A big woman carrying a bulging string bag walked in front of the car. Ansell braked. ‘Bloody peasant,’ he said. The woman walked on as if she were crossing an empty field. ‘There’s all hell to pay if you hit one of them. And it’s always your fault. I sometimes think they want to be knocked down by a Western car.’
They turned into Prospect Kalinina where acetylene welders were dripping sparks from the girders of new apartment blocks on to the old tenements below. Over the winding river once more, wispy with mist, past the battlements of the Ukraine Hotel, past the Dom Igrushki toy shop where children gazed at the poor toys in the windows. At the third militiaman along Kutuzovsky Prospect Ansell made a U turn.
They followed a Mercedes and a Peugeot into the car park, ‘I thought about getting a bigger car,’ Ansell said. ‘But what’s the point of getting anything decent? It would only be wrecked by these peasant taxi drivers.’
A group of Cubans in Army battle-dress slouched past.
‘Not as popular as they used to be,’ Ansell said. ‘They reckon Castro’s got a bit too big for his boots.’
‘Why on earth are they dressed up like that?’
‘Heaven knows. Perhaps they’re the only clothes they’ve got. They sleep a dozen to a flat, you know. And they won’t let anybody in. I think they’re just ashamed of the way they live.’
An African parked his car so that it blocked two others. He walked away looking pleased with himself, incongruously elegant in a slim-trousered suit and a snap-brimmed hat.
It was almost dark now, the air smoky and iced and hostile.
‘What are you doing tonight?’ Ansell asked.
‘Nothing very much. I thought I’d write a few letters and have an early night. I haven’t been to bed before one since I arrived.’
‘What about taking in a flick at the American Club with us? If we can get a baby sitter that is.’
‘I didn’t know you had a baby,’ Mortimer said. ‘You don’t look like a father.’
The remark seemed to please Ansell. ‘A little girl,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a film? You might as well be introduced to the American Club. Dreadful place, really. But it serves a purpose. Especially if you’re a bachelor.’ He winked at Mortimer. ‘What about it?’
‘All right,’ Mortimer said. ‘I’ll write my letters now.’
But he didn’t finish the letters because he had a visitor.
He was interrupted by a ring at the door. A loud, drilling ring that startled him. He thought immediately of the warnings about attempts to compromise him.
A slim girl in a grey woollen dress stood at the door. She said breathlessly, ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you and I wouldn’t have dreamed of disturbing you normally but I’ve locked myself out and I wondered if I could use your phone.’
The warnings were lodged in his mind like repetitive advertising. ‘I’m awfully sorry but I don’t know who you are,’ he said. He was ashamed of his clumsiness.
She flushed. ‘I’m from upstairs. I know we haven’t been introduced and I wouldn’t have disturbed you if I hadn’t been desperate.’
An American journalist who lived two floors above Mortimer walked down the stairs. He saluted the girl. ‘Hi there,’ he said.
‘Hallo,’ she said. She turned back to Mortimer. ‘The lifts aren’t working. You’ll get used to that after a while. There’s a man next to us who’s got a heart complaint. He’s terrified of going out in case the lift breaks down while he’s out and he has to walk up the stairs.’
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Mortimer said. ‘I didn’t realise you were in this block. Come in and use the phone by all means.’
She stood in the lounge looking uncertainly around. ‘It’s a very nice flat,’ she said. ‘You have very good taste.’
‘The furniture was here when I arrived. It’s not bad but it isn’t what I would have chosen. I prefer old things.’
‘So do I,’ said the girl.
‘Then you don’t really like it,’ Mortimer said, remembering how Randall had tricked him into admiring modern art.
‘I think it shows very good taste—if you like modern furniture. Like you I prefer something more mellow.’
He watched her while she telephoned. Reddish hair unswept making the back of her neck look vulnerable, innocent somehow. Thin fingers with nails painted pink. Calves of her legs strained as she bent to replace the receiver. He hardly heard what she said on the phone.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘It was very kind of you.’
‘Would you care for a cup of coffee? Or a drink perhaps?’
She hesitated. ‘No thanks. I haven’t really the time. Someone is coming with the key.’
After she had gone her perfume lingered in the flat.
The American Club was the most cosmopolitan establishment in Moscow. You could meet almost anyone there except a Russian.
It was run by servicemen from the American Embassy with great efficiency, elaborate courtesy and a stolid suspicion of strangers. No one was allowed in without a pass or a passport and girls in slacks were barred.
The vetting was in the hands of Elmer, a muscular, impassive Texan, whose personality was something of an enigma. He was said to be a character and a ‘deep one’. He appeared to have no sense of humour, but the sensitive detected derision in his drawl. Pleas for admittance and petulant threats were atrophied by his imperturbability. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Sorry, sir. No can do.’ Rejected visitors had the impression that they were lifted gently by the neck and deposited outside.
Upstairs, servicemen dexterously served drinks behind a long bar while their colleagues made their play for the nannies—Finnish and British mostly—over cans of beer and long, lethal Scotches tinkling with ice. Later they took them down to their den on the ground floor appointed with hi-fi, cushioned sofas, television and a cocktail cabinet.
Twice a week there was a film. Newcomers decided that the first film they saw must be the worst ever made—until they saw their second and third. Thereafter they watched in a numbed coma: it passed a couple of hours, they said. Oriental diplomats, moth-like Vietnamese, silent women in saris, arrived shivering in the gloom and left as the film ended, their entry and exit unnoticed. How the films were chosen was never divulged; but a programme posted on the noticeboard contained the assessments of an enthusiastic critic called Sandy. ‘A breathtaking saga of the West—five stars.’ ‘A rib-tickling comedy, a must for the family—five stars.’ There were those who suspected that Sandy had never seen the pictures; and once when he dismissed a thriller with only four stars the regulars agreed that it was the best movie ever shown at the club.
The reels broke down regularly but there was no whistling or cat-calling; the audience sat mutely as if no one had noticed. And afterwards they scarcely discussed what they had seen. They sat at tables with drinks in front of them which they replenished during the interval. A few Americans and a couple of frustrated British businessmen usually stayed at the bar drinking.