Brian Freemantle - The Lost American

Leader! thought Orlov, in a sudden, oblivious-to-everything mental lurch. The euphoria leaked away, as quickly as it came. He didn’t want to be leader and he didn’t want to be a deputy and he didn’t want to be married any longer to Natalia and he didn’t want to be in Moscow. All he wanted was Harriet. He said, ‘It’s an overwhelming prospect. Everything’s overwhelming, in fact.’

Sevin laughed in genuine amusement at the other man’s confusion, pouring large measures of vodka for them both. He raised his glass and said, ‘To you, Pietr Grigorovich Orlov. People are going to know of you; know of you and respect you and fear you. You’re going to break the mould of stagnating, senile leadership in this country, bury Serada’s mistakes and sweep away the blanket of nepotism that’s smothering our leadership and our progress.’

Ignoring the absurdity of talking of nepotism, Orlov guessed from the hyperbole that the man had practised and rehearsed the speech, like the politician he was. People were going to know of him, Orlov thought sadly. But not for the sort of reason Sevin imagined.

Sundays were always difficult.

Every other day of the week had its boxes and its compartments, regular fixed commitments around which everything properly revolved; even Saturdays. But definitely not Sundays. Sunday was a do-nothing day, without a peg upon which Ruth could hang her coat. She hated Sundays because they were a constant reminder; Eddie had usually been free on Sundays.

She fell back upon the Smithsonian, like so many times before, but halfway around the science exhibition their boredom and lack of interest became too obvious so she decided to cut her losses and run, taking a cab up to the Hill, to the American Cafe.

Paul, maybe because he was the elder of the two and saw it as his role, led the attack, when it came to ordering drinks to go with the hamburgers.

‘Bloody Mary,’ he said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ refused Ruth, too vehemently and in front of the waitress anyway: she could have turned everything aside if she’d treated it as a joke. With no other choice but to continue she said, ‘You know you can’t have a Bloody Mary. Ridiculous!’

The child reddened under the gaze of the patient, amused waitress who’d seen it all before. Shit! thought Ruth.

‘I want a Bloody Mary,’ insisted Paul.

Ruth retreated to the familiar defence of an adult with a recalcitrant child, invoking the support of another adult. To the waitress, she said, ‘My son is not yet fourteen. He’s not allowed alcohol, is he?’

‘No ma’am,’ said the waitress. ‘Sodas or shakes, tea or coffee.’

‘Assholes!’ said Paul.

Both women heard him but pretended not to have done so.

‘Sodas or shakes, tea or coffee,’ recited the waitress again.

‘Nothing,’ said Paul, denying himself so as to deny them as well.

‘Coke,’ said John. Belatedly he added ‘Please’ but because of the brace it came out as a lisp.

After the woman had gone away with their order, Ruth said to Paul, ‘OK, what was all that about?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, head bent against the table, regretting it now as much as she did.

‘You made a fool of yourself,’ said the woman, nervously aware just how close she’d come to losing control and wanting to reinforce her position, to prevent it happening again. ‘You made a fool of us all.’

Paul said nothing because there was nothing to say.

‘I’m waiting for an apology.’

The elder boy remained silent.

‘I said I’m waiting for an apology.’

‘Sorry,’ said Paul, voice soft and his lips barely moving.

‘And you’ll apologise to the waitress when she comes back,’ said Ruth, building upon her advantage.

‘I think she’s a bitch!’ blurted John, coming to the aid of his beleaguered brother.

Ruth turned to the other boy, looking bewildered between him and the departing waitress.

‘Not her!’ said John, with child-like irritation at being misunderstood. ‘The woman Daddy’s with. I think she’s a bitch.’

‘You don’t know anything about it,’ said Ruth, which was a mistake because since the divorce they’d both attempted the role of guardians and she realised as she spoke that she was diminishing their efforts.

‘We know everything about it, for God’s sake!’ came in Paul, anxious to recover from his previous defeat.

‘I know that,’ said Ruth, striving to maintain a reasonable tone in her voice. ‘I know you’re affected as much as I am – maybe even more so – and I’m sorry, John, that I said you didn’t know anything about it. That’s not what I meant.’

‘What then?’ said the younger boy.

‘I meant that there are some things that occur between grownup, adult people that are difficult for younger people…’ Ruth hesitated, not wanting to cause further friction ‘… grown-up and adult though those younger people are, that are difficult for young people to understand…’ She trailed to a stop, realising how awful the attempt had been.

‘Like going to bed together, you mean?’ said John, anxious to prove his worldliness.

‘That,’ conceded Ruth cautiously. ‘But that’s not all of it. Even the important part of it. There are lots of other things, as well.’

‘Didn’t you go to bed with Daddy?’ demanded Paul, determined upon vengeance.

Ruth felt herself blushing. ‘That isn’t the sort of question you should ask me,’ she said desperately. ‘But you know the answer anyway: of course I went to bed with Daddy.’

‘Then why did he go to bed with her, as well?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ruth, an admission as much to herself as to the children. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘I hate her,’ said John, proud at having initiated the discussion. ‘Don’t you hate her?’

‘No,’ said Ruth, carefully rehearsed. ‘No, I don’t hate her. And I don’t hate Daddy.’

‘I don’t understand you!’ protested Paul, exasperated. ‘How can you not hate her!’

Not easily, conceded Ruth to herself. ‘Hate doesn’t achieve anything,’ she said.

‘What will, to get Daddy back?’ implored John, who had tears brimming in his eyes when she looked at him.

‘I don’t know, darling,’ she said soothingly. ‘Not yet I don’t know.’

‘Will you?’ he said, with trusting anxiousness.

‘I don’t know that either,’ said Ruth honestly.

The returning waitress stopped the conversation and Ruth smiled up at her, gratefully. Remembering, she said to Paul, ‘Don’t you have something to say to this lady?’

There was a moment when Ruth thought he would refuse but then he said, ‘Sorry,’ louder the second time.

Why was it, wondered Ruth, that sorry had been the most familiar word in their vocabulary for so long now?

The unrest was centred in Shemkha, which was fortunate because Sokol was not sure he could have contained the protest if it had started in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku. It was from the KGB centre in Baku, of course, that the reports came and because he was so alert to the problem Sokol responded at once, ordering that Shemkha should be sealed and moving extra militia from Tbilisi in bordering Georgia and from Rostov and Donetsk as well. Sealing the town was only the first step, until he could get there himself on the long flight from Moscow. On the way from the airport Sokol gazed out at the parched fields of the tropical part of the Soviet Union, realising how crop failures of this province had been compounded by the grain failures on the Steppes: people were slow moving and actually, in cases, already emaciated. He went immediately to Shemkha and from the car radio system ordered that the leaders of the revolt should be assembled, for his arrival. There were four of them, a city physician and a factory technician and two farmers. The physician, whose name was Bessmertnik, was the reluctant spokesman, a bespectacled, stutteringly hesitant man. Sokol heard the complaints out, a litany of promised but never realised grain deliveries from the chairman of the city committee and spoilation through transport confusion and delays of food that did arrive. He ordered the immediate arrest of the committee chairman and transport authority head and detained Bessmertnik and one of the farmers as well. The hearing was brief- at Sokol’s instructions – in every case the charge of anti-Soviet activity, which covered any and every transgression. They were found guilty, also at Sokol’s instructions, and shot within an hour of the verdict. The official Soviet airline Aeroflot is subordinate to KGB orders and Sokol used fifteen aircraft from their transport fleet to fly in grain and vegetables. The entire operation took only a fortnight and the day after his return to Moscow there was a congratulatory memorandum from Aleksai Panov. Sokol was grateful for the recognition but knew it wasn’t what he wanted for the promotion upon which he was so determined; it wasn’t a coup.