“Do not forget us,” said the two ladies simultaneously and each touched the other’s black sleeve, with a smile that acknowledged the superstition. Martin bowed. Irina made a dash for him and clutched the lapels of his jacket with both hands. He felt embarrassed, tried cautiously to unclasp her fingers; but she held tight, and when Mrs. Pavlov took hold of her shoulders from behind the poor creature broke out into loud sobs. Martin could hardly conceal his revulsion as he observed the dreadful expression of her face, the red rash on her forehead. With a sharp, if not rough movement, he tore loose from her hold. She was led away, her chesty howl retreated, and subsided at last. “The same worries all the time,” said Sonia as she accompanied Martin to the hallway. Martin put on his raincoat—the raincoat was a complicated affair, and it took him some time to arrange the belt properly. “Drop in sometime in the evening,” said Sonia as she watched his operation, her hands deep in the front pockets of her jumper. Gloomily Martin shook his head. “We get together and dance,” Sonia said and with her legs close together, she shifted first her toes, then her heels, then again toes and again heels, in a slight sideways motion. “Well,” said Martin slapping his pockets. “I don’t think I had any parcels.” “Remember?” asked Sonia and began to whistle softly the tune of a London fox-trot. Martin cleared his throat. “I don’t like your hat,” she remarked. “They don’t wear them like that any more?” “Proshchay,” said Martin, and skillfully grabbing Sonia pushed his lips against her bared teeth, her cheek, the tender part behind her ear, then let her go (she backed away and almost fell), and quickly left, involuntarily slamming the door.
46
He noticed that he was grinning and out of breath, and that his heart was beating fast. “Well, that’s that,” he said to himself, and began walking away with bold strides as if he were in a hurry. But there was no place to go. Darwin’s absence confused his plans. As he went along the Kurfürstendamm, he kept noting with vague sadness Berlin’s familiar features: the austere church at the crossroads, so lonely amidst pagan cinemas; the Tauentzienstrasse, where pedestrians inexplicably avoid the median boulevard, preferring to progress in a tight flow close to the display windows. The blind man, who sold sight and light, kept thrusting a box of matches into eternal darkness; there were stalls with heather and asters, stalls with bananas and apples; a person in a brown overcoat stood on the seat of an old convertible, holding out fanwise tablets of a nameless chocolate whose exquisite quality he eloquently described to a small crowd of loafers. Martin turned into a side street and entered a Russian bookshop where émigré and Soviet works lay next to foreign magazines. A corpulent gentleman with the face of a polite reptile spread on the counter what he called novinki, “novelties.” Martin found nothing to his liking and bought a copy of Punch. What next? That meal at the Zilanovs’ had been decidedly scant. He directed his steps toward the Pir Goroy where he used to eat a year ago. From there he rang up Darwin’s hotel. Darwin had not yet returned. “Zwanzig pfennig, pozhaluysta,” said the thickly powdered lady behind the counter. “Merci.”
The proprietor was the painter Danilevski, whom Martin had known at Adreiz, a short man wearing a stiff collar, with a rosy infantile face and a blond wart under one eye. He came up to Martin’s table and asked shyly, “Bo-borshch all right?” (like many stammerers he was strangely attracted to sounds that were the hardest to master). “Yes, indeed,” answered Martin, and as always felt heartrending tenderness as he visualized Danilevski against the backdrop of the Crimean night.
The latter sat down and watched with approval Martin consuming his soup. “Did I tell you that according to certain information they’ve be-be-been living all these years at Adreiz—remarkable!”
(Can it be that they were never disturbed in their manor? reflected Martin. Can it be that everything has remained the same—those little pears, for example, drying on the veranda roof?)
“Mohicans,” murmured Danilevski pensively.
The room was emptyish. Small divans, a stove with a zigzag pipe, newspapers on wooden holders.
“All this will be improved. I might paint the walls with -bah! bah! -babas, if only it were not so sad. Bo-bright dresses, but livid faces with eyes like horses. At least, that’s the way it comes out in my sketches. Or else one could do clouds and below—and below—the fringe of a forest. We shall enlarge the premises, I asked a carpenter to come yesterday, but he never turned up.”
“Many customers?”
“Usually, yes. This is not the right time for dinner, so do not draw conclusions. The literary burrow-burrow brotherhood is well represented. Rakitin, for instance, the journalist, you know, the one that sports spats … And a few days ago, boo, a few days ago, boo, Sergey Bubnov, right here, smashed dishes, he’s drinking heavily, disappointment in love, engagement babaroken.”
Danilevski sighed, his fingers drumming on the table; then he slowly got up and went into the kitchen. He reappeared as Martin was taking his hat from the rack. “There’ll be shashlik tomorrow,” said Danilevski. “We’ll be expecting you.” Martin experienced a fleeting desire to say something very kind to that dear melancholy man with such a euphonious stutter; but what could one say?
47
He crossed the paved court with its noseless statue in the middle of a lawn on which grew a few thujas, pushed open a familiar door, walked up the stairs that reeked of cabbage and cats, and rang the bell. One of the lodgers, a young German, came out and said Bubnov was ill, but knocked in passing on the latter’s door, and the writer’s great voice, now hoarse and ill-humored, was heard to holler “Herein!”
Bubnov was sitting on the bed, clad in black trousers and an open shirt, his face was swollen and unshaven, his eyelids inflamed. Sheets of paper were strewn over the bed, the floor, and the table, on which stood a glass of turbid tea. It turned out that Bubnov was putting the finishing touches to a short story and at the same time attempting to compose in German an impressive letter to the gentleman of the Finanzamt who were demanding he pay his taxes. He was not drunk but neither could one call him sober. His thirst had passed, but everything in him had been twisted out of shape and shaken loose by the hurricane; his thoughts wandered about looking for their old dwellings and finding only ruins. He showed no surprise at the appearance of Martin, whom he had not seen since spring, and at once started to upbraid a certain critic as if Martin were responsible for that critic’s review. “They’re baiting me,” Bubnov kept repeating fiercely, and his face with the deep orbits looked rather ghastly. He had a tendency to assume that all disparaging reviews of his books were inspired by extraneous considerations, by envy, personal dislike, or the desire to avenge an offense. And listening to his disjointed survey of literary intrigue Martin found it amazing that anyone could take so much to heart another man’s opinion, and he fought the temptation to tell Bubnov that his novella Zoorland was a failure, a pseudoartistic and worthless piece. But when Bubnov abruptly abandoned that topic and began to talk about his having been jilted, Martin cursed the wrongheaded curiosity that had brought him here. “I will not name her, thou must not ask me,” said Bubnov who could switch to the Russian emotional second person singular with an actor’s ease. “Yet remember, I shall not be the last to perish because of her. God, how I loved her! How happy I was! It was the kind of tremendous feeling that makes one hear the thunder of angel wings. But she got frightened of my heavenly heights——”
Martin stayed on a little, felt a welling of intolerable heartache, and got up in silence. Sobbing, Bubnov accompanied him to the door. A few days later (when he was already in Latvia), Martin discovered in an émigré newspaper another of Bubnov’s “novellas,” fresh from the oven. This time it was excellent, and in it the protagonist, a young German, wore the tie Martin had on that day, pale gray with pink stripes (the treasured relic of a Cambridge club), which Bubnov, though seemingly engrossed in his grief, had appropriated as would a deft thief who wipes his tears with one hand while removing a man’s watch with the other.
Stopping at a stationer’s Martin bought half-a-dozen postcards and replenished his fountain pen; then he proceeded to Darwin’s hotel where he resolved to wait to the very last moment of remaining time and go straight from there to the station. The late afternoon sky was a sunless cheerless blank. The sound of automobile horns now seemed muffled by the mist. An open van passed by drawn by a pair of scrawny horses; upon it enough furniture was heaped to furnish a house: a couch, a chest of drawers, a gilt-framed seascape, and a lot of other melancholy chattels. A woman in mourning crossed the damp-dappled asphalt; she was pushing a pram, and in it sat a blue-eyed attentive infant; on reaching the sidewalk she pushed down the handle forcing the pram to rear. A poodle ran past in pursuit of a black whippet; the latter stopped and looked back in fear, raising one bent front paw and quivering. “What’s the matter, for goodness’ sake,” thought Martin. “What’s all this to me? I know I’m going to return. I must return.” He entered the vestibule of the hotel. Darwin still had not come back.
He found a comfortable armchair upholstered in leather, unscrewed the cap of his pen and began to write his mother. Space on the postcard was limited, his handwriting was large, so he did not manage to say much. “Everything is all right,” he wrote, strongly pressing down on the pen. “I stopped at the same old place, address your letters there. I hope Uncle’s toothache is better. Have not yet seen Darwin. The Zilanovs send greetings. Shall not write for a week as I have absolutely nothing to say. Many kisses.” He reread all this twice and unaccountably felt sick at heart and a chill ran down his back. “No nonsense, please,” Martin told himself, and, again pressing hard, wrote the Major’s widow asking her to hold his mail for him. After posting the cards he returned to his chair, leaned back in it, and began to wait, glancing now and then at the clock. A quarter of an hour passed, then twenty minutes, then twenty-five. Two mulatto girls with unusually thin legs went up the stairs. All of a sudden he heard behind his back the powerful breathing he at once recognized. He jumped up, and Darwin, with throaty ejaculations, slapped him on the shoulder. “You scoundrel,” mumbled Martin happily, “you scoundrel, I’ve been looking for you since morning.”
48
Darwin had gained some weight, his hair looked thinner, he had grown a well-trimmed little mustache. Somehow both he and Martin felt embarrassed and could not find a subject of conversation; they kept poking each other, grinning and rumbling. “What are you going to drink,” Darwin asked when they had entered his small but smart hotel room, “whisky and soda? A cocktail? Or simply some tea?” “No matter, no matter, anything you like,” answered Martin, taking up from the table a large photograph in an expensive frame. “She,” said Darwin. Portrait of a young woman with a diadem. Those brows meeting above the bridge of the nose, those light eyes, that long graceful neck—everything about her looked very definitive and domineering. “Her name’s Evelyn, she sings rather well, I’m sure you’ll become very good friends with her.” Darwin took the portrait and gave it a dreamy look before returning it to its place. “Well,” he asked dropping onto the couch and immediately stretching out his legs, “what’s new? I see you still wear the C.C.C. tie.”
A waiter brought the cocktails. Without pleasure Martin took a sip of gin-laced vermouth and recounted in a couple of sentences how he had spent the last two years. It surprised him that as soon as he fell silent, Darwin began to talk about himself, circumstantially and self-complacently—something that never used to happen before. How strange it was to hear from those indolent, chaste lips a tale of success, of earnings, of splendid hopes for the future! It also transpired that now he no longer composed those charming trifles about leeches or sunsets, but wrote articles on political and financial subjects, and was particularly interested in the sepulchral-sounding “moratoria,” whatever they were. When Martin, taking advantage of a sudden pause, reminded Darwin of the burning chariot, of Rose, of their fight, Darwin said indifferently “Yes, those were the times,” and to his horror Martin realized that Darwin’s recollections had died, or were absent, and the only thing that remained was a discolored signboard.
“And what is Prince Vadim doing?” asked Darwin stifling a yawn.
“Vadim is in Brussels. Has a job there. And the Zilanovs are here. I often see Sonia. She still has not married.”
Darwin emitted a huge puff of smoke. “Give her my greetings,” he said. “But what about you? Pity you’re sort of drifting. I’ll introduce you to some important people tomorrow, I’m sure you’ll like journalism.”
Martin coughed. Time had come to discuss the main matter, the matter he had so much wished to discuss with Darwin.
“Thanks,” he said, “but that’s impossible, I’ll be leaving Berlin in an hour’s time.”
Darwin raised himself slightly: “Not really? Where are you going?”
“You’ll see in a minute. I’m now going to tell you something no one else knows. For several years—yes, several years—but that’s not essential——”
He faltered. Darwin sighed, and said, “I’ve guessed everything. I’ll act as best man.”
“Stop it, please. This is serious. I’ve been trying all day to get to you for the special purpose of talking it over. The fact is I’m planning to cross illegally into Russia from Latvia, just for twenty-four hours, yes, and then walk back again. Now here’s where you come in: I’ll give you four postcards, you’ll send them to my mother, one every week—every Thursday let’s say. I expect to be back within a shorter time, but I can’t foretell how long it will take me to investigate things, to select the exact itinerary, and so forth. Of course I’ve already collected a lot of crucial information from a certain person. But I may get stuck, may not be able to wriggle out immediately. You understand, my mother must not know anything about it, must receive my postcards from Berlin regularly. I gave her my old address, it is all quite simple.”
Silence.
“Yes, of course, it is all quite simple,” said Darwin.
Silence again.
“Only I do not quite see what’s the purpose of it.”
“Give it a little thought, and you will.”
“Some plot against the good old Soviets? Want to see someone? Deliver a secret message, rig up something? I confess that as a boy I rather fancied those gloomy bearded chaps who threw bombs at the troika of the ruthless governor.”
Morosely, Martin shook his head.
“And if you merely want to visit the land of your fathers—although your father was half-Swiss, wasn’t he?—still, if you want to see it so badly, would it not be simpler to obtain a regular Soviet visa and cross the border by train? Don’t want to? Perhaps, after the assassination in that Swiss café, you think you won’t be given a visa? All right, I’ll get you a British passport.”
“What you’re imagining is all wrong,” said Martin, “I expected you’d understand everything at once.”
Darwin folded an arm under his head. He could not make up his mind whether or not Martin was pulling his leg, and if not, what really prompted him to embark on that preposterous undertaking. For a while he puffed on his pipe, then said:
“If, finally, what you are after is just pure risk, there’s no need to travel so far. Let us invent something unusual, something that can be executed right now, right here, without overstepping the windowsill. And then let’s have a bite and go to a music hall.”
Martin remained silent, and his face looked sad.
“This is absurd,” reflected Darwin, “absurd and rather peculiar. Stayed quietly in Cambridge while they had their civil war, and now craves a bullet in the head for spying. Is he trying to mystify me? What an idiotic conversation.”
Martin gave a start, looked at his watch, and got up.
“Look here, stop playing the fool,” said Darwin, smoke pouring profusely from his pipe. “After all, this is scarcely polite. We have not seen each other since Cambridge. Either tell me all, intelligibly, or admit that you were joking, and we’ll talk of other things.”
&nb
sp; “I’ve told you all,” said Martin. “All. And now I must go.”
He put on his raincoat, picked up his hat from the floor. Darwin, who lay calmly on the couch, yawned and turned his face to the wall. “So long,” said Martin but Darwin did not respond. “So long,” Martin repeated. “Nonsense, it can’t be true,” thought Darwin. He yawned again, and closed his eyes. “He won’t leave,” thought Darwin and sleepily pulled up one leg. For some time there endured an amusing silence. At last Darwin laughed softly and turned his head. But there was nobody in the room. It seemed impossible that Martin could have left so noiselessly. Perhaps he was hiding behind the furniture. Darwin remained lying a few minutes longer, then glanced warily around the already dimming room, put down his legs and straightened up. “Enough of it, now. Come out,” he said as he heard a slight rustle from the baggage recess between the wardrobe and the door. Nobody came out. Darwin went over and glanced into the recess. Nobody. Only a sheet of wrapping paper left over from some purchase. Darwin turned on the light, stood frowning, then opened the door leading into the passage. The passage was long, well lighted, and empty. The evening breeze tried to shut the window. “To hell with him,” said Darwin—and was lost in thought again. But suddenly he shook himself up and very deliberately started to change for dinner.
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