Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow Read online

  They saw the tiny woman in navy address herself to her stout companion. The man with the glasses turned to another at the table who had the sheaf of dossiers on Mrs Harris. He said, ‘You see? The report was correct. They are not disguising the fact that they know one another and are travelling together. The courier woman, Mrs Harris, is either indoctrinating the one called Butterfield or it is the Butterfield person, whose cover we have not been able to penetrate, who is in charge of this mission and is being assisted by the other and more experienced operative.’

  The man at the desk was examining the photostats of Mrs Butterfield’s application blank and her photograph. He said, ‘I think the last is more likely – occupation, Ladies’ Attendant. No clues here whatsoever. The perfect cover. Of the two she is the more dangerous.’

  Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield were descending the stairs followed by the field glasses. The man behind them motioned to the camera crew. ‘The fat one, comrades, concentrate on her. We want every angle. You can get the side view at the bottom of the stairs.’

  Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield were now down the steps and marching across the few feet of tarmac to enter a waiting bus.

  The field glasses man followed them and asked, ‘Got it, comrades?’

  ‘Perfect. Side, three-quarter and full face. She turned and looked this way several times.’

  ‘The courier too?’

  ‘Oh yes, there will be no mistaking her.’

  Field Glasses said, ‘The pictures had better be good,’ and then turning to his companion at the table, asked, ‘Who is handling this tour?’

  The other KGB man replied, ‘Didn’t you see her? It’s Praxevna Lelechka Bronislava.’

  Field Glasses grunted. ‘She’s one of our best. If anyone can break the fat woman’s cover, she will.’

  10

  The startling and unexpected development of the non-appearance of Liz had assumed and occupied a completely disproportionate importance in the mind of Mrs Harris as though she herself had incurred some great personal loss which in a sense she had with the bursting of the golden-hued bubble of romance to the point where she hardly remembered or took note of the events between disembarkation at the airport and arrival at the Hotel Tolstoi. In a state of semi-shock she endured the interminable waits in the lines for Immigration and Customs, the rudeness of the inspectors, the thorough search of her belongings. She was not even stirred by the antics of Mrs Butterfield’s constant agitation that the now useless letter would be found which it wasn’t because Mrs Harris had artfully concealed it upon her person.

  Nor did she remember much of the bus ride at dusk first through forests of birch and pine and later rolling past block after block of cheap clusters of flats, each one identical rectangles of glass, concrete or slabs of drab grey building stones. She was no more than subliminally aware of the indescribable confusion and chaos reigning in the lobby of the Hotel Tolstoi with the arrival of a busload of thirty tourists to augment another hundred or so milling about the reception desk whose reservations were either unconfirmed or non-existent.

  The Tolstoi was one of the older hotels in Moscow situated near a corner of Krasnaya Place with an excellent view of some of the city’s more sensational architecture but in a state of dilapidation which extended to the staff as well. The hotel was definitely allocated to the package tours, a classification which did not improve the temperaments of management and service who were jealous of the glittering new Rossia, the Budapest and one or two of the other more recent hostelries which received the cream of the visitors. And so any time they did not spend snarling at the clients was passed shouting and waving their arms at one another behind their desks. Tourists were jostling, angry, cursing and threatening, women were weeping with fatigue and frustration, luggage was piled up helter-skelter in mountains as irate owners tried to identify or rescue a piece. Around the bank of four elevators, two of which apparently were out of order, was gathered a knot of infuriated would-be riders who had already been through the mill and were trying to reach their rooms. Into this inferno not even imagined by Dante, the Intourist guide, Praxevna Lelechka, brought her little flock immediately to become embroiled in the pandemonium.

  Observation and intuition were two of Mrs Harris’s strong points, sharpened at first by a lifelong struggle against poverty and adversity of many kinds plus the need to anticipate or put up with the whims of an ever-changing variety of clients. Had her mind not been so fogged by the disappointment she had suffered upon arrival she certainly would have noticed and might have been suspicious at the ease with which she and Mrs Butterfield achieved the objective which none of the others struggling in the lobby appeared to have been able to attain. She would not in all probability have been aware of the subtlety or meaning of the sudden diminution of the shouting matches on the part of the reception staff upon the entrance of their guide nor the movement of three KGB detectives conspicuously clad in plain clothes which that organization fondly believed were characteristically Western. The point was that she was only conscious of what was happening and not how or why. Their guide elbowed her way to the reception desk and in a moment returned and ignoring the rest of the tour said to Ada and Mrs Butterfield, ‘Come, I have your room.’ Even the long awaited elevator appeared to obey her will and when its doors opened she simply rudely but efficiently shouldered a path through the waiting throng with the two in tow, gave an order to the operator who immediately closed out the rest of the horde and took them up to the seventh floor or what proved to be the top.

  In the corridor outside the lift they were confronted by a woman seated at a desk, a gross, obese creature who in many ways looked like their guide. Both were decorated veterans of the KGB. The organization was taking no chances with the dangerous pair from Britain but whereas Praxevna Lelechka resembled a wood carving, the other reminded of a large grey bloated spider squatting in a corner of its web ready to pounce. Later on she was to be named and engraved in Ada’s mind as Mrs ’Orrible.

  Mrs ’Orrible’s eyes were as malevolently prismatic and gleaming as an arachnid’s and the shape of her mouth seemed to be especially moulded for stinging. She had no neck, the gross head simply sat upon her corpulency.

  The two women exchanged a few words in Russian, Mrs ’Orrible handed over the key and the guide said, ‘Come, I show you your room. I hope you like.’ She led them down towards the end of the corridor, unlocked the door and ushered them inside. Immediately a middle-aged maid in a neat apron and cap appeared and entered likewise and was addressed, again in Russian, by their escort. She looked frightened and Mrs Harris automatically registered this, even though apparently she was merely being questioned as to whether the room was in proper order.

  ‘So,’ said the guide, ‘see the view. Wonderful. Remain here. Do not leave. I will come and take you to your dinner. Thank you.’ She left but before she closed the door Mrs Harris did see that the maid who had left the room had stationed herself in a corner of the corridor outside.

  But once in their quarters a sanity and common sense returned to Mrs Harris.

  During her career as a daily in London Ada Harris had naturally encountered every kind of dwelling and type of decoration and here she found herself immersed not unpleasantly in neo-Victorian red plush tassels, brass bedsteads, nineteenth-century prints, heavy curtains, fringed bedcovers and on second glance a considerable amount of dirt and dilapidation. The chambermaid obviously wasn’t much of a one.

  It was this assessment of the room’s frowsiness that brought Mrs Harris back to the simple facts of who she was and what she was and that in indulging her fancies about Mr Lockwood and his lady love she was being a bit of a fool. He had said that this Liz was the Intourist guide for Package Tour 6A and would be greeting them in the airport. Well, she wasn’t and she hadn’t. And in the meantime she was here in strange surroundings on a paid-up holiday on which she had dragooned her best friend against her will to accompany her and what any sensible person would do would be to put Lockwood and
Company out of her mind and begin to enjoy herself. Their guide was apparently inclined to be helpful and friendly and couldn’t help her looks any more than could Mrs ’Orrible. This settled, she glanced out of the window and her enjoyment began almost at once for she was gazing upon a scene that was breathtaking.

  She had no idea of their location and thus did not know that this window gave on to an extended part of the formidable Kremlin wall, St Basil’s Cathedral, the tomb of Lenin and Red Square. Night had supplanted dusk, lighting was in full blaze and she found herself looking upon such a wondrous illumination of coloured walls, towers, belfries, church steeples, some shaped like onions, others wearing what appeared to be Oriental turbans, all flung into the night sky staggering to the imagination. Giant red stars gleamed from tower pinnacles, the bulbous tops of the churches were picked out in ultramarine blues and bright yellows. Some were smoothly curved, others rough like pineapples piled one atop the other. The part of the vast square visible from her vantage shone like a floodlit pool. Light glittered from distant buildings. Mrs Harris, with not too many points of reference, could only think of it as a combination of a bejewelled fairy city and an amusement park with only the roller-coaster and other thrill rides missing.

  She was genuinely moved by the sight, moved to murmur, ‘Cor blimey, but ain’t it beautiful,’ and felt suddenly glad that she had come. Then still gazing upon the scene, for the first time since her arrival, she also felt a little frightened. And she thought that it was the difference between the impression and the reality for with all the lights and colours and strange shapes of the buildings and enclosures it all seemed as though it ought to have been made of plaster and plywood like a film set or perhaps even more like a theatre drop of painted canvas. But when one looked again there were shadows behind the lights and airiness and vast open spaces of squares and broad streets and one was aware of buildings, buildings, buildings forming into oddly threatening and terrifying landscapes, mountains, valleys and plains made of stone.

  Mrs Butterfield emerged from the bathroom to which she had repaired immediately they were alone. She said, ‘There’s no loo paper.’

  This bald statement threw Mrs Harris momentarily off the track of her windowside reverie into beauty and almost pleasurable apprehension. ‘What?’ she said. ‘No what?’

  ‘Loo paper,’ repeated Mrs Butterfield. ‘And what’s more there ain’t no stopper for the barftub. The ’ot water runs cold and the cold water runs ’ot and the shower don’t run at all. When yer pulls the flush nuffink ’appens. Yer call this a ’otel?’

  Mrs Butterfield’s report brought Ada back to the immediate realities of her surroundings. ‘What’s all this?’ she said. ‘Let’s ’ave a look.’ She went into the bathroom and came out carrying the little cardboard centrepiece usually found in the heart of rolls of toilet tissue and said, ‘No loo paper and not no other kind of paper either. And they call them there rags, towels? Fly specks on the mirror and the light bulb don’t work. First-class accommodations, eh? And us wif paid-up tickets. Let’s get on the blower and ’ave a little word wif somebody.’

  The telephone, however, wasn’t having any. It gave forth clicks, buzzes, squeaks and a sustained roar of grating static but no human voice.

  ‘All mod cons,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘including nuffink that works, paper peelin’ off the walls, cracks in the bleedin’ ceiling. That wasn’t what it looked like in them there picture folders. Is this rotten old dump the best they got?’ In spite of the elegant view and the excitement of travel, the room not properly cleaned and showing signs of premature deterioration put her out of sorts.

  She was suddenly aware that Mrs Butterfield had gone into a most extraordinary pantomimic dance lifting first one foot then the other from the floor, then pointing to the chandelier and various articles of decoration, next sealing her lips with her fingers and her eyes again bulging with terror.

  ‘Crikey, luv,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘what’s got into you? ’Ave you caught the St Vitus?’

  Mrs Butterfield went ‘Shhhhhh,’ came over and putting her mouth practically into Ada’s ear, whispered, ‘Bugs. They can ’ear you. Ain’t you read all the ’otels in Roosha got microphones so they can listen to what yer saying. In the ceiling, under the chairs. They can ’ear every word.’

  ‘Oh, they can, can they?’ cried Mrs Harris aloud to Violet’s horror. ‘Bugs, eh?’ and looking up into the tarnished brass chandelier of which only four of the six bulbs were burning, she bawled, ‘You up there, anybody what’s listening, we need some loo paper!’

  This challenge having gone equally unrewarded Mrs Harris said, ‘Come on, we’ll go and ’ave a word with the old bag at the desk out there.’

  When she went to the door and yanked it open the chambermaid practically fell into the room. Mrs Harris said, ‘ ’Ere, ’ere, what’s all this? Listenin’ at key’oles?’

  The chambermaid let out a frightened squeak of ‘Nyet,’ pulled out a duster and began to polish the doorknob.

  ‘Look ’ere, do you speak any English? We want some loo paper.’

  The maid looked baffled and said something that sounded like ‘Ya vas ne panimayoo.’

  Violet said, ‘She don’t understand,’ which was right on the nose and practically exactly what the chambermaid had replied in Russian.

  ‘Loo paper, LOO PAPER!’ cried Ada exhibiting the empty cardboard tube and pitching her voice up to the decibels used by foreigners who think that when they shout in their own language they will be understood.

  The chambermaid examined the article, shook her head and said, ‘Nyet.’

  ‘Come on, Vi,’ Ada said, ‘maybe old ’Orrible down the hall speaks English.’

  This decision implemented by action as they came out of the room sent the chambermaid into a perfect terrified flurry of ‘nyets’, head shakings, finger wavings and she even seized both women by their arms and tried to push them back inside. Mrs Harris’s ire reached a fast boiling point. ‘ ’Ere, ’ere, what yer fink yer doin’? What’s this, a bloody jail? Get yer ’ands off me. Go on, scarper before I loses me temper.’

  Aided by Violet’s bulk the woman was brushed out of the way. She burst into tears, fled down the corridor and disappeared into a service door.

  Mrs Harris watched her precipitate flight and said, ‘Now, what got into ’er? Funny people them Russians. One thing’s for sure, she’s a rotten chambermaid from the looks of the room.’ At that moment she had not yet so much as the faintest suspicion that they were under the strictest kind of surveillance and that behind the service door into which she had fled was a KGB operative who reported to headquarters on the telephone that the occupants of room 734 had left their premises.

  The said occupants now marched down the corridor to the floor reception desk where the spider woman now firmly entrenched as Mrs ’Orrible in Ada’s mind sat silently and stolidly with only the glitter of her eyes to show she was alive.

  Mrs Harris, her dander still up from the episode with the maid, said, ‘Do you understand any English?’

  Mrs ’Orrible made no reply but sat regarding them immovably. Only her stinger of a mouth twitched slightly as though preparing for a meal.

  ‘Loo paper,’ said Mrs Harris and exhibited her core, ‘we want loo paper. Do you understand? ’Ere, this. What you find in any harfway decent run ’otel.’

  Mrs ’Orrible’s mouth turned from stinger to orifice for speech from which emerged one chilly word, ‘None.’

  Contemptuous rudeness was not calculated to cool Ada’s wrath. ‘What do you mean, none? Don’t you ’ave any?’

  Mrs ’Orrible said, ‘No more,’ and then switched to Russian again, ‘Nyet bumaga.’

  Mrs Harris was not going to be put off. ‘No more where? No more in the ’otel? Then why don’t you bleedin’ well send out and buy some? Plenty is being paid for our room.’

  Mrs ’Orrible repeated once more in English, ‘No more, no more. Go away.’

  Mrs Harris now went into full spate. ‘Go a
way, me arse. Where’s yer manners? We’re strangers ’ere, visitors. No more where? Moscow? The ’ole bloody country? Get me the Manager.’

  For as so often happens when a member of the human species is frustrated in his or her desire to acquire something essentially inconsequential, the acquisition of a roll of toilet tissue had suddenly become the most important thing at least for that moment in Mrs Harris’s life and nothing and no one was going to stop her.

  Mrs ’Orrible shook her head, her spider’s eyes glittered and she said, ‘Nyet Manager.’

  ‘Oh, you think so,’ shouted Mrs Harris now completely in a fury. ‘You get ’im or I’ll ’ave yer ’otel down around your ears.’

  At this point there occurred an unexpected diversion. The door directly opposite Mrs ’Orrible’s desk, numbered 701, opened partly to let the most extraordinary head, which at first glance resembled an interested beaver, pop forth. It examined the pair for a moment and then said, ‘It won’t do you any good. There ain’t any in the whole country.’ Keen amused eyes stared through spectacled lenses. ‘Hullo,’ said the head, ‘someone from home. How would you two ladies like to join me in a little drink?’ The head then introduced itself, ‘Sol Rubin, Rubin’s Consolidated Paper Co. Ltd.’

  11

  While a few more seconds ticked away into eternity the tableau in the corridor remained static like a stopped film except that an inviting smile had spread over the features of Mr Rubin. His face was a conglomeration of contradictions, much too small for the enormous swatch of dark, bushy hair. His mouth with the protruding front teeth gave it its beaver aspect plus the inevitable businessman’s moustache that wandered above it. His nose was sufficiently prominent to hold up the outsize pair of hornrimmed glasses. The thing about Mr Rubin was that overall the impression he made was one of infectious gaiety, humour and an almost childlike eagerness to please. His effect upon Ada was a calming one; she always regretted it when she lost her temper. Also with the sun long descended behind the yardarm it was officially drink time. The fact that somehow he seemed to know something about this paper situation had got itself stuck in her mind. She said, ‘I’m sure that’s very kind of you, sir. Harris is the name, Ada Harris, and this is me friend, Violet Butterfield. If we wouldn’t be putting you out …’