Saving the Queen by William F. Buckley

Author:William F. Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504018494
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Eleven

That morning over the telephone Boris Andreyvich Bolgin had been given two numbers and a time. From the time he subtracted the ritual one hour, according to practice. The first number designated which of the six Catholic churches regularly used by Robinson he had selected for the forthcoming rendezvous. Entering the designated church through the main door, Boris would begin to circle it clockwise, and when he had counted twelve—the second number given over the telephone that morning—he would stop, turning his back on the priest’s compartment, as if pausing to admire the stained-glass window or statuary opposite. Two hands would reach out and expertly frisk Boris Andreyvich, one half of whose torso was enveloped by the priest’s curtain, invisible to the gaze of any chance worshiper lingering in the vicinity. Robinson’s hands reached under the jacket sleeves and around to Boris’s front, and when the hands, satisfied that no recording machines threatened, were withdrawn, Boris would open the penitent’s curtain, adjacent, and kneel down. And say, “I don’t often hear from you on Sunday.” To which the indicated answer was: “This isn’t Sunday, it’s Saturday.”

From that point on, it was conventional—convivial, really, because the two men had without any sense of strain evolved a most cordial relationship over the years. Robinson, moreover, felt under no time pressure, having satisfied himself respecting security. So Boris gave him a leisurely account, suitably bowdlerized, of his trip to Moscow, and stressed and restressed the anxiety felt there (Boris used Stalin’s name as infrequently as possible when talking to Robinson—it was, wherever possible, “Moscow”) on the matter of the hydrogen bomb.

“You have been very ingenious, Robinson, in the matter of getting information useful for world peace and the socialist cause, but—”

Robinson interrupted him.

“Boris, old boy, I have told you before. I am entirely committed to the grand historical purposes of our cause, but (a) I despise, as you know, your leader Stalin, though I recognize his strengths and his usefulness; and (b) I find the repetition of the cant phrases of communism altogether depressing. I recognize that they are necessary, even as the Baltimore Catechism is necessary, but I would not expect in a serious conversation with a cardinal about great affairs that he would punctuate his message with bits and pieces of Christian doxology. You may proceed, Boris.”

Boris recomposed himself and told Robinson, frankly, that Boris had to come up with more information and that the focus of Stalin’s—or, rather, Moscow’s—concern, was the hydrogen bomb.

“I’ve given you a great deal on the subject already.”

“I know, I know. But we must have more, a great deal more. I need, Robinson, to pass a few pages of paper to you. If it is agreeable, when you leave I’ll have the corner of my envelope jutting out, and you can pick it up and pocket it. It is the result of many hours spent with Sakharov and contains the specific questions for which they do not have the answers. These may or may not be too difficult for your understanding.

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