Last Call for Blackford Oakes (10 page)

It was not always convenient, leaving Ursina late at night. Usually he found a cab, sometimes he could not, and in late December there was the cold to cope with, and often the snow.

It was a twenty-minute hike, but sometimes he found himself glad when no cab showed up. Then he could walk, unmolested, through empty streets in that fabled city from whose fortresses terrible despots had done so much to hurt so many.

He reflected on some of the victims he had known and worked with personally, and occasionally helped. He thought back on his thirty-six years in the secret service of his country and how diligently he and others had worked to frustrate the enemy, so productively engaged, for so long, in its myriad enterprises, including death for millions, misery for other millions, laboring always to penetrate the defenses of the Western world, whether by actual or hypothetical weapons, or by electronic stealth. Or, with a terrible record of success, by the seduction of individual Westerners. Klaus Fuchs was illustrious in that roster. Fuchs had learned in New Mexico how to construct an atom bomb, and provided a steady stream of reports on the secrets of this ultimate weapon to the agents of Josef Stalin.

But Oakes was seized one night by a quite different concern. What was it about Ursina Chadinov?

He did not know, knowing only that he could not endure the prospect of life without her, or even the thought of life without her. There would be awful disruptions in constructing a new life with this Russian dynamo, who was twenty years younger than he, but he was moved now with a singleness of purpose that had moved him at other times in his life, toward ends to which he knew he had to yield. Sally, his love for so many years, would have been, if she were still alive, the main victim of this emotional compulsion. Sally. The obstinate, academic, intellectually brilliant adjunct professor at the University of Mexico, who had railed always against Blackford's life in the CIA.

The CIA—another casualty? Who knows? He couldn't say. When would the agency feel the particular loss of the services of Blackford Oakes? Surely he would complete his present mission. Already he surmised that it was remote, the threat of the assassination of Gorbachev in a coup. There was no coup in the offing, so far as he could tell. There was practical work to be done, but an important part of that work would be done in a week or two, as the effort went forward to track down the crippled brother of the failed conspirator, and to illuminate the mysterious talk about … the general.

So much to do. But every evening, for a part of the evening, he would be in the company, and in the arms, of Ursina, which was what mattered.

There was never any doubt in Ursina Chadinov's mind that she would be invited to the wedding celebration. The actual wedding, of course, would take place at a government office, but then the reception would be held at Andrei's apartment, which would now be officially shared with his new wife, Rufina. What Ursina wasn't altogether sure about was whether the invitation would extend to Harry Doubleday.

She and Rufina had become best friends, in the years they had shared the Pozharsky Street apartment. Ursina was as independent and self-contained a friend as Rufina had ever experienced, but her full life—professional and personal—had never kept her from active and genuine interest in Rufina's life and travails. Ursina respected the work her apartment mate did for the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute, and she would occasionally actually ask Rufina to explain some of the statistical problems in which she specialized. Rufina kept nothing from her.

Ursina, for her part, was always ready to talk about the work she was doing, both theoretical and clinical. But for all that she sometimes seemed to be harboring no secrets whatsoever, the identity of her clients (patients! No Soviet doctor had “clients”!) could not have been got from her under torture.

Her induction as a professor contracted the list of patients she could treat. These were mostly men who had bladder problems. She would explore the vital organs herself—“Funny, many of the men are appalled at first that they should be examined by a woman. It is important in such circumstances for them to know that I have, well, an illustrious reputation as a urologist.” Rufina suspected that Ursina rather enjoyed the embarrassment she visited upon male patients. “What remains a problem is the occasional young man who comes in for help with his sexual life. Especially when I discover, as I do every now and again, that the young man's problem is that he has no real interest in the other sex.”

One day Rufina gave her curiosity a long leash. “Does that mean sometimes that you have to tell them they are actually homosexuals?”

“I have to gauge that question individually. If I think there'd be psychological damage, I attempt to avoid it. Not easy to do when, under certain observable stimuli, there is arousal.”

Had she contributed a piece of scholarly medical knowledge, attributable to her own research?

“Not absolutely my own. I would have to share credit with Vladimir Kirov, my beloved friend and patron, even as my uncle was
his
patron. We collaborated in the design of a catheter that is now widely used.”

“The Chadinov–Kirov catheter!” Rufina laughed. “I sound as if I were teasing you. I do not intend to do that. What do you do for women?”

“My specialty there is incontinence. There are many women who suffer from it, mostly older women.”

“Well,” said Rufina, “I am going to suffer from it if I don't get relief soon.” She rose and went into the bathroom.

That was a problem in the Pozharsky Street apartment. There was a single sink, toilet, and shower for both occupants. And up until two years ago the male tenant in the adjacent apartment also shared the bathroom with them. At least now they had it to themselves.

Over the years both women had entertained male visitors, requiring privacy. There was only the single entrance to their suite. When the visitor entered the apartment, he would find himself in the living room, with sofa and coffee table. The bathroom door opened immediately to the right of the entrance door. On the other side of the room was the door leading to the bedroom, which the two women had to share. Ursina, early in their joint occupancy, devised a clothesline. It rested, invisible, behind the window curtain, but could be quickly pulled out, attaching to a hook. Then a sheet would be hung over it, isolating the bedroom/bathroom end of the apartment, and permitting whichever of the occupants was entertaining the guest to use the living room. It was functional but cumbersome, and Rufina was pleased when her romantic life started being enacted at Andrei's. And now that she would be moving in with Andrei completely, Blackford could come and go even without the clothesline in place.

That luxury would last until the housing commissar imposed a fresh person to share the apartment. Ursina let herself fantasize—the first night when, clothesline tucked out of sight, she celebrated her privacy with Blackford—that somehow, something could be done to maintain a single apartment. It would not be easy. The marriage license Rufina had now got required a strict reporting of which space in a municipal apartment, previously taken, would now be available.

But things take time, Ursina thought. What she sensed as timeless was her love for this romantic sixty-year-old American, who seemed to know everything, and who certainly did not need any professional attention from Dr. Chadinov when asserting his manhood, in their long embraces, night after night.

CHAPTER 18

Nikolai Dmitriev enjoyed his dacha and was grateful to his late friend, Konstantin Chernenko, for giving it to him. Kuntsevo had a very special history. It was there that Josef Stalin finally died on March 5, 1953, after lying insensate for four days, attended by frightened doctors and courtiers.

For three years after that fateful day, the abandoned dacha, twenty minutes from Moscow, was under military supervision. It was thought, generally, that it would one day be made a national memorial site. But when Khrushchev delivered his historic speech to the 20th Congress in 1956, denouncing Stalin and his works, Kuntsevo began a long life of studied neglect. A small posting of military police maintained watch at the gatehouse at the beginning of the long roadway that led to the dacha. No one was permitted on the property, and no one of any importance was designated to look after it in any custodial sense. It was eerily reminiscent of Tsarskoe Selo, the palace inhabited by Nicholas and Alexandra before they were taken to Siberia to be shot.

Kuntsevo sat there until Konstantin Chernenko decided to do something about it. On being named general secretary, he had begun to act on a number of private resolutions he had stored up, one of them to pull the dacha out of limbo. It would not do to attempt, after thirty years, to create a memorial site associated with Stalin, but it would be sheer waste to demolish so carefully constructed and capacious a country house. The best way to demystify Kuntsevo was to award it to a Soviet official.

This was one of several items Chernenko planned to discuss at a private dinner meeting with Nikolai Dmitriev, his most trusted friend in the Politburo. General Baranov had spent much anxious time on the matter of possible arms talks with President Ronald Reagan and was eager to take up the question with the new general secretary. Before meeting with Baranov, Chernenko wanted Dmitriev's advice on attendant political problems.

They had a genial dinner, with wine, discussing matters on Chernenko's agenda. After twenty minutes on Star Wars, Chernenko ticked off that topic on his notepad. “Now, Kolya, I propose that action be taken on the matter of Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo. I think that it should be reoccupied, and I propose that you should make it your own.”

Dmitriev knew well the old associations of his senior political friend, the general secretary. Chernenko, now seventy-two, had been forty-one years old when Josef Stalin died. As was so with many members of the Politburo, he had had close associations with Stalin. Dmitriev therefore greeted this news with caution.

He began—of course—by expressing his gratitude that such a—he thought better than to call it an “honor,” which would risk passing by insouciantly the demythologization of Stalin. And so he expressed gratitude for such “deference as turning over to him so splendid a … property.”

“You will need a great deal of work done on it before it is habitable. I have therefore designated it a historical ‘site' but intend to keep it that way only until the workmen are finished repairing the house and the lawn and surrounding woods—were you ever there, Kolya?”

“No, Kostya, I never was.”

“Well I was. Twice. In fact the second time, in February, was only one month before … the monster”—Dmitriev was glad to hear him use the word—“died. They will be arguing into the next millennium whether the doctors in attendance gave him adequate advice, the wrong advice, or perhaps killed him. Anyway, it is, as you say, a splendid property, and it is now—yours.”

Dmitriev bowed his head, to suggest his gratitude.

“We move now to the matter of President Reagan's re-election. We should consider replacing our ambassador. Yes. And”—he looked down at his notes—“we need to find an … asymmetrical means of responding to the CIA's arming of the rebels in Afghanistan.”

Dmitriev took notes.
Good man, Konstantin Ustinovich
, he thought. But would he go on to advise the Politburo to name Dmitriev as his successor?

CHAPTER 19

Vice Chairman Dmitriev hadn't visited privately with his old friend General Leonid Baranov for several months. On a cold day in January, Dmitriev decided to give Baranov a tour of Kuntsevo. They got about first in an army jeep, the vice chairman at the wheel. The acreage was small, by czarist, or for that matter post-czarist, standards, not much spacier than an eighteen-hole golf course. “When
he
was here,” Dmitriev explained, “the security was like that of a penitentiary, with electrical grids and guards posted at regular intervals. All traces of such, you will notice, Leonya, have been removed. I make do with just the two men at the gatehouse. To be sure, we have ample electronic communication.”

“If you had been named general secretary, would you have used this as your official dacha?”

“I don't mind telling you I gave that some thought. And decided—I would not, I would move to another dacha. In that sense, the ghost of Stalin does not sleep. If, on my ascendancy, the world had turned its attention to Kuntsevo and gone on and on on the subject of
him
, I would not have welcomed that.”

“Understood. And of course you know that I myself would have welcomed your election.”

The jeep pulled into the big shed alongside the main building. Dmitriev, springing from the jeep, signaled to the general, who moved more sedately, to follow him. “We'll perhaps talk about some of the implications of my having been passed by for general secretary. At dinner. Meanwhile, a quick tour. Here,” he opened the door into a heavy room, a squat felt-lined table, heavy bookcases, a projector and screen, eight chairs, one of them especially prominent, with traces of gilt at the crest rail. “That is where
he
sat … He drank a lot, but when he met here with his people—were you ever before in this room, Leonya?”

The general shook his head. “I knew that there was an inner sanctum, but never got this far.”

“I was saying, he customarily convened his visitors at two in the morning. I was talking about his drinking. He drank a lot but never at such meetings as he held here. He encouraged his court to drink. Some of them went to the bathroom down the hall needing actually to throw up, but they mostly had to return, drink more. Molotov was a special target when detected going regularly out to vomit. When Stalin wanted to stay sober, he was served a flavored sparkling water.

“With a tip of the hat to history, I have arranged for our own dinner to be served here, after you bathe. Shall we meet in the salon, just outside, at—”