Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow Read online

  DUGLIEV: Wait, wait. What is that you are saying? (Comrade Dugliev’s voice had taken on the ominous basso notes of an impending thunderstorm.) Do you mean to tell me that this pair has never been permitted to be off by themselves, naturally thoroughly shadowed but so that we would have had the opportunity to arrest and interrogate them?

  VORNOV: But Comrade, my orders were plain that they were to be handled under Regulation 12. Their effects have been searched. No codes or any suspicious articles have been found. All the electronic devices in their room are in working order. The medicament which induces talking in one’s sleep has been administered during their evening meal. The usual approaches for them to commit misdemeanours including an offer of a better rate of exchange of currency, illicit sales of spirits, pornographic publications, as well as bids to purchase some of their personal clothing and property at tempting prices, have been made. In view of the ah … ah … advanced ages of the suspects the sexual approach has been omitted and hence the operation of the concealed television cameras has seemed unnecessary, though of course we have a tape which shows they had no contraband of any kind hidden in their clothes. All illicit offers have been rejected out of hand. Every other moment of their presence is accounted for.

  DUGLIEV: (The storm breaks.) Idiot! Fool! Imbecile! Clown! Dolt! Cretin! (And he followed with a number of Russian epithets too difficult for translation.) Do you not know that a Section A has been added to Regulation 12 that suspects on a package tour shall be given a half a day of freedom to be by themselves in order that they may have the opportunity of carrying out whatever their assignment might be so that at least an agent provocateur may plan some … Half-wit! Donkey! Numskull! Moron!

  VORNOV: But Comrade, no such addition to the regulation has reached my desk. Otherwise …

  DUGLIEV: Bungler! Nitwit! Oaf! You should have thought of it yourself as an officer of the KGB.

  VORNOV: But Comrade Gregor Mihailovich, what would be the good? My report shows that these women are either too clever for us or innocent. As I told you they have resisted every effort we have made to tempt them. What good would a shopping tour do surrounded by the entire secret police?

  DUGLIEV: Featherbrain! Simpleton! Dunce! Don’t you know that it is impossible for any foreigner, or even Soviet citizen, to walk from Gorky Street to Red Square without committing at least three misdemeanours, four breaches of the public safety, not to mention several felonies, for all of which they may be arrested and interrogated for up to three days. Find out whether this pair has asked for any free time and if so see that it is granted immediately. Then alert Section 5 of the agents provocateurs and see that there are special militia, police, detectives and clever operatives along their route.

  And thus it was that at a quarter to four on a sunny afternoon of their last full day in Moscow Ada Harris and Violet Butterfield were informed by Praxevna Lelechka, ‘Madams, you have asked to be allowed to go on a little shopping tour by yourselves. I have made inquiries and permission has been granted. Do not get lost. If so, simply say the name of your hotel. Someone will help you.’ A moment later the two found themselves standing alone in the heart of Moscow.

  ‘Which way shall we go?’ asked Ada.

  ‘I don’t know,’ quavered Mrs Butterfield, for suddenly separated from the security of the group with whom she had become friendly and who spoke her own language, apprehension had closed in again. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have left them. We could get lorst. Somefing awful might ’appen.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ replied Ada, delighted to be on the loose. ‘The first thing we’ll do is ’ave a go at that Berjozka shop. I’ve ’ad it spotted ever since it was pointed out to us. It’s just around the corner of that there church.’

  13

  But the luxury departments of the Berjozka Shop were exactly what their guide had indicated, a mart for millionaires and a waste of time for anyone whose breast pockets were not loaded with books of Express Cheques of large denominations. When the Soviets went out after foreign currency they weren’t kidding around with souvenirs. The brochures handed to the tourist promised the best and most alluring that Russia had to offer in the line of precious stones, antique gold and silver, priceless icons filched from ancient churches, examples of the work of Fabergé, gold coins, exquisite carvings, works from the far-flung outlying Soviets such as carpets of such delicacy one might say they could be pulled through the eye of a needle, hand-woven silks and laces, not to mention fur overcoats once worn by a variety of small animals each one of which must have been worth its weight in gold.

  Ada and Violet wandered through this tastefully set out treasure house goggle-eyed. The prices were conveniently marked in dollars, pounds, French francs, German marks, with particular attention to the peso, cruzeiro and bolivar of the South American millionaire.

  ‘Lor’ luv us,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘What are we doing in here? Five quid would be just about the price of the wrapping.’

  Nevertheless it made an enjoyable shopping tour for the pair. An article marked anywhere from £2,000 to £4,000 when you haven’t got it can, in an odd way, give pleasure particularly if in the eye of the beholder one is able to say, as Mrs Butterfield did, of several of the more antique and apparently crudely fashioned items, ‘Blimey, I wouldn’t ’ave that in me own ’ouse if you give it to me.’ And so after having thoroughly enjoyed their first half-hour of liberty Mrs Ada Harris and Mrs Violet Butterfield emerged from the shop into the street and that which was waiting for them, namely the crème de la crème of the KGB, Secret Service and agents provocateurs. The irony of the affair was that none of the police, militia, soldiery, constabulary and horde of special agents in disguises varying from the ubiquitous black-clad old crones sweeping the streets with their witches’ brooms to Turkestan jute merchants and Uzbek camel drivers were needed to induce Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield to violate any one of the more than one hundred regulations designed to ensnare the Soviet citizen or visitor and put them temporarily into clink. It all happened nicely, neatly and cleanly by itself.

  As the two women walked on to the sunlit pavement, blinking for a moment in the bright light and wondering in what direction they should go to use their remaining hours of freedom, a battered, beat-up vintage Bentley, dusty, travel-stained and featuring a huge tonneau built to contain seven drew up. It was packed with ten, six young men and four girls. The young men were clad in jeans and sweatshirts, with the names and insignias of various American universities such as Forest Wake University, Yale, Princeton, Culver City Academy and the University of West Oklahoma on their breasts. The girls were likewise decked out in this manner. The sweatshirts were fashionable abroad at that time and could be bought all over Europe.

  The weird vehicle and the very un-Russian looking occupants who now emerged and ranged themselves beside it caused passers-by to stop out of curiosity and in a few moments a crowd of some twenty-five or thirty people had gathered. At this point the leader of the group, a tall boy with a gaunt and haunted face and fiery eyes, inserted his thumbs into the strand of his belt and intoned, ‘The Lord is always with us. Let us all sing together in praise of the Lord who is our Saviour and support.’ Another young man produced a cornet and applying it to his lips blew the introduction to that fine old hymn ‘Rock of Ages’. Nine youthful voices took up the refrain.

  Mrs Harris was enchanted for the words were in English and the chorus familiar from her childhood days. ‘Now, isn’t that loverly,’ she said. ‘ ’Oo would ’ave thought there’d be something like this ’ere in Moscow? C’mon Vi, let’s let ’em ’ear us,’ and she joined in lustily. The other Russian bystanders remained mute but fascinated as Russians always are by music.

  They had got through ‘Rock of Ages’, a brief sermon on resting their faith in the love of the Lord and were just in the middle of the first verse of ‘Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam’ when two large black Zim cars loaded with men in uniform were seen approaching at speed.

  The Evangelical group then performed a mi
racle which could only have been the result of long experience and rehearsal. They whipped out handbills, pressed one upon each of the spectators, piled into their jalopy and were off around the corner and out of sight. The knot of spectators were not far behind with the vanishing trick and melted away. By the time the two black Zims drew up at the kerb only Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield were left standing there fascinated, reading their handbills.

  The documents were smudgy and ill-printed but the message was clear. ‘PUT YOUR FAITH IN THE LORD FOR HE SHALL SMITE THE WICKED WITH HIS FLAMING SWORD AND YE SHALL BE AMONGST THE SAVED! FORSAKE NOT JESUS AND HE WILL NOT FORSAKE THEE. CARRY THE MESSAGE OF JOY TO THY RUSSIAN BROTHERS FOR THE LORD IS AT HAND AND WILL BE THY SUCCOUR.’

  The argument emblazoned upon the second handout was somewhat more strident and forceful. ‘TOLERATE NOT THE HEATHEN IN THY MIDST FOR THE LORD JESUS WAITETH TO SMITE HIM. KEEP THE FAITH, FILL UP THE CHURCHES ONCE MORE, LET NOT THE WICKED PREVAIL, ROUSE NOT THE WRATH OF THE LORD AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD DENY HIM. PRAY FOR HIS LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF THIS BENIGHTED COUNTRY’, and more of the same. At the bottom of each handbill was imprinted in smaller type, ‘Victoria Evangelical Missionary Bible Society, 31 Stratton Street, Victoria, London SWI. Reverend R. W. Ploomer, DD, RDD.’

  Ada had just reached this part of the document and was saying, ‘Well, what do you know? Stratton Street is just around the corner from where I does for Mrs Bingham. I’ll bet I’ve seen the Reverend Ploomer ’alf a dozen times. ’Andsome tallish man with grey ’air …’, when the two Zim cars disgorged their contents of a mixed bag of Russian law and Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield were promptly placed under arrest for being in possession of religious tracts introduced by a foreign nation containing statements and incitements inimical to the security of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The two women were truly and thoroughly nobbled since they were the only two people within sight. They were clutching the incriminating documents. All the rest had been hastily crumpled up and flung to the ground where the wind tumbled them about and removed them into the gutters.

  Amongst the force deployed against Ada and Violet were not only Gregor Mihailovich Dugliev and Vaslav Vornov but an even higher KGB official who had read the dossier of the two alleged spies. But to his delight none of the assembled agents, plainclothes or special KGB operators had been necessary, for in the case where a foreigner was framed in this manner there were always likely to be repercussions in the Western press and so as it happened it was possible to make the arrest of this dangerous pair by an ordinary policeman who took them in charge for the relatively minor crime of being in possession of illicit foreign religious literature. But the point was the KGB had them.

  At first the two women did not know what was happening for all the speech was conducted in Russian until the policeman delegated to make the arrest said, pointing to the incriminating evidence, ‘Forbidden! Forbidden! You are under arrest. Come with us,’ and at that juncture and just before they were bundled into the rear of one of the Zims, they knew.

  At this moment there occurred what might be termed an incident which happened completely outside the ken of the KGB crowd, as well as Ada and Violet and now that the arrest had been made also the dispersing members of provocateurs. A car drove by which attracted no attention whatsoever from anyone nor should it have for it was one of the Russian Intourist vehicles usually reserved for VIPs. There was a lone rider in the back whose attention naturally was attracted to the knot of police and their quarry. The passenger was used to this scene and hardly gave it attention until looking once more just as Ada was being helped into the car. The person reacted violently. The Intourist car was already well past the scene of the incident and down the block before the passenger’s knocking violently upon the window behind the driver brought it to a halt and upon instruction it turned around and remained awaiting further orders from the person in charge.

  The temptation of the KGB officials was for immediate incarceration in the dread Lubyanka prison but even for the KGB there were regulations and rules to be observed and, since the two women had not been arrested for any high crime but what at the worst could be called no more than a misdemeanour or a minor breach of law not to mention the fact that they were foreigners, to have dragged them off to a cell would have been inadvisable. The proper procedure would be to take them to an ordinary police station, book them for being in possession of the circulars and then from there on the KGB would be entitled to move in.

  This was the decision and the entourage moved off a few blocks away to the nearby police station. At this point the lurking Intourist car also set into motion and made for the same destination.

  The curious thing about the reaction of the two women to what had hit them out of the blue, so to speak, was a kind of inversion. Mrs Butterfield had been expecting something of the sort ever since the Russian plane had taken off from the safety of the Heathrow runway. Mrs Harris had not. Therefore, it was actually Ada who was the more frightened of the two and now was fervently wishing that she had never acquiesced to deliver Mr Lockwood’s love letter, or rather what Mr Lockwood had claimed was his love letter for since it was written in Russian she could not read it and all the gooey parts that he had read to her he might have simply made up as he went along. If listening to a band of itinerant hymn shouters and being caught holding specimens of their creed was a crime sufficient in this country to bring out apparently the bulk of the coppers, what penalties might not be incurred when it was discovered that she was illicitly transporting communication to a Soviet citizen? And discovered it would be for although she had taken what at the time had seemed proper precautions, the fatal missive was still in her handbag which would unquestionably be thoroughly searched. Her own moral courage was such that she did not really care much what might happen to her but she was in despair over what she might have led her friend into which, now in the police station, seemed nothing less than foolish fantasy and pure meddling.

  All police stations in all countries practically look, smell and behave alike. The odour is a combination of disinfectant, unwashed bodies and human fear. The decor is uniformly depressing and the human operatives move and act like mechanical men and soulless robots.

  Ordinarily the booking or arraignment would have taken place at the Soviet equivalent of the sergeant’s desk, but with so much KGB brass and the obvious more-than-usual importance of the affair the two women were hustled into a side room, where there was a table and some chairs and in addition to the functionary who was chief of the district station and interpreter, Colonel Dugliev, Inspector Vornov and a half-dozen lesser luminaries of the Soviet terror organization crowded into the room where they were addressed by the interpreter as follows:

  ‘We must inform you that you are both under arrest for the contravention of the Soviet code against introducing illicit and forbidden religious material into the Soviet Union of any kind including books, pictures, tracts, lectures and handbills of the nature of the evidence which we have found upon your person. The brochures and instructions issued by the Intourist Bureau and delivered verbally as well by your Intourist guide have been clear upon the subject that such articles are in contravention of Soviet law. You are, therefore, charged with breach of these laws and are subject to all penalties to which law-breakers in this country are liable no matter what nationality. If you reply honestly to all our inquiries and aid us in ascertaining your confederates we may be able to deal with your case with leniency.

  ‘Now, your name?’

  ‘Me nyme, eh?’ The reply emerged from the small and usually gentle lips of Mrs Butterfield with such grating venom that in probably what was the most surprising moment of her life Ada Harris turned and watched her friend blow her stack.

  ‘Wot’s me nyme, is it?’ she continued. ‘Well, you can bloody well go and look it up in all them flippin’ papers I’ve signed to get meself into your rotten country. “Sign ’ere, sign there. Wot’s yer nyme? Let’s ’ave a look at yer passport. Wh
ere’s your visa? ’Ave you got your ticket?” If yer don’t know me nyme by now yer never will so you can go and bloody well look it up in all them there papers.’

  There was a moment’s shocked pause which gave Mrs Butterfield time for an intake of breath and she being, as noted, rotund, had the lung capacity for a good and lasting supply on one draw.

  ‘And wot’s more if yer can’t run a bleedin’ country you ain’t got the right to take good money from furriners to come over and look at it. Call yerselves a country? That’s a laugh. Try and get a decent mouthful of food ’ere wifout an hour and a half’s wait, stone cold when it gets there and a dirty look from the waitress thrown in. Manners? You got words in yer rotten language for please and thank you, but I ain’t never ’eard ’em yet. “Be ’ere, go there. Get in the bus, get out of the bus, don’t talk. Wait ’ere.” Yer call that a ’oliday?’

  It was time for another breath. Mrs Butterfield gulped at it. ‘And yer bloomin’ ’otel. You call them ’otels where when you pull the flush on the loo all you can get out of it is Sweet Annie Laurie and then water starts fallin’ out of the shower. I ain’t seen a tap that’s worked like it should or a towel that wasn’t so dirty you wouldn’t want to shine yer shoes wif it. Your lifts ain’t worth the powder to blow ’em up and that’s what yer need to get things blinkin’ going. I don’t know what you fink yer tellyphone’s for but they ain’t for speaking into or ’earing what anybody’s got to say. Maybe you got ’ere what they call helectricity but you ain’t got enough to light a lamp a person can read by. Lumps in the bed, dust in the cushions and moth ’oles in the blanket.’

  Another inspiration, and this to Ada’s horror, for Mrs Harris had no doubt but that if they had not been doomed before they certainly would be now. It gave Mrs Butterfield the additional adrenalin to wave one fat forefinger under the nose of Chief Inspector Dugliev. ‘What’s more I want to know the meaning of descending with a bloody army upon an innocent working woman standin’ in the street doin’ no more ’arm to nobody than ’olding the words of Jesus in ’er ’ands. It would be a lot of good if all you whiskered ’eathen would pay a little more attention to what the good Lord says and does for you. You got a city full of churches and nobody goes in ’em except tourists for an extra sixpence or a bob. So, it’s a crime, is it, to raise me voice in praise of the Lord from whom all blessings flow including yer own? ’Oo do you fink gave you all them gems and jewels and sparklers you got tucked away there? Where do you fink yer daily bread comes from? Yer ought to be down on yer knees ’arf of the day givin’ thanks to Him that looks after the ugly lot of yer.’