65 Short Stories (119 page)

‘Tell me what gave you the idea of calling her Delilah?’ smiled Ashenden. Mr Harrington reddened a little.

‘She’s a very fascinating woman, Mr Ashenden. She’s been deeply wronged by her husband and I naturally felt a great deal of sympathy for her. These Russians are very emotional people and I did not want her to mistake my sympathy for anything else. I told her I was very much attached to Mrs Harrington.’

‘You’re not under the impression that Delilah was Potiphar’s wife?’ asked Ashenden.

‘I don’t know what you mean by that, Mr Ashenden,’ replied Mr Harrington. ‘Mrs Harrington has always given me to understand that I’m very fascinating to women, and I thought if I called our little friend Delilah it would make my position quite clear.’

‘I don’t think Russia’s any place for you, Mr Harrington,’ said Ashenden smiling. ‘If I were you I’d get out of it as quick as I could.’

‘I can’t go now I’ve got them to agree to my terms at last and we’re going to sign next week. Then I shall pack my grip and go.’

‘I wonder if your signatures will be worth the paper they’re written on,’ said Ashenden.

He had at length devised a plan of campaign. It took him twenty-four hours’ hard work to code a telegram in which he put his scheme before the persons who had sent him to Petrograd. It was accepted and he was promised all the money he needed. Ashenden knew he could do nothing unless the Provisional Government remained in power for another three months; but winter was at hand and food was getting scarcer every day. The army was mutinous. The people clamoured for peace. Every evening at the Europe Ashenden drank a cup of chocolate with Professor Z. and discussed with him how best to make use of his devoted Czechs. Anastasia Alexandrovna had a flat in a retired spot and here he had meetings with all manner of persons. Plans were drawn up. Measures were taken. Ashenden argued, persuaded, promised. He had to overcome the vacillation of one and wrestle with the fatalism of another. He had to judge who was resolute and who was self-sufficient, who was honest and who was infirm of purpose. He had to curb his impatience with the Russian verbosity; he had to be good-tempered with people who were willing to talk of everything but the matter in hand; he had to listen sympathetically to ranting and rodomontade. He had to beware of treachery. He had to humour the vanity of fools and elude the greed of the ambitious. Time was pressing. The rumours grew hot and many of the activities of the Bolsheviks. Kerensky ran hither and thither like a frightened hen.

Then the blow fell. On the night of 7 November 1917 the Bolsheviks rose. Kerensky’s ministers were arrested, and the Winter Palace was sacked by the mob; the reins of power were seized by Lenin and Trotsky.

Anastasia Alexandrovna came to Ashenden’s room at the hotel early in the morning. Ashenden was coding a telegram. He had been up all night, first at the Smolny, and then at the Winter Palace. He was tired out. Her face was white and her shining brown eyes were tragic.

‘Have you heard?’ she asked Ashenden.

He nodded.

‘It’s all over then. They say Kerensky has fled. They never even showed fight.’ Rage seized her. ‘The buffoon!’ she screamed.

At that moment there was a knock at the door and Anastasia Alexandrovna looked at it with sudden apprehension.

‘You know the Bolsheviks have got a list of people they’ve decided to execute. My name is on it, and it may be that yours is too.’

‘If it’s they and they want to come in they only have to turn the handle,’ said Ashenden, smiling, but with ever so slightly odd a feeling at the pit of his stomach. ‘Come in.’

The door was opened and Mr Harrington stepped into the room. He was as dapper as ever, in his short black coat and striped trousers, his shoes neatly polished and a derby on his bald head. He took it off when he saw Anastasia Alexandrovna.

‘Oh, fancy finding you here so early. I looked in on my way out, I wanted to tell you my news. I tried to find you yesterday evening, but couldn’t. You didn’t come in to dinner.’

‘No, I was at a meeting,’ said Ashenden.

‘You must both congratulate me, I got my signatures yesterday, and my business is done.’

Mr Harrington beamed on them, the picture of self-satisfaction, and he arched himself like a bantam-cock who has chased away all rivals. Anastasia Alexandrovna burst into a sudden shriek of hysterical laughter. He stared at her in perplexity.

‘Why, Delilah, what is the matter?’ he said.

Anastasia laughed till the tears ran from her eyes and then began to sob in earnest. Ashenden explained.

‘The Bolsheviks have overthrown the Government. Kerensky’s ministers are in prison. The Bolsheviks are out to kill. Delilah says her name is on the list Your minister signed your documents yesterday because he knew it did not matter what he did then. Your contracts are worth nothing. The Bolsheviks are going to make peace with Germany as soon as they can.’

Anastasia Alexandrovna had recovered her self-control as quickly as she had lost it.

‘You had better get out of Russia as soon as you can, Mr Harrington. It’s no place for a foreigner now and it may be that in a few days you won’t be able to.’ Mr Harrington looked from one to the other.

‘0 my,’ he said. ‘0 my!’ It seemed inadequate. ‘Are you going to tell me that that Russian minister was just making a fool of me?’

Ashenden shrugged his shoulders.

‘How can one tell what he was thinking of? He may have a keen sense of humour and perhaps he thought it funny to sign a fifty-million-dollar contract yesterday when there was every chance of his being stood against the wall and shot today. Anastasia Alexandrovna’s right, Mr Harrington, you’d better take the first train that’ll get you to Sweden.’

‘And what about you?’

‘There’s nothing for me to do here any more. I’m cabling for instructions and I shall go as soon as I get leave. The Bolsheviks have got ahead of us and the people I was working with will have their work cut out to save their lives.’

‘Boris Petrovich was shot this morning,’ said Anastasia Alexandrovna with a frown.

They both looked at Mr Harrington and he stared at the floor. His pride in this achievement of his was shattered and he sagged like a pricked balloon. But in a minute he looked up. He gave Anastasia Alexandrovna a little smile and for the first time Ashenden noticed how attractive and kindly his smile was. There was something peculiarly disarming about it.

‘If the Bolsheviks are after you, Delilah, don’t you think you’d better come with me? I’ll take care of you and if you like to come to America I’m sure Mrs Harrington would be glad to do anything she could for you.’

‘I can see Mrs Harrington’s face if you arrived in Philadelphia with a Russian refugee,’ laughed Anastasia Alexandrovna. ‘I’m afraid it would need more explaining than you could ever manage. No, I shall stay here.’

‘But if you’re in danger?’

‘I’m a Russian. My place is here. I will not leave my country when most my country needs me.’

‘That is bunk, Delilah,’ said Mr Harrington very quietly.

Anastasia Alexandrovna had spoken with deep emotion, but now with a little start she shot a sudden quizzical look at him.

‘I know it is, Samson,’ she answered. ‘To tell you the truth I think we’re all going to have a hell of a time, God knows what’s going to happen, but I want to see; I wouldn’t miss a minute of it for the world.’

Mr Harrington shook his head.

‘Curiosity is the bane of your sex, Delilah,’ he said.

‘Go along and do your packing, Mr Harrington,’ said Ashenden, smiling, ‘and then we’ll take you to the station. The train will be besieged.

‘Very well, I’ll go. And I shan’t be sorry either. I haven’t had a decent meal since I came here and I’ve done a thing I never thought I should have to do in my life, I’ve drunk my coffee without sugar and when I’ve been lucky enough to get a little piece of black bread I’ve had to eat it without butter. Mrs Harrington will never believe me when I tell her what I’ve gone through. What this country wants is organization.’

When he left them Ashenden and Anastasia Alexandrovna talked over the situation. Ashenden was depressed because all his careful schemes had come to nothing, but Anastasia Alexandrovna was excited and she hazarded every sort of guess about the outcome of this new revolution. She pretended to be very serious, but in her heart she looked upon it all very much as a thrilling play. She wanted more and more things to happen. Then there was another knock at the door and before Ashenden could answer Mr Harrington burst in.

‘Really the service at this hotel is a scandal,’ he cried heatedly, ‘I’ve been ringing my bell for fifteen minutes and I can’t get anyone to pay the smallest attention to me.’

‘Service?’ exclaimed Anastasia Alexandrovna. ‘There is not a servant left in the hotel.’

‘But I want my laundry. They promised to let me have it back last night.’

‘I’m afraid you haven’t got much chance of getting it now,’ said Ashenden.

‘I’m not going to leave without my laundry. Four shirts, two union suits, a pair of pyjamas, and four collars. I wash my handkerchiefs and socks in my room. I want my laundry and I’m not going to leave this hotel without it.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ cried Ashenden. ‘What you’ve got to do is to get out of here while the going’s good. If there are no servants to get it you’ll just have to leave your washing behind you.’

‘Pardon me, sir, I shall do nothing of the kind. I’ll go and fetch it myself I’ve suffered enough at the hands of this country and I’m not going to leave four perfectly good shirts to be worn by a lot of dirty Bolsheviks. No, sir, I do not leave Russia till I have my laundry.’

Anastasia Alexandrovna stared at the floor for a moment; then with a little smile looked up. It seemed to Ashenden that there was something in her that responded to Mr Harrington’s futile obstinacy. In her Russian way she understood that Mr Harrington could not leave Petrograd without his washing. His insistence had given it the value of a symbol.

‘I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find anybody about who knows where the laundry is, and if I can I’ll go with you and you can bring your washing away with you.’

Mr Harrington unbent. He answered with that sweet and disarming smile of his.

‘That’s terribly kind of you, Delilah. I don’t mind if it’s ready or not, I’ll take it just as it is.’

Anastasia Alexandrovna left them.

‘Well, what do you think of Russia and the Russians now, Mr Harrington?’ asked Ashenden.

‘I’m fed up with them. I’m fed up with Tolstoy, I’m fed up with Turgenev and Dostoyevsky, I’m fed up with Chekhov. I’m fed up with the Intelligentsia. I hanker after people who know their mind from one minute to another, who mean what they say an hour after they’ve said it, whose word you can rely on; I’m sick of fine phrases, and oratory and attitudinizing.’

Ashenden, bitten by the prevailing ill, was about to make a speech when he was interrupted by a rattle as of peas on a drum. In the city, so strangely silent, it sounded abrupt and odd.

‘What’s that?’ asked Mr Harrington.

Rifle-firing. On the other side of the river, I should think.’

Mr Harrington gave a funny little look. He laughed, but his face was a trifle pale; he did not like it, and Ashenden did not blame him.

‘I think it’s high time I got out. I shouldn’t so much mind for myself, but I’ve got a wife and children to think of I haven’t had a letter from Mrs Harrington for so long I’m a bit worried.’ He paused an instant. ‘I’d like you to know Mrs Harrington, she’s a very wonderful woman. She’s the best wife a man ever had. Until I came here I’d not been separated from her for more than three days since we were married.’

Anastasia Alexandrovna came back and told them that she had found the address.

‘It’s about forty minutes’ walk from here and if you’ll come now I’ll go with you,’ she said.

‘I’m ready.’

‘You’d better look out,’ said Ashenden. ‘I don’t believe the streets are very healthy today.’

Anastasia Alexandrovna looked at Mr Harrington.

‘I must have my laundry, Delilah,’ he said. ‘I should never rest in peace if I left it behind me and Mrs Harrington would never let me hear the last of it.’

‘Come on then.’

They set out and Ashenden went on with the dreary business of translating into a very complicated code the shattering news he had to give. It was a long message, and then he had to ask for instructions upon his own movements. It was a mechanical job and yet it was one in which you could not allow your attention to wander. The mistake of a single figure might make a whole sentence incomprehensible.

Suddenly his door was burst open and Anastasia Alexandrovna flung into the room. She had lost her hat and was dishevelled. She was panting. Her eyes were starting out of her head and she was obviously in a state of great excitement.

‘Where’s Mr Harrington?’ she cried. ‘Isn’t he here?’