All the time he'd been talking, his eyes had never left my face, and I had the feeling that now curiosity was beginning to overcome his suspicion. And my confusion was genuine, God knows. Perhaps, too, he was working it out by process of elimination. I was completely incredible; Chekists, most definitely, weren't: therefore… I felt through my pockets and came up with some real cigarettes. I moved across the room and extended the pack. He took one; examined it. Then, from beneath the rugs covering his lap, he extracted a smoothly polished black pipe. Carefully, he unwrapped the paper from around the cigarette and stuffed the tobacco into the pipe bowl. It wasn't very full, so I gave him another. He smiled, and nodded. "You are generous."
"Chekists aren't generous."
'Perhaps not. I expect, however, that many smoke American cigarettes."
I thought of Loginov. "Or English ones."
He had tamped the tobacco with the first two fingers of his right hand; now he worked his palm against the bowl as if to polish it even more brightly, or perhaps, through friction, to set alight the tobacco within. I lit my own cigarette more conventionally, tossing the match into the fire… and as I did this, he made a quick little gesture with his pipe hand to indicate that I should sit.
There was a table against the right-hand wall of the room. I pulled one of the chairs away from it and drew it near his. He nodded his satisfaction at this arrangement. Then, rummaging beneath his blankets, he found matches of his own and set his pipe going. I was close enough now to see the book he'd been reading; it was Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches.
I said, "Mr. Shastov, I am not a Chekist. I hope now you believe me."
"Yes, I'm beginning to." He puffed his pipe and smiled. "But, since you are an American, it is only fair if I tell you a secret about Russians."
"What is that?"
"They always lie."
I smiled. "Do they?"
He nodded. "Yes. Do you know why?"
I shook my head.
"Being an American, you will understand the reason. It is a question of profit. Think… if you tell the truth, what do you get? Nothing. But if you know the truth and lie about it, you make a secret. The truth becomes a secret. That can be very valuable."
"You mean, like the secret you've just been telling me?"
"Exactly."
"So you don't believe me?"
"Oh no. I do. That is the truth." Then he grinned.
I took a breath. "Mr. Shastov, let me tell you a secret — a truth, but one you must always lie about. You understand?"
"Of course."
"It is the reason I've come to Povonets. To see you…"
"Yes."
"Someone has sent you, or will send you, something very valuable from the West. It will be bigger than a letter, but it will come to you in the mail."
He peered through the smoke curling from his pipe. "A letter from the West… the Chekists would know about that. And wouldn't like it very much."
"No. But I'm not a Chekist. And I don't think the Chekists do know about it, because the man who sent this letter was very clever. It will come from Paris, in an envelope from the Soviet Embassy there."
"I have not had such a letter. I have never known any Frenchmen. And I can think of no one who would send such a letter to me. Or to anyone."
"His name is Brightman. Harry Brightman."
I was three feet away, watching his eyes. But Brightman's name didn't register… so far as I could tell. But then his life had probably taught him a better poker face than I was ever going to master. He shook his head. "I don't know him. You are the only American I have ever met… Once, in a newspaper, I saw Nixon's face."
"Well, Brightman wasn't American. He was Canadian."
He shrugged. "I still don't know him." He adjusted himself inside the chair, leaning against the arm and sitting a bit more upright. "What is in this letter?"
"A great secret… and a valuable one, just as you've said."
"Valuable in what way?"
"Valuable the way gold is valuable."
He smiled, gesturing around his little room with his pipe stem. "Now you have proof that this letter hasn't arrived."
"You have no idea what I'm talking about? None of this makes any sense?"
"Exactly. You have said it very well."
I paused. I believed him; and in the back of my mind I'd been afraid this might happen. Day one: Alain puts the envelope into the mail at the Cite Universitaire. The next day, I'm back in Paris seeing my friend at Aeroflot. Two days later, the visa arrives. Another day, arranging the flight. Then yesterday. Six days altogether — not very long for a letter to move between Paris and here… especially considering a detour through the censor. Even assuming that Brightman's ploy — the embassy stationery — would hurry things up, I really couldn't be very surprised.
I said, "Have you ever had communications, mail or anything like that, from someone in the West?"
"If you were a Chekist, you would know."
"But I'm not."
He smiled. "All right, I admit it, then. When I was a boy, in Perm — before the Revolution, even before the Great Imperialist War — I collected stamps. Twice, I received packages from Berlin."
I wondered again if he thought I was mad; if he believed any of what I'd told him. I said, "You have to understand that this is serious, Mr. Shastov. Several people have already been hurt and even killed because of this letter. I know someone who will kill you to get it."
"But you would not?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"That doesn't make any difference. You must believe me, however. That does make a difference."
The fire spat and hissed again; a sharp rattling sound emerged from the chimney. Then there was silence, enclosed only by the soft rush of the wind around the hut. f" tried to think of how I might convince him. In a way, when the letter arrived, it would be easier. On the other hand, that could well be too late.
But then, looking at me quite calmly, Yuri Shastov broke the silence. "Mr. Thorne, I am trying to believe you. Yet there is one thing I don't understand."
"What is that?"
"Why would anyone in the world send me this letter? Why me? Why Yuri Fedorovich Shastov?"
I shook my head firmly, and this time I was the one who looked him in the eye. "You know the answer to that, Mr. Shastov — you know it better than anyone else in the world. It's your great secret, I think… a secret you've spent your whole life lying about."
He smiled. "Despite what I said, Mr. Thorne, I'm just an old man. Too old to have secrets."
"But I know you have three. Three at least."
His eyebrows raised slightly. "Maybe you are a Chekist, after all — for they always do that, invent secrets for other people to have. They don't even trust you to lie on your own."
"I'm not a Chekist, as I've told you, but your first secret is the one you won't tell me because you're still afraid I might be…"
"I will say nothing… since I've already told you that Russians only tell lies."
"Then there's the secret of how you've survived to such a great age—"
"But that is no secret, my friend. Yuri Shastov, as everyone will tell you, has led a good and virtuous life."
"And finally there's the secret — and it must be a great secret — of the chair that you're sitting in and how it ever came to be here."