In the Balance полностью

“I want those God-damned planes shot down,” Churchill said, as if giving someone unseen an order. If only it were that easy, Molotov thought. If Stalin could have done it by giving-an order, the Lizards would long since have ceased to trouble us-as would the Hitlerites Some things unfortunately yielded to no man’s orders. Maybe that was why foolish people imagined gods into being: to have someone whose orders were sure to be obeyed.

A stick of bombs crashed down not far from the Foreign Office building. The noise was cataclysmic. Windows rattled. One broke and fell in tinkling shards to the floor. The interpreters were less obliged to show sangfroid than the men they served. Several of them muttered; one of Ribbentrop’s aides crossed himself and began fingering a rosary.

More bombs fell. Another window broke, or rather blew inward. A fragment of glass flew past Molotov’s head and shattered against the wall. The translator who’d been praying cried out and clapped a hand to his cheek. Blood leaked between his fingers. So much for your imaginary God, Molotov thought. As usual, though, his face revealed nothing of what went on in his mind.

“If you like, gentlemen, we can adjourn to the shelter in the basement,” Churchill said.

Interpreters looked hopefully at foreign ministers. Molotov checked his confreres. None of them said anything, in spite of the suggestion’s obvious good sense. Molotov took the bull by the horns. “Yes, let us do that, Comrade Prime Minister. In all candor, our lives are valuable to the nations we serve. Foolish displays of bravado gain us nothing, if we can keep safe, we should do so.”

Almost as one, the diplomats and interpreters rose from their seats and moved toward the door. No one thanked Molotov for cutting through the facade of bourgeois manners, but he’d expected no thanks from class enemies. As the Soviet foreign minister set foot on the stairs leading down, another irony struck him. For all their advanced technology, the Lizards appeared in Marxist-Leninist terms still to be in the ancient economic organizational system, using slave labor and plunder from captive races to maintain their imperial superstructure. Next to them, even Churchill-even Ribbentrop! — was progressive. The thought amused and appalled Molotov at the same time.

Another stick of bombs shook the Foreign Office as the diplomats descended to the cellar. Cordell Hull slipped and almost fell, catching himself at the last instant by grabbing the shoulder of the Japanese interpreter in front of him.

“Jesus Christ!” the secretary of state exclaimed. Molotov understood that without translation, though the American pronounced Christ as if it were Chwist. Hull followed it with several more sharp-sounding remarks.

“What is he saying?” Molotov asked his English-speaking translator.

“Oaths,” the man answered. “Forgive me, Comrade Foreign Commissar, but I do not follow them easily. The American’s accent is different from Churchill’s, with which I am more familiar. When he speaks deliberately, I have no trouble understanding him, but the twang he gives his words when he is excited makes them difficult for me.”

“Do your utmost,” Molotov said. He hadn’t thought about there being more than one dialect of English; to him it was all equally incomprehensible. Stalin and Mikoyan spoke Russian with an accent, of course, but that was because the one came from Georgia and the other from Armenia. The interpreter seemed to imply something else, more like the differences between the Russian of a kolkhoznik near the Polish border (the former Polish border Molotov thought) and that of a Moscow factory worker.

The shelter proved low-roofed, crowded, and smelly. Molotov looked around scornfully: was this the best the British could protect their essential personnel? Corresponding quarters in Moscow were farther underground, surely better armored, and much more spacious.

Clerks and officials gave the diplomats as much room as they could, which was not a great deal. Churchill said, “Shall we continue, gentlemen?”

Molotov wondered if he had lost his mind. Resume, in front of all these people? Then he reflected that what happened here was not likely to be reported back to the Lizards; unlike the powers negotiating today, the invaders had no long-established spy network to pick up their rivals’ every word.