Topaz - Leon Uris [13]
André turned and sighted down to the far end of the porch where a smallish man was framed in sunlight reflected from the river. He approached, squinting. Boris Kuznetov sat before a palette, dabbing a touch of paint on the canvas. André came up behind him. It was quite a good painting, he thought, of post-Impressionist influence, of the huge willow tree which wept into the river on the opposite bank.
Boris set his brush down, wiped his hand and extended it. “You are Devereaux,” he said in passable French. “I recognize you from the descriptions.”
“Isn’t this kind of art frowned upon?”
“I’ve traveled too much in the West, I’m afraid. Our social realism makes for quite poor art. Come, let’s take a walk.”
As they left the porch, André caught a glimpse of the two Kuznetov women staring at him from the shadows of the curtains.
“I’ve been curious to meet you, Devereaux. You’ve been a difficult opponent. A number of times we attempted to put you in embarrassing positions so we could force you to deal with us. But no luck. Anyhow, I’m tired of Americans and they’re tired of me, so I asked to see you.”
“I’ll have to accept that until you want to tell me the real reason.”
Kuznetov smiled.
“I hope you like Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle 1959,” André said.
“Yes, an excellent champagne.”
“I brought you a case.”
“Wonderful. The French have good taste. The Americans are harsh, particularly in their intellectual outlook. With them, everything is mechanical and everything is business.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Bourbon is a marvelous drink when you get the hang of it.”
They reached a creaky pier, lined with rowboats and small outboards. Kuznetov commented on the beauty of the place. He picked up a flat stone and tried to skim it, but was unsuccessful. They continued on, along a narrow path beside the bank.
“Why were they going to liquidate you?” André asked abruptly.
A pained expression came over Boris Kuznetov’s face. He stopped at a large, familiar rock, sat on it and stared moodily out to the river, watching a swift current swirl around an exposed sandbar.
“All my life,” he said slowly, “I have been devoted to the Party. But even in these enlightened days of Comrade Khrushchev there are no retirement plans for a KGB chief who falls from favor.”
“Why did you fall from favor?”
“Many reasons. No reasons. Mainly because I am too honest. I refuse to distort my reports and my views in order to play politics and please certain ears. I always gave my evaluations precisely as I saw them. In the end, the powers that be could not accept what I had to say. As you know, Devereaux, it is the disease of our profession. Every intelligence service in the world suffers from the same thing. We go to abnormal lengths, expense and danger to obtain information. But then the real battle is to get your own people to believe you. You, Devereaux ... you have all kinds of trouble with Paris, and the American President doesn’t believe half of what CIA and ININ tell him.”
“On this we agree,” André said.
“But let something go wrong and see who gets the blame.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That the West is too strong. With NATO, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries are badly outgunned. Moreover, we won’t catch up. Because I sat in the inner circles as an adviser, I argued for a sincere rapprochement with the West and peace for the Russian people. They have ugly labels for such thinking. It is not what the military wants to hear. But I will not he, because I don’t want the Soviet Union destroyed.”
Kuznetov stopped abruptly as though surprised at his own dissertation. André understood it as a need for the Russian to confess to a “neutral” party, to try to purge himself and justify and smother the guilt of his defection.
“I just wanted to meet you and see what kind of man you were,” Kuznetov said.
They returned to the cottage in silence. All the way back André watched him thrash out a decision, hesitate, then say, “I warn you, Devereaux. It would be foolish to cable French SDECE of this meeting.”
“Why?”