by Adam Roberts
‘Did the aliens in Wells’s War of the Worlds have eight legs?’ I pondered. ‘I don’t believe they did.’
‘I wish you’d take me seriously!’ said Frenkel.
And he evidently did wish that.
He told me the whole incident. The details piled up. The silver globe wasn’t real. Or it was real, but only the obtrusion into our material dimension of something far greater, a massy transcendentally-furnaced battleship - or something. ‘The radiation aliens,’ said Frenkel, for the half-dozenth time, such that by sheer force of repetition the word began to acquire familiarity and therefore reality in my mind. ‘They don’t communicate using material means, you see. They possess a form of telepathy, I suppose. They probed my mind, and as they did so I caught glimpses of their plan. They - probed me - very fully.’
He stopped and looked up. I became aware of Trofim looming over the table. ‘Comrade Frenkel,’ he said. ‘I need to visit the toilet.’
‘Can it wait?’
‘Not really, comrade.’
Crossly Frenkel waved him away. ‘Go on, then. Hurry.’ As the big man’s back receded across the caf’ floor I thought again about making a run for it. But, as before, something in the room prevented me. Except that there was nothing in the room. There is either something in a room, or there isn’t something in a room; it can’t be both at once. Why didn’t I run for it? You will perhaps think: did I believe that the radiation aliens were in the room? But I didn’t think that. It was something else. I wasn’t sure what.
‘Wake up!’ Frenkel said. ‘Daydreamer!’
‘What?’
‘Wake up! Wake up!’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I really must be going.’
‘Put yourself in my position for a moment,’ Frenkel advised me, with a queer expression on his face. ‘Imagine that you had become convinced that this story we invented was coming true. How would you explain it?’
‘I’d assume I was dreaming,’ I said, after thinking about it for a moment.
He glowered at me, and then, oddly, he started laughing. ‘Pinch myself on the cheek!’ he chuckled. ‘And wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Very well; let’s assume we tried that, and it had no effect. Assume you decide you’re awake, and it’s still happening. What then?’
The next thing I remember I was outside on the street. It was late. The buildings, towering in the dark all around looked as granite as giant tombstones, punctured in a few places with rectangles of yellow illumination. Above, in the spaces above the rooftops and between the buildings, the sky was black-grey, with the strangest tints of violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green glow to the west. The streetlights burned fuzzily, a line of alien eyes glowering down upon the road. A car passed.
Another.
A small-engine motorcycle buzzed past with a mosquito sound. Mosquito? I reached round to feel the back of my neck. There was a lump.
I don’t have exactly clear memories of getting out of that place. I suppose I said goodbye to Frenkel, once and for all, and got to my feet and simply walked away. Yes: now that I express my supposition I can locate that memory in my head. There it is. I said goodbye; I got up; I left. That is the way memory works. It follows supposition.
I started walking along the street, passing the Office of Liaison and Overseas Exchange; shut up now and dark. There was a taxi parked outside the main entrance, and as I walked past the driver got out onto the pavement. He was a medium-sized, middle-aged man. ‘Taxi for Comrade Skvorecky?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I was told to wait here for Comrade Skvorecky.’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘The fare has already been paid.’
‘Paid?’ I asked. I was surprised, but I overcame that feeling rapidly enough. I’ll confess the thought of being chauffeur-driven home appealed rather more than joining the evening crush on the Metro.
‘I am,’ said the fellow, with a rather prissy exactitude, ‘a licensed taxi driver. My name is Saltykov.’
‘Do you always introduce yourself to your fares, Comrade Saltykov.’
‘No.’
‘Well - all right. A taxi ride home, then.’ I told him my address, and climbed into the back of his vehicle. It did occur to me to wonder whether accepting Frenkel’s paid-for cab was in some sense compromising myself. But I decided that I was too tired to bother my head with untangling his motivations for spinning so peculiar, and improbable, a story - or for seeking me out, as he evidently had, after so many years. There would be time to think it all through the next day, I thought.
The taxi pulled away from the kerb. I settled myself into the back seat as forcefully as if I knew that I was destined to spend several days in that taxi. But, of course, I cannot have known that I was going to spend days on that very seat, inside that very taxi. I could not see the future. Time doesn’t work that way. Time goes from A to B, and not the other way around. Time runs forward. Or it runs backwards. One of the two. But it must do one of those two things, and there cannot be a third thing it does.
CHAPTER 5
I peered through the passenger window and at an unfamiliar neighbourhood. ‘Comrade,’ I said, as the taxi slowed down, ‘you appear to be parking.’
‘We are here, comrade,’ said the driver. He applied the handbrake with an unusual precision. ‘This is the Pushkin Club.’
‘The what?’
‘The Pushkin Chess Club.’
‘I do not live in a club,’ I pointed out. ‘I was hoping to go home.’
‘As a member of the club,’ he said, ‘I invite you to regard the Pushkin as home.’
‘That is indeed generous of you,’ I returned. ‘But I no longer possess the mental clarity to play chess effectively.’
‘Then you shall not play chess!’ He spoke with the magnanimity of a benefactor. Then he got out of the car, came round, and opened the passenger door. I looked up at him from inside. ‘This feels rather,’ I confided, ‘as if you are abducting me.’
His eyebrows went up. ‘Certainly not!’ he said. ‘Abduction implies the forcible removal of an individual. You are perfectly at liberty to walk down the street - the Metro is a little way in that direction. I, however, am going into the club. I invite you to accompany me.’
I swung my legs out of the car, and levered myself with the awkwardness of old age into a standing position. The driver shut the passenger door, but then seemed to have some difficulty locking his cab: he fiddled the key in its lock, and fiddled it, and fiddled it. Eventually he secured his vehicle. ‘My name,’ he said, with peculiar dry precision, ‘is Saltykov. That is my last name.’
‘You already told me your name,’ I said.
‘I did not tell you my first name. It is Ivan.’
‘I am pleased to meet you,’ I said, somewhat puzzled.
‘Would you like to know my patronymic as well?’
‘It’s not necessary, thank you.’
He seemed to take this in his stride, and nodded. ‘I drive taxis at the moment,’ he said. ‘But my training is in nuclear physics!’
‘How interesting,’ I observed, ironically.
‘Imagine! A trained nuclear physicist, reduced to driving a taxi for a living!’
‘It’s work, comrade,’ I said, in a tone of voice like a shrug. Then, perhaps touched by a sense of similarity in our respective plights, members of the intelligentsia reduced to menial occupation, I decided I had been rude. To demonstrate courtesy I held out my hand towards him. He looked at this, in the streetlight, and the expression on his face caused me to look at it as well. The artificial illumination gave the skin a silvery, rather alien-looking sheen, which perhaps explained his disdain.
‘You,’ he said, as if working it out, ‘are offering to shake my hand? Do not be offended that I decline to do so. I prefer to avoid physical contact with other men.’
‘You do?’
‘It is not personal to you,’ he said. ‘I have only the highest respect for your writing.’
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br /> You know my writing?’
‘Of course! If it were in my nature to shake hands, or embrace, or kiss any human being, then you can rest assured that I would do all three with you. But I shall not.’
‘That’s a relief,’ I said, uncertainly.
‘I suffer from a certain syndrome. As a result I find physical contact with other men repugnant.’
‘A - syndrome?’
‘Indeed. The syndrome from which I suffer was first identified by an Austrian psychologist.’
At this moment the door to the club opened and another man burst onto the street. ‘Here you are!’ he boomed, with evident excitement. ‘We’re all inside! Leon Piotrovich Lunacharsky!’ This man, Lunacharsky, evidently had no qualms about physical contact with other men, for he embraced me, clasping me to his chest with enough force to knock the wind from me, and leave me wheezing. ‘Delighted! At last! And come through - please do.’
So I was burlied through the door and down an ill-lit stairway, which led into a basement so filled with people, and so malodorous, it resembled the hold of a slaveship. Leon Piotrovich Lunacharsky gave me a friendly shove, and I stumbled down the last few stairs to find myself standing in the midst of a pack of crowded tables, hemmed in to the extent that my hips were touching two simultaneously. I couldn’t at first get my bearings. It all seemed rather overwhelming: smoke; hubbub; confinement; smell. It was warm. Indeed it was rather overwarm.
‘Welcome, comrade,’ said Lunacharsky, in my ear, ‘to the Pushkin Chess Club. In the Pushkin you can [push king].’ He said the last two words in English. ‘It’s my little joke,’ he added, hastily, perhaps mistaking the look of disdain on my face for noncomprehension. ‘[King] is the English for king, and [push] for moving a chess piece. It’s an interlingual joke, it makes humour between English and Russian.’
‘You speak English?’ I said.
‘You’ll have to up the volume!’ he laughed. ‘It’s loud in here!’
‘You speak English?’ I repeated, more forcefully.
‘A little. I am in the process of translating the poetry of Robert Brownking, the celebrated Englishman. It is good poetry, with a commendable awareness of the proletariat consciousness.’
‘Browning,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’
‘You said, Brownking.’
‘Exactly.’ Lunacharsky’s eyes made little darting movements, left to right. ‘You know him?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You speak English too?’
‘Yes.’
‘[It’s perfectly cricket, jolly-chap old-chap],’ he boomed, perhaps in the belief that this was an idiomatic Anglophone expression.
I stared at him. The whole scenario had a peculiar and dreamlike feel. My neck still smarted from where the mosquito had bitten it.
‘[I work as a translator,]’ I said. ‘[And have rendered several English writers into Russian, Browning amongst them.]’
‘[Brownking,]’ he said, darting his eyes left and right. ‘I only meant that he was [king] among poets, ha, ha-ha. King Robert the Brown! That is all that I meant by ha, ha-ha.’
A cellar space large enough for half a dozen tables had been filled with a dozen, and around all of these were crowded many hunchshouldered men. Some of these customers were indeed leaning over chessboards; but on most of the tables there were only bottles, glasses, and colourless fluid distributed unequally between the two.
‘This way,’ said Lunacharsky, guiding me from the door into the centre of the room on a path that involved some near-balletic contortions on my part to squeeze through the crush. ‘We’d best make a start.’
‘A start?’ I repeated, with a sense of apprehension.
On the far side of the room the ceiling dropped vertically three feet, turning the remaining space into a wide, low alcove. The right angle of this ceiling feature had been decorated with a line of dour-coloured tassels. Lunacharsky ushered me between the tables, and as I made my way I came close enough to see that this line was not of tassels, but rather an unbroken set of mould-stalactites. On every wall condensation glittered like toads’ eyes in the electric light.
‘Friends,’ Lunacharsky announced, stopping abruptly with his hand on my shoulder. ‘Our special guest is here! Long promised - now here he is! The noted Russian science fiction writer and expert on UFOs, Konrad Skvorecky!’
‘It’s Konsturgh,’ I said, as an elbow impacted with the small of my back. The elbow had been pushed out to enable the owner to clap his hands vigorously together; and as I contorted my body to avoid further blows my ears were assailed by applause rendered more thunderous by the enclosed space.
When the noise had died away Lunacharsky announced, ‘We’re all aware of the excellent science fiction stories that our friend has written. But until recently I was not aware that he was also one of the great scholars of the UFO experience.’
‘I’m not,’ I said, but my words were drowned by another flurry of applause.
Silence again. Everybody was looking at me expectantly.
‘So,’ I said. ‘This is neither a chess nor a science fiction club? You are, rather, UFO enthusiasts?’
The silence seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. Finally somebody in the far corner spoke. ‘You have a sense of humour, comrade!’
At that, several people laughed.
The reality of the situation was starting to dawn on me. ‘You have all assembled here to hear me talk?’ I said.
‘Of course!’ bellowed somebody from the back with a voice of which a Cossack would be proud.
‘You are,’ said Lunacharsky, grinning in fear and shimmering his eyes furiously from left to right, ‘our special guest. One of the most respected scholars of the UFO experience in all the Soviet Union!’
‘No I’m not,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’ somebody called from the back of the little room. ‘Speak up!’
‘I am no expert in UFOs,’ I announced. ‘I fear you have been misinformed about me.’
‘You are privy to the secrets of Project Stalin,’ said a voice.
‘My taxi driver, Saltykov, told me—’ I started.
‘I read your novels,’ shouted someone else. There was a clamour of excited voices.
‘Stalin briefed you personally!’
‘You were present at the Kiev excavation!’
‘You know! Tell us!’
‘Comrades, comrades,’ shouted Lunacharsky, rolling his shoulders and flapping his hands in front of his chest. ‘One question at a time. Comrades! Friends! Fellow seekers-for-the-truth! Let him speak! Let him speak! I present to you: Konrad Skvorecky!’
‘Not Konrad,’ I said, crossly, ‘my name—’ and the applause swarmed up locustlike to devour my words. I cleared my throat. Eventually the applause died away. I looked quickly from table to table: many faces in the smoky dimness, and all staring at me with an intimidating eagerness.
‘Well,’ I said, croakily. I coughed again. ‘The first thing is that my name is Konstantin, not Konrad.’
This was greeted with perfect silence, and the several dozen pairs of eyes focused an intense attentiveness upon me. I glanced over towards Lunacharsky, but he too was nothing more than a pair of staring eyes. I began to find the sheer momentum of the room’s anticipation oppressive.
‘The second thing,’ I said, ‘is that I have no expertise whatsoever where UFOs are concerned.’
This pebble made no ripple on the smooth surface of the room’s eager attentiveness. It occurred to me that my audience might be taking this as nothing more than a polite gesture towards modesty on my part, like an Englishman’s demurral. ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I have no knowledge about them. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I have made no study of the phenomenon, nor do I believe that such devices even exist.’
I paused. Somebody gulped in the dark, perhaps taking a drink.
‘There are no such things as UFOs,’ I tried.
This did not break the stillness either.
‘If you believe in UFOs,’ I said, ‘you are deluded.’
‘Comrade!’ said somebody from a table nearby. ‘Comrade, we understand what you are saying.’
‘You do?’
‘Certainly. We understand your need to express yourself in this manner.’ There was a murmur of agreement.
‘KGB!’ somebody hooted.
‘Wise! Be indirect! Good thinking!’
‘I don’t think,’ I said, ‘that you have properly understood what I am saying.’
There was an expectant hush.
‘There are no such things,’ I enunciated clearly, ‘as UFOs.’
A murmur went from table to table, but not of dissension, or outrage, but rather of dawning comprehension. Somebody clapped.
‘No,’ I said, becoming annoyed. ‘You are deliberately misunderstanding me. Do not transpose my negatives for positives. I am not speaking ironically, or in code; I am stating a simple truth.’
‘The truth is simple,’ somebody boomed, from the back of the cellar. ‘It is the attempt to cover up the truth that is complicated! That cover-up forces complications upon us!’
‘That’s not it,’ I said.
‘Well said, Comrade Skvorecky,’ said somebody else. ‘No! - we must hold fast to the dialectical! We must negate the official version!’
‘That’s not - look,’ I said. ‘There’s little point in inviting a speaker to come if you . . . look, you’re not listening to me!’
The murmuring ceased; and I was greeted again with the spookily attentive silence. ‘Don’t close your minds!’ I said. As soon as I said this I understood that it was exactly the wrong note to sound. Everybody clapped, as if I were a fellow brother and martyr. When the noise had died down I tried again.
‘There are no UFOs!’ I cried. ‘Nobody gets abducted by them! They don’t hover over fields in Georgia shooting silver beams of light at farmers!’
‘Comrade?’ called somebody from over to the right. ‘Comrade! Comrade?’
