I smiled. "If it's true, Mr. Berri, it's damn neat."
"Oh, it's true. There's no doubt about that. I never knew what Harry did about his income tax, but I expect it wasn't even illegal."
"But why did he do it? Was he a Communist? Or was it just for the money?"
"No, no. Harry was a Red, all right. He believed. They did make him rich, but that's not why he did it. I know that because I saw how much it hurt when he didn V believe anymore. But I've never been sure about one thing. Was Harry a Red when he went over that first time, or did it all happen once the Bolshevik got him into his clutches?"
"You were a Communist, weren't you?"
"Red as a fire truck. I was even in a genuine cell — all garment workers, old Jews, smart girls with thick glasses. They sent me to him, that first time. Those were my orders: convince Harry Brightman to take me with him to Russia. But he might have been a Red even then. I never did ask him, and he probably wouldn't have told me. Later, we just assumed it between us."
I leaned back against the cage, the mesh sagging slightly under my weight. "Let me get this straight. You're saying he took these furs out of Russia—"
"All aboveboard. Right out in the open."
"And then he sold them, also out in the open. Which meant he turned those furs into hard currency — Canadian dollars, U.S. dollars… and I suppose he then passed this back to the Soviets?"
He was shaking his head. "Not quite like that. That wasn't the deal. He kept the money, built up his business. They wanted him to become a rich, respectable man. A banker. That was always his joke. 'I'm a banker, Nick. I run the Comintern Bank of America.' That's what he'd say."
"But if he didn't give the Soviets the money, what did he do with it?"
"That changed, I think, though you understand I never knew all the details. At first it was political — he just gave money to the fronts, trade unions, that sort of thing. Some of it was up here, but naturally it was really the States they were worried about. Later on, though, the Bolshevik wanted him to buy things, especially scientific equipment of various kinds. Harry told me he usually did that in Europe — and since he always traveled a lot, that wasn't too hard. Then the war came and…" Berri shrugged.
"So what happened then?"
"Figure it out. Harry bought what the Bolshevik needed, and what he needed then was… information, I guess you'd say."
"What are you talking about?"
"What the hell do you think I'm talking about? Spies cost money, Mr. Thorne, like everything else."
I was too stunned to speak. I just stood there, listening to the rustling wind and the foxes quietly settling down in their cages. Then Berri laid his hand on my arm. "They'll be all right," he murmured. "We can go back to the house."
It was his turn now to make the tea, and he did so with an obvious pleasure, relishing my discomfiture. He'd been right: I most certainly had not understood. And as the old man refilled my cup, and settled down in his chair, I wanted to make sure I understood now.
"Let's go back to the beginning," I said. "When exactly did you first go to Russia?"
He shook his head. "Exactly? I couldn't say. But I'd guess '29."
"Okay. And how many trips did you make altogether?"
"Two. I told you."
"I'm sorry. I meant Harry. How many times did he go?"
"Three, I think. Maybe four. He skipped a year here and there. But even if he didn't go, he still brought the furs in."
"A lot?"
"Sure. He sold a good deal of it to other dealers, you see. And he bought everything. Blues and kitts. Kolinsky-a Russian weasel, that is, something like mink. Not much karakul, at least not until later. Marmot. Seal. Suslik. Some lynx and a few muskrat, but their skins aren't up to ours." He shrugged. "Of course, the big item was sable. And that was partly how he worked out the fiddle. He'd bring in real prime Barguzin skins—'Crown sable,' as the Russians would say — but label them marten or even fisher. At customs, there was no way they could tell the difference."
"And how much were all these furs worth?"
"I never knew, but a lot. They were always big shipments and he kept it up till the start of the war."
"Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? A million?"
"More than a million… but if I said more than that, I'd only be guessing."
"Okay, but whatever it was, you're saying that the money he made out of this arrangement was plowed back into his business?"
"Yes. But don't worry, the Bolshevik kept an account — the Bolshevik always knew to the penny how much Harry owed him. After a while, Harry even kept their share separate and turned it all into gold — real gold, I mean."
"It was like a trust fund, in a way."
"If you like."
"All right. Go back to what he did with the money. So far as you know, he mainly gave it to CP front groups — here in Canada, and in the U.S.?"
Berri made a face. "That's just how it started. But the Bolshevik didn't really give a damn about the CP, here or down there. Browder, those people, they were all idiots. Through Harry, the Bolshevik gave them what he had to, but not a cent more. What he wanted was patents, special castings, instruments, particular parts—"
"And Harry bought them all this?"
"Not directly. He put up the money. That was the point, don't you see — always the money. He worked through other people, but he set them up with his money. Companies, even."
'Except — according to you — this all changed with the war. He started out giving the money away — using it politically — then went on to supplying them technical goods, and ended up… as a spy."
Berri made a sour face. "That's your word. Who knows what it means?"
"You used it just a minute ago, Mr. Berri, and if we turned all this around, I don't think a Russian court would have any trouble deciding."
"Maybe. But Harry was way in the background. Always, he worked through other people… passed messages, collected them, but mainly he paid the bills."
"He didn't mind this? You said he 'believed.' You're sure about that? You're sure they weren't blackmailing him? Maybe that first time, in Leningrad, they trapped him by offering him a deal he couldn't refuse — those furs made him rich, after all — and then later forced him to help them."
But even before I finished, Berri was shaking his tough little head. "Nope. Don't kid yourself. He believed, just like I say. Just like the rest of us. I told you: the proof came when he didn't believe anymore."
"And when was that?"
Berri leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest — looking, as he frowned in thought, almost gnomelike. Then, with a little burst of energy, he rocked forward and tapped his index finger twice on the top of the table. "That's interesting, come to think of it. You mentioned Dimitrov and his coming here — which, you see, really had no importance in any of this — but that's when it started. Dimitrov told him the truth — about Stalin, the trials, everything. The Pact was the worst. I don't know what he told Buck — Tim Buck, he was head of the Canadian CP — and Browder and those other idiots they brought to Halifax, but he told Harry the truth. No excuses. Sometimes you hear people say it was the fault of the French or the British, that they wouldn't do a deal with the Bolshevik so he had to fall in with Hitler, but Dimitrov knew that was all so much shit. The British couldn't give him half of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, all the rest of it — but the Nazis could and that was the key. That was why he loved Hitler so dear, and turned over the German and Polish CPs to the Gestapo."