Tom Smith - Agent 6

– Children, you have a very important guest today. This is Jesse Austin, the famous singer. You must show our guest how well you can behave.

Even the youngest children understood the danger these men represented. Austin crouched down to ask a question. Leo couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was already on his way to the entrance.

Once inside, out of sight, he broke into a run, his shoes heavy on the smooth stone floor. He stopped a teacher, grabbing her arms, startling her with his intensity.

– Where’s the director’s office?

The teacher remained dumbstruck, staring at Leo’s uniform. Leo shook her.

– Where?

She pointed to the end of the corridor.

Leo burst into the room, causing the school director to stand up, paling with each second. Leo realized that the poor man believed he was being arrested. He was frail, in his late fifties. His lips were squeezed thin with anxiety. There wasn’t much time.

– I’m Officer Demidov. I need to know everything about a teacher working here. She’s called Lena.

The director sounded like a frightened child.

– A teacher?

– She’s called Lena. She’s young, my age.

– You’re not here for me?

Leo snapped:

– No, I’m not. I’m here for a woman called Lena. Hurry up!

The old man seemed to come alive with these words – someone else was in trouble, not him. He stepped around the front of his desk, keen to be as helpful as possible. Leo glanced towards the door.

– Lena, you say?

– Her subject is politics.

– A teacher called Lena? I’m sorry: you have the wrong school. There are no teachers called Lena here.

– What?

– There are no teachers called Lena working here.

Leo was shocked.

– But I saw her books. They had the name of this school written across them.

Grigori opened the door, hissing a warning:

– They’re coming!

Leo was sure of the school. Where was the mistake? She’d told him her name. Her name! That was the lie.

– How many teach politics?

– Three.

– A young woman among them?

– Yes.

– What is her name? Do you have a photograph of her?

– In the files.

– Hurry!

The director found the relevant file. He handed it to Leo. Before he could look through it, Grigori opened the door again. Austin and the officials entered the room. Leo turned to address them:

– Director, I’d like to introduce you to Jesse Austin, our guest. He wants to inspect a Soviet school before returning to America.

The director having barely recovered from the first shock was inflicted with a second – an internationally renowned guest and a group of top-ranking officials. The official who’d addressed the children outside now addressed the headmaster, using the same smile to mask his warning:

– We want to show our visitor that the Soviet education system is one of the best in the world.

The director’s voice had become weak again.

– I wish you’d given me some warning.

Austin stepped forward.

– No warning. No fuss. No ceremony. No preparations. I want to poke around, see what you get up to. And see how things work. Forget I’m even here.

He turned to Leo.

– How about we watch a lesson?

Disingenuous, Leo answered:

– A science lesson, perhaps?

– Is that what your girl teaches? Science?

Upon hearing the claim that a teacher was Leo’s girlfriend, the director stared at Leo. Ignoring him, Leo answered Austin’s question:

– No. She teaches politics.

– Well, we all like politics, don’t we?

Everyone laughed except Leo and the director. Austin added:

What was her name? Did you tell me before?

Leo couldn’t remember if he’d mentioned the name Lena or not.

– Her name?

Evidently he didn’t know her name. The director was too scared or too slow-witted to step in and help him.

– Her name…

Leo deliberately dropped the file – let it slip from his hand, the papers falling out. He bent down, picking them, glancing through them.

– Her name is Raisa.

*

The director led the way to Classroom 23 on the second floor, Austin by his side, the officials behind him, stopping occasionally to examine a poster on the wall, or peer into another lesson. During these breaks, Leo was forced to wait, unable to stand still. He had no idea how the woman who’d lied to him about her name was going to react. Eventually reaching the classroom, Leo peered through the small window. The woman at the front was the woman he’d met on the metro, the woman he’d spoken to on the tramcar, the woman who’d told him her name was Lena. It occurred to him, belatedly, that she might be married. She might have children of her own. As long as she was smart, they were both safe.

Leo pushed forward and opened the door. The delegation followed, the entrance filling up with officials, the school’s director with Jesse Austin at the front. The students stood up, amazed, their eyes flicking from Leo’s uniform to their director’s anxious face to Austin’s wide smile.

Raisa turned to Leo, holding a stub of chalk, her fingers dusty white. She was the only person in the room, aside from Austin, who seemed calm. Her composure was remarkable and Leo was reminded why he found her so attractive. Using her real name, as if he’d known no other, Leo said:

– Raisa, I’m sorry for arriving unexpectedly but our guest, Jesse Austin, wanted to visit a secondary school and I naturally thought of you.

Austin stepped forward, offering his hand.

– Don’t be mad at him. It’s my fault. I wanted it to be a surprise.

Raisa nodded, assessing the situation with agility.

– It certainly is a surprise.

She noted Leo’s uniform, before remarking to Austin:

– Mr Austin, I enjoy your music very much.

Austin smiled, asking coyly:

– You’ve heard it?

– You’re one of the few Western…

Raisa’s eyes darted towards the crowd of party officials. She checked herself:

– Western singers any Russian would want to listen to.

Austin was elated.

– That’s kind of you.

Raisa glanced at Leo.

– I’m flattered my lessons were considered worthy for such important visitors.

– Would it be OK if I watched you teach?

– Take my seat.

– No, I’ll stand. We’ll be no trouble, I promise! You just go ahead. Do your normal thing.

It was a comical notion that this lesson would be normal. Leo felt faintly hysterical and light-headed. The sense of gratitude was so intense it was a struggle not to take hold of Raisa’s hands and kiss them. She taught the lesson, managing to ignore the fact that none of the children were listening, all of them fascinated by the guests.

After twenty minutes a delighted Austin thanked Raisa.

– You have a real gift. The way you speak, the things you say about Communism, thank you for letting me listen in.

– It was my pleasure.

Jesse Austin was smitten with her too. It was hard not to be.

– Are you busy tonight, Raisa? Because I’d like it very much if you’d come to my concert. I’m sure Leo has told you about it?

She glanced at Leo.

– He has.

She lied with consummate skill.

– Then you’ll come? Please?

She smiled, expressing a razor-sharp sense of self-preservation.

Planners for tonight’s event had toyed with the idea of staging the concert within the factory itself, capturing footage of Jesse Austin singing, surrounded by machinery and workers, creating the impression of a concert that had sprung up spontaneously, as though Austin had burst into song while touring the premises. It had proved impractical. There was no clear stretch of floor space to act as an auditorium. The heavy machinery would block the view for many and there were questions about whether the machinery was suitable for international scrutiny. For these reasons the concert would take place in an adjacent warehouse emptied of stock and more traditionally arranged. A temporary stage had been set up at the north end, in front of which were a thousand wooden chairs. In order to preserve the notion that this was a concert in contrast to those performed in the West, the workers were being ushered directly from the factory floor, given no time to go home and change. The organizers not only wanted an audience of workers, they wanted an audience that looked like workers, with oil on their hands, sweat on their brows and lines of dirt under their nails. The event would offer a stark contrast to the elitism that typified concerts in capitalist countries with tiered ticket prices resulting in a stratification of the audience, where the poor were so far away they could hardly see the show while the truly impoverished lingered backstage, in the service corridors, waiting for the concert to finish so they could sweep the floor.