‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’
Kropotkin made a small inclination of the head, and addressed himself to the riders.
‘He’s telling them to lead the horses back to the stable, and to be careful crossing the road outside. He’s telling Misha to stay behind.’
Kropotkin turned back to me and stroked his moustache. ‘Horse of Misha is good. Go to Olympics,’ he said.
I looked at Misha’s charge with interest, though there was no way in which it stood out from the others. A hardy chestnut with a white blaze down its nose, and two white socks: a rough coat, which would be normal at that time of year, and a kind eye.
‘Good,’ Kropotkin said, slapping its rump.
‘He looks bold and tough,’ I said. Stephen translated and Kropotkin did not demur.
The four other horses were led away, and Kropotkin introduced Misha formally but without flourish.
‘Mikhail Alexeevich Tarevsky,’ he said, and to the boy added what was clearly an instruction to answer whatever I asked.
‘Da, Nikolai Alexandrovich,’ he said.
I thought there were better places for conducting interviews than in near-freezing semi-drizzle on an open dirt-track, but neither Kropotkin nor Misha seemed aware of the weather, and the fact that Stephen and I were shifting from one cold foot to the other evoked no offers of our adjourning to a warm office.
‘In England,’ said the boy, ‘I learn little English.’
His voice and manner were serious, and his accent a great deal lighter than Kropotkin’s. His eyes, unexpectedly blue in his weather-tanned face, looked full of unguarded intelligence. I smiled at him involuntarily, but he only stared gravely back.
‘Please tell me what you know of Hans Kramer,’ I said.
Kropotkin instantly rumbled something positive, and Stephen said, ‘He wishes Misha to speak in Russian, so that he may hear. He wishes me to translate what you ask.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Ask Misha what he knows of Kramer. And for God’s sake let’s get on. I’m congealing.’
Misha stood beside his horse, pulling the reins over the chestnut’s head to hold them more easily below the mouth for leading, and stroking his neck from time to time to soothe him. I couldn’t see that it was doing any good for an Olympic-type horse to stand around getting chilled so soon after exercise, but it wasn’t my problem. The chestnut, certainly, didn’t seem to mind.
Stephen said, ‘Mikhail Alexeevich — that is, Misha — says that he was near Hans Kramer when he died.’
It was amazing how suddenly I no longer felt the cold.
‘How near?’
The answer was lengthy. Stephen listened and translated.
‘Misha says he was holding the horse of one of the Russian team who was being weighed — is that right? — and Hans Kramer was there. He had just finished his cross-country, and had done well, and people were there round him, congratulating him. Misha was half watching, and half watching for the rider of the horse.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Go on.’
Misha talked. Stephen said, ‘Hans Kramer staggered and fell to the ground. He fell not far from Misha; about three metres. An English girl went to help him and someone else ran off to fetch the doctor. Hans Kramer looked very ill. He could not breathe properly. But he was trying to say something. Trying to tell the English girl something. He was lying flat on the ground. He could hardly breathe. He was saying words as loudly as he could. Like trying to shout.’
Misha waited until Stephen had finished, clearly understanding what Stephen was saying and punctuating the translation with nods.
‘Hans Kramer was saying these words in German?’ I said.
‘Da,’ said Misha, but Kropotkin interrupted, wanting to be told the question. He made an assenting gesture with his hand to allow Misha to proceed.
‘And does Misha speak German?’
Misha, it appeared, had learned German in school, and had been with the team’s horses to East Germany, and knew enough to make himself understood.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘What did Hans Kramer say?’
Misha said the words in German, and then in Russian, and one word flared out of both like a beacon.
Alyosha.
Stephen lit up strongly with excitement, and I thought there was probably a good deal to be said for a face that gave nothing away. His enthusiasm seemed to bother Kropotkin, who made uneasy movements as if on the point of retreat.
‘Cool it,’ I said to Stephen flatly. ‘You’re frightening the birds.’
He gave me a quick surprised look, but dampened his manner immediately.
‘Hans Kramer said,’ he reported in a quiet voice, ‘ “I am dying. It is Alyosha. Moscow.” And then he said, “God help me.” And then he died.’
‘How did he die?’ I said.
Misha, via Stephen, said that he turned blue, and seemed to stop breathing, and then there was a sort of small jolt right through his body, and someone said it was his heart stopping; it was a heart attack. The doctor came, and agreed it was a heart attack. He tried to bring Hans Kramer back to life, but it was useless.’
The four of us stood in the Russian drizzle thinking about the death of a German in England on a sunny September day.
‘Ask him what else he remembers,’ I said.
Misha shrugged. ‘The English girl and some of the people near had understood what Hans Kramer had said. The English girl was saying to other people that he had said he was dying because of Alyosha who came from Moscow, and other people were agreeing. It was very sad. Then the Russian rider came back from being weighed, and Misha had to attend to him and the horse, and he saw from a little way off that the ambulance people came with a stretcher. They put Hans Kramer on the stretcher and put a rug right over him and over his face, and carried him off.’
‘Um,’ I said, thinking. ‘Ask him again what Hans Kramer said.’
Hans Kramer had said, ‘I am dying. It is Alyosha. Moscow. God help me.’ He had not had time to say any more, although Misha thought he had been trying to.
‘Is Misha sure that Hans Kramer did not say “I am dying because of Alyosha from Moscow”?’
Misha, it seemed, was positive. There had been no ‘because’, and no ‘from’. Only, ‘I am dying. It is Alyosha. Moscow. God help me.’ Misha remembered very clearly, he said, because Alyosha was his own father’s name.
‘Is it really?’ I said, interested.
Misha said that he himself was Mikhail Alexeevich Tarevsky. Mikhail, son of Alexei. And Alyosha was the affectionate form of Alexei. Misha was certain Hans Kramer had said, ‘It is Alyosha. Es ist Alyosha.’
I looked unseeingly over the sodden racecourse.
‘Ask Misha,’ I said slowly, ‘if he can describe any of the people who were with Kramer before he staggered and fell down. Ask if he remembers if any of them was carrying anything, or doing anything, which did not fit in to the normal scene. Ask if anyone gave Kramer anything to eat or drink.’
Stephen stared. ‘But it was a heart attack.’
‘There might have been,’ I said mildly, ‘contributive factors. A shock. An argument. An accidental blow. An allergy. A sting from a wasp.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He asked the alarming questions as if they were indeed harmless. Misha answered straightforwardly, taking them the same way.
‘Misha says,’ Stephen reported, ‘that he did not know any of the people round Hans Kramer, except that he had seen them at the trials that day and the day before. The Russians are not allowed to mix with the other grooms and competitors, so he had not spoken to them. He himself had seen nothing which could have given anybody a heart attack, but of course he had not been watching closely. But he couldn’t remember any argument, or blow, or wasp. He couldn’t remember for certain whether Hans Kramer had eaten or drunk anything, but he didn’t think so.’