thumping.
* * *
The meeting point is fifteen minutes away, at a stroll; a small seedy bar called Finland. And then on to wherever Lockhart has set up his denouement. For that’s how it feels to Arthur, it feels like a finale, an end game.
The analogy with chess springs to his mind again. It was Radek who made the comparison first, wasn’t it? Or Trotsky? It doesn’t matter now, whichever of them said it, it’s true. Arthur loves a good chess puzzle, he’s played games at the strangest times, and found it clears his head and calms his mind. Once, years ago, when he was away at the front near Tarnopol, he played chess with a young officer even as shells fell in the distance. They’d played one game that Arthur had won by a lucky stroke, then the officer had had to mount up and ride away.
“I’ll give you a rematch when I get back,” he’d called, but Arthur never saw him again.
Arthur sits up in the bath and props his shaving mirror behind the cold tap. He soaps his chin. If I am in a chess game, he thinks, I know which piece I am.
A pawn.
Bizarrely, though, he’s still not sure which side he belongs to. He’s a pawn in no man’s land, caught between the white British knights and the red Russian rooks. But each side thinks they own him, and that scares him. He thinks of the move in chess called the pawn sacrifice. A pawn is of little worth, and can easily be expended if there is a chance of a greater reward to be had.
* * *
No, he tells himself.
No, he’s on the British side. He’s agreed to Lockhart’s scheme, for good or for bad, and it’s too late to start dithering about it now.
8:20 P.M.
ARTHUR GETS OUT OF THE BATH CAREFULLY, feeling at least a hundred. As he stands he sees his body in miniature in the shaving mirror. God! He’s so thin. Even the relative comfort of the Elite is not providing him enough to keep him well fed.
Too bad, he thinks. There are people worse off, all across Moscow, across Russia. There are stories coming in from the unknown depths of Samara province that people have resorted to the ultimate taboo, and are eating meat of a very familiar nature. Not everyone believes the stories of cannibals, but there are those who do. Even in the bleakest winter days back in Petrograd such an idea would have been unthinkable.
Arthur wraps a towel around his waist, drapes his greatcoat across his shoulders and makes his way back down the corridor to his room, now completely oblivious of scraps of paper, door frames, and even unseen gunmen.
Closing the door behind him, he slips the coat back onto its hook, and checks he has put out all the clothes he will wear, as if preparing for some magical ritual.
* * *
It was only a couple of months after Lockhart returned to Russia that they moved to Moscow.
“You and I have been speaking the same language,” Lockhart said to Arthur, as they had a drink in the bar of the Astoria. “You and I. We both think that the best thing that our government could do, for Russia and for the war, is to help the Bolsheviks. Yes?”
“Are we alone in that view?” Arthur asked.
“Things are changing,” he said. “Good God, things are changing all the time. Our government, Arthur, is trying to make up its mind whether to ignore the Bolsheviks, or invade Russia and restore the Tsar and the rest of White Russia.”
“Invade? But that would be…”
Lockhart ignored the pointless remark. He sat opposite Arthur, their knees almost touching, but staring at his hands as he spoke.
“Red or white, white or red. Who knows which color pieces they’ll choose…? And everything is changing, every day. Everyone is leaving.”
“Everyone?” Arthur asked. Lockhart glanced up at his friend, seemed to shake himself, and got back to business.
“The Bolsheviks are leaving Petrograd. The new German front line is a short train ride from here; the Reds are moving their capital to Moscow, as of old. Napoleon never managed to
* * *
The meeting point is fifteen minutes away, at a stroll; a small seedy bar called Finland. And then on to wherever Lockhart has set up his denouement. For that’s how it feels to Arthur, it feels like a finale, an end game.
The analogy with chess springs to his mind again. It was Radek who made the comparison first, wasn’t it? Or Trotsky? It doesn’t matter now, whichever of them said it, it’s true. Arthur loves a good chess puzzle, he’s played games at the strangest times, and found it clears his head and calms his mind. Once, years ago, when he was away at the front near Tarnopol, he played chess with a young officer even as shells fell in the distance. They’d played one game that Arthur had won by a lucky stroke, then the officer had had to mount up and ride away.
“I’ll give you a rematch when I get back,” he’d called, but Arthur never saw him again.
Arthur sits up in the bath and props his shaving mirror behind the cold tap. He soaps his chin. If I am in a chess game, he thinks, I know which piece I am.
A pawn.
Bizarrely, though, he’s still not sure which side he belongs to. He’s a pawn in no man’s land, caught between the white British knights and the red Russian rooks. But each side thinks they own him, and that scares him. He thinks of the move in chess called the pawn sacrifice. A pawn is of little worth, and can easily be expended if there is a chance of a greater reward to be had.
* * *
No, he tells himself.
No, he’s on the British side. He’s agreed to Lockhart’s scheme, for good or for bad, and it’s too late to start dithering about it now.
8:20 P.M.
ARTHUR GETS OUT OF THE BATH CAREFULLY, feeling at least a hundred. As he stands he sees his body in miniature in the shaving mirror. God! He’s so thin. Even the relative comfort of the Elite is not providing him enough to keep him well fed.
Too bad, he thinks. There are people worse off, all across Moscow, across Russia. There are stories coming in from the unknown depths of Samara province that people have resorted to the ultimate taboo, and are eating meat of a very familiar nature. Not everyone believes the stories of cannibals, but there are those who do. Even in the bleakest winter days back in Petrograd such an idea would have been unthinkable.
Arthur wraps a towel around his waist, drapes his greatcoat across his shoulders and makes his way back down the corridor to his room, now completely oblivious of scraps of paper, door frames, and even unseen gunmen.
Closing the door behind him, he slips the coat back onto its hook, and checks he has put out all the clothes he will wear, as if preparing for some magical ritual.
* * *
It was only a couple of months after Lockhart returned to Russia that they moved to Moscow.
“You and I have been speaking the same language,” Lockhart said to Arthur, as they had a drink in the bar of the Astoria. “You and I. We both think that the best thing that our government could do, for Russia and for the war, is to help the Bolsheviks. Yes?”
“Are we alone in that view?” Arthur asked.
“Things are changing,” he said. “Good God, things are changing all the time. Our government, Arthur, is trying to make up its mind whether to ignore the Bolsheviks, or invade Russia and restore the Tsar and the rest of White Russia.”
“Invade? But that would be…”
Lockhart ignored the pointless remark. He sat opposite Arthur, their knees almost touching, but staring at his hands as he spoke.
“Red or white, white or red. Who knows which color pieces they’ll choose…? And everything is changing, every day. Everyone is leaving.”
“Everyone?” Arthur asked. Lockhart glanced up at his friend, seemed to shake himself, and got back to business.
“The Bolsheviks are leaving Petrograd. The new German front line is a short train ride from here; the Reds are moving their capital to Moscow, as of old. Napoleon never managed to
Similar Books
