‘Even though you can’t say anything to each other except “Yes, please”?’
‘We don’t need to say anything to each other, Paul. We have that sort of relationship.’
Manning went over and knocked on the bathroom door.
‘Are you thinking of coming out?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Raya.
‘We’re talking about you.’
‘Good. My best wishes for the enterprise.’
Manning sat down opposite Proctor-Gould again.
‘She says she’s not thinking of coming out,’ he reported.
‘No, I don’t suppose she’ll be out for another hour yet. She’s taken to retiring to the bath with a book from six to eight every evening.’
‘Another little complexity.’
‘A perfectly harmless one, Paul.’
‘Oh, sure. I think you’ll just have to get used to the idea that Raya pinches things, too.’
‘Did she ever take anything of yours, Paul?’
‘No.’
Proctor-Gould sighed.
‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I did get reasonably acclimatized to the idea of her taking things like my souvenirs, or the Nescafé. I can see that different people express their relationships in different ways. But the books are quite another matter. The books are part of my work. A lot of them aren’t even mine – I was entrusted with them by my clients. to deliver. I just cannot allow Raya to take them.’
‘Do you want me to ask her what she did with the ones she took, so that we can try and get them back?’
Proctor-Gould sighed again.
‘I think we’d better let those go. What I really want to do is to make absolutely certain that she doesn’t take any more.’
Eventually they got two of Proctor-Gould’s suitcases out of the wardrobe, packed all the books away into them, and locked them.
‘Supposing she finds the key?’ asked Manning.
‘She won’t. I’ll keep the key-ring chained to me twenty-four hours a day.’
‘She could force the locks fairly easily.’
‘I don’t think she’d do that, Paul. I don’t think she’d be prepared to go to any trouble. Do you?’
‘I don’t know. I thought you were the one who understood her?’
‘Yes. Well, I don’t think she’d go to the trouble of forcing the locks.’
22
Proctor-Gould was right; Raya didn’t go to the trouble of forcing the locks. She took one of the suitcases and sold it as it stood, locked.
Then she came back to the hotel for the other one. Proctor-Gould met her, and the porter carrying the second suitcase, as they stepped out of the lift in the lobby.
‘I didn’t think I could manage them both at once,’ she explained to Manning when he arrived. ‘It didn’t occur to me to get the porter the first time. Stupid of me – we might have avoided all this mess.’
She indicated the heap of books which Proctor-Gould had taken out of the case and spread over the floor, and which he was now desperately sorting through. He was in a terrible state. He had only just discovered that the suitcase he had saved was the second one, and that the other had gone already. He kept picking books up and dropping them, trying to work out which ones he had lost, biting his lower lip so that it bulged out first to the left and then to the right. He looked as if he was going to be sick.
‘Has she really sold the case?’ he asked Manning.
‘So she says.’
‘Who to?’
‘She says a friend.’
‘Tell her I’m going to the police this time.’
Manning told her.
‘She says shall she phone room service for a policeman?’ he reported.
At these words Proctor-Gould jumped to his feet and stared at Raya, his eyes very wide, leaning forward ridiculously as if to inspect her more closely. His face was unnaturally white. The joke had turned all his anxiety to rage.
‘I’ll shake you!’ he said in a level, frightening voice. ‘I’m going to have those books back. You treat me like … as if I didn’t exist…. You think … Well! I’ll shake you!’
His voice trembled, and went very high. Manning was too taken aback to translate. But Proctor-Gould’s tone and appearance had a remarkable enough effect on Raya by themselves. For a moment a slight smile appeared on her face – a silly smile of astonishment and fear. It was the first sign Manning had seen that she was not impregnable. Then she put her hand on Proctor-Gould’s arm very softly.
‘Gordon, Gordon,’ she said quietly. ‘Something can be arranged. Hush, Gordon, we’ll arrange something. Nothing’s so positive, nothing’s so final.’
‘I’m going to have those books back,’ repeated Proctor-Gould shakily.
Raya took his hand and patted it, then put it to her lips and kissed the back of his fingers. She was like a mother soothing her child.
‘Let’s put all these books away in the case again,’ she said coaxingly, as if Proctor-Gould had thrown his toys about in a tantrum.
‘Don’t touch those books!’ shouted Proctor-Gould, unable to understand what she had said, and even at this moment of revelation misunderstanding her intentions. For an instant they became locked in a clumsy scuffling. Then Raya had given up, and sat down with her hands folded in her lap, while Proctor-Gould scrabbled the books up from the floor and dumped them in the case all anyhow, with jackets coming off and pages doubling up. He crammed down the lid, relocked it, and put the case back in the wardrobe.
‘Now, the other suitcase,’ he said. The hot flush of adrenalin through his arteries had evidently passed. He sounded merely surly, and he avoided looking at either Raya or Manning.
Manning translated. Raya raised her eyes and looked at Proctor-Gould without saying anything. She seemed to be studying him, and she looked as if she were troubled by some thought remote from either of them.
‘I want the suitcase,’ repeated Proctor-Gould, still not looking at her.
She sighed and got to her feet.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
They went downstairs. Proctor-Gould’s black Chaika was waiting at the kerb, and they got in. Raya gave an address to the driver, and the car moved off in a northerly direction, through Okhotniy Ryad into Sverdlov Square. Proctor-Gould stared out of the window expressionlessly. Raya sat on the jump-seat opposite him, watching his face, her forehead a little puckered as if she were puzzled by something.
23
They drove to a public dining-room, Dietary Dining-Room No. 37, in a forlorn street behind the White Russia Station. Outside, the stucco was flaking. Inside, the room was as bleak as a prison, and the clattering of metal trays and the scrape of cutlery on plates echoed noisily between the bare walls. It was half past three; a dozen or so late lunchers or early diners were gulping down their dietary mush with all possible speed. The air was steamy, and heavy with sour smells.
They bought yoghourt and coffee in order to be allowed in, and then Raya led them across to a table in the corner. There was a young man wearing steel-framed spectacles sitting at the table, with a number of empty coffee cups in front of him. He got to his feet as they approached. Without looking at Raya he took the tray from Manning and set it down. Then he gravely shook the two men’s hands. He did not seem surprised to see them.
‘This is Konstantin,’ said Raya.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Konstantin in Russian, as they all sat down. He neither got nor asked for the other half of the introduction.
Manning guessed that Konstantin was somewhere in his late twenties. He seemed surprisingly shabby for a black-market speculator. His jacket was slightly too small for him, exposing soiled shirt-cuffs and three or four inches of scrawny wrist. The lapels of the jacket were permanently cockled, and the tie, tied crooked in a collar which was loose about his neck, had become neutral in colour with age and dirt. He looked quite unlike any of the elegant young men who came up to Manning in the street from time to time and offered to buy his clothe
s or his foreign currency.
His face fitted no better than his suit. It was pallid and anxious, with a high, bony forehead. The lenses of his spectacles were thick, and seemed to slope backwards. Behind them his short-sighted eyes lurked magnified and ambiguous. Every now and then he impatiently pushed the bridge of the spectacles closer to his nose, and as they all sat for a long moment in silence he played with a coffee-spoon, beating it rapidly against the palm of his hand, and making as if to snap it in two.
Manning glanced at Proctor-Gould for instructions. Proctor-Gould looked tired, as if he had compressed a whole week’s emotional energy into that one burst of anger.
‘Does he speak English?’ he asked Manning. ‘No? You’d better do all the talking, then.’
Manning turned to Konstantin.
‘An unfortunate mistake has occurred,’ he began. ‘Raya has disposed of some English books belonging to my friend here, not realizing that he wanted to keep them.’
Konstantin nodded.
‘It was a silly misunderstanding,’ said Manning. ‘My friend, of course, is anxious to get them back.’
Konstantin nodded again.
‘They were in a suitcase, a locked suitcase. I wonder if you’ve seen them?’
‘Yes,’ said Konstantin, nodding rapidly, almost impatiently.
‘You acquired them from Raya?’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Konstantin. Manning waited for him to go on, but Konstantin appeared not to think that any explanation was called for. He shook the coffee-spoon between his fingers as if it were a castanet, until it fell with a clatter into one of the empty cups.
‘Well,’ said Manning, ‘we want the books back.’
Konstantin’s eyes swam inscrutably behind his lenses.
‘Have you any proof of ownership?’ he asked, throwing the words away with such rapidity and diffidence that Manning did not at first catch them among the noise of the dining-room. ‘Any documents? A receipt? A customs certificate?’
The question took Manning by surprise. He consulted with Proctor-Gould, who shook his head, staring at Konstantin curiously.
‘All right,’ said Konstantin, shrugging. ‘Would you be prepared to come round to the militia-post and make a formal complaint?’
Again Manning consulted with Proctor-Gould.
‘He says he wouldn’t,’ Manning translated to Konstantin, ‘because he doesn’t want to involve Raya.’
‘I see,’ said Konstantin.
‘Anyway, the question is academic. You could scarcely go to the militia yourself, since you’d be charged with receiving.’
‘Not if the books weren’t stolen.’
‘It doesn’t make much difference. It’s a criminal offence to buy or sell second-hand goods except through the State Commission Shops.’
‘True.’ said Konstantin. He smiled slightly. ‘So the position is, we are unable to establish to whom the books belonged.’
‘Just ask Raya where she got them from.’
‘If Raya did steal them, she’d be a thief. I don’t see why I should take the word of a thief.’
There was a silence. Again Konstantin shook the coffee-spoon, and again it fell into the cup.
‘Suppose we abandon these barren theoretical speculations about ownership,’ he said suddenly. ‘Let’s see if we can be practical. Now, why don’t I treat you like any other potential customers, and offer to sell you the books?’
Manning translated this to Proctor-Gould. For a start Proctor-Gould said nothing. Then he sighed, and pulled at his ear.
‘How much?’ he said.
Manning was astonished that he should have accepted the principle of this arrangement, and began to protest. Proctor-Gould cut him short.
‘Ask him how much. We’ve nothing to lose by finding out what figure he has in mind.’
Manning asked him. Konstantin held up three fingers.
‘Three hundred,’ he said.
‘Old roubles?’
‘New roubles.’
Manning started to laugh.
‘We’re in the antiquarian market,’ he told Proctor-Gould. ‘He wants 300 roubles.’
Proctor-Gould frowned.
‘How much is that in sterling? About £120?’
‘Thereabouts, at the official rate. What was the cost of the books new?’
‘I don’t know. Twenty or thirty pounds at a guess. But they’d be worth more on the second-hand market in Moscow.’
‘Nothing like £120, Gordon. Particularly since they’re stolen.’
‘I suppose not.’
Proctor-Gould had bent close to the table, scraping it with the prong of a fork.
‘What shall I say, then, Gordon?’
‘Offer him 200 roubles.’
Manning stared at Proctor-Gould in surprise.
‘I can’t understand you, Gordon,’ he said. ‘I don’t see why you should pay anything at all. But to pay more than the books were worth in the first place …!’
‘I think that’s my affair, Paul.’
‘Look, Gordon, you’ve got this business out of all proportion….’
‘Some of those books aren’t mine, Paul. They belong to my clients. Now, offer him 200 roubles.’
Manning hesitated. Konstantin and Raya watched the two Englishmen. Manning felt their eyes shift back and forth from him to Proctor-Gould, trying to read the sense of their dispute.
‘All right,’ he said to Konstantin at last. ‘My friend will give you 200 roubles. But only because he is acting on …’
‘Two hundred and eighty,’ interrupted Konstantin, throwing off the figure like a verbal shrug.
Proctor-Gould reflected when Manning told him. Then he opened his eyes very wide, blinked several times, and opened them wide again. He seemed to be fighting off sleep.
‘Two hundred and fifty,’ he said. ‘And that really is the highest I’ll go.’
Konstantin accepted the figure at once, with a little twist of the head and a wry tightening of the mouth, as if admitting the truth of some unwelcome proposition.
‘It’s low,’ he said. ‘Your friend would go higher if I pushed him. But why bother? If I had the books I’d accept 250 for them.’
Manning stared at him.
‘What do you mean, if you had the books?’
‘I mean,’ said Konstantin with casual rapidity, ‘given that, in the circumstances that, it being the case that …’
‘You haven’t actually got them?’
‘No, I’ve sold them already.’
Manning was so surprised that for a moment he was unable even to translate the announcement. When he did, Proctor-Gould raised his head and gazed at Konstantin in silence. The inspection disconcerted Konstantin. He blinked, and twitched, and shifted in his seat. Again he dropped the spoon into his cup.
‘Look,’ he said suddenly. ‘I know how attached one can get to certain books. Perhaps I could come to some arrangements with the buyer. Would that interest you?’
‘How much would it cost?’ asked Manning.
‘Well, listen. I don’t think he’d let us have the lot back. Judging by what he said at the time. But he might agree to part with one, if I explained the circumstances. If you’d like to tell me what one you want most, I could have a try.’
Proctor-Gould stared at him, his great brown eyes wide open and unblinking, his face completely expressionless, not even turning his head when Manning translated.
‘How much?’ he asked.
‘Provided it’s only one,’ said Konstantin slowly, ‘you can have it for nothing.’
Proctor-Gould stared and stared, not answering. Then, abruptly, he got to his feet.
‘Let’s go,’ he said to Manning.
Konstantin sat back in his chair and gazed up at Proctor-Gould.
‘You don’t want it?’ he asked. ‘Not even for nothing?’
‘Come on,’ said Proctor-Gould to Manning.
‘One minute,’ said Konstantin. He tore a page out of a note-book, scribbled something
on it in ballpoint, and gave it to Manning.
‘In case your friend changes his mind,’ he said.
Outside the Chaika was still waiting.
‘What shall I tell the driver?’ asked Manning, as they got in.
Proctor-Gould didn’t reply. He sat gazing out of the window, pulling at his ear.
‘What’s on that piece of paper he gave you?’ he asked suddenly.
‘An address: “Churavayev K.S., Kurumalinskaya Street 93, Flat 67”.’
‘Konstantin’s?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Give the name of the street to the driver. Tell him to drop us on the corner.’
As the car pulled away Manning became aware of a face looking in from the pavement. It was Raya. She seemed uncertain, as if she was unable to make up her mind whether to rap on the window, and when Manning looked back as the car turned the corner at the end of the street, she was still standing there, gazing uncertainly after them.
24
Kurumalinskaya Street turned out to be familiar. It was one of the narrow, busy thoroughfares Manning had walked along with Katerina, talking of God and love. Number 93 was a seedy tenement block lined on the street side with small, flyblown shops. The entrance gateway lay between a sign saying FO TWE R REPAI S and a grocery. The window of the grocery was boarded up, and on the boards someone had whitewashed: ‘Overfulfill the plan for the distributive sector!’ The letters had dribbled down to the pavement and had the appearance of being on stalks, as if they were an organic product of dereliction, a sort of complex urban cow-parsley growing out of the grey pavement.
‘I still don’t see what we’re going to do,’ said Manning, as they gazed at the outside.
‘We’re going to take advantage of Konstantin’s mistake,’ said Proctor-Gould. His weariness had vanished. He seemed excited.
‘What mistake?’
‘He shouldn’t have given us his address, Paul.’
‘Why not? He had to, if you were ever going to take up his offer.’
‘He should have rung later.’
‘What’s the difference?’
They walked through the archway into the courtyard. It was full of noise and movement. Small children ran about without apparent direction, shouting. An old woman walked painfully from one doorway to another with a bucket of water. A man with a shaven head wearing striped pyjamas came out of a door, walked slowly into the middle of the yard, stopped, yawned, scratched each armpit in turn, and then walked slowly back again.
The Russian Interpreter Page 11