Rates of Exchange

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘Well, my good old friend,’ says Plitplov, suddenly putting out his hand to Petworth, ‘I hope you enjoy your last night in Slaka. I am afraid this occasion is not so pleasant for me. I think I go now, so let us say farewell.’ ‘Oh, no, you don’t leave?’ cries Lubijova, smiling. ‘I expect my wife has a headache, and she does not see me all day,’ says Plitplov, ‘Also you know I rose very early to complete my businesses, so I might hear a little piece of your lecture and make a lunch with you. It has not been a day of great pleasures, but I try to do my duty. Still, I know now you have this guide who is watching you. I hope you will be careful in your journey through the forest.’ ‘I’m sorry to have disappointed you,’ says Petworth, ‘But I hope we’ll meet when I come back to Slaka.’ ‘Oh, I don’t think it,’ says Plitplov, ‘I like to make many affairs all over the country.’ ‘Comrade Petwurt also,’ says Lubijova. ‘So I say goodbye, my friend,’ says Plitplov, ‘Take please a very good care. You are not always so sensible. And when you turn back to England, give please my love to your Lottie. You know I am fond of her. Tell her I am well, except for some headaches. Also that I succeed quite well, despite some petty criticisms and enemies. Perhaps she gave you a message for me when you telephoned to her?’ ‘Well, no,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, yes your telephone call tonight,’ says Lubijova, ‘It was successful? I hope you did not forget that important thing I have arranged for you?’ ‘No, I didn’t forget it,’ says Petworth, ‘I just wasn’t able to make it.’ ‘You don’t make it?’ asks Lubijova, stopping suddenly. ‘No, I reached the hotel desk just too late,’ says Petworth, ‘I was only a few seconds after six, but they wouldn’t let me call.’

  In the great mirrored corridor, under the gleaming chandeliers, Lubijova stands and stares at Petworth. The promenading circle behind them, halted in its passage, backs up; somewhere a glass is dropped. ‘Oh, really, yes, what a pity,’ cries Lubijova, angrily, ‘How my nose bleeds for you. Yes, it is very difficult to leave a lecture at noon and be at a hotel desk by six.’ ‘So you don’t speak to your Lottie?’ asks Plitplov. ‘You go off all afternoon with your lady writer, and then you are late to call your wife?’ says Lubijova, ‘And what does she think now? Don’t you wonder it?’ Their movement arrested, the promenaders behind are forming a curious circle around the quarrel: the party officials in their evening dress, the generals and the air-force marshals, the Vietnamese ambassador, perhaps, in his denim workclothes, with his retinue, the Russian ambassadress, perhaps, in her tiara, with hers. ‘I’ll call her tomorrow,’ says Petworth, ‘I don’t think she’ll worry.’ ‘You do not call her tomorrow,’ says Lubijova, ‘Tomorrow you go to Glit, very early. And from there a call to the West takes perhaps one week. Also don’t think I try to arrange it. I have tried for you, Petwurt, and I see what you do.’ Troubled, disoriented, Petworth stares round the curious grotesque circle of official faces, and it even seems that there are some he recognizes. But if this confusion, how many more; he cannot believe his eyes or his senses. The chandeliers are bright, and even the ceiling is mirrored; up there is Petworth, standing on his head. Looking up, Petworth suddenly sees himself enfolded by the redness of a dress; then lips are descending on his face, a kiss is planted on his cheek. ‘Angus darling, how wonderful,’ says Budgie Steadiman, fine in a long velvet dress and cloak, with a tiara, ‘Aren’t you enjoying the opera? And don’t you wish I was in it?’

  ‘Oh, Budgie,’ says Petworth. ‘Petwurt, Petwurt,’ says Lubijova, ‘Not another one. I think you are impossible.’ ‘Who’s your nice little friend?’ asks Budgie, ‘You must meet mine.’ A small, round, bald man in a worn dinner jacket, holding a cigar, steps forward: ‘Hey, Professorim Petwort and guide,’ he says, ‘Still very tough lady, hah, I think so.’ ‘Good evening, Mr Tankic,’ says Petworth. ‘Felix is engaged tonight,’ says Budgie, ‘And, yearning for opera, I succumbed to the attentions of another.’ Tankic grins mischievously, and raises his cigar in salutation: ‘You keep secret?’ he says, ‘A little assignation.’ ‘And dear Mr Plitplov,’ says Budgie, ‘My second favourite dinner guest.’ ‘Oh, do we meet somewhere before?’ asks Plitplov, slinking obscurely toward the safety of the crowd. ‘Only at my drunken table last night,’ says Budgie, ‘Strange how one always meets the people one knows at an opera.’ ‘Who is this?’ whispers Lubijova, ‘Who is your friend?’ ‘It’s awfully rude to whisper,’ says Budgie Steadiman, ‘Come into our box. We’re drinking champagne.’ I do not think we are expected,’ says Lubijova. ‘In official box, all are expected,’ says Tankic, lifting a velvet curtain, to reveal the dark red gloom of the space inside, and the bright lights of the auditorium gleaming beyond. ‘And then we’re going on to a strip club,’ says Budgie, ‘You really must come, Angus. I should love to take you there and strip you. Oh, do meet the rest of my party.’ In the darkness of the box, on red plush chairs, two people are sitting, a couple, holding hands. ‘Oh, well, it is the feder man,’ says Professor Rom Rum, rising from the darkness and smiling, smart in a tailed evening suit, ‘You enjoy the piece?’ ‘And you must meet . . .’ says Budgie. ‘I have,’ says Petworth, staring at the other chair, in which sits, not in batik but in a low-cut black gauzed dress, the blonde magical realist novelist Katya Princip.

  8 – TOUR.

  I

  In the bright clean early sun of the next morning, Petworth sits amid ferns in the great quiet lobby at the Hotel Slaka, awaiting the arrival of his guide. The arrangements for his departure from Slaka have gone competently well. A limping porter has brought down from the gaunt, troubled spaces of his great bedroom the luggage – the blue suitcase, the battered briefcase of lectures, the depleted plastic bag that still declares ‘Say Hello to the Good Buys from Heathrow’ – which Petworth has quickly and carelessly packed in the half dawn before going down to early breakfast; he has eaten that breakfast, the same breakfast as yesterday, and the day before, though he has made an order for something quite different. He has collected his passport from the blue Cosmoplot girl who bustles under the portraits of Marx and Wanko at the great desk in the customless lobby, and it rests hardbacked in his pocket; he has signed the great bill that will go to the Mun’stratuu, the cost of his three painful nights. The angled sun falls across the dust and into the red plastic chairs of the lobby, where only a few figures move, and where they are just taking down the shutters on the small stall that is marked LUTTU. It falls, too, on the ancient fac¸ades around the quiet square outside, where only one or two pink trams move, and even the newspaper seller has not yet begun his work of the day. Petworth sits in his chair and looks out through the great plateglass windows, looking out for a sight of the big black car that, according to the programme he also carries in his pocket, will take him off with Lubijova on his journey through the forest, his journey to new lectures, new intellectual duties, to the familiar story of his travels. It is good to be moving again; to leave, on a clean new day, Slaka behind, its confusions, its pains, its sadnesses, its treacheries, to go back to the life he should never have left.

  In the corner of the square, a big black Russian Volga, with a great grinning grille, comes out of shade into sunlight. It moves slowly, and stops under the hotel portico. In the front is a big-necked driver in a grey shirt; in the back sits Lubijova, in the coat in which she had met him at the airport. Lubijova gets out, and waves through the glass; Petworth gets up, and gathers together his baggage. ‘Oh, you are ready, really I didn’t expect it,’ she says, coming over to him, swinging her shoulderbag, ‘And do you sign already the bill at the desk?’ ‘Yes, I’ve done it,’ says Petworth. ‘And your baggages all here,’ says Lubijova, ‘Today you are very efficient.’ ‘I am,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, I think perhaps that means you want to be very good on our trip,’ says Lubijova, ‘I hope it. Of course already I worry about it. You know, Petwurt, you are not like my other tourists. But now we are going to be together really for quite a long time. So I think we try a bit to enjoy it, don’t you say so?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, ‘Of course.’ ‘And I und
erstand perhaps you are very sad of last night,’ says Lubijova, ‘You have had a disappointment, I know it. I think I realize very well why you are so sick in that nightclub.’ ‘I was sick in the nightclub, was I?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, don’t you remember it?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Do you make your mind a nothing? Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps what is good is a new start for everything. Really we could have a nice time, I believe it. And do you see what a nice sun we have made for you, for your journey?’ ‘Yes, it’s a lovely day,’ says Petworth. ‘So, no more things you must do?’ asks Lubijova, ‘You don’t forget some things, your shirt at the laundry? You carry your passport? You pay them all your small bills? You pack your suit away? You don’t want to make a nice kiss to the girl at the desk?’ ‘No, thank you,’ says Petworth, ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

  ‘So we go,’ says Lubijova, ‘Give me your documents case, and then we can move these baggages by ourselves. Look, it is a very fine car. Now you will ride like an apparatchik. I am sorry there are no curtains today for the windows, but even for a famous lecturer there is not always everything. Give this driver your baggages, he will put them away.’ Outside, in the sun, the big-necked driver meets them and takes the luggage round to the car’s great bulbous rear. ‘Now, where do you like to sit?’ asks Lubijova, ‘In the front with a view, or in the back with your guide?’ ‘Oh, in the back,’ says Petworth. ‘Good,’ says Lubijova, ‘Then I believe you forgive me just a little for being angered of you last night. You understand me now, I think. I like to look after you and I am always for your good. I think you have learned a little lesson.’ The big grey driver gets in; it is possible to recognize, from the familiar wart on the back of his neck, that this is the same man who, two days ago, took them up the hill to the Restaurant Propp. He turns, and Lubijova nods to him; he sounds an unnecessary flourish on a very fancy klaxon, starts the engine, and moves out into the square. ‘So, now for more than a week you are leaving Slaka,’ says Lubijova, ‘Please say your goodbye to it. Do you think you will miss it? Perhaps now these things have happened you do not. In any case you go back there again before you turn back to England. Remember, you come back for our day of National Rejoicering, before you fly away. You will think it is just for you.’ The car circles the square that Petworth has gazed down on so often from his great balconied bedroom, where the raucous nymphs play on the ceiling; now it turns up the narrow street, above which Marx, Lenin and Wanko hang, familiar now, on their wires. Petworth turns back to the square for a last view, to see that a big grey truck is stopping in it, in the empty early morning, just below the sign that says SCH’VEPPUU. The great, swaying hydraulic arm begins to ascend, with on the platform at the end of it three rocking workmen; then the square goes from sight.

  ‘Plazscu P’rtyuu, you know that,’ says Lubijova, pointing to the left, where the great vacant public open space is just visible, empty except for the guards standing like stone round Grigoric’s tomb, ‘Yes, it is pretty, the journey to Glit. The way is through the forest, you will like it. We take perhaps three hours, so I think you relax. You will see many things, the real visage of the country. In the big city, that is not the true life of a people. Perhaps all cities are everywhere the same. But always the country is different and more real, don’t you say?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, looking out from the car at the usual central boulevard that leads through the city, where the neon signs still flash. ‘Of course I will look after you to the best, and explain you what you see,’ says Lubijova, ‘You know I am very good guide. I remind you, I will be with you always, I come everywhere. Also don’t forget, on these travels you do not take photographs, unless in the correct places. Especially forbidden to the camera, our industrial projects and our railways engines. They are very pretty, but you must not make an image of them. For other things, please ask me first.’ ‘I don’t have a camera,’ says Petworth. ‘Then we do not worry, not a problem. So, we ride like a king and queen, and we stay at the nice hotels,’ says Lubijova, as the car speeds on out of the city, passing the university to the left, with its statue of Hrovdat, and the great monumental crosses of a roadside cemetery to the right, ‘Don’t you like to wave through the window at all the people? But really there are no people, we are so early. And now we nearly leave the city. Over there the power station and the cathedral. Oh, what a pity, I think you didn’t see it.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, always you are too busy,’ says Lubijova, ‘You like to follow a different religion, I have noticed. Well, it is not a matter, it is not so worth a visit.’ ‘No, I suppose not,’ says Petworth.

  The black car drives on, at high speed; the bright sun shines. It lights up the cloud of white dust that rises in the air above the cement factory, the plume of orange pollution spurting high from the huge ejaculating chimneys of the power station. It lights up the great white cliffs of the high-stacked workers’ apartments, which, blank and repetitious, could well be anywhere in the world, except for the distinctly Slakan note of void public space, absence of cars, want of human figures. It lights up the hazy dust storm blowing between the buildings; it lights up the rubble and rubbish that is piled in the gutters, looking like the shifted snows of winter. It lights up, in the main road in front of them, a gang of soldiers who, so visible everywhere, are active here too, working in their vests on the roadbed, digging out holes and filling them with rocks. Their jackets and guns are spread over the white-trunked trees that line the route; a big military truck stands by, with an officer on top of the bonnet. ‘Always you see we are working,’ says Lubijova, ‘Here we make better our roads, always good. And always our industry, developing all round you. Here are many great and startling projects.’ Petworth looks round, and sees a large lumber yard, in which vast hoses are spraying outjets of water onto high stacks of wood, turning them black. Then, suddenly, peripheral Slaka, a city without suburbs, ceases; there is straight road and brown plain in front of them, and beside the straight road a small wooden hut, with many Cyrillic signs on it, and in it a number of the blue armed men. The driver turns and speaks. ‘Tells he must just go to this police post, and report where into the country he takes you,’ says Lubijova. The car stops, and the man goes into the post; Lubijova turns to Petworth, smiles, and puts her finger to her nose. ‘Perhaps with him you try to be just a little cautious, if you can,’ she says, ‘You know these people, they are such officials, and they make report. See, he comes back, it is all right. And now we take you into the dark forest.’

  The black car moves again, up the white straight road that cuts ahead over the dark brown plain; sun splashes into it. In her corner, Lubijova sits, her shoulderbag on her knee; Petworth sinks into the limousine’s deep cushions, his head on the crocheted headrest, and gives in to the innocence of sight, the flat pleasure of the unfamiliar world before words and the mind have familiarized and named it. ‘Now, do you remember where you make this journey?’ asks Lubijova, ‘I hope you do, it is all written in your paper. Today is Glit. That is a nice place, very old, and we spend there three nights of a very old hotel of a typical kind. There is a fine castle and we will go there; also here you speak two lectures at the university, you know what they are. Then is Saturday and we leave, to Nogod. This is also a good place, of course it is, because we have there a whole weekend and we would not want to make a weekend in a bad place. There will be some amusements, I expect, and you find there a lake with fishes. We go there with a train, because this driver must turn back before then to be with his wife. On Monday you make also two lectures, and then to Provd by another train. Provd is different, you will impress. It is a part of our country that had some backward people and was very silly, but now they make many remarkable new projects. You will see them. Here also two lectures. Then on the night in Wednesday, we take a plane, because it is quick, and come back here again to Slaka, so you can see the National Rejoicerings. Rejoicerings?’ ‘Rejoicings,’ says Petworth, ‘Celebrations.’ ‘Well, permit please just one little mistake,’ says Lubijova, ‘You know usually I am always translating
you very well. I hope you are glad of it, now I am with you always.’ ‘I am indeed,’ says Petworth.

  The sun shines in, the great car speeds across the wide flat plain, which spreads out toward a distant horizon; here, faintly seen, are the mountains toward which they are heading. If landscapes have the variety of paintings, some coloured and warm, some plain and pastelled, thinks Petworth, staring out, then this is a landscape of very limited palate: matt, abstract, simplified, almost black and white. Few things move in it; there are no hedges or divisions. Wide tracts of green-brown space spread everywhere; in sheens of light, water sits in moraines and marshes. ‘The Vronopian plain, very typical,’ says Lubijova at his side, ‘Also I think a little bit dull. Quite different are the forests and the mountains, where all our visitors like to come. You will enjoy them very much.’ Heat and stillness prevail; on the green-brown land, a few white specks wander, the small ducks that move everywhere; occasionally great static flocks of white and brown sheep appear, guarded by single, rigid, upright human figures, shepherds who in their black suits and white shirts somehow resemble Methodist lay readers. The heat grows; Petworth begins to nod. ‘Here more duckses,’ says Lubijova, tugging at his arm, ‘And do you remember the word for it? Do you get proficient now in our language?’ ‘Crak’akuu,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, you are very good,’ says Lubijova, ‘What a pity that in the towns we go to those words are no good.’ ‘No good?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, we have so many languages here,’ says Lubijova, ‘Don’t you know it? We are such a mixed people, all different. Of course our government likes very much to help and give us one language so we can talk all to one another. I am sorry, this plain is perhaps too long, but it will be very interesting in one hour. Perhaps you like to make now a little sleep, and I will wake you when you are in nice place? I think you are very tired of last night.’ ‘I am, rather,’ says Petworth.