Up there, looming over everyone, was the Hrad, the Castle, where the president of the country resided and Kafka reigned supreme.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is the second message.’
The visitors laughed dutifully but nervously. They made up the parliamentary delegation come to convince itself that Socialism With A Human Face really was possible even behind the barbed wire and tank traps of the Iron Curtain. They’d spent the morning at the Škoda works in Pilsen and the afternoon in a glass factory, where each member of the party had been presented with a piece of abstract Bohemian glass resembling something you might find in the waste bin of a hospital operating theatre. Now it was an informal dinner at the Whittakers’ with carefully selected guests.
‘What dreadful, dull people,’ Madeleine whispered. She was tall and dark and vindictive towards things that did not amuse her. The MPs’ wives did not amuse her. Having spent most of the day showing them the sights of Prague (the wives not deemed serious enough to deal with the Škoda factory), she now considered her duty done and had enticed Sam into a secluded corner of the terrace where she could give vent to her spleen. ‘In France tout le monde understands that you must imitate the arbiters of good taste even if you ’ate what they admire; but these people seem to think that taste is a matter of opinion. Worse than that, they appear to think that it is a matter of démocratie.’
She’d had the foresight to put some music on the record player, and the cool voice of a soprano saxophone drifted out of the speakers. Sam knew what was coming next. She would suggest they dance and she would press her hips against him and get him aroused, and he would picture Steffie’s face twisted into a little scowl of ‘told-you-so’.
‘I think you ought to get your guests dancing,’ he suggested.
‘Pah!’ It was astonishing how dismissive an innocent exclamation could become when manipulated by a pair of French lips. ‘Those clod’oppers,’ she said. ‘There is nothing worse-dressed and worse-mannered than a British socialist. And nothing worse at dancing. So I want to dance with you, Sam, and find out how you are doing without the virginal Stéfanie at your side. Is celibacy already beginning to get you down?’
‘She’s only been gone a few days.’
She laughed. ‘Do you know what President Kennedy once told me?’
‘When did you meet President Kennedy?’
‘When Eric was in Washington. You don’t believe me?’
‘It all depends on what he said.’
‘He said, “I get terrible headaches if I haven’t had a new woman in three days.”’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘But it ’appens to be true.’
‘And you replied?’
‘“Do you have a headache now?” And he said, “Ma’am, I sure do.” To which I replied, “Well, Mister President, if you come with me we’ll see what’s in the medicine chest.”’
She laughed and took hold of him, moving with the music exactly as he had predicted, sinuously, pushing her hips against him, a rather expert movement that might have been mistaken for a tango. One of the visiting MPs laughed. There was a smattering of applause. Sam heard Eric’s voice saying ‘French’ to one of the guests, as though by way of explanation. Another couple joined them in the dance, with nothing like Madeleine’s snake-like immodesty but with a degree of regimented competence that spoke of hours of practice in Northern ballrooms.
Her mouth close to his ear, Madeleine whispered, ‘Steffie has entrusted me with looking after you. To ensure that you don’t suffer from Kennedy ’eadaches and go looking after lovely Czech ladies.’
‘Steffie asked you to do that? It’d be like putting the fox in charge of a chicken.’
A little breath of laughter, carrying with it the scent of Chanel No. 5. ‘Are you a chicken, Sam?’
Eric’s voice came from across the terrace. ‘Sam, put my wife down. You don’t know where she’s been.’
Gusts of laughter. These Foreign Office boys, the laughter seemed to say: nothing like as stuck up as they seem.
Madeleine’s voice continued in his ear, ‘Or are you just a tiny bit queer, like so many of you public school boys?’
‘Grammar school, I’m afraid. Altogether more normal. And duller.’
She laughed with him and detached herself from his arms to do a little pirouette. ‘So show me.’
To Sam’s relief the record changed. Something more upbeat, with a heavy bass riff and an organ wailing protest. Madeleine detached herself from him and began to dance in the middle of the terrace, her arms above her head, hips gyrating in time with the insistent beat. ‘Gimme some lovin’,’ a raucous blues voice demanded. One of the MPs began to jig around opposite Madeleine, leaving Sam to make his escape to the drinks table.
As he poured himself a whisky a Northern voice spoke over his shoulder. ‘So what’s your role in all this, young man?’
He turned to find one of the delegation at his elbow. The man was short and stout and would have fitted well enough into the Party Praesidium during Gottwald’s reign – ill-fitting grey suit that shone like beaten pewter, a shirt collar as tight as a garrotte, a glance that hovered between unease and malice. Before the delegation had arrived in the city the diplomatic staff had been briefed to treat members of the group with extreme caution; most of them were well to the left of almost anyone in Dubček’s government and all of them considered the Foreign Office little more than a sinecure for ex-public school boys. This particular example was one such, a trades unionist who was mainly renowned for having brought his own particular branch of industry to its knees through a series of wildcat strikes. ‘My role in this what, exactly?’
‘In Her Britannic Majesty’s embassy to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Aside from dancing with the boss’s wife, that is.’
‘I’m political.’
‘Are you, indeed? And where do your politics lie?’
‘Wherever the current government tells me they should.’
The man laughed humourlessly. ‘Ever the diplomat, eh?’
‘That’s what people keep telling me.’
‘I’ll bet you’re a Tory.’
‘I wonder if you’d find any takers amongst those who actually know me.’
‘So what’s your view of the politics here?’
‘I think I know too much about it all to have a single view. I have many views, each one calling the previous one into question.’
‘Typical Foreign Office response. Come off the bloody fence for once. Admit that Dubček’s a working-class hero. He’s showing how socialism should be. And you Tories are just as pissed off as the Russians.’
Sam looked at the man pityingly. ‘Actually, the Office doesn’t consider hero-worship of foreign leaders to be in our best interests. And whatever you may see now, it’s worth remembering that Dubček and his merry men all came up through the ranks during the Stalinist era, during which they accepted all kinds of horror as though it was the will of God. Now they’re standing on the brink, wondering whether to jump into the unknown or turn back into the familiar arms of Mother Russia. When push comes to shove, they’re likely to turn round and beg Mummy for forgiveness.’