The horrible scowling concierge insisted on taking his key, grumbling with deep curses like some Eisenstein historical character but offering no real violence. He showed her his lower teeth, the middle four of which were reasonably secured with cotton wool from an aspirin bottle. The lift said ‘Nye Rabotayet’, which was just as well, for he didn’t propose to trust it anyway. Going down the lovely imperial staircase he thought, ‘A present. I must take poor Belinda a present.’ In the busy hall he saw a sort of boutique staffed by pretty, ill-clad girls and displaying bits of sorry jewellery and toys. It seemed to him that a matrioshka might amuse her as well as anything. A matrioshka was a wooden peasant-woman doll inside which was a smaller peasant-woman doll inside which was a smaller peasant-woman doll again, and so on until the innermost peasant-woman doll, which was the size of a walnut. This was probably deeply significant of something in the Russian psyche. He tried to pay with roubles and kopeks but was told, very prettily, ‘Nyet nyet nyet.’ The girl said, in French, that, all these things being for foreign tourists, only foreign currency could be allowed. Paul took out his English money, and the girl searched madly through a cyclostyled international price-list as thick as a thesis. Eventually she announced:
‘Twenty-two shilling, seventeen penny.’
Paul sighed and said, ‘We can’t have that, can we?’ He began to give the girl an £ s d lesson, and all the other girls crowded round, glowing with interest.
An American matron or, from her shape, matrioshka, grew angry and banged on the counter with a wooden bear-riding-a-bicycle she was trying to buy. ‘Inefficiency,’ she kept nasalizing. ‘You get no more dollars outa me.’ But the girls didn’t seem to want even these dollars.
‘So,’ said Paul finally, ‘the cost of this article should be expressed as one pound, three shillings and five-pence.’ The girls were charmed. Paul’s heart ached for all that wasted work of the price-list. He handed over two pound notes. His salesgirl was desolated but regretted that there was, as yet, no change available in foreign currency of any sort. The purpose, she seemed to say, of this whole enterprise was to get foreign currency, not give it. ‘Well, then,’ said Paul, ‘let me have my change in Russian money.’ But that, said the girl, was not allowed. What, she said, Paul must now do was to buy further articles which would bring the total cost of his purchases up to two pounds. Paul sighed again (time was getting on) and chose an enamelled brooch from Czechoslovakia. That was listed at 6s. 14d. He recapitulated the s. d. part of his lesson, administering, to charming giggles, some gentle schoolmasterly knuckle-rapping with a ball-point. And still he had not spent enough. He spotted a kind of neck-chain from which hung a space-rocket blasting off in cheap cast-iron. That was seven shillings. ‘So,’ said Paul, ‘you can buy yourself du chocolat with the little bit of change.’ The girl was horrified; everything, she insisted, must be spent. So Paul bought a shilling Yuri Gagarin badge and was given a handful of boxes of Russian matches. The girl was overjoyed at the satisfactory completion of the transaction and kissed Paul warmly on the cheek. They were really, God help them, most charming people.
Even, really, the two who now approached him and whom he would have missed had it not been for this long currency business at the boutique—Comrades Zverkov and Karamzin, his inquisitors of that evening before, which already seemed more than a month old. There was nothing like eventful foreign travel for lengthening one’s life. ‘Ah,’ said Zverkov, ‘it is Mr Gussey.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘we could all go into the restaurant there and drink some vodka together.’
‘I should like nothing better,’ said Paul, ‘but I have to go and visit my wife. My wife is at present in one of your hospitals.’ He smiled rather smugly, as though the fact of his wife’s being now (he presumed) in a Russian hospital night-gown vicariously elevated his own status to something more than a mere visitor’s. He had a gently thrilling sense of being accepted; why, even these two (discount their probable motive for a moment) were calling him by his name in its Russian version and inviting him to drink vodka.
‘So,’ said Karamzin, ‘and what has she done to get herself put into hospital?’ His mind seemed to have few tracks.
‘Your friend Mizinchikov,’ said Zverkov, ‘has talked more. Ah yes, he has talked really well. All last night he talked.’
‘Yes,’ said Karamzin, ‘he talked.’ And he nodded vigorously as he saw a broken man in bandages and on crutches swing into the vestibule, as though this were an actor entering dead on cue in an impersonation of Mizinchikov having talked.
‘He talked,’ said Zverkov, ‘of consignments of garments coming from England, all to be sold in Leningrad in order to disrupt the Soviet economy. He talked of his English friend coming to Leningrad solely for that purpose. He talked with great passion and emotion.’
‘I’ll bet he did,’ said Paul. ‘But what’s all this to do with me? I don’t even know the man.’
‘We would so very much like to see these dresses you have brought,’ said Zverkov, almost wistfully. ‘They are not on the ship, for we have confirmed that in person. They are not in your room here in the hotel. We have but newly checked that. So in what place which seems to you safe have you put them? There are so many places,’ he said in an aggrieved tone. ‘There are the baggage places in the railway stations, for example. There is the Metro. There are cloakrooms in restaurants and hotels. It is very difficult for us, you can see for yourself, Mr Gussey.’
‘What is meant,’ said Karamzin, ‘is that we will make a bargain. If you give us these things, then you will hear no more about it. It is Mizinchikov we are concerned with. When he comes to trial in the People’s Court it is a good thing to have evidence that can be seen and touched. You are a visitor, you are our guest. You we would not want to harm.’
‘Our guest,’ agreed Zverkov. ‘I beg and implore you to come now and drink vodka. A lot of vodka.’
‘A lot of vodka means a lot of talk,’ said Paul, going through the motions of downing slug after slug after slug of it. ‘Some other time,’ he said. ‘I really must go now and see my wife. I’m seriously worried about her.’
‘But you would very much like to know that Mizinchikov is severely punished,’ said Zverkov in a pleading tone. ‘After the things he has said about you. He has said horrible things. He has blamed everything on to you so that he could say he was really an innocent party.’
‘But I tell you,’ Paul told him, ‘that I don’t know the man from Adam.’ Karamzin frowned suspiciously at that name.
‘Well, your friend, then,’ said Zverkov easily. ‘He said some terrible things about your friend and about his bad habits. He said he was gomosexual.’
‘He did, did he?’ said Paul. He thought. He said slowly, ‘This Mizinchikov was a friend of my friend. I wouldn’t like to do anything that would harm a friend of my friend.’
‘Do nothing, then,’ said Karamzin, reddening for a swift journey to anger. ‘Do nothing. You will not drink vodka with us, so do nothing.’
‘I have to see my poor sick wife,’ said Paul. Karamzin snorted, as though to indicate that he’d heard that tale before.
‘What my colleague means,’ said Zverkov quite gently, ‘is that what you do you must do of your own will. We will not force you to do anything. You are free to come and go. You will not be followed. I promise that. And Karamzin promises, too.’ He put his arm round grumpy Karamzin’s shoulders. They were very wide shoulders.
‘Ha ha ha,’ laughed Paul to himself. ‘Not followed, eh?’ He wondered whether he ought to do what Belinda had suggested, namely throw the damned things into the harbour. That was one thing, anyway: nobody had thought of searching that little dark room at the back of the port Intourist office; that was the last thing in the world anyone would think of. And then he thought, damn it, why should he throw them into the harbour? The name Alexei Prutkov came into his mind suddenly; at the back of the name a little computer seemed to be ticking away. He said:
‘Let’s have that dri
nk another time. I should love to have vodka with you, really.’ He would, too; that way he’d learn a lot about Russia. Modern Russia. The police methods of modern Russia.
‘Believe us,’ said Zverkov, his arm still round Karamzin’s shoulders, ‘you will not be followed, Mr Gussey. You are a free man, free to come and free to go.’ It sounded like an exoneration. ‘And we shall certainly drink vodka together another time. Won’t we, Karamzin?’ he said, shaking his colleague with lively affection.
‘Da svidanya,’ said Paul, saluting with his parcel of gifts. So. What gomosexuality, as they called it, had Robert, omnifutuant Robert, been up to here? But it was a lie, of course, an item in the standard litany of vilification. Paul decided, for several reasons, to walk to the hospital (taxis difficult at this hour, with lunchtime hurry beating all round him; the need for post-drinking exercise; the inadvisability of hanging around waiting and letting Zverkov and Karamzin renew their importunities). He walked out into the great radiant square with its blazing dome and quiet throaty whirring of doves, the sun blessing the prancing black statue. He turned into Ulitsa Gertsena, then into Ulitsa Dzershinskovo. Lunch-time Leningrad was everywhere, in dour suits with open necks, skimpy wartime frocks, no city gents or smart idle ladies to be seen. He felt a moment of fear, the stranger from the West alone and unprotected among the proletariat, fear that he might be recognized for the Enemy, leapt on and torn asunder, and no police to stop this happening. Leningrad had, moreover, at least the look of Orwell’s fantasy world; in it one could see how a schizoid parallelism was possible—reality in the collective mind of the Party, Hegel upside down, but still Hegel, so that the buildings could become ruins with tarpaulin flapping for roofs and the vision the more shining for the decay of the matter it transcended. And, deliberately forgetting he could read Russian, he let the hieroglyphs which were imposed on the old capitalist buildings become the strangeness of the future or of other planets, the symbols of a monstrous unacceptable mystique which affected hardly any of the lunch-time walkers in the sun. Despite the sun he shuddered, turning right into Sadovaya Ulitsa and seeing Ploshchad Mira ahead. There was the hospital, less fearsome in the light. Still, his heart beat hard as he walked in and said that his wife was there, the Englishwoman or American, as they pleased, admitted last night and could he, would it be possible … ?
‘’Chass,’ said the girl in the glass office.
Paul sat down on a horsehair sofa that had once belonged to his Aunt Lucy in Bradcaster. He smoked a cigarette and lighted another, and then Dr Lazurkina came to him, smiling, in crisp white, her hair parted in Madonna-style and drawn back to a bun, her ear-rings jingling like tiny chandeliers.
‘Come,’ she said, ‘you and I must go and talk.’
‘How is she?’ asked Paul. ‘May I see her? Look, I’ve brought a few little presents.’
Dr Lazurkina took the presents from him gently and unwrapped them, examining them with care. ‘Yes,’ she said gravely, ‘these will do no harm. I will give them to her.’ It was as though they were things to be eaten.
‘And how is she?’ pressed Paul. ‘Please, I must know how she is.’
‘We will go and talk.’ And Dr Lazurkina, in deplorable jumble-sale high heels, led him to what seemed to be her own office—small and workmanlike as a builder’s on the site—and bade him sit facing her at a plain deal table. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘we will have your name.’
‘My name? Oh, very well. Paul Dinneford Hussey. But how is she, please, how is she?’
‘Dinneford?’ She was writing it down in fair Roman characters.
‘My mother’s maiden name. Please——’
‘She is no worse,’ said Dr Lazurkina. ‘She needs a lot of rest. At present she is sleeping, under very heavy sedation. So today you cannot see her.’
‘And what precisely is the matter with her?’ He was relieved, anyway, that she was no worse.
‘That will take time,’ said Dr Lazurkina. ‘But do not worry. She is in very good hands.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that,’ said Paul, ‘but there’s the question of how long we can afford to stay. There’s the question of visas and documents …’
‘That is no worry at all. It can be arranged for you to stay here as long as is necessary. How long will be necessary I cannot say now. Perhaps two weeks, perhaps three, perhaps a month, perhaps many months.’
‘But one needs money to stay here,’ said Paul desperately. ‘And there is my business to run. We have to get back.’
‘What is your business? Tell me about your business. You are a capitalist, yes? Who looks after your business now?’
‘I sell antiques. Books and ornaments and bits of furniture. If by “capitalist” you mean, do I own the business? the answer’s yes. If you imply “rich” I just laugh,’ said Paul, ‘ha ha ha ha ha.’
She looked at him with faint interest. ‘I see, I see,’ she said. ‘Not to be rich makes you all very bitter. Well, it is your chosen way of life.’
‘At present,’ continued Paul, ‘my young assistant is looking after the business. But he can’t be trusted for very long on his own.’
‘I see, I see, I see. Well, we must have first things first, yes? Your wife must be restored to health and then there will be time for all your other problems.’
‘Look,’ said Paul reasonably, ‘can’t you just arrange things so that she’s fit enough for the voyage home? Back home I can put her in the hands of her own doctor.’
‘It would be a great pity. Not,’ said Dr Lazurkina, ‘that I believe English doctors to be bad. Some of them are very good. I had a six months’ tour of English hospitals, so I know what I am saying. Well, we must see how things go. I cannot give you an answer yet. And today I am not here to give answers but to ask questions.’
‘All right,’ said Paul. ‘Ask questions.’
‘First, about yourself and your childhood and your upbringing. You have in England still social classes. From which class do you come?’
‘Working class, I suppose. My father was in the building trade. My mother came of a family of very small shopkeepers. We lived in a slummy part of Bradcaster. Is that the sort of thing you want to know?’
‘And you would say that the kind of English you are now speaking is the kind of English spoken by your English working class?’
‘Well, no,’ admitted Paul. ‘I try to speak what could be called upper-class English.’
‘Why do you do that?’
‘I wanted to rise above the working class. I wanted to be acceptable in that kind of society which is concerned with books and music and objets d’art. Can you understand that?’
‘No,’ said Dr Lazurkina frankly. ‘I cannot see why one should exclude the other. Here we are all working class. And,’ she said shrewdly or naively, it was hard to tell which, ‘was your desire to rise above your class the reason why you married an American woman?’
‘Last night,’ said Paul, ‘you called her English. And in any case I don’t see what any of this has to do with——’
‘She has talked,’ said Dr Lazurkina. ‘She has told me one or two things while under a little dose of pentathol. I suppose I should have listened more carefully to her dialect. But in Russia we do not have dialects. I find the dialects of English very puzzling.’
‘Pentathol?’ said Paul. ‘Are you trying to psycho-analyse her or something? Why are you doing that? I should have thought that what’s wrong with her is purely physical. I don’t think I like what’s going on at all.’
‘I wanted her to relax and talk freely. She seems a very unhappy woman. No,’ said Dr Lazurkina, ‘we do not believe in your man Freud. A Jew from Vienna. He believed all mental troubles came from an unhappy childhood. He said more. He said that everybody had an unhappy childhood and that some recovered from it and some did not. That would be nonsense with us. In Russia there are no unhappy childhoods.’
Paul nodded slowly and sincerely. He could genuinely believe that. ‘But you’re trying to dig into her mind o
r something,’ he said. ‘All she needs is a course of penicillin.’ Then he added, ‘I’m sorry. That was silly. I don’t know what she needs.’
‘Nor do I, nor do I. But I shall find out. Now I must ask this very important question. Why did you marry your wife?’
‘Why? Because I loved her. I still love her,’ he added somewhat defiantly. ‘Very very much.’
‘Yes? But she told me she hated men. All men.’
‘Oh, under a drug … It’s nonsense, of course. She did once have a thing about men, but that was a long time ago. Uncles and cousins and so on. She hated them all. And also one of these freckled-faced kids they have next door in American towns. It was all her father’s fault, of course.’
‘She said nothing about her father. I do not see what her father would have to do with it.’
‘Figure to yourself,’ said Paul, frowning and wondering why he was using a French idiom, ‘what your attitude to men might be if your father got into bed with you. At the age of seven, that is.’
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