Kingsley Amis - Russian Hide-and-Seek

‘You have it. You also have my congratulations, not for steadiness under fire but for making me believe in that arrested girl for nearly a minute.’

‘No longer? Now let me begin with a question. You said a moment ago that to repay the English what you feel you owe them you would go as far as might be necessary. If killing became necessary, would you lend your hand to that?’

‘Yes,’ said Alexander without hesitation.

‘Including your friends here? Including the major? Including your men?’

This time it took a little longer. ‘Yes.’

‘Very good. I now invite you to… What was that?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

‘It probably wasn’t anything. I’m sorry, Alexander, but I have an aversion to going into these matters except in private; it’s become second nature. Is there anywhere else we could go? Your bedroom’?’

‘My bedroom is overcrowded with just me in it. We could… Ah, I know the very place.’

‘Before we go, could I possibly have a drink? A serious drink? I can’t think why, but I suddenly feel like one.’

The ante-room was deserted. Alexander poured two glasses of Johnnie Walker Black Label and made out the chit. He stood facing Theodore, who winked and said resonantly,

‘Welcome to the Northampton Music Society!’

‘Success to all its concerts!’

They drained their glasses and, as if drilled beforehand, looked at each other, hesitated briefly and threw them into the empty hearth. They then embraced.

‘Ought we to have done that?’ asked Theodore, nodding at the scattered fragments. ‘Your servants aren’t going to have much fun clearing it up.’

‘Oh, they have a couple of English chaps in for all that kind of thing,’ said Alexander, picking up a pair of cushions from the sofa. ‘Come along – let’s have the rest of your story.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Outside. Where else?’

‘I’ve just thought we stand a chance of getting shot if we go out there.’

‘Not near the mess. If they’re going to shoot anybody, on the whole they’d be quite satisfied if it wasn’t Major Yakir having an outdoor pee.’

In the open the air was still and pleasantly warm and carried a faint odour of dry vegetation. The moon shone brightly and up and down the park windows were lit up, many of them uncurtained and shining out on to the nearby grass. Three uniformed figures were running down the steps of the main house, their footfalls on the stone just audible at this distance. Alexander led the way to a small Doric temple built nearly two centuries earlier and closely copied from a Hellenistic original at Pergamum in Asia Minor. The designer had made two visits there to ensure the accuracy of his reproduction.

‘What is this?’ asked Theodore as they passed between the central columns of the portico.

‘Some kind of summer-house, I imagine, It’s certainly the place to come on hot days.’

Indeed, pleasant warmth almost at once gave place to pleasant coolness. A couple of metres inside the temple proper the floor rose in a high step, high enough to provide, with the necessary aid of a cushion, an unluxurious seat. The two were in shadow here, but strips of moonlit pavement lay all about them. What they would have called weeds, what others would once have called camomile and pimpernel, grew in the spaces between the stones.

‘From what you were saying to your father,’ began Theodore, ‘I gather you want England to be given back to the English in one piece, so to speak, without any phases or probationary periods or conditions; is that correct?’

‘Yes – unless it’s done like that it’ll never be done at all.’

‘Good, that’s the essential first step. So they must be put in full political control at a stroke. And someone must put them there. Someone must take the power away from where it is now and give it to the English. And whoever does that must be Russian – the English can’t come to power by themselves; they’ll follow, but at the beginning they can’t lead. It was with this in mind that Group 31 was founded in Moscow four years ago. Its first task was to get as many of its men as possible into the Cultural Commission and to try to win over the remainder. This has been spectacularly successful. Today two-thirds of the personnel are either of us or actively on our side, including all the section heads and deputies, and the remainder, including Commissioner Mets, are not expected to give any trouble.’

‘Are you saying that the whole Commission and the whole of the New Cultural Policy for England are nothing but a front for a revolutionary movement?’ Alexander sounded sceptical.

‘Certainly not, it’s all quite genuine. The two go together. We’ll go on with our work after we’ve put the English in control.’

‘If they want you to.’

‘I’m sure they will. They must. If I may continue, we’ve infiltrated all the departments of the administration. The civilian police have been particularly responsive – they’re underpaid, they get no privileges and of course they hate Director Vanag – and their support will make our job almost easy. They’ll simply arrest everybody on the other side who matters.’

‘What would you bet that Vanag’s men haven’t got your side infiltrated to hell?’

‘I thought it was your side too, Alexander.’

‘I’m sorry: our side. I have to ask these…’

‘No, no, you’re absolutely right to be cautious. Anything’s possible, but the tentative view of our leadership is that no infiltration has been suffered as yet. All right, you can’t prove a negative; even so, there is one striking and suggestive fact. What does a wise man do when he’s moving about among his enemies? He keeps looking over his shoulder to see if he’s being followed. Well, we’ve been looking over our shoulders, and there’s nobody there. Not one of us has noticed the slightest sign of unwonted interest in him, as it might be hearing by chance that somebody has been round the place asking questions. And we think we know the reason. Naturally we’ve been keeping a close watch on certain of Vanag’s men and listening to what they say in the pubs. The position seems to be that they’re so disaffected that if they should notice anything of what’s going on they wouldn’t follow it up and they wouldn’t pass the information to their superiors, who would only use it to advance themselves. Something of the sort may already have…’

He stopped speaking as a sudden uproar broke out in one of the buildings further down towards the road. What sounded very much like female voices rose in protest, in mutual hostility, in fury; male ones remonstrated, tried to pacify, tried to quieten. Shrieks followed, then a bump as something fell and a crash as something broke. Men began to shout.

‘Are they allowed to bring women in?’ asked Theodore.

‘Certainly not, but nothing’s done about enforcing that rule unless something like this happens, a case of the old army don’t-let-me-catch-you understanding. But now I’m afraid the guard’ll have to intervene.’

The noise continued, though not so loud or so near that it would have hindered their conversation, had they wanted to resume it; instead, both watched intently. The resemblance between what they saw and a stage performance was increased by their view of it framed between two of the pillars of the temple and by the intensity of the moonlight, which seemed to have grown since they had come out of doors. Behind the upstairs windows gesticulating human figures, some of them partly nude, came into view, milled about or grappled with one another, and vanished. Once, the shape of a man moved rapidly backwards across the entire breadth of the visible space, no doubt as the result of some blow. Sound effects included the smashing of glass, twice repeated, and a periodic thumping like the driving-in of nails with a heavy mallet. Little groups of men from other buildings were strolling over for a closer view, and there was something of an audience when four of the guard arrived under an NCO and shortly afterwards dragged off three women, all by now weeping loudly. The NCO stayed a moment to bawl promises of retribution at the occupants of the offending house, and then he too was gone.