Writing for Fun
January 2018
It’s not what it Seems - Bob Wendelkin
The curtain began to close as the orchestra played the final notes of the ballet. Mike Barrington looked at his watch and saw that there was plenty of time to get to the hotel and collect his luggage and get to the station to catch the overnight train to Moscow from St. Petersburg.
Mike was enjoying a holiday in Russia. He was treating himself to go to the Kirov Ballet and then on to Moscow to see the Bolshoi. He had loved the ballet ever since he had fallen in love and married a ballerina but she had been killed in an accident. They always promised one another that they would go to Russia to see the greatest Corp de Ballets in the world, the Kirov and the Bolshoi. So this journey was somehow to keep faith with her as well as to satisfy his own love.
The Prima Ballerina had just received her bouquet of flowers and the conductor had received his applause, the final curtain had fallen. Mike made his way out of the Mariinsky Theatre and caught a taxi to his hotel. He asked the driver to wait while he went inside to pick up his luggage. A few minutes later he emerged from the hotel and the driver took him to the station.
The hotel had arranged his tickets so all he had to do when he got to the station was to find the carriage where he was to sleep. Slowly he walked along the train until he saw the carriage to which he had been assigned. The attendant helped him into the carriage with his luggage and took him to his compartment. He wondered who he would be sharing this compartment for the night. He hoped that whoever it was they didn’t snore.
Mike settled down he looked at his watch and saw that the train should pull out in about half an hour. He thought to himself I wonder if the dinning compartment was open at this time of night. He looked out of the compartment and saw the attendant, luckily he spoke a little English, and he told him all that he could get at this time of night was some tea, coffee and a few sandwiches.
He went down a few carriages and found the tea bar and bought his coffee and a few biscuits and then he made his way back to the compartment. When he opened the door he found that his travel companion had arrived and had settled himself into one of the corners and already had his eyes closed that he opened when Mike entered the compartment.
From what Mike could tell this man was quite old he must be in his eighties if not older. He was smartly dressed, Mike nodded to him; he didn’t speak because he thought that a man of his age was very unlikely to speak any English. It was not as it seemed.
The old man opened his mouth.
‘You’re English, aren’t you?’ he said with only a very slight trace of a foreign accent.
‘Yes, how do you know?’ asked Mike in reply.
‘Oh! That’s easy I asked the attendant he told me that an Englishman was on the train so I asked if I could be put into your compartment.’
‘You speak very good English,’ said Mike.
‘Thank you, I had a lot of practice as I lived in England for quite a long time,’ said the man.
‘Please call me Mike, we might as well introduce ourselves as we will be sharing this compartment for some time,’ said Mike.
‘My name is Vasily Gordov,’ replied to old man.
‘Where did you learn to speak such good English Mr Gordov?’ asked Mike.
‘Please call me Vasily. Many years ago just before the revolution my family were quite well off. They actually employed an Irish nanny to look after us,’ replied Vasily.
‘Did your family survive the revolution? I know that many people didn’t survive Stalin’s purges,’ said Mike.
‘In those days you had to be very cunning and perhaps two faced and the ability to keep one’s head down but my family were very lucky and my father, a Doctor, had skills and knowledge that was very useful to mother Russia, so we survived,’ replied Vasily.
‘Didn’t your old nanny want to return to Ireland, if there was so much chaos in Russia,’ asked Mike.
‘Not her she was a tough old lady; nothing was going to separate her from her charges. It was she who taught us how to speak English, albeit with an Irish accent, of course being Irish she was not too fond of the English with their Black and Tans,’ replied Vasily with a slight chuckle in his voice as he remembered his old nanny.
Just as he finished speaking the train gave a small lurch and started to pull out of the station on its way to Moscow.
‘Here we go.’
‘Where were you during the war?’ asked Mike.
‘In Stalingrad. That, my friend, was not good for us or the Germans we all suffered just because some egomaniac thought Russians were an inferior race and he wanted to rule the world,’ said Vasily.
‘How did you survive the war, as many Russian soldiers seemed to have been used as cannon fodder,’ asked Mike.
‘I was lucky and I had something the party wanted. I could speak and write English. You were our nominal allies in those days. I was pulled out of the battle and sent to a place where we could monitor the radio transmissions of the Americans and the British. Comrade Stalin never trusted the West, he even mistrusted, at the beginning, the intelligence that the British gave him about the invasion by the Germans, he thought it was a trick by the west to bring Russia into the war,’ said Vasily.
‘After the War I actually ended up in London.’ continued Vasily.
‘How did you get to London?’ asked Mike.
‘That my friend is a long story that could take some time to tell,’ replied Vasily.
‘Well for the next few hours I’m not going anywhere,’ said Mike.
‘To work in the London Embassy in the position I occupied you had to be a member of the KGB, and the way I was recruited was interesting and frightening,’ said Vasily.
‘I had been summoned to Moscow to carry out some translations. I was walking to the Ministry when a lorry stopped and men got out and grabbed me.’
‘Did you think you were going to end up in prison or worse?’ asked Mike.
‘In those days it was the worse that one could expect but in fact I had just volunteered or been recruited to the KGB,’ answered Vasily.
‘Were you a spy?’ asked Mike.
‘No not all KGB people are involved in spying,’ replied Vasily.
‘Can you tell me what you did without having to shoot me?’ asked Mike.
‘Seeing it happened a long time ago I think that I can tell you without you risking your life,’ answered Vasily with a grin.
Vasily closed his eyes the better to think of the past, then he started to tell his story.
‘My job in London wasn’t to spy but really try to spoil your country. In any war the winner is the one who still has a working production line to make the weapons, destroy the production lines and you win the war,’ said Vasily.
‘How?’ asked Mike.
‘You must remember it was the time of the Cold War. I used the do gooders, those people who only think in the short term, I encouraged them giving them money to continue their activities.
‘I particularly supported people like the Ban The Bomb merchant and the Strikers, a few pounds here, a few pounds there. Nice long marches and strikes must have distracted the Government of the day,’ continued Vasily.
‘As I said, manufacturing is important so I did my best to destroy UK’s manufacturing capacity. I supported the strikes that happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It got to the stage that you even had four day weeks and power cuts. It was quite easy really just play to peoples’ prejudices. I helped to close the London Docks.’
‘But they would have closed because ships were getting too big to go up to London,’ said Mike.
‘True, but if I could cause problems I might dissuade the investors in any new docks.
‘The BBC was a Prime target to try to get free speech restricted. I read a book called 1984 in which New Speak language was introduced to make it difficult for people to express themselves and hence prevent any revolution. I also tried to support the number of Lawyers as they are basically non-productive parasites.’
All through the night Vasily continued to tell of how he encouraged those people who for the best of intentions were actually destroying the country. Strikes, riots, free speech, crime and punishment, unrestricted immigration were all on his list.
Finally after a long night they arrived in Moscow.
‘I know I acted during the cold war, but how is your country now?’ asked Vasily.