‘We haven’t been giving you all this protection so you could come up with hogwash like that!’
‘She arrived here not long ago, comrade Minister, she was in Germany, she was already travelling in Germany and Hungary in the days of the Nazis and Horthy, and even before then, she has always known a great many things, she used to be a diva, by which I mean…’
‘Misha, I too am a cultured man, I don’t spend all my evenings questioning suspects with a blowtorch.’
‘Everyone who matters goes to her public master-classes, comrade Minister, and they invite her to dinner, she’s American.’
‘The one from Berlin?’
Markov couldn’t have asked for more, he doesn’t want an answer, he smiles, a good smile, like in the old days, Sancho Panza, Lilstein wonders why Markov mentioned blowtorches, ‘Comrade Minister, I’m certain that nowadays she’s a full-time CIA operative, with no diplomatic status, if you wish we could pass the information to the Hungarians, let them shoot her, or alternatively wait and only shoot her when we’ve gone in to do Budapest’s housekeeping, but if we send her back to them now, dead or alive whichever, they’ll realise we know everything, everything that is less well guarded than the secret of this woman’s role, they might settle for stirring people up with their Radio Free Europe broadcasts but if they really want to make a more specific response we must tell them that we know everything and are waiting for them to move.’
‘Does she still sing?’
‘Private recitals, just for friends, comrade Minister, apparently she’s as good as ever.’
‘Well, no more recitals! Lower the curtain! Put one of your men with mine, to keep an eye on things, this isn’t a bad idea, you’ve got forty-eight hours, less if possible. You really didn’t waste any time in sending me this information?’
Kappler doesn’t need to know this part of Lena’s story, not now, in the end Max will tell it to him, adding another episode, dating from in 1954, two years before Budapest, in the end Max will have to tell Kappler what he did in ’56 and ’54.
Max will turn it into a story in his usual style, with gaps, some invention, elements of the truth, and when the archives are opened fifty years hence it will be seen that Max was not very far wide of the mark, there’ll be a few snippets of information for Max, about 1956 and going two years further back, to early 1954.
You really should talk about this to a couple of your poker chums, Max, one rumour about Lena is doing the rounds in Washington, McCarthy has a hankering, the McCarthy of the glory days, the communist witch-hunt, a minor scene in the office of Senator McCarthy, he is alone with his aide who is reading aloud from a file:
‘This lady, this opera-singer who cosies up to the communists, she travels to the East whenever she wants, the FBI says nothing, the CIA lets her have a free hand, the State Department gives her trip its blessing, the KGB provides luxury hotel accommodation in Prague or Budapest, she’s always had covert dealings, first with the Nazis, as early as 1931, she even cosied up to the Germans between 1914 and 1917, she left Germany in tears, twice, first in 1917 and again in 1941, each time just before we went to war, the Russians must have a helluva fat file on her, they’ve got her, we’ll make her testify to the committee, under oath, diva or not, we’ll fry her, she fraternised with the Nazis and she works for the Soviets and she’s in cahoots with all the liberals in Washington, we’ve got her cold, a typical case, a Nazi, a Bolshevik and a Liberal.’
McCarthy makes up his mind:
‘We’ll subpoena her to appear before the committee.’
February 1954, McCarthy is about to put a large bomb under the communist and liberal networks, subpoena this woman, Max, you go too far, you talk as if you were sitting on McCarthy’s knee, the bastard, if you knew anything about the man’s morals, shush, not a word, down boy, this is guaranteed château-bottled stuff, aged in our own cellars.
McCarthy is out to get Lena, and two men ask for a meeting, two unofficial envoys from the White House, smart restaurant, private room, there’ll be two of us, Mr Senator, you can bring your aide, there’ll be no tricks, you can post one bodyguard at the door, not more, it will be a very significant meeting.
McCarthy has got the White House liberals, communist puppets, where he wants them, they’ve got their backs to the wall, they ask for a meeting and now they’re sitting across from him, private room with a thick-pile carpet, dark red drapes, very quiet.
Two liberals for McCarthy: Walker, a member of Eisenhower’s private office, the laid-back member of the team, tweed jacket, black-and-orange handkerchief in the breast pocket, Princeton colours, and the fairy, Garrick, grey suit, democratic Senator, two Washington fairies, both under thirty, each born with a silver spoon in his mouth, played football, law degrees from Princeton, muscles and crewcuts to give the lie, liberal fairies, they’ve had the nerve to send him these two, a single indictment will be enough, no cosying-up outside the door, no drinks even, McCarthy starts talking before he’s finished sitting down, his hands are still on the arms of his chair:
‘What have you two got that you want to say to me?’
‘We’ve got nothing to ask, Senator.’
‘What the hell are we doing here, then?’
‘We come with a simple message,’ says Walker, ‘a message from the President, you are about to call a lady, please, let me finish, there’s not much to say, the President says: “Don’t”.’
‘Or else?’
‘With all due respect, sir, the President told us to kick your ass.’ And Garrick adds:
‘Until you stop liking it, Senator.’
No one has talked like that to McCarthy in a long, long while, and the two envoys are cool, provoking, the Chairman of the Committee on UnAmerican Activities lays one hand on his aide’s forearm to calm him down, McCarthy is a good card-player, he started too fast, he’s going to kill these two sons-of-bitches and do it without putting a foot wrong. They watch him, smiling, the blood has not risen to their faces which are not pale either, maybe they’re not complete drag-asses, but they’re pretty young, a Republican and a Democrat, here they are together, McCarthy should have made sure he was better informed, maybe they’re not fairies, take care when you order them dead, he checks them out with a smile:
‘You boys served in the war?’
‘Yes, Senator.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Korea, Senator, in the marines both, volunteers’ — this is Walker talking — ‘a good outfit.’
‘Yeah? What did you do?’
‘Flame-thrower, Senator, for a year and a half, I wouldn’t have changed places for the world, and Garrick here was a specialist sharpshooter, his job was to look out for my butt, he did it for a year and a half too, I’m a Republican, he’s a Democrat, we got on like good buddies, and we still do.’
‘You did say: kick his ass?’
‘Until he stops liking it, Senator, it’s army talk, an image.’
‘And what if I shoved my glass in your goddam face?’
‘Senator, President Eisenhower said “or else it’s total war”. It’ll only last forty-eight hours at most. Would you let me expand briefly, before you throw the glass? Actors, intellectuals, union bosses, writers, journalists, you can do pretty much what you want with them, foreigners too, have Thomas Mann dealt with as a communist, order The Magic Mountain removed from US cultural centres abroad, you can go further, tickle up Mr Dulles and the CIA, not too much, got to think of your credibility, all that stuff the President can understand, but when he sends us along to warn you to keep off the grass, keep off the grass is what he means. We don’t like the smell of frying, Senator, but we can handle a fry-pan. This lady is gonna disappear from your plans and this meeting never took place.’