Last Call for Blackford Oakes (17 page)

Graham Greene never objected to late evenings, though Rufina reminded him, some time after midnight, that Kim Philby did not have the same stamina. Having said this, she said she would retire, leaving her husband and his guest with food and drink. Earlier she had asked Andrei not to discuss with Greene the explosive matter of Ursina's extraordinary behavior the night before. “I myself,” she said, “would not want to participate in critical conversation involving my best friend, and my country.”

Philby didn't exactly promise her that Ursina's behavior would not be a subject of conversation, but at least Rufina would be spared it. At her own desk in the bedroom, Rufina wrote in her journal, “The Graham Greene sitting opposite me tonight was nothing like the Greene I had imagined. I was captivated straightway. The man who wrote the foreword to Kim's book was nice, delicate, soft-spoken, with the clear, naïve eyes of a child. As we chatted he was attentively interested in what I had to say, reacting to my little jokes in an unforced way, with a pleasant chuckle.”

She opened the door of the bedroom sufficiently to view again her husband and his famous guest, talking in the corner of the study. She could not hear what they were saying. She returned to her journal to write, “He and Kim have several subtle characteristics in common: inquisitive, piercing blue eyes, and directness and sincerity, combined with a British reserve. But the similarities are not just skin deep. They have a lot else in common, notably a strong sense of fair play: Their sympathies were always on the side of those who were striving for freedom.”

Everything going on in the world was interesting to Kim Philby and Graham Greene. “It's fine that the Soviet people finally got around to publishing your book—”

“
Our
book,” Philby interrupted.

“You are nice to say that. I have never been apologetic about writing the preface to
My Silent War
, though there are passages in it I deplore. No. Passages in it I regret.”

“Well, Graham, we aren't here to review a twenty-year-old book.”

“No. We are here to review a two-day-old conference. I said in my speech this afternoon, which I assume you heard, that I see us as fighting—Roman Catholics and Communists together—against the U.S.-backed death squads in El Salvador, against the U.S.-backed Contras in Nicaragua, against the U.S.-backed General Pinochet in Chile.”

“That was a weighty toast you made to Gorbachev.”

Greene smiled and reached into his pocket. “I won't read out the whole of the toast you've already heard, only the last sentence, which is scandalous enough certainly to be emphasized by the press.” He fiddled with pages. “‘I even have a dream, Mr. General Secretary, that perhaps one day before I die, I shall know that there is an ambassador of the Soviet Union giving good advice at the Vatican.'”

“You are what, Graham, eighty-three?”

“Yes. Time goes by. I was only thirty-nine when you were my superior officer in the directory.”

“I'm surprised I didn't order you to enlist in Soviet intelligence!”

The two friends were quick to acknowledge the irony. Philby refilled their glasses and lit another Gauloise.

“You are best, as a great novelist, in seeing life through individual human beings. Rufina didn't want me to talk about it, and I would not in her presence. It has to do with that clerical disruption yesterday, so slight you might not even have noticed it.”

“You mean the missing speaker at the complimentary session?”

“Yes. She is Ursina Chadinov, professor of medicine, practicing urologist, and best friend of my wife. She was here in the apartment for our wedding reception.”

Graham Greene was instantly taken by the story. He lived by his interest in human stories.

“Well, Graham, this may disappoint you, but Ursina is not a practicing Catholic.”

Greene laughed. And, with heavy sarcasm, “I have known some people of interest who are not practicing Catholics.”

“Ursina grew up in Leningrad, the daughter of a civil servant. He died when she was young. She did volunteer work in a hospital and decided she wished to be a doctor. This was made possible by an uncle, a professor of urology here at the university.”

“I take it urology runs in the family.”

Philby laughed. “As a matter of fact, her mentor at the university, a student of her uncle's, is
also
a urologist. But shall I get on with it, Graham?”

“Of course. No more acidulous interruptions. What was it that actually happened?”

“Well, Ursina has been living with an American, some sort of emissary from the United States Information Agency here to prepare for the cultural-exchange exhibit down the road—June, I think. Rufina used to share an apartment with Ursina and saw the American often—in fact, he too came here to our wedding reception, escorting Ursina.”

“What has the evil American done this time? Did he by any chance set someone in the Lubyanka free?”

Kim Philby's mouth tightened a bit. “Are we going to discuss things like that?”

“I doubt you'd want to, Kim. You might have to write another book.”

Philby decided to ignore him. “Well, it is an affair of great passion. Then yesterday, quite late in the afternoon, she arrives, as she has been instructed to do, at the office of the culture minister to give a copy of her text to the clerk. He reads it and is understandably astonished. Goes upstairs, shows it to Roman Belov—he's the minister of culture, old-line—he reads it and says, ‘Of course, not one sentence of this will be read to the assembly.'”

“What in the name of heaven had she written?”

Philby got up, paused to fill their glasses, walked to his desk, and reached deep into the back of a drawer. He pulled out the two pages, clipped together, and handed them over to Greene.

“Should I read it now?”

“Yes. It's short. And in any event, I could not permit you to leave with it.”

Greene put on his glasses and moved his chair closer to the light.

After a minute or two he put the text down. “This is a cri de coeur, if ever I saw one.”

“A cry of the heart? Well, it may be that, Graham. And I can see you already reaching down for an emotional, psychological, philosophical, theological explanation for it all. Meanwhile, it is also outright treachery.”

“You are against treachery these days, Kim?”

Philby did not even pretend to smile. “The very idea. Thinking to make such a statement to seven hundred visitors to the Soviet Union here to promote peace.”

“Kim, Kim. They are here to promote the general secretary's program. Which is what
I
am here to promote. Everyone has to be actively engaged in saving the world, with that terrible man in the White House.”

“Well, Ursina certainly did not, in those two pages, attempt to forward the cause of world peace we are talking about.”

“There has got to be a personal explanation. There always is, Kim. Maybe you are an exception, going into the arms of mother Marx at Cambridge at age nineteen.”

“I don't mind exploring that possibility, that there is a personal explanation for her behavior. It was I who brought up the subject of her American lover.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“I wish I could. When he was here briefly for the wedding toasts I remember he looked very inquisitively at my library over there. But why shouldn't he? Everybody's personal library is interesting.”

“Yours is well stocked with books on the political scene, I assume.”

“Yes. And I have a dozen copies of my own book, the paperback edition.”

“Did your American—what is his name?”

“Doubleday. Harry Doubleday. He does consulting work for the USIA—I told you that, I think—and is specifically promoting books in English for circulation in the Soviet Union.”

“Is he … physically interesting? Sexy?”

“He is, I'd say, sixty-sexy. He does look like a physically well-endowed American movie star, reaching that age. He endeavored to speak a few words of Russian, and his eyes showed an amusement with his verbal miscalculations.”

“What will become of her, Kim? You're not just going to take her out and shoot her, are you? Impoverish the urological resources of your great country?”

Once more Philby was not amused. “Nothing will happen, of course, while the conference is in session. She has been told to report to the minister of culture as soon as it is over.”

“Then what?”

“I do not inquire into these matters. That should not surprise you. I am not even told what happens to my own case officers when they suddenly disappear.”

“If I were a novelist,” Graham Greene said, tipping his glass to his lips, “I would look into this American and his hypnotic powers.”

CHAPTER 31

Blackford pulled from his pocket the key to his house in Virginia, the house in the countryside, in a village called Merriwell. It was past eleven at night. He didn't want to wake Josefina, and didn't have to. She knew he would be coming. Not at what hour, though, so she had not stayed up to let him in. He fitted his key into the lock and flashed on the light. Walking into the hall he was surprised by a red ribbon hanging from the chandelier, holding an envelope marked,
ATTENTION: B. OAKES, SPY
.

He tore the envelope open. “Papabile,” the note began.

Blackford's face was wreathed in pleasure. The note was from his stepson, Tony. Don Antonio Morales. Tony was twenty-three years old and had grown up in Mexico and in Virginia, in this house, with his mother, the late Sally Oakes. Professor Sally Oakes. Blackford's heart raced with anticipation. He hadn't seen Tony since the funeral in Mexico, a full six months back. He was tempted to spring upstairs to his room, but paused to read the note.

“Papabile.” The name had been contrived by the four-year-old boy struggling to understand the difference between his real father, who was dead, and this father, and Tony had used it ever since. “It didn't take much to get Josefina to let me into your house! On the other hand, I guess she didn't find me very suspicious. Maybe because she's known me since I was, what? three, four days old? So: My illustrious employers, Morales y Morales, decided I should spend a graduate semester at Georgetown Law School on American–Mexican law, so I'm here to find out about enrolling next term. But—scratch that. Es todo por ahora. I am dead for lack of sleep. Acapulco–Mexico–Miami–Washington. See you tomorrow. Much love, tu hijastro, Tony.”

Blackford looked in the silver bowl where Josefina had placed assorted mail. Anthony Trust had been conscripted to come in once every week to look over the mail. Anything that might be in any way special, Trust, Blackford's oldest friend, was authorized to open. If Trust read anything he thought Blackford would want to know about immediately, he'd précis it, and get it to Gus on the secure line.

There hadn't been much traffic of this sort. A couple of deaths, including one of Black's professors at Yale. A goddaughter telling him of her First Communion. Events Blackford would want to know about, even if they didn't require him to react in any way. Magazines were on the shelf over the radiator, unless they were more than one month old, such being thrown out. Blackford had there, to look at, two issues of
National Review
, four of
The New Yorker
, one of
Commentary
. He picked up a couple of them and that morning's
Washington Post
, and lugged his heavy suitcase up the stairs to his bedroom.

He flopped down on the bed he had shared for twenty-two years with Sally, and thought for the very first time of the symbolic infidelity, lying there, the father of a five-week-old child who would bear his name, which Antonio Morales did not. His eyes moistened as he thought of Sally. He had been so deeply grieved when the aneurysm struck her in Mexico City, twenty-six hours before her death in La Madera hospital. He had mourned her truly. But he would not deny to himself that his passion for Ursina now overwhelmed any other thoughts.

Antonio Morales was a worldly twenty-three-year-old, alive with energy and curiosity; for understandable reasons, proudly Mexican. He had never known his own father, but grew up quickly learning that his name—passed down from his grandfather, who had founded the law firm—was respected in Mexico.

Tony had inherited from his father the villa in Coyoacán, in the heart of residential Mexico City, as also a trust fund that provided for its upkeep and, of course, for his mother. He attended school in Mexico City until he was twelve and was brought then to live in Virginia, attending St. Albans School. But he knew, and his Papabile had never by any hint stood in the way, that Mexico was his adult destination. His mother, sensitive to the pressure of her Mexican in-laws, reaffirmed that he would be attending college and law school in Mexico.

Blackford's absences from his hearth were sometimes for periods as long as two or three months. Somehow, though, the Morales/Oakes, Coyoacán/Virginia family unit remained functional, healthy, and happy. The sudden death of Sally precipitated a turn of mind. The old lady, Great-Aunt Morales, opined that, with Sally dead, there was no longer a binding tie to the United States.

“Papabile is a strong tie,” Tony had observed at the family meeting that took place following the funeral: great-aunt, two uncles, an aunt, a half dozen cousins. Blackford had absented himself from that meeting, sensitive to the fact that in this family discussion his voice would be subordinate, and even, in a sense, alien.

But the formal end to Tony's tie to Virginia hadn't induced personal alienation at any level. Tony knew that he was welcome, any time, to visit with his stepfather, and just now he had done so without giving any notice at all.

Blackford slept well, but not for long. He was already through with his breakfast when Tony came down, his face alight with the pleasure of seeing his stepfather again.