The Russian Interpreter

by Michael Frayn

  ‘Will you keep the ticket, Paul?’ asked Proctor-Gould. ‘Now that we’ve got things straight again I don’t want to take any more chances.’

  When Manning had folded the ticket away in his wallet he looked up and found that Proctor-Gould was gazing at him, his head a little on one side, so that he could just touch the lobe of his ear with the tip of his finger.

  ‘It’s a strange business,’ said Proctor-Gould.

  ‘Yes.’

  Proctor-Gould went on looking at Manning.

  ‘You were very quiet on the bus, Paul,’ he said. ‘It occurred to me that these events might be imposing some strain on the confidence between us. I suppose they might suggest that I’m involved in some undertaking outside my work for my clients.’

  Manning was silent.

  ‘I see that, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘It certainly does seem as if Konstantin was looking for something in those Nescafé tins. But on my honour, Paul, I’ve no idea what.’

  Manning still said nothing. They began to pace slowly across the station, side by side. It was a good place for confidential talk, thought Manning. They looked as if they were waiting for a train.

  ‘Then again,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘the business of the books seems even odder. Why did Konstantin say he’d sold them when they were in his room all the time? Was it just to get me to raise my offer? But then he said he couldn’t get them all back at any price – only one of them for nothing. Another explanation struck me when we saw his room. He’s an educated man – perhaps he wanted the books simply for his own use. But in that case, why did he make me a price in the first place? What do you think, Paul?’

  ‘I don’t know, Gordon.’

  ‘I know what was worrying you, Paul. You thought I was prepared to pay rather a lot to get the books back. I can only say what I said before. A lot of those books don’t belong to me. I may be old-fashioned, but if someone entrusts me with something I feel a certain obligation to take care of it. And since I’d lost these books – through my own foolishness, as I fully recognize – I felt obliged to make considerable sacrifices to get them back. I don’t think there’s anything mysterious about that.’

  Manning drew in breath to reply, then let it out again.

  ‘In fact, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘two hundred roubles here or there really doesn’t mean very much in terms of what it costs me to stay in Russia anyway. I should have charged it to expenses, of course. It was a much bigger sacrifice to break into Konstantin’s room, I can tell you. I’ve never deliberately put myself on the wrong side of the law before. I shan’t be doing it again, either.’

  They turned at the far side of the station, and began to walk back.

  ‘I think my motives in all this are fairly clear,’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘What Konstantin’s are I don’t know. It looks as if he thought there was one book I should value above all the rest, and he wanted to find out which. Why did he think it would be valuable to me? It couldn’t be anything about the book as a book. None of them has any value to a collector. None of them is on the banned list in Russia – I took great care about that. It would have to be something the book contained. Now if we rule out secret compartments and the like, there’s nothing much a book can contain, except perhaps some sort of message. Perhaps something in code, perhaps in one of those micro-dots one reads about. In other words, it looks as if Konstantin was trying to blackmail me because he thought I was involved in some sort of espionage.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Manning.

  ‘Not that it’s really necessary to follow Konstantin’s reasoning through. You’d reached the same conclusion about me yourself, hadn’t you, Paul?’

  ‘Well, look, Gordon….’

  ‘I’m not complaining, Paul. I’m rather flattered to be taken for a spy. It just doesn’t happen to be the case.’

  ‘I must admit, Gordon, the thought occurred to me. It seemed a logical explanation of the facts. But as a matter of fact I’d rejected it.’

  Proctor-Gould looked at Manning with interest. As they paced along Manning could feel the great brown eyes examining his profile, as if the shape of his nose or the configurations of his ear might hold some clue to the thoughts taking place inside.

  ‘I’ve come to know you quite well in the past few weeks,’ said Manning. ‘At first I thought you were rather a charlatan. All this interest in improving Anglo-Soviet relations – I thought it was just a way of making more money and more contacts. But now I don’t think it is. You’re a public man, Gordon. You don’t do things for complex or ambiguous reasons, like the rest of us. You do simple things with simple aims for simple motives. People always suspect that public men are dishonest and insincere. But from observing you, Gordon, I don’t think they can be. Dishonesty and insincerity are too complex to be within the range of public men. Public men may deceive others – but only if they are deceiving themselves, too. They’re part of their own audience. I don’t think you could promote good relations between Britain and Russia with one hand, and undermine them with the other. I don’t think your character is capable of such complexity.’

  Proctor-Gould thought about this for some moments.

  ‘Thank you, Paul,’ he said at last. ‘I must admit, I’m rather touched. It’s the testimonial I should most have liked to hear about myself.’

  ‘Not a testimonial, Gordon – a dispassionate observation.’

  ‘All the more pleasing, Paul.’

  He stopped, and gazed intently at Manning, pulling his ear.

  ‘Look, Paul,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your confidence in me. I appreciate it very deeply indeed. Let me in return be absolutely frank and categoric. Konstantin and Raya may believe I have something incriminating in my possession. They may even be right; it’s possible that I have such a thing. But if I have, what it is and how I came by it I know no more than you.’

  Manning nodded.

  ‘I give you my word on that, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould.

  ‘As an Englishman?’ asked Manning humorously.

  ‘As a Johnsman, if you like.’

  27

  ‘I’ve made up my mind about Raya,’ said Proctor-Gould suddenly, as they sat in a taxi on the way back to the National. ‘I’m going to give her her marching orders. I don’t know whether that relieves your mind at all?’

  ‘It certainly helps,’ said Manning. ‘You’re striking her off your list of clients, too?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. As soon as we get back to the hotel I’m going to ask her to leave. Or perhaps I should say, ask you to ask her to leave.’

  ‘You could put it like that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Paul, I shan’t start a scene. Or rather, we shan’t.’

  ‘Shan’t we?’

  ‘No, I think we should be quite firm, but at the same time perfectly polite and level-headed. It won’t be particularly agreeable while it lasts, I admit. But it’s just one of those unpleasant necessities that crop up from time to time. We shall just have to grin and bear it, Paul.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘By dinner-time it will all be over and done with. We shall be laughing about it.’

  But by the time the taxi pulled up outside the hotel Proctor-Gould’s resolution had ebbed. He began to climb out, then got back in and sat down again beside Manning.

  ‘Do you suppose Raya’s up there at the moment?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Gordon.’

  ‘I was just wondering whether she’d be waiting for us, or whether we’d have to sit down and wait for her. I’m just trying to get the situation clear in my own mind, you see.’

  ‘She’ll be in the bath, I expect.’

  ‘In the bath? I hadn’t thought of that, Paul.’

  He pulled at his ear, and gazed gloomily at the visible mid-parts of the commissionaire who was standing holding the car door open, as if trying to divine the contents of the man’s stomach.

  ‘I suppose she will,’ he said reluctantly. ‘That possibility hadn’t occurred to me, I mus
t admit.’

  ‘I was joking, Gordon….’

  ‘No, no. It’s getting on for six. That’s where she’ll be, all right. Look, Paul, I wonder if the best arrangement wouldn’t be this. I’ll wait down here in the taxi while you go up and tell her what we’ve decided.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Gordon! I can’t just stand there and shout through the bathroom door that you’re chucking her out.’

  ‘I appreciate the difficulty, Paul. But let’s face facts. It wouldn’t make things any easier for you if I was standing out there with you, would it?’

  ‘But Gordon, you could go into the bathroom.’

  ‘I could go in – but I couldn’t say anything. You’d still have to stand outside shouting a translation.’

  He pulled at his ear in silence again.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t know that I could go in, could I? I mean, I’m not sure that it’s quite the done thing to look at a girl in the bath while you’re telling her that it’s all over between you.’

  ‘Aren’t you being a shade hypersensitive, Gordon?’

  ‘I don’t think so. In fact, I think one might make out a better case for doing it the other way round – my staying outside while you go in. After all, you were a great pal of hers at one stage.’

  ‘Not as great as all that. We’ve been into this before, Gordon.’

  ‘All the same, she’s a perfectly unconventional sort of girl. I’m sure she wouldn’t stand on ceremony.’

  They sat in silence for a moment or two, while the commissionaire bent down and examined them through the door, trying to remember whether he was seeing them in or seeing them out.

  ‘No?’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘Well, I wonder, Paul, if it wouldn’t be better to let things run on for the time being, and try to find a more suitable moment to break it to her in the next few days?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea at all, Gordon.’

  ‘All right, then. Supposing I just quietly took a room in another hotel, and waited for it all to blow over?’

  ‘No, Gordon.’

  ‘Well, let’s leave it like this. We’ll creep in quietly, and if she is in the bath, we’ll just creep quietly out again and wait till she emerges.’

  28

  But Raya was not in the bath, nor in the room. She had gone, and she had taken all her belongings with her. The pictures on the wall – the pyjamas under the pillow – the stockings and underclothes in the bathroom; they had all vanished. Apart from some wilting birch twigs in a vase, the room had returned to the gloom in which Manning had first seen it.

  The two men walked vaguely about, touching things, unable to get used to the idea.

  ‘Well,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘I suppose one ought to be grateful.’

  ‘I suppose at any rate we might have guessed.’

  ‘The room looks so strange. It takes a bit of getting used to.’

  He looked disconsolately about. Then he remembered something, and took out of his pocket the single stocking they had found at Konstantin’s. He looked at it for a moment, then tossed it on to the chest of drawers. It landed half on and half off, and poured itself slowly over the edge on to the floor, where it remained, unnoticed by Proctor-Gould, in a sad little heap.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘let’s have some Nescafé.’

  He fetched the little kettleful of water, opened one of the tins they had recovered, and went through the familiar, soothing ritual.

  ‘Ah, Paul,’ he said, taking up his old position in front of the radiator, and stirring the brown fluid with the same old apostle spoon. ‘She led me a terrible dance. Of course, it was my fault. I made a fool of myself. I appreciate that now.’

  ‘These things happen. Gordon.’

  ‘Sometimes she wouldn’t even look at me for a whole day. She’d just lie on the bed there, reading or smoking, and not pay the slightest attention to me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I think they were the most awful days of my life.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘Then sometimes she could be so sweet! I don’t know how to explain exactly. She’d do little things for me – iron a shirt, or suddenly bring me a cup of Nescafé. I can’t really explain.’

  He had difficulty with his voice. It wavered a little, and he coughed, and fell silent, and coughed again.

  ‘No, I know what you mean,’ said Manning.

  ‘I mean, I’d feel we were really making contact. I’d talk to her, Paul.’

  ‘What – in English?’

  ‘I know it sounds silly. I used to tell her about England. Sometimes I’d describe my parents’ house, where I was brought up. It’s in Norwood. Do you know Norwood at all?’

  ‘Not really. But do you think Raya understood any of this?’

  Proctor-Gould sighed and pulled at his ear, gazing reflectively into the corner of the room.

  ‘Well, I occasionally had the feeling that she more or less knew what I was driving at. She used to talk as well sometimes. We used to have quite long conversations.’

  ‘Did you understand what she said at all?’

  ‘Well, you know how it is, Paul. I had a general sense that we were getting through to each other. Does that sound absurd?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I don’t want to underestimate your services as an interpreter, Paul. But sometimes I think we achieved a sort of telepathic communication that didn’t really depend on the actual spoken words at all. That’s what I felt at the time, anyway.’

  ‘And then she’d pinch something?’

  Proctor-Gould sighed again.

  ‘I suppose I made rather a fool of myself,’ he said sadly.

  Manning was moved.

  ‘I suppose I did, too, Gordon,’ he said.

  ‘You could talk to her, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I could talk to her.’

  They sat in silence for some moments, thinking about her.

  ‘The first time we met,’ said Manning in a faraway voice, not looking at Proctor-Gould, ‘was on a sort of picnic in the forest near Maliye Zemyati.’

  ‘I know. I was there, Paul.’

  ‘The sun was shining. But it was quite cold – there was still snow lying in places.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘We just walked through the woods. And climbed trees. I suppose it sounds a bit pastoral.’

  ‘No, I know what you mean.’

  ‘We came to this lake. There was this kind of wooden landing stage thing. We lay down on it in the sunshine, side by side. Everything seemed somehow so simple and uncomplicated – I can’t explain.’

  He fell silent, gazing into the depths of the escritoire. Proctor-Gould watched him. Neither of them moved.

  ‘After a while,’ said Manning, ‘she said we should take our clothes off.’

  There was another long silence. It scarcely seemed that either of them was breathing.

  ‘And go for a swim in the lake,’ said Manning at last.

  Proctor-Gould opened his eyes very wide.

  ‘And go for a swim in the lake?’ he queried. ‘With snow on the ground?’

  He began to giggle his silly girlish giggle. For a moment Manning felt himself blushing. Then he began to laugh, too.

  ‘Of course, we didn’t,’ he explained above the strange contralto whinnying coming from Proctor-Gould. Somehow the explanation struck them both as being even more ridiculous than the original proposal, and they began to laugh all over again.

  Eventually their laughter ebbed, and they became serious.

  ‘Did you ever, in point of fact,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘enjoy her favours, as I believe they call it?’

  ‘No – I’ve told you before. Did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suspected not.’

  ‘I suppose she is what rather vulgar people at Cambridge used to call a prick-teaser.’

  ‘I suppose she is.’

  They both sighed, and became companionably silent.

  ‘Anyway,’
said Proctor-Gould, ‘she did know when to go. And she did leave in a very quiet and decent manner.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Manning.

  A thought struck him.

  ‘I suppose she didn’t by any chance take the second case of books with her when she went, did she?’

  Proctor-Gould crossed the room in two strides and wrenched open the wardrobe.

  She had.

  29

  ‘Do you understand it, Katya?’ asked Manning.

  ‘I don’t want to understand it,’ said Katerina. ‘It’s not worth understanding.’

  It was late at night, and they were walking down a long, empty road somewhere on the outskirts. On both sides of the road, for as far as the eye could see, the scattered street-lamps shone weakly on tussocks of dusty grass and tall concrete fences. From behind the fences the sudden drenching scent of lilacs came and went.

  ‘It’s not something that matters,’ said Katerina. ‘I’m not even thinking about it.’

  Manning had been telling her about the books. Now he wished he had not. She had scarcely listened, she was so miserable, cross-grained, and metaphysical. Apparently Kanysh had still not written. Manning felt tired – literally sick and tired. An ague of tiredness had set into his bones.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered you with it.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ said Katya. ‘You shouldn’t bother yourself with it, either. All you want to do is to discover the contingent causes of contingent states of affairs. What do they matter? If it’s not one reason for these people behaving as they did it’s another. What we ought to use our God-given faculties to discover is the nature of those things which are not contingent, which could not be otherwise.’

  ‘Surely it’s right for us to try to understand our fellow human beings?’

  ‘You don’t come to know people by knowing about them. I know you very well, Paul, without knowing anything at all about you. I don’t want to find out what you’ve done in the past, or why you did it. That would be idle curiosity. The answers would be irrelevant to what you now are. They might even conceal you from me.’