Kelso led the way towards it and they had almost made it when a sandy-coloured jeep with a searchlight mounted on its hood came round the corner: Interior Ministry troops, the MVD. That sobered him up. He could be stopped at any minute, he realised, and forced to show his visa. The pale~ faces of the soldiers stared at them. He bowed his head and trotted up the steps, 0 Brian close behind him, as the jeep completed its cautious circuit of the square and passed out of sight.
THE communists had not been forced entirely from the building; they had merely moved round to the back. Here I they maintained a small reception area presided over by a big, ~ middle-aged woman with a froth of dyed yellow hair. Beside i her, along the window sill, was a row of straggling spider plants in old tin cans; opposite her, a big colour poster of Gennady Zyuganov, the Parry's pudding-faced candidate in the last presidential election. She studied O'Brian's business card intently, turning it over, holding it to the light, as if she suspected forgery. Then she picked up the telephone and spoke quietly into the receiver.
Outside, through the double glass, the snow was beginning to pile in the courtyard. A clock ticked. Beside the door Kelso noticed a bundle of the latest issue of Aurora, tied up with string, awaiting distribution. The headline was a quote from the Interior Ministry's report to the president:
'VIOLENCE IS INEVITABLE'.
After a couple of minutes, a man appeared. He must have been about sixty - an odd-looking figure. His head was too small for his heavy torso, his features too small for his face. His name was Tsarev, he said, holding out a hand stained black with ink. Professor Tsarev. Deputy First Secretary of the Regional Committee.
Kelso asked if they could have a word.-
Yes. Perhaps. That would be possible.
Now? In private?
Tsarev hesitated, then shrugged. 'Very well.' He led them down a dark corridor and into his office, a
little time warp from the Soviet days, with its pictures of Brezhnev and Andropov. Kelso reckoned he must have visited a score of offices like this over the years. Wood block floorings thick water pipes, a heavy radiator, a desk calendar, a big green Bakelite telephone, like something out of a 1950s science fiction movie, the smell of polish and stale air - every detail was familiar, right down to the model Sputnik and the clock in the shape of Zimbabwe left behind by some visiting Marxist delegation. On the shelf behind Tsarev's head were six copies of Mamantov's memoirs, I Still Believe.
'I see you have Vladimir Mamantov's book.' It was a stupid thing to say but Kelso couldn't help himself
Tsarev turned round, as if noticing them for the first time. 'Yes. Comrade Mamantov came to Archangel and campaigned for us, during the presidential elections. Why? Do you know him?'
'Yes. I know him.'
There was a silence. Kelso was aware of O'Brian looking at him, and of Tsarev waiting for him to speak. Hesitantly, he began his rehearsed speech. First of all, he said, he and Mr O'Brian would like to thank Professor Tsarev for seeing them at such short notice. They were in Archangel for one day only, making a film about the residual strength of the Communist Party. They were visiting various towns in Russia. He was sorry they had not been in contact earlier to make a proper appointment, but they were working quickly -'And Comrade Mamantov sent you?' interrupted Tsarev.
'Comrade Mamantov sent you here?'
'I can truthfully say we would not be. here without Vladimir Mamantov.'
Tsarev began nodding. Well, this was a most excellent subject. This was a subject wilfully ignored in the west. How many people in the west knew, for example, that in the Duma elections, the communists had taken thirty per cent of the votes, and then, in 1996, in the presidential elections, forty per cent? Yes, they would be in power again soon. Sharing power to begin with, perhaps, but afterwards - who could say?
He became more animated.
Take the situation here in Archangel. They had millionaires, of course. Wonderful! Unfortunately, they also had organised crime, unemployment, AIDS, prostitution, drug addiction. Were his visitors aware that life expectancy and child-mortality in Russia had now reached African levels? Such progress! Such freedoms! Tsarev had been a professor of Marxist theory in Archangel for twenty years -the post was now abolished, naturally - so he had taught Marxism in a Marxist state, but it was only now, as they were literally tearing down Marx's statues, that he had come to appreciate the genius of the man's insight: that money robs the whole world, both the human world and nature, of their own proper value -'Ask him about the girl,' whispered O'Brian. 'We haven't
got time for all this bullshit. Ask him about Anna.'
Tsarev had halted in mid-speech and was looking from one man to the other.
'Professor Tsarev,' said Kelso, 'to illustrate our film we need to look at particular human stories -'
That was good. Yes. He understood. The human element.
There were many such stories in Archangel.
'Yes, I'm sure. But we have in mind one in particular. A girl. Now a woman in her sixties. She would be about the same age as you. Her unmarried name was Safanova. Anna Mikhailovna Safanova. She was in the Komsomol.'
Tsarev stroked the end of his squat nose. The name, he said, after a moment's thought, was not familiar. This would have been some time ago, presumably?
Almost fifty years.'
Fifty years? It was not possible! Please! He would find them other persons -'But you must have records?'
- he would show them females who fought the fascists in the Great Patriotic War, Heroes of Socialist Labour, Holders of the Order of the Red Banner. Magnificent people -'Ask him how much he wants,' said O'Brian, not even bothering to whisper now. He was pulling out his wallet. 'To look in his files. What's his price?'
'Your colleague,' said Tsarev, 'is not happy?'
'My colleague was wondering,' said Kelso, delicately, 'if it would be possible for you to undertake some research work for us. For which we would be happy to pay you - to pay the Party, that is-a fee...'
IT would not be easy, said Tsarev.
Kelso said he was sure it would not be. The membership of the Communist Party in the last years of the Soviet Union comprised seven per cent of the adult population. Apply those figures to Archangel and what did you get? Maybe 20,000 members in the city alone, and perhaps the same number again in the oblast. And to those figures you had to add the membership of Komsomol and of all the other Party outfits. And then, if you included all the people who had been members over the past eighty years -the people who had died or dropped out, been shot, imprisoned, exiled, purged - you had to be looking at a really large number. A huge number. Still -Two hundred dollars was the sum they agreed on. Tsarev insisted on providing a receipt. He locked the money into a battered cash box which he then locked in a drawer, and Kelso realised, with a curious sense of admiration, that Tsarev probably did intend to give the money to Party funds. He wouldn't keep it for himself: he was a true believer.
The Russian conducted them back along the passage and into reception. The woman with the dyed blonde hair was watering her tinned plants. Aurora still proclaimed that violence was inevitable. Zyuganov's fat smile remained in place. Tsarev collected a key from a metal cupboard and they followed him down two flights of stairs into the basement. A big, blast-proof iron door, studded with bolts, thickly painted a battleship grey, swung open to show a cellar, lined with wooden shelving, piled with files.
Tsarev put on a pair of heavy-framed spectacles and began pulling down dusty folders of documents while Kelso looked around with wonder. This was not a storeroom, he thought. This was a catacomb, a necropolis. Busts of Lenin, and of Marx and Engels, crowded the shelves like perfect clones. There were boxes of photographs of forgotten Party apparatchiks and stacked canvases of socialist realism, depicting bosomy peasant girls and worker-heroes with granite muscles. There were sacks of decorations, diplomas, membership cards, leaflets, pamphlets, books. And then there were the flags - little red flags for children to wave, and swirling crimson banners for the likes of Anna Safanova to parade with.