Stateless by Alan Gold Read Free Book Online Page A

Stalin only wanted his advice on something, or confirmation of an order, and then he’d be dismissed, always with thanks. These were some of the better scenarios of how the meeting might go. Sometimes, on his way to Stalin’s offices, Beria would stop off at the GUM Department Store, opposite the Kremlin walls in Red Square. There, he’d be shown into a private room, where his usual Georgian vodka would be ready on ice, along with some Beluga caviar. But this time, he obeyed the call of his master.
    As he was ushered immediately into Stalin’s offices he found the leader sitting at his desk. Beria tried to see what he was looking at, but the General Secretary’s eyes were dead.Expressionless. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His entire face was like a death mask. It only moved when he spoke, and then his lips barely enunciated the words.
    Beria sat and pondered Stalin as though Medusa the Gorgon was on the opposite side of the desk, waiting on his master to acknowledge his presence. Yet Stalin sat reading, making notes. Then he looked up and out of the window, staring around the room, looking through Beria, not at him, as though he were invisible. Did ten minutes pass, or an hour?
    Beria surreptitiously glanced through the window at the onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral. It gave him comfort. Not because of any sentimentality for his Russian Orthodox upbringing but rather because of his latest stratagem. He’d spent many weeks going over maps of Palestine and the entire area of Arabia, reading the documents of the Jews and Arabs who lived there and the details of the British mandate that enabled the effete government in London to rule the region.
    And in his readings and study he’d been surprised to learn that the very church just across the way, the church in the grounds of the Red Square and others in the centre of Moscow, were viewed by the Russian priesthood as the equivalent of the holy city of Jerusalem. They even believed that St Basil’s Cathedral was the very Temple of Solomon itself. This seemed an odd idea to him. Did these idiot priests have any idea just how far the sun-drenched white stone of Jerusalem was from freezing soil and the iron sky of a wintery Moscow? But how much would the stupid Muscovite priests, still faithful to the god banished from Russia by Marx, love to be part of a global plan where Moscow would become the new Jerusalem?
    Eventually, waiting for Stalin to acknowledge his presence in the office became too much and Beria coughed apologetically. It was a cautious cough, not enough to be heard, but enough to make a disturbance in the funereal quiet of Stalin’s office.
    Suddenly aware of the disturbance, Stalin stopped writing, and looked slowly up at Beria, sitting opposite him across the desk. ‘Good afternoon, Lavrentiy Pavlovich. I’ve kept you waiting. I had to finish this communication. Now, you wanted to see me.’
    Beria swallowed though Stalin’s forgetfulness and confusion were not unusual. The General Secretary had summoned him, but in the half-hour it took for him to arrive, he’d forgotten the reason he’d sent for Beria, or seemingly that he summoned him at all. But Beria made no indication of this and pressed ahead.
    â€˜Comrade Chairman, if you remember, you and I had previously discussed the use of Jewish operatives in Palestine. To this end I have begun the process and brought in the potentials. As of yesterday, I am delighted to inform you that the last Jewish spy to be trained has just been put into place. She’s a very young woman, little more than a girl, but utterly brilliant. A real asset. Once trained, Operation Outgrowth can begin.’
    â€˜What?’
    Surely he remembered. It had been discussed last week. Beria spoke again. ‘Operation Outgrowth. The plan that you approved yourself last year. We’ve been searching for the right personnel, and during this year we’ve