Rates of Exchange

by Malcolm Bradbury

  III

  ‘And here the place I want you to see,’ says Katya Princip, in her batik dress and white scarf, as they sit, a little later, in the quiet corner of a restaurant that lies somewhere just beyond the end of the tram-route, with fields outside the windows, ‘It is very special to me, do you see why I like it? Once it was hunting lodge, for some imperial princes. From here they took out their guns and went into that forest. Now still are cooked the wild things. Isn’t it better?’ Petworth looks round at the room they have much to themselves. Only two other couples are here; they sit at a white-clothed table, near to a log fire, in a room of dark wood, with ornate carved beams and painted walls, where the horned fragmentary skulls of many creatures, the sad severed heads of deer, the brute rooting faces of wild boar, stare down on them. ‘It’s delightful,’ says Petworth, ‘I just hope it wasn’t a bad idea.’ ‘Oh, Petwit, please don’t worry,’ says Katya Princip, putting her hand on his, and looking at him with clear grey eyes, ‘Of course it was not a sensible thing. But don’t you think we all need sometimes to do a foolishness? Tomorrow you go away, perhaps I don’t see you again, and I like to see you. That dinner is cancelled, I think fate likes us to meet. And we are here together, we can be happy if we like. Now, my dear, look around you, please. Look through the window. The sun shines there, the rain has gone, it is warm day, the fields and trees are very beautiful, don’t you say so? And now look please at me. We sit here, there is nice fire, we drink, our knees touch underneath, we look into the face of one another, and perhaps I am a bit beautiful like those fields. Don’t you think we could be happy? Most of the time is sadness, happiness is only a little time. But don’t you think it is good to take it?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, you do,’ says Princip, squeezing his hand, ‘Now I think we eat something.’

  Princip waves to a waiter in a long white apron, who comes to the side of their table, holding his pad. ‘Now what do you like?’ asks Princip, holding the menu out to Petworth and smiling at him, ‘Look, I explain you. Here is massalu, this is a fish just like a dentex. Here is valpuru, made of the brain of a little cow, very nice to eat. Natupashu, this is what a bull has, and you too, I hope. What do you call, is it testicle?’ ‘Ah, yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you eat it?’ asks Princip, ‘It makes you love better, that is what we say here. But perhaps you don’t need it, you look strong to me. I tell you what is best to eat here, the wilde, what do you say, the wild things. Here is lad’slatu, that is the boar, they live in the forest not far away. This is what I have, do you eat it too?’ ‘Marvellous,’ says Petworth. ‘Not a testicle?’ asks Princip. ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘This is right,’ says Princip, ‘Something wild, because we are a little wild. And some wine, don’t you say so. So we can drink to our foolishness?’ ‘Please,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, that is good,’ says Princip, when the waiter has gone, ‘And now, Petwit, tell me something. When, please, do you make your next appointment?’ ‘Tonight at seven,’ says Petworth, looking at his programme. ‘And this girl who looks to you, she comes then to your hotel?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, I will make some plans for you,’ says Princip, ‘Tell her you have been to see the city, to look at the castle. She will be suspicious, but you are a free man, I think. And what you must do, you must take her a flower. Then she will think you are not so bad, everyone likes a flower.’ ‘I will,’ says Petworth. ‘And so you have all the afternoon,’ says Princip, ‘It is the same with me. Well, we will enjoy it.’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth.

  ‘Oh, look,’ says Princip, laughing, and taking his face in her hands, ‘Still a long face, down to here. My dear, I will explain you something. In my country, people do not like to do a thing that is noticed. They like it to stay quiet, and they like quiet in others. Don’t surprise, don’t be excellent, it makes troubles. Well, your friend here is not like that. I am just a little bit excellent, do you notice?’ ‘I do,’ says Petworth. ‘I have a good mind I like, and a good body I like, and I like to use them, to make display of them. I do many things people tell are foolish, because, you see, my dear Petwit, if you do not do them, you are nothing, and you make everything else nothing. Of course I can be sensible, you saw it yesterday, but sensible is nothing. Do you see why I came to your lecture?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘No, you do not see,’ says Princip, ‘Because I do not explain it so well. I come there because I like you, do you see it, and if you like somebody it is nice to do something about it. I think you are looking at my charms.’ ‘I am, indeed,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you like them?’ asks Princip. ‘Very much indeed,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, do you, very much indeed,’ says Princip, laughing, ‘I do not mean those charms, the charms here on my wrist. Do you see them? Always I wear them. They are magic, you know. This hanging here is a fish, well, a man can ride on the back of a fish, and go to another world. Here a key, with a key all you must do is find the right door. A stone, well, give a stone and you get a story. And here is a heart, you know what you do with a heart. You think they are nice?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, fingering the bracelet round Princip’s white wrist. ‘Well, my dear, I give you one,’ says Princip, ‘Let me think which one. Not the heart, you have one already. Not a key, I need it. I think the stone, because I like you to have a story. Find a string, wait, I have one in my bag, and put it please round your neck. I want to find it there when I meet you again. Oh, look, here is our drink. Now we can drink to foolishness.’

  ‘Foolishness,’ says Petworth, after the waiter has served them, raising his glass. ‘You see, the stone works already,’ says Princip, ‘Now do you have a story to tell me?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, you are dull,’ says Princip, ‘Well, I am the story-teller, I tell you one. What do I pick? Oh, I know, an old one, the man who goes to Glit.’ ‘Very appropriate,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you go there?’ asks Princip, ‘Well, this is a story from old times, about a traveller from afar who made a journey in our country. He wanted to make his journey somewhere interesting, and on his way he met a man who told him that Glit was a place of good streets and beautiful women and the finest things to buy. He went to Glit, but just as he could see the city, he met on the road with a marvellous thing. A young woman with fine eyes stood under a tree looking at him, and he knew he was in love. The woman smiled and things happened, you know how it is, my dear. He spent some days with her in her little house, but after some days, well, the eyes did not seem quite so beautiful and he did not think so much about love. He had waited too long in this place, passed all these nights, and it was time to make his journey again. So one morning when she goes off to the market to buy food, he packs up his baggages and goes on to Glit. But as he travelled he thought all the time of the young woman, and he knew she had bewitched him and was trying to find a way to see him again. But he must make the purpose of his journey, and he is a man, so it is not love. He entered the gate of Glit, it is still there, and saw a woman walking down the street toward him, an old peasant carrying some sticks under her arm; her body is bent but her face is the face of the girl. He walks on through the streets, and all the women walking there, clean or dirty ones, old or youngs, just the same. He looks through the windows; there are women sewing, women cooking, women in bathtubs, all the same face. Oh, see, he brings our food, wasn’t that quick? Doesn’t it look nice?’

  In a metal dish between them, a meal of meat and vegetables bubbles and seethes aromatically; the waiter fills their glasses with wine. ‘It looks very good,’ says Petworth. ‘Put your plate here,’ says Princip, ‘I serve you.’ ‘You will finish the story?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, my dear,’ says Princip, ‘If you like it. In my country the women are quite feminist but with a nice man we still like to please. Well, my dear Mr Petwit, the man has business on his mind; he likes to buy a ring. He goes to the house of a fine merchant of Glit and makes some good trade; for not so much money he gets a beautiful ring. The merchant is kind, and asks him to stay there the night. He calls his wife and asks her to take the man to a beautiful room with bed. In the room
the wife looks at him. It is the same face, the same body, surely the same person as the young woman by the road. The traveller tells that they have met before. “No, we don’t meet,” says the wife, “But you must leave at once. I like you, and I know my husband means to kill you in this bed tonight, and take back his ring.” The traveller looks round. The doors have no handles, the windows don’t open. “There is only one way to leave,” says the woman, “I am a witch. If you give me one kiss, the doors will all spring open and you will be free.”The traveller makes the kiss, mmmmnn, the doors open, he takes his luggages and runs from Glit. He looks on the road for the house he has been, but all he sees there is bundle of rags. After long travellings, he comes to his home and his wife. He gives her the ring, makes her the kiss, mmmmnn; and then he sees she has the face of the lady of Glit. This is the story, do you like it?’ ‘Did you make it up?’ asks Petworth. ‘It is a very very old story,’ says Princip, ‘How could I make it up? Of course it is very fantastical, not real at all, but you see I do not believe in reality.’

  ‘You don’t believe in it,’ says Petworth. ‘No, I have tried it and I do not believe it,’ says Princip, ‘Reality is what happens if you listen to other people’s stories and not to your own. The stories become a country, the country becomes a prison, and the prison comes in your mind. And everywhere more of the same story: the people do not steal, they make miracles of production, they all love Karl Marx. Soon it is the only story, and that is how comes reality. Well, I will tell you something, my dear, if you give me one kiss, even if you don’t. I have only one I with a me in it, you the same. The world is in your own head, and they put it there, with a me and a you in it, so we can make our own stories. And this is how I like to use my own head, which you see right in front of you, a nice one, I hope. Not to make some more reality for other people to live inside, but some space for my mind to grow. And now you tell me, Comrade Petwit, that my position is not correct, it does not advance history and truth. And I tell you, my nice friend, that history and truth are your stories and not mine. And then you tell me, well, you had better drive a tram. I can do it, too. Do you think I am a witch?’ ‘Perhaps,’ says Petworth. ‘Of course it is possible,’ says Princip, ‘In my country we talk of rational projects and economic plannings, but really we are still peasants and magicians. Do I witch you a little bit?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, I try,’ says Princip, ‘Now, do you like some coffee?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Then we ask for a taxi and we go and find some,’ says Princip, ‘I know a place where it is better.’

  ‘Wasn’t it nice?’ asks big, blonde Katya Princip, sitting beside him in the small orange taxi, her arm through his, ‘You see now why I like so much that place. I hope you like the next one.’ ‘I’m sure I shall,’ says Petworth. The taxi is driving toward the city, at some speed; loud honkings from the other traffic surround them. ‘Here our drivers do not look behind,’ says Katya Princip, ‘They look always forward, into the socialist future. Look, here on the hill, the castle. This is where you are going this afternoon, so please remember just what it is like. Inside is big and dark, and there are many small rooms of stone. You have been in castles before, I think. In the rooms, the nice metal suitings for the very little soldiers, with plumes in the helms, and on the wall some pictures of all the old battles. Then you see some old guns and a wine press. Then downstairs some cold prisons with no windows, for the tourists, not for them to live in, just to look at. We do not treat our tourists so badly. There is fine exhibition of our Slakan past, with many maps and drawings of the old invasions. Upstairs the bedroom of Bishop Vlam. You know he was, what do you call him, a man who likes too much the ladies.’ ‘A rake?’ asks Petworth. ‘That is a rake?’ asks Princip, ‘Then what do you clean the leaves with?’ ‘Another rake,’ says Petworth. ‘So, two rakes,’ says Princip, ‘This one has a fine bedroom with a bed of four posts. Or perhaps now three posts, he was very rough with his ladies. He put them down a hole also, remember the hole. So, do you see it all?’ ‘I think so,’ says Petworth. ‘Good,’ says Princip, ‘Well, now you have been there, so we go somewhere quite different. I think I tell this driver to slower, don’t you? He is running over much too many people.’ Princip leans forward to talk to the driver; Petworth stares out at the cityscape of urban Slaka, where in grey and khaki the people walk, in the day’s sun, and the streets flicker past. He stares, feeling separate, pleasurably hijacked; as he does so, a certain small thought occurs to him.

  It is the curious thought that he is happy. He is, for a brief spell, in the company of a woman, blonde, batik-clad Katya Princip, whom he finds gay, and amusing, and beautiful, and whose gaiety makes him feel gay too. But there is more to it than that; for Dr Petworth, sitting there in the foreign taxi in the foreign city, clutching his lecture, is not a man much used to feeling that he exists. Over the years he has grown older, seen some greying of the hair, watched his teeth deteriorate and be on occasion extracted, lost his youthful humour, grown more anxious and solitary, felt some centre in him, some ground of being where value ought to be, grow fragile and dissipate. The world about him, as he has come to know more of it, has grown not more real, but less, and life not more living but a parody of itself. People have become repetitions of people already known, desires become an absurd biological urgency, vague therapeutic hungers for variation and complication. The wife who was once everything seems slight now, a drifting mysterious presence and absence; women who appear in his days and dreams as possible lovers have not tugged him with the necessary intensity of emotion. The objects of will have deteriorated, like his teeth; he has trouble in summoning up enough substance to be, to stir, to feel, to say. He has come to feel contentless, wordless, not there, grown more used to inner absence than to presence. But now, though he knows he should not be here, though he thinks with anxiety and guilt of the three lost diners, talking about him somewhere in any one of a dozen possible restaurants, though he can think of no adequate explanation for himself when explanation is needed, he feels a curious small sense that exist is what he does.

  ‘This taxi driver is very interesting,’ says Katya Princip, the presumed source of these emotions, turning towards him, ‘He tells me he is no more in love with his wife.’ The taxi driver, a big hairy man, turns and nods. ‘He has seen me and now he loves me, and he wants me to go and take some drinks with him. I explain no, I am busy with my lover, you do not mind I say that?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘But now he wants to kill himself,’ says Princip, ‘Sometimes people are like that here.’ The taxi stops, in the middle of a quiet urban street with linden trees along it, and behind the trees rows of old high balconied apartment buildings; the driver turns and speaks volubly to Princip. ‘Do you please get out, my dear,’ says Princip, ‘I come to you in a minute. I just have some more words with him.’ Petworth gets out and stares up and down the street: no one walks in it, and the doors are all shut. ‘So,’ says Katya Princip, climbing out of the taxi, ‘I think I persuade him not to do it. I take a drink with him tomorrow. Often such things happen to me, I don’t know why, of course. Well, we just walk a little, and we are there.’ ‘Where?’ asks Petworth. ‘Where we are going,’ says Princip, ‘I think you are liking some coffee. We go to a place we can get some. It is called my apartment.’ ‘Ah,’ says Petworth. ‘I look at you and I think you are very tired,’ says Princip, ‘Perhaps you need a rest and a shower, before you do your next thing. I will make you some terrible coffee and give you an awful cake. It is just here, we go in this door. Press the button and the machine opens it. Now we go in quickly, I do not want everyone to see you. I am smuggling you, Petwit.’

  They enter a dark lobby, with a lift in a cage at the end of it. ‘Come inside it, quickly,’ says Princip, ‘Look, I show you how it works, in case you come here again to see me. I hope another time you will want to, do you think so? Look, in this box on the wall you must put in a small coin, ten butt’uun. If you do not do it, the machine does not march. If you do, well, pouff, there it go
es.’ In the clanking cage, they rise up together through the building. Princip is close against him; stone landings float past, lined with closed wooden doors. ‘Now here is my floor, the top,’ says Princip, ‘Aren’t we lucky, there is no one to see us. Now, where is my key, and then I make you disappear again.’ They step out onto the stone landing, and Princip puts her key to a blank wooden door. ‘When it is open, go quickly inside,’ she says, ‘We do not like the world to know all the things we do.’ The door opens; inside is a small narrow hall, a hall so narrow and small it is hard to know whether it has been designed to increase human intimacy, or entirely prevent it. The walls press them together: ‘You see, you are come,’ cries Princip, laughing, her face just below his, ‘I hope you don’t think this is all I have. There is some more apartment inside.’ In the tight space, it is difficult not to find one’s arms around the person with whom one is pressed; Petworth’s, certainly, are now round Princip’s waist. ‘Oh, Petwit,’ says Princip, gently removing his hands, ‘Don’t you know I brought you here for a rest? Of course; you must be tired after such a lecture. Do you like also to be a rake? You are such a thin one, perhaps really a rake of the other kind.’ ‘I like you,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, yes, I understand it,’ says Princip, ‘I also to you. But I am a little bit elusive, my dear. I like to talk a bit with you. And we have so much time, isn’t it nice? All the afternoon, and for us to stay together. Unless you like better to go to the castle? Do you prefer it better?’ ‘No, I like to be here with you,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, you have good sense,’ says Princip, ‘Now come inside and I show you my flat.’