Ken Follett - The Man From St. Petersburg

The effect on Aleks was even greater. He sprang to his feet, spilled his sherry and blushed crimson. Lydia thought: Why, he’s shy! He transferred his dripping glass from his right hand to his left, so that he was unable to shake with either, and he stood there looking helpless. It was an awkward moment, for he needed to compose himself before he could greet Charlotte, but he was clearly waiting to greet her before he would compose himself. Lydia was about to make some inane remark just to fill the silence when Charlotte took over.

She pulled the silk handkerchief from Aleks’s breast pocket and wiped his right hand with it, saying, “How do you do, Aleksey Andreyevich,” in Russian. She shook his now-dry right hand, took the glass from his left hand, wiped the glass, wiped the left hand, gave him back the glass, stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and made him sit down. She sat beside him and said: “Now that you’ve finished throwing the sherry around, tell me about Diaghilev. He’s supposed to be a strange man. Have you met him?”

Aleks smiled. “Yes, I’ve met him.”

As Aleks talked, Lydia marveled. Charlotte had dealt with the awkward moment without hesitation, and had gone on to ask a question-one which she had presumably prepared in advance-which succeeded in taking Orlov’s mind off himself and making him feel at ease. And she had done all that as smoothly as if she had had twenty years’ practice. Where had she learned such poise?

Lydia caught her husband’s eye. He too had noted Charlotte ’s graciousness, and he was smiling from ear to ear in a glow of fatherly pride.

Feliks paced up and down in St. James’s Park, pondering what he had seen. From time to time he glanced across the road at the graceful white facade of Walden’s house, rising over the high forecourt wall like a noble head above a starched collar. He thought: They believe they are safe in there.

He sat on a bench, in a position from which he could still see the house. Middle-class London swarmed about him, the girls in their outrageous headgear, the clerks and shopkeepers walking homeward in their dark suits and bowler hats. There were gossiping nannies with babies in perambulators or overdressed toddlers; there were top-hatted gentlemen on their way to and from the clubs of St. James’s; there were liveried footmen walking tiny ugly dogs. A fat woman with a big bag of shopping plumped herself down on the bench beside him and said: “Hot enough for you?” He was not sure what would be the appropriate reply, so he smiled and looked away.

It seemed that Orlov had realized his life might be in danger in England. He had shown himself for only a few seconds at the station, and not at all at the house. Feliks guessed that he had requested, in advance, that he be met by a closed coach, for the weather was fine and most people were driving open landaus.

Until today this killing had been planned in the abstract, Feliks reflected. It had been a matter of international politics, diplomatic quarrels, alliances and ententes, military possibilities, the hypothetical reactions of faraway Kaisers and Czars. Now, suddenly, it was flesh and blood; it was a real man, of a certain size and shape; it was a youthful face with a small mustache, a face which must be smashed by a bullet; it was a short body in a heavy coat, which must be turned into blood and rags by a bomb; it was a clean-shaven throat above a spotted tie, a throat which must be sliced open to gush blood.

Feliks felt completely capable of doing it. More than that, he was eager. There were questions-they would be answered; there were problems-they would be solved; it would take nerve-he had plenty.

He visualized Orlov and Walden inside that beautiful house, in their fine soft clothes, surrounded by quiet servants. Soon they would have dinner at a long table whose polished surface reflected like a mirror the crisp linen and silver cutlery. They would eat with perfectly clean hands, even the fingernails white, and the women wearing gloves. They would consume a tenth of the food provided and send the rest back to the kitchen. They might talk of racehorses or the new ladies’ fashions or a king they all knew. Meanwhile the people who were to fight the war shivered in hovels in the cruel Russian climate-yet could still find an extra bowl of potato soup for an itinerant anarchist.

What a joy it will be to kill Orlov, he thought; what sweet revenge. When I have done that I can die satisfied.

He shivered.

“You’re catching a cold,” said the fat woman.

Feliks shrugged.

“I’ve got him a nice lamb chop for his dinner, and I’ve made an apple pie,” she said.

“Ah,” said Feliks. What on earth was she talking about? He got up from the bench and walked across the grass toward the house. He sat on the ground with his back to a tree. He would have to observe this house for a day or two and find out what kind of life Orlov would lead in London: when he would go out and to where; how he would travel-coach, landau, motor car or cab; how much time he would spend with Walden. Ideally he wanted to be able to predict Orlov’s movements and so lie in wait for him. He might achieve that simply by learning his habits. Otherwise he would have to find a way of discovering the Prince’s plans in advance-perhaps by bribing a servant in the house.

Then there was the question of what weapon to use and how to get it. The choice of weapon would depend upon the detailed circumstances of the killing. Getting it would depend on the Jubilee Street anarchists. For this purpose the amateur dramatics group could be ignored, as could the Dunstan Houses intellectuals and indeed all those with visible means of support. But there were four or five angry young men who always had money for drinks and, on the rare occasions when they talked politics, spoke of anarchism in terms of expropriating the expropriators, which was jargon for financing the revolution by theft. They would have weapons or know where to get them.

Two young girls who looked like shop assistants strolled by his tree, and he heard one of them say: “… told him, if you think just because you take a girl to the Bioscope and buy her a glass of brown ale you can…” Then they were past.

A peculiar feeling came over Feliks. He wondered whether the girls had caused it-but no, they meant nothing to him. Am I apprehensive? he thought. No. Fulfilled? No, that comes later. Excited? Hardly.

He finally figured out that he was happy.

It was very odd indeed.

That night Walden went to Lydia ’s room. After they had made love she slept, and he lay in the dark with her head on his shoulder, remembering St. Petersburg in 1895.

He was always traveling in those days- America, Africa, Arabia-mainly because England was not big enough for him and his father both. He found St. Petersburg society gay but prim. He liked the Russian landscape and the vodka. Languages came easily to him but Russian was the most difficult he had ever encountered and he enjoyed the challenge.

As the heir to an earldom, Stephen was obliged to pay a courtesy call on the British ambassador, and the ambassador, in his turn, was expected to invite Stephen to parties and introduce him around. Stephen went to the parties because he liked talking politics with diplomats almost as much as he liked gambling with officers and getting drunk with actresses. It was at a reception in the British Embassy that he first met Lydia.

He had heard of her previously. She was spoken of as a paragon of virtue and a great beauty. She was beautiful, in a frail, colorless sort of way, with pale skin, pale blond hair and a white gown. She was also modest, respectable and scrupulously polite. There seemed to be nothing to her, and Stephen detached himself from her company quite quickly.