Gabriel's Moon, page 22
‘I have to say I don’t particularly like London,’ she said. ‘But what can I do? The work’s here.’
‘It has its compensations, surely,’ Gabriel said.
Something about his lazy tone must have irritated her, he quickly realized, as the mood swung again.
‘Have you ever been to Liverpool, Gabriel?’
‘Ah. No, I haven’t, actually.’
‘Interesting. And yet you call yourself a travel writer.’
‘Maybe I do, but I don’t claim to have travelled everywhere on earth.’
‘Liverpool is a great British city.’
‘Have you ever been to Léopoldville?’ he countered.
‘No.’
‘I have.’
This was getting ridiculous, he thought: why am I competing with this person? Why’s she so hostile?
Thankfully, their flight was called moments later and they made their way to the departure gate. Gabriel was glad that he and the ‘Seabird’, as he now mentally denoted her, were not sitting beside each other.
He pinned his name badge on to his lapel as the plane began its descent into Warsaw’s airport. Gabriel Dax, New Interzonal Review. He was aware of the tension mounting in him. Now he had to pretend to be an interested, committed, left-wing journalist while in fact he was about to make contact with Britain’s most infamous, recent traitor. Faith had said it was simple, straightforward: just hand over the Blanco drawing. But there was a significant difference between handing over a drawing in a café in Madrid and handing over a drawing in Warsaw, Poland, he was aware. He was glad he had insisted on being armed – if only to let the Institute know that he was aware of the potential risk of being behind the Iron Curtain. He suddenly began to feel a little nervous and insecure.
They stood in the baggage hall waiting for their luggage to arrive. Hand delivered, so it was not swift. He and the ‘Seabird’ were together again. The only two British journalists invited, she had told him. Something of an honour.
Celia Bird was looking at him intently.
‘What is it, Celia?’
‘Did you go to a private school?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?
‘I bet you went to Eton,’ she said.
‘Lost your bet. But, I confess, I did go to a private school. Called Abbeyhurst College, if you’re interested.’
‘Sorry, a “public” school, as you would say. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?’
‘It’s just a name. Nothing to do with me.’
Happily, they were interrupted by the arrival of a young Polish man, who introduced himself as Ryszard, pointing to his lapel badge, the local representative of the PZPR, the Polish United Workers’ Party, hosts of this particular junket.
He looked about twenty-five, Gabriel thought, slim, thinning fair hair, smiley, wearing a very old brown duffel coat. They shook hands. He spoke almost flawless English and told them how delighted he was to welcome them to Poland, how honoured he and his colleagues in the party were to have two such elevated representatives of the British press at their gathering.
Gabriel saw his tartan case deposited and picked it up as casually as possible. Minutes later, the Seabird’s surprisingly capacious suitcase was hefted in. Ryszard offered to carry it. With Ryszard in command, they were whisked through immigration, their passports were stamped, their bags waved through by customs, and then they were led outside the arrivals hall to where a small white minibus waited to transport them to their hotel.
‘A very new hotel,’ Ryszard said. ‘The Metropol. Very luxury.’
The Metropol certainly looked very new – all glass and steel, some ten storeys high – though set closer to the airport than was ideal, Gabriel thought, a mere twenty minutes away. He had been hoping for something in Warsaw’s old town, but that was not to be. Celia Bird was very satisfied with the accommodation, so she told him, as they met later in the lobby for the welcoming cocktail party.
‘What exactly is the New Interzonal Review ?’ Celia asked, her voice heavy with scepticism. ‘I’d never heard of it before.’
‘Well, it’s a monthly, for starters, a bit glossy but extremely left-wing, anti-fascist, anti-American. An upmarket intellectual forum for the like-minded,’ he said, quite pleased with his impromptu summary. ‘I should introduce you to the editor,’ he said. ‘Pays very generously, by the way.’
‘Oh, right,’ Celia said, thinking, suddenly looking intrigued. ‘I’d appreciate that, Gabriel. Thanks.’
‘Consider it done.’
Now he was in her good books he couldn’t shake her off. She stuck to him throughout the cocktail party, asking her leading, quietly aggressive questions, making her snide remarks as he refused the horrible canapés on offer. There were around twenty foreign journalists assembled, mostly from France and Italy where there were thriving communist parties. There was one exiled Spaniard eking out a living in Argentina, a couple of Dutch anarchists and a Swiss woman who seemed to have her own radical radio station. The group was heavily male – only Celia, the Swiss broadcaster and a couple of Italian women journalists made up the distaff side of the journalist quorum.
Gabriel was swiftly a regular at the free bar, drinking Polish vodka somewhat recklessly to combat his insomnia, looking forward to a sound and inebriated sleep before the visit to the housing project the next morning and afternoon. There was a whole three-day itinerary planned for the visiting journalists – handed out to them on Roneo-ed sheets by Ryszard as they entered the conference room for the welcoming cocktails. Apart from the main object of the exercise – the tour around the housing project – there was a football match, a visit to a car factory and an open-air amateur production in an inner-city park of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. How was he going to connect with Caldwell? Gabriel asked himself, heading back to the bar.
The Seabird was behind him, tugging at his jacket. He turned and smiled.
‘Steady on, Gabriel. You don’t want to get drunk,’
‘Actually, maybe I do,’ he said. ‘It’s the only way I can possibly survive this.’
‘Don’t let the side down,’ she said quietly to him.
‘What side?’
‘The British side. We mustn’t abuse their hospitality.’
She took out a pre-rolled cigarette from her handbag. Gabriel offered her his lighter – which she accepted. She lit her cigarette and turned her head to exhale.
‘We’re lucky to be here,’ she said. ‘It’s an extraordinary opportunity. Very rare. Don’t spoil it.’
‘I do appreciate that. I’ve no intention of spoiling it.’
They looked at each other.
‘I could show you around Liverpool, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘Open your eyes. Wide.’
‘You know, I’d like that. It’s a deal, Celia.’
Gabriel thought that in any other circumstances – in the Goat and Crow, for example – he and Celia Bird might have enjoyed each other’s company. She was smart, she was shrewd, combative. She was a fellow writer. But being here as official guests, part of a government-sponsored public-relations exercise, seemed to make everything about her more tense and strained. Celia clearly took her responsibilities very seriously.
They continued their journey back to the bar to replenish their vodka glasses. Gabriel knocked his shot back in one and presented the empty glass for a refill.
‘Just don’t get pissed, Gabriel. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘I’m not going to get pissed. I’m participating in the hospitality that our hosts are offering. Celebrating it. You’ve got a glass of vodka in your hand. And it’s clearly not your first. Pot kettle, Celia.’
‘You’re all the same, you types, you people,’ she said, flatly. ‘Spoilt rich bastards. Shame on you.’ And marched away.
There were speeches later, and Gabriel sidled off to the toilet and didn’t return. As he crossed the lobby to the lifts a bellhop slipped him a small piece of folded paper.
Back in his boxy room on the ninth floor he unfolded it and read its message. There was one word in English, ‘Dentist’, and an address and a time: 10 a.m. the day after tomorrow. Caldwell had made contact.
The Seabird was surprisingly contrite, Gabriel thought, as they boarded the minibus the next morning.
‘Really sorry about last night,’ she said, in a dull monotone. ‘I owe you an apology. I should never have called you what I called you. I think I drank too much of that vodka.’
‘Don’t give it a thought,’ Gabriel said. ‘Couldn’t matter less.’
She sat down beside him, staring ahead as if in some sort of dark depression. She must be around his own age, he reckoned, early thirties. He glanced at her as the other journalists – all looking somewhat the worse for wear – filed aboard. She had a snub nose and her mousy-brown hair was cut in a fairly severe bob. Her spectacles were standard National Health issue, circa 1930. No visible make-up, of course, though he had seen her dabbing at her nose and cheeks with a powder puff. If only she were less angry, he thought, she might change her demeanour for the better, suddenly imagining a freer, more smiling Celia Bird, with tousled, longer hair like Faith, held in an Alice band. The thought of Faith – and the sudden image of her that his mind spontaneously conjured up – provoked a pang in him that perfectly coincided with the lurch the bus gave as it moved off. Faith, the sorceress, the puppet-mistress of his life.
The new housing project was in another distant suburb. Six five-storey concrete blocks in parallel lines of three, each one painted a different pastel shade – lemon yellow, pale terracotta, sky blue, a pink blush, lime green and an unfortunate grey-puce colour. Gardens and a park with a kiddies’ playground were laid out between the blocks. They were shown a model apartment with functional and sturdy furniture and a small kitchen with a cooker and a sink. No fridge, Gabriel noticed.
‘Who’s living here at the moment?’ Gabriel asked Ryszard. ‘The whole development seems very empty.’ He had taken out his notebook and pretended to jot observations down.
‘Not many people,’ Ryszard said, with his guileless smile. ‘It is very new. Very recent completed. I am living here with my wife. My parents also have an apartment. And my brother and his family.’
‘So, mainly officials of the Party, you would say, and their relatives.’
‘At the moment, yes.’
Celia butted in with questions about the rent and other facilities and Gabriel wandered off to look out of the window at this socialist mini-paradise. He smoked a cigarette, thinking.
The note from Caldwell had sobered him up. He had drunk about three pints of water when he’d returned to his room and taken a couple of aspirin. Consequently, he’d slept badly, but he was used to the semi-constant feeling of fatigue that his restless nights provoked. The cigarette was helping and he wouldn’t have minded a shot of vodka, either.
After the model apartment they were taken to see the gymnasium, the Olympic-sized swimming pool, the football pitches and the tennis courts.
‘Pretty amazing, isn’t it? You have to admit,’ the Seabird said, attaching herself to him once again. ‘There’s nothing like this in England for workers, nothing.’
Then they went to the Hall of Culture, a theatre-cum-cinema, where the seats had been cleared out and a buffet lunch was on offer with, Gabriel was glad to see, more free vodka. He ate a roll containing what he thought was mashed tinned salmon, and had a couple of restorative drinks. Celia Bird looked at him disapprovingly over the rim of her glass of water. He suspected that if she’d had some means of punishing him she wouldn’t have hesitated.
He wandered outside, just to remove himself from her glowering censure, thinking of the next day and how he could abscond from the visit to the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych factory and the football match between Gwardia Warszawa and Górnik Zabrze. The means was in the note from Caldwell, he realized. He’d simply have to develop a toothache. To maintain the veracity of his ailment he decided not to go to the group dinner in the ‘authentic’ Polish restaurant that night, telling Ryszard’s assistant, a young woman called Jadwiga, that he felt unwell.
The next morning, early, he had reception send a note to Ryszard’s room: Apologies, Ryszard. I have a terrible toothache. I am going to the dentist. Gabriel Dax.
Then, after breakfast, he left the Metropol and hailed one of the taxis parked outside. He showed them the address on Caldwell’s note and was driven to what, as far as he could determine, was a northern suburb of Warsaw. He was becoming very familiar with Warsaw’s shabby, uninspiring rim, he noted. Would he ever see its historic centre with its Royal Castle, St John’s Cathedral, the Barbican, the Old Town Market Square?
The taxi deposited him in a street of grimy post-war buildings. A few shops, a cinema, more gimcrack, weather-battered, stained-concrete apartment blocks. The address Caldwell had given him looked like an assembly hall or an electricity substation, he thought. A tall, square, unadorned building with few windows. There was a steady flow of people entering, he noticed. Could this be a dentist’s clinic?
Ten o’clock was approaching so he decided to head on in. Down a murky hall a man stood by open double doors. He said nothing, simply handed Gabriel a square of cardboard with a number on it: 649. Gabriel stepped into a large room with dozens of people sitting on wooden forms. There was a susurrus of subdued conversation going on but the mood was melancholic, an almost religious ambience of quiet suffering. Gabriel quickly recognized that all these people were in pain and had various degrees of toothache.
He found a seat on an empty form right at the back of the room. There was a door leading out of the hall with a small blackboard beside it. On the blackboard was a chalked number and from time to time a nurse in a white uniform would appear, erase the existing number and write down a new one. The patient thus designated rose from his or her seat and went through the door to the dental surgery – or surgeries, Gabriel supposed. He looked at the last number scrawled down: 175. It had replaced number 362. Clearly, there was no logic to the queueing system. What was Caldwell up to? What if number 649 was written on the blackboard next? He began to panic slightly, wondering if he was in some kind of a trap. He told himself to calm down, taking out his notebook and pretending to read.
About twenty minutes later, as was his modus operandi, Kit Caldwell slid in beside him, unannounced. He looked dapper, in a dark charcoal suit, white shirt and an MCC tie. His hair was oiled and carefully parted. They shook hands, warmly.
‘My dear Gabriel. I can’t tell you the intense joy I’m experiencing on seeing you here. Everything going to plan?’
‘I would say yes or no if I had any idea of the plan.’
Caldwell chuckled.
‘Very good. Point taken.’
He looked around the room.
‘What’s your number?’
Gabriel showed him his card.
‘God, you’d be here for hours. You might have to come back tomorrow. These are the perfect meeting places. Everyone wrapped up in their personal misery, paying no attention to anyone else.’
‘How’s life?’ Gabriel asked. ‘Last seen on the dockside in Cádiz. Seems like a decade ago.’
‘Well, you know, life’s sort of rather all right, under its odd circumstances,’ Caldwell said. ‘It’s comfortable. I’m a rich man by Russian standards. I’ve a big apartment, a housekeeper, a large car and a very attractive young chauffeur whom I have a bit of a crush on. I have hopes he’ll succumb to my charm. I’m celebrated, feted. Russia’s “Super Spy”. I can’t complain. But I do complain – internally, of course – I’d rather be back in Madrid getting drunk each night.’
‘You’ve given up a hell of a lot. One has to ask—’
‘It’s my job, Gabriel. I think of myself as a soldier, behind enemy lines, fighting a war. Keeps me going.’
‘But how long will your war last?’
‘Good question,’ Caldwell said, and paused to light a cigarette. Gabriel did the same, noticing, simultaneously, that a large number of those waiting for the dentist were also smoking.
‘One day,’ Caldwell said, lowering his voice, ‘when or if things start getting uneasy, or look a bit dicey, MI6 will try to exfiltrate me, I’m sure. At the moment I can travel pretty freely. If need be, to the border with Finland. You might be useful in that regard, come to think of it, when the time comes.’
Gabriel said nothing, feeling a tremor of shock run through him. What? How? Useful?
‘Oh, yes, right. Anyway, here’s the Blanco drawing.’
He removed the envelope with the drawing in it from his greatcoat pocket. Caldwell tucked it swiftly away in his jacket.
‘Business concluded,’ he said. ‘Well done. Very, very important.’
‘Can you tell me – now we’re sitting in a dentist’s waiting room in a Warsaw suburb – what exactly is going on with these drawings?’ Gabriel dropped his cigarette on the tiled floor and placed his shoe on it. There were no ashtrays provided and the floor was littered with butts.
‘Probably shouldn’t. However – seeing as you’ve come all this way . . .’ He looked around. ‘You’ll have noticed that dedications are added to the usual signature.’
‘Yes.’
‘The new dedications contain a microdot. Usually the dot above an “i”. Containing a near-invisible, microscopic text. Amazing how they do it. That’s how I get my information to them, the comrades, the Tovarishchi. The “Tovs”, as I call them.’
