Kirov sat down as invited. The old man watched him, half in pity, half in annoyance.
‘Who’s after you?’ he asked.
Kirov let his eyes wander in the dimness. He detected a slight smell of camphor. Hearing the question a second time, for a moment it seemed impossible to answer; as if his enemies were a nameless and bodyless legion.
‘Radek,’ he volunteered. ‘He’s the —’
‘I know who Radek is. I’m not senile. What’s he up to?’
‘He wants to replace Grishin. He’s used the Rehabilitation Committee to reopen an old case and manoeuvre Grishin out.’
The old man found that appealing. ‘That’s rich! And you, what does this Radek have on you?’
‘A circumstantial case that I was involved in the Moscow housing fraud.’
Uncle Kolya wrinkled his nose. ‘Everyone’s involved in the Moscow housing fraud. There isn’t any other way of getting a roof over your head. What else does he have?’
‘A murder,’ Kirov admitted.
He expected a pause or some indication of surprise, but the old man merely commented sorrowfully, ‘A frame-up — and you walked into it?’ Then: ‘What does he want? Don’t tell me — loyalty!’ Now it was Kirov’s turn to be surprised into silence.
The odour of camphor seemed stronger. Tatiana Yurievna busied herself noisily. Uncle Kolya’s lungs crepitated like hailstones.
‘How did you know?’ Kirov asked. He looked up from studying the accidental hanging together of objects in the room, the still-life quality of bottles on the round surface of a table and the contrast of glass and wood. The General’s face was set, burying him in the past, in old plots and dead men. Conspiracies never die, as he had once confirmed.
‘It’s what they always want. It’s what Stalin wanted, but he could never get enough of it. You could grovel at his feet but even then he could never be sure. That’s why he destroyed those closest to him — Yagoda, Yezhov — Beria, if he’d lived long enough.’ The old eyes had a charitable look to them. ‘Your friend Radek has been taking a leaf out of the Old Man’s book.’
‘Because he betrayed Grishin?’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’
‘Because he’s trying to bind you to him by your crimes. That’s their version of loyalty.’ He groaned at some discomfort and edged himself on his chair. Seeing Kirov’s interest he began to explain. ‘How do you think Stalin kept Yagoda loyal? Answer: he had the goods on him because Yagoda had murdered S.M. Kirov and betrayed the Leningrad Party. For the same reason he had a hold on Yezhov, who was Yagoda’s accomplice.’
‘And Beria?’
The old man laughed. ‘Beria was easy meat! He was a treacherous little shit. During the civil war, when things were looking a bit rocky for the Reds and Beria was working in Armenia, he played fast and loose with the local Nationalists, the Dashnaks. Stalin knew all about it, and he didn’t care — his own past wouldn’t stand too much scrutiny — except that the story gave him a lever. Beria! Hah!’ After that moment of enjoyment the General fell silent. His eyes, which had been alight with the recollection, grew dim. He said tetchily, ‘Who cares? It’s all in the past. You have to figure out a way of turning the tables on this character Radek.’
‘You didn’t mention my father.’
‘Give me a cigarette.’
Kirov held out a pack of Belomors. The old man took one, spun it in his fingers as if he suspected its authenticity and snapped for a light. Kirov proffered his lighter and the old man took his wrist and held the hand and lighter in front of him, peering at the younger man across the flame. ‘What does your father’s case have to do with anything?’
‘Was he — loyal?’
‘To whom? To what?’ There were real tears in the old man’s eyes, the kind you get when crying about the past. ‘Don’t you think I’ve asked the same question? Your father betrayed Yagoda to Yezhov and Yezhov to Beria. And in 1941, when the Germans took Minsk, he betrayed everybody.’
‘Then why did Beria accept him back?’
‘Because he recognised that your father was a policeman. Do you understand? There was never anything personal in your father’s treachery. He spied and betrayed people because that’s what he was trained to do. The Germans knew it, and Beria knew it too. And in Beria’s case, when he found your father in gaol in 1945, he had the advantage that here was a man who was totally compromised, vulnerable, naked. He looked at your father and saw a man who would be completely loyal.’
‘He had my father shot,’ Kirov pointed out.
‘Nobody is ever loyal enough,’ Uncle Kolya answered.
Uncle Kolya dozed. Tatiana Yurievna came into the room. For a second she stared affectionately at the sleeping figure, then busied herself and asked Kirov to sort out his washing. The old man woke grunting out of the dreams he claimed he didn’t have.
‘You still here?’ he said, fixing his visitor with a one-eyed stare while he wiped the sleep from the other eye. ‘What now? More questions about your father? I’d have thought you had more than enough on your plate without digging into history.’
‘Is it history? You once told me that old conspiracies never die.’
‘Did I? Bloody rubbish — I must have been drunk. Here, make me comfortable.’
The General had slid down the chair. Kirov lifted him into a sitting position. The old man had lost weight. The bulk of his years of splendour was gone and he had become an insubstantial thing.
‘Do you remember a man called Ferenc Heltai?’ Kirov asked.
‘No.’
‘We met him on holiday in Riga. I was a boy, maybe fourteen years old. Heltai was a Hungarian. He’ — Kirov hesitated — ‘came from the sea carrying a cake in a box.’
‘I remember a creepy Hungarian, was that him? I don’t recall the cake.’
‘It’s the sort of thing that children remember.’
‘Possibly. He was in AVH as I remember. He worked out of the headquarters in Andrassy Street; he was heavily involved in the purges. Now I can see him, I remember that he came running to us because in ’fifty-six the Fascists were in power for a time and it was unhealthy to be a policeman. He didn’t go back when we liberated Hungary. What does he do these days?’
‘He’s still alive and poisoning people for a living.’
The old man was indifferent. ‘Someone has to do it. What does it matter?’
‘Tell me about the Doctors’ Plot.’
The General did not want to talk about the Doctors’ Plot. It was history, all dead and buried; a relic of Stalin’s time, the last of his magician’s concoctions, all poison and illusion. Kirov reminded him that it was at that time that his father had been shot. Didn’t that mean something? Or was it all coincidence? Never mind whether it signified now, Uncle Kolya had a duty to tell him.
‘It mightn’t have happened if Zhdanov hadn’t died.’ With that lapidary statement the old man began. He halted at the end of this first sentence to catch his breath, but it seemed to Kirov that he was offering an opportunity to withdraw; then, when Kirov refused it, he continued: ‘He was an old crony of Stalin, one of the few he didn’t kill. Or maybe Stalin did arrange his death — when you think what happened later, maybe he did. I don’t know, so don’t expect a complete explanation.