Authors: Owen Matthews
The next day Mervyn met Christopher Lush of the British Foreign Office at Western Allied Headquarters, and asked him to contact London for an official response to the idea of an exchange. Lush was dismissive. 'We don't want to become a channel for this sort of thing,' he told my father. 'We don't want everyone coming here.'
Vogel never contacted Mervyn. It was another blind alley.
Soon after he returned from Berlin, Mervyn heaved his Oxford trunks into his battered Ford and drove north to his new academic quarters at Long Eaton, near Nottingham, doubtless sitting up straight at the wheel after Mila's admonitions not to 'slouch as though you are carrying buckets'.
Mervyn found Long Eaton a place of profound dreariness, a grimy industrial town which reminded him powerfully of the miseries of his childhood in South Wales. Nottingham University's lecturers were accommodated in very much less style than he had been used to in Oxford. Mervyn did not like drinking in pubs, which left sitting at the laundromat watching the clothes whirl around as the only alternative local entertainment. After Moscow and Oxford, Nottingham was a fall from grace indeed, but at least he now had the time to devote to his campaign. Despite having an epileptic fit in the station cafeteria at King's Cross - the first he had ever suffered - Mervyn resolved to stay optimistic.
'From that day on, regardless of the news from Russia, I always made a point of going into the classroom with a cheery smile on my face,' he told Mila. 'I'm not in the least bit worried about the cancellation of my book.' A photograph from that autumn shows Mervyn at his desk at the university, a tinny radio I remember him still using in the mid-1970s in front of him, books piled on sagging bookshelves behind. The room is small and poky, and he is earnestly reading a letter. He looks strangely childish and dislocated, among the unruly piles of his possessions, but quite content.
Mervyn's mother, during one of his rare visits to Swansea, harangued him about giving up his self-destructive obsession with his Russian girl. 'This morning my mother tiger showed her claws - leopards, to change the metaphor, don't change their spots,' wrote Mervyn as he sat in his Ford in the car park of Nottingham University sports club, where he took his daily swim. 'She says I'm home so rarely and make her suffer so much - she said that the recent events in Russia nearly killed her. "And when I think of what's happened to your career I am filled with horror," she said. "Shut up," I said, "or I'll leave the house - the car's just outside," so she went quiet.'
Mervyn considered other options. One was for Mila to apply to visit another socialist country, meet him there, and somehow escape. The problem was that Mila would have to get a reference from her employers to travel, even to a friendly state, and no one at the library would dare risk giving her such an endorsement. She could also arrange a fictitious marriage to an African student, who could then take her abroad - but that idea, as well as being distasteful, was impractical since it required KGB permission, and would cast a shadow on their campaign if it failed.
He thought of bribery. A new car for a bent embassy official, perhaps? But again, with the case so politicized it was unworkable. He even explored forgery, spending days leafing through his heavily stamped passport studying the details, collecting printing sets and experimenting with producing false Soviet official stamps. Two of Mervyn's friends, middle-aged ladies of the utmost probity, agreed to give him their passports. One applied for one even though she had no intention of going abroad, the other claimed to have lost hers. But after a few days the dangers of forgery began to dampen Mervyn's enthusiasm. There was the problem of getting a one-way ticket out of Moscow, and Mila would have to risk years of imprisonment if passport control discovered that the exit visa Mervyn intended to manufacture was forged. He abandoned the idea.
In a newspaper article he found a reference to the story of a Russian who had decided to walk to China before the war, but had (seriously) misjudged the direction and ended up in Afghanistan. Mervyn began looking at maps of the southern USSR; perhaps there were areas where there was no border guard? In December 1965 he read of another young Russian, Vladimir Kirsanov, who had walked over the Soviet border into Finland. Could Mila do the same? Mervyn tracked Kirsanov down and went to see him in Frankfurt am Main in March 1966. But after listening to Kirsanov's story for a few minutes Meryvn realized it was hopeless. Kirsanov was young and fit, and an experienced hiker and climber. Mila, with her disabled hip, could never hope to trudge through bogs and climb over barbed wire fences. Again, the idea was abandoned.
Two years had passed, and the separation gnawed. Nottingham was depressing Mervyn even more than he'd feared. By the summer of 1966 he decided that he had to be nearer to London in order to continue his campaign. He took a post at Battersea Polytechnic, which had just received a charter as the University of Surrey, and was then housed in a disused warehouse in Clapham. He bought a small flat in Pimlico, turning down other job offers because the Battersea job gave him a lot of free time to harass the Soviet embassy, the Foreign Office and Fleet Street. He never had anything other than contempt for the University of Surrey, its students and its academic standards, and he would criticize the institution where he ultimately spent most of his career with a kind of bitter self-loathing.
Mila, too, was sliding into morbid depression. She was losing weight, her ribs standing out on her chest 'like a tubercular babushka', and grey hairs appeared on her head. 'Without you my life has stopped, hardened to stone - this is not just a first impression but a totally serious conclusion, irreversible,' Mila wrote. 'Why don't we just build a hut for ourselves at the end of the world far from all the evil and cruelty and hatred? I could never be bored if you were there. Oh God, oh God, oh God, surely our sufferings aren't in vain? I see what a short and fleeting thing life is, and how stupid, how perverse it is to lose these days.' Mila paraphrased Konstantin Simonov's classic wartime poem, 'Wait', which had so poignantly caught the fate of millions of Soviet women, condemned to wait for years with no news of their loved ones. 'Wait for me, but only wait very hard, wait until the snows have gone, wait until everyone else has stopped waiting, wait . . .'
During a chance conversation with a friend in London, Mervyn learned that it might be possible to visit the Soviet Baltic states for a one-day trip without a visa. On further investigation at the Finnish tourism bureau on the Haymarket he was told that a Helsinki tourist agency called Haleva ran one-day tours to Tallinn, Estonia, and short trips to Leningrad, which also did not require a visa. They were meant for Finns, the girl at the counter told him, but she didn't think there would be any problem if an Englishman were to buy a ticket. Estonia was part of the Soviet Union, and Mila would be able to travel there without difficulty.
Mervyn located an 1892 map of Revel (modern Tallinn) at the British Library and a pre-war German guidebook. He picked the town's highest spire, St Olaf's church, Oleviste Kirik, because it was the obvious place to meet, and not too far from the docks. In a series of letters in early August he dropped hints to Mila - did she plan on taking a holiday in the Baltic? Tallinn was very nice, he'd heard. Maybe Mervyn would have to be in Scandinavia on the 26th or 29th. Had Mila heard of St Olaf's church? Mila took the hint and indicated that she would be there.
The plan was risky. Before Mervyn set off to Finland on 22 August, he left a letter to be delivered to the Foreign Office in case he did not return.
'At the end of the month I am going to make one or two attempts to return to the USSR, in order to see my fiancée,' he wrote. 'I shall almost certainly try to go over to Tallinn. There is some chance that I may end up in a Soviet prison. . . I wish to make it clear that if I am seized by the Soviets I do not wish to have any assistance from any FO employees in the USSR, and I must tell you categorically that none of your people are to make any attempt to contact my fiancée. I hope that statement leaves no uncertainties in your mind . . . I regret having had any dealing with your office, and want no more.'
He posted the letter to a friend, to be sent to the Foreign Office if he didn't return by mid-September.
Mervyn took a cheap flight to Copenhagen, then a night ferry to Stockholm and another to Helsinki. The next morning, a Thursday, he walked to the Kaleva Travel Agency office and booked a ticket to Tallinn for Saturday. He spent the rest of the day walking around Helsinki, sitting on old Russian cannon at the fort and writing to Mila, asking her to send her replies poste restante to Helsinki.
'I just can't find the words to describe the local beauty,' he wrote. 'The open sea with great bays and islands, smiling in the sun, and lovely white yachts sailing in the calm sea.'
On Friday he went back to the travel agency, and was given his small pink ticket without fuss, despite his not being Finnish. Mervyn and his fellow passengers arrived at the southern harbour the next morning at nine and boarded the SS
Vanemuine.
It sailed on time an hour later.
The day was sunny and blustery, perfect Scandinavian weather. Soon after they set sail a dour-looking Russian in a dark suit went around collecting passports in a box. As Mervyn gave his in he got a quizzical look from the plainclothes border guard. The crossing took two hours, and Mervyn stood on the open part of the bridge, staring across Soviet waters as the spires of Tallinn came into view. As the ship docked, the Russian re-emerged with his box and began calling out the names of the passengers to return their passports. Mervyn waited, a knot of anxiety in his stomach. But his name was called, the last on the list, and the Russian handed him back his passport with a blank look.
As he walked down the gangplank, Mervyn heard a woman's voice, not Mila's, call his name. It was Nadia, Mila's niece, and she was beaming, and incredulous. She and Mila had been expecting Mervyn the next day, and she'd only come to the docks for a practice run. Mila was waiting at the Oleviste Kirik. Nadia had checked for goons, and seen none.
They walked past the customs house and bastion into the Old Town. As they approached the church, Mervyn saw a woman in a kerchief sitting on a bench, and called out. To his embarrassment, it wasn't Mila. 'Mila's over there,' said Nadia, pointing to a small, familiar figure by the entrance to the church. They embraced.
'I cannot describe my emotions at that moment,' Mervyn wrote to Mila later. Even after two years of separation, he felt an immediate closeness, 'the same kind eyes, sympathy, common concerns'.
For a few hours in Tallinn, my parents lived in the strange exhilaration of stolen time. They were not meant to be there; the rulers of the ordinary world had ordained, in their peremptory way, that they should be apart. Yet there they were, wandering arm in arm around the Old Town, talking about plans for the future as Nadia followed them at a distance, looking out for the KGB. A chink in the wall had let Mervyn through, and that small victory was to give them the hope that the hours could turn into a lifetime. I do not think that they could have borne what were to be six years of separation without those moments in Tallinn when they proved to each other that they were truly still flesh and blood, not just words on paper, and that the battle could be won.
They dropped in on a girlfriend of Mila's for tea, and sat on park benches in the watery northern sun. As they wandered back towards the port, they heard the ship's horn blare. Mervyn looked at his watch - it was much later than he had thought.
They broke into a run, Mila limping as fast as she could. The ship was just casting off, but the gangplank was still down, and there were a couple of seconds for a brief hug before Mervyn ran on board. As the ship pulled away he watched Nadia and Mila on the quayside, waving, her small figure fading away as the ship pulled into the fairway. Mervyn was engulfed in grief, and hope.
The Lomamatka Tourist Bureau in Helsinki also offered a trip to Leningrad - two nights at sea, one in Leningrad, staying aboard ship. Again, no Soviet visa was required. On the evening of 4 September Mervyn boarded the SS
Kastelholm,
a small and venerable steamer, and set off for Leningrad. He admired the old reciprocating steam engine. A genial Finn collected the passports, and Mervyn slept more easily in the knowledge that there were no Soviet officials aboard.
The next morning as he went on deck he found that they were already steaming up the Neva towards Leningrad docks. Mervyn went ashore with the other passengers, and saw Mila waiting for him by a parked truck. They did not embrace, in order not to attract attention, and walked to the city centre. Mila was alone, this time, without Nadia to keep watch. They spent the day wandering the city, going to the Russian Museum, where for a few alarming minutes they lost each other in different halls.
Mila had booked a room in a student hostel, and managed to smuggle Mervyn in for a few hours in the early evening with the connivance of her fellow students. They were disturbed by a banging on the door, but it was a false alarm. It was someone who had mixed up the rooms, not the KGB coming to haul Mervyn away to jail. In the evening, after a greasy duck meal in a restaurant, Mervyn had to return to spend the night on the ship.
The next day was much the same - with no cosy place to stay and talk, they just wandered the squares and streets, holding on to each other. This time they returned to the docks in plenty of time. They said a quick goodbye among the parked lorries, and Mervyn walked to the ship alone. The parting was less sad than at Tallinn, but still the brief meeting had made the emptiness which followed all the sharper.
'So, I'm on my way back to Helsinki, over the darkening Baltic waters,' Mervyn wrote on the ship as he sailed westwards down the Neva. 'I have spent the happiest two days ever during our two years of separation. It was wonderful, mentally and physically. I hope I did not say anything hurtful while we were together. I looked back as I was getting on board, and I saw your slight figure and legs disappearing. I felt very, very sad. I still love you and we will continue our struggle for happiness. Now I have the impression that everything will move quickly. You'll see.'