‘Well,’ says Petworth, ‘A son et lumière.’ ‘Oh, what an interesting language you have, no wonder nobody understands it,’ says Lubijova, ‘I think you have a very strange language and are a very strange people. Some of them cannot even get back a passport.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘Now come to this side,’ says Lubijova, ‘There, with the trees, the Park of Brotherhood and Friendship with the Russian peoples. The people of Slaka love very much to walk there and enjoy the scents, especially when it does not rain. Near there, do you see a building with a red star on top? This is our Party Headquarters, a very fine building, and behind there is our best open space, the Plazscu P’rtyuu.’ ‘There’s been a change in the language?’ asks Petworth. ‘Some radical elements have pressured our government to make certain changes,’ says Lubijova, ‘They ask for a linguistic liberalization, but I do not think it is very important. So there you see it, from the best view our very beautiful city. I hope you impress. On a nice day you would stay here a long time and take much pleasure, but today it is not perhaps so nice, so I think we go down again.’ On the long elevator ride down, Lubijova stands away from him in the further side of the lift; out in the open air again, she walks several steps in front of him. They take the narrow old street where Marx and Engels, Lenin, Brezhnev and Wanko bounce furiously on their wires in the driving rain; they pass by the colonnade of the Military Academy, under which disconsolate soldiers stand with portfolios under their arms; they walk beside the Palace of Culture, covered in ivy, out of which, from some basement, there comes the unexpected sound of jazz.
They turn down another street, a street of a few small shops. Most of these stores seem curiously turned in on themselves, concealing rather than revealing the goods they offer to sell. Shops at home insist on display, but these do not; they secrete this and that, showing small stacks of one thing, or a single object: light fittings, bottles of soft drink, flowers, tins of beet, a hint of meat, a notional vegetable or two. ‘I hope you look,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘We know your press tells always we have very bad food shortage. Well, now you can see there is plenty of everything. Oh, look, here is a line, a queue, do you call it? I suppose you think it is for food. Do you like to join it and see?’ The long line of people stands in the rain: ‘Do you see how they all excite, to go into this shop?’ asks Mari, ‘Do you know why, you don’t guess? Well, it is because our people are all very good readers, and today come out the new editions, and also in the new language. I hope your people wait so long in the rain, just to buy books!’ ‘I don’t think so,’ says Petworth. ‘Of course, your newspapers tell we do not like to respect at all our writers,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘Well, now you can go home to tell them they are wrong. Oh, look, now we go in. Can you wait me, please look around, I like to buy something.’ He watches Lubijova push through the jostle of people toward the counter; he turns to look at the shelf upon shelf of books, the millions of infolded words, all written in the language he does not know. Some are titled in the Cyrillic alphabet, some in the Latin, but the alphabet does not matter, for the codes will not yield, the signs refuse to become meaning.
The raincoats of the shoppers steam in the greater warmth; an assistant with a great ladder pushes Petworth aside, to climb to a distant top shelf. Petworth inspects more titles; from above, a book disturbed by the assistant tumbles down onto his head and cracks open, as if that might be a route to contact. ‘Comrade Petwurt, here, come,’ calls Lubijova, standing at the counter in her plastic coat, ‘This is one of our new books, just out today. Do you like perhaps the cover?’ Petworth takes the book, in a green paper wrapper, illustrated with a line drawing of an expressionist dark castle, which is seen through a rough shattered mirror; he looks at the title, which is Nodu Hug, and the name of the author, Katya Princip. He flicks the pages, the blocks of mysterious words, the units of meaning, the paragraphs, the chapters, the claim on time, the appeal to imagination. ‘You know we have here a very good Writers’ Union and even in the world some of our people are very famous,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, here is a book by one of the best, it is Katya Princip. Of course not everyone likes her books, some people say she is not correct.’ ‘Not correct?’ asks Petworth, ‘Why?’ ‘Not correct because she diverts from the socialist realism, which we like, and goes to the fantastic. But she has a good imagination and often we like the fantastic here in my country, so many people appreciate her works very much. Also she writes a very strange kind of story, how can I tell you? It is like the stories we tell to children, with in it dreams, and staircases that go to nowhere, and castles, perhaps; but really those stories are not for the children at all, they are for us. No, I do not explain you very well, but please take it. I have bought for you this book.’
‘For me?’ says Petworth, picking up the green book, and ruffling again through the pages, ‘That’s very kind. But there is just one problem, I can’t read it. I think you should keep it for yourself.’ Lubijova, in her plastic coat, stares at him severely: ‘Petwurt, really, do you like to annoy me again?’ she says, ‘Is this what you do always with a present that is for you? Of course I know you cannot read it, you have to have a guide. But, you see, Petwurt, perhaps you don’t know it, but I am really a little bit psychic. Do you believe in that, I hope you do? And, do you know, I have an instinct; it tells me that when you go away from Slaka you will understand that book, just a bit. Also we have two weeks together, I can explain you some of it. Of course I don’t read it yet myself, but I can tell you it is, what do you say, a folk-story, and some of it happens in a big forest and near a castle. Nodu Hug, the title, that means not to be afraid. Anyway, Petwurt, there is another reason why you must have it. I cannot tell it to you yet, but you will see.’ ‘Then I’ll take it,’ says Petworth, ‘Thank you very much, Mari.’ ‘And don’t you realize something else,’ says Lubijova, laughing at him, seizing his arm, taking him toward the entrance to the store, ‘That I have forgiven you your passport? Well, we cannot let all those bureaucrats upset us, I think we like to be comrades. Now, how much time have we more, an hour, almost, right, we do something else that is very nice. Turn your coat, we go round that corner, round another, and then do you know what we do? We stand again in a line; poor Petwurt, it is all lines for you today. But that line is very different and quite interesting. Now, put please the book inside your pocket, I don’t want it wetted by that rain. And turn your coat, now we go.’
They go, round the corner, round another; and then, suddenly, Petworth finds himself standing on the edge of a great central square. The square glistens, vast, in the rain; there is a wide vista down to a large monument, where tangled bronze soldiers and workers collaborate in some interlocking enterprise; round the monument are stalls, the stalls of many flower sellers. People crowd round the stalls and wander the square, robed black Africans, a group of Arabs in burnouses, a gaggle of Ivanovas led by a blue Cosmoplot guide holding up high a beflowered umbrella; but the square still looks empty, so large are its spaces, so big its surrounding buildings, which are square, and white, and colonnaded. ‘This place, do you know it, I hope you do,’ says Lubijova, ‘Oh, don’t you, Petwurt, really? Of course it is Plazscu P’rtyuu, where is our government, and where our people like to come to make their celebrations. Can you imagine how many peoples can pass here, with their banners? Well, you do not need to imagine, because you will see it all of course on National Culture day.’ And Petworth sees that, into the steps of the buildings, great reviewing stands have been built, covered in red bunting. Indeed red is the colour of many things: of the long banners that blow out from the poles that stand high over the square, of the carnations that the flower-sellers are selling from their stalls round the monument, of the trim round the great photographs that, four storeys high, hang from the fac¸ades and stare down at them as they walk the clean white stone pavement, photographs in the style of grand or epic realism. An engrandized Marx stares across the square towards a superhuman Lenin; Brezhnev and Wanko enfold together in a vast embrace.
‘I hope you impress,’ says Mari Lubijova, taking his arm, ‘Now we walk and I show it all to you. Over here, the Praesidium, over there with on top the red star the Party Headquarter. Over there, where the Japanese go, the Ministry of Strange Affairs, is that how you say?’ ‘The Foreign Ministry,’ says Petworth. ‘And over there,’ says Lubijova, ‘where is celebrate the great brotherhood of Brezhnev and Wanko, the Ministry of State Security, that is very forbidden. Really, a lot of these areas are forbidden to foreigners, so I think you don’t go there, Petwurt. Also forbidden here are the cars, that is nice, except of course for the cars of the party cadres. Do you see them, the big Russian Volgas with the curtains in the back? Only the important people can ride in a car like that, I wonder if you will ride in one, Petwurt? Perhaps so, you are important person. And the stands for the parade, you will go in one of those too, on our special day.’ Over the big buildings, the clocks begin to chime; they walk down the long square. ‘You do not see a Ministry of Culture, that is round a corner,’ says Lubijova, ‘But do you see where we are going first? Where the line waits?’ And down at the bottom of the square there is indeed a long line of people – schoolchildren with flags, peasants in dark clothes, Ivanovas with plastic over their blonde hair, Vietnamese women, wearing cadre jackets – snaking across the pavé, and waiting, evidently, to enter a cube-like, modern, white stone building, also hung with bunting, with, standing round it, at every corner, and every entrance, stiff soldiers in shakos, a feather sticking up from the top.
‘Now we join that line,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘I think you come under my umbrella, or you will catch some rheum. Don’t you see the soldiers, do you like their uniforms, from our past days? They are a very special guard, but this is very special place. Now we must wait, twenty minutes, perhaps, half an hour, but you will see it is worth it. You will find out something very interesting about our people. These peasants have saved many months to make their visit here. The children at school beg their teachers always to let them make this visit. Oh, what a pity, we have forgotten something, really we should carry some flowers, we call them comrade carnation, well, never mind.’ The clocks on the big buildings chime again before they reach a clefted entrance, guarded by two shako-ed soldiers. ‘Oh, that is nice, now we go in,’ says Lubijova, ‘Now we must be quiet, but you will see what you will see. Take care, it is dark inside.’ They go, in the moving line of people, down the narrow space of a chilly stone passage, with a sickly scent in the air, until the light brightens, the line splits, and there is an illuminated place with a central stone plinth. On the plinth, in a half coffin, lies the embalmed body of a dead man, dressed in modern clothes of a plain kind, sporting a big grey moustache. Skilful lights cast from above make him seem larger than life-size; the waxified face has been cast in an expression half-compassionate, half-severe. Affairs of weight have creased his brow, principle stares from his eyes. Evidently he is a man of history, since a scrolled document, a proclamation or treaty, lies on his chest; but he is also a man of the people, since a few workers’ tools lie beside him, a hammer and saw, a sickle and file, and his hands are horny with use.
‘Of course it is tomb,’ says Lubijova, holding Petworth’s arm and whispering in his ear, ‘You know he is real, if dead? Do you know him from his photograph, it is Grigoric our Liberator. Don’t they keep him very well? He looks just like himself!’ The people all round them have stopped and are dipping their knees, putting down their carnations on the plinth; Grigoric’s eyes, meanwhile, stare at the ceiling, as if he has had a vision beyond himself. Indeed, looking up, one may see it painted there: a world where large muscled men dig holes and raise buildings in energetic and momentous enterprise, where big-breasted women stack fruitful sheaves in ripe fields, and still hold onto their abundant babies. ‘We love him very much, you see,’ whispers Lubijova, ‘He set us free to the Russians after the war, and planned our socialist economy. You see he was worker, his father made saddles for the horses in Plit. But also he studied at Berlin and Muskva, and so we say he was intellectual as well. Then he was brave in our uprisings, so also a soldier. So we like him very much. Here we love our dead, and we think they love us. Do you do the same for your great men?’ ‘No, we don’t,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, perhaps you don’t have any like that,’ says Lubijova, as they move forward with the people through another narrow stone corridor, to where the light of day bursts, and they are out again in the wet and windswept square.
‘So, Petwurt,’ says Lubijova, stopping and looking at him gaily, ‘Did you like it? I think now you have had many pleasures. You have seen our city, and you have seen our great leader. Of course there are many more sight-seeings you must do, but you have so many days. Now, what is time? Oh, we were long there, we must go straight away to the Mun’stratuu. Now, put on please your very official behaviour, I hope you have some. Let me see you, your suit is nice, but your tie is not neat, put it up please. And now do you have your passport? I hope so, they do not let you in there without it.’ Petworth feels in his pockets, grows desperate: ‘No, I don’t,’ he says. ‘Petwurt, no, is it gone?’ cries Lubijova, ‘I hope you don’t think somebody steals it? In my country nobody steals.’ ‘It’s not there,’ says Petworth. ‘No,’ says Lubijova, laughing at him, ‘Petwurt, it is here. I kept it all the time, just to be safe. Now, we are in a hurry. So do you run?’ She turns on her heel and begins to run, away from the scented tomb and across the wide space of the paved square, beneath the flapping red banners. Her hat bounces, her bag swings; she stops, looks back at him, shouts ‘Come,’ and runs on again. In his best suit and raincoat, Petworth clumsily lifts his feet and pursues his guide, running beneath the great buildings and the high photographs, toward his next appointment.
II
The Mun’stratuu Kulturu Komitet’uuu are not to be found in Plazscu P’rtyou; it lies, perhaps appropriately, just round the corner, in Stalungrydsumytu, a small dark street with high old buildings. A khaki soldier sits outside it, in a box with a telephone in, and inspects their papers; a blue militiaman in a cage inspects them again, and points them up a wooden staircase. ‘They know me here,’ says Lubijova, leading Petworth through a mess of dusty and ill-painted corridors, where men and women wander carrying files. Then she stops at a door, on which there is a sign saying UPRATTU L. TANKIC, knocks, and goes inside. In the office there sits on a typist’s chair a full-bodied young lady with auburn hair and a tight blue dress; she rests her elbows, as if exhausted, on an old black typewriter. ‘Prifussoru Pitworthu?’ she asks, getting up and going into an inner room. ‘Vantu,’ shouts a male voice. ‘We go in,’ says Lubijova, leading him into a small room with many high cupboards, a big metal desk, and behind the desk a small bald round man in a black suit, smoking a cigar with a plastic mouthpiece. The man rises, embraces Lubijova, and puts out his hand to Petworth. ‘My English, bad,’ he says, ‘But we have beautiful interpreter. Very tough lady, picked special for you.’ ‘So I translate,’ says Lubijova. ‘Make us sound very good,’ says the bald man, who has a humorous glint in his eye, ‘Please.’ He points to a set of plastic black armchairs surrounding a small coffee table; then, still standing by his desk, he begins a little speech.
‘Says you are here, says he is pleased,’ explains Lubijova, ‘Says his name is Tankic, he is high official here, Uprattu. Says the Minister of Culture wished himself to greet you, but he must attend a meeting of the Praesidium on a certain matter. Says before he departs, the Minister has asked to him, Tankic, to convey warm amity and fraternal felicitations to your own Minister of Culture and to all your government. Also he tells Tankic to make your visit very happy. Also he wishes you pleasant tour and hopes it brings friendships between our peoples. Now I think you say something, Petwurt.’ ‘Please tell him how glad I am to be here, and how grateful I am for the excellent arrangements made for me. I look forward to my programme, and I know I bring the good wishes of Her Majesty’s Government, who also wish this tour to be a great success.’ Tankic beams, nods, and l
ifts a book from his desk. ‘Says he wishes to present you with a book describing our five-year-plan and the collective achievements of our people, signed by the Minister himself,’ says Lubijova, ‘Do you have a book, Petwurt?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Then thank him very nicely and I will translate,’ says Lubijova. This is done; Tankic beams, chuckles, nods his head, rubs his hands, and sits down opposite Petworth, tapping him on the knee. ‘Asks how you like our Slakan rain,’ explains Lubijova, ‘Says we have imported it from Britain especially for you, in exchange for some Slakan sunshine.’ Tankic nods his head very emphatically, and then laughs out loud; Petworth laughs too, and says: ‘Tell him that Britain has two exports we are only too glad to make. Rain is one; I’m the other.’ When this is translated, Tankic laughs uproariously and hits Petworth on the knee. ‘Says you must find some more such exports,’ says Lubijova, ‘Then perhaps you would start to make a real economic progress.’
The tight-dressed lady now stands over them, beaming and giggling. ‘Take some coffee, Prifusorru?’ she asks. Tankic says something: ‘Asks if you think his secretary speaks the good English,’ explains Lubijova, ‘She has typed your programme. If you say yes, says perhaps he pays her more money.’ The secretary blushes red; ‘She deserves a rise immediately,’ says Petworth. Tankic laughs and slaps Petworth’s knee again. ‘Says definitely you are a friend of the people,’ says Lubijova, ‘Always wanting to improve their economical conditions.’ ‘You like such coffee?’ asks the secretary, pouring a rich syrupy liquid from a copper receptacle into the small cup in front of Petworth. ‘Ah, Turkish, excellent,’ says Petworth. ‘Na, na, na, na,’ says Tankic, shaking a finger. ‘Says we do not call coffee after our oppressors,’ says Lubijova, ‘Here we call it comrade coffee.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘Asks, your programme, do you like it, or do you ask many changes? He says his secretary can go to the typewriter and change it, instead of standing there looking at your handsome face.’ ‘It’s fine,’ says Petworth. ‘Explains he has worked very hard on it, because officials must always have much paperwork to do,’ says Lubijova, ‘Otherwise they might do something important.’ Tankic laughs, and Petworth laughs; then Tankic points at Lubijova, who goes red. ‘Asks if you are pleased with the guide he has provided you, to take care all your wants.’ Tankic leans forward and taps Lubijova on the knee: ‘Says of course these are official wants only.’ ‘Real tough lady,’ says Tankic in English, laughing. ‘Tell him I like the tough ones,’ says Petworth. ‘Says good,’says Lubijova, ‘Says he thinks you are the sort of man who will drink a little brandy with him.’
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