Secret Kingdom (34 page)

‘I can get her a place at medical school in Moscow.’

‘She doesn’t want to go to Moscow. Her life is here.’

‘You could come with her.’

‘This is where I live too.’

‘I can look after you both in Moscow.’

‘Does that mean you can’t do so if we stay here?’

‘Distance might add to the difficulty.’

The care with which he chooses his words tells her at once that he has his own reasons for suggesting they return to Moscow with him that have nothing to do with Dora’s failure.

‘Medical school for Dora isn’t the point, is it?’ she says.

‘That’s your interpretation, not mine.’

‘Why do you want to get us away from Budapest?’

‘I want Dora to have the career she has chosen. If that is impossible here, then why not Moscow? The medical school is excellent.’

‘It is only impossible here because she was failed for reasons that have nothing to do with her abilities.’

‘So Koli told me. I looked into that. There is no evidence to support what Koli says. Her papers weren’t up to standard, apparently. The recommendation was that she try again.’

How can he believe that? She decides to ignore what he has said. ‘Did you instruct the examining board to fail her?’

‘Do you think I would do such a thing to my own daughter?’

His
daughter? The child he has never seen in his life, to whose upbringing he has contributed nothing. How can he call Dora
his
?

‘What better way to put pressure on her to leave Budapest?’

‘You credit me with a nature I don’t possess.’

‘Your reputation precedes you,’ Eva says.

‘You mustn’t believe all you hear.’ He stubs out one cigarette and lights another at once. ‘I’m a soldier, not a politician. If I wanted her in Moscow, I’d arrange to have her taken there this instant, whether she liked it or not, and there is nothing you or anyone could do to stop me. The fact that I am here now in your apartment making this proposal tells you what you need to know. Don’t judge me too harshly. I am concerned about Dora’s future. Like any father, I want what is best for my daughter.’

How can he call himself her father when he has never before shown the slightest interest in Dora from the day she was born? She feels anger and bitterness at his presumption. He has no idea what it is like to be a parent.

‘I would like you both to return to Moscow,’ he says. ‘The sooner the better. I am not thinking of my own convenience when I say that.’

Moscow as sanctuary. That is how he is tempting her. It can mean only one thing. When the revolution comes, and his presence in Budapest is a sign that the Soviet authorities expect it to happen, he wants his daughter out of the way and, if he has to, her mother too.

‘What is going to happen here?’ Eva asks.

Abrasimov draws on his cigarette before he answers. ‘The future depends on your fellow countrymen. I hope they will come to their senses.’ His voice trails away. What will happen if they don’t is left to her imagination. ‘Will you put my offer to Dora?’

‘She won’t agree.’

‘I asked if you would put it to her.’

‘Very well.’

It’s too late, she wants to tell him. You can’t turn up after so many years and start exercising your power over a daughter you wouldn’t even recognize if you passed her in the street.

‘I want you both to think it over. You need not worry about money or accommodation. That would be taken care of. There is plenty of work for interpreters in Moscow, and for doctors.’

He gets up to leave. ‘My offer is unconditional. Please consider it seriously. It would be foolish to dismiss it out of hand.’ He hesitates for a moment. ‘I would be pleased to have you both there. I would like to get to know my own daughter.’

From the bus stop the walk up the hill was longer than he had anticipated and the path steeper. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, but even so, when he arrived, he was red-faced and sweating and wishing he had taken a taxi. From the outside the restaurant had the look of a private house with a garden, plane trees, flowering bushes and roses climbing the dry wall of the old brick
building that housed the dining room. Above him, pigeons settled on the roof. In the shadows of the trees he saw white-painted tables and chairs, at some of which people were sitting. Behind them, like a huge backcloth, the blue sky was lightly streaked with high feathery clouds beneath which the city shimmered grey and dusty in the heat.

Christine was alone. When he saw her, at first she appeared to be made of crystal, an unmoving, immaculate presence, the green dress set against her pale, fine skin giving her the appearance of glass. In her company he felt hot, dishevelled, in need of a bath.

‘It was further than I thought,’ he said wryly.

She smiled at him. ‘It’s hotter than ever, isn’t it?’ She handed him a glass of white wine and soda water. They talked about how difficult it was to sleep at night; would it ever rain again? the growing tension in the city; was the Soviet presence more marked than it had been? Was there going to be a revolution? Would the Soviet reaction lead to an international crisis?

‘I put you in an impossible position the other night,’ Christine said, suddenly touching his hand. ‘It was quite wrong. Will you forgive me?’

She had kissed him, that was all. She had done it as a dare to herself, he was sure, as much as anything to prove she could. It had little or nothing to do with him, it was more a clue to her state of mind at the time. He’d felt sorry for her then, and he still did. It was the act of a lonely woman.

‘Please.’ He was embarrassed by her protestations, uncertain what to say. ‘Please.’

She smiled her thanks. He saw a look of relief pass briefly across her face. Beneath the crystal exterior, there was another, less confident woman.

‘There’s something I think you ought to know about Bobby.’

‘You don’t have to do this,’ he replied, fearful of being drawn into some conflict between her and Martineau.

The vodka bottle beside her had hardly been touched and her glass was almost full. She had been smoking before he arrived – the ashtray was evidence of that – but not drinking.

‘Ten years ago, in Moscow, he had an affair with a French woman. She was married to a much older man, a professional diplomat, and she was bored with him. She set her cap at Bobby and he fell. The
affair lasted almost a year. I learned about it towards the end but I never said anything at the time. Don’t ask me why. I suppose I was frightened of losing him, I don’t know. It was probably a bad mistake in a lifetime of bad mistakes.’

She lit a cigarette. Hart saw that her hands were shaking.

‘Then she left Moscow and that was it. I should have spoken to Bobby then, but again I didn’t. That was cowardly of me, and foolish too. Then we were recalled to London. That was the terrible period of political infighting when I thought Bobby was going to have a breakdown, followed by the horror of Rio. I couldn’t say anything then because he was so depressed. I wanted to leave him but in the end I stayed, even though I hated every moment because I thought if I left he might do something terrible to himself. I had never seen that self-destructive side of him before.’

She looked at the vodka glass, thought about drinking from it, and then pushed it aside.

‘I knew coming out here was our last chance. I thought we could make it work. Bobby seemed so much better. Then it happened all over again. I couldn’t believe it. I had stood by my husband in Rio and he repaid me by betraying me in Budapest. I had been thrown over for a second time in favour of a woman much younger than myself. Can you understand my bitterness?’

She wasn’t looking at him as she spoke. He wondered if she knew he was there, or perhaps all she wanted was an audience, someone whose presence allowed her to say what was on her mind.

‘I found out everything I could about her, her name, her age, where she lived. Then one day when I could no longer bear Bobby’s lies about his work keeping him away, I wrote to a former colleague of his, a man I’d known who’d left the Service around the time we came back from Moscow. I poured my heart out to him, told him everything. I am ashamed to say I could only do this because I was drunk at the time.’

She stopped talking and stared out into the distance. The brightness had gone out of the light now. It wasn’t dusk yet, still late afternoon. The trees rustled with a sudden breeze that momentarily took the edge off the heat. Christine was lost in her own thoughts. Hart had an uneasy feeling that he could guess what was coming next.

‘I didn’t think any more about it until Nigel Carswell arrived.
The moment I heard he was here, I knew why he’d come. You can imagine how I felt.’

‘There’s been a lot of speculation about Carswell’s visit,’ Hart said defensively. ‘You can’t be sure why he came to see Bobby.’

‘I’ve lived in the shadow of the Service for more than twenty years, Hugh. I know its ways by now. Carswell would have told Bobby to drop this woman or face the end of his career. He knew Bobby would listen to him.’

‘Did the warning work?’

‘Of course it did. The Service always comes first. That’s what I’m complaining about. He’ll give her up for them, not for me.’

If Martineau had given up the Balassi woman, what did Koliakov mean when he said that he shared a mistress with Abrasimov? Perhaps the Soviets didn’t know as much as they thought they did.

‘If I imagined that revenge would be sweet, I was wrong. I feel guilty every hour of the day and night. Whenever I see him I want to tell him what I’ve done but the moment for saying anything passed long ago. All I’ve learned is that betrayal is impossible to live with; it eats into your soul until it destroys you.’

Should he sympathize with Christine, agree how badly Martineau had behaved towards her? Should he step back and disapprove of what she’d done?

‘It’s destroying me.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked.

It was clearly a question she had not asked herself. She hesitated before answering. ‘You’re the only person I know who won’t judge me.’

‘We’ve been offered the chance to go to Moscow,’ Eva told Dora as she prepared supper. ‘What do you think?’

‘To visit or to live?’

‘To live.’

‘Who by?’

‘An old friend.’

‘A Russian?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t know you had any Russian friends.’

‘This is someone I knew when I was there during the war.’

‘An old boyfriend?’

‘Someone I knew,’ she answered, hoping she did not sound as defensive as she felt.

‘Why should we go and live in Moscow? We’re all right here, aren’t we?’

‘You could go to medical school there.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘My friend has great influence. He would be able to get you a place.’

‘He’s an old lover, isn’t he?’ Dora smiled at her with all the wisdom of her sixteen years.

‘Do you want to go to Moscow?’

‘Do you want to go, Mama?’

‘Answer my question first.’ How hard it was to remain patient.

‘No, I don’t.’

It was an instinctive reaction, given without thought, as if she was saying no to the offer of a cup of tea.

‘There may be greater opportunities there.’

‘You’ve always told me how much you hated Moscow, so I can’t believe you want me to go. I wouldn’t go without you. You must have some other reason for asking me.’

‘Things may get difficult here.’

Why was she unable to tell Dora the truth? There will be an uprising and people will get killed. Stay, and we risk our lives.

‘When will the uprising come? That’s all we talk of at school. It will come, won’t it?’

She caught the excitement in Dora’s voice and her heart stopped with apprehension. Would the young never learn?

‘It’s not a game, Dora. If it happens, it will be serious. People will die.’

‘Are you telling me I’d be safer in Moscow?’

‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘How can you say that? Look at what the Soviets have done to this country. How can you expect me to side with them?’

‘Doctors save lives, they don’t take sides.’

‘One day I’d have to come back to Budapest, and then what would happen? Everyone would know I had fled at the first hint of
danger. What would my friends think of me? What would I think of myself? Of course I don’t want to go.’

She turned to her daughter and drew her into her arms, holding her close.

‘It’s not what your friends might think that matters, it’s what I would have thought if you’d agreed.’

‘Then why ask me?’

She held Dora’s head against her, rocking her gently as she spoke.

‘If you’re old enough to be a victim of these terrible times, then you’re old enough to make up your own mind about the future.’

*

‘Your decision is very unwise.’

He had arrived a few moments after Dora’s departure. He must have known it was the evening of her class’s political instruction and that she would not return before ten.

‘It’s what Dora wants and I agree with her.’

‘You don’t expect me to believe that you had no influence on this, do you?’

‘It was her decision.’

‘You can’t have put it to her properly. If you had she would have accepted.’

‘How can you say that? You don’t know Dora.’

‘She’s as much my daughter as yours.’

She bit her lip in an effort to keep her temper. ‘Biologically that may be true. But I bore her. I brought her up. I looked after her. You can’t suddenly reappear after all this time and tell me what she might or might not think. She has a mind of her own which you know nothing about.’

‘Of course she has,’ he said bitterly. ‘She’s all of sixteen.’

Was he mocking her, or serious?

‘I will put it to her myself,’ Alexei said.

He must have been crying in his sleep because when Eva woke him, his cheeks were wet and there was a damp patch on the pillow.

‘What is it, Bobby? What’s happened?’

He had no idea why he was weeping. She took his hand and held it against her cheek, murmuring his name.