No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  Seeing Andrée Paulhard farther down the room, drinking her champagne with such seductively sulky contempt, made Mary’s stale gushing twice as intolerable; he needed all his sense of duty to remain by her side. At last after what seemed an endless series of flirtations between her long jade holder and the cigarettes of Soviet notabilities whose eyes were on younger women, she consented to be taken away from the buffet, shrugging her shoulders and smiling as though she were humouring Quentin’s jealous passion. Zemskova was standing at one of the long windows that looked out on the courtyard where lamps caught fitfully the open mouths of thegreat stone dolphins.

  ‘Zemskova, this is Mary Parr.’

  She who, two years ago even, would have been excited if a little amused by this contact with a famous figure from outside the bars, turned towards them, now a little apprehensive, as she shook hands and expressed her admiration for Miss Parr’s Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.

  ‘A friend of mine, Mr Dorchenko, translated it into Russian. I think he did a very good job.’

  ‘Oh, I should so like to meet him and thank him. Translations of one’s work into languages one doesn’t know are so mysterious. What a pity this is our last evening. He’s not here, I suppose.

  ‘Oh, no, Mr Dorchenko lives in Moscow.’

  ‘Can you give me his address? I’ll write to him.’

  ‘I think he is away now, Miss Parr.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mary paused for a second, then took it in her stride. ‘Like Mrs Ratikin and Professor Yudenich?’

  ‘A little,’ said Zemskova, very quietly, but she looked as though she would like to cleave her way out from between the two English guests. Mary had met half the test by herself, but nevertheless he decided he must complete it for her.

  ‘Perhaps Miss Parr should keep asking for her translator as you told me to ask for our absent delegates.’

  He had expected some alarm from Zemskova, it was the sorry price he reckoned on in order to secure Mary’s credence. What came was a moment’s open terror. Mary realized the cause before he did.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, drawling loudly, and putting her hand on the old woman’s shoulder, perhaps to steady her, ‘the thing is to have a large spray of artificial flowers, or some women prefer leaves, just pinned across the shoulder here to the bosom.’

  ‘Oh, we should think that too artificial. Shouldn’t we, Sukhanoya?’

  She had been there out of nowhere as he had put his question to Zemskova.

  ‘I am sure whatever fashions Miss Parr follows are becoming. But we prefer simple lines, you know, Miss Parr. We are a very simple people, aren’t we, Mr Matthews? Will you all come please to the other reception room now? Our dear friend Mr Kelvin Douglas is going to say a few words.’

  The few words were many. Unctuous, Quentin thought, and devious. But, at least, Douglas was consistent with his morning opinion: ‘… These have been only some of the problems and of the answers that happen to have stood out for me in a week of invigorating talk. I think that too many of us who have been brought up in the atmosphere of Western social democracy with its individualistic, laissez faire liberal roots have an ingrown belief that only disagreement, what we tend to call “healthy disagreement”, can be invigorating. But I wonder how many of my colleagues from Britain and the United States, from France and from German democracy in exile have felt with me this week that when we socialists and progressives have a chance to get our thoughts in order in the atmosphere of socialist achievement, of socialism in action which we breathe here in the USSR, then what becomes the source of good health is not disagreement but concord, for many of us the concord that comes from humility in face of socialist solutions tried out and proven.’

  Quentin, looking round, saw that to their Marxist hosts the shape and tone of Douglas’ words were as unfamiliar and meaningless as that sermon of a Free Kirk minister which they resembled. The utility of Kelvin Douglas, however, they recognized and honoured with a variety of lively, high minded and sometimes surprisingly sentimental expressions on their large, smooth, very naked faces.

  ‘We who come from the Western democracies have every day before us the tragic experience of seeing how the peoples’ determination to throw back the Fascist aggressors in Abyssinia and China, to destroy the infamous racism of Hitler and his crew, is constantly weakened and cheated by the self interest, the vacillation, the stupidity and the treachery of our own capitalist governments. We social scientists know what a socialist world could be like. Here we see much of it in action…. Fascism whatever its cause will never conquer against the implacable will of the people. It is above all, comrades, the spectacle of our unity here that we offer as a demonstration of the determination of intellectuals everywhere to unite in rejecting the return to the Dark Ages … to offer defiance to Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese war-lords and their jackals Mosley, De La Rocque, Doriot and the rest … and to make a last appeal to our own rulers to show themselves in action what they profess to be – lovers of peace and freedom ….’ (Quentin to make clear his to-the-death defiance of Chamberlain and Co. clapped loudly.)

  Kelvin Douglas said, ‘I’m very glad to have the support of my good friend Quentin Matthews. Most of us academics and administrators would consider his expert knowledge of housing a life time’s work, but Matthews has to take on the world of foreign affairs as well and enrich our daily lives with his courageous, stimulating newspaper articles.’

  Here there was some special applause from Mr Kursky, his wife and other Soviet representatives; Sukhanova even patted Quentin on the back.

  ‘Bravo, Mr Matthews,’ she said.

  He cursed at having caught his foot in so obvious a trap. But now they were silent as Kelvin Douglas, selecting a lozenge, indicated that he was approaching his peroration.

  ‘Mark the occasion indelibly … not only a blue print for the foundation of a new organization … many steps yet to take for the formation of a secretariat and administration … for myself can think of no happier headquarters than … generously offered by our hosts … suggested name World International Federation of Social and Allied Scientists …, have heard the Russian but will not insult that beautiful language … no doubt fated to go the way of all fine names … already accustomed to the familiar friendliness of WIFSAS … but the charter to which I now appeal to you to subscribe is above all a challenge to the Fascist dictators … a fitting and memorable conclusion to …’

  The applause was long and loud; and the silent, very neat, slightly scowling young men and the talkative, slightly grubby, always smiling young women who had done all the donkey work at the congress began to bring round copies of the new charter for the delegates to sign. Quentin tried to engage Mary Parr in trivial conversation, but she walked out on to one of the little balconies that so absurdly decorated the palace’s great bulk. It was he, in any case, who had to testify first.

  Quietly he read over the document and he refused it, as one might refuse to contribute to an offertory for some unsympathetic cause in church. Quietly the solid, yet feline, high cheekboned young man went away like a polite but outraged sidesman. He spoke to Sukhanova, who in turn spoke to Kursky, Doctor Maximov and some others.

  So here it was at last. But he would fight for his visa, for his journalist’s living, for his power to influence. Russia added to Germany would be near castration. Perhaps with evasion and duplicity he could win this round.

  It was Sukhanova they first sent to try to induce him.

  ‘Mr Matthews! You don’t sign? But this is the document for publication in Pravda tomorrow. Everybody’s signature is needed.’

  ‘Mine won’t be there. I don’t feel that such a manifesto is desirable. In any case the terms of the document are not, in my opinion, either sensible or truthful.’

  ‘You would like something changed? Oh, you certainly are one of the men Comrade Kelvin Douglas described, a believer in healthy disagreement. I’m afraid you must argue it out with Mr Kursky and the experts. No,’ she went on, as though he were
attempting to discuss it with her, although, in fact, he had remained quite silent, ‘it is no good arguing with me. I am only a poor interpreter.’

  Now Kursky invited him over to a sofa in the banquet room among the broken meats and lees of wine, where through the half open communicating door they made most successfully an appearance of intimate and serious debate for the rest of the party to observe, when, in fact, they were only two men seated side by side, disagreeing.

  ‘To begin with,’ Quentin said, seeking a means of avoiding the showdown, ‘“the peace-loving democracies of the West”: I don’t like that woolly phrase. As Mr Douglas suggested, a good number of the members of the English and French governments have no concern with peace whatsoever, except the peace that will allow them to continue their exploitation of the working classes.’

  ‘But we are speaking here, Mr Matthews, of the united working classes, intelligentsia and peace-loving elements of England and France.’

  Why don’t we say that, then?’

  ‘Oh, come now. You are an informed journalist and a socialist. You know very well that at this phase of the workers’ struggle we must seek to carry the governments of the West with us even against their wishes. If they do not respond then we must expose their evasive tactics. We are bringing pressure to bear upon your ruling classes at this very moment to fulfil their obligations to the Covenant of the League of Nations, to resist the aggression of Mussolini against the Ethiopian people …’

  Perhaps, Quentin thought, they would give up before too obvious an exposure of tactics. ‘Do you remember what Comrade Lenin called the League of Nations?’

  ‘Mr Matthews, you know as well as I do that changing historical conditions demand changing policies. Then the Revolution was threatened, now …’

  ‘Nevertheless there are people who would say that sanctions against Italy are only an aspect of the Imperialist policy of Great Britain …’

  ‘Who would say? Trotskyites, and other dupes willing or unwilling of the Fascists. Do you say so? Surely not.’

  ‘No. But perfectly honest, intelligent socialists, for example, Cripps in England. You can hardly call him a Trotskyite. I simply give the example to suggest that to cover a multiplicity of progressive views in these formulas is unfitting.’

  ‘… And I am only asking you to give your name to this declaration – the necessary foundation for the World Federation on which so much future international planning for …’

  Quentin saw that to avoid a night of words, of relayed persuaders, he must relinquish all hope of an evasive victory.

  He said: ‘I don’t think that my Government can be called peace-loving. That’s the first point of unnecessary rhetoric. The second is more important. I am increasingly unable to speak as the document does of the Soviet Union as a freedom-loving country in any sense that can be intelligible to a Western socialist.’

  After this it was all an absurd pantomime as he should have known. He had accepted so much as necessary in the past, he could hardly hope to appear other than a fool or a hypocrite in refusing to accept more now. Nevertheless he knew that something much more terrible, much more complete was happening here than on his previous visits, but to reduce it to an argument of quantitative persecution was an absurdity. And the quantity he chose! He found himself ridiculously asking for personal contact with twenty-nine named persons whom he had failed to see in Leningrad during the week – he could not even quite remember how in the heat of the argument he had fixed on the figure of twenty-nine, but he heard himself repeating it again and again with a histrionic force that would not have shamed Rupert. Luckily he could have named up to fifty without involving one person whom he did not know already to be too endangered to be harmed by his questioning. He felt elated too, when at last Kursky, joined now by Maximov, declared that all these persons were on holiday or on business.

  ‘I can wait to see them.’

  ‘But the delegations are leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘But I am remaining a week here in Leningrad.’

  Their answer to this was made clear when they got up abruptly and returned to the assembled company. But he had not signed. That at least.

  When he walked back into the main reception room, people already appeared to avoid him. M. Garcin demanded of his interpreter: ‘Qu’est ce qu’il a fait, le délegué anglais?’

  She shrugged her shoulders, and, when he repeated his question, she said crossly: ‘Il n’accorde pas sa signature.’

  ‘Il a raison. C’est un manifesto trop politique.’

  Perhaps, Quentin thought, he had gained an unexpected additional convert by his refusal, but no, the Frenchman added: ‘Moi, je regrette déjà ma signature.’

  He glared with peculiarly venomous suspicion at Quentin.

  Now Sukhanova called, ‘Miss Parr! Miss Parr! Ah, you are taking the air? We are all looking for you, naughty Miss Parr. We need your signature.’

  Here it came, Quentin thought. At first Mary Parr also sought evasion; he heard her say: ‘But I ‘But don’t see Mr Matthews’s signature.’

  ‘Matthews? Oh, Quentin Matthews the journalist. But this is only for the social scientists. Imagine the great Kelvin Douglas’s name along with a lot of journalists. Or that of the great Mary Parr. That’s what we all wait for now.’

  But now Mary, too, and more quickly, chose her own direct tactic.

  ‘No, I’m awfully sorry,’ she said, a little bewildered girl, ‘I never sign anything political. I don’t understand politics well enough.’

  ‘But, Miss Parr, there is nothing political here, only the declaration of the undying hostility of progressive people to Fascist aggression. You hate Fascism, I suppose.’

  ‘Undyingly,’ came Mary’s drawl, ‘but my hatred is much too well known to need publication in a document that contains so much that I find ambiguous. Peace, Freedom! Do we all of us really mean exactly the same things by those words?’

  There was something so determined beneath her drawl that Quentin relaxed. They would press, perhaps even allow themselves in desperation the pleasure of being offensive to her, but she would not give way. They would dismiss her as a fool, of course. But in England and the United States where her name stood for sanity and broad-miadedness and ‘advanced thinking’ among a vast number of often foolish or ill-informed but basically decent people, her signature would not now subscribe to the statement that freedom reigned in the USSR at a moment when terror, he felt sure, was triumphant. He had won a victory. As to how they would dismiss him, he was to learn later that evening.

  First from the concierge of the fourth floor of his hotel to whom he went for the key of his room.

  ‘But this is not my key. My room is 410.’

  ‘Your room is needed.’ Could the old woman really feel such personal pleasure as her vindictive look implied? Instead of the suite, a room, almost a box, without even a washbasin. He felt too tired to protest against this absurd being stood in a corner. But the disappearance of all his notes on the congress – and there had been two addresses of real interest – his notes for an article he was composing on the relations between the Nazis and the Catholic Church in Bavaria, the draft of the first three chapters of his book on his year’s experience in Hitler’s Germany, all were gone. About these his weariness vanished, as he proceeded through various officials to try to contact the manager. The hotel staff assumed the forms of cretinous troglodytes who only left their caves to man the hotel at night, but understood no language of the daytime, had no cognizance of the affairs of the day. His papers, the manager, his change of room, all these were day matters at which they could only bark or yelp or nod in incomprehension. He sought the help of his hosts in interpreting to these night people. Some members of the Congress secretariat had disappeared to their homes irrevocably – ‘The Congress is over, Mr Matthews, we have private lives, you know,’ a voice – could it be Sukhanova or one of the many pseudo-Sukhanovas? – told him. Others were friendly and vague, promising to ring back and not doing so; o
thers again were cold and definite, no, they could do nothing, copies of all the proceedings of the past week’s congress would be posted to him when published, no other papers concerned them. At last, when speaking to what sounded to be a near illiterate porter, he found himself angrily declaring that a country which claimed to be in the forefront of the fight against Fascism acted strangely in hindering the publication of three chapters of a book that revealed in damning terms the brutalities and lies of Hitler’s government. It sounded to him as though the porter in all his near illiteracy had answered him with the sophisticated, mocking laugh of the stage villain. He knew then that exhaustion was producing absurd fancies and he reconciled himself to sleep on the hard bed with his papers still missing, until, at least, the morning.

  He was woken, however, from a deep sleep at three o’clock by one of the neat young men of the Congress secretariat who returned him his papers, as it seemed, complete. The guest who now occupied his former suite – an important guest from India – had found them in a drawer. He was grateful, Quentin said, for their discovery and return, but not at all for the hour of return; and he went back to his bed in as rude dismissal as he could convey.

  But the young man would not be dismissed. Could he see his passport please? Certainly not. How long did his visa last? His visa had been extended for a further two weeks. He regretted that Air Matthews would not be able to make use of it. A complaint had been made against him by a woman delegate, a complaint of a most delicate nature. A Soviet colleague, another young woman, had indignantly confirmed that she had seen his behaviour. Such public conduct under the revised Soviet Law … but the girl was willing not to press the charge. However he must leave with the delegates by boat tomorrow; it was the least return surely that he could make for the hospitality of his hosts. He would not wish to smirch the name of social science; accommodation had been found for him on board.

  But Quentin seemed all for smirching – Who was this woman? Since she was not preferring a charge his hosts were not at liberty to say – but the young girl (Paulhard appeared to have regressed to pre-puberty) was a respected French delegate. They hoped he would not insist on making such an unpleasant incident public. After all he might wish to return to the Soviet Union … he did not seem to be himself on this occasion. No doubt, next time he came to the Soviet Union, where as always he was thought of as a good friend, he would be in better health, less liable to sick opinions. These sudden mental illnesses were not uncommonly the result of overwork. If he could offer advice – Mr Matthews would be wise to leave aside writing for reflection for a while; and, of course, to see his London doctor. And now, as it was already half past five, he suggested that Mr Matthews dress and pack and occupy his cabin on the ship. He should introduce himself, Mr Garamedian, yes from the Armenian Republic, no not a social scientist, an observer only at the Congress.