The Red Hotel by Alan Philps

Author:Alan Philps
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

16 October 1942: Prisoner of the Metropol

Ronald Matthews had arrived in Moscow with a bag full of soap which, a fellow Englishman in Tehran had assured him, could secure the favours of any Russian woman. At the end of Tanya’s second day of work, Matthews offered her a bar of soap and asked if she would like to have a bath. For months there had been no hot water in her flat, and washing meant standing at a basin and splashing cold water on her face and neck. It was bliss to step into the hot bath and wash herself with scented foreign soap. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, he asked her if she wanted to take the soap home with her and she gratefully accepted. The next day another bar of soap was produced, she had another luxurious bath and took the second bar home with her. This was repeated for six days. On the seventh day, as they were drinking tea and going through the afternoon papers, Matthews got up, walked over to her chair and dropped on one knee.

‘Tanya, I have never met a girl like you… I’ve got a set of false teeth… and I want to have a son as soon as possible… Will you share the life of a modest writer and moderately successful journalist? Will you be my wife?’

‘It’s a little sudden… Ronald,’ Tanya said, using his Christian name for the first time.

Matthews kissed her hand, returned to his chair and Tanya resumed translating the article about Ukrainian partisans.I

Two months later, Ronald Matthews stood waiting in the lobby wearing his freshly pressed British war correspondent’s uniform. His gaze was fixed on the staircase which wound round the gilded mesh of the lift shaft. His habitually stern features broke into a smile at the sound of footsteps tripping down the threadbare carpet on the marble stairs. He had travelled the world and he had never met anyone like Tanya, and today she was to become his wife. When Tanya reached the bottom of the stairs, she stood up on tiptoe and reached up to give her English bear a big kiss.

Tanya had arrived at the Metropol early that morning and gone straight up to Marjorie Shaw’s room. Shaw, the Daily Mirror correspondent, who was one of the few female reporters in Moscow at the time, had promised to lend her a blue-green silk dress for the day, and when she saw Tanya had nothing to keep her warm, she pressed on her a smart coat and, as a wedding gift, a box of fine French powder. The effect of this borrowed ensemble was marred only by Tanya’s shapeless old Soviet shoes.

Paul Holt, the Express correspondent, and Tanya’s friend Irina, the Russian-American wife of a US naval commander, were the first of the wedding party to join Matthews and Tanya in the lobby. The American Edgar Snow arrived carrying a couple of onions by their stalks which he had just cadged off a waiter.

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