Last Call for Blackford Oakes (31 page)

“(4) Ten minutes before rendezvous, Jutzeler will go to the back entrance of Otto's and lead in the U.S. delegation. That's you, me, an interpreter, and we too have to have one bodyguard—Jutzeler is making a big production of absolute equality, both sides. Grunwald's looking around for a likely guy. There are no U.S. Marines in Vienna, not since the treaty, and that was thirty-two years ago! We'll be seated at a table at the north end. Got that?”

“How big is Otto's?”

“Small. The distance between us and the Russians will be about twenty feet.

“(5) At 1300, Jutzeler will escort in three people, to be seated in the center, opposite the bar. They are Titov, who insists on bringing along his ‘escort, companion, consultant, friend,' Valeria Mikhailov. He's been staying with her. She's a former student of his who defected fifteen years ago and teaches biology. Nobody could object to her being there.

“Then … then the third person. He is a retired judge who, way back then, represented Austria in the long U.S.–USSR deliberations that led to the peace treaty. He established a reputation for rigorous neutrality. He has agreed to sit in and listen to, and rule upon, complaints.”

“Jesus Christ. It sounds like a fucking courtroom. Is there an appellate body standing by?”

“Ease up, Black. The rules are that the Russian representative gets to speak for fifteen minutes to a half hour. Then you speak for the same period of time. Then Kirov—obviously there is instant translation all the way through—can ask you questions, if he wants to. You can ask him questions, he can ask you questions. Both sides can object to questions as irrelevant. Judge Waldstein rules. Titov has the authority to overrule the judge. If he wants to hear your answer to a question by Kirov, you can give that answer, whether Waldstein says it's relevant or not.”

“My, you people were busy in the last twenty-four hours. While you did all that, all I did was pack up, go to the airport, fly to Frankfurt, connect to Vienna, check in at my hotel, and sleep for an hour.”

Gus grinned. “Actually, it came together quickly. Titov wanted to hear both sides and wanted both sides to be free to comment on what had been said. He didn't want this to stretch over an age.

“At the end of the day, unless Titov says, ‘
Halt! No more!,
' we agree to come back the next day, same drill. At some point, Titov turns to you and says: ‘Kindly help me to get re-established in'—read Vienna, the United States, wherever, in the West. Or he turns to Kirov and says, ‘Vladimir Spiridonovich, I am ready to return to Moscow.'

“Both sides are pledged not to interfere with Titov's movements at any time, in whatever direction he travels.”

“That's worth thinking about with another beer.”

“I second that.” Gus hailed the waiter.

Blackford fondled his glass. “We've got one great thing going for us: the prospect of a free life. Kirov has two things going for him: reintegration into an institute Titov founded and into a community he grew up with, and—the blockbuster—reunion with his wife and son.”

CHAPTER 60

The outside of the bierhaus was Alpine-style, its wooden roof slanting down at both ends, the door and shutters a deep green, white wooden frames around the windows. Etched into the wood, and gilded, the words on the sign read, “Otto—1938.”

Well, Blackford thought, sitting in the minivan across the street, maybe the house was built just in time to welcome Adolf Hitler to Vienna. Herr Jutzeler, standing outside the bar, was keeping careful track of the time, and at 1249 he signaled to the van across the street. Blackford opened the front passenger door, Gus and the interpreter, the rear doors. They filed out and followed Jutzeler on the stone walkway around the building to the rear.

Blackford took a deep breath as he felt his way through the narrow passage toward the tables in the main room. The next time he raised his head, he would be looking into the face of Harold Adrian Russell Philby, traitor and woman-killer. He had rehearsed his face to register no reaction to that ugly man.

The room was adequately lit, as it would be in the evening, Blackford surmised, when the company of serious beer drinkers would weave in and out. There were no lit candles, but the yellow lamps at either end of the bar were aglow. And also the lamps at the ends of the room, where the opposing sides' representatives would sit behind the tables, over which green felt had been placed.

The interpreter took the leftmost chair, Blackford the next, Gus on the right. They spread before them notepads and a bound folio. The lamps from behind gave ample light.

It was then that Blackford looked up. Opposite, on the left, was the interpreter. Next to him, Professor Kirov. His hair was gray and tidy, his brow furrowed. He wore glasses and kept his head tilted down toward his notes.

Next to him was Philby. His demeanor was anything but furtive. He looked not directly at Blackford, but immediately above him, as though he were interested in examining a beguiling piece of art. He was a tall, well-built man, his hair a white-gray, matching his suit, and he was wearing a tie that, Blackford thought, was—could it be? The tie of a Cambridge graduate? Was there a special Cambridge tie for a graduate who had betrayed his country? If so, there must be a shortage of them, Blackford reflected: Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt, Cairncross. Were there others?

All eyes turned to the entrance as Jutzeler came in, followed by a visibly nervous Lindbergh Titov, his collar open, his eyeglasses clutched in his hand, his eyes examining everything in the room, left and right. Behind him was Dr. Valeria Mikhailov, a blonde and sturdy northern type, self-assured, wearing black pants, a white blouse, a red vest, and pearl earrings. She was carrying a large handbag, one end of a manila folder protruding. A very small old man was next, perhaps in his early eighties. There was a solemnity in Judge Waldstein's manner that suggested there would be no trifling with him. He was followed by an interpreter.

They took their seats and straightened their papers on the table. Herr Waldstein looked about, as if in search of a gavel. Finding none, he tapped his water glass with his pen, looked down at his notes, and began to speak. “We are here, in this informal, indeed quite novel, convocation, in order to permit Professor Lindbergh Vissarionovich Titov, of the Moscow Radiological Institute, to deliberate his future. He has requested this special forum so that he can fully examine the alternatives. On my left,” he gestured, “are Soviet representatives who will make the case for his return to Moscow. Their identity is known to the U.S. representatives, who will make the case for Professor Titov to stay in the West—whether in Austria or the United States would be for him to decide.

“I note that it was Dr. Titov who asked that the deputation advocating asylum should be made up of Americans, not Austrians. That choice, and others, were his to make.

“We will begin the proceedings following a schedule suggested by Dr. Titov and submitted to both parties. There will be statements, followed by questions and cross-questions. Dr. Titov may interrupt the proceedings at any point. The advocates, however, will need to be recognized by the chair before interrupting to ask questions or make comments.

“We will hear first from Dr. Kirov, a distinguished professor of medicine, and a colleague of Dr. Titov's of long standing. Professor Kirov.”

Kirov fumbled with his chair getting to his feet.

“There is no need to stand. You may speak seated.”

He sat down again.

Kirov recited for a full five minutes the history of his association with Titov, beginning when they were both students at Moscow University, Titov under the special supervision of the renowned Nikolai Sokolov; continuing through their professional careers, Titov's as a researcher with brilliant insights into the world of radiology.

“We, loyal sons of the Soviet Union—my colleague Comrade Martins is not a native of our motherland, but a distinguished Englishman who elected many years ago to leave the West, to find haven and purpose in the Soviet Union. He traveled east, as I hope my old friend Linbek Vissarionovich will, on reflection, resolve to do.

“Dr. Titov has made demands—requests—having to do with professional matters. The Education Ministry has examined these and found many of them reasonable, and if Dr. Titov elects to enumerate these, we are prepared, Your Excellency, to respond to them one by one. I believe my time is up.”

Waldstein: “Dr. Titov, do you have any questions at this point?”

“Well, yes I do. And I say this to my old friend Vladimir Spiridonovich: How would I know that if such reforms as you approved were to go into effect, they would not be rescinded later—a month later, or two years later?”

“Dr. Kirov, would you answer that question?”

Blackford's hand pressed down on Gus's forearm. “No comment,” he directed in a whisper.

Kirov said that the good faith of the commitments of the Ministry of Education and Research would certainly bind everyone involved to such reforms as were agreed upon.

Titov nodded and returned the chair to the judge.

Waldstein looked over to his right. “Mr. Windels, you are taking the floor in place of your senior colleague?”

“Yes, Your Honor, and I shall be speaking in Russian to Dr. Titov.”

Waldstein nodded.

Gus introduced himself as a foreign service officer especially familiar with the Soviet Union, inasmuch as he had been born in the Ukraine and had lived there through his fourteenth year. The United States, said Gus, had a single interest in these proceedings. It was to make it known to Dr. Titov that if he sought asylum, the U.S. government would pronounce him qualified to have it.

He spoke for some minutes on the subject of other Soviet citizens who had undergone experiences similar to Titov's. Not long ago, he said, one such was Svetlana Stalin herself. No one was more familiar than she with life and practices in the Soviet Union. These—life and practices in the Soviet Union—were affairs for the government of the USSR to decide upon, but Dr. Titov might wish to weigh, in his deliberations, the experience and resolutions of Svetlana Stalin, and also of the ballet dancers, the whole lot.

“We are not here, Your Excellency, to argue the merits of life in the West. It is for Dr. Titov exclusively to weigh these. We are of course willing to answer, or try to answer, any questions he puts to us. Our mission is to assure him, quite simply and directly, that if he
chooses
to immigrate, we will honor his decision and act upon his claim for asylum.”

“Professor Kirov, do you have any questions?”

Kirov whispered to Philby.

“I yield to my associate, Comrade Andrei Fyodorovich Martins.”

Philby spoke in measured tones. “Is it not true that in the past, Soviet citizens who have moved to the West have been harassed, isolated, removed from normal life? I give the example of Anatoly Golitsyn. I will quote a letter he wrote to his sister in Odessa, which came to our attention.”

He quoted the letter in which Golitsyn complained that he had been forced to live in a remote corner of New York State and forbidden to travel except with the permission of the FBI.

“Your comments, Mr. Windels?”

Blackford spoke up instead. “Your Excellency, the letter just now quoted by Mr. Martins was written by a defector who feared for his life. It was only with the purpose of protecting him from retaliation by agents of the Soviet government that he was subjected to such restrictions as requiring permission to travel.

“It is so, Your Excellency, in both environments. The British diplomat Harold ‘Kim' Philby published his memoirs in 1968—
My Silent War
, the book was called—and spoke of restrictions on his life in Moscow, including the requirement that he receive permission to travel.

“We should add this point, Dr. Titov”—Blackford was looking now not at Waldstein, but at the bald, attentive man at his side. “Golitsyn and Philby were spies, men engaged in espionage. They changed loyalties, and thus were, hypothetically, special targets of retaliation. You, Dr. Titov, if we have been accurately informed, do not aspire to life as a secret agent. Our understanding is that your intentions would be simply to pursue your profession. Such have been the resolutions, we have been told, of Dr. Valeria Mikhailov, seated at your side, who also sought asylum, and has not been restrained in any way in her life in Austria—again, if we are correctly informed.”

The faces of the Communist delegation were frozen.

There was a pause. Waldstein asked Dr. Titov if he had any questions.

Yes, he said, he did. His wife and son were evidently detained in the Soviet Union. “They were to arrive five days ago. And I have heard nothing from them. I wish to ask Professor Kirov, or Comrade Martins: Why have they not been released?”

The two men spoke to each other in whispers. Kirov was pleading his own views, but clearly Philby prevailed, and Kirov would be the spokesman of the position arrived at.

When Kirov addressed the meeting, he looked away from Titov as he said his words. “The matter of
other
concerns and demands by Dr. Titov necessarily rests as simply one more demand, which cannot be addressed individually, needing to be considered alongside answers to the whole question.” Kirov fixed his eyes on his notes.

Titov addressed the judge. “Your Honor, if my question is not answered satisfactorily, instead of in doublespeak, we cannot proceed with this exercise. I request a suspension of this forum until I have considered the implications of what Vladimir Spiridonovich has said. My old friend Vladimir Spiridonovich.” Titov looked, his eyes moist, down at the floor.

“You have the right to suspend, indeed to terminate, these proceedings. Do you wish to schedule another session?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“We will, then,” the judge looked down at his notepad, “meet tomorrow, at the same time as today, following the same procedures. The order of withdrawal from this chamber will be as specified.”