Read Archangel for Free Online Page B

in New York. But somehow the books he was supposed to write had not quite materialised. And besides, he never could resist the lure of Moscow. Even now, sitting on a stale bus in the Wednesday rush-hour, he could feel the charge of history beyond the muddy glass: in the dark and renamed streets, the vast apartment blocks, the toppled statues. It was stronger here than anywhere he knew; stronger even than in Berlin. That was what always drew him back to Moscow - the way history hung in the air between the blackened buildings like sulphur after a lightning-strike.
    'You think you know it all about Comrade Stalin, don't you boy? Well, let me tel/you: you don't know fuck.'
    Kelso had already delivered his short paper.,,on Stalin and the archives, at the end of the previous day: delivered it in his trademark style - without notes, with one hand in his pocket, extempore, provocative. His Russian hosts had looked gratifyingly shifty. A couple of people had even walked out. So, all in all, a triumph. Afterwards, finding himself predictably alone, he had decided to walk back to the Ukraina. It was a long walk, and it was getting dark, but he needed the air. And at some point -he couldn't remember where: maybe it was in one of the back streets behind the Institute, or maybe it was later, along the Noviy Arbat - but at some point he had realised he was being followed. It was nothing tangible, just a fleeting impression of something seen too often - the flash of a coat, perhaps, or the shape of a head - but Kelso had been in Moscow often enough in the bad old days to know that you were seldom wrong about these things. You always knew if a film was out of synch, however fractionally; you always knew if someone fancied you, however improbably; and you always knew when someone was on your tail.
    He had just stepped into his hotel room and was contemplating some primary research in the mini-bar when the front desk had called up to say there was a man in the lobby who wanted to see him. Who? He wouldn't give his name, sir. But he was most insistent and he wouldn't leave. So Kelso had gone down, reluctantly, and found Papu Rapava sitting on one of the Ukraina's imitation leather sofas, staring straight ahead, in his papery blue suit, his wrists and ankles sticking out as thin as broomsticks.
    'You think you know it all about Comrade Stalin, don't you, boy... ?'Those had been his opening words.
    And that was the moment that Kelso had realised where he had first seen the old man: at the symposium, in the front row of the public seats, listening intently to the simultaneous translation over his headphones, muttering in violent disagreement at any hostile mention of J. V. Stalin.
    Who are you? thought Kelso, staring out of the grimy window. Fantasist? Con man? The answer to a prayer?
     
    THE symposium was only scheduled to last one more day -for which relief, in Kelso's view, much thanks. It was being held in the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, an orthodox temple of grey concrete, consecrated in the Brezhnev years, with Marx, Engels and Lenin in gigantic bas-relief above the pillared entrance. The ground floor had been leased to a private bank, since gone bust, which added to the air of dereliction.
    On the opposite side of the street, watched by a couple of bored-looking militia men, a small demonstration was in progress - maybe a hundred people, mostly elderly, but with a few youths in black berets and leather jackets. It was the usual mixture of fanatics and grudge-holders - Marxists, nationalists, anti-semites. Crimson flags bearing the hammer and sickle hung beside black flags embroidered with the tsarist eagle. One old lady carried a picture of Stalin; another sold cassettes of SS marching songs. An elderly man with an umbrella held over him was addressing the crowd through a bullhorn, his voice a distorted, metallic rant. Stewards were handing out a free newspaper called Aurora.
    'Take no notice,' instructed Olga Komarova, standing up beside