A thermometer on the wall outside the entrance read minus one. The old nameplate had been taken down and a new one had been screwed in its place, but it didn't quite fit so you could tell that the building had been renamed. It now proclaimed itself 'The Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents Relating to Modern History'.
Once again, Kelso lingered behind after the others had gone in, squinting at the hate-filled faces across the street. There were a lot of old men of a similar age, pinched and raw-cheeked in the cold, but Rapava wasn't among them. He turned away and moved inside, into the shadowy lobby, where he gave his coat and bag to the cloakroom attendant, before passing beneath the familiar statue of Lenin towards the lecture hall. Another day began.
There were ninety-one delegates at the symposium and almost all of them seemed to be crowded into the small anteroom where coffee was being served. He collected his cup and lit another cigarette.
'Who's up first?' said a voice behind him. It was Adelman. Askenov, I think. On the microfilm project.'
Adelman groaned. He was a Bostonian, in his seventies, at that twilight stage in his career when most of life seemed to be spent in airplanes or foreign hotels: symposia, conferences, honorary degrees - Duberstein maintained that Adelman had given up pursuing history in favour of collecting air miles. But Kelso didn't begrudge him his honours. He was good. And brave. It had taken courage to write his kind of books, thirty years ago, on the Famine and the Terror, when every other useful idiot in academia was screeching for detente.
'Listen, Frank,' he said, 'I'm sorry about dinner.'
'Forget it. You got a better offer?'
'Kind of.'
The refreshment room was at the back of the Institute and looked out on to an inner courtyard, in the centre of which, dumped on their sides amid the weeds, were a pair of statues, of Marx and Engels - a couple of Victorian gentlemen taking time off from the long march of history for a morning doze.
'They don't mind taking down those two,' said Adelman. 'That's easy. They're foreigners. And one of them's a Jew. It's when they take down Lenin - that's when you'll know the place has really changed.'
Kelso took another sip of coffee. 'A man came to see me last night.'
'A man? I'm disappointed.'
'Could I ask your advice, Frank?'
Adelman shrugged. 'Go ahead.'
'In private?'
Adelman stroked his chin. 'You got his name, this guy?'
'Of course I got his name.
'His real name?'
'How do I know if it's his real name?'
'His address, then? You got his address?'
'No, Frank, I didn't get his address. But he did leave these.' Adelman took off his glasses and peered closely at the book of matches. 'It's a set-up,' he said at last, handing them back. 'I wouldn't touch it. Whoever heard of a bar called "Robotnik", anyhow? "Worker"? Sounds phoney to me.
'But if it was a set-up,' said Kelso, weighing the matchbook in his palm, 'why would he run away.
'Obviously, because he doesn't want it to look like a set-up. He wants you to have to work at it - track him down, persuade him to help you. That's the psychology of a clever fraud - the victims wind up doing so much chasing around, they start wanting to believe it's true. Remember the Hitler diaries. Either that or he's a lunatic.'
'He was very convincing.'
'Lunatics often are. Or it's a practical joke. Someone wants to make you look a fool. Have you thought of that? You're not exactly the most popular kid in the school.'
Kelso glanced up the corridor towards the lecture hall. It wasn't a bad theory. There were plenty in there who didn't like him. He had appeared on too many television programmes~ knocked out too many newspaper columns, reviewed too many of their useless books. Saunders was loitering at the corner, pretending to talk to Moldenhauer, both men obviously straining to overhear what he was saying to Adelman. (Saunders had complained bitterly after Kelso's paper about his 'subjectivity': 'Why was he even invited, that's what one wants to know. One had been given to understand this was a symposium for serious scholars . .
'They don't have the wit,' he said. He gave them a wave and was pleased to see them duck out of sight. 'Or the imagination.
'You sure have a genius for making enemies.
'Ah well. You know what they say: more enemies, more honour.'
Adelman smiled and opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. 'How's Margaret, dare one ask?'
'Who? Oh, you mean poor Margaret? She's fine, thank you. Fine and feisty. According to the lawyers.'
'And the boys?'
'Entering the springtime of their adolescence.'
'And the book? That's been a while. How much of this new book have you actually written?'
'I'm writing it.'
'Two hundred pages? A hundred?'
'What is this, Frank?'
'How many pages?'
'I don't know.' Kelso licked his dry lips. Almost unbelievably, he realised he could do with a drink. 'A hundred maybe.' He had a vision of a blank grey screen, a cursor flashing wealdy, like a pulse on a life-support machine begging to be switched off He hadn't written a word. 'Listen, Frank, there could be something in this, couldn't there? Stalin was a hoarder, don't forget. Didn't Khrushchev find some letter in a secret compartment in the old man's desk after he died?' He rubbed his aching head. 'That letter from Lenin, complaining about Stalin's treatment of his wife? And then there was that list of the Politburo, with crosses against everyone he was planning to purge. And his library -remember his library? He made notes in almost every book.'
'So what are you saying?'
'I'm just saying it's possible, that's all. That Stalin wasn't Hitler. That he wrote things down.'
'Quod volimus credimus libenter,' intoned Adelman. "Which means -'I know what it means -'- which means, my dear Fluke, we always believe what we
want to believe.' Adelman patted Kelso's arm. 'You don't want to hear this, do you? I'm sorry. I'll lie if you prefer it. I'll tell you he's the one guy in a million with a story like this who turns out not to be full of shit. I'll tell you he's going to lead you to Stalin's unpublished memoirs, that you'll rewrite history, millions of dollars will be yours, women will lie at your feet, Duberstein and Saunders will form a choir to sing your praises in the middle of Harvard Yard.
All right, Frank.' Kelso leaned the back of his head against the wall. 'You've made your point. I don't know It's just -Maybe you had to be there with him -, He pressed on, reluctant to admit defeat. 'It's just it rings a bell with me somewhere. Does it ring a bell with you?'
'Oh sure. It rings a bell, okay. An alarm bell.' Adelman pulled out an old pocket watch. 'We ought to be getting back. D'yoLI mind? Olga will be frantic.' He put his arm round Kelso's shoulders and led him down the corridor. 'In any case, there's nothing you can do. We're flying back to New York tomorrow. Let's talk when we get back. See if there's anything for you in the faculty. You were a great teacher.'
'I was a lousy teacher.'
'You were a great teacher, until you were lured from the path of scholarship and rectitude by the cheap sirens of journalism and publicity. Hello, Olga.'
'So here you are! The session is almost starting. Oh, Doctor Kelso - now this is not so good - no smoking, thank you.' She leaned over and removed the cigarette from his lips. She had a shiny face with plucked eyebrows and a very fine moustache, bleached white. She dropped the stub into the dregs of his coffee and took away his cup.
'Olga, Olga, why so bright?' groaned Kelso, putting his hand to his brow. The lecture hail exuded a tungsten glare.
'Television,' said Olga, with pride. 'They are making a programme of us.'
'Local?' Adelman was straightening his bow tie. 'Network?'
'Satellite, professor. International.'