So I could have wasted my time busting a hole in the ice with the Fiat because the proposition was that Polanski's unit was the only one that had been fed the dope about the U.K. diplomatic-backing thing and now the K.G.B. had picked it up and the K.G.B. picked up most of its stuff by augmented interrogation so who had they grabbed — Polanski? Viktor? Jo? Where was Alinka now? The trains were rolling east. I could have wasted my time.
I said: 'Can you spell it out for me?'
Her lean body, a dark curl creeping in the wing of her arm, all she would ever be, a dream fragment persisting.
'We don't want to tell you things.' His smile was faintly coy. 'We want you to tell us things.'
'If shindy means a full-scale revolution and young asses means half the population of the Polish Republic and looking kindly means the explicit patronage of Great Britain at Foreign Office level I'd say it's worth about as much as any other rumour wouldn't you? I come from a country where — we both do, I was forgetting — where people would get a certain kick out of seeing the Poles chuck the Kremlin off their backs because we've always had a soft spot for the underdog whoever it is, but that's not enough to make us queer the pitch at a time when there's a hope of an East-West detente in the offing. But you ought to know that so why ask me?'
A spark had come under the heavy lids but now the eyes were sleepy again, full marks for that. The Russian hadn't moved but I sensed a reaction in his total stillness beside me: his grasp of the idiom must be pretty fair.
'I see, yes. That's what we thought.'
'Then I haven't been much help.'
'You mustn't think that, old boy. You're being most co-operative. Just what we were hoping for, bit of co-operation.'
Lamps swung above us, their glow lingering wanly against the first milky light of the day. The span of the bridge curved upwards across the wastes of ice as we were lifted, losing the skyline, finding it again. In the glass division the sidelamps of the prison van floated higher, two bright bubbles, and floated down.
'That's where someone went in.' He was looking through the side window. 'Couple of days ago.'
'Went in?'
'Down there. In a car.'
'Bust the ice?'
'Yes. I think he was trying to get away from the police. They say there was quite a chase. Poor chap, what a way to go. But he shouldn't have been so silly; the police here are very good. We've got to keep order, that's awfully important.'
We slowed down the long descent towards the Wilenska Station, having to use more of the camber because the first trams had started running.
Of course it could be the other way round: the K.G.B. might not have picked it up — it could be their own man, the one with the borrowed Union Jack poking out of his breast pocket, feeding the stuff in. Why?
'It's like Wales,' he said, turning to look at me, 'and Scotland. You_ must try seeing it that way. They've kept their spiritual independence but they've willingly helped England fight her wars. Bit of flag-waving goes on at the Cup Finals but there's no harm meant, is there? Charles went over pretty big at Caernarvon, proof enough.'
By rough reckoning I had ten minutes. I didn't know why they'd switched me from the van to the saloon: it wasn't so that they could vet me because they could have waited until we were inside Grochow, where the grilling was going to start. Perhaps it was caprice on his part and his masters had indulged him: he was a first ranker of high value to them, twenty years' loyal service on the books.
What then had moved him, in the shadowed psyche below that brilliant mind, to offer me a ride in his comfortable motor car since we were going to the same place? Not his sense of irony: that was too cerebral. Something deeper: they'd said of him, those who'd been his friends, that if he'd ever gone right over the edge he would have been a schizoid, that the strain of his critically balanced double life would have led him sliding into a world of fantasy. But there was no real edge, no borderline: he was the type who would order a cleanly laundered shirt for the condemned on his way to the gallows, to give his death a token dignity; or choose that on my way into Grochow and beyond I should hear the accents of familiar speech, here in a foreign land, and know the comfort of being called 'old boy'. Or was it something more basic: self justification on the infantile level — here are you, a captive, and here am I, a free man, so who's the better?
Ten minutes but it was a question of chance, not time, hit the door open and pitch out and hope not to break a leg and try to run before the snow was pockmarked around my feet and they corrected the aim and I knew it hadn't been worth it. Smash the glass division with a rising kick and connect with the driver's neck and send the lot of us sliding wild and hope to get clear of the wreckage and use the confusion as flying cover.
Not really. There was too much against it and I was only making sure I could answer. the question that later, days later, would needle me when they got round to the advanced stuff and I'd give my soul to be free: hadn't there been anything at all I could have done? There had been nothing at all.
'Poland,' he said reasonably, 'and Czechoslovakia and the others, all keeping their spiritual independence and living in harmony with their mother country, just like Scotland and Wales. Does it sound so odd? It always takes time, of course — the future never likes being hurried. Think what a fuss there was when the Romans came, but they did a world of good, didn't they, gave us good laws and proper plumbing, don't know what England would have done without them. It's the same here, and you really ought to try taking the long view.' Looking out at the dark figures huddled at a tram stop he said in a quicker tone — 'You know your way, do you, around Warsaw?'
'A few of the main streets.'
'You know roughly where you are now?'
'East of the river.'
He nodded, tapping at the glass division. 'That's right Not far from anywhere, really.'
As the big saloon began slowing I saw the shape of the police van reflected beside him, closing in and then dropping back a little, keeping the distance.
He leaned towards me, his tone intimate now, the whisky on his breath. 'The thing is, old boy, we don't want you to rock the boat. Moczar's got his hands full at present, cleaning things up for the talks, and we'd rather like him to be left alone.'
He swayed back an inch as the saloon came to a halt by the kerb. The reflection of the van had also stopped, but none of its doors were opening: they were just sitting there, holding off. It could be a trap but if they wanted to rub me out they could do it quietly inside Grochow: the only point in this set-up would be to establish public testimony to the fact that I'd been shot while trying to escape and it didn't seem logical. It looked like a chance and this time a real one and it'd have to be done explosively within the next few seconds, the right elbow driven hard and upwards to paralyse the windpipe of the man beside me and the left foot kicking for the face in front of me as the weight came back, difficult because of the balance factor but only difficult, not impossible, Kimura could have done it without any trouble, this or nothing, this or Grochow.
'So we're hoping you'll be a sport.' He leaned forward, head tilted, the tone engaging. 'We've got your name, and we'll see it's passed around to all the M.O. stations, so if you get picked up again just tell them who you are.' A smile narrowed his eyes. 'Bodkin. So English — and so Russian. Alexandrovich Bodkin, yes. What I mean is, you won't need a pass or anything; we'll tell them to leave you alone.' He pulled at the chrome handle and the door swung open. 'Mind how you go: the streets are so treacherous, aren't they? Because of the snow.'