‘That’s a bunch of reservations,’ said Hubble at once.
‘They’re not reservations,’ argued Blair. ‘They’re reasonable concessions to which I consider I’m entitled, in exchange for what you’re asking me to do.’
‘If we agree, you’ll stay?’
‘If you agree to every one, in every respect, I’ll stay,’ said Blair.
‘I should discuss this with the Director,’ hedged Hubble.
‘Then do so,’ agreed Blair. ‘I told you I want to stay for a few more days yet, to make the final arrangements. There’s time enough.’
Hubble smiled, shaking his head. ‘I was told to negotiate and try to reach agreement. So I’ve negotiated and we’ve reached an agreement.’
Crap, thought Blair. They’d been prepared to let him have this from the start; he wished he could have thought of something else to his advantage. ‘Every point?’ he said. This was the time it had to be set out, without any misunderstandings or caveats.
‘Every point,’ assured Hubble. ‘Guaranteed.’
‘Then OK,’ said Blair. ‘It’s a deal. I’ll stay.’
Because he owed it to her – because he owed her far more – Blair told Ruth, of course, as soon as he got back to Rosslyn.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Is that all? Just yes?’
‘What else is there?’
‘It won’t affect whatever I arranged with Paul,’ assured Blair. ‘That’s inviolable.’
‘Sure,’ she said, sounding unconvinced.
‘They won’t renege on me: I know they won’t renege.’
‘Good.’
‘You think I made the wrong decision?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I don’t think you have to.’
‘My only consideration – my only worry now – is Paul. As long as Paul’s all right, then nothing else is my business, is it?’
‘I just thought you might have had something else to say about it.’
‘Ann’s the person who’s got to have something more to say about it, not me, don’t you think?’
Chapter Nineteen
They had known, of course, that it wouldn’t be easy. They’d even tried to rehearse the problems and the uncertainties in the last few weeks, when Orlov’s recall had been confirmed, imagining they already had all the training necessary in avoiding a lot of difficulties because their affair had existed for more than a year and that hadn’t been easy either because Russians at the United Nations, even at Orlov’s rank, exist under severe restrictions and surveillance. But Harriet knew now how ill-equipped they’d been. How ill-equipped, at least, she’d been. She didn’t know about Pietr. Which was the problem. Not knowing. Naturally they’d considered it, with everything else. There’d been a long conversation about it on one of their last nights, when Orlov had managed to slip away from the Soviet compound and come to the Second Avenue apartment. Harriet looked around the apartment now, trying to recapture the evening, because memories were important, the things she lived by. They’d eaten in, as they did almost always because to go out was dangerous, and then they’d made love, with the anxiousness of lovers soon to be parted and then he’d talked about their not being able to make contact – except in the most extreme and dire emergency – and told her not to make monsters out of shadows. His words, she remembered; ‘Don’t make monsters out of shadows.’ Christ, she’d tried hard enough! It hadn’t been too bad in the early weeks; months even. There’d been an unreality about most things – practically a lightheadedness when she wasn’t working, when she was never lightheaded – but she was initially prepared for the parting and the loneliness and the not knowing. Ironically – the stupidity of it – the problem of not knowing had started, insidiously, by knowing!
Harriet Johnson was unusual – freak had been a friendly jibe at Oxford – someone with an outstanding talent for languages. Her Russian was impeccable – she was actually able to be colloquial – and extended to tongues within the country, Georgian – which she spoke always with Orlov – and Estonian. She was fluent, too, in Czechoslovakian and Hungarian and German, again with a mastery of some internal dialects. The natural outlet of such ability was interpreting and Harriet was outstandingly able at that, too, within three years of her joining already at senior, supervisor grade. And as a senior, supervising translator, reading – alert for variations in usage or some new, technical term – was as essential as talking the languages. And so she read whatever she could from the countries she was called upon to interpret. Predominantly it was Russian, one of the official languages of the Assembly. Which meant she read not only the yawningly boring handouts and communiques and the officially-issued booklets but daily Izvestia and Pravda. Which was where – in greater detail in Pravda than in Izvestia – she read about Orlov’s promotion.
That possibility had never entered any of their preparing conversations. They had expected his United Nations ranking – and the unquestionable successes he’d achieved there during his posting – to be adequately rewarded but never speculated beyond perhaps a deputy role within the Foreign Ministry. But he’d been elevated way beyond that. Harriet – who was conscientious – read far more than the controlled Soviet newspapers, the English as well as American publications. So she’d seen the speculation about Serada and the Politburo jostling and knew from her own interpretation of Soviet politics – apart from the long, political conversations she’d had with Orlov – that there definitely was a power struggle going on. A power struggle into which her beloved, adored Pietr had unexpectedly been thrust.
So what difference did it make? He loved her – she was sure he loved her – here in New York. But he wasn’t in New York any more. He was in Moscow at the very centre of things and his election could only mean that he’d been picked out to go even higher. And he was an ambitious man. He denied it – insisted she was wrong – but Harriet had never been able to convince herself that if everything worked as they planned it would work the greatest agony later for Orlov would not be that he had abandoned his country and abandoned Natalia but that he had abandoned his ambitions. Would it be as easy for him to choose now as he’d said it was, months ago? Months ago he hadn’t realised the opportunities with which he would be presented. Or seen Natalia. Harriet believed his argument for going back – loved him the more for it – but didn’t the fact that he’d insisted on returning officially to divorce and distance himself from the woman, to spare her any retribution, mean that he still loved her, too? Felt strongly for her, at least. Strongly enough to consider what he had – and might have – against what he would be giving up.
Harriet had taken the apartment specifically for its convenience to the United Nations building. She emerged promptly at ten, as she did every morning when she was on day duty, turned left, and began walking down Second Avenue, another habit, a tightly-coiffeured, tightly-suited career woman. Was she prepared to give everything up? she asked herself. They’d tried to imagine that – like they’d tried to imagine the parting – but were either of them prepared for an existence as official criminals, hiding under assumed names and supposedly guarded by strangers? She was, decided Harriet. She knew it wouldn’t be anything like they thought because being apart wasn’t anything like they thought – like she thought at least – but she was prepared to go through with it, no matter how bad it became. Harriet turned at Forty-Second Street. But was Pietr? If only she knew!
Harriet reached the top of the incline, able to see the green-glassed skyscraper of the United Nations building jutting upwards from the side of the East River. What about the plans they’d made to establish contact, giggling at the theatricality of everything, and not really sure if it would work? Only in the most extreme and dire emergency, she remembered. This wasn’t an extreme and dire emergency. This was Harriet Johnson not having properly prepared herself and making monsters out of shadows.