Last Call for Blackford Oakes (9 page)

“Are you telling me that urologists are turned off by men?”

“Nothing of the sort. I brought the matter up thinking you might be wondering about it.”

“Well I wasn't, though I did wonder that you weren't married. You're not a lesbian, are you?”

Her laugh was wholehearted. “No. Lesbians and homosexuals are disapproved of by the Communist state. I am … quite faithful to the Communist state.”

“What does that actually mean? That you don't conspire against it? That you wouldn't engage in a plot to … assassinate a Soviet leader?”

“It means that I keep my private views private. For instance, from you.”

The banter went on, and two bottles of wine were now empty. Blackford reminded himself, every little while, that he was to answer to the name of “Harry.” That wasn't difficult for him. Years of field work had subjected him before to living under assumed names. “Are you interested in what Harry Doubleday is in Moscow to do?”

“Not really. The usual business, cultural exchange, and you specialize in books. I am aware of the New York publishing firm Doubleday. Are you one of them? One of the Doubleday family?”

“No, actually. A lot of people ask me that question.”

“Not everybody asks you that question. The headwaiter hasn't asked you that question.”

“If he were French-speaking perhaps he would.”

“Vous êtes de la famille Doubleday?”

Again he laughed, marveling at her expressive eyes.

They had been at the restaurant for almost three hours when Ursina said, “I will have to be getting back to my apartment. I brought you here because we are close to a metro station.”

“Where shall we meet for dinner tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I will be in Sevastopol.”

Blackford drew a deep breath. “Then I'll have to find a restaurant in Sevastopol.”

“Sevastopol, dear Harry, is one thousand kilometers away.”

“How are you getting there?”

“I am a part of a medical group.”

“Well, I am quite ill. Can you look after me?”

Her smile was tender. “If you come to Sevastopol, yes, I will treat you.”

“Where?”

“My group is booked at the Omega Sanatorium.”

“I have always wanted to visit Sevastopol.”

He flagged a cab and took her home, and kissed her goodnight.

He reached Gus at just after midnight.

“What brings this call on? Shall we converse in Swahili, or do you just intend a little midnight chat to keep me from going to sleep too early?”

“Gus, I've got to knock off for three or four days. I think there's no problem here, certainly nothing Gorky-related. On the other front, are you anticipating any moves in the next few days?”

“Well, boss. Let me think. No—though if our young friend should visit his professional … masseuse … like, say, tomorrow, she might get some information we've been trying to get.”

“Yes, but whatever he tells her wouldn't trigger action by us, that I can see.”

“No. Where you going, Dad?”

“Actually, I could use a little clerical help here. I want to get to Sevastopol.”

“Sevastopol? Looking after your health?”

“Yes, in a way. Gus, this is very important to me. I want to get there tomorrow.”

“Well, why not? You connect to Sevastopol via Kiev. Do you know where you're staying?”

“I've been looking at the new tourist guide. I want to book at the Sevastopol Hotel.”

“Let me see what I can do. Do you mind when you leave?”

“No.”

“We're talking a couple of hours to Kiev, one more to Sevastopol.”

“I'm in your hands. Can I expect to hear from you by ten?”

“Maybe earlier. I can use the embassy travel office.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, Dad.”

CHAPTER 16

He knew it would be warmer than the icy cold of Moscow, but was surprised to find the air almost balmy. Well, that's what the Crimean peninsula offered—warm air, saltwater bathing, wines, and health. A cab took him to the Sevastopol Hotel, completely rebuilt, he quickly learned, from the wreck of an eight-month siege which, in 1942, ended with Nazi occupation of the entire peninsula, recaptured by the Soviets two years later. He looked down at the local map exhibited at the desk. He found himself trembling with excitement: The Omega Sanatorium was a mere twenty minutes' walk from the hotel, vindicating the guidebook he had devoured last night. He would have a swim, no less, and then walk over to the Omega.

The Black Sea water was brisk, but he swam vigorously, and warmed himself in a few minutes. The lifeguard was reading the morning paper, seated on his platform, bullhorn at hand. But there were no children to call out orders to. That would come later in the season, Blackford reckoned. Swimming in December was for the stoics, though the sun, when he emerged from the water, felt comfortably warm.

In his room, he napped for a half hour. He would set out at five. What would Ursina Chadinov be doing at five? What would she be teaching? He read in the hotel guidebook that the Omega Sanatorium was equipped for electrotherapy, arrafin and ozokerit applications, medical baths, and oil inhalations, all of this in a carefully controlled indoor climate. These therapeutic methods were especially useful for treatment of lung diseases, including asthma, and nervous, cardiovascular, and locomotor diseases. Where does urology come in? He would make it a point not to ask.

Meanwhile, what to wear?

When in doubt in northern latitudes, a blazer and gray flannel pants. In southern latitudes, khaki pants—and, again, a blazer. He took along a knapsack. A history of the Crimea, a novel by P. D. James, and a Russian dictionary. At a shop in the airport he had found perfume. Sally had liked Chanel No. 5. He would not buy that. These would not be moments in which he would welcome any reminder of Sally.

The late afternoon was brilliantly clear, and the warmth hung on. He walked with a view of the sea, by a grove of freshly planted trees, a vineyard on the opposite side of the road. There was a receptionist at the desk, who served also as a telephone operator. Fat, with hair untended, she was not a prime exhibit of the health Omega was concerned to promote. He wished, he said, to speak with Professor Chadinov.

“She is with the Moscow University seminar?”

“Yes.”

“There are no telephones in the rooms. I will get word to her; you can wait here. What is your name?”

“My name is Vorontsov.” That was a little risky, Count Mikhail Vorontsov having, in the nineteenth century, descended on the Crimean coast with his huge wealth, building a palace that stayed on through cycles of war and rebellion as a landmark. Ursina would get it right away; the receptionist would probably not have expressed skepticism if he had given his name as Stalin.

She was wearing a white pantsuit trimmed in yellow, darker than her hair, though not by much.

“Last night I thought miraculously you'd come. Miracles do happen.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead as she spoke. “Though we do not believe in miracles, do we?”

“What do you mean ‘we,' Paleface?”

Walking with her toward the terrace on the sea, he explained the joke. General Custer on the battlefield, lowering his field glasses and addressing his Indian aide, expresses his alarm: “We're surrounded by Indians.” To which the aide replies: “What do you mean ‘we,' Paleface?”

“What's ‘Paleface'?”

He sat her down by the little table. “That's the joke. ‘Paleface' was used in basic Indian vernacular to refer to a white person.”

“I see.” She laughed. “He was conveniently drawing attention to the fact that he was himself an Indian.”

“Correct! And not correct that ‘we' don't believe in miracles. I am … living a miracle right now.”

They thought it over and decided that comfortable though the Omega Sanatorium was, they would have more privacy at the Sevastopol Hotel. “Shall I get a cab?”

“No. I'd enjoy walking. I will go upstairs and find a sweater.”

Blackford sensed how the evening had to end.

Three hours later Blackford lay on his bed, the yellow light from the little picture lamp hanging opposite only just reaching her eyes, closed, her breasts softly shaping the sheet that stretched toward Harry Doubleday. But the light didn't reach his sex and the long, light fingers that enveloped it. His lips came together only enough to say her name. She responded by a further caress. His joy was unbounded, miraculous.

She taught a seminar at nine, participated in one at eleven, felt a collegial obligation to share lunch with her associates at twelve thirty. “And after that, we are all on vacation.”

At two thirty, he drove up in the rented car. Their tour of southern Crimea would begin at Alupka, at the Vorontsov Palace. “My great-great-grandfather's,” Blackford said, his face contorted into gravity. She laughed and said she was pleased that the Bolsheviks hadn't executed all the grandchildren. Two hours later they would marvel, as they took tea in the palace teahouse, at the great garden, and at the library and the art that had made their way through the Crimean War, the Revolution, the White Army holdout, and the Nazi occupation. “And the egalitarian frenzies.”

“There were frenzies, as you say, Harry. But the fact that this palace survives in such splendid shape is a tribute to the care for the patrimony exhibited by the Soviet state. Granted, the original owners were dispossessed. But what that means is that
I
can visit the Vorontsov Palace. Otherwise, only you and other Vorontsovs would have access to it. Harry, have you ever been in Leningrad? If not you must go there, and see the reconstructed palaces, done over twenty years with such meticulous attention, putting together what the Nazis all but destroyed.”

“I have read about Leningrad. Will you escort me around the palaces? Your native soil?”

They drove past the Swallows' Nest. Staring up at the fanciful medieval castle, perched on the cliff towering over the sea, Blackford expressed surprise that William Randolph Hearst hadn't just bought the whole thing and transported it to San Simeon.

Ursina was not up on Hearst, and he explained to her the lengths to which the great acquisitor had gone in his efforts to bring the treasures of the world to his property in California. “San Simeon is on 250,000 acres—about 100,000 hectares—of land.” Looking down at his guidebook, Blackford noted that the Swallows' Nest, which had achieved symbolic status in the Crimea, had been built in 1911–1912. “That's just ten years before Hearst began the San Simeon enterprise. So, really, Hearst and Baron Schneigel, the builder of this, were contemporaries!”

They drove on to Yalta, and walked hand in hand along the huge natural amphitheater surrounded by the mountain ridge that protected the seashore from cold northern winds. Another fashionable resort of the nineteenth century. They sat gratefully, after so much walking, opposite the white Livadia Palace, intended as a residence for the last Russian czar.

There was a string quartet playing “the kind of music I guess the czar would have expected in his palace.”

“Yes. Harry, we must listen to a lot of music together.”

“You generate music … But I am sounding as young as I feel.”

“Do you know, the Crimea is asking for a kind of autonomy. They won't get it. The Ukraine would object first, then Moscow. And when Moscow objects, it is ‘Objection sustained.'”

“Has Moscow ever got in your own way? I mean, other than the … privations of life in … Communist countries?”

“I know what you are saying about privations. I remember the celebration when Rufina—she's my roommate—and I got our own telephone. But of course the whole Communist idea is the commonweal. Well, you know all that. Have they got in my way specifically? Yes. And I burn up when my mind goes on to it. It is the barriers that prevent the circulation of research material and also of researchers who want to exchange information. My own book would have been completed two years earlier if I had had access to what I wanted. It is a standing complaint of the intellectual community.”

“Though unvoiced?”

“Yes.” She was silent for a moment. “Largely unvoiced. The result of generations of suppression. One complaint too many—and it becomes Gulag time, a suspicion of infidelity to the Party. I have a little journal I have not shown to anyone. I have there the times I have tried to get some material, or tried to communicate with some scientist abroad, or get some useful books, and run into state censorship.”

“I hope you will not risk exposure of your journal.”

“I think it safe. And the most sensitive parts of it are in a kind of code that would not be readily detectable as code. Harry, who pays your way? Your expenses? Your extravagances? Do you
have
extravagances? Well, I know you do, because I can smell the perfume I have on. Does USIA keep you in prosperous condition? Or do you have a private fortune?”

“I don't have a private fortune. I have thirty years of savings. Not much, but—I guess, by Communist standards, extortionately large.”

“Do you hate Communism?”

Blackford contracted his stomach, and then said it. “Yes.”

“I like the directness of your language.”

“Here is more directness. Will you marry me?”

CHAPTER 17

That Rufina would finally be marrying Andrei was convenient all the way around. The wedding had been held off for what seemed ages because passport numbers needed to be recorded on marriage licenses, and Andrei's Soviet passport needed reissuing. There were delays, infuriating delays. But such was life in the Soviet Union, and Andrei was a complicated petitioner.

Pending the marriage and the formal move to Andrei's apartment on Uspensky Street, Rufina spent most nights with Andrei. This had the advantage of permitting Blackford and Ursina to pursue their own romance at the apartment on Pozharsky Street. But most nights, however late, Blackford would return to his hotel suite. Doing so avoided questions from his USIA contacts that he would rather not answer.