Jones could not endure the silence for long. “What are you talking about a traitor for?”
“The Cheka know everything. They know that I read out the poem. They’ve asked everyone else about it, just not me. They’re rolling up our network, no question, and she’s been seen going in and out of the Lubyanka like she owned the place.”
“She translates for them, from time to time. She has no choice.”
The dying man studied him coldly. “In this world, son, there is always a choice. It’s only when you leave it that you have none.”
The door opened again, revealing Evgenia, and the two men fell silent.
When Evgenia passed him some bread and sausage, Jones had forgotten how hungry he was. As he fell on the food savagely, Evgenia passed Haywood a glass of vodka. Raising his glass, he made the toast. “To Max.”
The others echoed him and downed their vodkas in one – but, as she drank, Evgenia was glowering at Haywood, the big man returning her stare with something not far off loathing.
“What is it?” asked Jones.
Haywood picked up his bucket and retched into it, this time more noisily than before.
“He thinks I’m traitor,” said Evgenia in her dry official voice.
“Nope,” said Haywood, “I ain’t saying that. I’m saying that you’ve been seen walking in and out of the Lubyanka like it’s some fancy department store, like Macy’s or whatever.”
“Then someone has been dripping poison into your ear.”
“Or someone’s been telling the truth.”
She slapped him hard. The old man, almost twice her size, fell like an oak in a thunderstorm, crashing to the ground with a great thunk. Jones hurried to tend to him, lifted him up. Only once Haywood was back on his chair did he turn to Evgenia.
“He’s… he’s… he’s…” Jones’ stammer always reappeared at the worst moments. “He’s an old man. Sick too. You don’t hit an old man like that. What are you doing?”
She stormed out of the izba. To Jones’ amazement, Haywood started to laugh, a great fat belly laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
The laughter subsided and the old man’s eyes went to the bottle of vodka. Jones got the bottle and poured him a slug.
“You were about to explain what amused you so?”
“Back in the day, with the Wobblies, we were plagued by Pinkerton spies, company men who were out to bust strikes and break us. If they could get close, they’d see something or make something up, didn’t matter to them, and then we’d all go to jail charged with murder or some such. After a time, we developed a sixth sense, who to trust, who to doubt. If you had doubts about someone, you hit them with it. If they smiled and said that’s not true, if they tried to cajole you out of your suspicions, then, by experience and instinct, you probably had your traitor. On the other hand, if they hit you, straight out, you’d accused an innocent party.”
Jones’ mouth opened but he said nothing.
“Get her back in here, Mr Jones. It’s cold out there.”
Outside, the sky was a mackerel blue and grey. It took some time to find her. She’d walked to the end of the rough road where Haywood’s izba stood and was standing with her back to him, in front of a stream that had iced over.
“Evgenia.” The cold scarred his throat.
“Go away.”
“He was testing you, that’s all.”
“He thinks I am a traitor.”
“No, but he thinks someone is. So he tested you. The good news is that you passed the test.”
Her shoulders became a little less bowed. “How did he work that out?”
“The test is how you respond to the accusation of treachery. If you sweet-talk him, you’re guilty. You hit him, you’re innocent.”
“That’s idiotic.”
He paused, sighed and said, “It’s not my test. In Great Britain we do things differently.”
She hit him, hard, and he fell back into the snow, his sides bursting with laughter.
They returned to Haywood’s izba, hand in hand, ready to make their departure to Finland and a new life.
Inside, the old Wobbly sat in his chair, a glass of liquor by his side, beaming at the two of them. Standing up stiffly, he went to a pile of wood by the stove and very slowly started taking it apart. They studied each other, puzzled and amused, sensing that he was going to give them something, some kind of present. The rigmarole of him hiding whatever it was in the woodpile made them expectant. This wasn’t just a fancy bottle of wine or a book. It must be something special. At length, he turned and produced from a black leather bag Borodin’s Kinamo camera and a cylindrical tin case. He set the bag, camera and tin case on the table.
“There’s the camera. There’s one roll of film. It’s good for seven minutes. I am dying and this is my dying wish. I want you two to go to Ukraine and film the famine, then get the hell out and tell the world the truth about Stalin’s evil.” He started to choke, a hacking cough that consumed his attention so that he did not take in how his request went down with its executors.
Evgenia gasped, all colour drained from her already pale complexion. Jones said, “Fuck”, then shook his head, stammered a little, recovered and smiled. “Thank you, Bill, thank you.”
Evgenia stared at Jones, shaking her head, a tear running down her cheek. This dying man’s last wish could not be ignored but there was only one way this ended, in the cells beneath the Lubyanka, a written confession and a sentence without the right of correspondence.
Chapter Twenty
They returned to the Hotel Lux and stayed the night, seeking but not quite finding comfort in each other’s bodies. In the small hours, Jones woke up, cradled Evgenia’s pale beauty in his arms and listened to the soft murmur of her breath. Still not being able to sleep, he got up and opened the curtain. Down on the street, underneath a lampost, a watcher in hat and overcoat was staring up at him.
It was like fighting a monster unafraid to bite the heads off people. Something like this would be happening in Berlin, right now, too. There and here, power could signal its displeasure as it pleased.
In the morning, the telephone rang and rang but they ignored it, dressed and walked out of the hotel into a cold grey day, carrying only the leather bag with the Kinamo in it, the film reel in the tin case and a change of clothes.
On the street they bumped into Winnie, wrapped in a mountain of fur. She kissed them both. “The poem,” she said. “They’re picking everyone up. I had to warn you…”
“Winnie,” said Jones, “we know.”
“Big Bill should have kept his trap shut.”
“He’s not well, Winnie. He thinks they’ve poisoned him.”
Her face crumpled, her brown eyes filled with a film of liquid. “No…”
She seemed frozen to the spot.
“Winnie,” said Evgenia, “we must go.”
“Where you folks heading?”
“South, through the Ukraine,” replied Jones. ”People say it’s worst there.”
“What’s worst?”
“The famine.”
“And then back to Moscow?”
He shook his head.
“How are you going to get out? Via Poland?”
“Odessa, perhaps. The old smugglers’ city may be our best chance.”
“I dream of leaving this city of ice. You make it, you let me know, brother, sister, ahuh?”
They took turns to hold her tightly, kissing her on the lips and the eyes, then hurried off to the Metro.
The night train to Dnipro trundled through the snowy wastes, often at walking pace. There was far less comfort here than on the special train to the Lenin Dam, but at least there was anonymity. No banquets here, no champagne – only a press of ordinary people, nearly all thin, some terrifyingly so, human beings trying to stay alive and out of trouble in a dark time.