The Russian Interpreter

by Michael Frayn

  ‘How does she feel about it?’ asked Proctor-Gould. ‘Tell her I think her wonderful directness and charm will communicate remarkably well, even though she doesn’t know English.’

  ‘He thinks your lack of English would make it rather difficult,’ translated Manning. ‘Anyway, there’s no need to decide now. Think about it over the next couple of weeks and ask him to explain it to you in detail some time.’

  ‘I’ve said yes already,’ replied Raya. ‘I understand the project perfectly well.’

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘She seems to be mildly interested.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Raya to Proctor-Gould, in English. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, please.’

  Proctor-Gould began to grin, and then to tug at his ear as if to pull some string which would stop him grinning. He gave Raya his Russian business card, with his name printed on it in Cyrillic characters. She took a dozen playing-cards out of her pocket, selected one of them, the ten of diamonds, and wrote her name and the address of the Journalism Faculty among the diamonds. She had never given her private address to Manning, either.

  ‘What were you arguing about a moment or two back?’ she asked Manning.

  ‘If you want to know,’ he replied sourly, ‘I was just trying to make sure that Proctor-Gould intended the invitation seriously, and wasn’t just trying to take advantage of you.’

  She laughed, and kissed him.

  ‘That was kind of you,’ she said. ‘My knight! My own trade union representative!’

  15

  They walked to the Hotel National, the three of them, arm in arm, in silence.

  ‘Well,’ said Manning, when they reached the entrance. ‘We’ll be saying good night, Gordon. I’ll see Raya to the bus.’

  ‘Good night, then,’ said Proctor-Gould, giving Raya a peck on the cheek and detaching his arm from hers. ‘I’m sorry we had words, Paul.’

  ‘It was my fault. I was behaving ridiculously.’

  ‘We were both a little hasty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, good night, then.’

  ‘Good night.’

  Manning and Raya turned to go.

  ‘You won’t step up to my place for a late-night Nescafé?’ said Proctor-Gould, hesitating.

  ‘I don’t think we will, thanks, Gordon. Good night.’

  Proctor-Gould made gestures to Raya of lifting a cup and drinking, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Raya asked Manning.

  ‘Oh, he’s just asking us if we’d like to have a cup of coffee with him. I said we wouldn’t.’

  ‘Oh, but I would,’ said Raya. She turned to Proctor-Gould. ‘Yes, please,’ she said in English. ‘Kofye – yes, please!’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Raya! It’s far too late.’

  ‘Then you go home, Mr. Interpreter. But for me – yes, please, yes, please, yes, please.’

  They rode up in the lift, Manning angry, Raya impassive, Proctor-Gould with a soulful light in his capacious eyes which Manning recognized as a sign that he was pleased with himself. Manning did not believe that the floor-clerk would allow Proctor-Gould to take guests to his room at this time of night. But when they got out of the lift and came face to face with the old woman behind the shaded light at the desk Proctor-Gould nodded familiarly to her, and she nodded amiably back.

  Raya was intrigued and repelled by the room. While Proctor-Gould fetched the boiling water, she walked about, picking up heaps of socks and underwear from the floor, letting them trickle back through her fingers, then shivering, as if the cold loneliness of Proctor-Gould’s way of life struck chill into the marrow of her bones. Manning sat down in the chair with the lions’ heads and watched her, tapping his foot. She caught his eye.

  ‘Poor Gordon,’ she said, and began to clear the room up, folding the clothes away in drawers, hanging the dried shirts up in the wardrobe, and sliding the suitcases beneath the bed.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Proctor-Gould when he returned, looking round for the piles of clothing beneath which the Nescafé and the mugs lived. He dropped to his knees and pulled the suitcases out from under the bed.

  ‘I keep telling them not to touch anything,’ he said, ‘but they keep tidying everything away.’

  Manning laughed, looking at Raya.

  ‘It’s an obsession some people have,’ went on Proctor-Gould, mistaking the reason for Manning’s laughter. Manning laughed again.

  They watched in silence while Proctor-Gould levered the lid off the tin, measured out the apostle spoons of brown powder, and added the cooling water from the camper’s kettle. In silence they stirred their mugs and sipped at them, unable to think of anything to say to each other. Proctor-Gould took up his position with his back to the radiator, gazing sombrely down at the toe-caps of his shoes, moving his eyebrows thoughtfully up and down. Manning stared into space. Raya walked about the room, touching pieces of furniture, putting her head on one side and examining the stacks of English books on the table. Once she looked suddenly down into her mug after she had taken a mouthful and asked Manning curiously:

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Coffee.’

  Then they relapsed into silence again.

  ‘Well,’ said Manning at last, ‘we must be going. I should think Raya’s probably missed her last bus already.’

  ‘That’s all right. She can sleep here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why not?’

  In his astonishment Manning could think only of a practical reason.

  ‘What about the floor-clerk?’

  Proctor-Gould laughed, and pulled at his ear.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I thought for a moment that your indignation was based on moral grounds.’

  ‘It is. So will the floor-clerk’s be.’

  ‘Will you translate, please?’ said Raya. ‘I know you’re arguing about me again.’

  ‘I don’t think we need worry about the floor-clerk,’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘The authorities are much more sensible and understanding than you’d suppose.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I mean they seem to realize that the sort of job I’m doing sometimes involves contacts with people in rather unusual circumstances.’

  ‘In other words, you’ve done this before?’

  ‘Done what before, Paul?’

  ‘Had women up here.’

  ‘Are you asking me?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘That’s not the sort of question you usually ask your friends, is it?’

  ‘I’m just interested to know whether Raya’s the thirtieth or only, say, the tenth.’

  ‘Please,’ cried Raya, ‘what are you two jackasses saying?’

  Neither of them replied. They were walking about the room not looking at each other.

  ‘Look, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould in a concessive tone. ‘You know as well as I do that when a foreigner stays at a hotel in Moscow he’s rung up by prostitutes.’

  ‘You’ve had prostitutes up here?’

  ‘Purely for business reasons.’ He realized what he had said and gave a little giggle. ‘Perhaps that’s a rather unfortunate way of putting it. I mean, purely to see if they would do as clients for me.’

  ‘How did you make assignments with them? You can’t speak Russian.’

  ‘I know the Russian for “yes, please,” Paul.’

  ‘You’ve invited prostitutes up here late at night, sat them down in this arm-chair, given them cups of Nescafé, looked them over to see if they would do as personalities, then politely bowed them out again?’

  ‘More or less. I paid them, of course.’

  ‘But you couldn’t even talk to them!’

  ‘We just used to smile and make gestures.’

  ‘You sat here smiling and making gestures?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Drinking Nescafé?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In silence?’

  ‘I sometimes had the radio
on.’

  ‘Well, God help me!’

  ‘Do you believe me?’

  Manning stared at him.

  ‘I suppose I do,’ he said. ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘I must admit, it wasn’t very satisfactory. It was one of the jobs I wanted you for.’

  ‘Will you please tell me what’s going on?’ cried Raya.

  ‘You can’t imagine how maddening it is to be left in the dark while this sort of argument flashes about one’s head.’

  They looked round. They had both forgotten about her.

  ‘He’s inviting you to sleep here,’ said Manning briefly.

  ‘That’s very kind of him,’ she replied. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop trying to irritate me,’ said Manning. ‘Come on. I’ll see you to a taxi.’

  ‘She accepted my invitation, didn’t she?’ said Proctor-Gould.

  ‘Look, don’t be stupid,’ said Manning. ‘Anyway, what about your rule?’

  ‘What rule?’

  ‘I thought you had a rule about not getting emotionally involved while you were over here?’

  ‘Who said anything about getting emotionally involved, Paul?’

  ‘If spending the night with people isn’t getting emotionally involved with them …’

  ‘Don’t leap to conclusions, Paul. I shall doss down in the arm-chair. There’s no question of getting involved in any way at all.’

  ‘What about the danger of blackmail?’

  ‘Blackmail, Paul?’

  ‘You were warning me about it, if you remember.’

  ‘Good heavens Paul! You don’t think Raya’s a police spy, do you?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know, do we?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a very chivalrous attitude, Paul.’

  ‘Gordon, three days ago it was your attitude!’

  ‘At that stage I hadn’t met Raya. I was speaking generally. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in life, Paul, it’s that success goes to the man who knows when to modify his general principles to meet the situation in hand.’

  ‘You really have tumbled head over heels, haven’t you, Gordon!’

  ‘Paul, there’s no question of tumbling head over heels, or any involvement of any sort whatsoever. I’m just offering Raya somewhere to sleep for the night because she’s almost certainly missed her last bus.’

  ‘Gordon, let’s not delude ourselves. You’re in love with Raya.’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Oh, Gordon! You’re making a pass at her! I may say it’s the most preposterous, clumsy, witless pass I’ve ever seen made.’

  ‘Paul, let me assure you I have no designs upon Raya.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Gordon. You’re the archetype of a certain sort of impotence….’

  ‘Now, Paul, let’s not raise our voices….’

  ‘You flirt with other men’s women. You get prostitutes in and pay them for drinking Nescafé….’

  ‘Now, come, come, Paul….’

  ‘You launch into little adventures where there’s no possibility of failure because there’s no possibility of success….’

  There was a sharp rap on the door. They swung round. The old woman from the floor-clerk’s desk was standing on the threshold.

  ‘Quieter! Quieter!’ she whispered furiously. ‘It’s after midnight – you’ll wake the whole hotel!’

  After she had gone Manning and Proctor-Gould stood for a moment looking at each other in silence.

  ‘Well,’ said Manning, ‘Raya and I are going.’

  He looked round to tell her. But she had vanished. She had disappeared from the room without trace.

  It was Proctor-Gould who saw her first. She was in bed, with the covers drawn up over her nose, apparently fast asleep. Propped up against the carafe of water on the bedside was one of her playing cards. On it was written in her childish ballpoint hand:

  ‘A call at 8.0 a.m., please, with cheese, fruit, sour milk, and coffee.’

  16

  Manning spent a good deal of the night walking up and down his room in Sector B, his fists clenched, unable to believe that he had been treated so badly.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ he said to himself aloud over and over again, raising his eyebrows and running his hand through his hair, until the window was grey with dawn, and he was too exhausted to remember what it was that he couldn’t believe. When he woke up two or three hours later he could believe it even less, and when, as he sat haggard and sleepy in the Faculty Library, he received the usual message that Proctor-Gould had phoned and asked him to go over to the hotel, it seemed to him that his impressions of what had taken place the previous evening had simply been mistaken, and that nothing had really changed at all.

  But it had. Even as he opened the door of Proctor-Gould’s room he noticed the smell was different. It no longer smelt of loneliness and soiled white shirts – a smell which Manning had always found bleak but curiously English. Instead there was a mixture of warm, cheerful smells – Russian cigarettes, scent, hot cloth. And the appearance of the room had changed. There was a vase of tulips on the chest of drawers, a bowl of birch twigs on the escritoire. The stacks of books had been arranged neatly on shelves, and several large pictures had been pinned to the wall. They were of doll-like figures with red cheeks holding single flowers in their hands, childishly painted in bright poster colours on sheets of dark art paper. The piles of dirty linen and the open suitcases had gone. So had the washing with which the room had on previous occasions been festooned. Instead, Manning noticed, a blanket from the bed had been spread over one of the Imperial occasional tables, leaving the clawed golden feet of the table sticking out ridiculously from underneath, like the boots of a lover hiding behind a curtain in a French farce. On the blanket stood a neat stack of folded pyjamas and shirts, and an up-ended electric iron which clicked as it cooled and contracted.

  By comparison with the changed décor, Proctor-Gould and Raya themselves seemed surprisingly familiar. To Manning their ordinariness was depressing; the new status quo was not a matter of impression or interpretation at all, but common, objective fact. Proctor-Gould stood with his back to the radiator, pulling at his ear. Raya lay on top of the bed, propped up on her elbow. It was as if they had always been so, as if a world which contained them in any other way was inconceivable.

  ‘Welcome to our little nest,’ said Raya, shaking the hair out of her eyes. ‘It’s not much, but it’s home.’

  Manning was embarrassed. So evidently was Proctor-Gould, though he seemed highly pleased with himself as well. He kept frowning importantly to hide his pleasure, and pulling harder and harder at his ear.

  ‘You’ll have it right off if you’re not careful,’ said Manning irritably. Proctor-Gould began to giggle at once, and went on for a long time. Manning noticed that his blazer had been brushed and his trousers were pressed. The pens and pencils had been removed from his breast pocket. He looked almost sleek.

  ‘Do you like the pictures?’ Proctor-Gould asked at last.

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘Raya painted them herself.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘At least, I think she did. I think that’s what she was saying.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘The point is, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘we need to get a few things settled as between Raya and myself.’

  ‘I suppose you do.’

  ‘I wondered whether you would be kind enough to interpret for us?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake …!’

  ‘What do you mean, Paul?’

  ‘I mean – well, for God’s sake …!’

  Proctor-Gould pulled at his ear again.

  ‘I see your point, Paul,’ he said. ‘But I can scarcely get one of the Intourist interpreters up, can I? Look, I shan’t ask you to translate anything that might embarrass you. There are just one or two little logistical points we ought to
get straight. I’ve been trying to get through to her all day in sign language, but we haven’t made much headway.’

  ‘She’s been here all day?’

  ‘She disappeared after breakfast – I thought for good. But when I came up to have a nap and a cup of Nescafé after lunch she was back, and she’d brought all this stuff with her.’

  He gazed round the room at her handiwork. He seemed pleased and proud, but a little out of his depth.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Manning. ‘But when’s she going? You’re not thinking of letting her stay tonight, are you?’

  ‘That’s rather what I want to establish. I think she’s fetched her pyjamas.’

  ‘Look, don’t be stupid. You can’t just set up with a mistress in the best hotel in Moscow.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Proctor-Gould. He began to walk up and down the room, his hands behind his back, frowning anxiously. Raya watched him from the bed, and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Let me know what conclusions you arrive at, gentlemen,’ she said.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Proctor-Gould at once.

  ‘Asked to be told our conclusions.’

  ‘Ah. She said quite a lot this afternoon. I couldn’t get a word of it.’

  ‘I expect somebody got it.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Manning pointed at the wall and mimed speaking into a microphone. ‘You’ve thought of that aspect?’ he asked.

  ‘Microphones? Oh, yes.’

  ‘You don’t mind the prospect of being blackmailed?’

  ‘Paul, we went into all this last night.’

  ‘We never arrived at any sense.’

  ‘Look, Paul, I’m entirely in the hands of the Soviet authorities anyway. If they want to find a lever against me, or an excuse for expelling me, they don’t have to mess about with footling misdemeanours like having a guest in my room after hours. All they’ve got to do is to get one of my clients to say I’d tried to persuade him to work for British Intelligence.’

  ‘All the same, if you insist on forcing your moral ideas on their attention they may feel compelled to do something about it.’

  ‘Exactly, Paul, exactly. The problem, as in all things in life, is to find the acceptable mean. That’s why I want you to help me in clarifying the situation.’