John Sweeney - The Useful Idiot

He leapt out of bed, aroused and took her from behind with a demonic energy until they were both sated. When they were finished and lay on the bed, gasping, she whispered into his ear, “Under my express authority, you may stay in Moscow for a while yet.”

“Under whose authority?”

“Mine.”

“Evgenia, you were born in Machynlleth. You are Welsh-Ukrainian, bourgeois and a known enemy of the revolution. You have no authority here.”

“I have a letter signed and counter-stamped by Comrade Genrikh Yagoda himself, affording me all assistance on urgent Cheka business.”

“Fuck off.”

She had never heard Jones swear before, and the sound of him doing so startled her. Finding Yagoda’s letter, she waved it in his face. He read it but the Cyrillic letters danced in front of his eyes. Then she translated the letter in her quiet, official voice. The evil behind the power of it caused the two lovers to cuddle more closely.

“What are you thinking, Mr Jones?” Her voice was small, not a little afraid.

“I’m thinking about Max.”

She held him more closely still.

“It was never suicide,” said Jones. “His brother…”

“…fell from a window in Berlin and Max would never have done the same.” She completed his sentence. “In the Lubyanka they had a file on him. He was sentenced to ten years without the right of correspondence. That means he was shot.”

“You have the free run of the files in the Lubyanka, do you? So you’re very well connected indeed.”

“It was a one-off opportunity. Yagoda was playing with Lyushkov, testing his loyalty, so it suited him to place me higher than my station, just to taunt Lyushkov. Yagoda doesn’t believe that Zakovsky died in a road accident. No-one does. But that’s how I got the magical letter.”

“How powerful is it?”

She hesitated, frightened that articulating its power might break a spell.

“Go on, Evgenia, tell me.”

“With this letter, I could get out.”

He stiffened. “No?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s both go. Where shall we go?”

“Paris. I want to go to the Eiffel Tower and fly a paper airplane from the very top.”

“Yes, that can be arranged.”

“I want to go to London and have tea with your Queen.”

“Done.”

“Then I want to settle in Machynlleth with a black hat, a broom and a cat and become a Welsh witch and cast a spell on you that you should never, ever leave me.”

She laughed slowly at first, just a merry gurgle. Then the comedy of her ambition and the tension and the fear that had gripped her for so long melted away. Every second she laughed made her longing to live an ordinary life unmolested by the powers that held sway in Moscow somehow more possible, somehow more true.

A moment later, the laughter turned suddenly to weeping –and Jones watched her with dread, knowing that this woman who was so unutterably beautiful and that he loved so deeply was more than a little mad.

Laddered by a half-open set of blinds, slashes of sunlight found Jones in suit and tie bent over his typewriter, tapping away furiously. Evgenia woke up, sat up on one elbow and studied him with amused contempt.

“Come here, Englishman.”

Ignoring her, he continued pounding on his typewriter – until, tired of waiting, she threw the bedclothes aside and walked over to perch upon his lap. Her hair was up. She undid it slowly, its blackness contrasting with the paleness of her skin.

Leaning forward, she read his letter of resignation to the Western Mail , telling them that he was quitting Moscow as soon as humanly possible. She hit the shift-key and typed: “IDIOT.”

Doing his best to ignore the distraction, he typed, “As I was typing before I was so rudely interrupted…”

She lifted his hands away from the keyboard and replied, “COME BACK TO BED, IDIOT.”

He struggled to find the correct typewriter keys but managed to tap out, “Hwo can I get any worf done if there is a naked woman pestering me?”

She ripped the letter out of the typewriter, popped it into her mouth and started to chew.

“I know there is a famine,” he said, “but eating my resignation letter doesn’t help.”

“You write that, the Cheka will read it and detain me.”

Standing up, she walked over to the window and pulled up the blind, exposing her nakedness to anyone who cared to glance at the window.

“Come away from there, Evgenia.”

“If I am lucky I might find a real man, one who finds me attractive.”

Goaded, Jones grabbed her and led her back to bed.

When they had done, he kissed her once, twice and then studied her thoughtfully. “If I let them know I’m leaving, they will come for you?”

She nodded, firmly.

“The letter from Yagoda?”

“Its magic will work on the lowly Commissar, a Cheka officer out in the middle of nowhere, a border guard, perhaps. But, once the Lubyanka knows you are leaving, they will act. They want to make sure that you will hold your tongue about the famine. They know you are in love with me.”

“How do they know that?”

“I told them.”

Dropping his jaw to his chest, he looked down and then, quietly, greatly troubled, asked, “Why in heaven’s name did you do that, Evgenia?”

“They already know, idiot. Duranty smelt your lust for me the very first moment you saw me. That’s why he made me do what I did on the train. I’ve told you this already.”

After a time, he said, “I’m sorry. You must remember that I’m new to thinking like this. It’s like playing a game in which the rules keep changing. But there is only one real rule. Against the Cheka, you lose.”

“Welcome to Moscow, little one,” she said this with relish, as if he were a rather dim pupil who had finally got something right.

“So you were saying… If I leave?”

“They will hold me here. I will be their hostage. You’ll be in London, but you won’t know whether I am alive or dead. If I’m alive, you are theirs. If I am dead, you will dare to tell the truth. Their solution will be to keep me alive in your mind for as long as possible, long after I am dead. Before they execute someone, they sometimes make them write ten, twenty love letters, each one dated another year in the future.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve read files, read letters from the dead to lovers abroad dated many years into the future.”

“So they kill you in a month’s time?”

“And you get a love letter from me every year. The last one will be in 1953, saying wait for me, just wait for me. This way, the Cheka creates its very own time machine.”

“That is evil.”

“That is the Cheka.”

He kissed her bare shoulder. “I have a dark question for you.”

“We are lovers. There are no secrets between us.”

“Have you translated while someone has been under torture?” His words came out too fast. Her eyes were cast down. He repeated his question. Her head dipped, once, infinitesimally. He paused for a time.

“Who?”

She said something so softly he couldn’t hear her.

“Who?”

“Harold Attercliffe.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“But his Russian is perfect. There was no need for a translator.”

“When the Cheka tortures someone, they believe that the subject will find it harder to resist if a woman is also present. It somehow makes it, in their view, worse, more humiliating. To have a woman present there for no purpose feels wrong. But a female translator, it works for them.”

“How bad?”

“Unspeakable.”

“What did they want from him?”

“He lived and worked in Kazan. Somehow he got hold of a photograph showing German tank specialists at a top secret tank proving ground near Kazan. This is a breach of the Treaty of Versailles. Somehow this photograph ended up in the hands of the British Embassy. The Cheka wanted to know how that happened.”