“What does he do?”
“He’s a reasonably senior man in the Nationalities Ministry. Traveled to the West a couple of times I believe, on what sort of business I’m not quite sure.”
“He’s not an agronomist?”
“No darling, he’s not an agronomist. He’s very definitely political. The whole Nationalities Ministry is. Can’t tell you much more. Not married, if that’s of interest.”
“Do you know him well enough to organize an introduction? Something casual?”
“Diplomatic?” he smiled.
“Yes. And David, as friends, I don’t want le tout Moscou to know about this one.”
“My word on it,” he said seriously. “But look, Carole, if you’re feeling frisky, you’d be far safer, and Tom would too, if you chose someone at your embassy. Or even ours, dearest,” he added with a grotesque invitatory roll of the eyes.
She took his arm. “Let’s see how diplomatic you can be.” They moved from group to group, Butler carefully keeping each exchange down to a few words. Then almost before she realized it she found herself moving through a press of people — and she was standing next to him while Butler made sympathetic noises about the sad occasion and the shock it had been, despite the President’s advanced age. And then he had turned, apologizing, and introduced them.
“Mrs. Yates speaks excellent Russian,” Butler said. “Indeed, she’s half-Russian herself.”
“Half-Ukrainian,” Carole said. “Since we’re at the Ministry of Nationalities we should be accurate.”
Letsukov looked at her and smiled slowly. “We have many nationalities in the Soviet Union,” he said. “Each with their own story to tell.”
“And even more individuals, each with their own story.”
He nodded gravely.
Butler frowned. “I have the sense of being present at an unutterably obscure play,” he murmured.
“How long have you been in the Soviet Union?” Letsukov asked her.
Did he know the answer already? “Since the summer,” she said. “My husband is at the embassy here. Before that he was in Dublin.”
“I see.”
David Butler looked from one to the other. “Will you excuse me,” he said, “I’d like a word with one of my colleagues who’s just arrived.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you later, David.”
Butler inclined his head and dived into the thickening crowd. For a moment or two they stood together like newly acquainted guests at a cocktail party with little to say to each other.
“You didn’t tell him you knew me,” Letsukov said after a moment.
“No.”
“I saw you across the room,” he said. “I was looking for an opportunity to talk to you.”
She nodded. “We have some things to talk about.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You’re not an agronomist. You therefore weren’t in France to study viticulture.”
“No, I was not.”
“Why were you there?”
Like two self-orbiting moons they circled each other while people drifted back and forth around them.
“I can’t explain it to you now,” he said, breaking the tension between them. “I was in Paris for my Ministry. I was involved in investigating the Ukrainian Congress taking place there. We fear disunion, too.”
“Too?”
“Today many states have their extreme minority nationalists. Governments are forced to take them seriously. The Soviet government is no different.”
“Very different. A man was assassinated in Paris.”
“These groups struggle among themselves more violently than they do against the mother state.”
“That’s your explanation?”
“For what?”
“For what happened in Paris. For what you were doing there.”
“I wouldn’t have thought Americans would find anything objectionable in what I was doing there.”
She felt sure he was lying. Her expression communicated it.
“We must talk,” he said.
“Why?”
“You don’t believe me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Before you make any decision, will you meet me?”
“You mean before I tell anyone that you were the man in Paris?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“I can meet,” she said shortly. “But not before next week.”
“Monday?”
“My husband has a conference at the embassy all that evening.”
“At six o’clock then. On the embankment just below the Moskvoretsky Bridge.” He paused. “Try not to look too Western.”
Chapter Thirteen
In Gorky Park the Parade Marshals were ranging the columns of infantry behind the sixty T-72 tanks of the Tumanchky Guards Division.
The requirements of a Soviet parade were precise. Not only would the infantry wear the special long brown coat and belt of the normal parade uniform, but officers’ tabs and shoulder boards were those for a Hero-City parade. The fur caps with raised flaps and the red star at the forehead were of course common to all.
The tanks, too, had been prepared for the occasion with fresh coats of dark-green paint and newly stenciled bright divisional signs. The long, powerful 122-mm. guns of the low T-72 models were draped in streamers of black crepe. Only the Commander, standing in the flat turret, was visible among the crew members.
By midday the order of march was assembled. For the two southern columns it would be the T-72s of the Tumanchky Guards, followed by 800 infantry of the newly formed Russian Federation Division. Behind them a civilian block of medical staff from Moscow Hospital would precede 200 Airborne BMP troop carriers, ranged six abreast and flying red pennants at half mast.
Behind them again came the first of the factory shock brigades, then young Komsomols and 400 teenage pioneers, their red neckerchiefs fluttering in the bitter wind. Then again the military with a contingent from the naval base at Kronstadt, dark blue and gold predominating. And after them, stretching back along the river bank, assembled columns of more workers, KGB special troops, Donbas miners and motor-rifle battalions in their BTR-60s, their 16 infantrymen sitting sternly upright under their polished Russian helmets.
At twelve thirty-five, over the loudspeaker system in the trees beside the Krimsky Val, Parade Marshal Berisov personally set his two alarm stopwatches for ten minutes hence, when the radio order to move would be given to the Plevna Gardens contingents. Then he sat back. Outside he could hear the squeak and rumble of the T-72s, the high singing voices of the young pioneers and the steady tramp of Russian boots. He was deeply happy. He had not thought of those KGB riot reports for a full hour.
At Moscow’s Finland Station the train drew in, its locomotive decked with red flags, its carriages crowded with young workers from selected enterprises throughout the oblast.
On the platform factory groups lined up under their trade union organizers and group passes were shown to the militiamen at the gate. Among 70 workers from Gorky G.A.Z., the military automobile factory, Zoya Densky moved forward, her eyes on the militiamen counting them through:
On the gate one militiaman had probably been counting factory groups through since the early hours and I could see by his tired eyes that he was no longer counting too accurately. By the time he reached the end of the column from G.A.Z. I think he’d lost count anyway and given up, so I entered Moscow without a city pass with no difficulty.
Not knowing Moscow it took me some time to get to the University, but the ground had been well prepared. They were expecting me, and I must say they gave me a hero’s welcome. More important they gave me the grenade and showed me how it worked…