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VIII
MY BREAK WITH STALIN

but returned with empty hands. He was urged to go back and stop at nothing, not even murder, in going after the papers. In despair and with tears in his eyes, he came to me for advice.
I told him that Reiss had been an idealist, a true Communist, and that the future history of the revolutionary and labour movements would condemn the murders of the Ogpu. I advised him to sabotage the dangerous errand with which Spiegelglass had entrusted him, and I told him how to do it. But I still spoke of my imminent return to Moscow, and my young friend knew that Madeleine was trying to secure tickets for me and my family on the 13retagne.
We moved over from St.-Germain to the Hotel Metropolitain, Rue Cambon, in Paris, where we stayed from September 17 to October 6. Here Madeleine came to report that the French liner had made her last trip of the season. We discussed other ways of getting back home. I was still a high officer of the Soviet Military Intelligence. I had to cable Moscow for special permission to leave by a Soviet boat, since Soviet boats are carefully scrutinized by the secret services of other nations. I noticed that every step of my own or of my wife was being dogged by spies, although their master, Spiegelglass, had disappeared.
I received permission from Moscow to take a Soviet boat, and information that the next vessel to 'leave Le Havre was the Zhdanov, sailing October 6. New passports had to be prepared for me in the name of a Soviet citizen passing through France on the way from Spain. My wife and child were to go back through Germany on a different passport.
One day, towards the end of September, my wife asked me what my chances were of escaping death on my return to Moscow.
I told her what I thought: "None."