The brothers wanted to know what Paul was in for. ‘Nye dyengi,’ said Paul, showing his empty pockets. ‘No money, so this is my hotel for the night.’
‘I zavtra?’ They evidently thought Paul a fine fellow. ‘And tomorrow?’ Meanwhile, the old man scratched a varicose patch, his eyes off duty.
Paul shrugged. ‘Nichevo,’ he said, but he only meant it in its radical sense of ‘nothing’. He would go back to England toothless (partly), penniless (completely), feeling a fool, having slept in the nick for lack of the means to a hotel bed, having previously been bashed, held out of a window by his ankles, proved impotent, interrogated. And other things too, if he had time to think. What he only had time for now was a bit of supper and a lot of sleep. It had been a very wearing day, despite its brevity: three in the afternoon till now, which was about seven of a Baltic summer’s evening. His guts ached less, because they had been soothed with cognac. He had been allowed to wash off the blood with warm water. And, as a final gesture of hospitality, Zverkov and Karamzin had offered him a cell. They had, they affirmed, no money for a hotel room. They turned out their pockets and showed miserable kopeks to prove it. High police officials, they pointed out, were still workers; a worker might, said Zverkov, be defined as a man who was wealthy for one hour in a hundred and sixty-eight. This was not the hour.
The brothers noticed the werewolf gap in Paul’s lower jaw and asked sympathetically about it. Paul, too weary to work out the Russian, gave a brief mime of a punch-up. The brothers liked that. The old man, resenting theft of his audience, made with the eyes again. But the brothers became song-minded and treated Paul to a counting-ditty of a hundred verses and cumulative knee-slapping. Then Paul was asked to sing something of his own country. He chose ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and wondered, la-lahing parts of it (for he remembered few of the words), whether, if Zverkov and Karamzin were to shove him in an oubliette or even make him face the cold dawn squad, England would really care. What he had tried to do he had tried to do in the name of England. Well, of free trade. Well, of Robert.
‘Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set.
God Who made thee mighty make thee mightier
yet——’
The brothers joined in. They liked the tune. Elgar in a Soviet jail. But the old man wavered some sad minor-key cantilena against it, flapping his striped arms.
‘God Who made thee mighty, make thee migh—
hightier yet.’
A sort of militsioner who was the image of Cullen, the man who’d run the radio repair-shop on Tuesday Street, Bradcaster 14, came in with supper, beaming at the trolled hymn of Edwardian expansion. He brought a tray with tin bowls of blood-coloured soup and very hard bread. The brothers greeted him like a brother. And so, two each on a lower bunk, the four cell-mates sloshed away at their borshch. The elder brother had a pack of White Sea Canal and matches, so all puffed rank smoke at the low cell-ceiling, mellow in the summer evening light, comrades.
The old man took out his glass eye and pretended to munch it, as if he were at some Arab feast. Paul, seated on the bunk-edge, began to nod; then, dreaming that his own eyes were dropping out, he came to, startled. The brothers smiled. They were both really most handsome and wholesome boys, good enough to eat. Paul said, ‘I must sleep. Ya dolzhen spat’.’
‘Tell us a story,’ said the elder brother.
‘Da, da,’ said the younger, ‘skazka.’
‘Oh, no,’ moaned Paul. ‘I’m so tired. And I don’t know any skazki.’
‘I know many stories,’ said the old man jealously. ‘I can tell ten thousand stories.’
‘We only want one story,’ said the elder brother. ‘And we want an Englishman’s story.’
‘I’m terribly sleepy,’ said Paul in English. Seeing they did not understand, he said, ‘Po-russkiy—ya nye mogu. I just don’t know enough Russian. Let the old one there tell a story.’
‘We want an English story,’ said the younger brother. ‘We will not let you sleep till you tell an English story.’
Paul sighed. ‘Let me lie down, then,’ he said. ‘I can think better lying down.’ And he lay down, closing his eyes. The two brothers sat on the floor to listen. The old man lay on his bunk, offended but pretending to be indifferent.
‘Come on,’ said the elder brother, shaking Paul. ‘The story.’
‘Oh,’ said Paul, ‘once upon a time … I mean, zhil buil kogda-to …’ It was strange that he should remember that cosy formula: what it had had to do with a crash course in Ally’s Russian in wartime he could not now think. Something connected with crying Robert perhaps, forlorn, lonely, crammed with nightmares? ‘Zhil buil kogda-to,’ he repeated, as if that might conjure a story, like spirits, out of the air. ‘Ah, no, I just can’t.’ He heard the old man, supine on the lower bunk behind him, singing his sad song. He opened his eyes to see the brothers waiting with attention. They had such confidence in him, an Englishman. And then, in images, the tale started to come quite unbidden. He tried, though aware of his weak and clumsy Russian, to tell it.
‘Once upon a time there were two bolshoi tsars with two bolshoi tsardoms. They were very bolshoi and very strong and they had much land and many clever magicians and sovietniks.’ The words were there all right, though the grammar was wretched. ‘They were very strong, as I say. Because of that, each tsar had the dream of all strong men. That dream is to be the strongest man in the whole world. And each knew the other had the same desire, so each, each, each——’
‘Was afraid?’
‘—was afraid of the other. So each had great shows of magic and strength to frighten the other. But each did not wish to fight the other, because each knew the power of the magic of the other, and each knew the power of his own magic. And no tsar wished, in those days, to rule over empty lands, either his own or those of his defeated enemy. And so things stood for a long time.’ He began to doze off. He could see the tale quite clearly, a colour cartoon in jerky animation. He was jerked with brotherly roughness. ‘What? Eh?’
‘The story!’
‘The first thing to do tomorrow morning is to go to my wife in the hospital. And then we shall know when we can leave. I think I know who I can borrow a little money from.’
They laughed. ‘You’re speaking English,’ said the elder. ‘Let’s have the rest of the story.’
‘Oh, the story. The skazka.’ He creaked himself back into his childish Russian. ‘Now these two bolshoi tsardoms were next to each other, but there was one little thing between them. Between them was a little piece of land, with a little house and a little man in it. In his house were all the things his father had given him, and also what his grandfather had given to his father, and also what his—his——’
‘Pradyed?’
‘Yes, his great-grandfather had given to his grandfather, and so all the way back to the egg. And neither tsar could say, “You are in my tsardom,” for if one said it both would say it, and then there would be war. So he was free and had no tsar to rule over him.’
‘Gdye dyelal pokupki?’
‘Where did he do his shopping? Oh, in both tsardoms. One tsardom was good for one thing, the other was good for another. In both he had friends and in both he had enemies. Sometimes his friends would ask, “Which way of life is the better way of life?” He would reply, “There is no better. One is good for one thing, the other is good for another.” His friends then would say, “What then is the best way of life?” He would reply, “The way of life with everything open: open tavern, open heart, open mind.’” Paul frowned slightly, looking up at his auditors. The story was coming through clear to him, but was it a case of the great sleep-poem which is waking trash, one of those light-headed hallucinations of omnicompetence? Open mind—otkruituiy rassodok: did that mean anything to them? Was this all just gibberish really? Their faces still glowed, looking down on him. The old man was already snoring. Paul continued:
‘And so this little man lived happily with his old things and his freedom and his
dreams. But in both tsardoms there was more fear than happiness, fear of war and of great magic weapons that would blow the whole world sky high. And they said to the little man, “Are you not afraid?” And he said, “Oh yes, it is right to have something to fear. Men have always had something to fear—divine thunder (bozhyestvyennuiy grom) or the end of the world; such fear is the sauce of life.” And then they said, “That is not real fear; that is not modern fear. You must learn modern fear.’” Paul was very weary. He said, ‘Enough. You can have the rest tomorrow. I must sleep now.’
The brothers grew angry as cheated burly bears. They clawed clumsily at him as though he had a vest made of honeycombs under his shirt. ‘Skazka!’ they cried. ‘What happened then?’
‘Oh,’ lolled Paul, ‘they gave him a wife.’
‘Who gave him a wife? Which tsardom did she come from? What was her name? Wake up!’ They shook him.
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter where or who. Because one tsardom was the other tsardom seen in a mirror. Seen in a zyerkalo,’ he repeated. ‘And she knew modern fear. And she wished to be back where she could be protected from magic by magic, so she said to her husband that he must join the right tsardom. He would not do this, however, not even for her love. So then she said, “Khorosho. You are not a real man, for you will not protect me. You are not a real man, and so you are not a real husband. So I am leaving you.’” Paul was now exhausted.
‘And did she leave him?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And where did she go?’
‘To one or the other tsardom, for both were the same.’ Paul blinked and blinked, blinking light back to the world, and felt at the same time a kind of electronic music screaming and thumping in rapid crescendo in his skull. He sat up with a jerk. ‘What was that?’ he said in English. ‘What did I say then?’ They laughed; they couldn’t understand. He was very wide awake now, even refreshed, as though the tale and its rich jammy language had been the stuff of very deep sleep. Had he even told the story? ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ he said. ‘Now.’ And then he was over at the cell-door, shouting. The brothers laughed again, as at a born entertainer. There was a small spyhole in the upper half of the cell-door, big enough for a hand to go through and clutch (as though its owner were vertically drowning in cell-air) at the dim blue lighting of the freedom outside. ‘I’ve changed my mind!’ cried Paul in English. ‘I’ve got to see my wife!’ The old man in pyjamas grumbled dream-Russian from his bunk. The two brothers came up to the door, courteously pushed Paul aside, then hammered with brawny fists on the metal panel, calling loud words which Paul, story-teller in Russian, did not know. Soon their fists became big mottled kettledrumstick-heads crashing in march-rhythm, and to this bass they added a gloriously loud May Day processional song. After two choruses somebody came. The brothers stood aside to let Paul see a spyhole-framed face that was not a bit like the face of Cullen of Bradcaster 14. Paul said in slow Russian:
‘My wife, you see. I must see my wife. This cell is really only a hotel room for the night, really. I’m not charged with anything or anything like that. I’m ready to go now.’
The framed jaws chewed crossly; supper had evidently been interrupted. In growls of international police-speech the voice seemed to say, ‘Hotel, eh? That’s a good ’un. Any more noise from you, mate, and I’m in there to belt you in the cakehole, got it?’
‘I demand to see Comrades Karamzin and Zverkov,’ cried Paul. ‘They know all about it. They gave me the hospitality of the cells. Come on, don’t be a fool. I demand to see your superior officers.’
‘You’ll have to wait till the morning, got it? In the meantime get your effin head down and no more bleedin’ oot.’
‘I demand my rights,’ Paul tried to say. ‘Habeas Corpus. Let me get on the telephone to the British Consul. Now.’
It was no good. The face disappeared from the spyhole. More, the spyhole itself was blocked up from the outside. The brutal feet marched back to supper. Morning, then. Morning would be all right. In the meantime there was no question of getting his effin head down. Thank God or Bog they had let him bring his suitcase in here with him. It was time to put on the English gentleman again.
The brothers watched with close interest, the one leaning with folded arms by the cell-door, the other with his mouth open from his bunk, as Paul shaved (steel mirror, brushless cream, new blue blood-tickling blade). Nail-scissors? There they were; Paul blunted his claws. It was the elder brother’s own idea to trim Paul’s hair with these scissors, sculpting the nape with the razor: he had done this often, he said, and for money, too: that had been on a collective farm: he had proved useless, though, as a farm-worker. Paul flannelled his visible parts with drinking-water from the jug, put on the white shirt he had drip-dried the day before yesterday, a brown tie with a vertical cream line (bought on the Via Nazionale in Rome), finally his summer-weight fawn suit. ‘Ah,’ breathed the younger brother. Then he clicked his fingers as in a guessing-game. ‘Angliyskiy dzhentlmyen,’ he said. Complete in every detail, thought Paul. Except, of course, for——
The brothers knew, as by instinct. Indeed, everything with them seemed instinctual. The old man snored with the profound wicked innocence of the very old; the brothers peered into his open mouth. A whole bottom set was, naturally, out of the question, unless Paul would be willing to have every natural tooth knocked out: that would not take long. But it was highly probable that, after all that trouble had been taken, the old man would prove to have a different shape of lower jaw from Paul. Bits of putty from the window? No, wait … The younger brother got down on his knees and began searching among the rubbish that had been roughly swept or even kicked under the bunks. He emerged with a big S of old orange peel. A temporary denture, it was eagerly demonstrated, could easily be cut from that—tooth-white inner skin insoluble in saliva. Paul let them get on with it.
He could not later tell at what point in the night—the elder brother razor-carving orange-peel teeth—he became convinced he would be too late. There was an eventual confused memory of the point being marked almost by some exterior symbol—like the quick minor third of a cuckoo clock striking the half-hour in a room many rooms away. Cuckoo: O word of fear.
8
I FELT THIS MORNING SOMEHOW WHEN THEY WOKE ME UP that you wouldn’t be coming in today to see me. I’m not blaming you for that, because there’s no compulsion about it, after all, and I know that you’ve got other things to do, whatever they are—besides this business of selling those dresses for dear sweet deadly Sandra, I mean. I’ve thought once or twice that you must be perhaps dating some Russian woman or other, perhaps that dark spotty untidy girl we met that night, and even imagined that you might be going to bed with somebody, but that turned out to be a very improbable notion.
I’ve been less imagining things than remembering. I’ve gotten quite good at remembering things, even seeing things from the past as though they were bits of movies or something. Perhaps these drugs and things have been helping. Anyway, I’ve been seeing us, you and me that is, in Richmond, Surrey—that pub (the Cricketers’?) where you knocked over that big pile of pennies they were collecting for cancer or spastics or something, you did that with your elbow and had to pick them all up again, which made you breathless. You were clumsy all right, but I never minded. It always seemed a kind of upper-class clumsiness, as though you’d never had to do anything with your hands or your whole body for that matter. I thought at first you must be some member of an ancient aristocratic British family that was impoverished and so you’d had to take to serving in a shop. It was your hands that looked aristocratic, being very thin and long, and at first I thought your voice was aristocratic too. I guess I didn’t really know too much about the British, despite the war and working in Bruton Street after the war and all.
Yes, that pub. And then the river with the swans and the steamers going to Westminster. And the willow trees. And yet it was all a big sham and a show really, like a movie set, and there was nothing underneath o
r behind. It couldn’t have always been like that. There must have been a time when there was something real, but perhaps the war killed all that. I don’t know. All I knew about England before coming to War-torn Europe was what was in Dad’s books, and that was either very elegant, like in Pope, or very robust and swaggering like in Hogarth or Dickens or somebody. I suppose I was a bit ashamed of Dad with his lectures about Eighteenth-century Background and his maps of Dr Johnson’s London. It was like a man giving lectures on Sex Technique without ever having slept with a woman. Anyway, I had to see for myself. And I guess I must have been looking for a mother.
Dear old Mother England, matrix of American Culture, as Dad would say, and the only country in the world where they have to have a Society for Preventing Cruelty to Children. And on her broad bosom shall they ever whatever it is. That was Merry England that was actually staged there by these amateurs in 1940, when everybody in America had gotten very sentimental about England facing the Forces of Evil alone. This performance was for Bundles for Britain or something. When I thought to lay my head on that bosom all the air came out whishhhhhh, and it was just two balloons.
Oh I don’t mean it hasn’t been sometimes fun and sometimes even magic and poetry, though I had to be very careful and try not to see Hampton Court and Twickenham as places that Dad built himself and the Tower of London as coming out of his library. But Sussex was pretty free from him, for Kipling and Chesterton and the other man didn’t come into his lecturing, and there was the sea and the downs and the pubs and churches. And I’ve liked it enough to stick it into middle age, despite the silly fat ex-wing-commanders running pubs with tankards on the ceiling and going What What and Old Boy. And the people who sneered about me being a Yank. What right did they have to sneer at anybody or anything, little people with light little voices and absolutely bloodless? And how have you been off for blood while we’re on the subject?
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