Читать книгу Behind the Curtain - Philip Gibbs - Страница 14

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Lucy had a private life of her own in Moscow of which Vladimir only knew by what she told him. For a time she seemed happy with some new friends she had made. Some of them were English and employed, she said, by the British Trade Mission which had set up an office in Moscow. The head of it was an Englishman named Mr. Smithers. He was really a kind of Ambassador.

“What is an Ambassador?” asked Vladimir.

Lucy explained that he was a man who was sent out by any government to a foreign country from which he sent back reports about every old thing, such as trade and politics.

“A spy, do you mean, Mother?” asked Vladimir.

Lucy laughed at this question as she often laughed at Vladimir’s questions, somewhat to his annoyance.

“Good heavens, no, my dear David! An Ambassador is a most honourable man. It’s one of the best jobs a man can have in England. The King thinks a lot of his Ambassadors.”

“Then why doesn’t Mr. Smithers call himself an Ambassador, if it’s so honourable?”

“Well, that’s difficult to explain,” said Lucy after a moment’s hesitation. Perhaps she didn’t know the right answer. “I daresay it’s because England doesn’t want to recognize Communist Russia.”

“That seems very silly!” exclaimed Vladimir. “Anybody who came to see us would recognize us afterwards.”

Lucy laughed again as though he had said something funny.

“Well, we’ll leave it at that, David. Anyhow Mr. Smithers is a very nice gentleman and he has some charming young Englishmen serving under him. If I knew typewriting I might get a job there translating from English into Russian and the other way about.”

“Thank goodness you can’t do typewriting,” said Vladimir. “You might get too much in with the English and then I should lose you.”

“Some friends of mine have gone there,” she told him. “They learnt English from their governesses before the war.”

“Then they must be aristocrats or bourjoi,” said Vladimir scornfully. “A rotten crowd.”

Lucy was vexed and even angry.

“If you say that I shall smack you, David. They’re friends of mine, and they are the only nice people I know. Thank goodness these jobs have dragged them out of misery. They get something to eat. They’re treated like human beings. They have quite a little fun sometimes.”

“What kind of fun?” asked Vladimir curiously.

Lucy smiled a secret smile.

“Perhaps I had better not tell you,” she said mysteriously.

But Lucy could not keep it back from David to whom she told most things.

“I’ve been dancing,” she said one day.

“Dancing?” he asked, much astonished. “In the ballet?”

She laughed and shook her head.

“No, with some of the English gentlemen belonging to the Trade Mission. They’re learning the new dances. They’re very funny, especially when nobody knows how to dance them. One of the young men goes round with a chair and gives demonstrations. There’s one dance called the Fox Trot. It’s most amusing. I did pretty well at it with a nice young Englishman. He said I had a natural instinct for dancing.”

She must have told Michael about this dancing, for one evening they had a quarrel about it.

“I don’t like you dancing with that crowd,” he said. “Some of them belong to the old aristocracy. It’s dangerous to associate with them.”

“They’re my friends,” said Lucy. “They were once your friends. Before you went Red. You used to know Nicolai Satchev, and young Korepanov and Serge Mazyrenko. I remember how you liked Nicolai Satchev.”

“They will lead you into trouble,” said Michael who looked deeply embarrassed at the mention of these names. “The police will keep a dossier about all the people who go to that dancing class or meet your English friends.”

“I don’t mind!” said Lucy carelessly. “I enjoy it now.”

“It’s very dangerous,” said Michael anxiously. “It fills me with fear for you. Our Secret Police do not like anyone who associates with foreigners.”

“They’re not foreigners,” answered Lucy hotly. “They’re my countrymen and my Russian friends.”

“I don’t like it,” said Michael. “I beg of you not to go among them again. I command you not to.”

“You command me?” exclaimed Lucy. She gave a little peal of laughter. “I’m not a Russian serf, Michael. You’re not a kommissar of police on morals.”

Michael spoke with deep distress.

“I implore you to avoid those people. I am certain it may lead to very grave trouble for you.”

Lucy didn’t seem to mind about the trouble. Perhaps it was because she was lonely now that Vladimir went to school in the mornings and afternoons.

“I’m lonely without you, David,” she told him several times. “I must amuse myself somehow.”

Vladimir thought that over in his mind.