He crossed Wenceslas Square and began cutting through the back streets in the general direction of the river. This seemed safer than taking the major thoroughfares, until the two Czech cops spotted him emerging from a New Town alley. As they strode towards him, he barely resisted the urge to turn and run.
One of the cops asked him something in Czech.
‘Nechapu’, he said. I don’t understand.
One cop reached out a friendly arm, clearly intent on taking him in charge.
‘Hotel Slovan,’ Russell said desperately. ‘Smichov.’
‘Ah,’ the first cop said. He put a hand on Russell’s soldier, pointed down him the street, and indicated that he should turn right at the end.
‘Dekuji,’ Russell almost gushed, as a rivulet of sweat ran down his back.
Both cops insisted on shaking his hand, and he could feel their eyes on his back as he hurried off in the suggested direction. He was getting too old for this sort of thing.
At that moment he was passing a post office, and the thought of putting the film in the post-and sparing Effi this sort of grief-caused him to slacken his pace. But it was no good. Given the current levels of official paranoia, there seemed an excellent chance that the Czech authorities were checking any remotely suspicious package bound for foreign parts. The film’s interception would certainly end all their hopes, and would most likely prove the start of a nightmare, since the StB and their MGB allies would have the address they needed to track down the intended recipient. No, the only safe way to dispose of the damn thing was to write Stalin’s name on the parcel.
Or just drop it in the river, he thought, as he walked across the Legii Bridge. But he knew he wouldn’t do it. He told himself to stop imagining the worst, and concentrate instead on averting it.
The immediate problem was Klima, who by now would know he’d gone AWOL. What was his explanation?
‘I changed my mind,’ he told her a few minutes later, when they met in the Slovan lobby. ‘I guessed you would walk across the Charles Bridge, so I walked up this side of the river and waited, but you never appeared.’
‘You waited all this time?’
He laughed. ‘Oh no, after an hour or so and I went and found a bar. Your beer is excellent.’
She looked torn between incredulity and the knowledge that he was a foreign guest she shouldn’t offend without being sure.
Seeking to tip the balance, Russell reached into his pocket and brought out the pair of earrings he’d bought at the antique shop. ‘These are for you. A token of our appreciation for all your help.’
She looked at them. ‘Thank you, but …’
‘I’m hungry,’ Russell interrupted her. ‘Are we eating here again?’
During dinner, Russell set out to allay any remaining suspicions Klima might have, and only realised he was overdoing it when Effi gave him a kick under the table. Back in their bathroom with the taps full on, Effi couldn’t decide which of the audition films she should sacrifice for a reel.
‘The film that made the smallest splash,’ Russell suggested. ‘In case the guards feel like a showing.’
‘Surely they won’t have a projector at the border post,’ Effi objected.
‘They will at their local cinema. It’s just a matter of improving the odds,’ he explained. ‘If by some chance, they choose to check one out, they’re more likely to pick one they’ve heard of.’
‘I suppose that makes sense,’ Effi agreed.
If there was a hidden camera in their bedroom they couldn’t spot it. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Russell left the film in his jacket pocket until all their lights were out, and they lay there in the dark waiting for a decent interval to elapse. He wondered if Beria had checked for a camera, or merely assumed it wasn’t running. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? Overweening arrogance, most likely. People with that much power often ended up thinking that nothing touch them.
After ten minutes had passed, Russell removed the film from his jacket, and they both crept into the bathroom, where the thinnest of lights was seeping in through the transom window. Effi had already removed the film from one of her reels, and now took on the job of replacing it. The lack of light made things difficult, and it took her an age to fix the end of the strip.
Once Merzhanov’s film was finally wound and boxed she sat on the toilet seat for a minute or more, regaining her composure and wondering what to do with the roll she’d taken off.
‘Put in back on Janica’s reel,’ Russell whispered, after turning on the tap. ‘I’ll take it with me.’
‘Okay,’ she agreed.
The thought crossed his mind that at least he’d have a souvenir of her, a thought that kept him staring at the ceiling long after she’d slipped into sleep. She had once told him that when she first started working for the resistance worry and fear had often kept her awake, but after one very real scare everything had suddenly changed, and sleep had come easily again. Somehow her mind had learned to shut itself down.
Next morning, though, she did seem tense.
‘What do I say if they do find it?’ she asked him in the bathroom.
‘You’re an actor,’ he told her. ‘A very good one. Be shocked. You know nothing about this film; you have no idea how it came to be on that reel. Someone must have taken yours off, and put this one on, with an eye to stealing it back in Berlin. You’re outraged. So much so, that you’ll help the police find out who it was. They can follow you home and catch the man who comes for it.’
‘They won’t believe me,’ Effi said.
‘Maybe not, but it’s a worth a shot. And believe me, most men are distracted by gorgeous women.’
‘I do believe you, but you’re forgetting that I’m forty-two.’
‘And still gorgeous.’
‘I’m glad you think so. And I suppose I should be grateful it won’t be the Gestapo.’
‘Yes.’ He decided to let her keep whatever illusions she might have about the greater kindliness of the MGB.
‘And what about you?’ she asked.
‘I’ll be safe as houses. I might be on the same train as Janica, but if she’s stopped at the border I’ll just keep walking.’
‘She might denounce you.’
‘I doubt it. She seems pretty level-headed, and there’s no way she could involve me without telling the whole story, and that would make things worse for her. No, she’ll hope that Merzhanov refuses to budge without her, and that we’ll be forced into another attempt at getting her out.’
‘Would we?’
‘I doubt it,’ Russell admitted. ‘How could we?’
On the way to the station Russell noticed that Klima was wearing her new earrings. She seemed less on edge than usual, probably relieved at the prospect of seeing them off. Their driver was surly as ever though, snarling at any tram or bus that dared to block the Skoda’s path.
After Effi’s train had steamed out, Klima insisted on waiting with him, even though her successor was already on the job, hiding behind a newspaper some five metres down the platform. This man followed Russell on to the train and took a seat in the same coach, around ten rows farther back. Which was all to the good, Russell supposed-for once in his clandestine life he had nothing to hide, and the more they watched him, the less likely they would notice Janica.
He had watched her arrive on the platform with some relief. She had seen him, too, but there’d been no batted eyelids or faltering steps. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that she was the professional.
Which was a disturbing thought. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering if the whole business was a gigantic set-up, with a purpose that eluded him. For all they actually knew, the film was blank. Or a record of Stalin, thumbs in ears, derisively waggling his fingers at the camera.
But he couldn’t really believe it. Merzhanov had convinced him from the start, and Janica had said nothing to make him suspicious.