‘Why?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Are you sure you have the right number?’

  Two sturdy young soldiers holding gleaming bayoneted rifles in front of their noses, flanked the entrance of the dark square.

  ‘This way, come along.’ Irina, their official minder, shepherded them together. Obediently, they all followed in her footsteps but Margarita felt a little awkward, ashamed even, as they hurried past the people patiently waiting in the queue. Nobody grumbled, but she caught a few looks of mute contempt thrown in their direction.

  As they entered the mausoleum, everybody straightened up instinctively, and Kai-Olaf stuffed his cap into his coat pocket. In the middle of the gloom, there was a ribbon of light, with just one old woman there, her arms crossed on her breast, sitting on a wooden chair, the noise of the world shut out.

  Kai-Olaf and Margarita waited behind Elfrida and Lornena to take their turn to file past the place where the Soviet Union’s chief architect lay.

  ‘You won’t get an answer about Masha from that one,’ whispered Kai-Olaf in her ear, nodding towards Irina who was in front of them. ‘Not if your friend lives in Dom Narkomfin.’ He told her they would wonder why she asking about somebody who lived in a building which housed so many government personnel, and would be sure to think that Margarita was on some dubious mission after some restricted information, especially as she was a foreigner.

  ‘Why on earth should they doubt my motives?’ she was rather affronted. ‘I’m a communist,’ she added, as though that was the definitive answer to everything.

  ‘How many enemies hide behind the same mask, I wonder?’

  In Lenin’s shadow, Margarita realised that Kai-Olaf was serious. She whispered to him that she would be the last person on earth to betray the Soviet Union in any way at all – she just wanted to know where her friend Masha had gone – that was all.

  ‘Ssssssh!’ hissed the old woman on the wooden chair.

  ‘It would have been much simpler if you’d just asked me,’ whispered Kai-Olaf as he caught a whiff of Stalin’s Breath on her skin.

  They stood there staring down at Lenin’s body, clothed in a black suit, the freckles still visible on the waxy yellow skin, his arms by his side and his hands clenched in two fists. He had a wide brow, a reddish beard, a neat nose and fine lips, and his slightly slanted eyes were wide-spaced. Looking at the length of him, Margarita saw that he was slight. She leant forwards to gaze at his chest, expecting somehow to see a breath, or a heartbeat, some spark of life. But there was none, and she moved along to make room for those behind her.

  This was the power which had once sent her fleeing from Russia into exile.

  And this, too, was the same power which had summoned her back home.

  9.

  Alyosha stopped in at the Zimmer, a small bar on the corner of Place Blanche, and ordered a calvados. Leaning on the zinc counter, he plucked the cigarette he had already rolled from behind his ear and lit it. He heard without listening the conversation of the two couples at his side, who were discussing – bickering rather – where to go dancing that night. Alyosha pushed his empty glass across the bar to order another calvados. The barman, looking in need of a good wash, was barely less unkempt than Alyosha himself, and his skin was badly pitted – the result of an illness he’d picked up in Mesopotamia, or so he claimed.

  ‘How are things?’ he asked as he poured the drink.

  ‘Same as ever,’ Alyosha replied.

  When he left the bar, he still had nine francs left in the bottom of his pocket. A few hours previously, a stone’s throw from Pont Mirabeau in Auteuil, Alyosha had slipped in to a maison de retraite – a home for old people. It was a private establishment, but it still stank of piss and death. He was just scooping up the change from the dressing table in one of the old codgers’ rooms as the old man dozed in his armchair, when Alyosha heard him mumbling something, and the next thing he was wide awake, smiling cheerfully, convinced that his son had come to visit, and confused as to why he had to leave so suddenly.

  For eight francs, Alyosha knew where he could fill his stomach –a generous table d’hôte of Salade Normande and a rib-sticking portion of Saucisse aux Choux and potatoes, followed by a Tarte Tatin, with a good pinard of rough red. He was practically salivating as he imagined the steaming plate being slapped on the table in front of him. He had been starving for hours, a stabbing pain which reminded him of the years of famine when he’d wandered the length and breadth of Russia with Mishka, Boris and Masha.

  After shelling out for his meal, he still had a franc left, enough to buy himself a breakfast of coffee and two croissants the next day. But his appetite was far from satisfied. Opposite the Moulin Rouge, under three rows of bare bulbs hanging from the branches of the trees above, were wooden tables protected by canopies. Stacked on these tables in neat pyramids were rounds of Brie, Camembert and Roquefort, bars of chocolate, tins of pâtés and fish, as well as Marseilles soap, bottles of pastis, wine, and eau-de-vie. The night smelled of roasting chestnuts, and, next to the stall, a rough-looking prostitute stood stuffing them into her mouth from the paper bag like a child eating sweets.

  A black man wearing a white hat was accompanying himself on an accordion, but Alyosha couldn’t understand a word of his songs. Where was he from, he wondered: Senegal? Ivory Coast? The Congo? As he headed towards Rue Blanche he was dazzled by the headlamps of the motor cars and taxis, which were unloading their wealthy passengers at a nightclub. Above the door of the Palais de Paris, a light-green awning sheltered the customers from the rain as they strolled from the cab to the club. A doorman dressed as a Cossack rushed to open the doors of the Bugattis and the Hispanos. Two young women stepped out of a Rolls-Royce, giggling as they trotted in on their spindly heels, and a burly middle-aged man with a greying beard followed more sedately, dressed in a superbly cut dinner jacket, white silk scarf and shoes of gleaming patent leather. He had a cigar jammed in his mouth, and his right hand in his pocket. As he entered, the doorman stood smartly to attention and saluted him, but no tip was forthcoming.

  Alyosha waited for the Rolls-Royce to drive away before crossing the road to greet the Cossack – Andrei Petrovich Vengerov from Petrograd, former managing director of the now defunct Azov-Don Merchant Bank. They kissed each other three times on alternate cheeks. The shadows under the former banker’s eyes seemed darker, and his face gaunter, since their last meeting.

  Andrei Petrovich stepped back to look him over and, smiling, told him he looked more like his father every time he saw him.

  ‘So, where have you been keeping yourself all this time, my boy?’

  Alyosha had no enthusiasm for recounting his experiences at the hands of the Tajna Policya in Gdynia, or of his mistreatment in Warsaw prison, so he gave a vague reply and asked Andrei Petrovich about himself, who told him sadly that the lamps of suffering illuminated Paris more and more for him. He felt such a fraud in his ridiculous, grand uniform, especially when some ex-officer from the White Army should happen to pass. He knew how true Cossacks hated seeing little men like himself parading themselves in front of Paris night-clubs, to provide a little entertainment for over-privileged riff-raff, bringing shame on their good name. Though the truth of the matter was that even true Cossacks had been forced to take whatever work they were offered, however humiliating, to keep body and soul together. He even knew of some who were working on the dustcarts in Nice and Cannes. Nevertheless, Andrei Petrovich felt deeply ashamed, as he’d barely been near a horse, never mind on the back of one, any more than he’d fought for his country. His only connection with Baron Wrangel was when he’d composed a poem dedicated to him and his army, which had been published in a newspaper called Turel in Constantinople in 1920. Not that he’d written a line of poetry since the day he buried his wife in Berlin. That was yet another deep well of suffering.

  ‘She lies in the earth of the same cemetery as your own dear father. What I miss more than anything is the sweet sound of her voice. She had such a pretty voice.’

  Did Alyosha remember it, the man asked? Of course he did, he lied. They had been as devoted to each other as any couple ever could be.

  Alyosha stamped his feet as his toes were frozen. He hoped Andrei Petrovich wouldn’t mention his sister, as he didn’t want to be reminded about Lazarevna Petrovna – the woman who’d once falsely accused him of raping her in Berlin. He didn’t really want to ask after his daughter, Galina, either, as he still hadn’t forgiven her for taking her aunt’s part and blackening his name to everybody. But Andrei Petrovich brought her up, because Galina had given birth to a little girl called Roksana, who was almost a year old now. She’d been named after her grandmother – his mother. But he feared things were not well between Galina and her husband, Marcel. He implied the marriage had been expedient to avoid the scandal of the child being born out of wedlock, though he was at pains to say that Marcel was a fine young man; nobody could ask for a better son-in-law, even though it was a shame he wasn’t Russian. He hoped they would settle their differences, if only for Roksana’s sake, but Galina had never been one to confide in her father – she’d been closer to her mother.

  ‘I expect all daughters are closer to their mothers,’ he mused. He thought the world of little Roksana, who was just starting to say her first words.

  ‘Me, a grandfather! Who would have thought?’ His expression softened a little; he clearly doted on his little granddaughter. ‘But who knows what will become of her? What will become of us all? I do worry about what might lie ahead of her…’

  A gang of noisy young Frenchman walked by, singing drunkenly.

  ‘Do you still dream of going home, Alexei Fyodorovich?’ asked the ex-banker. Not a day went by when Andrei Petrovich didn’t yearn to go back to Russia. These days, he attended the Orthodox church on Rue Daru faithfully every Sunday, partly for the service, but also for the company. From one Sunday to the next, he could feel the religion of his childhood grow more important to him. As the months had gone by, he had become more devotional, and regretted how he had neglected his faith when he’d been working in the banking world back in Petrograd. Now, he yearned to be every inch the Christian, as an inch of a Christian was better than two yards of a hypocrite. Roksana had been baptised and accepted into the Russian Orthodox faith at the same church. Galina had attended with him for a while, but she didn’t come anymore.

  A motor taxi suddenly stopped in front of them.

  Alyosha heard a muffled rapping, and saw the driver banging his windscreen in an attempt to attract his attention.

  10.

  Prince Yakov beckoned Alyosha over and opened the window. It was two o’clock and his shift was just ending. He was famished – would Alyosha join him for something to eat? Alyosha most certainly would. He quickly said his goodbyes to Andrei Petrovich, and jumped into his friend’s taxi, which reeked of mouldy old leather, dirty carpet, wet dog and stale cigarette smoke. The Prince told him he’d been driving without a break for the last fifteen hours. His legs were stiff, his right arm ached from elbow to shoulder, and he had a dull pain in the small of his back from sitting so long. He stretched his head and shoulders back as far as he could, until Alyosha heard his bones crack, and he sighed heavily and rotated his shoulders vigorously to try and ease the ache. Fifteen hours. No wonder his face was a study of pain. On top of everything, Prince Yakov told Alyosha, he could feel the grime of the streets on him, the dirt under his fingernails, the dust on his clothes, and a greasy film on his hair and skin. In fact, his whole body itched.

  ‘But when all’s said and done,’ Prince Yakov said, regaining his customary cheerfulness, ‘I shouldn’t complain too much about my own misfortunes, even when I’m done in. There are many worse off, and it’s important to count one’s blessings, never mind how precarious life can be. And this beats working at the Renault factory.’

  He drove them to a cheap bistro which stayed open all night. Alyosha was starving, and was glad they didn’t have to wait long before the food arrived. They ate steaming bowls of onion soup with hunks of bread and melted cheese on the top, along with a bottle of house red, but that barely took the edge off Alyosha’s appetite, and he was relieved when the fat patronne, cigarette in her mouth, plonked some more bread and a crottin of goat’s cheese on the table. Full at last, Alyosha was ready to talk. As he rolled them each a cigarette, Prince Yakov listened as his friend recounted his recent misfortunes – his troubles with Ludwika, and his misadventures in Poland – from start to finish.

  After he had been arrested at the port of Gdynia, he had been interrogated about his lack of passport and visa, and, after telling them for the hundredth time that his name was Alexei Fyodorovich Alexandrov, and that his late father was the industrialist Fyodor Mikhailovich Alexandrov, formerly from Petrograd, one of the policemen had slapped him brutally across his cheek, while the other two members of the Defensira looked on unconcerned. They carried on with the interrogation all night until daybreak. He was interrogated again for a third and fourth time without a break until the afternoon, a rota of policemen asking him the same old questions which he answered until his voice was nothing more than a croak. His head was like cement and he was practically asleep on his feet, but they kept at him just the same, hour after hour, until past midnight. A Russian without a visa or passport, he was clearly working for the Comintern, and they told him that the punishment for spies from the Soviet Union in Józef Piłsudski’s Poland was death by firing-squad.

  He was dragged out of the room by his hair, yanked along an endless corridor and thrown into a cell. He fell asleep instantly. Later, when it was still dark, he was shaken awake by somebody and given a mug of water and a crust of bread. After that, he was left on his own again, but he couldn’t go back to sleep, convinced that, come the dawn, they would drag him out and shoot him. At some point in the small hours, the cell door opened again and he found himself back in the windowless room, sitting on the hard wooden chair in front of the same table, with two detectives from the Defensira sitting behind it. During the comings and goings of the next hours, he lost count of how many of them questioned him, but the questions were always the same: why had he lived at the Hotel Adlon for so long? What exactly had he been doing in Berlin? Who gave him the order to move to France? Who were his contacts in Paris? Why choose to live in the Hôtel de Nantes? Why move to Passy? Who did he know in Passy? How had he managed to get on board the Adam Mickiewicz without a passport or a visa? And so on and on and on. They interrogated him, first in Russian, and then in German, and he was even interrogated in French for a stretch. The bastards were just desperate to trip him up, to have him betray himself, but Alyosha stuck to the truth, because it was all he had.

  They locked him up in another cell, with a low ceiling, no more than a yard and a half high, and pitch black. He lost track of time, but he could hear a voice coming from somewhere above his head, and the clanking sounds of empty buckets from somewhere else. He started to fade away, and lost all sense of self. The blackness and the stillness seemed eternal, until he started to hear time dripping, drop by drop, from some height which didn’t exist.

  11.

  Alyosha couldn’t stand up fully and he could only see blurred shadows. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his nose, and he feared for a while that he might have gone blind. When they finally came to get him, it might have been hours or days later, for he had lost all track of time, he was taken to a different room, up some stairs and down a carpeted corridor. There was a substantial round table in a corner, but also two armchairs, a small sofa and a glass cupboard filled with books and documents, and the walls were decorated with paintings of various grey-haired, bearded men, every one wearing a bow tie and gazing prophetically towards some far horizon.

  Two men he hadn’t seen before began to interrogate him, but it was not long before the door opened. Alyosha watched as an old man shuffled in slowly, his shoulders hunched and wincing slightly as if in pain.

  ‘Is this the one?’ asked one of the interrogators, without bothering to take the cigarette from his lips. The old man didn’t answer. ‘Is this the one?’ he asked louder. The old man wasn’t sure. ‘Take a better look.’ The old man slowly shook his head. ‘You, move nearer the light. Over here, come on –’ Alyosha was hauled to his feet ‘– stand here so he can see you properly.’ Licking his upper lip slowly, the old man scrutinised him carefully. ‘Yes? No?’

  Finally, he shook his head. The chain-smoking interrogator rose from the sofa with a grunt of irritation, stepped over to the table, pulling up the braces of his trousers, and bundled the old man out of the room.

  After a night back in the cell, Alyosha was brought back for further questioning. Although the clouts and kicks that had been doled out to him in the earlier interrogations had been vicious, this round of calm, courteous, quiet interrogation was somehow far more sinister and disconcerting. This time there were five of them: two young uniformed policemen, a young woman at a typewriter, and two middle-aged detectives. The shorter of the two detectives, barely looking at him, said that he was the one. Alyosha wondered what he meant.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he spoke out.

  Nobody answered him. ‘Who do you think I am?’ he persisted.

  The taller detective blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth and said, ‘Tell us the truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  Every time anybody said anything, the young woman dutifully click-clacked away at her typewriter.

  ‘The truth about what?’

  They claimed he had been seen in the Café de l’Europe in Warsaw on at least two occasions, sitting at a table with Kornel Makuszyński and Joseph Birkenmajer. It was believed that Ewa Solska was also present, though she had not been formally identified. ‘I’ve never heard of those men, or that woman,’ Alyosha asserted, ‘I’ve not set foot in any Café de l’Europe. I’ve never been to Poland before.’