Саймон Моуэр - Prague Spring

‘Steffie asked you to do that? It’d be like putting the fox in charge of a chicken.’

A little breath of laughter, carrying with it the scent of Chanel No. 5. ‘Are you a chicken, Sam?’

Eric’s voice came from across the terrace. ‘Sam, put my wife down. You don’t know where she’s been.’

Gusts of laughter. These Foreign Office boys, the laughter seemed to say: nothing like as stuck up as they seem.

Madeleine’s voice continued in his ear, ‘Or are you just a tiny bit queer, like so many of you public school boys?’

‘Grammar school, I’m afraid. Altogether more normal. And duller.’

She laughed with him and detached herself from his arms to do a little pirouette. ‘So show me.’

To Sam’s relief the record changed. Something more upbeat, with a heavy bass riff and an organ wailing protest. Madeleine detached herself from him and began to dance in the middle of the terrace, her arms above her head, hips gyrating in time with the insistent beat. ‘Gimme some lovin’,’ a raucous blues voice demanded. One of the MPs began to jig around opposite Madeleine, leaving Sam to make his escape to the drinks table.

As he poured himself a whisky a Northern voice spoke over his shoulder. ‘So what’s your role in all this, young man?’

He turned to find one of the delegation at his elbow. The man was short and stout and would have fitted well enough into the Party Praesidium during Gottwald’s reign – ill-fitting grey suit that shone like beaten pewter, a shirt collar as tight as a garrotte, a glance that hovered between unease and malice. Before the delegation had arrived in the city the diplomatic staff had been briefed to treat members of the group with extreme caution; most of them were well to the left of almost anyone in Dubček’s government and all of them considered the Foreign Office little more than a sinecure for ex-public school boys. This particular example was one such, a trades unionist who was mainly renowned for having brought his own particular branch of industry to its knees through a series of wildcat strikes. ‘My role in this what , exactly?’

‘In Her Britannic Majesty’s embassy to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Aside from dancing with the boss’s wife, that is.’

‘I’m political.’

‘Are you, indeed? And where do your politics lie?’

‘Wherever the current government tells me they should.’

The man laughed humourlessly. ‘Ever the diplomat, eh?’

‘That’s what people keep telling me.’

‘I’ll bet you’re a Tory.’

‘I wonder if you’d find any takers amongst those who actually know me.’

‘So what’s your view of the politics here?’

‘I think I know too much about it all to have a single view. I have many views, each one calling the previous one into question.’

‘Typical Foreign Office response. Come off the bloody fence for once. Admit that Dubček’s a working-class hero. He’s showing how socialism should be. And you Tories are just as pissed off as the Russians.’

Sam looked at the man pityingly. ‘Actually, the Office doesn’t consider hero-worship of foreign leaders to be in our best interests. And whatever you may see now, it’s worth remembering that Dubček and his merry men all came up through the ranks during the Stalinist era, during which they accepted all kinds of horror as though it was the will of God. Now they’re standing on the brink, wondering whether to jump into the unknown or turn back into the familiar arms of Mother Russia. When push comes to shove, they’re likely to turn round and beg Mummy for forgiveness.’

‘And when will that be?’

‘It’s probably happening now, at their meeting in eastern Slovakia. No doubt the fraternal comrades are toasting peace and happiness at this very moment.’

‘Have you met the man?’

‘Dubček? Once, at a reception. The ambassador was in London and Eric Whittaker was ill, so the lot fell on me.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Courteous, amusing, intelligent. As far as one can tell from hello goodbye.’

The man hummed a bit, his bluff, aggressive humour dampened for a moment. ‘Speak the language, do you?’ he asked unexpectedly.

‘Czech? Well enough. My Russian is better.’

‘At least they’ve posted you to the right place.’

‘Pure chance, I can assure you. I might just as easily have got Ouagadougou.’

Wry laughter. Did the man even know where Ouagadougou was?

It wasn’t exactly clear what brought the evening to an end. Probably the arrival of cars to take people back to their hotel. There was much handshaking and a bit of two-cheek kissing, which rather surprised the parliamentarians. And then the terrace and the house below was empty of all but the hosts and Sam was making his belated farewells. Madeleine managed to get him alone for a moment, which was what he had been dreading. She took hold of his shoulders and kissed him full on the mouth. ‘Sam,’ she said, ‘will you go to bed with me?’

‘Did Steffie suggest you ask me that?’

‘More or less.’

‘Well tell her the answer’s no.’

She laughed. ‘Is that because you’re being faithful to her, or because you’ve got someone else lined up?’

‘Mrs Whittaker, you’re drunk.’

She was doing that thing, fiddling with his tie as though to make him look respectable. ‘And you are boring.’

‘Boring is what I should be, under the circumstances. Can you imagine what Eric would say if the First Secretary in Chancery was shafting his wife?’

‘Eric doesn’t mind. When he took me on I warned him that sometimes I’d have a little fling and he wasn’t to mind about it. It was my first husband who minded, and look what happened to him.’

He took her hand and lowered it to her side. ‘Was he pushed or did he jump?’

She thumped him gently in the chest. ‘I began to push,’ she said. ‘He thought it easier to jump.’

It was a short walk to Sam’s flat through the maze of alleys. As he reached the little square in front of his building a figure detached itself from the shadows and accosted him.

‘Did I give you a fright?’ the SIS man asked.

‘Not at all, Harold. Nothing gives me a fright in the Malá Strana. Safest place in the whole city.’

‘Ghosts, I thought. No amount of security can guard against them.’

‘Are you a ghost, Harold?’

‘Spook, maybe. But I’ve always thought of myself as a kind of golem. Occult powers, if you know what I mean. No, I won’t come up. Safer to have a quick chat out here.’

‘I’m sure my flat is clean.’

The man laughed. ‘Is that what Mr Plod the policeman tells you?’ He reached inside his jacket as though going for a gun, but all he brought out was a plain envelope. ‘I thought you’d like the photo. Nice little souvenir. Don’t bother looking at it now. I just wanted to say that she has form. Your young lady, I mean.’

‘Form? What kind of form?’

‘Interesting, really. A few years ago – sixty, sixty-one – she was having an affair with a member of the Party. Respectable chap, married, three children, house in Vinohrady, you know the kind of thing. Destined for the Presidium, by all accounts. So we got to know about his little peccadillo with this particular girl – don’t ask me how – and we had him lined up for a bit of gentle blackmail.’

‘Charming.’

‘We are, Sam, we are.’

‘And what happened?’

‘Total bloody failure. As soon as he was approached by us, he dropped her like a hot potato, confessed everything to the wife and told the StB. Our own chap had a difficult time extricating himself from the deal. He was working under diplomatic cover, thank God, but they declared him persona non grata and we had to get him out in a hurry.’