She gave no answer.
“Because you were still in love with him?” suggested Gabriel.
“With Kim? Not then, not any longer. But I was still in love with theideaof Kim.”
“And what idea was that?”
“Commitment to the revolution.” She paused, then added, “Sacrifice.”
“You didn’t mention betrayal.”
Ignoring his remark, she explained that Sasha and the child left Paris that very night, on a train to Germany. They crossed into the eastern sector by car, drove to Warsaw, and then flew to Moscow, the child on a false Russian passport. Philby’s apartment was near Pushkin Square, hidden away on a narrow lane near an old church, between Tverskaya Street and the Patriarch’s Ponds. He lived there with Rufina, his Russian wife.
“His fourth,” Charlotte Bettencourt added acidly.
“How long did—”
“Three days.”
“I assume there was another visit.”
“Christmas, that same year.”
“Again in Moscow?”
“Ten days,” she said, nodding.
“And the next visit?”
“The following summer. A month.”
“A month is a very long time.”
“It was hard on me, I admit.”
“And after that?”
“Sasha came to Paris to see me again.”
They met on a park bench, the way Philby had met Otto four decades earlier. The bench was not in Regent’s Park, but in the Jardin des Tuileries. Sasha said he had been ordered by Moscow Center to embark on a historic endeavor on behalf of international peace. Kim would be his partner in this endeavor. It was Sasha’s wish, and Kim’s, for Charlotte to join them.
“And what was your role in this endeavor?”
“A brief marriage. And an enormous sacrifice.”
“Who was the lucky groom?”
“An Englishman from a well-connected family who also believed in peace.”
“By that, you mean he was a KGB agent.”
“His exact affiliation with Moscow was never made clear to me. His father had known Kim at Cambridge. He was quite radical, and quite homosexual. But that didn’t matter. It wasn’t to be a real marriage.”
“Where were you wed?”
“England.”
“Church?”
