I am sure he'll do his best to protect you in every way. So you don't need to worry.'

‘I'm not worrying,' she said. ‘You're the one who ought to worry, you're the one who'll look the fool, not me.' But she was uneasy; he could tell that by the way she spoke. She was too aggressive to be confident.

‘Loder won't ever involve us in a dirty scandal,' Fergus said. ‘He's a decent man. I got to know him a little tonight. I like him.'

‘Oh?' The eyebrows arched over the bright, hostile blue eyes. ‘Oh, really? Don't tell me, darling—he's not one of those?'

He closed the door without answering her. It was the best way. He had never won a verbal battle, because by nature he was peaceful and the ability to wound with words was not a talent he possessed. Or had ever tried to acquire.

When his wife made those kinds of remarks he thought of her simply as an obscene person, and retreated as far from her as he could. He changed his mind about going to bed. He went back downstairs; switched on the lights in his study, and sat down to listen to the last recording he had played for Loder.

It was the Kyrie Eleison, sung by the choir of St. Peter's. It soothed him to think that eight hundred years ago, the armies of the Crusades had chanted that music before battle with the infidel.

The telephone in Judith's office was ringing.

The switchboard operator answered. ‘Mrs. Farrow, there's a personal call for you, a Mr. Sverdlov is on the line. Shall I put him through?'

Her pulse bounded; she found herself with one hand pressed against her left breast in a ridiculous gesture, like an actress in an old melodrama.

When the phone rang at the apartment over the weekend she had been prepared to hear his voice. When it didn't, she had begun to think he would never contact her. She had never expected him to call her office.

‘Mrs. Farrow? Shall I put the caller through?'

‘Yes,' Judith said. ‘Thank you.'

Over the telephone his accent was more pronounced.

‘Hello,' he said. ‘How are you?'

‘I'm very well,' she said. ‘How are you?'

‘I am very well too. We could go on saying this for the rest of the telephone call. I want to see you. Will you have dinner with me tonight?'

She didn't answer. ‘He'll contact you,' Loder had said. ‘Just promise you'll let me know as soon as he does.'

‘No,' she said. ‘I don't think we should.' She hadn't even thought of making an excuse.

‘Oh. Have you had visitors?'

‘Yes. Just as you said.'

‘And you are frightened to come?' The tone of voice made her see him as clearly as if he were in the room with her.

‘Not at all. Why should I be?'

She thought of Loder again. She heard Sverdlov laugh. ‘Then I shall meet you after your work is finished. What time is that?'

‘Six—six-thirty. But are you sure it's wise—for you, I mean?'

‘Very wise,' he said. ‘Very necessary. I have missed teasing you. From Saturday my weekend was very dull.'

‘So was mine.' She had begun to smile. ‘Where will you be?'

‘In a car, round the corner from 98th. At six-thirty exactly.'

‘All right. Six-thirty.'

He didn't say goodbye; the line went dead. He had just rung off. She held the receiver for a moment. Her door was open, Nielson must have heard everything she said. None of it could make any sense to him. She went back into his office, and took the afternoon dictation.

Pavlov Ilyievitch Golitsyn was seventy years old. He had been born in the Ukraine in the sixth year of the last Tsar's reign. His great-grandparents had both been serfs; his grandfather was freed by decree of the liberal autocrat Alexander II whom the revolutionaries had rewarded by blowing him in halves with a bomb. The house where Golitsyn was born was a hovel in a village on the estate of a Muscovite prince whom nobody had ever seen. The enormous palace in a hundred acres of park and gardens had never been occupied within the memory of Golitsyn's father. The Prince owned the land, his father before him had owned the human beings who cultivated it; there was a school which Pavlov attended; unlike most of the children he made an effort to learn. When he left to begin work apprenticed to one of the estate carpenters, he could read and write. There had been eight children, all of them tow-headed, square little Ukrainians, cheerful and independent, barefoot and with stomachs that never knew meat except twice a year. Three girls and five boys; a sister and twin brothers died one winter when Pavlov was twelve. There was no medicine for them, not even extra blankets to keep the dying girl warm. His mother crouched on her knees before a crudely painted ikon of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker, praying in a trembling monotone for the recovery of her children.

Her son had watched her; often when the whole family knelt with her, he had stayed silent, watching and thinking, wondering whether the lump of wood with its stylised portrait of a dead saint would really be able to save their lives. When they died, within two days of each other, Pavlov Golitsyn became an atheist. He said nothing; it was better to keep quiet about thoughts which touched on the forbidden, like the total submission of the people to the decrees of the Tsar being insupportable tyranny, and the possibility that the after life promised by Orthodox Christianity was a myth.