Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

In the ramifications of mind this whiff of improbability, of significance or nothing, somehow connected with the explosion. The unlikely, the coincidental, the inexplicable, had throughout been part of life. Chance, tyche , correspondence to the rhythms, if not of existence, at least to my experience. Neatly contrived novels, perfect solutions, were as unreal as signed treaties, elaborate pledges, medals strewn across a ruler who had never seen battle. Never ceasing, were these flickers from the Underworld: hidden controls, ambiguous strangers, arson, chaos? An Estonian prince once hurled a new spear into the sky, and it fell, dripping with blood. War Office’s assurance, political manifestoes were worthless, history as much confusion as design. Fêtes end in dissolution, terrorists roam at will.

Above us, charred bricks, smashed tiles, splinters of furniture remained a gash on the hillside, though no more bizarre or unlucky than everyday happenings elsewhere. Charting a new Central African route, a jet plane had scared a tribe into lynching an elder, beating up women, inventing several unwholesome words. Storming a mansion, Boston police discovered two reclusive old ladies, dead, one of cancer, the other of starvation, their rooms heavy with Titians, Louis XV adornments, a parakeet wilting in a platinum cage, $40,000 in gold, notes, bonds, the telephone cut off through bill unpaid. A European Cup fracas erupted from a Dutch spectator throwing a grenade at the Czech goalkeeper, pleading he had merely wanted to hear a bang. At the Athens Peace Congress, Mr Spender held a press conference to which nobody came. At the UN Assembly, a philosopher, having attacked the West for arming Iraq, selling nuclear assets to its enemies, enhanced his reputation by explaining that, if you look closely, murderers are the same as us.

Eventually, the Latvians would be etherealized into saints or martyrs, joining Sainte-Adèle des Pommes, guardian of a sacred well. We tacitly agreed to cease discussing them. Latvians came, Latvians went; live or dead – no human traces had been found – their fate was a tremor in an over-heated summer.

Though free to resume, we were nevertheless altered. Garden quietude had been jolted; we closeted ourselves more with books and music, laughter in abeyance. Even news of the Transport Minister flattening his nose on a door failed to transport us.

Again, I pondered my life as I might a police summons. Very little to declare. Pahlen would not have exalted me. That on a Committee of Public Safety I would have risked demanding acquittal for a friend was as improbable as Daisy poisoning a swan. Mr Spender had accomplished more, attempting to heal the world by his poetry. O young men, he had pleaded, O young comrades. I had merely flirted with life, my journeys and publications ephemeral as blossom.

Nadja was barely communicable, investigating classical media: oracles, sybils, sages, cryptographers, couriers, the ‘Antikythera Computer’, apparatus of learning, secrecy, clairvoyance, fakery. I could add some material about procedures at Uppsala, and she was dismayed, even annoyed, when I had to tell her that a tale she had thought from Herodotus was in fact invented by Hans Andersen.

Frowns melted into apology. ‘Erich, sometimes I see myself as parasite. Plagiarist. Grubbing into others’ labours.’ She looked up, as if at a favourite doctor. ‘So much is like those Brahms records I have never unpacked. Symphonies, concertos, songs. Never played. But I clasp myself, knowing that I can. And here, with you…’

Such uncertainty was familiar enough, from overwork or reaction from over-stimulus, and my anxiety, sincere, was not alarm, despite shadows having deepened under her eyes. We were autumn people with sadness well tempered, though outsiders might see us as sterile and luckless.

Laboriously, she shook herself free. ‘I am sorry. Much really sorry. You have given me so much.’

‘I’ve given you something. More than the ashen and despairing. But you give me riches. Making the very best of riches is, of course, no idle dilemma. I’ve banked it, at very fair interest.’

I spoke lightly, but words could not altogether suffice. We must await tyche , random opportunity, for some climactic embrace, exquisite harmony, the final screen removed, following destruction, perhaps death.

Spontaneously, slightly awkward, we moved into the garden, and she regained self-possession, natural authority, elegant in dark mannish coat, mauve scarf, pale trousers, against the formal, dark-green hedge. Woody smells drifted, a last dragonfly was now red, now blue, in electric rapidity. The cat condescended to inspect my ankle.

Much seemed repaired. We discussed the distinction between Anne , demure as milk, and Anna , vivacious, bold. ‘Both’, she tossed her head like an Anna, ‘odious.’We almost managed gaiety at more radio news. A Department of Employment had rendered most of its clerks unemployed; a Finnish urban council had found Donald Duck’s common-law marriage morally loose; an American DA was prosecuting a journalist for writing ‘Junkie’ instead of ‘Disadvantaged’.

Interrupting, in some accusation and as if expecting denial, she stated, ‘You are thinking of someone else.’

True. The self I had not achieved.

As to complete another sentence begun silently, and, more amiably, she said, ‘I would throw sticks into the river to help it go faster. I never wondered where it was going, but it seemed scared.’

I fancied she was attempting to say more than she found possible, but she relapsed into the pose always worth a connoisseur’s glance, one bare arm resting on a ledge, one hand stroking away hair, head tilted, eyes in another world.

Without speaking, we agreed that music would best suit a mood still difficult. Not Wagner but a grave, plangent Corelli sonata. We were not truly musical: my appreciation was too literary, finding not formal design but unruly stories, preventing concentration; hers was sensuous, seeking motifs for dance. Nevertheless, we sat contented, her face ruminative, puckered; now the child striving to succour the river, now anxious to please Corelli, while I unmethodically pondered the origins of music. Hunters’ cries, trappers’ animal imitations, warriors’ shouts, girls mooning over babies.

Afterwards, she was apologetic, to Corelli. ‘I was imagining…’

As though on cue the telephone rang. Often we ignored it, but at once she jumped up, as if for Mr Graves, lifted the receiver, looked back at me with what I thought some unease, murmured a dismissive ‘Yes’ and unhurriedly moved to the garden, pausing under an arch, glimmering between dishevelled roses, vanished into massed shadows.

For the rest of the day I did not see her and, always respecting the need to be alone, I removed to Alain’s. At breakfast she did not appear, and by evening it was apparent that she had gone with the cat on another professional trip.

Her room seemed as usual, tidy, the girlish straw hat lying on the gold-and-cream quilt, like a joke.

Unpossessive, I would miss the drama of an unexpected kiss, the movement towards my bed, the sudden playful suggestion. No more. By the end of the week, however, I had worry, still faint as shuffled silks but near a foreboding that I was no longer protected and that love remained a trap.

The crowd is vivid, many in nationalist peasant costumes, 1918 uniforms, jeans, with banners of Baltic heroes, all ages united in power of action, yet with outbursts of ribald song. Pre-war posters of Päts, Laidener, Poska, Pisp hang on tents, alongside demands for an anti-Soviet Popular Front, National Sovereignty, the restoration of Estonian in schools and verses celebrating the Baltic Way. More banners are woven with Independence, Freedom, We Too Are Europeans . Also, Perestroika , Glasnost . National badges, religious emblems, factional ribbons are flaunted, leaflets swapped, dates announced for festivals of native dance, music, poetry and democratic rallies. Gypsies in red kerchiefs argue in their own tongue or, passions quickened, link arms with strangers. No official, Russian or Estonian, is seen.