Derek Lambert - Angels in the Snow

ANGELS IN THE SNOW

Derek Lambert

COPYRIGHT Copyright Dedication Foreword First Snow Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six First Snow Keep Reading About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher

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First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 1969

Copyright © Derek Lambert 1969

Design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Derek Lambert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008268329

Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008268312

Version: 2017-10-04

DEDICATION Dedication Foreword First Snow Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six First Snow Keep Reading About the Author By the Same Author About the Publisher

To MONA

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page ANGELS IN THE SNOW Derek Lambert

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

First Snow

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

First Snow

Keep Reading

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

FOREWORD

An author’s first line of defence against possible libel actions always used to be the introductory assertion that all characters in his novel were fictitious and bore no resemblance to anyone living or dead. The custom appears to be dying, but I wish to resuscitate it for the purposes of this book. The book is about Russia and it occurred to me that it was possible that the Soviet authorities might take action against any of their subjects on whom they believed I had based my characters. Certainly a new liberalism expanding freedom of expression is being born in the Soviet Union, but the labour is a long and painful process. Unless the stricture is sanctioned by the Kremlin any criticism of the system can still be interpreted as a hostile act if it emanates from a foreigner, or a treasonable act if it emanates from a Russian. There are Russians in my novel who criticise the system: I met some such critics, albeit not many, when I lived in Moscow. In each case the criticisms stemmed from patriotic love rather than disloyalty, but it would be difficult to convince the police or bureaucratic mind of any such altruistic motives. For this reason I want to emphasise to any Russian who may read this novel that, although I met such people, they are not identifiable here. I did, for instance, visit Khabarovsk in the far east of the Soviet Union near the Chinese border. I was shown around by a charming, knowledgeable and intensely patriotic guide who bears no resemblance whatsoever to the fictitious guide of treasonable intent in the book. Perhaps I am over-dramatising the problem, perhaps I am attaching far too much importance to the novel itself, but if there is the slightest possibility of retaliatory action being taken against any individuals it is preferable to err in those directions.

In the novel I have to an extent re-arranged chronology. The structural requirements of a novel in which the action is confined to one year—my year in Moscow—necessitated this. For example, the demonstration by the Chinese outside the American Embassy did not take place during that year. But the atmosphere and background are, I believe, authentic, and many of the incidents are factual. The principal story-lines are fictional; but that is not to say they could not have happened.

FIRST SNOW

The first snow of winter fell at night. Middle-aged women who saw it rejoiced because in the morning there would be work clearing the pavements; lovers in doorways kissed tenderly because, they said, their love was as pure and clean as the flakes settling on their shoulders; militiamen guarding the apartment blocks where the foreigners lived swore as they peered into the five months of frozen misery that lay ahead.

The snow fell hesitantly at first. It was late this year and the people of Moscow had been waiting for it as they would wait for the thaw in the spring, as people wait for the rains in the tropics, as if crises were seasonal to be buried or thawed or drowned. Soon the tired city was polished with new light.

The flakes touched the window of the bedroom where Luke Randall was making love to someone else’s wife.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘it’s snowing.’

‘Is it?’ he said. The arrival of the snow seemed to crystallise the knowledge that in the morning he would no longer find the woman beside him attractive.

‘Tell me you love me,’ she said.

‘I love you,’ he said. He filed away the knowledge for the night and embraced her softness and warmth. But there was desperation, hatred almost, about his love-making.

On the embankment beside the bridges snow-ploughs held their annual reunion. The river was dark and strong and the only colour in the black-and-white city came from the illuminated red stars on the Kremlin towers; in the morning the cupolas would gleam with a new lustre amid the snow.