“Colonel Zakovsky says,” said Evgenia, “that the Soviet Union is under constant attack from bourgeois fascists, social fascists and Hitlerites. The GPU are the armed fist of the revolution and no-one, not even our friends in the western press, should be under any illusion that, if they endanger the revolution in any way, they will be smashed to a pulp.”
“Smashing,” said Jones.
Zakovsky bowed, Lyushkov beamed piggishly, then the two Chekists took their seats at a table in the middle of the carriage, out of earshot but in sight.
“See, just like the Mother’s Union,” said Duranty dryly. “Right then, boys, let’s play a game. Who is the biggest name you’ve interviewed? The winner gets” – he fished out a silver cigarette lighter from his pocket and flourished it in front of them – “this.”
Fischer picked it up, examined the inscription and then smirked to himself.
“Calvin Coolidge,” offered Wells.
“Boring and out of power,” snapped Duranty.
“Al Capone,” said Fischer.
“Tax cheats don’t count.”
To Jones, Duranty seemed very intent on keeping his lighter.
“Stalin,” said Lyons.
“Ah, now we’re talking,” said the ringmaster.
Jones said, “Tell me about Stalin, Lyons. What’s he like as a human being?”
“Once I’d got in the Kremlin it was easy,” said Lyons, “Stalin met me at the door of his state apartments and shook hands, smiling. There was a certain shyness about him. He was remarkably unlike the scowling, self-important dictator of popular imagination. ‘Comrade Stalin,’ I began, ‘may I quote you to the effect that you have not been assassinated?’ The old boy laughed and said, ‘Yes, you may – except that I hate to take the bread out of the mouth of the Riga correspondents.’”
Jones frowned, puzzled.
Duranty explained, “Riga, the Latvian capital, is the town where all the Red-baiting flotsam and jetsam end up. Hitler-loving reporters, White Russians and western espionage agents send messages to London, Washington and Paris, suggesting that the Soviet experiment is soon going to die – and, rather too often, that Stalin himself is dead. They’ve killed him off a dozen times. So the Vozhd has a sense of humour about the drivel his enemies write about him.”
Lyons lifted a hand in air, calling for calm, then said, “So between us, the present company has met Stalin, a US President and a gangster. Whoever tops that wins Duranty’s lighter.”
After a pause, Duranty raised his arm. “I was in Paris just before the war and messed about with Aleister Crowley. I’d say the Great Beast trumps all other cards in the deck.”
The rest of the company fell silent. Duranty’s sway over the other newspapermen seemed absolute.
“So the Great Beast wins?” asked Duranty.
Jones coughed, his eyes mildly amused.
“Mr Jones, who have you met?” asked Evgenia in black-eyed innocence.
“Adolf Hitler,” Jones said and – except for Duranty – the company roared their approval.
“So, how did you get the scoop of the century?” asked Lyons.
“I wouldn’t call it a scoop. I didn’t interview him properly,” said Jones. “Or have much time with him, just a few words. But I observed him as best I could. Close up? Unimpressive. His car arrived at the airfield in Berlin and he stepped out, a slight figure in a shapeless black hat, wearing a light mackintosh. He raised his arm flabbily to greet those who’d assembled to see him. So here was the leader of the most volcanic nationalist awakening which the world has seen and yet he was a mild nobody. I was mystified. The bodyguards were more striking. The uniform is black with silver brocade. On their hats there is a silver skull and crossbones, the cavities of the eyes in the skull being bright red. The SS ooze violence, barely suppressed.” Jones gestured to the two Chekists. “Like our friends here.”
“Likening Hitler’s SS with the Cheka isn’t the done thing in the Soviet Union,” said Duranty through a thin smile.
“Perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down might not see him,” said Jones, enigmatically. “We draw the magic cap down over eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.”
“What?” said Duranty, incredulous.
“It’s from Das Kapital. Monsters do exist, in the Cheka and the SS.”
For a second time Duranty understood that Jones could be dangerous.
“So,” Lyons interrupted the argument, “who is the bigger beast, that self-styled nitwit and writer of mediocre necromancy… or Adolf Hitler?”
No-one said anything but Duranty pushed the lighter towards Jones.
“No thank you, Duranty, I don’t smoke. It’s only a game.”
“No, you must. It would be an insult if you didn’t collect your winnings. I insist.”
There was something hard about Duranty’s tone that left Jones feeling it would be wrong to resist him, but also that Duranty would not forget this moment. His hand reached out to inspect it. On one side was the inscription, “To W.D. All my darkness, A.C.”
“This was given to you by Aleister Crowley himself?”
“It was so.”
“What was he like?”
“A mesmerising fraud.”
“Just like Hitler then,” and the company laughed.
The waiter returned bearing a tray with plates, cutlery, pots of caviar resting in a bed of ice, blini, and a silver pot holding sour cream. Natasha took control and showed Jones how to spread the cream on the blini and then cover it with caviar, a mix of red and black eggs. Jones had forgotten how hungry he was. Breakfast at his hotel had been a miserable affair of black tea, one sad hard-boiled egg and a lump of black bread as hard as teak. He wolfed the blini, caviar and all.
“Yum-yum,” he said and Natasha toyed with the phrase, “yoom-yoom”, giving it a sensuality entirely lacking in Jones’ version.
“What’s your office’s telegram address?” asked Duranty.
“WesternMailNews. Why do you ask?”
“Just in case there’s some dreadful accident.”
Jones looked a little downcast.
“Only jesting, old boy, only jesting.”
The company concentrated on the caviar and blini, all except one. Out of the side of his eyes, Jones observed that Evgenia wasn’t eating. Her hand went to the bottle of red and she poured herself a glass of wine, holding it up to her nose to savour its taste. As she did so, the light from the chandelier shone through the wine, bathing her face a deep red.
“Savouring the bouquet is bourgeois, Evgenia,” said Duranty, his eyes on fire.
Evgenia blushed to her roots, put the glass down and stood up. To leave, she had to squeeze past Jones. Shrinking from physical contact with her, he edged sideways and upwards in his seat, making an exhibition of himself.
After she’d left the table, Duranty smiled pleasantly, running his finger around the top of the champagne flute. “You’re acting as if Evgenia has some physically deformity, Jones. Is that the case?”
“Yes, no,” he stammered.
Before he was obliged to say more, a waiter tapped a glass with a fork, announcing dinner. The company, about twenty in all with the German film crew, sat down at tables decorated with candles in the shape of red stars. They were served fresh Astrakhan caviar washed down with pre-war vodka, white bread and butter, borscht soup spiked with sherry, grilled salmon, roast partridge and chicken served with vintage burgundy and cakes of every kind, fine Russian cheese, hot-house grapes, old port and older cognac.
When Evgenia returned she took a small bowl of borscht. The others fell on the feast as if they had never seen its like. Jones began to wonder whether this fare wasn’t easily available in the ordinary way. That would square with the pitifully poor food he had put up with at his Moscow hotel.