‘A loan,’ said Paul. ‘The smallest of loans, please.’
The Doctor took no notice. ‘A cigarette, Madox; a chair for our fellow-philanthropist. Time is short, time runs out, ah yes, for us all.’ Seated by the bed, Paul looked round the room. There was the wheelchair, stripped of its rugs and cushions: in its seat was a snugly fitted lid, as to a commode. In a pang of intuition like earache it was revealed to Paul that this wheelchair had a cryptic function: it was all hollow, its frame, the fellies of its wheels. The Doctor puffed out aromatic smoke of Egypt and said to Madox, ‘I think now, you know. There are several things to be done.’
‘But there’s the dinner,’ said Madox. ‘There’s these parcels.’ He waved at a neat stack of them in a corner, some very small; others, flat and shallow, were evidently wrapped books.
‘All that will be taken care of,’ said the Doctor calmly. ‘What do we pay these hotel serfs for?’
‘Well, then,’ said Madox to Paul, ‘I’ll be seeing you. With the goods for export.’ And he winked. Then he went out.
‘I see you looking at those parcels,’ said the Doctor. ‘You are thinking, perhaps, of Santa Claus? That this is the Christmas North, soon enough, God knows, to be frozen, whence the kiddies’ presents come? Well, thinking so, you would be almost right.’
‘What was all that about goods for export?’
‘Madox is facetious,’ said the Doctor. ‘A useful little man and loyal—but facetious. To continue. Those are indeed presents, but not for kiddies—at least, their proposed recipients do not think themselves to be that. Those books in their innocent wrappings—those, God bless us, are not schoolgirl annuals. What are we here for—you, Madox, I? To give people what they want: that, no more. And in return we, naturally, want what we want, which is nothing more recherché than money. It is not our province to pass judgment on what people want—Blackpool rock, marijuana, stick liquorice, the Daily Mirror, plastic mantelpiece ornaments, Mr Priestley’s novels, questionable postcards, cocaine—need I go on? What you and I and Madox believe in is the right of choice, is freedom: that is why we are here. We cannot, of course, do very much. We cannot directly change régimes or even provide Bentley cars or bidets or young elephants. But we can supply a reasonable range of consumer goods for people starved of them, ah yes. We can enable a few, a very very few, to exchange what they consider oppression for what they consider liberty.’
‘You mean,’ said Paul, ‘that you’re a kind of Scarlet Pimpernel?’
The Doctor smiled. ‘Dear Baroness Orczy. Such a disgraceful prose-style. But her creation, yes yes, has become permanent myth, no small achievement. Now, in our case it works somewhat differently. Sir Percy was motivated solely by altruistic idealism, which we are not. Heaven and hell, meat and poison—they interchange: what is one to one is the other for another. And what we do we do for money, than in the making of which—as Dr Johnson remarked—no person can be more innocently employed. Money, yes.’
‘A loan,’ said Paul again. ‘That’s all I’ve come for. You see, it’s even so fundamental a matter as getting from here to the port and buying cigarettes and then there’s a taxi from Fenchurch Street to Charing Cross. I don’t ask much.’
‘Your poor teeth,’ said the Doctor compassionately. ‘You’ve suffered, I can see that. You have been broken on the wheel. This horrible new sprawling metallic rusty Russia is not for you, ah no. Only people like myself can ride it.’
‘And how about this Angleruss?’ asked Paul, interested in spite of his own growling oppressions. ‘This all sounds to me like hypocrisy.’
‘Yes,’ said the calm Doctor. ‘Tonight we’re holding our summer Angleruss dinner. A pity you cannot come to it. At every place a little parcel, a present. How glad they all are to receive them! Here a book with lovely illustrations, there a very special snuff; for this lady a packet of her favourite tea, for that gentleman some cigarettes of a blend unobtainable any longer in these territories. Ah, the bottom fell out of things when the Tsar and his family were so brutally liquidated. That is the modern term, you know: “liquidated”. Old Rasputin and his dirt … Still, there was glamour. A first-class French cuisine in the hotels, a comfortable journey from Petrograd to Moscow—foot-muffs and samovars—and the land under fairy snow: ah, lovely! Sometimes, when Madox collects our dues—our return presents, let me call them—from these gift-hungry people, he occasionally finds not money but some residuary treasure—an ikon, say—recalling the days of what was, after all, a great empire.’
‘Very interesting,’ said Paul, ‘but …’
‘I’m glad you find it interesting, you poor toothless boy, you victim. And now—for you are obviously impatient to know this—we come to the part you are to play in this harmless, nay beneficial, work we are trying to do. For we may justly call ourselves philanthropists. Is one any less a philanthropist for expecting a reward for one’s philanthropy? To give people what they want—might one not descry elements of, yes, nobility in a life devoted to such an aim?’
‘Not always,’ said Paul.
‘Not always,’ repeated the Doctor. ‘But if, say, a man called Opiskin wanted one thing only, and that was to escape from a life of what he termed oppression, and that one had the opportunity—for a reasonable consideration, of course—of encompassing the means and occasion of … Do I make myself clear?’
‘Opiskin is dead,’ said Paul.
‘Opiskin is dead,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘Opiskin the musician died some years ago. Various stories of his death have circulated. Cancer of the rectum—that was the official cause of it (ah, dear Claude Debussy died of that disease, he genuinely did: a life wholly given up to beauty ending in pain, smell and mess: I knew him, I knew him in Paris)—the official cause, I say; but one has every reason in the world, knowing this régime, to suspect other causes of death. However, Opiskin is dead, Opiskin père—but what of Opiskin fils?’
‘I never knew he had a son,’ said Paul. ‘I never knew much about him. It was my poor dead friend, you see, who was devoted to the music of Opiskin.’
‘Ah yes, Madox told me, in his disarming natural way, something of that. You spoke up for Opiskin (I remember, believe me) because you were devoted to the memory of your friend. Of course, of course. It does you credit. Vicariousness: that term applies in all our present contexts. To be brief, the son lives here in Petersburg with his aunt, in perpetual apprehension of nocturnal hammering on the door, the waiting car, the thumps and drunken laughter and agony in the cellar. It is like Greek tragedy: the whole house of Opiskin must be destroyed, utterly, utterly. And here you are with a double passport like a double bed—one half crying out to be used. You came with a wife (whom, incidentally, I never had the pleasure of meeting on board that ghastly ship: I regret that, for she seems from her photograph here to be a most amiable person) and now you propose going back without one.’
‘It’s not a question of what I propose,’ said Paul, catching the Doctor’s trick of heavy emphasis, ‘and, as far as proposing things is concerned, I don’t quite see what you can possibly expect me to do for this young Opiskin. All I came here for was a small loan.’
‘Let us not talk of loans,’ said the Doctor, ‘but of payment for services rendered. Shall we say five hundred pounds? In cash. There is a metal box under my bed. You can see the money if you wish.’
‘For what?’
‘Madox should, by now, though he takes an unconscionable time to dress, already be indicating to young Opiskin—Alexei is the name, I believe, and Petrovich the patronymic——’
‘Another Alexei,’ said Paul bitterly.
‘You can call him what name you wish,’ said the Doctor. ‘Pet-name, I mean, of course—the sort of corruption of a wife’s given name that a husband might contrive. For his official given name must be—however painful for you, and God knows you have suffered pain enough—the name your wife bears on this passport.’
‘This,’ said Paul, ‘is quite fantastic.’
‘Oh,’ said
the Doctor, ‘nothing is too fantastic for real life. The tales I could tell you … No, Madox will see to all the practical details. It may be that young Opiskin will have to wear clothes of his aunt’s: something smarter, more Western, would have been suitable.’
‘Madox,’ said Paul, remembering a transaction of a couple of days before, ‘will see to all that. Not,’ he added, ‘that I propose, not for one moment——’
‘Fortunately, he has been growing his hair long for some time now, with such a golden possibility as this in view. You have no idea, my boy, of the good you are doing. He has, naturally, a passport photograph.’ The Doctor yawned. ‘Madox is very efficient really. The luxe suite of the Alexander Radischchev. Your joint destination is Helsinki. There he has friends.’ The Doctor yawned again. ‘And for you there is an excellent air service from Helsinki to London. Five hundred pounds is the fee. You will, naturally, be paid expenses.’ The Doctor yawned again.
‘I’m not going to do it,’ said Paul.
‘Russia,’ said the Doctor, ruminatively. ‘I think we must move on, Madox and I. Towards the East. I am tired of categories, of divisions, of opposites. Good, evil; male, female; positive, negative. That they interpenetrate is no real palliative, no ointment for the cut. What I seek is the continuum, the merging. Europe is all Manichees; Russia has become the most European of them all.’
‘No,’ said Paul, ‘I shan’t do it.’
10
PAUL AND HIS BRIDE WERE HAVING A ROUGH WEDDING FEAST in Madox’s bedroom. It had all been dumped on the table by a vigorous old waiter in pince-nez and tennis-shoes—Moscow borshch (a pale frankfurter bobbing among the wrack of cabbage and meat-shreds), black bread, tinned crab, cucumber salad with sour cream. Paul had drunk plenty of Madox’s whisky during the day, but he still found it hard to reconcile himself to the ambiguous vision that sat opposite him, slurping and chewing away with bucolic appetite. This the son of a great composer? It was, God knew, all too possible. ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart,’ went Paul in practice. Young Opiskin looked up. ‘You must get used to responding to my endearments,’ said Paul. ‘Look as though you understand English, blast you.’
‘Calm,’ said Madox, dressing. ‘Take it easy. You two have got to be very much in love.’
Paul sighed and tapped his inner pocket: five hundred nicker, or part of it; the money was distributed all over his summer-weight suit. It was a comfort. He smiled at young Opiskin. That was difficult. They had not really taken to each other at all. Young Opiskin was wearing the drilon dress Paul had sold to Madox, genuine Russian lady’s underwear, what looked like surgical stockings, very tight well-worn shoes with Cuban heels. The bosom was a fair construction of cotton waste, though the left pseudo-breast was somewhat larger and (as if because of that) lower than the other. All this would do, despite the burliness, ill-shaven forearms, and massive neck: young Opiskin had inherited none of the delicacy of line that poor Robert had found in old Opiskin’s music. But the face, the face: this was, under the heavy wiry ginger hair combed down over the ears, behind the smudged lipstick and floury powder, so leeringly masculine that Paul’s heart failed each time he saw it. His passport (and it had to be admitted that the job of substituting the photograph had been superbly done, even down to the simulation of a bit of embossed arc of the Foreign Office chop) now suggested a mean and spiteful revenge on Belinda for her desertion. To give her young Opiskin’s leering, chinny, droop-gobbed, staring, insolent face in exchange for her pretty, humorous, alert American one: that hardly seemed British chivalry. But there was a bigger chivalry at work, one that made Paul—watching young Opiskin dunk pebbles of black bread into sour cream—try to be more charitable. A great Russian composer, hated because he composed too well, loved by Robert, had produced this son as his greatest symphony. Moreover, five hundred smackers and travelling expenses …
‘What I don’t understand,’ he said to Madox, now clerkly smart in his serge suit, his hair dark, flat, glistening like a grilled steak, ‘is where he got the money from. I can see he’s travelling towards money, of course—his dad’s royalties tied up in capitalist banks—but where would he get it here?’
‘They find it,’ said Madox. ‘You’d be surprised how much money these buggers can get hold of when they try. Sometimes it’s not money, though. It’s dachas and works of art and that. Once we got damn near offered a MiG fighter plane, but that was too risky. When they start wanting to haggle we just say, “And how much does freedom really mean to you, eh?” And that shuts them up.’
‘And,’ asked Paul, ‘does anyone ever get caught?’
‘Look here,’ said Madox, ‘if you two lovebirds have stopped noshing, you’d better be on your way. Sorry there’s no wedding cake but you can’t have everything. Embarkation at ten. I’ve ordered what they call the tourist-machine for you. Bribery, bribery, bribery. Ten roubles to make absolutely sure of it. Corruption is going to be the ruin of this country.’
‘Come along, sweetheart,’ said Paul, giving his rather feminine hand to the worker’s paw of young Opiskin. ‘Christ,’ he added, ‘where’s the ring?’
‘I was never much good as a best man,’ sighed Madox. ‘Anything on the curtains? Napkin ring? No, too big. Wait, I’ve got a tin of 555 over there somewhere.’ Deftly he picked out the goldfoil from among the cigarettes that lay tinned on the escritoire, then folded and folded and twirled this into a frail glowing round for young Opiskin’s thick hairy finger. ‘With all my worldly goods I thee and thou,’ winked Madox, quoting, clamping it on; the young man giggled. ‘And now you’d better say goodbye to the old Doc.’
Paul’s bride made untidy use of his compact, then, trying to be helpful, picked up the two suitcases, his and his. ‘That will not do,’ reproved Paul, glaring up at young Opiskin. He was a well-made lad of about twenty-six, though officially now he wore Belinda’s graceful forty, and he looked as though it was possible to thrive on Soviet food-plan failures and apprehension. He thumped out ahead of the other two, a plastic handbag under his arm, fixing, with fresh giggles, a Copenhagen souvenir scarf round his head. Madox turned up his eyes and then made lip-licking money-teller’s gestures. ‘And,’ said Paul, ‘there is a certain measure of the heroic about it, I see that now.’
The Doctor, with grey mane blue-rinsed and eyes bright as from dexedrine, was seated in the wheelchair, now cushioned and rugged again. There was a fine Paisley shawl round the throat and across the breast: the Doctor’s sex remained, last as first, a mystery. Paul wondered whether he should be bold and ask now before leaving (and why, incidentally, had that old man in the lock-up worn pyjamas all the time?), but he decided against it. The Doc was right, perhaps: the day of the continuum was approaching: no more division, compartmentalization: the hour of the East. The Doctor said:
‘Bless you, bless you, and may the progeny of this act be manifold, beautiful and true.’ It was like something from The Cocktail Party. ‘Both Madox and I regret that we cannot come to the port to wave you off, but we have this big marriage feast of our own. The last, I think. I shall, naturally, not announce the liquidation of Angleruss: Madox and I will just go off, quietly, quietly, into the sun. We have done our work here. We may well be remembered.’
‘If I may make so bold, Doctor,’ said Madox, ‘don’t pitch into them too hard tonight. Not too much about serfs and peasants and cows rotting in the fields and how they’ve betrayed their glorious history and all that guff. Some of them get very hurt.’
‘Nonsense,’ said the Doctor. ‘They like to be scolded. They expect a representative from a civilized Western nation to upbraid them for their foolishness. For, believe me, Hussey, this system of theirs is an experiment, nothing more. It will pass, it will die, it will liquidate itself. Russia is bigger than its bouncy little shop-stewards would have us believe. You have no conception of its vastness of soul. And something inside the Russians tells them, no matter how pigheaded their orthodoxy may happen to be, that the words of such a one as myself, however barbed and rudely cou
ched, spring from a greater love than the fawning of their Western jackals. Why do they allow the Daily Worker in? Only to laugh at. They despise the Western Communists. Their revered English image is an aristocratic one. And another thing——’
‘I’d better get these two down to the car,’ said Madox. ‘There isn’t all that much time.’
‘Very well,’ said the Doctor. ‘We will talk again, Hussey, I have no doubt. Somewhere. And now—proshchaitye!’ That word of goodbye sounded liturgical—bearded and top-hatted—so that young Opiskin looked as though he might, but for the tightness of his skirt, have knelt for a blessing. And so Paul and his charge left the presence.
The hotel was full of guests arriving for the Angleruss dinner. A fat little man in a blue uniform cast a look of desire at young Opiskin. Young Opiskin giggled. He had been told to open his mouth only to giggle: he was supposed to be an English lady. He spoke naturally a deep blurred Russian and nothing else; he was strangely uncultivated for a great musician’s son.
Blessed dark out in the street. The clang of rare trams on dear Nevsky Prospekt. ‘Here we are, then,’ said Madox, taking them to the car. The driver looked sly. ‘This bugger’s been paid already; don’t give him any more.’ Madox then shook Paul’s hand with great warmth. ‘Goodbye, my old mate.’ He then breathed a sweetish mixture of vodka and crème-de-menthe on to Paul, saying confidentially, ‘Do you know the Ship in Bermondsey? A good booze-up some night when we get back. They know me there—Arnold’s the name; they all know Arnold. I’ll drop you a postcard.’ But Paul knew that that would never be: Madox would shrink and grow grey outside Leningrad; he must be for Paul one of the city’s smaller monuments; it was better thus.
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