‘When was this decided, Paul?’

  The waitress poured more coffee into his cup as he replied smugly, ‘It’s not our place to question these things.’

  The girl scuttled away when she saw the nose of the little mouse peep out from under his shirt.

  Margarita went at once to see Kai-Olaf.

  ‘What’s this I’ve just heard?’ she asked. He thought she already knew about the new arrangement. ‘No indeed, I hadn’t heard anything about Baku.’

  When he saw how crestfallen she was, he suggested she take it up with Irina.

  Later that morning, Irina came back to her and told her that the decision had come from a ‘high place’.

  ‘I would much rather go to Leningrad than Baku. Why can’t Paul lead the delegation to the south?’

  Margarita pressed the point home. She had made it perfectly clear from the start how much she had been looking forward to the visit to Leningrad, and she didn’t have the slightest inclination to go anywhere else. What she couldn’t say was that her promise to her sister to try to find out about their father was very much in her thoughts.

  Irina stood politely but impassively, listening until Margarita had finished talking, then just said,

  ‘The decision has been made.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘A while.’

  ‘Why didn’t I hear about it until this morning then?’

  Irina had no idea.

  Margarita spent the next few hours fruitlessly looking for somebody with the authority to reverse the decision. She tried to at least extract a promise that she would be allowed to visit Leningrad after being in Baku, and emphasised how important this was to her.

  ‘We’ll see what we can do,’ was the only answer she was given.

  17.

  Things were very awkward to begin with when Galina Andreyevna, Andrei Petrovich’s only daughter, came to work in her prospective step-mother’s workshop. Alyosha hadn’t set eyes on her since her aunt, Lazarevna Petrovna, had accused Alyosha of raping her, after he’d refused to smuggle morphine in to her at the clinic where she was meant to be recovering from her addiction. Galina had chosen to believe her aunt rather than Alyosha, and, worse still, had repeated her accusation to everybody.

  Although Alyosha kept his distance, it became obvious that Galina wished them to be friends again. It was Vladimir Glebovich who helped things along by inviting them both to join him for a drink at the end of the working day. In no time, this had become a regular event. One evening, the three of them fell into conversation with a swarthy Sardinian called Camlo. Vladimir soon excused himself because he was meeting Erwana, and Alyosha left soon after, as he didn’t have the price of a second drink, but Camlo persuaded Galina to stay and have another drink with him.

  A week or so later, Alyosha was working late, packing dolls in the Rue du Bac cellar, when Galina’s husband called by.

  ‘I’m Marcel,’ he said in a slightly sheepish way.

  From nearby, the church clock struck seven.

  With an air of quiet sadness, Marcel explained that he was worried about his wife.

  ‘There’s no need for you to be, I’m sure…’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ was his honest answer. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  Alyosha did know. Galina had gone off to meet Camlo again. But he wasn’t about to become involved in Galina’s complicated life, so he said he had no idea.

  18.

  As the weeks went by, Galina’s body took on a new svelte shape, where previously she had found it difficult to lose the weight she had gained when she was pregnant. Her eyes sparkled, her skin glowed – in short, she was radiant with happiness, and told Alyosha she had never enjoyed a man’s company as much as she did Camlo’s. She found it so hard to drag herself away from him to go home to make supper for Marcel and the baby. Galina’s only concern was that her prospective stepmother, Duchess Lydia, would find out about the new man in her life and tell her father. Then, she confided in Alyosha that she’d been seeing another man for a few months, a bank clerk by the name of Yves. But she realised that Camlo was the man for her now. Camlo knew how to listen to a woman, and he appreciated her more than anybody. He was also a man with business interests here, there and everywhere, and he had told her that he could easily find her better work than painting wooden dolls all day in a damp old cellar. He was always telling her that she was mad to spend so many hours working for next to nothing. Camlo believed in living for the day, not worrying about the future, as pleasure was the purpose of life, not slaving away morning, noon and night.

  It wasn’t long before Galina had left Duchess Lydia’s workshop for a job in a night club called Le Flamant Rose. About the same time, Alyosha was also offered other work, for which he was very grateful, because his sales were so low he was barely making any money. Yet again, it was Prince Yakov who helped him. He’d heard one of his passengers complaining to his companion that he couldn’t find experienced staff for his new restaurant, which had just opened on Boulevard Madeleine, and the Prince advised Alyosha to get over there straight away. Alyosha went the very next afternoon, when the tables of the Grand Cercle Muscovite were being relaid ready for the evening customers. The language was Russian and the food was Russian – blinis and caviar, shashlik and stroganoff, and a house dessert called Romanov pudding. The waiters were all dressed in Russian shirts, with golden eagles stitched on the back, and black trousers tucked into the traditional black boots.

  Aristarkh Aleksandrovich Kulikov, the owner of the Grand Cercle Muscovite, was an ex-actor-manager from Gavrilovo, on the outskirts of Smolensk in Sycherka, and was immensely proud of his Russian heritage. On principle, he spoke as little French as he could, which consequently remained fairly rudimentary, because, in his heart, he hoped to go home one day. Once he knew Alyosha was Russian, he hardly bothered to ask him about his previous experience, and offered him a job on the spot. He handed him over to his manager, Efim Moisevitch Ovchinnikov, who explained Alyosha’s duties to him briskly and showed him around the kitchens. He introduced him to the chef, a pale man who looked a bit of a cold fish, though he tapped Alyosha on the shoulder with a wooden spoon and said, ‘Welcome,’ courteously enough. It was only later that Alyosha discovered the staff called him ‘the Serpent’ behind his back.

  19.

  The Hotel Europa was a modern building, eight storeys high. On the promenade opposite was a tall iron structure with a wide aluminium platform at the top. From here, the boys and girls would parachute off, one after the other. When Margarita had a few precious minutes to herself, she loved to sit out on the balcony of her room on the fifth floor, and watch them climb up the tower with agile speed, then fling themselves thrillingly from the top into the air. Seconds later, shiny white mushrooms puffed up out of their backs and billowed gracefully in the air as they floated down to the soft sand beneath.

  At the other end of the promenade, a few people were fishing. One of them spun a net high around his head then, with a quick flick of the wrist, flung it out to sea, centrifugal force and the weight of the leads spreading it out wide and flat, so that it fell cleanly over the surface of the water. Margarita looked beyond him, far out to sea, where the heavy ships, the long tankers, were sailing slowly north to Astrakhan, or to the south, towards the ports of Persia. She shaded her eyes, and it struck her with deep delight that beyond the horizon lay the far reaches of Asia.

  The delegation took most of their meals at their hotel, and the standard was every bit as high as the Moskva in Moscow. There was also the same busy programme of visits and receptions. They’d already been to see a modern new clinic for mothers and babies, and five new schools – one Jewish, one Azeri, one Armenian, one Turkish and one Russian. The policy towards ethnic minorities had been explained to them, and it had been stressed how much the Soviet government did to protect minority languages.

  But Margarita didn’t feel completely happy in the new Baku. With so much black gold spurting from the earth, why wasn’t there more evidence of prosperity in the city? Why hadn’t the petrol workers inherited the capitalist wealth, those huge fortunes made on their backs during the years before the revolution? In spite of some new housing, most of the population still lived in low mud hovels, while camels and donkeys filled the streets, not motor cars, and goats bleated in the squares. Most of the buildings were still those of the ancient and primitive East, and the whole city seemed to her to have an air of dusty desolation. As they were being driven to a hospital which specialised in tropical diseases, she asked why living conditions were still so poor for so many, a whole decade after the revolution. She was told (with Irina nodding in agreement) that, while huge improvements had already been made, it was not to be expected that three centuries of Romanov misrule could be put right overnight.

  That evening, Margarita strolled through the old city to the Turki Theatre. She did this against the wishes of the local organiser, who had provided motor cars to transport the delegation, and Irina had insisted on walking with her.

  ‘There’s really no need,’ Margarita had told her.

  ‘I could do with a bit of fresh air myself.’

  At the corners of the narrow streets, beggars sat in ragged but colourful clothes, pleading in the name of Allah for alms.

  ‘Are you and Kai-Olaf lovers?’ asked Irina out of the blue.

  Taken aback, Margarita stopped in her tracks and took the cigarette out of her mouth.

  ‘What on earth makes you think that?’ she asked

  ‘The way you are with each other…’

  ‘We’re comrades. Nothing more than that.’

  Irina smiled, but she was blushing. ‘I’m sorry, but I thought…’

  Margarita laughed to show she was not offended and asked her, ‘So, do you have somebody?’

  ‘Not now… I had a boyfriend last year… A student.’ Her blush deepened.

  ‘A pretty girl like you – I’m sure it won’t be long before there’s another.’

  There was a champagne reception for the delegation before the evening performance, where they were all introduced to the theatre director, Pamphylia Tanailidi, a tall, slightly hunched woman who chain-smoked small Persian cigarettes, so that she was constantly wreathed in tobacco smoke. She told them a little about the play, and said she hoped the foreign comrades would enjoy the performance.

  Next they were introduced to the Azeri, a fleshy man with a young flunky at his side to attend to his needs. This was arguably the most important man in Soviet Baku. Yet again, they were told how things had improved in Azerbaijan since the revolution. The Azeri informed them proudly that it was the first secular Muslim republic in the world. He emphasised the importance of the city, lying as it did on the crossroads between East and West. It stood exactly halfway between Moscow and Pahlavi, and the easiest way to reach northern Persia was through Baku.

  Shahnameh, based on Middle Eastern legends, proved a colourful production, full of song and dance. Margarita enjoyed looking at the audience sitting in the stalls beneath her almost as much as the performance. Mostly grubby and dishevelled young people, they showed their enthusiasm and approval noisily and energetically, cheering and clapping at the end of every song and dance.

  During the interval, the delegation were shepherded into the bar, and Margarita was introduced to some local dignitaries. But there was little chance to do more than shake hands, as the fleshy Azeri dominated the conversation with an easy authority. A thin-faced man with a black moustache and clean nails didn’t take his eyes off her, and as they were all returning to their seats, he quietly suggested that she should come to see him the next day. Margarita felt a small card being slipped into her hand. The name on it was Aznefttrust, and a time had been noted in pencil.

  Afterwards, another feast and entertainment had been prepared for them in a restaurant called the National, next to their hotel. The salt fish made Margarita thirsty, and she ended up drinking too much champagne and vodka, so she was feeling tired and light-headed by the time the music started. The musicians were a group of Tartars, and a dozen girls in gold and saffron outfits danced for them. Then, the Azeri insisted on leading Margarita onto the floor, but she found it difficult to move to music which was so unfamiliar to her ear. She tried to imitate her partner’s moves who was, surprisingly, as light-footed as a young boy. He clapped his hands above his head as he sang along to the words, and spun her round like a top. Bouncing around drunkenly near them, kicking their heels high, were Max and Moritz, with Irina between them, laughing heartily at their antics. Their shirts were open, their faces were scarlet and their bodies glistened with sweat. Margarita caught a glimpse of Kai-Olaf sitting on his own at a table over in a shadowy corner, gazing at her over a half-empty glass of milk. When the dance finally came to an end, she made her way to his table, and extended her hand to him in invitation, but he shook his head. She leant over and whispered in his ear that the least he could do was rescue her from another dance with the fat Azeri. With a smile, he stood and took her hand.

  The next song was slower, and he held her in his arms, but in spite of their physical closeness, Margarita sensed that Kai Olaf’s mind was far away. The second the dance came to an end, the Azeri was back at her shoulder, his arms out wide, his head at an angle of false pleading. She had no choice but to step into his arms. The singing and celebrating carried on in an increasingly drunken haze into the small hours.

  20.

  Sharp sunlight intruded into the room through the mosquito blinds. Margarita felt as though her head was about to split, and her mouth was bone dry. She heard a sigh, which was more of a half-snore, and hoisted herself up onto her elbow to peep over a strip of shoulder, ear, cheek and nose. Breathing heavily into the pillow was Kai-Olaf, and she gazed in wonder for a moment at his bald head. When she slipped out of bed and stood up, she felt dizzy, and a dull pain throbbed behind her eyes. She had to steady herself by leaning her fists against the mattress, and give herself a moment for the light-headedness to pass, before straightening up cautiously. She crept around collecting her clothes as quietly as possible, resisting a strong urge to heave. She tried to piece together the events of the previous night as she dressed, but it was all a complete blur.

  She had woken so late that she was only just in time for her appointment. Luckily for her, the Aznefttrust offices weren’t very far from Hotel Europa, just a little further down the boulevard. She hurried past riotously colourful flower beds, tended by men in overalls and white caps, and, short though the walk was, by the time she climbed the stairs of the building, her throbbing headache was worse than ever.

  She was asked to wait outside Donbas Hajiev’s office, and for the next quarter of an hour or so, assailed by a variety of emotions, she tried and failed to piece together the events of the previous night, which culminated with her and Kai-Olaf in bed together.

  Donbas Hajiev was fresh as a daisy, smelling of eau-de-cologne, his black moustache neat as a pin. He greeted her and invited her to sit. She gave silent thanks for the white fan overhead, which dispersed welcome cool air over her back and bare shoulders. A man brought them tiny cups of strong coffee, for which she was even more grateful. The conversation was a little stilted to begin with. Donbas Hajiev had the habit of tapping his knee as he finished a sentence or asked a question, and Margarita found it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. What became obvious was that he already had a considerable amount of information about her, because every now and again he would glance down at a file which was open in front of him.

  After two more cups of the sweet, strong coffee, Margarita was starting to feel a little more like herself. Gradually, the fog cleared in her head, and a clearer landscape came into view. She hadn’t been brought to Baku to give speeches, nor to visit schools, apartment blocks, and clinics, nor to stare into a microscope at malaria protozoa – she had been brought there for this. If she wanted more time to think it over, he was saying, he quite understood, but there was so much work to be done and they had so little time to do it. He had heard great things about her, with many testimonials about her dedication to the cause. This was a further opportunity to make an important contribution in undercover work.

  Donbas Hajiev had stopped speaking, and without even a moment’s hesitation she asked, ‘When do you want me to start?’

  ‘As soon as you return to Berlin.’

  21.

  In the lull between lunch and evening service, the eight members of the Grand Cercle Muscovite staff had to justify their wages by going out on the streets to hand out flyers advertising the restaurant. Alyosha’s favourite location was one of the wooden jetties, where the pleasure boats moored to pick up passengers, before continuing to plough their way up and down the Seine. Watching the light softly reflected on the surface of the river calmed his mind like nothing else, and he would usually lose himself in a highly pleasurable reverie, full of sweet memories of his cossetted childhood years.

  Often he imagined he was gazing at the Neva, and although hundreds of days of his life had vanished from his memory – days which had left no more trace than the paddlewheels of yesterday’s boats on the water – there were some moments which endured forever, moments to treasure, as they reminded him that he had been somebody else back then, with an imagined future quite different from his present. He took a certain comfort from this, because it meant he could perhaps be somebody else again, reinvent himself once more. He just had to keep the hope alive that his circumstances could change, because he himself was capable of change.

  Otherwise, to get rid of his flyers, he’d go anywhere the tourist omnibuses stopped, especially outside the Louvre and other museums. This ensured they always had plenty of Americans turning up at the doors of the Grand Cercle Muscovite every night, especially when the tourist season was at its height.