Rates of Exchange

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘Cam’radakuu,’ says Mrs Goko, when the audience has settled itself again, ‘Here is another Professori Petworthi. He is very famous scholari who has authoried many famous books on topicis, and he speakis now on “The Englishi Languagi as Mediumi of Internationali Communicationi.” Welcome him please.’ A strange noise follows, as Petworth rises and steps up to the podium; it is, as he sees when he peers out over the high top of it, the sound of the students, rapping with their knuckles on their desks, though whether in appreciation of the brevity of Mrs Goko’s introduction or in polite appreciation of his own presence he does not know. He puts the well-used lecture in front of him, and takes off the paperclip; he stares out. The stack of faces, looking at his poor haircut and his small head peering at them over the podium, reaches ever backward: big faces and small ones, male ones and female ones, light ones and dark ones, civilian ones and military ones. It is a familiar ecology, a world to which he is well used. In the front row sits a recognizable selection of likely lecture-goers: a white, tenselooking Lubijova, a black spectacled Picnic, looking more at the audience than the speaker, the three girl assistants, with Miss Mamorian still visibly watering at the eyes, a professorial looking person, with an ironic manner and a V-shaped grey beard, a stout middle-aged Indian lady in a sari, a few more female assistants in cardigans, then a male one, wrapped in wiring and holding a tape recorder. Yes, it is known ground, a usual party almost complete, save, he thinks, for two possible guests who have sent their apologies: Mr Plitplov, and, alas, brilliant, batik-clad Katya Princip.

  Petworth looks down to his ill-written text, his web of old words; he starts the lecture that has caused so much stir at Slaka airport, and is now causing so little here. The students stare blankly as he begins his explanation, arguing that in the modern world the English language has quite changed its function, become a new lingua franca, so that the most common speech acts in which it is now used no longer involve native speakers at all, but those who use it as a second language: a Japanese talking to a Norwegian, an Indian to a (insert, says the text, local example) Slakan. ‘Pleasi, I translati,’ says Mrs Goko, tapping his elbow, and stepping forward to speak. They mumble a little to each other as he explains that a new form of language is emerging in the world, divorced from its original cultural associations, dislocated and displaced, a Spranglais of potent proportions, manifest everywhere. Signs and advertisements everywhere employed it; newspapers and novels were constructed in its terms, from African polyglot fictions to Finnegans Wake. Politics and love affairs were made out of it; planes went up and down, and generally managed to avoid hitting each other, through its use. Behind the language was a world culture, itself divesting itself of its traditional rooted signs; a new world of the plurilingual and the distorted, of the sign floating free of the signified, was upon us. Petworth is talking, says Petworth, about language in a new state of volatility, the world after Babel. The students murmur amongst themselves, or grow tired and stare into the air; Mrs Goko takes his own words and makes them something else; the faces in front of him grow blank to his eyes. But then they grow real again, for at the back of the room a small door opens, and two late arrivals come quietly in, slipping into back row seats. The other people are strangers, but these are not; for one, besuited and crisp as a lettuce, is Mr Steadiman, and the other, wearing a white scarf neatly tied round her neck, and the batik dress, is Katya Princip.

  II

  The business of a lecturer is, of course, to lecture; this is why lecturers exist. Petworth has not come this far, crossed two time-zones, found other skies and other birds, simply in order to answer toasts, to visit tombs, to worry about domestic disorders, to catch himself in the thorny thickets of sexual confusion, split loyalties, divided attachments, to know desire or despair, to fall in love with lady writers; he has come to perform utterance. This is why planes have flown to bring him here, hotel rooms been booked, food set before him on plates; this is why he has left his house, home and country, brought his briefcase, made his way to this point. His head may ache with peach brandy, his wrist may hurt, his split lip blur his talk a little; his heart may be troubled, his spirit be energyless, poor, lacking the will to be, let alone the will to become. He may be a speech without a subject, a verb without a noun, certainly not a character in the world historical sense; but he has a story to tell, and now he is telling it. And telling it, he becomes himself an order, a sentence that grows into a paragraph and then a page, a page and then a plot, a direction incorporating due beginning, middle, and end. His text before him, he becomes that text; and, though he may be before an audience that has come to hear another lecture, from another lecturer, it does not matter. Petworth, for this moment, exists, in his hour of words. A bell rings in the corridor, and he knows his words and his existence are up. But, sitting down, in the great auditorium, while Mrs Goko utters a few last sentences of translation, Petworth knows that he has been.

  The knuckles rap on the desks; the audience stands politely as Mrs Goko leads the way out of the room. In the corridor, reaching for a cigarette, Petworth feels his old empty self come back. ‘Really I think this goes quite welli,’ says Mrs Goko, her spectacles hanging round her neck, ‘It is not whati we expected, but it is interesting lectori. The speedi is finei, and you may telli by regarding their faces how well they graspi what you speaki.’ ‘Comrade Petwurt, I tell you we expect some remarkable talks,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, I think you give us quite a remarkable one.’ ‘Perhaps now you wishi to go to the mani’s room for a little relief,’ says Mrs Goko, pointing to a door with F on it, ‘Do go there, and then comei back pleasi to my roomi, do you remember? We have fifteen minutis, and is just a little brandi more in the bottlei.’ ‘Aarrghh,’ says a voice, ‘Good stuff, old chap. The last fellow was pretty boring, actually. Sent the audience off to sleep.’ ‘English for Soporific Purposes,’ says Petworth, ‘Do you know Mrs Goko?’ ‘I’m Ster Ster Steadiman,’ says Steadiman, ‘Cult cult cultural man at the British Embassy. Professor Marcovic was kind enough to invite me.’ ‘Marcovic?’ says Mr Picnic, taking a photograph. ‘I am sorry,’ says Mrs Goko, ‘Professor Marcovic has a little sicknessi today.’ ‘I’ve never man man managed to meet him,’ says Steadiman, ‘I hope one day.’ ‘There are many political complicaties,’ says Mrs Goko, ‘But if he survives these I expect he will be welli again.’ ‘It is really Wordworth?’ asks Miss Mamorian, catching Petworth just as he enters the door marked F, ‘Not Woolworth? I am only a little way into my project, and I don’t read yet any books.’ ‘Yes, Wordsworth,’ says Petworth, pushing open the door, entering a place of cold tiles and hissing pipes.

  When he comes out again, the crowds that have just filled the corridor have gone; only one figure stands there, back to him, looking at a poster. ‘Oh, you are funny behind this so high desk,’ says a lady writer, turning, ‘Do you know Fonzy Bear, of Muppets? You are like this. Mr Petwit, walk with me a minute on the stair.’ Round the corner, on the stone staircase, where cold statues stand in niches, Katya Princip says: ‘I came, you see. Of course this is foolish. But I think about you last night, and I know I like to see you again. Do you mind it?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘I wish we talk again,’ says Princip, ‘But I think is not possible. Soon you leave Slaka.’ ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you have lunch with all these people?’ asks Princip, leaning against the wall and looking at him. ‘That’s what often happens,’ says Petworth. ‘I like you to come with me,’ says Princip, ‘I like to take you somewhere. Do you want it?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘You know it is foolish,’ says Princip. ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Then we let fate decide it, like in a good story,’ says Princip, ‘Of course if we know how we should give it some help. Let us just say, we try. If we are lucky, we know we are lucky couple.’ ‘Good,’ says Petworth. ‘Watch for me when your lecture stops,’ says Princip, ‘They do not know me but perhaps I come to you. Do what I tell you, I am good witch. Now, go to them, they wonder where you went. And wish, wish, wish we are lucky. In
my books wishes often work.’ In the long corridor to Mrs Goko’s room Mr Picnic stands in his dark sunglasses; ‘You take a long time,’ he says, ‘We wait you.’ ‘Brandy, drinki it quickly,’ says Mrs Goko, giving him a glass, ‘Already it is time to go backi and meeti once more the studentis.’

  But back on the podium, as Petworth talks again, his spirit rising, about the things he knows so well, about EFL and ESL and ESP, of EAP and EOP and EST, he sees that the audience has strangely changed. The numbers are much the same, but new faces have been traded for old ones, fair for dark, women for men, military for civilian. Only the front row remains as familiar as ever, save for one new figure, a man who sits on the end of the row, holding up a copy of P’rtyuu Populatuuu to cover his face, though the sharp striped trousers that show below it suggest a possible identity; on the back row, still, sit Steadiman and, looking at him warmly, Katya Princip. ‘I think we permiti some questions,’ says Mrs Goko, after Petworth has sat down, and the knuckles have rapped, ‘Also any criticisms. As you know, Professori Petworthi, always we are criticali, according to revolutionary principles.’ There is the statutory long pause, and then a few questions, a few criticisms: the man with the V-shaped beard rises, to denounce, in English, English as the language of capitalist oppression; Miss Mamorian also rises, to suggest the thinking is not correct; Mr Picnic observes that the lecture fails to unravel the hegemony of forces underlying the process to which it refers. ‘Professori Petworthi,’ says Mrs Goko, ‘You have given us a fascinating lectori of importance to all who study Englishi. Also we are pleased you speaki it very welli. You have heard some very good criticisms, and we thinki your visit will not be wasted. We thinki it may make your changi your theories, and so all have profited.’ ‘Theories exist to be changed,’ says Petworth. ‘So thank you, pleasi, for your good lectori, and may we acquaint you that here in our country we make a languagi revolution with the aimi of devising a true popular language consistent with history. We hope you study.’ ‘I shall,’ says Petworth.

  It seems to Petworth, as he leaves the hall, that a dispute is now breaking out among the audience; indeed Picnic now stands at the podium he has just left, addressing the students in the language Petworth does not know. But there are other matters to attend to. ‘Perhaps I make mistaki to refer here to the language revolution,’ says Mrs Goko, ‘But you are linguisti, I think you interest.’ ‘Yes, very,’ says Petworth. ‘I like to tell you more at the lunch with our faculty arranged to followi.’ ‘Ah, I see,’ says Petworth. ‘So, my friend,’ says the man from behind P’rtyuu Populatuuu, who is no other than Plitplov, ‘This was quite a good lecture of bourgeois linguistics. Of course the criticisms of Madame Goko and others are most potent.’ ‘Very good,’ says Miss Mamorian. ‘I hope you excuse I miss some of your wise words,’ says Plitplov, ‘As I tell you last night at a certain party, I have many obligations.’ ‘Oh, yes, a party?’ says Lubijova, ‘You ate and then you went to bed, all by yourself? I don’t think it any more, Comrade Petwurt.’ ‘Oh, here is Miss Lubijova,’ says Plitplov, ‘It is nice to see you in our university.’ ‘You have seen me in it before, I think,’ says Lubijova, ‘Perhaps you forget because you have a headache. I do not think a party will help it. It does not help Comrade Petwurt’s face.’ ‘I’m Ster Ster Steadiman,’ says Steadiman, coming up to Lubijova, ‘I gather you’re Dr Petworth’s guide interpreter.’ ‘I am not to blame for Dr Petwurt at all,’ says Lubijova, ‘I try to make him good but he is naughty. How do you know him?’ ‘Dip dip dip,’ says Steadiman. ‘Oh, Mr Petwit, so good a lecture,’ says a certain lady novelist, coming up, ‘Do you know I understand nearly all of it?’

  ‘You are all friends?’ asks Picnic, coming up beside Petworth, ‘How do you meet? Who knows who?’ In the dark corridor stands much of the gallery of his Slakan acquaintances. Petworth stares at them, this one talking to that one, compounding his emotional confusions, unravelling or complicating his lies; he no longer knows the answer. ‘Oh, you are Mr Plitplov?’ cries Katya Princip, ‘I have read your articles in the newspaper with an interest.’ ‘You are good to notice,’ says Plitplov. ‘You are Katya Princip?’ cries Mrs Goko, ‘Welku, welku.’ ‘Oh, look, here is Miss Lubijova,’ says Katya Princip, ‘You see I took good care of Mr Petwit and left him very nicely at his hotel.’ ‘Oh, yes?’ says Lubijova, ‘I think it is good thing he leaves Slaka tomorrow.’ ‘I hope you arrange a nice lunch for him, he does very well,’ says Princip. ‘Mrs Goko has arranged a lunch,’ says Petworth. ‘No,’ says Mrs Goko, ‘I telli I like to arrange a lunchi, but is not possibli. Marcovic is not welli, and he alone can spend the departmenti fundis.’ ‘Oh, cancelled?’ says Katya Princip. ‘Well, let’s all find a rest rest restaurant,’ says Steadiman. ‘I cannot comi,’ says Mrs Goko, ‘Many duties in university.’ ‘I know a nice place,’ says Plitplov. ‘Which one?’ asks Picnic. ‘Come, we will follow Dr Plitplov,’ says Lubijova, ‘We must hope his head is all better.’ ‘We have learnied very much of you,’ says Mrs Goko, shaking hands, ‘Now I like to say thanki.’ ‘Is really Wordworth?’ asks Miss Mamorian, as the assistants, in their cardigans, line up to shake hands, and Picnic takes one last photograph for what must now be quite an extensive collection.

  But then the occasion is suddenly over, as these formal occasions so suddenly are. The remaining party descends the great stone staircase into the great gaunt front hall of the university: Steadiman and Lubijova going ahead, talking together, perhaps about his clandestine last night, Petworth following behind, flanked by Katya Princip and a panting Plitplov. ‘So, your lecture has gone very well,’ says Plitplov, ‘Perhaps at lunch I can make a few suggestions for your improvement. You will see our academical standards are very rigorous, and we expect a special clarity of analysis.’ Porters peer at them out of glass booths as they go out of the building; a few students with briefcases stand on the steps. ‘I also found it interesting,’ says Katya Princip, ‘And I think you spoke a little slowly for me.’ ‘Always you are of fine quality,’ says Plitplov, ‘But of course in our context a few dialectical errors will become apparent. We are not so much pragmatist as the British. But definitely I did not make a mistake to come there. You know well you did not really disgrace yourself.’ They step out through the colonnade onto the street, which looks out onto a square where the sun shines brightly. Across the square stands the statue of Hrovdat, that Wordworth of Slaka: the national poet who has been, like all such national poets, in all such countries, a romantic revolutionary, who has translated Byron and Shakespeare, written plays, fought the nation’s oppressors from the east and the west, the Turks or the Germans, the Macedonians or the Swedes, known Kossuth, fought and declaimed on the barricades of 1848, fled away into exile, discovered conspiratorial friends, returned in disguise, gathered new forces, gone back into battle and in it fallen, his last and bravest poem loud on his lips; the pigeons strut on his head now, and the party, with many explanations, stares across the street at him.

  ‘And now do we all eat together?’ says Plitplov, ‘I think you all follow me.’ ‘But I think there is a nice restaurant just this way,’ says Lubijova, leaving the side of the umbrella-ed Mr Steadiman. ‘Oh, but please, this is my university,’ says Plitplov, ‘I know there is better a Balkan one this way. I go to it often.’ ‘Oh, that one,’ says Lubijova, ‘But it is spicy, and often there is no food.’ ‘I know a nice one in the town,’ says Steadiman, ‘I believe they take American Express.’ ‘Well, all depends on what people like to eat,’ says Lubijova, ‘Comrade Petwurt, what do you like? The spicy or the plain?’ ‘The fishes or the meats?’ asks Plitplov. ‘The typisch or the modern?’ asks Lubijova. ‘All of them have no food,’ murmurs Princip, ‘Well, it is always so. In Slaka people will talk so long about where to have food they never eat any.’ ‘The place in town is awe awe awfully good,’ says Steadiman, ‘Not sure how to get there from here, though.’ ‘The one that way is better,’ says Plitplov. ‘The other that way is cheaper,’ says Lubijova. And so, in front of the colonnade of the
university, the group falls into one of those huddles of indecisiveness that such groups are prone to, when no one quite wants to defer to, but neither to offend, anyone else, and no one can quite go anywhere. Petworth stands, and a hand slips through his arm: ‘While they talk, I just take you to see the statue of Hrovdat,’ says Katya Princip, ‘Don’t you think you must see it?’ ‘He has seen it from the tram,’ says Lubijova, turning. ‘Then I think he sees it properly,’ says Katya Princip, ‘You will take ten minutes to make your mind. I like to explain to him our national tradition of poetry. Don’t you think you must know more about our writers?’

  ‘Well, yes, I do,’ says Petworth. ‘So we are back in a minute,’ says Princip, leading Petworth across the busy road. The statue stands up, a man in metal on horseback, romantically falling while his flag still stays aloft. ‘So, you see him, Hrovdat,’ says Princip, ‘This was a very good man and he did brave things and believed very much in liberty. And so we still like him and his poems are remembered, and we can speak them from our hearts. It is nice to be a writer like that, to have a little courage. Now, do you have a little courage, Petwit? Do you jump with me on this tram?’ ‘On the tram?’ asks Petworth. ‘I think fate smiles on us,’ says Princip, ‘Quick now, while they don’t look this way.’ ‘I don’t think it’s a very good idea,’ says Petworth, ‘They’re all waiting for us, they’ll all . . .’ But his considerate thoughts are evidently too late; Princip has him by the hand, is tugging him along, is standing on the steps of the old metal tram and drawing him up after her. Across the street he sees Lubijova staring as he is dragged up into the huddle of passengers; a metal shutter closes behind him, and the tram begins to rattle off. He is in a press of bodies, but through the rough glass of the window he can see, across the street, the uncertain huddle of prospective diners break open, line the roadside, stare after the rattling vehicle. Plitplov and Lubijova stand still; Steadiman, with characteristic courage, lifts his umbrella and, waving it, begins to run down the middle of the street, after the tram. ‘They saw,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, yes,’ says Princip, laughing in front of him. ‘We can’t just disappear like this,’ he says. ‘Of course, my dear,’ says Princip, putting her arm through his, ‘I am your witch. I make you disappear just when I like it, into the air, down a hole. Just like Stupid in my story.’