The Russia House

At Lupus Books they were directed to the coffee room, where our Chairman Himself, the ncwly-knightcd Sir Peter Oliphant, had upstaged even the Russians by reserving a table. A handwritten notice in both languages confirmed his triumph. The flags of Britain and the Soviet Union warned off doubters. Flanked by interpreters and high officials, Sir Peter was dilating on the many advantages to the Soviet Union of subsidising his generous purchases from them.

'It's the Earl!' cried Barley, handing him an envelope. 'Where's the coronet?'

With scarcely a flicker of his dusty eyelids, the great man continued his dissertation.

At the Israeli stand an armed peace reigned. The dark queue was orderly but mute. Boys in jeans and sneakers lounged against the walls. Lev Abramovitz was whitehaired and overpoweringly tall. He had served in the Irish Guards.

'Lev. How's Zion?'

'Maybe we're wi

And from Israel, with Barley leading at a canter, they pounded across the concourse to the Pavilion of Peace, Progress and Goodwill, where there could no longer be any doubt of the massive historical upheaval taking place, or of who was doing the heaving.

Every ba

'How much more of this shit do we have to take, Barley?' a blond-faced Moscow publisher demanded sotto voce as they went by. 'When will they start repressing us again to make us comfortable? If our past's a lie, who's to say our future isn't a lie as well?'

They continued along the stands, Barley leading, Barley greeting, Wicklow following.

'Joseph! Great to see you! Envelope for you. Don't eat it all at once.'

'Barley! My friend! Didn't they give you my message? Maybe I didn't leave one.'

'Yuri. Great to see you! Envelope for you.'

'Come and drink tonight, Barley! Sasha is coming, so is Rosa. Rudi's giving a concert tomorrow so he wants to stay sober. You heard about the writers they let out? Listen. it's Potemkin village stuff. They let them out, they give them a few meals, show them off and throw them back inside till next year. Come over here, I got to sell you a couple qf books to a

At first Wicklow didn't even realise they had arrived at their destination. He saw a Roman standard hung with faded flags and some gold lettering stitched on red bunting. He heard Barley's yell of 'Katya, where are you?' But nothing said who owned the stand and probably that was a part of the display that hadn't arrived. He saw the usual unreadable books on agricultural development in the Ukraine and the traditional dances of Georgia expiring on their shelves under the strain of previous exhibitions. He saw the usual half-dozen broad-hipped women standing around as if they were waiting for a train, and a small unshaven fellow clutching his cigarette in front of him like a conjuror's wand, scowling at Barley's namctag.

Nasayan , Wicklow read in return. Grigory Tigranovich. Senior Editor, October Publishing .

'You are looking for Miss Katya Orlova, I think,' Nasayan told Barley in English, holding his cigarette still higher as if to get a clearer look at his visitor.

'I'll say I am!' Barley replied with enthusiasm, and a couple of the women smiled.

A grin of frightful courtesy had spread over Nasayan's face. With a flourish of his cigarette he stepped aside and Wicklow recognised Katya's back as she talked with two very small Asians whom he took to be Burmese. Then an instinct made her turn and she caught sight of Barley first, then Wicklow, then Barley again, while a splendid smile lit her face.

'Katya. Fantastic,' said Barley shyly. 'How are the kids? Did they survive?'

'Oh thank you, they are very well!'

Watched by Nasayan and his ladies, as well as by Wicklow, Barley handed her an invitation to the great glasnost launch party of Potomac & Blair.

'Oh by the way, I may skip some of the gay whirl tonight,' Barley remarked as they made their way back to the Western pavilion. 'You and Jack and Mary Lou will have to manage on your own. I'm dining with a beautiful lady.'

'Anyone we know?' Wicklow asked. They both laughed. It was a su

She's fine, Barley was thinking contentedly. If something is happening, it hasn't happened to her yet.

How much did we know or guess, any of us, of Barley's feelings towards Katya? In a case so scrupulously monitored and controlled, the question of love received diffident handling.

Wicklow, diligently promiscuous in his own life, was puritanical about Barley's. Perhaps as a young man he still could not take seriously the notion of an older passion. For Wicklow, Barley was merely infatuated, which he usually was anyway. People of Barley's age were not in love.

Henziger, who was Barley's rough contemporary, regarded sex as an unsung perquisite of the secret life, and took it for granted that a square-shooter like Barley would put his body where his duty lay. Like Wicklow, but for different reasons, he found nothing exceptional in Barley's tender feelings towards Katya and operationally much to recommend them.

And in London? There was no sharply defined view. On the island Brady had said a mouthful, but Brady's assault had been repelled and his advice with it.

And Ned? Ned had a wife as soldierly as himself, and as unawakened. Name me a joe in a bad country, Ned liked to say with a rueful smile, who doesn't fall for a pretty face if she's on his side against the world.

And Bob, Sheriton andjoh

And Palfrey: what was old Palfrey thinking - hurrying up to Grosvenor Square in any spare hour and, if he couldn't make it, phoning Ned to ask, 'How's the boy?'

Palfrey was thinking about Ha

I was thinking about the island too. About the evening Barley and I had stood on the shingle beach watching the fog-bank roll at us across the grey Atlantic.

'They'd never get her out, would they?' Barley said. 'Not if things went wrong.'

I didn't answer and I don't think he expected me to, but he was right. She was a thoroughbred Soviet national and she had committed a thoroughbred Soviet crime. She was nowhere near the swappable class.

'Anyway, she'd never leave her children,' he said, confirming his own doubts.

We watched the sea for a while, his eyes on Katya and mine on Ha

'Raymond Chandler!' Uncle Matvey yelled from his chair, over the clamour of neighbours' television sets.

'Terrific,' Barley said.

'Agatha Christie!'

'Ah well, now, Agatha .'

'Dashiel Hammett! Dorothy Sayers. Josephine Tey.'

Barley sat on the sofa where Katya had settled him. The living room was tiny. The span of his arms could have bridged the width of it. A glass-fronted corner cupboard contained the family treasures. Katya had already given him the tour of them. The pottery mugs, made by a friend for her wedding, their medallions portraying the bride and groom. The Leningrad coffee set, no longer complete, that had belonged to the lady in the wood frame on the top shelf. The old sepia photograph of a Tolstoyan couple, the Man bearded and resolute in his stiff white collar, the girl in her bo

'Matvey is passionate for English detective fiction,'Katya called from the kitchen, where she had last things to do.

'Me too,' said Barley untruthfully.

'He is telling you it was not permitted under the Czars. They would never have tolerated such an intrusion into their police system. Do you have vodka? No more for Matvey, please. You must take some food. We are not alcoholics like you Westerners. We do not drink without food.'

Under the pretext of examining her books, Barley stepped into the tiny passage from where he could see her. Jack London, Hemingway and Joyce, Dreiser and John Fowles. Heine, Remarque and Rilke. The twins were in the bathroom chattering. He gazed at her through the open kitchen door. Her gestures had an air of timeless and deliberate delay. She's become a Russian again, he thought. When something works, she's grateful. When it doesn't work, it's life. From the living room Matvey was still talking gaily.

'What's he saying now?' Barley asked.

'He is talking about the siege.'

'I love you.'

'The Leningraders refused to accept that they were beaten.' She was preparing cakes of liver on rice. Her hands kept still a moment, then went on-with their work. 'Shostakovich still composed even if the ink froze in his inkwell. The novelists went on writing, you could hear a chapter of a new novel any week if you knew the right cellars to go to.'

'I love you,' he repeated. 'All my failures were preparations for meeting you. Fact.'

She breathed out sharply and they both fell silent, for a moment deaf to Matvcy'sjolly monologue from the sitting room, and to the sounds of splashing from the bathroom.

'What else does he say?' Barley asked.

'Barley – ' she protested.

'Please. Tell me what he's saying.'