The car had turned the corner and stopped in front of another neoclassical building, this one with doormen and sculpted nymphs and light pouring out from the lobby. “Lenin stayed here. So you’re in good company. Don’t bother. They’ll get the bags.” He held the car door, waiting.
Simon got out and looked around. Moscow. The airport had been nowhere. But this was Russia—the shadowy streets, the heavy stone laced with Soviet gothic, policemen in greatcoats on the corner, people glancing sideways at his foreign clothes. The Moscow he’d seen in movies, gray with menace. A car pulling up, men jumping out, taking him away. Hadn’t it actually happened? Hundreds of times. Interrogated in a room with a red light over the door. On his own, not even an alphabet. Except he wasn’t alone. He looked over at Frank. A man who’d betrayed everyone and now seemed a kind of lifesaver, something you could hang on to until the rescue boat arrived.
“Recognize the car?” Frank said.
“What?”
“The Zim.” He nodded to the airport car. “It’s a Buick. Same model anyway. They copied it. Something to make you feel right at home.”
In the lobby there were oversized Grecian statues and a grand carpeted staircase that seemed to rise two stories to Art Nouveau windows. After the quiet street, the lobby seemed bustling, groups of men in bulky suits huddling like delegates, presumably plant managers from Rostov or Party officials from one of the Eastern Bloc countries, excited to be here, at the center, a little dazed by the luxury. He could see a few women in the restaurant, but only a few. More men in suits, box-shaped with loose sleeves. While Vassilchikov checked him in at the desk, Frank steered them to the bar, a tsarist fantasy of red flocked walls and velvet cushions, now worn, some of the threads showing, the air thick with stale cigar smoke.
“Well, as I live and breathe. I thought you never went out.” An English voice, drawing room theatrical and loud.
Frank turned, ambushed. “Gareth.”
“We’ve just been to the Bolshy and thought we’d stop by for a nightcap. Join us? You remember Sergei?” He turned slightly to include a man, at least twenty years younger, who nodded, awkward. “Sergei hates the ballet, but he indulges me. Of course, I indulge him too. Don’t I? See the new jumper?” Feeling the sleeve of Sergei’s sweater. “Won’t go near a proper suit, so I have to do the best I can to make him look decent. Not easy. But of course worth it,” he said, looking at the boy, “when you’re so good-looking.”
Gareth’s suit, an old pinstripe with a handkerchief flowering out of the pocket, needed pressing. In fact everything about him seemed disheveled, his tie knot pulled away from his throat, cigarette ash spilling on his cuffs, an alcohol sheen in his eyes. Simon looked at him for another minute before he finally recognized him, the once wolfish face now softened with flesh.
“Gareth Jones,” he said, blurting it.
Gareth tipped his head. “Dans son corps. Or what’s left of it. But how nice. I thought no one had the faintest anymore. All these years.”
Ten of them by now, caught in the undertow of Burgess and Maclean, another defector for the newsreels. Staring at Simon, curious, like the people in the street.
“And you are? Or shouldn’t I ask? It’s one of the things about this place—nobody introduces anybody.” He looked at Frank, waiting.
“Simon Weeks,” Frank said. “My brother.”
“Your brother?” he said, almost a squeal. “You’d never know it. Well, if you look,” he said, peering at Simon. “The jawline. And a little around the eyes. So you’ve come to see the sights? Or just this old non grata?” He poked Frank’s chest. “Or something else?” This to Simon, almost taunting.
“Just Frank. And the sights.”
“Such as they are. Of course, there’s the body,” he said, giving the word two syllables. “Macabre, if you ask me, but it’s really remarkable what they do for him. Old Lenin. He looks better than I do.”
Sergei laughed, then looked down.
“So disloyal,” Gareth said to him, then turned back to Simon. “Of course you have to wait hours. Hordes, every day. But maybe Frank can jump the queue for you. Join us?”
“Can’t,” Frank said.
“Well, then we’ll just have to chat like this,” Gareth said, needling him. “Everybody wondering.” He turned to Simon. “I didn’t even know he had a brother. My God, what was he like?”
“The same,” Simon said, smiling a little at Frank. And wasn’t he? “People don’t change.”
“They do here. I wish I had your mirror. It ages you, this place. The cold. Nobody to see. The Russians won’t talk to you—why take the risk?—and people who should see each other,” he said, looking at Frank, “who have things in common, you would think—but they don’t much either. It’s a very stick-to-yourself town. At least for people like us. But there’s the Bolshy, that’s always wonderful. And friends.” He turned to Sergei, touching him. “How do people live without friends? What else is there really? Well, I suppose if you won’t join us we’d better push on. Maybe next time. Of course, there never is. Donald’s just the same. Try to be friendly and you get a chill straight off the steppes.” He made a brrr gesture. “Thank God for Guy. He’s always up for anything. But then always making scenes. So you wonder if it’s worth it. Nice to have met you,” he said to Simon. “The Tretyakov Gallery’s the thing to see. The icons. And tell this one not to make himself scarce. We should see more of each other, you know. We’re all in the same boat.”
“We’re not in the same boat,” Frank said, annoyed.
Gareth took a step back, as if he’d been struck. “Well, have it your way. He thinks he’s one of them. The gendarmerie. But really we’re just agents who’ve outlived our usefulness. That’s how they see us. So we just molder.” He glanced toward the bar. “And take our pleasure where we may.” He turned, then spotted Colonel Vassilchikov heading toward them. “Oh. The sheriff,” he said, his shoulders rising out of their slouch. “And not the gentle soul you think he’ll be. Not at all nice to friends. Come on. Let’s vamoose.”
Sergei just stared at him, confused.
“The bar,” Gareth said, taking his elbow.
Vassilchikov joined them, speaking Russian, his eyes following Gareth. Frank answered him in Russian, then turned to Simon.
“The room’s ready. We can go up.”
“What was that?”
“What?”
“The once notorious Gareth Jones.”
Frank made a humph sound.
“Scrounging drinks.”
“No. He’s very well taken care of. The Service has rules about that. Taking care of your own. Otherwise it sends a bad message to the field. People have to know they’ll always be taken care of. Brought home, if it comes to that.”
Simon looked at him, surprised by the word. Home.
“It’s just he’s never made any effort. Never even learned the language. Look at Maclean—works for the institute, sends his children to Russian schools. He’s made a life here.”
“Is it true, though? That the—you know, the ones who’ve come here—don’t see each other? You’d think—”
“Some do, some don’t. It’s a question of the wives, mostly. They’re the ones who get lonely. Jo used to see a fair amount of Melinda, so I saw Donald. That’s the way it worked. But Gareth? Why would I want to see Gareth? He was a nasty piece of work, even before. And now—”
“Nasty how?”
“His specialty was blackmail. After he got them into bed, had his fun.” He looked away. “It takes all kinds.”
Simon glanced toward the bar where Gareth was already tossing back a drink. Even the Service had its pecking order, some treacheries more acceptable than others, like prisoners who looked down on molesters but didn’t bat an eye at murder.