Our Woman in Moscow(70)
We reach the car. One of the men opens the back door. Fox puts his hand to the small of my back and ushers me inside, then swings around to the other side and slides in beside me.
As we hurtle into Moscow, I can’t tear my eyes from the scenes around me—the road signs with their strange letters—the building, building everywhere—gray, featureless blocks that seem to merge into each other, so you can’t tell one from another. I remember reading the desperate newspaper dispatches from the Battle of Moscow, ten years earlier—how the brutal cold and the brutal fighting nearly broke both armies, Soviet and German, and yet you wouldn’t ever imagine all this annihilation to see it now. Life goes on—the country rebuilds in ambitious, gigantic projects that rise from the ancient earth.
We don’t say much, just hold hands and look out the windows. I glimpse people in flashes—walking down sidewalks, queuing up outside shops, sitting on benches to scatter crumbs for pigeons. When the car turns a corner and scoots to a stop outside the fa?ade of an enormous fin de siècle building, I have to shake myself free of a trance.
To stand before the National Hotel in Moscow, you would never imagine you had traveled deep inside the beating heart of world communism. You would think yourself transported to maybe Paris before the calamity of war, everything that was decadent and cosmopolitan, chock-full of the aristocratic and the celebrated and the just plain rich—just picture the shining Packard limousines and the furs, the glimpses of ankles in white stockings, the black silk top hats and the swirling capes, all thronging in and out of these revolving doors, staring between the curtains of these pedimented windows. Inside the lobby, a man’s waiting for us. Like the men at the airport, he wears a dark suit. He seems about forty years old, starting to bald, medium height and stocky. His wide, Slavic face stretches to an expression of welcome.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fox!” he exclaims, in supple English. He steps forward and holds out his hand. We perform the rituals. “My name is Yvgeny Kedrov, of Soviet Foreign Office. On behalf of Soviet people, I welcome you to Moscow.”
I mumble some thanks and noises of gratitude, although I’m frankly distracted by the gigantic classical statue next to me, one of four holding up the walls. I don’t object on principle to the mere strips of marble fabric protecting the modesty of these figures—on the contrary, I am all in favor of the human form—but the fellow’s scarcely swathed stone privates hover just above my head.
I realize Mr. Kedrov is attempting to address me.
“Your journey, was it comfortable?” he inquires.
“Charming.”
“Yes, thank you,” Fox says. “But I’m afraid my wife is exhausted. I don’t suppose we could rest for an hour or two before we start all our engagements?”
“Yes, of course. Your room is prepared. We have taken liberty of providing some refreshment for you. Won’t you follow me, please?”
It seems odd to head straight up to a hotel room without checking in, but Fox falls right in step behind Mr. Kedrov and pulls me with him. Behind us, the men carry our suitcases discreetly to the service elevator, where—Fox has already warned me—they’ll be carefully searched and repacked before being brought to our room. I hope they hurry. My dress is damp with sweat, and I can’t wait to change clothes.
Now, I haven’t asked who’s paying for our accommodation—the Soviet taxpayer, the US taxpayer, or we Foxes ourselves—but the bill will surely be monstrous. Kedrov leads us into a suite of parlor and bedroom and opulent bath. The balcony offers a view right over the red turrets of the Kremlin itself, by which I presume they mean to remind us to behave ourselves. I allow Fox to take the full force of Kedrov’s observations and instructions while I wander through the rooms, test the wide, voluptuous bed, examine the wardrobes. I return to Fox and loop my arm through his. I tell him this place reminds me of Paris. (Paris happens to be our code for I need to speak to you alone.)
Instantly Fox’s face takes on an expression of deep concern. “Darling, you look awfully tired. Do you need to lie down?”
I nod, the way I imagine a sweet, exhausted wife would nod, and Kedrov takes the hint and bustles away, but not before bringing the tea service to our attention. He waves his arm to the table before the sofa, where an enamel tray offers teapot and curving, elegant cups and plates stacked with pastry. After he leaves, Fox extracts his arm from mine, motions to his ear then to the four corners of the room, and says, “How are you feeling, darling?”
“Like I could use a nice bath and a rest.”
“Some tea?”
“That would be lovely. I’ll pour so you can have a look around. Where are those bellboys with our luggage?”
“Elevator must be slow,” says Fox. He starts to move around the room, examining walls and objects and windows. I sit on the sofa but I don’t pour any tea. I stare at the pot and the cups and the creamer. Instead of the delicate pale roses and leaves of an English tea service, they’re painted in vivid lapis with gold rims.
I wonder what kind of tea service Iris has. I wonder what she looks like now. I wonder what she’ll say to me, whether she still hates me, whether she wrote that letter in ink or bile. For the first time, I consider why Iris would reach out to me, of all people, when she needed help. What on earth made her think I would answer the summons? Yet I did.