Meeting

Chapter 81 Meeting

Loran stood in front of the Kremlin gates, looking up at the red flag fluttering in the morning breeze.

July in Moscow was already a bit chilly, and today was still overcast. A damp wind blew in from the north, carrying a coldness that seemed to seep from the frozen ground, seeping into his coat collar and creeping down his spine. He turned up his collar, switched the suitcase to his left hand, and put his right hand in his pocket. In his pocket was a letter—a letter from De Gaulle to Stalin, a white envelope, no salutation, no signature, only one line of text. He had touched it countless times; his fingertips could feel the indentation left by the words on the paper.

Stalin ignored Lorran for an entire day yesterday, but Lorran understood that this was a diplomatic tactic employed by major world powers, and he didn't take it to heart.

Karl stood beside him, holding a document, and was negotiating with the guard at the door. The guard wore a gray overcoat and a cotton cap with ear flaps, his rifle tucked into his arms, the bayonet gleaming white in the sunlight. He glanced at the document Karl handed him, then at Loran, and nodded.

"Please follow me," he said in Russian, then turned and walked inside.

Lorraine followed behind him. They passed through an archway and entered the Kremlin courtyard. The courtyard was vast, paved with flagstones, worn smooth and shiny by time. Yellow buildings lined both sides, their windows tall with white frames carved with intricate patterns. In the distance, the spires of several churches gleamed golden in the sunlight, their red stars, as if just pulled from the fire, dazzlingly bright.

The guard led him into a three-story building and up the stairs to the second floor. The corridor was wide, with a deep red carpet on the floor and oil paintings on the walls depicting scenes from Russian history—the Battle of Kulikovo, the Battle of Porodino, and Peter the Great at Poltava. The paintings were large, almost taking up an entire wall, and the people in them were tiny, like ants, struggling between the vast sky and the earth.

They walked to the end of the corridor and stopped before a heavy oak door. There was no nameplate or sign on the door, only a small, polished brass handle. The guard knocked.

"Come in." A deep, hoarse voice came from inside, with a Caucasian accent.

The guard pushed open the door and stepped aside.

Loran went inside.

The office was smaller than he had imagined. Not small, but simple. A desk, a few chairs, a bookshelf, and a portrait of Marx hanging on the wall. A table lamp with a green shade sat on the desk, its light dim, illuminating only a small area of ​​the surface. Behind the desk sat a person.

Joseph Stalin wore a grey military overcoat, the collar buttoned up tightly, with no rank insignia on his shoulders; he had not yet been awarded the rank of Field Marshal—that would be two years later. His face appeared sallow in the lamplight, his eyes sunken, his cheekbones prominent, and a thick beard obscuring the lower half of his face, revealing only a pair of dark brown eyes.

"Mr. Lorraine," Starling said without standing up, simply gesturing to the chair in front of the table, "Sit."

Lorraine walked over and sat down. He placed the suitcase at his feet, pulled down the collar of his coat, and looked at Stalin. Those deep brown eyes were still fixed on him, unmoving.

"You come from North Africa," Stalin said, not in a question, but in a statement.

"Yes."

"You defeated Rommel there."

"I didn't win alone. The British and French won together."

Stalin tapped his finger on the table. "Rommel was Hitler's best general. You defeated him. Do you know what that means?"

Loran paused for a second. "That means the Germans are not invincible."

Stalin nodded. He took a cigarette from the pack on the table, put it in his mouth, and struck a match. The light from the match flashed in the darkness, illuminating his face. His face was expressionless, only weary, a deep, bone-deep weariness.

"The Germans are not invincible." He repeated the sentence, blowing smoke from his nostrils. "I've been waiting to hear that. I've been waiting since June 22nd."

He stood up and walked to the map hanging on the wall. It was a military map of western Soviet Union, larger and more detailed than Zhukov's. Red arrows extended from the border in three directions, almost covering the entire map. Stalin's finger landed on the location of Smolensk.

"Look. The Germans are here. Less than 300 kilometers from Moscow. Their vanguard is heading this way. If they launch an attack now, they'll be at the gates of Moscow in two weeks."

His finger moved north, landing on the location of Leningrad.

"Leningrad is under siege. Three million people are waiting for food. They only get a few hundred grams of bread a day, and people are already starving to death. Winter is coming, and if supplies don't get through, they will starve to death."

His finger moved south, landing on the location of Kyiv.

"Kyiv is worse. Seven hundred thousand people are surrounded. Our reinforcements can't get in, and their supplies can't get out."

He turned around and looked at Loran.

"This is the situation we face. You come from North Africa, you've seen desperate situations. But you've never seen anything like this. North Africa was your colony, where you could run away if you lost a battle. Here, if you lose a battle, you lose everything."

He walked back to the table, sat down, and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

"Churchill said you are a very good soldier. He said you've met Rommel, you've met de Gaulle, and now you've met me. What do you want to say?"

Loran was silent for a few seconds. He looked into Stalin's eyes, those deep brown eyes held no expectation, no threat, only a deep weariness, the kind of loneliness that comes from someone who has stood at the pinnacle of power for too long, and a well-hidden helplessness.

"General," Loran said, "I came to the Soviet Union not to teach you how to fight. You don't need me to teach you. I came to watch. To see how you fight, to see how you win."

He took the letter out of his pocket, placed it on the table, and pushed it in front of Stalin.

"This is a letter from General de Gaulle to you."

Stalin picked up the letter, opened it, and pulled out the inner sheet of paper. The paper was thin, only one page, filled with French writing. Stalin read it for a long time, word by word. His French wasn't fluent, but he could understand it. Lorraine didn't know what de Gaulle had written, but he saw Stalin's eyes change.

Stalin folded the letter and put it in his pocket.

"De Gaulle said that although France had been temporarily defeated, the French people had not surrendered. He said that Free France was fighting in North Africa, in Africa, and wherever there were still French people standing. He said that if one day the Soviet Union needed allies, France would be the first to stand up."

"I am glad that we have such allies supporting us in the far west."

He stood up, walked to the window, and turned his back to Lorraine. Outside, several soldiers patrolled the Kremlin courtyard, their leather boots clicking crisply on the stone slabs. In the distance, the red star on the church steeple gleamed a dark red in the sunlight.

"Mr. Lorraine," Stalin said without turning around, "would you like to go to the front lines?"

Loran paused, taken aback. "Do you allow me to?"

"Permission granted." Stalin turned to look at him. "Not as an officer, but as an observer. No uniform, no weapons, just your eyes and ears. Zhukov will arrange it. He will take you to where you need to see most."

He walked back to the table, took a piece of paper from the drawer, spread it on the table, and picked up a pencil. He wrote a few lines, then signed his name. He handed the paper to Lorraine.

"This is your pass. You can go to any unit of the Soviet Red Army, any unit. You can meet any commander, any one of them. You can see any intelligence report, any one of them."

Loran took the paper and looked at the words on it. It was in Russian, and he didn't recognize a single word, but he saw the word "trust" on it.

Stalin extended his hand. Lorraine grasped it. The hand was cold, thin, with prominent knuckles, but very strong.

"Come back alive," Stalin said. "Tell our allies in the west that the Soviet soldiers are invincible."

Loran released his grip, stood up, picked up his suitcase, and turned to walk towards the door.

"Loran," Starling called out to him.

Lorraine turned around.

Stalin stood at the table, his back against the window. Light streamed in from behind him, shrouding his face in shadow. Lorraine couldn't see his expression, only hear his voice, low and soft, as if he were talking to himself.

"Tell Zhukov not to rush the attack. Wait for winter, wait for the snow, wait for the Germans to freeze. Then, attack."

Loran nodded, pushed open the door, and went out.

In fact, he never needed to say it; everyone knew perfectly well, including the Germans and Hitler. Stalin was simply exhausted. If the conflict couldn't be sustained, the Soviet Union would inevitably face a catastrophic blow, and even if it ultimately triumphed, its glory would be significantly diminished.

The corridor was quiet. Poskrebyshev stood in the doorway, a notebook in his hand. Seeing Lorraine emerge, he nodded, then turned and walked ahead. They went down the stairs, across the courtyard, and to the front gate. Karl was still standing by the car, reading a newspaper. Seeing Lorraine come out, he folded the newspaper and stuffed it into his pocket.

"How is it?" Carl asked.

"It went fairly smoothly."

"Back to the embassy?" Carl asked.

Loran thought for a moment, then suddenly turned to get out of the car. "No. I want to walk around."

Carl glanced at him but didn't ask why. He nodded and closed the car door. "I'll go back now."

Do you know the way?

"I recognize it."

Karl got into the car and started the engine. The car slowly drove out of the Kremlin walls and disappeared around the street corner.

Lorraine turned and walked east along the street. He had no destination; he just wanted to walk. After sitting in that office in the Kremlin for an hour, he felt like his bones were stiff. Stalin's eyes were still imprinted in his mind—deep brown, as if they could see right through him.

There weren't many people on the streets. In wartime, nights fall early in Moscow. The shops had long since closed, their windows pitch black, nothing visible. Occasionally, a few streetlights shone, their dim yellow light casting a golden glow on the wet cobblestones, like slabs of melted butter. Pedestrians, bundled in thick coats, walked quickly with their heads down. No one spoke, only the clatter of footsteps echoing through the empty streets.

Such a sight brought tears to Lorraine's eyes.

Loran walked through two streets and turned into a narrower alley. On both sides of the alley were old two-story buildings with mottled walls, small windows, and withered flowerpots on the windowsills. At the end of the alley was a small square, in the center of which stood a bronze statue of Lenin, with several lines of Russian inscription on its base. A person sat on a bench in front of the statue.

She was a young woman.

She was probably seventeen or eighteen years old, wearing a faded cotton coat and a dark headscarf that revealed a few strands of light brown hair. Her face was thin, with high cheekbones and pale lips, but her eyes were bright, a grey-blue like light reflecting off a frozen lake in winter. She was carrying a bulging, heavy canvas bag. She placed the bag at her feet and was rubbing her wrists with her head down.

As Lorraine walked past her, she looked up at him. His grey-blue eyes held no curiosity, no wariness, only a faint indifference, like someone looking at anything on the street. Lorraine walked on, took a few more steps, and then stopped.

He didn't know why he had stopped. Maybe it was because the bag looked heavy, maybe it was because the girl's age reminded him of someone, or maybe it was just because he had walked too long and his legs were a little sore. He turned around and walked back to the statue.

"Do you need any help?" he asked in English.

The girl looked at him but did not answer.

Loran thought for a moment, then repeated himself in Russian. His Russian was very poor; he had only recently started cramming.

The girl looked at him for a few seconds, then pointed to the canvas bag at her feet.

"It's very heavy," she said in Russian, her voice soft and with a northern accent.

Loran bent down and picked up the bag. It was indeed very heavy. The bag wasn't filled with grain, but with metal; he could feel the hard, angular shapes.

"What's inside?" he asked.

The girl stood up and brushed the dust off her cotton-padded coat. "Parts. Machine tool parts. My mother works in a factory, and the machine broke down; there were no replacement parts. I got these from a warehouse in the east of the city; I'm going to send them to a factory in the west."

"

Loran looked at her. "West of the city? That's far."

"I know," the girl said. "The buses have stopped running, and the trams aren't operating either. We have to walk."

She reached out to take the bag. Lorraine didn't give it to her.

"I'll give you a piece of my mind."

The girl looked at him. Something else finally appeared in her grey-blue eyes, as if she had breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded.

They walked back along the alley, across the small square, and into another street. Lorraine walked on the left, carrying the bag, while the girl walked on the right. Neither of them spoke. The wind blew from the north, making her headscarf flutter, which she quickly and deliberately pressed down.

After walking for about ten minutes, the girl spoke up, seemingly curious about Lorraine's appearance.

"You are not a Soviet citizen."

"no."

"British?"

"The French."

The girl glanced at him, then turned back to look at the road ahead. "French. Very far."

"It's very far."

They crossed a bridge. The river beneath was the Moscow River, wide and slowly flowing, its surface shimmering with a dark gray light in the twilight. On the opposite bank stood a row of factory buildings with tall, smokeless chimneys that looked like iron rods stuck into the ground.

"What's your name?" the girl asked.

"mark."

"Mark," she repeated, as if memorizing the pronunciation, "My name is Anna."

"Anna," Loran repeated.

Anna nodded. She walked quickly, taking long strides, each step firm and deliberate. Her cotton coat was too big; the sleeves were rolled up several times, revealing a section of her thin wrist. There was a red mark on her wrist, from carrying the bag earlier.

"What are you going to the Kremlin for?" Anna asked.

Loran thought for a moment. "I'll meet someone."

"Who is it?"

"A very important person."

Anna didn't ask any more questions. She wasn't the type to press for answers; she knew the person in front of her was most likely an officer, or rather, a comrade.

They crossed the bridge and turned into a wider street. On both sides were residential buildings, five stories high, grayish-white, with windows densely packed like a honeycomb. Some windows were lit, others were dark, their glass broken and boarded up. Below was a small square where several children were playing a game Loran had never seen before, running, shouting, and laughing crisply. An old man sat on the steps smoking, the smoke slowly dissipating in the twilight.

Anna stopped at the edge of the square.

"Take a break," she said.

Loran put the bag on the ground and flexed his fingers. The bag was indeed heavy; his fingers were a little numb.

Anna sat down on the steps, took a piece of black bread out of her pocket, broke it in half, and handed the larger half to Lorraine.

Lorraine took it and took a bite. The bread was hard and dry, making a crunchy sound when chewed, like chewing a handful of flour mixed with sand.

Anna also took a bite and chewed slowly.

"Your mother works in a factory," Lorraine said. "And your father?"

Anna paused for a moment while chewing her bread.

"My father is at war," she said, her voice flat. "In Smolensk. I haven't heard from him in two months."

Loran did not speak.

Anna swallowed the bread and took another bite.

"I have a younger brother," she said. "His name is Misha. He's seventeen. He's going to join the army next week."

"Is he afraid?"

Anna thought for a moment. "Of course not, not a single person in the Soviet people is afraid."

She looked at Loran.

"What do you think? Will the Germans come? Will they be afraid?"

Loran was silent for a few seconds. He looked at the dark gray river under the bridge, at the smokeless chimneys on the opposite bank, and at the dark red star atop the Kremlin in the distance.

"They will come," he said. "And they are not afraid."

Anna looked at him. "You believe me?"

"believe."

Anna didn't ask any more questions. She stuffed the last bite of bread into her mouth, stood up, and brushed the bread crumbs off her coat.

"Let's go."

Loran picked up the bag and continued walking.

The sky grew darker. The streetlights came on, one by one, their dim yellow glow like a row of candles lit in the darkness. There were even fewer pedestrians, and occasionally a military vehicle would drive by, its headlights blinding, leaving two white streaks in the darkness. In the distance, an siren sounded, very faint and far away, like something crying in the distance.

Anna walked beside him, her pace still as brisk as ever. Her headscarf fluttered in the wind, and she reached out to hold it down, a movement still so practiced.

"Mark," she said.

"Um."

Why did you come to the Soviet Union?

Loran thought for a moment. "Let's see how you fight this war."

Anna glanced at him. "Watching us fight? Why?"

"Because you fought a good battle."

Anna didn't speak. She walked for a while, then suddenly smiled. It was the first time Lorraine had ever seen her smile. Her smile was brief, like a flash of light that disappeared in an instant, but her eyes brightened, turning a greyish-blue, like light reflecting off a frozen lake in winter.

"You're right," she said. "We fought well because we had nowhere else to go."

Loran remembered what Zaitsev had said. The exact same words: "Not because we are strong, but because we have nowhere else to go."

They arrived at the factory gate. The factory wasn't large, just a few gray buildings surrounded by an iron fence. A light was on at the gate, illuminating a small patch of light. An old man in overalls stood at the gate, holding a flashlight and smoking. He nodded when he saw Anna.

"Got some parts again?" he asked.

"I've received it," Anna said.

The old man looked at Loran, then at the bag in his hand.

"Who is this?"

"A friend," Anna said, "who helped me carry my things."

The old man nodded without asking any further questions. He opened the iron gate and stepped aside.

Lorraine carried the bag inside. The yard was piled with steel and wooden crates; the ground was stained with oil, and the air smelled of rust and machine oil. Anna walked ahead, pushed open an iron gate, and went inside. Lorraine followed behind.

The workshop was large, with high ceilings and windows, and dim lighting. Several machine tools sat in the center of the workshop, some running, some stopped. Workers were busy around the machines; some were operating them, some were moving parts, and some were looking down at blueprints. No one spoke; only the roar of the machines, a buzzing sound that made the ground tremble slightly.

Anna walked over to a stopped machine tool and pointed to the empty space next to it.

"Put it here."

Lorraine put the bag down. Anna squatted down, opened the bag, and took out the parts one by one. The parts were small, some round, some square, some long, some short, all coated with anti-rust oil, gleaming a dim yellow light under the lamp. She handled them very carefully, glancing at each one as if confirming something.

A middle-aged woman walked over, dressed in work clothes, her hair wrapped in a headscarf, her face greasy. She saw Anna, walked over, bent down, and looked at the parts.

"Have you received them all?" she asked.

"I've received them all," Anna said.

The middle-aged woman picked up a part, held it up to the light to examine it, and nodded. She put the part back, stood up, and looked at Anna. Her eyes were bright, much like Anna's, a greyish-blue, like light reflecting off a frozen lake in winter.

"Is this your mother?" Lorraine asked.

Anna nodded. "This is Mom."

Lorraine looked at the middle-aged woman. She was shorter than Anna, with broad shoulders, thick fingers, and indelible grime embedded in her nails. Her face was wrinkled, not deep, but numerous, as if finely etched by something. She looked at Lorraine with no curiosity in her eyes, only a faint indifference, like looking at anything on the street.

"Hello," said Loran.

"Hello," she said, her voice hoarse and weary.

She bent down to continue arranging the parts. Anna squatted down beside her, helping her hand them over. The two worked together seamlessly, without exchanging a word, but their every movement was perfectly synchronized.

Loran stood to the side, watching them.

He thought of Charlotte. He hadn't thought of her in a long time. The last letter he received from her was in Agair, a short letter with only a few lines: "I'm in Paris. I'm alive. You must live too." He tucked the letter into a compartment of his suitcase, alongside de Gaulle's. He wondered what she was doing now. Perhaps she was caring for the wounded in a hospital, perhaps she was dodging German patrols on the street, perhaps she was listening to the radio in some cellar, waiting for news of him.

"Mark," Anna called to him.

Loran snapped out of her daze.

Anna stood up and walked over to him.

"Thank you for carrying my bag," she said.

"You're welcome."

Anna looked at him; her grey-blue eyes shone brightly in the dim light.

"You said the Germans would come to Moscow."

"meeting."

"You said they would stop here."

"meeting."

Anna nodded. She held out her hand. Lorraine took it. The hand was thin and cold, but held tightly.

"Then we'll meet in Moscow," Anna said.

She let go, turned around, and walked back to her mother's side. She squatted down and continued arranging the parts. Her movements were still so practiced and fast, as if she had done it countless times.

Lorraine stood there for a few seconds. Then he turned around, walked out of the workshop, and out of the factory gate.

It was dark outside. The streetlights were still on, their dim yellow glow swaying slightly in the night wind. The wind blew in from the north, making it even colder, carrying a damp, almost rainy scent. He turned up his coat collar and put his hands in his pockets.

There was a piece of paper in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it in the light of the streetlamp. It was Stalin's pass, stamped with the red star and bearing that name. The paper was thin and light, yet heavy.

He put the pass back in his pocket and walked back the way he came.

He walked for a long time, and by the time he reached the embassy entrance, it was completely dark.

Carl stood at the door, holding a cup of tea, waiting.

"You're back," Carl said.

Loran nodded.