A saturnine youth in glasses breathed heavily on Paul and said, ‘Ernest Gemingway. Murder or suicide?’
‘Oh, murder, I think,’ said Paul. The kohled girl gave a loud yawn, a huge red capital O. ‘Something to do with Cuban politics, probably. Political assassination, perhaps.’ This was seized on thankfully and hissed—‘Politicheskoe ubiystvo’—round the company.
‘Oh, Paul, you idiot,’ said Belinda.
‘There was my Uncle Vadim in Leningrad,’ said Alexei Prutkov. ‘He looked after me. I speak Russian and I speak English. I have this job of interpreter with Intourist.’ He looked defiantly at Belinda and Paul, as daring them to congratulate him. ‘But,’ he said, ‘where am I? Where are all these? Where are we all going? I don’t know where I am or what I am.’
‘You mean,’ said Paul, ‘you’re unsure of your allegiances?’
‘I don’t know what I mean,’ said Alexei Prutkov. ‘I hear these stories about people waiting for the bomb to drop. Little groups of people in America and Western Europe living together and listening to jazz and waiting for the bomb to drop. And who is it who’s going to drop this bomb? That’s what I want to know.’
‘That’s what we all want to know,’ said Belinda.
‘It’s the State that’s to blame,’ said Alexei Prutkov. ‘It’s the State that wants to kill off everybody inside it just to show it’s more powerful than they are.’
‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Paul. ‘Besides, you shouldn’t talk like that. Not here in Russia you shouldn’t.’
‘Russia or America,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘what’s the difference? It’s all the State. There’s only one State. What we have to do is to get together in these little groups and start to live.’
‘Can you do that here?’ asked Belinda.
‘We’ve got to try,’ said Alexei Prutkov. ‘Life is the important thing, isn’t it?’ he said gloomily. ‘Wine, women, song and having a good time. While there’s still time to have a good time, dig?’ He twitched his nostrils in rumba rhythm, like an earnest of having a good time.
10
IT ALL BECAME VERY FRIENDLY. THE FACES OF THE YOUNG Leningraders grew names—Vladimir, Sergei, Boris, Feodor, a Pavel like himself; it was the cast-list of a Russian novel coming alive. Smoke rose; borshch and herrings were eaten. The restaurant was still full, but the drunken, frog-dancing phase was spent; it had given place to the discussion and poetry that were more fitting for these small hours. So now Sergei, a student of engineering, spoke a poem of Pushkin’s to Belinda, a luscious growling poem of infinite lyric sadness:
‘Ya vas liubil; liubov yeshcho, buit-mozhet,
V dushe moyey ugasla nye sovsyem … ’
‘“I loved you,’” translated Alexei Prutkov. ‘“Perhaps this love has not completely died in my heart, dig? But let it no longer be any trouble to you. I don’t want you to be sad about anything. I loved you silently and without hope, sometimes nearly dead with joy and sometimes with jealousy. I loved you so sincerely, dig, with such tenderness, as God may allow that you be loved sometime by somebody else.’”
‘… Kak day vam Bog liubemoy buit drugim.’
Paul’s eyes were wet; Feodor was openly weeping; the waiter stood by with bottles still to be opened, his face drooping with sadness. Only Belinda seemed unaffected. ‘Love,’ she sneered. ‘What some call love is all take and no give.’
‘Not with me, dearest,’ said Paul, and he tried to slide an arm round her, but she shrugged the arm off. She had reached an irritable, awkward, truculent mood. She said:
‘And there aren’t any more decent cigarettes. There are only these horrible cardboard Russian things,’ pouting. ‘I gave all my decent American ones to you,’ she accused, pointing at Alexei Prutkov. And then, to Paul, elbowing him viciously, ‘Go and get some decent cigarettes somewhere.’ Paul saw that the sooner he got her out of here and to bed the better. He said:
‘In the hotel, darling. Perhaps we’d better be going.’
‘I’m not going. I’m staying. This is my holiday as much as yours.’ Sergei began to recite more Pushkin, a long speech from Boris Godunov. Belinda said, ‘If that’s more about love, as they call it, I just don’t want to know.’ Sergei’s voice crunched and honeyed on. ‘Ask him about love, I don’t think,’ she said, jerking her shoulder towards Paul. ‘You try and see how much he knows about loving a woman.’
‘That’s quite enough now,’ warned Paul.
‘Enough is right,’ said Belinda. ‘I came here for a good time and not a lot of poetry. Clear all that muck off the table and I’ll do a strip-tease.’
‘Come on,’ said Paul very sternly. ‘We’re off.’
‘I’ll do it on the table. Somebody go up there and play the piano. A strip-tease to music. I bet,’ said Belinda, glowering at Anna, ‘I’ve got as good a figure as hers. Better. More voluptuous. Not,’ she said, ‘that he’d ever do anything about it.’ She turned nasty blue eyes on Paul again. The rumbling flood of Pushkin stopped. Vladimir said:
‘Bien entendu, nous autres Russes ne voyons presque rien des mæurs occidentals——’
And then Belinda went ‘Ouch’, clapping her hand on her neck as though a horse-fly had stabbed at it. ‘The goddamn thing’s paining again,’ she said.
‘Look,’ said Paul urgently, ‘you’re not well. Whatever they gave you’s wearing off. I’m going to get a taxi.’
‘A taxi?’ Alexei Prutkov shook his head slowly. ‘You won’t get a taxi. Not now. Not at this time.’ He talked Russian with Boris, Sergei, Feodor. ‘No,’ he confirmed. ‘No taxis now, dad.’ But Pavel laid his finger to his nose, straight out of Gogol, and said something. ‘Pavel,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘is in the Secret Police. He said he’ll take over somebody’s private car for you. In the name of the Secret Police. Not,’ he added in gloom, ‘that there’ll be any private cars around at this time. Nor any time for that matter. Crazy, man.’
‘Oh,’ said Belinda, in time to a new stab. ‘Oh oh ouch.’
‘We’ll find something,’ said Paul. ‘Come on.’ But when she stood up she found herself lame. The drama of her sudden physical distress appealed to the young Russians. There was a loud skirring of chairs as they rose. Anna, however, remained seated. ‘I’d better pay my bill,’ said Paul.
‘The only way to pay your bill, dad,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘is to get up and go. If you just sit and wait it will take a long long time.’
And indeed, in the big shabby drawing-room, as Belinda—well-supported by strong young Leningraders—limped through, groaning, a waiter was only too ready to present a bill. It was unitemized and huge but Paul didn’t argue. On the ABTOMAT cigarette-machine he saw a notice hanging—nothing improvised, something printed and evidently taken from an ever-ready stock: ‘Nye Rabotayet’—It Works Not. He was to see it often in Leningrad. And now he was able to say ‘Nye rabotayet’ to the waiters who expressed concern about Belinda’s groans and limping. The grim masseuse-like woman with the ammoniac cotton wool frowned from the stairhead; a dwarfish attendant from the ladies’ tualet was with her, nodding and saying ‘Pyahnaya’. Paul was annoyed and growled, ‘She’s not drunk, blast you.’ And so they got Belinda painfully downstairs and placed her on a chair in the shadows by the manager’s office. A hellish noise of bawling and banging and smashed glass came from the street; there was frenzied hammering on the front door. Paul was momentarily frightened. A Biblical phrase came into his head: ‘Bring us the strangers, that we may know them.’ Drunken Russians were after foreign blood. But Alexei Prutkov reassured him:
‘Those are only stilyagi. They want to be let in.’
‘Stilyagi?’ That had something to do with style, dress. ‘Oh yes,’ Paul remembered, ‘teddy-boys.’ And then, to Pavel, ‘What about some transport?’ But Pavel was ready to take his time about it. He laid his finger to the side of his nose again, went ‘Pssssss’ gently, then pointed towards a dim light and a stench of urine. All the men prepared to go there, nodding, as though this question of transpo
rt had to be debated by an ad hoc committee to meet in camera. Anna, who had followed sulkily at the tail of the procession, stood in shadow with her arms folded, affecting to ignore Belinda’s distress. ‘Shan’t be a minute, dear,’ said Paul, going with the others. He had a need, he realized, a definite need.
In the urinal two very small men were fighting. A large cloakroom official remonstrated with them but took no physical action. A student from upstairs was pounding his full stream at the stones; he recognized Paul, smiled with beautiful teeth, and said, ‘Peeeeeace.’ Phonemic confusion; it was nothing to do with mir. The place was filthy. Alexei Prutkov turned urgently to Paul and said:
‘What have you got to sell, dad?’ Vladimir, Sergei, Boris and Feodor seemed to associate themselves with this question; they looked keenly at Paul.
‘Sell?’ His heart jerked up in hope, but he remained cautious. Pavel of the Secret Police was talking earnestly to a man with Tarzan-length hair. But it still might be a trap.
‘Yes, yes, sell,’ said Alexei Prutkov impatiently. ‘Watches, cameras, Parker pens. All tourists have something to sell.’
‘As for that,’ said Paul carefully, ‘that has to be thought about. There’s the question of the law. The immediate need is to get my wife to the Astoria. She’s far from well, as you’ve seen.’
‘Your wife also,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘might have things to sell. Brassières, for instance. Russia is in great need of brassières.’ He looked gloomy.
‘Might I ask,’ said Paul with continued care, ‘what or whom you represent? I mean, is it some Government department?’
‘Oh, dad, dad,’ said Alexei Prutkov, his nostrils writhing, ‘you’re just not with it. You’re not hip. (Hip—is that the right word?) People need things, not ideas. Ideas mean bombs. People want a few things to play with before the big bomb goes off. Now then, what have you got to sell?’
‘That would depend,’ said Paul. ‘My wife, for instance, might have a dress or two. If she sold, who would buy? The exchange rate isn’t very helpful to tourists. She might need a little extra money and would be willing to sacrifice one or two of her dresses. But she’d need cash, not promises.’
‘Oh,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘there’d be cash, dad. There’s plenty of cash around. I don’t have much myself, but there’s plenty around.’
‘It’s something to think about,’ said Paul. He was now at the stones, steaming away, Alexei Prutkov unbuttoning next to him. The two men who had fought now sang, arms entwined. ‘In the meantime there’s the question of——’
‘Yes yes, transport, I know. We’ll get you there, dad, never fear. I work,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘in the Hermitage. Do you know where that is?’
‘I’ve seen it,’ said Paul. ‘Very imposing.’
‘They have these old professors who are with it, dig—art and sculpture and history, but they don’t know any English. That’s where I come in. I translate what they say for the tourists. Sometimes I get it all wrong, but nobody seems to notice. Sometimes I just ball it up on purpose, dig, but nobody seems to care. What I want,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘is to live. The Hermitage is dead. I’m there every morning around now,’ he added, buttoning up. ‘From ten o’clock on.’
‘So now,’ said Paul, ‘I know where to find you.’
‘That’s it, dad. You know where to find me. And some time,’ said Alexei Prutkov, ‘you might like to come round to my pad.’ He looked both shy and daring. ‘Pad. Is that the word?’
‘That will do,’ said Paul. ‘Pad will do very well.’ He was taking a liking to this strange mixed young man.
‘There’s just Anna and me living there,’ said Alexei Prutkov. ‘Anna’s married to a man in Georgia. Russian Georgia, not the one where they hang all the niggers.’
The group reassembled at leisure around Belinda—Vladimir with the glasses, consumptive-looking Sergei, fattish Boris, Feodor with the collar and tie, enigmatic Pavel. Belinda railed at Paul; the pain was as bad as it had been on board; the rash—Alexei Prutkov struck a match to peer at it—was angrier if anything. ‘Do something,’ cried Belinda. ‘For God’s sake do something, damn and blast you.’
The stilyagi were still raging to be let in. Two sweating bulky commissionaires swore as they lent their weight to support the straining portals. ‘We want to get out,’ said Paul. ‘Please open up.’ To his surprise they did, promptly. To his greater surprise the stilyagi took no advantage. Young toughs in shirt-sleeves (this being no season for style), armed with coshes and bottles, they politely made way for the leaving party, waited for the doors to be bolted again, then resumed their batterings and yells. Something to do with the chess-mind. ‘Where are the police?’ asked Paul. There seemed altogether too much freedom in the Soviet Union—no licensing laws, teddy-boys rampant and unreproved, and now a raincoated prostitute under a dim lamp.
‘Police?’ said Alexei Prutkov. ‘We don’t dig police here much, dad.’
Nor taxis. ‘Is nobody doing anything?’ moaned Belinda. She let herself collapse gracelessly on the edge of the pavement, her lame leg stretched into the gutter. Huge northern summer night above, belled fire and the moth-soft Milky Way. Sergei began murmuring more Pushkin. The road was empty as though drained; there was no London hum of distant traffic. Pavel went off, muttering he would be back with something. Alexei Prutkov and Anna were snarling at each other.
‘Somebody will fix up something, dad,’ Alexei Prutkov said. ‘She says we’ve got to be going. See you around.’
‘See you at the bridge,’ said Paul.
Alexei Prutkov liked that. ‘At the bridge,’ he repeated. ‘Crazy, man. Cool.’ Paul wearily joined Belinda at the pavement’s edge; he felt they were both now being deserted. All right, they would just wait and wait and go on waiting. ‘You can teach me a lot, dad. You know where to find me.’ And he was pulled off by Anna. The stilyagi were quietening now, tiring. The prostitute clicked up and down her lonely beat. Belinda said:
‘I’m in such pain. I shall just lie down here and die.’
‘Attendez.’ Vladimir clicked his fingers. ‘Zéro trois.’ And he ran off. A telephone number?
‘What’s all that about?’ asked Belinda. But she seemed past caring; she even drooped on to Paul’s shoulder.
‘If only,’ said Paul, ‘there were some police.’
He snivelled inwardly at the image of a nice cosy English nick, a fat old desk-sergeant bringing tea in mugs, somebody on the telephone taking care of things. He looked up. Sergei and Boris saw him looking up and made delicate good-night gestures with their fingers. ‘Da svidanya,’ said Feodor. The three went off towards Nevsky Prospekt. All the stilyagi seemed to have gone. Late revellers came from the Metropol; the prostitute picked up one of them, a neckless laughing man. Soon Paul and Belinda had the Leningrad street to themselves. Belinda slept on his shoulder, making dream-noises of pain. Twice the pain woke her. Paul’s teeth had lost once more their tiny splint, but he didn’t care. He was wretched, wretched, wretched.
And then Vladimir returned, saying, ‘Ça vient maintenant.’ He was excited.
‘A taxi?’ said Paul. ‘You’ve actually managed to get a taxi?’ Vladimir was right to be excited; to conjure a vehicle out of these desolate streets, at this desolate hour, was an act of thaumaturgy potent enough to excite anybody. And there was the noise, something to be savoured, just round the corner and coming nearer. Vladimir bowed and danced off. ‘Oh,’ cried Paul, ‘spasiba, spasiba.’ He foresaw a bed in that hotel room, unbroken sleep till tomorrow’s noon, Belinda better. The taxi drew up about fifty yards down the street. ‘Slava Bogu,’ prayed Paul, thanking the God of the Russians. And then out of the taxi emerged three white-coated figures, two of them carrying a stretcher. ‘Oh no,’ groaned Paul.
‘What? Where?’ mumbled Belinda, waking. Then, ‘Ouch. Oh my God.’ She was ill all right.
‘So,’ said a familiar voice, ‘it is just as I predicted.’ It was Dr Lazurkina, ghostly in the dark. ‘When the telephone call
came through I was quite sure. And how,’ she said, bending to Belinda, ‘is our little English flower?’ The two men were picking up Belinda by her four corners and she was too spent to protest.
‘Ouch,’ she went.
‘I’m coming too,’ said Paul. ‘I must come.’
‘The ambulance is very small,’ said Dr Lazurkina. ‘Besides, you can do no good. Go to your hotel and sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep,’ she intoned, breezily, hypnotically.
‘Paul, Paul,’ went Belinda, being slid into the little vehicle on her stretcher and looking as if she were being crammed into a boot. ‘Paul.’ But her voice was faint.
‘Tomorrow you shall come,’ said Dr Lazurkina. ‘But now you shall go.’ She shook hands with Paul.
‘Paul,’ came Belinda’s voice from under the noise of the ambulance starting up.
Dr Lazurkina leapt athletically into the front passenger-seat. Off they went to Bog knew what voluptuous probings.
Paul, desperately weary, faced the prospect of walking to the Astoria. To inch along on his bottom would take far too long. He felt he would pay any number of roubles to whatever kopekless mujik would drag him thither by the heels. Or he could sleep here on the pavement, safe in the knowledge that no police would come to stop him. Finally he decided to pluck up courage and slide forward on his feet.
11
PAUL WOKE TO A BRILLIANT RUSSIAN NOON MARCHING IN through the window with swinging elbows. No secret police had come for him in the small remainder of the night; he felt free and refreshed and guiltless as waking Adam; then, as he sighted his denture on the table—a morsel of ham-pink and ivory in the sun—the day of burdens and responsibilities fitted in its own full set and gnashed at him. But, first, breakfast: one difficulty at a time.
In shirt, pants, shoes and raincoat, the denture riding free on his gum, he went out into the corridor, which was quite empty. After some searching he came to a sort of still-room in which two old women sat happily with ample elevenses. It was squalid and cosy, very much mum’s kitchen at home; only the copy of Pravda on the table proclaimed foreignness. The main headline said: ‘MANCHESTER RUKOPLESHCHET Y. GAGARINU’—Manchester acclaims Y. Gagarin—so the foreignness was a little mitigated. Paul wished the two women good morning and said, ‘Chai.’ They took no notice of him, so he began to seek out tea-things for himself. The bigger of the two women shouted and prepared to hit him. He shouted back, being rested now and ready for any Russian nonsense. ‘Zavtrak,’ he demanded (such a hard word for breakfast) and the big woman shrugged and filled him a tray with open blood-sausage sandwiches, glazed pale caviar, and a glass of tea that was milkless but spilled into a saucer of grey wartime sugar. He grunted, took the strange breakfast back to his room and ate and drank while he dressed. The first thing, obviously, was to go and see poor Belinda; the second, to do something about those blasted drilon dresses.