The Best of British Crime omnibus (19 page)

I drew a sharp breath of relief. I had been lucky after all.

‘He's gone to the market to buy potatoes,' she supplemented.

Which flat does he live in?'

‘Number 8.' She gave me a slightly more curious look, but I must have appeared indigenous enough in my fur hat and
shuba
and felt
valinki
for I obviously passed her scrutiny. ‘The market is very nearby,' she said. ‘You would probably see him there.'

‘What is he like?'

‘He wears glasses.'

That was certainly as good a distinguishing mark as any, for in Moscow I don't suppose that one person in a hundred wears glasses. Nothing would be lost by looking for him and indeed it might be safer to establish contact with him outside than in. I told her I'd be back in about fifteen minutes if I failed to find him, and set off up the street again.

As always the market was fascinating. It was a place where you saw Moscow in the raw, and I felt rather sorry that Joe Cressey wasn't with me. Although it was now late in the day there was still a considerable crowd, and an incredibly drab crowd it was. Most of the people were home-going workers of the poorer sort, but there were also peasants from nearby collective farms, many of them dirty and bearded and numerous beggars, and not a few ragamuffin children selling odds and ends that they'd probably stolen, and an astonishing proportion of the halt and lame. Here and there were neater, more respectable figures – members of the bureaucracy and the
intelligentsia
who had popped in to make a quick purchase for the afternoon meal – and it was among these that I looked for Liefschitz.

Inside the main building, where milk, vegetables and meat were being legally traded, a shuffling crowd moved between the stalls, buying little and fingering much. No one hurried, since almost all were trying to sell something privately and illegally while pretending not to. There was an undertone of muttered offer and request – ‘For whom soap?' – ‘Who has bread?' – and from time to time a swift, surreptitious transfer of money and goods. I saw no one in glasses.

I passed through into another building where a notice on the wall read: ‘Trade in household goods, food products or industrial goods is forbidden.' Just beneath it, a shawled woman offered a saucepan and a battered samovar. Other vendors held out a variety of trifling objects – a pair of darned socks, a screwdriver, a handful of pencil stubs, and two small apples. Scruffy militia-men looked on, pouncing quite arbitrarily to collect a fine from this person or from that, or to intervene with futile temper in the squabbles that repeatedly broke out.

In the dirty, trampled snow outside, more illegal salesmen were lined up. A man offered me three cardboard-tipped cigarettes as shiftily as though he were trading filthy pictures, and another a revolting piece of fruit tart in a scrap of newspaper. A small girl piped repeatedly, ‘For whom an egg?' holding out a single hen's egg in a grubby paw. Further along a man was trying on a jacket, his eyes watchful for the approach of authority.

Markets are usually cheerful, colourful places, but this one wasn't. It was shabby, furtive, and extremely grim. But it was still fascinating.

After I'd walked round twice, I decided that I'd missed my quarry and that I might as well go back to number 128. I was just leaving the enclosure when a little man passed me carrying a string bag through which potatoes bulged. I quickened my pace and caught him up. He was wearing glasses.

‘Excuse me, citizen,' I said, ‘but is your name Liefschitz?'

He glanced up in surprise. He was a man of about forty, a white-collar type, except that his collar was pretty soiled. He wore a black overcoat, shiny round the seat, and a pointed astrakhan hat. He had a lively intelligent face.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Who asks?'

‘You wouldn't know my name if I told you, but I should be very grateful if I could have a few minutes' talk with you.'

He looked me up and down. ‘What is it?' He was friendly but cautious.

I produced the envelope. ‘I think this must have been sent to you.'

He put down his bag in the snow, took the envelope, and gazed at it for a long time, turning it over and over. He seemed very puzzled, and I had no doubt it meant something to him. ‘Are you a foreigner?' he asked.

On the whole, it seemed better to come clean with him. ‘Yes,' I said, ‘I'm an Englishman.'

I half-expected him to snatch up his bag and rush off, but he didn't. Instead, his face broke into a smile and he seized my right hand between both his. ‘An Englishman! I am delighted to meet you. I speak a little English.' And there and then he began to do so.

I interrupted him. ‘Better talk Russian!' I said.

Belatedly, he gave a nervous glance around. ‘You are quite right. We will walk a little.' He thrust the envelope back into my hand and picked up his bag, and we moved off. ‘It is indeed pleasant to talk to an Englishman. During the war, when we were allies, I met many of your countrymen – at official functions, you understand. At that time, we could talk more freely. It was even possible to visit. Now… ' He shook his head. ‘Now we are all afraid, and in any case there are few foreigners left in Moscow. You are a diplomat?'

‘A newspaper correspondent.'

‘A correspondent! That is splendid.' He gripped my arm with long, pale fingers, as though he feared that I might slip away. ‘I also am a journalist. I am the assistant editor of a magazine –
Classical Literature.
It is a comfortable backwater – quiet, and safe! What is your paper?'

I told him.

‘The
Record
? Yes, I have seen it once, many years ago. It is not like your
Times,
but it is a lively paper, an interesting paper.' Again he smiled. ‘Not like
Pravda.'

‘You are very daring, my friend.'

He shrugged. ‘Safety is not everything. A backwater can become tedious. To meet someone from the outside world, the western world, that is worth a risk. Come, we shall have some tea together. My apartment is quite near. You will come?'

For the fraction of a second, I hesitated. I would have liked to know something more of the connection between Mullett, the envelope, and this friendly, naïve, uninhibited little man before committing myself entirely to his care. Disappointment hovered on his face.

‘Please!' he said.

‘I don't want to get you into trouble.'

‘Don't worry – we will be careful. You look very like a Russian.' He gave me a quick, confidential grin. ‘Like a rising young commissar! You know, you have the accent of the south – how is that?'

‘I once lived in the Ukraine for a while,' I explained. ‘In Moscow, the accent helps to conceal the fact that I am a foreigner.'

‘Of course – you are clever.' He halted at number 128. ‘This is where I live. I am a bachelor – we shall not be disturbed once we are in.'

He led the way up three flights of stone stairs and unlocked the door of flat number eight. ‘Follow me,' he murmured. ‘Do not fear – it is all right.'

I kept close behind him. The smell of cabbage was stronger now, and there were other smells as well – of humanity too closely packed. The flat had four or five rooms, and each room evidently housed at least one family, for here was a clatter of talk from all sides and the sounds of many children. At the end of the passage Liefschitz unlocked another door and ushered me into a small room.

‘This,' he said, ‘is my home. It is not, I fear, what you are accustomed to. I must apologise for it.'

‘Not at all.'

He smiled. ‘You know how it is with us. Please take off your coat and be comfortable.'

I glanced round. The room was about ten feet square. There was a single divan bed, a dresser piled with books and belongings, a chest of drawers also piled with books, a bureau, a small table and a solitary wooden chair. There was barely space to squeeze between the furniture.

‘You will find that the bed is not too hard for sitting,' he said. ‘By comparison with others, I am fortunate. At least I have a room – many, as you know, have only space for sleeping. It is a concession to me, because I am an artist and need quiet for my work. Quiet!' He gave a wry smile, and began to put a cloth on the table. ‘There are some, on the other hand, who live like millionaires. Especially those who write books which find favour. I, too, have written books, but they are not popular with the publishers. They are romantic, idealistic – that is a mistake. In our country, no idealistic book is approved unless its author has been dead for at least fifty years.'

I picked up a battered, paper-backed volume from the bureau. It was a copy of
Pride and Prejudice
in translation. Its yellow pages had been lovingly sewn together and almost every sheet showed some sign of careful repair.

‘A favourite, I see.'

He nodded. ‘I have many books from the old days. The difficulty is to keep them in one piece. My friends all borrow them. In our country it is only works on dialectical materialism which have shiny covers and crisp pages.' He opened a cupboard and began to forage.

I put the book down. ‘Please don't go to a lot of trouble for me,' I begged him.

His eyes twinkled. ‘My friend, occasions such as this occur rarely. We will eat, we will drink, and we will talk.' He suddenly became anxious. ‘Or are you, perhaps, in a hurry?'

‘No, no,' I assured him. ‘I'm in no hurry, but I don't like to see you depleting your cupboard on my account.'

‘It is a pleasure,' he said simply, and I knew that further protest would be useless.

Well, he produced everything he'd got. I wasn't hungry, but he pressed me to partake of crab meat and herring and sausage, and he opened a bottle of wine, and when that was finished he found some sweets, and made tea in a kettle over an electric ring. All the time, we talked. He was avid for news of the outside world, for information about people and happenings. We talked of books and newspapers, of the cinema and theatre, of the coming Festival in London and of my last visit to Paris, of ballet and women's fashions and music, of Marshall Aid and Korea and the chances of war and peace. Half the time I was out of my depth, and he was amazingly well-informed within the limits of his opportunities, but he listened to me as attentively as though I were an oracle. It was pathetic.

The time passed quickly, and it was after ten o'clock when he gave a long sigh, as though of mental repletion, and switched the conversation to the circumstances of our meeting. ‘The envelope,' he said. ‘You wanted to ask me about that?'

I nodded. I'd almost forgotten it myself. ‘May I see it once more?' I passed it across to him and again he fingered it thoughtfully. ‘Where did you get it, my friend?'

‘I found it at the Astoria Hotel. I thought I would like to have a talk with the person to whom it was addressed.'

At that, he looked very surprised. But you are making a mistake – a big mistake. This envelope is not addressed to me. I am Stefan Alexandrovitch Liefschitz. This is addressed to my father, Alexander Alexandrovitch Liefschitz. It is a very old envelope. See, the date is 1931. You thought it was new?'

I had another look. The postmark was by no means clear. Now that I examined it more closely, though, I saw that the figure indicating the year, which I had automatically read as 1951, was indeed 1931. Moreover the royal head on the stamp was that of George V, not George VI. I had been grossly unobservant.

I stared at Liefschitz in some bewilderment. But that's extraordinary… '

‘No, it is quite simple,' he said, smiling. ‘You see, though my father was by profession a curator of museums, his hobby was collecting foreign stamps. He had correspondence with other collectors all over the world. This envelope is no doubt one that he received in that way.'

I felt a stir of excitement. It was as though I had suddenly come upon an entirely new panorama, a country unknown, unsuspected, but full of possibilities.

‘Is your father still alive?'

‘Unfortunately, no. We were living together at number 137 when the bomb fell. He was at home, and I was not. He was killed, and I was transferred here.'

‘Yes, I see. How do you suppose this envelope got to the Astoria Hotel?'

‘That I can tell you, if it interests you. During the war, it was very hard for us in Moscow. You know about that, of course, for you were here. There was very little to eat, and prices in the commercial shops and in the market were high. It was difficult to keep alive, and we all sold what we had in order to buy food. I had nothing but my father's stamp collection. One could not eat stamps, and one could not sell them – at least, so I thought. Who would pay good money for bits of paper when with the same money it was possible to buy eggs and meat? However, I was wrong. One day I was at a
vecherinka,
a party, at which most of the foreign colony were present. It was in the spring of 1942 – the first big celebration, I think, after the German retreat. There I got into conversation with a girl – a Russian girl – or perhaps she got into conversation with me. She mentioned the name of an acquaintance of mine who had told her that I had a collection of foreign stamps. She said she knew someone who would perhaps buy them from me. Naturally I was delighted. I met her in Sokolniki Park one Sunday afternoon and she took the collection away with her. A week later I met her again. She returned the bulk of the stamps, but a few of them she had set aside – perhaps fifty or sixty – and these she said she would like. We discussed payment, and arranged where I was to receive it. She took away the loose stamps in an envelope, for safety, and because of the green ink I remember that this was the envelope. It had been preserved, I suppose, with the rest of the collection, for my father hated to throw a stamp away.'

‘Can you tell me what the girl was like?' I had to ask, though it seemed hardly necessary.