Russian Hide-and-Seek

11

Though closed down, like all other public meeting-places, at the time of the Pacification, the theatre had never been converted into another use. Only three years previous to that event, it had been partly rebuilt and completely reseated to accommodate nearly four hundred people, its lighting system modernised and an apron stage installed. The structure was sound and dry. All this had meant that the theatre-section official in charge of premises had had to do little more than give the place a thorough spring-clean and replace the movables that had been confiscated or looted. By the time Alexander saw it, rehearsals were in their third week.

He went into the auditorium, where there was a faint, pleasant smell of the twentieth century. On the stage were two middle-aged men with an academic air to them, a third, younger man and a girl in her middle twenties with a book in her hand listening to Some point one or other of the men was making to her. Alexander looked round casually and without result for Theodore and then less casually at the girl. She was what Nina would have called his type except that her expression was not so much sulky or bad-tempered as reserved and watchful, which made little difference to him; she was also rather tall, rather snub-nosed and very dark-haired. He moved right to the front of the house and cleared his throat in the hope of catching her attention, but failed to do so for the moment and settled himself on an aisle seat. Of the couple of dozen other people scattered about, none took notice of him, no doubt because he was wearing civilian clothes. The deliberations on the stage were suspended, the girl walked into the wings, emerged again almost at once and read from her book:

‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

To wards Phoebus’ lodging: such a waggoner

As Phaeton would whip you to the west,

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these eyes, untalked of and unseen!’

That on ‘waggoner’ she dropped her voice, linked ‘in’ with ‘cloudy’ rather than with ‘bring’, stressed ‘close’ and showed misunderstanding in several other places made as little difference to him as the nuances of her expression; he listened with only half an ear, no more than was needed to assure himself that her voice was suitable for a young female, and concentrated his attention on how she looked and behaved. After speaking for a couple of minutes she stopped and glanced expectantly at the men. One of the academics said with warm approval in his voice and manner,

‘That’s very good, Sarah. Remember not to attach too much importance to individual words – it’s the overall effect that matters.’

‘I see, sir. I’m still not quite clear about Phoebus and Phaeton. What are my feelings towards them?’ The girl’s Russian was excellent.

‘I think you regard them with great respect,’ said the other academic. ‘You’re rather proud to be a fellow-citizen and neighbour of two such distinguished figures.’

At this point an inconspicuous door beside the stage opened and Theodore descended a short flight of stairs into the auditorium. Beside him was a big man of about forty with a closely-trimmed black beard and large, very dark eyes that fastened directly on whatever they looked at. Alexander knew him by sight as Aram Sevadjian, holder of some senior post in the Commission, in fact, as it very soon transpired, head of its theatre section. Led by him the three settled themselves at the end of a row near the back, where they conversed in suitable undertones. On stage an older woman had joined the girl.

‘What do you think of our play?’ asked Sevadjian.

‘I haven’t been here long,’ said Alexander, ‘but it seems promising.’

‘I’m glad you think that. We’ve had a lot of trouble with it, you know. I suggested we might try another by the same author; it seems there’s one about a Danish aristocrat who goes mad and thinks he sees a ghost which tells him to murder his uncle. More straightforward than this, I’d have thought, but the director, that young fellow there, he assures me there’s no time to make a fresh start now, it’s this or nothing. Well… It’s so hard to understand the characters and to make out what one’s meant to think of them. A young man meets a girl at a party and feels her up in public, in front of her parents, in fact. We all know such things happen, but then instead of having an affair with her he marries her, and after only one night together he suicides when he thinks she’s dead – very flimsy, that part – and she suicides when she finds him dead, and the author makes no attempt at all to explain why; I mean they’re not insane or anything like that. I expect I’m trying to take it too literally, and that part’s meant to be a symbol of a couple completely going off each other when. they’ve been powerfully attracted only a few days before, but one can’t tell the audience that. Still, there’s a certain amount of violence which we can play up, and the costumes and sets are going to be spectacular; I’m sure the thing will go down well enough. It’s the occasion that matters. Well, you didn’t come here to listen to me chattering about an old play. Allow me to welcome you to Group 31, Mr Petrovsky.’

‘Thank you, Mr Sevadjian, but is it wise to do so in a place like this?’

‘The answer to your commendably cautious question is Yes. One couldn’t say the same for the dressing-rooms and offices. The reasoning of the Directorate is almost pitifully transparent: what audiences do is listen, not talk. All the same, I suggest we pay attention to events on stage from time to time.’

They watched while the girl read aloud, stumbling frequently,

‘Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but “ay”

And that bare vowel “ay” shall poison more

Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

I am not I if there be such an “ay”,

Or those eyes shut that make thee answer “ay”.

Sevadjian chuckled appreciatively. ‘I must say the comic parts still have their charm. Now to business. Our committee has discussed your access to Mrs Korotchenko. Members were very dubious till I pointed out that, even assuming Theodore here is under suspicion, up to the time she, er, made her approach to you the only contact you and he had had was at the races, at a game of croquet and at a dinner-party, with others present at all times on all three occasions. So unless the enemy has enough dedicated women to fuck everybody who gets within twenty metres of any of our workers, her motives would seem to have been innocent, if that isn’t too strange a word. We therefore proceed. Your instructions are to strike for nothing less than a list of all the undercover agents of the Directorate in the district, but you must continue not to reveal in any way whatever that you work for any kind of resistance movement, even a one-man one -it was felt that the risk of an anonymous tip-off was too great.’

‘Why? Why would she do that?’

‘A dozen reasons. To protect herself. To dispose of you when a successor appears. To get her own back after a quarrel. Or some other motive that’s unpredictable. She’s an impetuous lady. I can’t for a moment imagine how you’re going to persuade her to get you that list without telling her something, but perhaps you can.

‘I can indeed. A reason tailor-made for her psychology.’

‘I’m quite happy to leave you to handle it in your own way. When are you seeing her again?’

‘Not for ten days. She wouldn’t say why but she was quite firm.’

‘How annoying of her.’

‘It’ll be worse than annoying if she keeps us waiting another couple of weeks after that.’

‘There’d still be time. You must exercise your powers of fascination,’ said Sevadjian, and turned towards the stage.

‘O serpent heart [read the girl], hid with a flowering face!

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

Dove-feathered raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!

Despised substance of divinest show!

Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st.

A damned saint, an honourable villain!’

Sevadjian, who had been listening closely, frowned, sighed, and shook his dark head. ‘The text must be corrupt – surely it’s a damned villain, an honourable saint,’ he muttered, making nine syllables of it, as the girl had done. Then he turned to Alexander again. ‘Your father is greatly respected in the district. From my small personal knowledge he seems at any rate a humane man. How do you see him?’

‘He’s so humane -’

‘Lower your voice.’

‘I’m sorry. He’s so humane he’d protect the rights of a mad dog. He has it both ways in perpetuity: tilting at the system while getting all he can out of it and working to keep it in being, sympathising with the English and having Director Vanag to dinner. I despise him.’

‘Am Ito gather from that that you would have no objection to personally arresting your father when the time comes? It was felt that there would be a certain symbolic value.’

‘I’d sooner shoot him, I think.’ Alexander blurted this out, stopped, and went on in a normal tone, ‘I’m quite prepared to arrest him, yes.’

‘We intend to keep our operation as bloodless as possible.’ With these words there came an abrupt change in Sevadjian’s manner, which had been severely practical with an occasional jocoseness. Now, he turned in his seat so as to face Alexander squarely and fixed his remarkable eyes on him. ‘I wonder if you feel as I and some others do about our movement, a sense of inestimable privilege at being able to take part in a great historical transfiguration; I hope you feel that. And it’s more than taking part, it’s directing, shaping, building. When we have finished our work, the world will never be the same again. In the end our names will be forgotten, but we’ll have left our mark on events for as long as human society lasts. Our monument will be in men’s minds. By liberating others we’ll have liberated ourselves and all who come after us. I imagine the same thoughts, the same consciousness of purpose, uplifted our great predecessors in Petrograd as the autumn of 1917 advanced. Our task is to restore that revolution. And we shan’t fail.’

What most struck Alexander about this speech was not so much its entire conviction nor even its top-speed, word-perfect delivery as its low volume and the almost total lack of gestures accompanying it. To anyone more than a couple of metres away and not directly in his line of sight Sevadjian might have seemed to be further expounding, not uncritically, the plot of the play in rehearsal. For some reason this increased the difficulty of devising an answer to what he had said. Alexander could find no words that were quite free of the risk of sounding frivolous and contented himself with nodding earnestly.

For the first time, he started to believe that what he had taken for an amusing fantasy was going to be tried and might succeed. And if it did succeed and he had had no part in it, then from being an officer in the Guards he would presumably become some sort of prisoner, even though not for long, perhaps. On the other hand, he was pretty certain to have a far worse time if he joined in and it failed. But in that event would he not be considered to have joined in already? It would do him no good to plead that he had not actually done anything yet, and advanced techniques of interrogation left no chance whatever of his name not becoming immediately known to the Directorate. If only he had considered earlier, not whether or not the confounded scheme would succeed, but that it was becoming more and more certain to be tried!

The sensible course was to return to quarters, change into standard dress and pay a call on Vanag – returned from Moscow the previous day. It was also out of the question. Alexander affirmed to himself that he was proof against all moral compunction; what he could not abide was being seen to be the sort of person who did that sort of thing. And how desirable, how necessary, how bloody marvellous to be the hero of a successful revolution! Because on the strength of that list and those projectiles…

Sevadjian wished him luck, shook hands and was gone. Speaking for the first time since the moment of his arrival – he was good at staying silent – Theodore said,

‘Isn’t he magnificent?’

‘Most impressive. Is he the leader?’

‘The cell leader. The identity of the leader of the whole movement is known only to two other people.’

‘I can see the point of that, but it must raise certain-’

‘Alexander, I want to come to talk to your father about something, something quite different obviously, but I’d like you to be about the place too. When would be a good time?’

‘Friday is his open-house evening. If you want a long chat with him you’d do better to wait till next week. I can be there almost any night.’

‘Friday will do nicely. Thank you for not asking questions. I hope you won’t mind if I ask you one. Did you mean what you said about your father, that you were prepared to shoot him?’

‘I said I thought so. I still think so, but I can’t really imagine what it would feel like to be actually about to do it.’

Without further inquiry Theodore removed himself, mentioning a pile of work at the Commission. Alexander, left hand in pocket as traditionally allowed off-duty Guards officers, strolled down to his earlier position near the stage, on which a break had just been called and mugs of tea were being handed round. This time the young actress did catch his eye, long enough for him to give her a nod of greeting but no longer. He waited to see if she would turn towards the others, from whom she was standing a little apart; when she did not, he moved. Almost at once he was introducing himself as a newly-appointed member of the Commission.

‘My name is Sarah Harland,’ she said in an inexpressive tone, quite different from the one she had used when speaking her lines. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I thought you might do me the honour of letting me take you out to lunch. I’m afraid there’s nowhere very-’

‘Why should I?’

‘No important reason. I got interested in the play, and we could-’

‘No you didn’t, Russian; all you had any time for was whatever the boss was telling you.

‘You were watching me, then.’

‘I was watching the audience – an actress always does that in rehearsals. No, you’re not interested in the play, you’re not even interested in me; all you want is to get me on my back as fast as possible. You Shits are all the same.’

She was not speaking inexpressively now. Seen close to she looked sprightly and rather formidable, Alexander thought, with something very attractive about the way she moved her lips and something even more attractive about the development of her figure. Carefully underplaying the honest bewilderment, he said after a pause,

‘What can I do to convince you that at least I’m interested in you? – never mind the play.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

Sarah Harland turned her back and went and accepted more tea while he grinned a little to himself. Even during their short conversation she had invisibly led them away from the main body, now augmented by a young actor and an old actor, and had kept her voice down. So all he had to do was the only thing open to him to do and watch more of the play, watch an hour of it, watch till the rehearsal was over, watch on a future occasion, but anyway introduce a long enough pause, whether of minutes or days, for Miss (or Mrs) Harland to feel able to satisfy some mysterious power that she was not making herself cheap. Then would come lunch and then, after minutes or days, but inevitably from the moment just now when she had spoken her first words to him, bed. Once, when he was sixteen, he had known a girl from a remote country district who pulled his hand away the first few times he laid it on her breast and again when he thrust it up her skirt; the same trait on a different scale. When one looked at it in a certain way, it was quite remarkable how little there was to understand about women.