‘And what about me and you? Will we hurt each other?’
There was a silence, not the dreadful silence of the safe room at the heart of the embassy, which had the kind of artificial silence that seems to suck the hearing out of your ears, but instead one of those country silences that is never quiet, filled as it is with birdsong and bee sound and the scurrying of animals and water. ‘I don’t think I am easy to hurt,’ she said.
Reluctantly they carried their things back to the car. Contrary to popular rumour, paradise is finite. The old man who had watched them arrive was no longer to be seen. The wooden huts were closed and locked. The slamming of the car boot seemed a hideous intrusion on the quiet of the afternoon. He started the engine and they drove further along the track, just to see where it led, that was the idea. And to try and shake off the mood of anonymous threat that had descended on the afternoon. But after a mile or so through birch woods the way forward was blocked by a military vehicle, an armoured car of some kind, the colour of mud, ugly as all such vehicles are.
Sam brought the car to a halt. ‘What the hell’s this?’ He reached beneath his seat for the camera.
‘What are you doing?’ There was an edge in Lenka’s voice that he had not heard before. As though it were fractured and might fall to pieces at any moment.
‘A photo, before anyone appears.’
‘You are a spy!’
‘Just my job. Any opportunity.’ The vehicle sat there dumbly, like a prizefighter asleep. It was four-wheeled, with a boat-shaped hull and sloping superstructure capped with a machine gun. He propped the camera on the dashboard and snapped a frame, wound the film on and took another shot. Then another.
‘What is it?’
‘Czechoslovak army? Who knows? No markings.’ He pushed the camera under his seat and began to edge the car forward.
It was at that moment that a soldier appeared from behind the vehicle. He wore khaki trousers and a striped sweatshirt of the kind that French fishermen wear in comic films. There were no distinguishing marks of any kind on his clothing, no rank badges, no insignia; and nothing comic. Sam wound down the window and leant out. ‘We want to go through.’
The man stood and watched, as though he hadn’t understood. Beyond the vehicle other soldiers could be seen. Some of them carried weapons. They’d been doing something in the shallows of the river. Just visible through the trees was an inflatable boat with an outboard engine.
Sam climbed out of the car.
‘Stůj!’ the soldier called. Halt!
Sam smiled uncomprehendingly, walking towards the soldier with his hands outspread and talking a mixture of Czech and English and ignoring Lenka calling out from inside the car, calling for him to come back. ‘We just want to go swimming, you see? Me and my friend. Plavání. Plavání.’ He even made the gesture of the breaststroke, just to make things clearer.
There was panic in the soldier’s eyes. He called something over his shoulder. Sam could make out the words ‘Comrade Lieutenant.’ And then he understood what he had really heard – not the Czech Stůj! but the Russian stoy! Not the Czech soudruh but the Russian tovarich. An officer appeared from behind the armoured car. He was wearing a shirt with rank badges that Sam recognised as Czech. His face was wooden, the face of authority, prepared, under any circumstances, to deny whatever was being requested. ‘You can’t come past,’ he said in Czech. ‘Military zone.’
Sam the idiot looked blank. ‘Nemluvím Cesky,’ he said. ‘Promiňte.’ And then, in English, making sweeping gestures with his arms. ‘I’ve been here before, with my girlfriend. Swimming.’
The man frowned. ‘Anglicky?’
‘Yes, Anglicky. Diplomat.’ He pointed back to the car. ‘You see? Diplomatic plates. Diplomatická. CD.’
The lieutenant snapped his fingers beneath Sam’s nose. ‘Dokumenty.’
There was a suspicious examination of passport and diplomatic pass, as though all such things were forgeries. ‘Pojď,’ he said.
Sam glanced back to the car, at Lenka’s anxious face peering through the windscreen. He gave a little sign of confidence – a grin, a brief thumbs-up. Then he was following the officer round the back of the vehicle where a sweaty soldier was crouched over a radio transmitter and another man – small, malevolent – sat reading a typed report. He wore khaki uniform but, again, without distinguishing marks. His battledress was tightly buttoned despite the heat. There was a brief exchange of words between him and the lieutenant, of which Sam was the subject. His papers were examined once again, with similar disdain.
‘You English?’ the malevolent man asked, in English.
‘Yes,’ Sam said. He smiled benevolently. This he enjoyed. He felt the cast-iron protection that his diplomatic status gave him, spiced with a hint of risk, a shiver of apprehension. His only real worry was Lenka, sitting anxiously in the car, with no diplomatic insurance and only the flimsy protection of association with himself. But what he knew now made any risk – surely small enough – worthwhile. ‘I’m here with my girlfriend. We were going swimming. If you like you can ring the British embassy. Or the ministry of foreign affairs. They will confirm my accreditation.’
Malevolent seemed to find this amusing. ‘You have no business swimming here, Mr Diplomat,’ he said, and Sam recognised the accent, from long days spent at the language school in Cambridge. Not only the words but the intonation, the cadence, the timbre. It was part of his psyche. Russian.
‘Well, maybe we should go somewhere else.’
‘Maybe you should.’ The man thought for a moment, then looked past Sam to the lieutenant. ‘Bring the girl.’
‘Hey, that’s not necessary—’
Malevolent raised his hand to silence him. The soldier went and a few moments later a car door slammed and the sound of Lenka’s voice was raised in some kind of protest. Protest had become a new habit amongst her generation. They felt they ruled the streets and the meetings. They could answer the police back, snap at officials, demand rights they never even knew existed. She came round the corner of the vehicle flushed with anger. Anger and fear, a dangerous combination. Sam gestured her to be quiet but it was Malevolent who achieved that. ‘Shut up!’ he demanded, and she did exactly that, startled by his peremptory command: Sklapni! The lieutenant took her papers and glanced at them. ‘Student,’ he told Malevolent, as though that explained everything. He passed the evidence over.
Sam took her hand, willing her to be silent, pulling her close to give her some kind of comfort. Her hand was damp with sweat. He seemed to feel her fear, crawling beneath his skin like the scurrying of insects.
‘And at the moment Miss Konečková is studying English, is she, Mr Diplomat?’ Malevolent said.
‘I help her with her English, yes. And she helps me with my Czech.’
‘I’m sure she does. And with your swimming.’
‘And with my swimming.’
‘Once upon a time a comrade had to report any contact made with a foreigner, you know that?’
‘Things have changed now.’
‘Yes, they have.’ He seemed to consider the changes, for good or for ill. Finally he handed Sam’s documents back. ‘But some things do not change. This is an exercise of the Czechoslovak People’s Army and you may not pass. I suggest you go home now how you came, to good cuppa of English tea. You are lucky – understand this clearly – you are lucky I do not arrest you for spying.’