When the serious question came – the one she might have expected Edward to have asked immediately – it took her completely by surprise. So relaxed and confident had she become – so certain that she had finessed the issue with an explanation that, whilst not entirely truthful, was not a direct lie – that at first she seemed unable to understand what he was asking.
‘I have to know the truth, Marianne. Was it an affair?’
She looked at him blankly, as if the words had no meaning for her.
He stared back at her – a look of anxiety – perhaps even fear – on his normally composed features. ‘Where you in a sexual relationship with Larry?’ he asked, enunciating each word clearly, like a barrister addressing a witness who was feigning stupidity.
‘Oh God, no. No, absolutely not. I mean, I may have been foolish, perhaps he was a spy, but an affair – no, never.’ The words came out in a rush – an unpremeditated babble of denial.
Edward closed his eyes and gradually his expression relaxed. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Thank God for that. I am sorry if I doubted you, but it’s been gnawing away at me.’
‘I am the one who should apologise. I shouldn’t have got mixed up with him – and given you cause to worry.’
Edward leant across the bed and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I never really doubted you, my darling – but I had to be sure.’
Marianne spent a wretched night. I should have confessed, she told herself a hundred times. He would have forgiven me, I’m sure. We could start again on an honest basis. When sleep did come, it was inhabited by the familiar face she had learned to associate with feelings of guilt. She resolved to tell Edward the next day but when the morning came she began to doubt herself. Would he really be so forgiving? Especially as she had lied to him about it the previous day. She knew Edward as an exceptionally kind and generous man, always calm and patient, even when provoked. But this would be uncharted territory; she worried that his manifest goodness and decency might make it harder for him to accept her transgression. Larry’s gone now, she reasoned, and what’s done is done. Nothing would be gained now by a confession. Best to keep quiet.
As the time approached for Marianne to leave hospital, it was agreed that they would fly back to England to allow her to recuperate there and have further medical checks. Meanwhile, her mother would fly over from Vermont to be with her and help look after Isabelle. The day before their planned departure she was waiting for Edward to arrive and pick her up from the hospital. She expected him to arrive at around eleven and when he had not turned up by twelve she hobbled into the hallway on her crutches to make a telephone call. To her surprise she was confronted by a man in uniform she had not previously noticed.
‘You must return to your room,’ said the man, speaking in such heavily accented Russian that at first she didn’t understand him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I need to telephone my husband.’
‘Please return to your room and the situation will be explained to you,’ said the uniformed man, blocking her path to the telephone. Marianne reluctantly obeyed and returned to sit on her bed, worrying what might have happened to Edward. A few minutes later a younger man of about thirty-five, dressed in a typical, badly fitting Russian suit, arrived in her room.
‘Ah, Mrs Davenport, are you ready to leave?’ he said to her in surprisingly good English.
‘I am, but I am waiting for my husband.’
‘I’m afraid he won’t be coming this morning. You must accompany us and everything will be explained.’
Marianne looked from one to the other. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but who exactly are you?’ The man did not reply, but at that moment she saw one of the doctors passing her room and called out, ‘Dr Kuznetzova, please. I don’t understand. I was waiting for my husband to arrive and these men have come in…’ The doctor looked at the men and then at Marianne.
‘They are policemen,’ she said in an expressionless voice. ‘You must go with them.’
10
It wasn’t the Lubyanka, Marianne acknowledged with relief, nor was it exactly a cell. In appearance, it was more like a hostel room at some remote truckers’ stop with an iron frame single bed, a small table with upright chair and a narrow wardrobe. In one corner, a doorless cubicle housed a shower and lavatory; on the other side of the cubicle a small sink hung from the wall. The floor was covered with green lino on which lay a forlorn strip of brown carpet. A small window was obscured by frosted glass and did not seem designed to be opened.
As Marianne lay on the bed her initial feeling was one of anger towards Larry; they might ask you some questions, he had said, almost as a throw-away line – and now she had been arrested, at least she supposed that is what had happened to her, although no one had actually used those words. Shut in this dingy room, she had no idea what would happen next and no news about Edward. What if they had arrested him and there was no one to collect Izzy from kindergarten? Thanks a lot, she thought with some bitterness; you, the professional diplomat – or spy, as Edward would have it – are happily back in America while I’m here in the hands of the KGB. She tried to reassure herself that she had done nothing wrong, but was that strictly true? And what was right and wrong here anyway? Increasingly she came to realise how naïve and foolish she had been. Edward had been right; this wasn’t London or New York. She should have been a lot more careful. All the same, she thought, this is not the nineteen thirties. Stalin has been dead for twenty years. Surely nothing too bad can happen to me?
For the rest of that day no one came to her room other than the same stout woman with swept-back grey hair and what appeared to be a badly repaired broken nose who had originally told her to ‘make herself comfortable’ and who now brought her a meal on a tray. Marianne bombarded her with questions but she merely answered, in an accent which Marianne placed as coming from somewhere east of the Urals, ‘I have no information’.
Depressed at the thought of the long night ahead of her, Marianne remembered that she had with her some sleeping pills and pain killers prescribed by the hospital, which she had persuaded her crooked-nosed jailor to allow her to keep. Taking two of each she got into bed, shut her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep. Before the pills eventually did their work, she had a vague recollection of reading somewhere that the KGB always conducted their interrogations at night. Oh well, she thought, they won’t get much out of me now.
Waking the next morning she felt groggy and nauseous and realised that she was extremely hungry; the now cold and congealed evening meal, lying untouched on the floor, reminded her that she had eaten nothing since the previous morning. She was pathetically grateful when at last her jailor brought in her breakfast: strong black tea with bread, butter and a bowl of yoghurt.
She didn’t have long to contemplate what might have happened to her husband or daughter before the crooked-nosed woman appeared again. ‘Follow me, please,’ she said, setting off down a succession of corridors while Marianne hobbled after her as fast as her crutches would allow. Entering a brightly lit office, she was greeted by a uniformed man of about forty, slim, with blond hair and dark circles under his eyes who rose from his seat when she came in.
‘Mrs Davenport, will you sit down,’ the man said in English, ‘I am sorry that we could not talk yesterday but I was rather busy. May I express my sympathy about your unfortunate accident? Are you comfortable in that seat?’ Marianne ignored his expression of sympathy and launched herself into a series of questions.