Blood Red Snow White Read online

  It was from Evgenia.

  “As this means war,” she said, “you will no doubt have to travel again. But you have my best wishes for a happy journey.”

  Why on earth would Trotsky’s secretary have the impertinence to adulterate Lenin’s telegram with a message to an English journalist? Unless that Englishman meant something to her?

  * * *

  He found her again, his very first day in Moscow.

  Lockhart got him a room at the Elite, but Arthur discovered that all the Bolshevik party were staying at the National Hotel. The plan was to move into the Kremlin, but with their sudden arrival from Petrograd, it wasn’t yet ready.

  Arthur found the Bolsheviks in disarray at the National, and was treated to the sight of Lenin sitting on a pile of packing cases in the lobby. Lenin called him over.

  “Comrade Ransome! What are you British doing now?”

  Arthur feigned ignorance, but he knew what Lenin was talking about. Lockhart had told him unbelievable news. An admiral and a company of British marines had landed at Murmansk and captured the town. Lockhart didn’t seem to know their further intentions, but it was hard to see it as anything other than an expeditionary invasion force.

  Lenin wasn’t fooled.

  “Your government refuses to talk to us, and the moment we seem to sign a peace with Germany, you invade our country!”

  “I’m sure the British government is only seeking to help Russians.”

  “Maybe so, Comrade Ransome. But which Russians? Red? Or White?”

  Arthur shifted uncomfortably, and as his gaze shifted, his eyes fell on the person he’d really come to find. He made a few limp excuses and as casually as he could, walked over to Evgenia, his head full of nothing to say.

  She turned.

  “You came back!”

  Arthur smiled, then laughed. It felt difficult at first. Then wonderful.

  “Of course I did,” he said. “It was the only way to make a happy journey.”

  Evgenia looked puzzled.

  “You wished me a happy journey. One that comes back to you.”

  He paused, trying to ignore the people milling around them.

  “I had to come back. To see you. To be with you.”

  Evgenia blushed, showing Arthur a vulnerable side he’d not seen before. Fighting the urge to put his arms around her and kiss her, he put a hand lightly on her sleeve. Already he could see Lenin looking in their direction, and a warning bell rang in his head.

  “Listen,” he whispered. “Lockhart’s throwing a party at the Elite. Tomorrow night. Say you’ll come?”

  She smiled, and before he could react took a quick step toward him and brushed his lips with hers.

  She nodded, and hurried away.

  This is what you want.

  Arthur stood alone in the busy hallway, trying to blot everything from his mind but the feel of her lips on his, before the memory slipped away for good.

  8:50 P.M.

  ARTHUR DRESSES, SLOWLY.

  Was this how a knight would have felt, before going into battle? Each piece of clothing he puts on feels like a piece of armor. His trousers are cuisses; his socks are greaves. His shirt is a cuirass, the collar a ventail. His boots are sabatons, his jacket a surcoat. But if he thinks he is armoring himself, it is an illusion; a bullet will sail clean through his armor and his skin to burn the flesh beneath.

  Nevertheless, it helps. It’s just another talisman, but he’s taking all he can get.

  He knows he is no knight, though at least, like the hero in a fairy tale or romance, he finally knows what his quest is. His purpose.

  * * *

  He checks his watch, for the twentieth time.

  Not long.

  He runs over the plan once more, or as much as he knows of it. He wonders if Lockhart has held anything back. Maybe he doesn’t trust him entirely.

  They’ll meet at ten, at the Finland bar. Then Lockhart will tell Arthur where to go and meet the two Latvians, and where to take them.

  Simple.

  So simple.

  Arthur ties his tie. It’s the only one he has now; the rest are all in the flat in Petrograd. As he ties it memories return of the last time he wore it; Lockhart’s party downstairs in the hotel dining room. He turns and looks at the bed, and smiles.

  He got there early.

  The first guests were arriving at the dining room of the Elite, which had been turned into an impromptu cabaret. Tables were being moved into place, a few early diners being seated, and Lockhart surveyed everything. The hotel knew what it was doing, but tonight it was only doing so with Lockhart’s money.

  Arthur saw Lockhart and headed for him, something on his mind.

  “I thought Robins was Head of the Red Cross.”

  “He is,” Lockhart said, waving at someone across the room. “Look, do we have to talk business tonight, Arthur?”

  “Yes, we do. I’ll leave you alone, just answer me some questions. We were out walking this afternoon and we were stopped by some Red Guards. Routine check. I opened my coat like a good boy. Robins legged it and escaped over a wall.”

  Arthur hesitated, staring hard at Lockhart.

  “He’s a spy, isn’t he?”

  Lockhart whipped around and glared at him, though no one was in earshot.

  “Just how stupid are you going to be?” he snapped.

  “As stupid as I have to be. Is he a spy?”

  “He’s Head of the American Red Cross mission…”

  “And he’s a spy, too, isn’t he?”

  “Does this matter, Arthur? Why do you need to know? Are you going to print it in your newspaper?”

  “Of course not. I’m not that stupid.”

  “Good, because stupid people end up dead people. No, I am not being dramatic, Arthur. That’s how it is. And you’d be wise to keep your nose out of it.”

  “Apart from when you need my help,” Arthur said. “And then you’re only too keen for me to get my nose dirty.”

  Lockhart sighed and held up his hand.

  “Guilty,” he said quietly. “You’re right. I simply want you to understand what’s going on here.”

  “I thought that was my point,” Arthur said. “I want to know what’s going on. I want to know who everyone is. What they are. I need to know who I can trust.”

  Lockhart sipped from his glass.

  “And you,” Arthur said, “You’re a spy, too, aren’t you?”

  Lockhart put down the glass and eyed Arthur.

  “That’s a dangerous thing to say, Arthur,” he said eventually. “Very dangerous. I suggest you be very careful about who you say things like that to. Luckily for you, you can trust me. Remember that.”

  Lockhart stood up, but one thing was obvious; he hadn’t denied it.

  “Look,” he said, “there’s your girlfriend. I’ll leave you to it. To her.”

  Arthur turned to see Evgenia, who smiled and walked over.

  “Listen,” Lockhart whispered before she made it to the table. “Try and have some fun tonight, for God’s sake.”

  8:50 P.M. CONTINUED

  THE CABARET WAS EXTRAORDINARY.

  There was food. Lots of food. So much food that it seemed impossible that they could be in the same country where horse was more or less the only meat available day to day. Course after course was placed in front of them, all carried high and proud on the shoulders of a stream of white-aproned, black-tied waiters.

  Hors d’oeuvres that defied imagination. Snails in mushrooms, blinis with caviar, red and black, smoked salmon. Raw venison that looked like beetroot but was chewy like rubber, scallops in their shells, and moose from Finland. Arthur ate slowly and steadily, but after a while, the drink took over. At every conceivable moment Arthur found a charochka forced into his hands; a glass of champagne intended to be drunk in a single draught. Laughter followed, and then more champagne, and all this a mere sideshow to the epic consumption of vodka.

  Evgenia and Arthur sat alone.

 
“What would Trotsky say if he knew you were here?” he asked her, and she pulled a face.

  “I don’t want to think about him tonight, Arthur.”

  “All right,” Arthur said, and then, to his own horror, found himself asking her to dance. Lockhart’s weakness for gypsy music had materialized, and he’d paid for musicians and dancers to perform all evening. Infectious gypsy music filled the air like the perfume of evening flowers, irresistibly sweet.

  “I’d love to,” Evgenia said.

  She pulled him over to where a small dance floor had been cleared among the tables and chairs, and they whirled around for a while to a frantic tune on the violin. Lockhart stood at the edge of the dance floor clapping time with his hands and stamping his feet. A pretty girl with dark waves of hair clung to his arm, smiling as Evgenia and Arthur came to a crashing halt at the end of the song.

  The band seemed to take pity on them, and their next song was a slow and mournful tune, in waltz time. Here was something Arthur was more familiar with, and they stepped slowly around each other and the room, his hands holding her hand and hip, his legs pushing hers to guide their way through the other dancers.

  As if seeing her for the first time, he smiled at Evgenia, and she smiled back, her beautiful eyes twinkled in the golden candlelight, and the music wound its way through his heart and there and then, made him love her.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “You look so serious.”

  “I am serious,” Arthur said.

  “And you look a little drunk.”

  “I might be that, too,” he said, and laughed.

  The world might be ripping itself to pieces in a war too dreadful to know, but for one evening, he forgot everything but Evgenia. He wanted her in a way he’d never wanted any woman before. He wanted to make her happy.

  It was late, and the room had emptied somewhat as even a few of the Russians found the pace too hard and crawled home. The whole scene must have been played out a thousand nights or more in the past, but the war and the Revolution had changed that. Here, for one night only, was a reminder of the hedonism of former days, and the only sign that said otherwise was the sight of the kitchen staff standing in the doorways, watching and smiling and clapping along to the music. Maids stood, scarves round their heads, dressed to go home but unable to tear themselves away from the happiness.

  Lockhart was by now the willing victim of the gypsies who brought countless charochki for him to drink, which he did happily, and then requested the same song, again and again. It was a bittersweet love song, so deep and full of yearning that only Russia could have created it. As Lockhart listened his eyes drifted far away and took him to another place, another time.

  At the end of the song, the girl on his arm planted a huge kiss on his mouth, and the singer, a small man with a giant voice leaned over to him.

  “The gentleman is almost drunk!” he whispered so loud the whole room heard, and the whole room laughed.

  Lockhart stood up, waving a hand in the air to get everyone’s attention.

  “Almost,” he said, falling backward over a table like a horse trying to ice-skate. The girl he was with made a noise that was a laugh and a shriek combined and ran round the table to look for him, a jug of water in her hand.

  Arthur turned to say something to Evgenia, who put her finger up to his lips, then pulled it away again, and kissed him.

  Arthur smiled.

  “Do you realize,” he said, “that you have the most beautiful face?”

  She leaned in toward him.

  Arthur held her for a long time, and later held her upstairs in his room, and in his bed, until finally they found sleep.

  When he woke he was alone. Evgenia had gone, leaving Arthur with memories and a headache.

  9:20 P.M.

  ARTHUR SNAPS FROM HIS REVERIE of Lockhart’s party that night, downstairs, such a short way from where he stands now, watching dusk fall over Moscow.

  “Everything’s changing,” Lockhart had said.

  He was right. Everything had changed, including him.

  For months, Lockhart was the only one who shared Arthur’s opinion, that England should help Russia, not invade it. But that, too, had changed.

  “It’s over, Arthur,” Lockhart said. “It’s over. If the Bolsheviks give in to Germany, then Germany will invade Russia, and we’ll probably lose the war. With Russia out of their hair, the Germans will overrun us in France. The only hope now is to put the Tsarists back on the throne.”

  Arthur couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “I do. What’s more, I’ve been doing something about it.”

  He pulled a pocket book from inside his jacket.

  “We’ve been raising funds,” he said, “from White Russians. I’m only the banker, but the money’s been passed on to counter-revolutionaries.”

  Arthur shook his head, putting his hands out as if trying to push Lockhart away.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “I don’t want to know…”

  “Dammit, Arthur!” Lockhart shouted. “You have to know. You have to understand. I work for the British government. I do their bidding. That’s all there is to it. If I’m told to collect money from rich exiled Russians and pass it to White soldiers, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  He stopped and Arthur breathed deeply.

  “And the book?”

  “A record of the transactions. Don’t worry, it’s all encrypted. Still, if anything ever happens to me I want you to destroy it. All right?”

  Arthur nodded.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Robert.”

  Lockhart smiled.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “You have life written all over you. Some people bear tragedy on their faces—loss, death, whatever it might be. But you have life.”

  “Is this some kind of poetic writer’s thing?”

  “Come on,” Arthur said, “You’re not only the pragmatist you make yourself out to be. You feel things, too.”

  Lockhart nodded.

  “So which are you, then Arthur? What’s written on your face? Life? Or tragedy?”

  Arthur’s smile faded.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not something you can see in yourself.”

  He stood up and stretched his legs, turned to leave.

  “Arthur,” Lockhart said, abruptly. “There’s something I need you to do…”

  9:20 P.M. CONTINUED

  BUT ARTHUR HADN’T AGREED.

  Not at first.

  How could he do anything against the Bolsheviks when he was in love with one of them?

  Then again, who was she, exactly, this gardener’s daughter from Gatchina? Was even that true?

  * * *

  She came to his room. It was early spring then, still cold, but sunny.

  When Arthur opened the door and saw Evgenia in her long black winter fur, he tried to pull her inside, but she resisted.

  “No,” she said, “I can’t.”

  “Then why did you come? Don’t you want to see me?”

  “Yes, but not here. Not now. Tomorrow? We could go out of the city … then we can talk. Meet me downstairs tomorrow at nine, yes? Oh, I brought you a present.”

  She handed him a small parcel.

  Silently he opened it and found inside a small but exquisite silver samovar.

  Arthur was shocked.

  “This must have cost a fortune … how did you…?”

  “Shh. I didn’t pay for it,” Evgenia said quickly. “It’s from the old days. Somehow it ended up in our office and they didn’t pay for it, either. When I saw it I thought of you, and knew you had to have it. Look.”

  She showed him the side of the metal teapot where, in English letters, were his own initials, AR.

  “That’s very strange,” Arthur said. “I wonder who it belonged to.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Evgenia, slyly.

  “Sorry, yes, thank you. It’s
wonderful. I’ll make you tea with it from now on.”

  “But not today. I must go.”

  She went, and Arthur spent the day in an agony of waiting. He slept badly that night and was awake by seven. He took breakfast and then killed an hour by trying to write letters to his mother and to Geoff, though each one he hated more than the last, and they all ended up in the wastepaper basket.

  At last it was nine, and Arthur waited on the pavement outside the Elite.

  A horse and cab pulled up. Evgenia sat waiting inside.

  “Do you have money?” she asked Arthur as he climbed aboard.

  “Yes. Enough,” he said, and they sped away through the streets.

  It didn’t take long to reach the outskirts, and then the country opened out under the rolling wheels of the cab. It seemed to Arthur that he hadn’t seen grass or trees or even the sky for years, and yet here they all were, bright and bursting with life. Arthur kept one eye on Evgenia all the time, who seemed to relax visibly as the city disappeared over the horizon.

  They spoke about the Revolution, and her family. They spoke about how she’d ended up working for the Bolsheviks.

  “Trotsky likes me,” she said. “He knows I work hard, that he can trust me. Those things are hard to find these days.”

  Then they talked, finally, as the cab turned back to the city, about the one thing that had gone unspoken since the night at the party.

  “Is something wrong?” Arthur said.

  “No, it’s just that … it’s not easy.”

  “You mean, you and me?”

  Evgenia nodded.

  “Why? Because I’m English? Because I’m still married? Divorces take a long time in England…”

  “No,” Evgenia said. “No. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “What do you think? One day you may leave Russia. You may be forced to go, you may decide to leave. And then, who knows? And in the meantime … let me put it this way. Who do I work for?”