‘This sort of behaviour is intolerable,’ the ambassador decided, on being told of the offending vehicle, and ordered the Head of Chancery to demand that they leave at once.
Eric Whittaker put his head round the door and cut short Sam’s efforts to write a situation report for London. ‘Do be a dear and go and tell them that they aren’t really welcome. H.E. feels a point must be made and you’re so much better with the languages than anyone else.’
‘You mean he asked for me by name? How flattering.’
‘Not exactly. But you did seem the perfect man for the job.’
So Sam went down into the courtyard, duly had the gates opened and stepped out from the enclave of Britishness onto the cobblestones of the Malá Strana. Under the iron gaze of Russian guns he walked down the cul-de-sac to the armoured car.
There were two soldiers sitting on top of the vehicle. They wore no identifying insignia and neither did their vehicle, but it was plain enough what they were.
‘Chto zdes’ proiskhodit?’ he asked.
They showed no surprise at being addressed in their own language, just watched him with a gaze as indifferent as the stare of the assault rifles they levelled at him. Like a puppet appearing on stage, a grim-faced official from the interior ministry came round the vehicle. What did the Englishman want?
The Englishman smiled. He wanted to know what was going on here. It appeared that the embassy was under some kind of siege by the Russian army, and Her Majesty’s ambassador would like to see matters revert to how they had been before. It was the duty of the Czechoslovak authorities to protect diplomatic premises in their country.
The official didn’t smile back, for this was plainly not a smiling matter. The fraternal allies were here to protect the embassy from counter-revolutionary troublemakers.
‘But there are no counter-revolutionary troublemakers,’ Sam said, looking round as though curious to see if counter-revolutionary troublemakers were skulking around the nearest corner.
‘That shows how efficient our fraternal allies are.’
It sounded like the punchline to a joke. There followed a moment of stasis, each waiting for the other to make the next move. Sam offered a cigarette and waited for the moment of temptation – he could see it in the other man’s eyes – to pass and the offer to be declined. ‘Look, my ambassador’s on my back,’ he said, in a confidential tone that suggested they both knew what a pain in the arse such senior people could be. ‘Couldn’t you just move round the corner, out of sight? The guards could be here, of course. Just move the vehicle.’
The man’s expression did not change. ‘We have our orders. They’ – he meant the Russians – ‘have their orders. Your ambassador will have to talk to the relevant authority.’
Sam nodded. ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? Who exactly is the relevant authority at the moment?’
He glanced regretfully at the packet of cigarettes, slipped it back into his pocket and turned to walk back to the relative security of Her Majesty’s domain, all the while conscious of eyes and assault rifles levelled at him. Back inside the fortress of the British embassy he looked in at Whittaker’s office. ‘The Russians aren’t going anywhere for the moment, Eric. Sorry about that.’
Whittaker looked resigned. ‘We made the effort.’
Sam went back to his own desk. Through the window he could see smoke rising over the Old Town, in the area of Wenceslas Square. That’s where the radio reports were originating, in the street behind the National Museum, with the sound of gunfire coming across the transmission as background to the announcer’s voice. Was Lenka there? The agony of uncertainty, of hope pitched against likelihood. She’d be there, in the thick of things. He tried to recall the moment of her leaving. How had the mood been? What had been said? Not just the words but the emotions that informed them. But memory was a deceptive thing, an unreliable witness.
He picked up the phone again and rang the flat. The two guests sounded more or less all right. They wanted to know what was going on but he couldn’t give them much information. The Red Army is occupying the city. That was about it. And what should they do? Just sit tight.
He put the phone down and went back to drafting the report for Eric to send to London. It was a chaos of changing news and unconfirmed rumour. One of his contacts said Dubček and his lieutenants had been arrested. Another report even said they’d already been spirited out of the country. Yet the National Assembly was in continuous session and the radio was broadcasting Dubček’s words appealing for people to go to work as normal. And the president? The old man, silver-haired and pink-faced, a general who had fought alongside the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, had delivered an address over the radio calling on his fellow citizens to show calm and dignity. ‘A complicated situation has arisen in our country,’ he had told them with magnificent understatement.
Sam came to some sort of conclusion, took the draft report to Whittaker’s office and handed it over. ‘That’s as good as I can manage for now, Eric. If you don’t send it in the next half-hour it’ll be out of date. Now I think I’ll go out for a while, if you don’t mind.’
Whittaker looked startled. ‘Out? But I need you here.’
‘I’ve spent most of the time listening to the radio and the rest trying to ring people who won’t answer the phone. Anyone can do that. I’d be better employed finding out what’s really going on.’
‘Well for God’s sake be careful. We don’t want a diplomatic incident to go with the rest of the mess.’
He walked out of the embassy and down towards the armoured car at the end of the cul-de-sac. Was there a flicker of recognition from the soldiers as he edged past? Probably not. He dropped by his flat to see how the musicians were doing and found them in the sitting room with the television on with the sound turned down, and the radio tuned to the BBC World Service. They had the look of refugees in the middle of a war, sheltering from the bombs, fearful of rape and murder.
‘What’s happening?’ Egorkin asked.
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
Nadia seemed to have been crying. She shook her head in disbelief as images flickered across the television screen of civilians throwing stones at tanks. ‘It is terrible,’ she kept repeating. ‘Just terrible.’
Egorkin said, ‘The phone has been ringing, but I didn’t answer it.’ His expression was anxious, as though he hoped to curry favour.
Sam closed his eyes in something like despair. ‘It might have been important.’
‘But then they might know we’re here.’
Anger flared. Sam almost shouted, almost lost his temper. No one gives a fuck about you now! he almost yelled. Instead he said, ‘You’re right,’ and picked up the phone to dial Jitka’s number. The only lifeline he had. But the phone at the other end just rang and rang in an empty flat that he couldn’t picture.
46
They climb the stairs, out of the noise and confusion and fear of the streets. Somewhere above them a phone is ringing. Is it Jitka’s? But as they pass the floors it stops, and when they reach the flat it is a haven of peace and quiet with only the distant sound of a siren breaking the calm. They close the door behind them and turn the key. Through one of the dormer windows James can see smoke rising over the roofs. He and Ellie don’t discuss what to do. Somehow it has been decided by a kind of communication that operates beneath the level of conscious thought. She begins packing her things away, rolling up her sleeping bag, collecting her stuff from the bathroom, while he rings the embassy and asks to speak to Mr Wareham. In placid tones – the British in a crisis – an embassy voice asks if he is seeking consular advice, in which case he should phone the consulate on—