Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

Cats were probably better at knowing when to let go.

His own words were stillringing in Piatakov’s head when he reached the house in Serpukhovskaya where Brady and Grazhin were sharing a room. He was the last to arrive: the other six already sat in a circle, some on rickety-looking chairs, the rest squatting cross-legged on the wooden floor. He joined the latter group.

“Now we’re all here,” Brady began. “I’m afraid there’s bad news.”

“Our traveling money,” Shahumian predicted.

“Right,” Brady confirmed. “I met with Suvorov last night, and he told me it hadn’t arrived. According to Suvorov, the courier was caught crossing the border, and Suvorov has no reason to lie. He said London has sent a replacement, who won’t arrive for at least two weeks. I told him our papers will be out of date by then, and that we can’t afford to wait.”

“What other choice do we have?” Nasim asked, sounding more curious than anxious.

“There’s always…” Ivan Grazhin began, before succumbing to a coughing fit. His eyes were almost popping out of his head, Piatakov noticed. Grazhin was hoping that the dry southern climate would help his lungs, but first he had to get to it.

“We can fund ourselves,” Brady said, once the coughing had abated. He looked around the circle of faces. “We all feel the same about the NEP and the return of the profiteers—well, here’s our chance to teach the bastards a parting lesson, and find a better use for their ill-gotten gains.”

“We steal it,” Grazhin rasped.

“If property is theft, it can hardly be stolen,” Brady retorted with a grin. “But we could insist on a loan from the state.”

“Which organ of the state were you thinking of approaching?” Shahumian asked drily.

“I’m open to suggestions. My own is a city tram depot, the one on Shabolovka Street. Paper money is useless, and the depots handle only coinage.”

“I like it,” Grazhin wheezed.

“I am not as sure,” Rafiq said. He looked most unhappy. “Perhaps you”—he indicated the Europeans—“could do this successfully, but we Indians will be recognized so easily. How will we get out of Moscow?”

Brady waved a hand. “If we do the robbery in masks, then no one will be recognized.”

“How well are the depots guarded?” Piatakov asked, wondering how much homework Brady had done already.

“One Chekist, that’s all,” Brady told them. “But there is a slight problem. The last trams stop early, between seven and eight, because of the electricity shortage. The money is counted immediately and then sent across the city to headquarters straight after that. Which means we must do it in daylight.”

“In daylight,” Rafiq echoed. “That does not sound good.” He looked this way and that for support.

He didn’t get any. “If that’s when the money is there, then that’s when we have to do it,” Chatterji said coldly. “Anyone gets in our way, we kill them. It is our country, our revolution, that is at stake,” he lectured Rafiq. “These things cannot be achieved without risk.”

“But failure in Moscow will not bring success in Delhi,” Rafiq protested.

“Then we must be sure not to fail,” Nasim said. “Durga is right. We must take this gamble.”

And it would certainly be one, Piatakov thought. They were almost bound to run into a Cheka or militia patrol—it was hard to go out on the street and not trip over one. He watched Brady’s face as the Indians continued to argue. Did the American know what he was doing? Were Aram and Ivan, he himself—were they all so in love with the prospect of action that due caution was being abandoned?

Perhaps. But better that than the opposite crime of waiting and waiting for a perfect moment that never came. He remembered a phrase of Caitlin’s—in for a kopek, in for a ruble.

“What do you think, Sergei?” Aram was asking.

Piatakov smiled to himself. “Why not?” he said.

“Hold the line a moment,”Fanya was saying as Caitlin entered the office. “It’s the M-Cheka,” she told Caitlin, covering the mouthpiece with a palm. “They say they’ve already telephoned once, and someone gave them your name. It’s about Rahima. Her husband’s kicking up a stink in Tashkent, and the Cheka down there have gotten in touch with their comrades up here.”

“Where are Rahima and Laziza?” Caitlin asked Fanya, crossing the room.

“They went to the textile factory with Vera.”

Caitlin took the phone. “This is Comrade Piatakova,” she said. “How can I help you?” As she listened to the male voice at the other end, she relived Rahima’s sudden reappearance the week before, this time in tandem with her younger sister. With all the news she had to impart about events in Turkestan, Rahima had let slip only several days later that she’d left Tashkent in defiance of her husband’s orders. He had told her that he was still regretting her first trip to Moscow and that there was no chance at all of a second.

“She’s not here at the moment,” Caitlin told the M-Cheka voice. “No, she’s quite safe. You can tell her husband so.” She reached for a pile of homemade cigarettes and lit one, grimacing as she inhaled. “What do you expect us to do?” she asked angrily. “Send her back on the next train with instructions to be a dutiful wife? This is not… Yes… very well, I’ll talk to him. Yes, I’ll hold the line.”

She stubbed out the cigarette. “Deputy Chairman Komarov wants to talk to me,” she told Fanya. “Remember him from that orphans’ home?”

“He seemed almost human for a Cheka boss.”

Caitlin grunted. “Ah, Comrade Komarov,” she said into the phone. “Yes, of course I remember you.” She listened. “Tomorrow morning? Very well… No, I’m happy to come to your office—it’ll make a change from my own. Fourteen Bolshaya Lubyanka. Ten o’clock. I’ll be there.”

“It’ll make a change from your own,” Fanya echoed once Caitlin had replaced the earpiece. “So would walking into a tiger’s cage.”

Caitlin smiled. “He suggested we talk through the problem.”

“Fine, but why did you agree to go there?”

“God knows. Because I didn’t want him here. Because I didn’t want him thinking I was scared to. I’m not, you know,” she added.

“I know you’re not. Sometimes I wish you were.”

“You may be right. But as Cheka bosses go—and I admit I haven’t met that many—Komarov seems pretty reasonable. And now I come to think of it, if Kollontai draws a blank, we might take Anna’s story to him. He owes us a favor.”

Next morning Caitlin walked fromthe Zhenotdel offices to Bolshaya Lubyanka, refusing to let her anxieties about the impending interview spoil her mood. It was another beautiful day, the sun shining out of a cloudless sky. Next to the Vladimir Gate, a new billboard had been erected, and a giant poster in three sections was being pasted up. all united in a single front the first two read, and Caitlin paused to see the third one unrolled, taking guesses at what it would say. against lice was unexpected, but unfortunately all too apt.

At the M-Cheka offices, she was shown into Komarov’s empty room and asked to wait by a polite young Chekist. She declined the chair, preferring to stand by the open window overlooking the empty courtyard.

Komarov arrived a few minutes later. His hair was a greyer than it had been in March; his eyes, as she remembered, seemed to have a life of their own.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, comrade,” he said formally. After gesturing her into a chair, he took his own seat behind the desk and offered her a cigarette.

“I’ve only been here a few minutes,” she said, matching his courtesy and accepting the proffered match. His cigarettes were no better made than hers.