Hitler's peace

“Oh, yes,” said Philby, “that’s perfectly true. And meanwhile the Russians are dying at a rate of something like seventy thousand a month. I’ve seen intelligence reports that estimate total Russian casualties at over two million. So you can see why they’re so worried that we’ll negotiate a separate peace and they’ll end up fighting Hitler on their own. It’s a fear that will hardly be assuaged by the knowledge that your president is now scrutinizing those murders in the Katyn Forest.”

“I believe it’s still common practice for murder to be scrutinized,” I said. “It’s one of the things that helps to give us the illusion that we’re living in a civilized world.”

“Oh, surely. But Stalin could hardly be blamed if he suspects that the Western allies might use Katyn as an excuse to postpone an invasion of Europe, at least until the Wehrmacht and the Red Army have destroyed each other.”

“You seem to know a lot about what Stalin suspects, Kim.”

Philby shook his head. “Intelligent guesswork. That’s what this lark is all about. Thing about the Russians is, they’re not hard to second-guess. Unlike Churchill. There’s no telling what’s going on in that man’s devious mind.”

“From what I gather, Churchill hasn’t paid much attention to Katyn. He doesn’t behave like a man who’s preparing to use it as an excuse to postpone a second front.”

“Perhaps not,” admitted Blunt. “But there are plenty of others who would, you know? The Jew-hating brigade who think we’re at war with the wrong enemy.” He grabbed a glass off a passing tray and swallowed the contents in one greedy parabola. “What about Roosevelt? Do you think he would countenance it?”

Blunt smiled warmly, but I still didn’t like his mouth.

Catching my frown, Philby said, “It’s all right, Willard. Anthony is one of us.”

“And what might that be?” I said, bristling. The proposition that Anthony Blunt was “one of us” seemed almost as offensive to me as its corollary, that I might be one of them.

“MI5. In fact, Anthony might be just the man you need to speak to about your Polish thing. The Allied governments in exile, neutral countries with diplomatic missions in London, Anthony keeps an eye on all of them, don’t you, Tony?”

“If you say so, Kim,” smiled Blunt.

“Well, it’s no great secret,” grumbled Philby.

“I can tell you this,” said Blunt. “The Poles would dearly like to get their hands on a Russian who’s an attache at the Soviet embassy in Washington. Fellow named Vasily Zubilin. In 1940 he was a major in the People’s Commissariat on Internal Affairs and commanded one of the execution battalions at Katyn. It seems that the Russians sent him to Washington as a reward for a good job. And to get him out of the neighborhood. And because they know he’s never likely to defect. If he did, they’d simply tell your government what he did at Katyn. And then some Pole would very likely want to have him charged as a war criminal. Whatever that is.

“So, how do you know Victor?” Blunt asked abruptly, changing the subject.

“We share a similarly perfunctory attitude to our Jewishness,” I said. “Or, in my case, and to be more accurate, my half-Jewishness. I went to his wedding to Barbara. And you?”

“Oh. Cambridge,” said Blunt. “And Rosamond. You came with her, didn’t you? How do you know Rosie?”

“Do stop interrogating him, Anthony,” said Philby.

“It’s all right,” I said, although I didn’t answer Blunt’s question and, hearing Rosamond’s distinctive laugh, I glanced around and saw her listening with much amusement as a disheveled figure held forth loudly about some boy he was trying to seduce. I was beginning to suspect that almost everyone invited to the party had been to Cambridge and was either a spy, a Communist, or a homosexual-in Anthony Blunt’s case very probably all three.

Rothschild came back into the room carrying a saxophone triumphantly aloft.

“Victor.” I laughed. “I think you’re very probably the only man I know who could track down a spare saxophone at eleven o’clock at night.” I took the sax from my old friend, who sat down at the piano, lit a cigarette, then lifted the lid.

We played for more than half an hour. Rothschild was the better musician, but it was late and people were too drunk to notice my technical shortcomings. After we had finished, Philby drew me aside.

“Very good,” he said. “Very good indeed. That was quite a duo.”

I shrugged and drank a glass of champagne to moisten my mouth.

“You remember Otto Deutsch, of course?” he said.

“Otto? Yes. What ever happened to him? He came to London, didn’t he? After Austria went Fascist.”

“He was on a ship that was sunk in the mid-Atlantic by a German submarine.” Philby paused and lit a cigarette.

“Poor Otto. I didn’t know.”

“He tried to recruit me, you know. To the NKVD, back in Vienna.”

“Really?”