A Quiet Life(48)
When the door finally opened again, Laura was surprised that it was a woman who entered. She sat down on the other chair and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her bag, but did not offer Laura one. ‘I’m Ada,’ she said. ‘That’s the name you’ll know me by.’ She went on talking, and though Laura was listening carefully to her words, she was also puzzled by her tone. What was it? Irritation? Belligerence? She was explaining that she needed to find out about Laura, to understand the nature of her commitment. She mentioned Edward, and how Laura had threatened his work. The way she put it, it was as though Laura was all at fault. She was older than Laura, severely dressed in a belted grey coat which she did not take off, her hair bobbed. She would have been good-looking, if it hadn’t been for a squint which seemed to set her whole face at an odd angle.
She spoke in a clipped tone, but Laura realised from her voice that she was American, or had spent a great deal of time in America. Laura remained under her interrogation, or so it felt, for some hours. She had to explain exactly what had drawn her to communism, who Florence was, why she had not become a Party member, who her associates in the Party had been and her precise understanding of current Soviet foreign policy. None of her answers seemed to make Ada happy. She would correct Laura from time to time, or make little notes in a book she was holding, in a manner that showed she was not impressed. Once Laura had told her all she could, Ada began to lecture her.
The lecture was all about the nature of secrecy. It was a secrecy, Laura was given to understand, that far surpassed anything Laura could have imagined. It must now encompass every aspect of her life, even in her relationship with Edward. She was told that they should not discuss anything about his work, in case he let slip something that would endanger him if she was questioned. ‘The less you know, the better. Everything you know makes him more vulnerable.’ Laura began to understand the tension Edward had expressed that night in the Savoy. This woman was clearly deeply disappointed in Edward for breaking the rule of secrecy, and deeply suspicious of Laura. She was being seen as a threat, not an asset. Laura began to feel rather sick and tired, as the hours drew on in that stuffy room and Ada went on lecturing her.
At last Ada seemed to be bringing the conversation to a close. She had been chain-smoking through most of their conversation, but finally she ground a cigarette down in the ashtray and did not light another. ‘I will report on this meeting. We will find out the response in time. Until we do find out the response, you are not to see Edward.’
Laura said nothing, but nodded.
Ada found her passive response unsatisfactory, and was stirred again to lecture her. ‘Do you understand what you have taken on? Do you understand what would happen if Edward’s work was discovered?’ Edward had also spoken of the penalty, and Laura said she supposed she did know, but Ada felt the need to spell it out. ‘Life or death,’ she said. Laura did not know how to respond to show that she understood. She simply widened her eyes, saying ‘I know,’ and suddenly she realised how hopelessly na?ve she must seem to this woman, who had passed through God knows what struggles to land up in London handling this precious traitor, and here came this little ignoramus, this stupid girlfriend, threatening everything.
The shock of seeing herself through Ada’s eyes made Laura want to stand up and tell her she wasn’t like that at all, she was faithful and sure. But she knew it would be no good. She pursed her lips and looked at the carpet, and wished the interrogation would come to an end.
Ada was speaking now about how Laura would know whether the report of the meeting had been received in Moscow and what the response was. She must return to the shop, using the same code words, in a fortnight. If she was told the cigars would be in soon, she must return the following fortnight, and so on, for the next two months. Laura, desperate to go, repeated the instructions back to her, and only then did Ada nod her out of the room. The shop was closed. The Italian man unlocked the door for her without speaking, and she went out into the street whose normality seemed exaggerated after the strangeness of the scene she had just passed through.
The days dragged slowly over the next fortnight. Laura could not quite believe that she and Edward had been forbidden from seeing one another, but she was so keen to prove that she could be trusted that she would not have thought of trying to get in touch with him. Cut off from Florence as well, she spent a lot of time in the flat, bored and restless. She threw away all the political books and pamphlets that Florence had lent her, and went back to reading magazines and the paperback novels that Winifred left around.
As it happened, Laura had to return only once to the tobacco shop. This time she had to wait for a while before it was clear, pretending to look along the rows of pipes and cigar boxes. And when she was ushered through to the backroom, there was somebody already waiting, but it was not Ada. It was a short man with receding dark hair, wearing a worn grey suit, who introduced himself as Stefan.
Perhaps the words he spoke were no more friendly than Ada’s had been. But somehow, Laura thought, there was not the same hostility. He went through again the need for extreme secrecy, and asked a couple of other questions about her feelings about the Soviet line on the war, but that was all. She did not mention her sense of confusion, but repeated Edward’s phrases, and found as she did so she longed for the certainties she had found in the old communist pamphlets before the war. He told her that she would not now have to come back at any time unless she received a telephone call from a John Adams, in which case she should return the first Saturday after the call, using the same words as before. ‘But we should have no need to meet,’ he finished shortly. ‘That is just a back-up.’