The Man Who Was Saturday

He said: ‘How’s Harry?’

Jessel said: ‘Whose party was it?’

‘A girl at the Institute.’

‘The new girl who looks after the files on the defectors?’

Calder nodded. ‘Harry?’

‘He’s fine. He’s got a sailboat and he’s hoping to take part in the Charles River Regatta in October.’

‘He isn’t sailing now, is he? It must be cold.’

‘It’s Boston,’ Jessel said. ‘He had a little accident the other day.’

Alarm spurted like acid. ‘How little?’

‘Very. He fell off his bicycle and grazed his knee.’

So why tell me? All part of the process, Calder assumed.

‘He’s still a Bruins freak of course,’ Jessel said, moving a bishop.

Still? Harry was only eight. ‘And Ruth?’

‘Where was the party?’

Calder gave him the address on Leningradsky.

‘Guests?’

‘Her mother and father were there.’

‘Step-father,’ Jessel corrected him. ‘Ruth’s finally passed all her exams and got a job teaching handicapped children.’

Who would have thought it? Ruth, one of the flowers of Bostonian society, arrogance her birthright. He saw her shopping in Newbury Street: the street seemed to belong to her.

Jessel said: ‘I presume this girl is stukachi.’

‘An informer? If she catalogues our lives she must be. One in twelve Soviet citizens are supposed to be KGB contacts, aren’t they? But I should think she’s innocent enough. You know, merely passing on updated material to her superiors.’

‘She’s into Women’s Lib isn’t she?’

‘You seem to know a lot about her.’

‘Sure, I do my homework.’

Calder knew that Jessel had contacts other than himself inside the Institute.

Jessel said: ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd? You know, that a dissident of sorts should be employed there?’ He relit his pipe and blew smoke across the chess board; it smelled of autumn.

‘Ours not to reason why,’ Calder said.

Jessel stroked his long, sparse hair. ‘Aren’t you going to ask about your parents?’

Calder asked; he doubted whether they ever asked about him. His mother, perhaps.

‘Your mother’s fine. Your father had a stroke but he’s going to be okay. Maybe a little speech impediment.’

Calder found it difficult to imagine his father’s diction impaired. That magisterial voice saying grace before lunch – Calder had never quite forgiven God for semolina pudding.

‘How’s my mother taking it?’

‘Bravely. As always. It’s your move.’

Calder stayed with Chigorin. Pawn to bishop four.

Somewhere a clock chimed. He stood up and walked to the window. The floodlights had been switched off but he could see the bluish radiance of the street lights on Gorky Park. He closed the curtains.

Jessel was frowning at the board. What was bothering him about Calder’s play was his uncharacteristic conformity: it upset his own. Calder wondered how the party on Lenin-gradsky was progressing. For the first time he had been accepted by Russians, but only because his presence had been a lie.

Jessel said: ‘Is there still a lot of speculation about Kreiber?’

‘The rumours have become facts. He committed suicide, he was dumped beneath the ice after being knifed in his apartment, he was a double – or should it be triple – agent, a rapist, a homosexual ….’

‘He was a sad sack, ‘Jessel said, not quite touching his queen’s pawn. ‘So the Twilight Brigade is in disarray?’

‘Alarm bells have been sounded, sure. If Kreiber was murdered then the comrades were clumsier than usual. That blood on the edge of the ice ….’

‘And you, do you think he was killed?’

Calder shrugged. ‘It’s your move.’

‘Do you anticipate any more deaths? No one thinking of trying to get an exit visa?’

‘You must be kidding, ‘Calder said.

‘Not even figuratively? You know, retracing their footsteps.’

‘You think they’d tell me if they were? If they confided in anyone it would be Dalby.’

‘Alas, he’s not my pigeon.’ Jessel moved. P-Q4 as Calder knew he would.

Calder sat down and tried to concentrate but the firewater had frozen in his veins and his head was full of ice. He looked at Jessel who was examining his pipe the way pipe-smokers do, as if he had only just discovered it protruding from his mouth. ‘I quit,’ Calder said.

Jessel appeared mildly surprised; disconcerted never. ‘You really put one on, didn’t you?’ His speech was a curious mixture of slang and protocol English.

‘Do you mind if I go to bed?’