John Sweeney - The Useful Idiot

There was straw underfoot, a thick bed of it, dampening all sound. As his eyes adapted to the darkness, he became aware of a feeble light, diffused, from a candle far away. Now he could just make her face out. She was beguilingly beautiful, with the blackest of black eyes. Close by, he heard a horse whinny and hooves shuffle on straw. From the sounds and smells, he guessed they were in a basement stable for droshky horses.

“Pa gêm yw hyn?” – What game is this? he whispered. “Pam ydych chi'n chwarae gyda mi?” – Why are you playing with me?

“Pam wnaethoch chi ddilyn fi?” – Why did you follow me? The conversation, as quietly spoken as humanly possible, continued in Welsh.

“I want to kiss you.” He held her face in his hands.

“No,” she said. His hands went to her waist and suddenly he realised that she was shivering, perhaps not from the cold.

“You’re afraid?”

“Of course I’m afraid. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what this is about. It’s hard to be afraid when you don’t know what you’re afraid of. All I do know is what you told me in Dnipro.”

“Daliwch eich tafod, ffwl,” she repeated. “Gwelodd rhywun arall hi hefyd. Daliwch eich tafod neu byddwch yn difetha popeth.”

“Hold your tongue, fool. Others saw it too. Hold your tongue or you will ruin everything. Then you said, ‘everything they show you is a lie. Everything.’”

She lifted his hands from her waist but turned to him, her lips pressing against his ear, her body leaning into his. “That is all true,” she said.

“Did you see it, the mother leaving her dead child by Lenin?”

“I did.”

“So what do you mean, you will ruin everything?”

She sighed. “Mr Jones, please wait a few minutes. Someone is coming who will explain everything to the poor ffwl.”

“Where have you been? You vanished.”

“I was out of Moscow working on a special project with the Party’s permission.”

“Where did a Ukrainian learn to speak Welsh so beautifully?”

“In Wales. I was born in Machynlleth.”

“You’re from Mongomeryshire?”

“I am.”

“How did a Welshwoman end up a Ukrainian in Moscow?”

“My grandfathers and father were Welsh, born in Stalino. Before the revolution, it was called Hughesova, named after John Hughes, a Welsh engineer who built it in the 1860s. They used oxen to drag the furnaces across the steppe. Hughes built the coalmines and the iron foundries. To help him, hundreds of Welsh workers came too. My father and mother came home to Wales shortly before I was born. Then we all returned to Russia.” She paused before going on. “They were both killed during the revolution.”

“Killed by which side?”

“Some things are best left unsaid.”

“The Reds?”

Evgenia said nothing.

“I’m a ffwl.”

“We were trapped in Russia.”

“We?”

“My grandmother and I. She brought me up. I owe her everything.”

“Your name is Evgenia?”

“I was born Eugenia Owen. My grandmother paid a fortune for fresh baptism papers. In the chaos of the revolution, it worked. No-one knows that I am foreign-born.”

“These are secrets.”

“Dangerous ones, to me.”

“Why are you telling them to me, then?”

“Because I trust you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in love with me, ffwl.”

Now it was Jones’ turn to say nothing. The need to whisper meant that the two of them were, for him, unbearably close. The sweetness of her scent, mixed with her perfume and the smell of wet wool from the thawing snow on her coat, drove him to lose his natural caution.

“Yes.”

“You won’t betray us?”

“Us?” The word shocked him. “Us? Who is we?”

“A friend, some friends.”

“Your lover?”

She said nothing.

“Duranty?”

She slapped him, once.

“Don't be a fool, ffwl.” The repetition of the same word, the same sound in English and Welsh, hit home. His hands dropped to his sides and he stepped away from her, his head bowed.

“Was it you?”

“With him on the train? Yes.”

“Why? How could you?”

A whistle out in the street, ringing out a tune that Jones couldn’t quite recall. She whistled back, answering him, two notes, if that. The door to the stables opened and a figure solidified in the gloom.

“He wasn’t followed?” asked Evgenia, pulling further away from Jones.

“No.” Jones recognised the melancholy in his voice but couldn’t make out the face for sure.

“Max? Max Borodin?” asked Jones in English.

“At your service, Mr Jones.”

Borodin kissed Evgenia, once. Jones’ eyes flicked away.

“What’s this about, Max?” Jones asked, studying the floor. “Why all the skullduggery?”

“Forgive me. Forgive us. We want to ask you a favour, Mr Jones. You may say yes, you may say no. But before we ask this favour, we ask that you promise us, on your life, never to speak a word about this meeting. Will you so promise?”

A muffled knock startled them, then a horse in the stalls gave a soft whinny.

“I promise,” said Jones.

“On your life?”

“Isn’t this all a bit amateur dramatic?”

“Do you promise on your life?” asked Borodin, insistent.

Jones nodded.

“Say it.”

“I promise on my life,” said Jones irritably.

“We have something precious we wish to deliver to London. For the moment, I am being watched. Evgenia is a Soviet citizen and cannot help. Our other friends here are either compromised or watched. I’m told you can be trusted, that you understand what is happening here. Your value to us is simple. As far as the Soviet authorities are concerned, they consider you to be a useful idiot.”

“Thank you very much,” said Jones.

“Ah, English irony.”

“I’m Welsh.”

“It's possible,” continued Borodin, “that our package could simply be delivered via diplomatic bag through the good offices of the British embassy. All we ask is that you try.”

Jones immediately thought of Ilver. “What’s in the package?”

Outside, a car wheeled past in the snow. Borodin said nothing until the sound of its engine had quite died away.

“Documentary evidence. A little bulky.”

“What is the documentary evidence?”

“Jones, it’s best you don’t know.”

“Then the answer is no.”

The wheels in the snow returned, coming to a halt close by. Doors opened, then came footsteps, then someone pounding on a door, insistent, demanding. A door opened, and Jones heard the sound of yet more steps, ascending. After that, there was silence. In the stable, no-one moved, no-one spoke.

Somewhere out there, in the night, a woman screamed, “Don’t take him, he’s done nothing!” Then came the rough bark of a man’s voice: “Shut up you bitch!” After that, the steps returned to street level. From up above there came the sound of some kind of commotion, then the wheels of the car crunching through the freshly fallen snow, heading away until nobody in the cellar could hear anything at all.

Jones was the first to speak. “If I don’t know what exactly I’m smuggling, then I’m not going to help you.”

Borodin sighed. “I’d been told that you were sympathetic, Jones, but clearly there’s been some misunderstanding. Thank you for your time. Please honour your promise to us. Do not speak of this meeting.”

“Not a word.”

“Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight Borodin, goodnight Evgenia.”

Jones made for the door.

“Tell him, Max,” urged Evgenia, “tell him.”

“Goodnight Jones,” said Borodin flatly.

Jones was reaching for the handle when Evgenia seized his wrist. “For God’s sake, Max, this may be our last chance.”