Саймон Моуэр - Prague Spring

The typewritten sheets went round the table. There was a hasty scanning, some suggestions, nods of approval. ‘And in the meantime we have our Members of Parliament doing the rounds. Where exactly are they now, Sam?’

‘I believe they are in Pilsen this morning. This afternoon it’s a glass factory.’

‘It’s always a glass factory.’

‘And then in the evening there is an informal party hosted by your kind self. And Madeleine, of course.’

After the meeting Sam searched out the stout little fellow who was everyone’s Friend. Harold Saumarez. Could he have a word? In strictest confidence?

Of course he could. Perhaps a breath of fresh air in the garden? Where, it was understood but never mentioned, they would be out of the hearing of any hidden microphones. So they strolled across velvet lawns where the ambassador held a summer garden party, assuming the weather was kind, to celebrate the QBP, the Queen’s Birthday Party, symbol of British insouciance abroad.

‘Just a word in your ear, Harold. In strictest confidence, of course.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve said that.’

‘Shows how important it is, doesn’t it? There’s a name I’d like to have checked out, you see. Someone I’ve met recently. One Lenka Konečková.’ As they walked they tried to keep their faces averted from the balustrade of the Castle high above where, so the rumour went, expert lip-readers attempted to oversee conversations in the gardens of the British embassy below and interpret what was being said. He even put his hand to cover his mouth as he spoke the name. ‘Twenty-five years old. Calls herself a student. Does some journalism, occasional work for the radio, so she says.’

Harold raised what were, by any standards, heavy eyebrows. ‘Personal interest?’

‘Professional.’

‘It’s hardly my job, you know.’

‘Of course it’s not, Harold. But you know as well as I do that security doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. Mr Plod the policeman, retired. Whereas our dearly beloved Friends…’

Harold sniffed, torn between wounded pride and flattery. ‘I’ll see what I can do. You don’t have a photo, do you?’

Sam produced the film cartridge and tucked it into the man’s top pocket as he might have tucked a cigar. ‘In there, right at the end. Perhaps your chaps can have it developed. I didn’t have any time. There’ll be a few snaps of little consequence – Steffie and me doing something silly – but the last one should show her. It’s a group photo, gathered round a table, late evening. Taken with a flash, so I’ve no idea how it’ll come out. Some of them will be making faces, but not her. She’ll be on the far left.’

Harold removed the item from his top pocket and secreted it elsewhere about his person, as though there was a correct place for such things. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘I’d be most grateful.’

The Whittakers had a rooftop terrace. This elevated their apartment to a level appropriate to Head of Chancery. One reckoned one’s progress through the service by measures like that – the quality of posting, of housing, of furnishing – until finally you reached ambassadorial level and might live in a palace surrounded by furniture and artworks fit for a museum, at which point the time came for your K and subsequent retirement to that dull and unfamiliar bungalow in the Home Counties. But for the moment, as he showed his guests onto the terrace, Eric Whittaker was heedless of that. ‘Two messages are inherent in this apartment,’ he was explaining in his best academic manner. ‘One is that .’ He made a theatrical gesture to demonstrate what was obvious, the view before them, across the rooftops of Malá Strana to the river and the Charles Bridge. Beyond the river were the imposing buildings and pinnacles of Staré Město, the Old Town. On one building a red star glowed like a single, malevolent eye. ‘From that view you may appreciate that we are amongst the elite, rising above everyone else in the city, except’ – he turned in the opposite direction, backstage, to where a massive bastion rose up from the terrace like a cliff, blocking out half the night sky – ‘that lot up there.’

Up there, looming over everyone, was the Hrad, the Castle, where the president of the country resided and Kafka reigned supreme.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is the second message.’

The visitors laughed dutifully but nervously. They made up the parliamentary delegation come to convince itself that Socialism With A Human Face really was possible even behind the barbed wire and tank traps of the Iron Curtain. They’d spent the morning at the Škoda works in Pilsen and the afternoon in a glass factory, where each member of the party had been presented with a piece of abstract Bohemian glass resembling something you might find in the waste bin of a hospital operating theatre. Now it was an informal dinner at the Whittakers’ with carefully selected guests.

‘What dreadful, dull people,’ Madeleine whispered. She was tall and dark and vindictive towards things that did not amuse her. The MPs’ wives did not amuse her. Having spent most of the day showing them the sights of Prague (the wives not deemed serious enough to deal with the Škoda factory), she now considered her duty done and had enticed Sam into a secluded corner of the terrace where she could give vent to her spleen. ‘In France tout le monde understands that you must imitate the arbiters of good taste even if you ’ate what they admire; but these people seem to think that taste is a matter of opinion . Worse than that, they appear to think that it is a matter of démocratie .’

She’d had the foresight to put some music on the record player, and the cool voice of a soprano saxophone drifted out of the speakers. Sam knew what was coming next. She would suggest they dance and she would press her hips against him and get him aroused, and he would picture Steffie’s face twisted into a little scowl of ‘told-you-so’.

‘I think you ought to get your guests dancing,’ he suggested.

‘Pah!’ It was astonishing how dismissive an innocent exclamation could become when manipulated by a pair of French lips. ‘Those clod’oppers,’ she said. ‘There is nothing worse-dressed and worse-mannered than a British socialist. And nothing worse at dancing. So I want to dance with you, Sam, and find out how you are doing without the virginal Stéfanie at your side. Is celibacy already beginning to get you down?’

‘She’s only been gone a few days.’

She laughed. ‘Do you know what President Kennedy once told me?’

‘When did you meet President Kennedy?’

‘When Eric was in Washington. You don’t believe me?’

‘It all depends on what he said.’

‘He said, “I get terrible headaches if I haven’t had a new woman in three days.”’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘But it ’appens to be true.’

‘And you replied?’

‘“Do you have a headache now?” And he said, “Ma’am, I sure do.” To which I replied, “Well, Mister President, if you come with me we’ll see what’s in the medicine chest.”’

She laughed and took hold of him, moving with the music exactly as he had predicted, sinuously, pushing her hips against him, a rather expert movement that might have been mistaken for a tango. One of the visiting MPs laughed. There was a smattering of applause. Sam heard Eric’s voice saying ‘French’ to one of the guests, as though by way of explanation. Another couple joined them in the dance, with nothing like Madeleine’s snake-like immodesty but with a degree of regimented competence that spoke of hours of practice in Northern ballrooms.

Her mouth close to his ear, Madeleine whispered, ‘Steffie has entrusted me with looking after you. To ensure that you don’t suffer from Kennedy ’eadaches and go looking after lovely Czech ladies.’