But the house, when he reached it at last at the end of a long, stone-built track off the road beyond Emets, was biggish, with great thick walls to keep out the bitter wind. At one time it could have been a farmhouse — if ever they had such things up here on the fringe of the Arctic Circle. It had the same barren, bleak look that its surroundings had, indeed it seemed nearly to merge into the landscape in some curious way; but, once he had tugged at a rusty bell-pull and an old woman, seamed and wrinkled and dressed in black from head to foot, had unhooked a chain and opened the door to him, a sense of comfort and well-being struck him immediately; and warmth, on both the mental and the physical planes, came out to meet him.
The old woman’s beady eyes stared at him unblinkingly and she asked, “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“My name is Alison, and I come from friends of Professor Godov in Moscow. I have a letter.” He passed it over to her. “If you will please give the Professor this?”
She took it suspiciously, reaching out with work-stained fingers. “The Professor has had no warning.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“Your business… is it important?”
He nodded. “Yes. If you would—”
“The Professor sees few people these days. Nevertheless, I will see. You will wait, please.”
She went away, leaving Shaw to kick his heels in the stone porch. He glanced back at the hired car, where the driver, whom he had told to wait, was hunched gloomily over the wheel, staring out at the monotonous landscape. The old woman was back within a minute and smiling now, her lined face puckering. She said, “The Professor will see you. I must ask you not to tire him. He is very frail.”
Shaw promised, “I’ll remember. Don’t worry.”
She turned away and led him down a long passage and into a room at the end. It was a cosy room, not large, with a good carpet on the floor, and its walls were filled with bookcases overflowing with learned volumes. On either side of the fireplace were tall inset cupboards, like gun cupboards. There was a cheerful fire flickering in the grate and, although the comparatively short Arctic daylight of early autumn was not yet over — this region was not far off the Land of the Midnight Sun and its converse the midday night — a red-shaded oil-lamp was burning on a table. Beside the fire, in a big armchair, sat a tiny old man with very bright black eyes and a high, domed forehead thinly topped with scanty white hair.
The eyes, shrewd and penetrating, twinkled at Shaw but Godov didn’t say anything at first.
Shaw heard the door shut behind him, gently. The old woman had gone. He went towards the fire and said, “Professor Godov?”
The old man inclined his head slowly, in an old-world gesture of courtliness. In a thin, high voice he said, “Yes, I am Godov, Mr Alison.” His English was precise but hesitant, as though his knowledge of the language had been good but was now rusty. “It is kind of you to come all the way from Moscow to see an old man.”
“Not at all, Professor.” Shaw spoke cheerfully but respectfully, as befitted a staff member talking to the Grand Old Man. “Yours is an esteemed name in the organization—”
“Ah — in the organization!” Godov coughed a little, and Shaw heard the phlegm whistling and heaving in his thin chest. “Not, I fear, in the files of the Party, however.” Shaw smiled. “So it has been said, Professor. But that is not my business… and I couldn’t come to Moltsk without calling on you.”
“Then you did not come expressly to see me?” The black eyes glittered at him, almost mockingly.
“No, sir,” he said. “Not exactly.”
The old man nodded again and smiled thinly. He said, “Please sit down. And let me express my regret that my housekeeper, Anna, left you in the cold.”
“It doesn’t matter in the least.” Shaw sat on the opposite side of the fire, in another big old armchair with cosy wings. A feeling of well-being came over him, a sense of finding himself unexpectedly in friendly and comforting hands. It was a feeling that he didn’t remember ever having had before while actually on an assignment. Nevertheless he wondered, having got here, exactly what he was going to say. His principal object in coming had been, of course, to establish himself, in case anyone in Moltsk should investigate him, as a genuine WIOCA man; to give himself, as it were, an alibi. He could scarcely say this — and yet he had a curious inward feeling all the time that the old man knew; he could see that the brain was alert enough still. Meanwhile Godov, with a kind of innate kindliness and politeness, put Shaw at his ease and started the conversation by speaking of people he had known in WIOCA and of the work that he himself had been, as he put it, privileged to do for the organization in his time; which fortunately was so long ago now that Shaw had no need to pretend to any intimate knowledge of any of it. He was able then to talk of Chaffinch and of the current affairs of the Moscow office as told him by Chaffinch himself, and the old man seemed to accept him without question — although there was still that odd feeling that in point of fact Godov had, in some mysterious way, seen through him. Whatever the frailty of the body there was no senility in the mental state; and no one would get far if he tried to fool this old gentleman.
Then, suddenly, the Professor changed his tack. He said, “I have visited the West. England, France, America. That was many years ago now. France I loved, perhaps more than the other countries, but yours is a great country of genuine liberal ideas and I much enjoyed — much enjoyed — the time I spent in London.” He seemed to be looking back into the past, sadly. “I addressed the British Council as well as WIOCA Also the Royal Society of Arts. They were all very kind, so very kind. Yes, I loved it all.” He paused for several moments and then said, “It is sad that wars come to change it all. Do you not agree?”
“I do.”
“But you, your country I mean, she is as much to blame as us. Do you agree with that?”
Shaw said cautiously, feeling his way, “In some respects, possibly. Suspicion breeds suspicion, and preparations breed counter-preparations. It seems to me that no one has ever tried reducing the world’s temperature… instead we have threat and counter-threat, retaliation, vengeance, national prejudice and pride and propaganda, and no one knows where he stands.”
“Aha, you are right, my young friend, very right! You have a thinking mind, and it is surprising how few people have that. The recipe for the thinking mind is never to believe anything that is written in the newspapers, of course, not to be a mere echo of other men’s opinions. As to what you have said… when one does not know where one stands, one becomes apprehensive and aggressive and by stages, logical stages, the mind drifts imperceptibly towards war. When the national mind accepts the mere idea of war, then war becomes inevitable sooner or later. I tell you this: Your country should have heeded your great Montgomery. Excepting only Churchill, there has been for many years past no person in all your country of his stature — and our people trusted him as they trust no one else from Britain. Remember, Mr Alison, that he spoke of disengagement, of ending this terrible suspicion with the borders manned by armed men facing one another with steel and hatred across the frontiers. He wished to end provocation, but no one would listen, preferring instead the sabre-rattlers and the old, outdated panoply of pomp and power which should have been swept away when the war ended.”