The Russian Interpreter

by Michael Frayn

  ‘What we’re always looking for is a regular channel for information from the West. Raya and I have approached a number of regular foreign visitors – journalists, businessmen, diplomats. None of them would help. They were all frightened of damaging their standing with the Soviet authorities.

  ‘All right, then. A man who can’t get food honestly must get it by other means. Necessity can’t afford scruples. So we resort to exploiting Proctor-Gould.

  ‘I want him to expand his activities, Paul, and act as a courier for us as well. On every trip he makes to Russia I shall want him to bring certain designated books and documents. I shall also expect him to use his own initiative in finding additional material. Since he has the confidence of the Soviet authorities he can help us with very little risk to himself. And I shall hold that suitcase of books as a warranty for satisfactory service.’

  Manning gazed out of the window at the hurrying dark wall of the tunnel. It evaporated suddenly into the echoing white tiles of a station. Krasnopresnenskaya. They were on their second go round.

  34

  It had rained all night. A weak sunlight filtered through the shifting white and grey screens of cloud, making the little concrete copies of classical statues in the Park of Culture and Rest gleam sadly among the wet bushes. The bench on which Proctor-Gould and Manning sat was damp, and each time the breeze blew, droplets of water fell from the branch above their heads. From the loudspeakers among the trees came the slow movement of a violin concerto, austere and heartbreaking. On such a morning people walked gravely with a sense that the world was well-ordered and poignant.

  ‘That music, Paul!’ sighed Proctor-Gould. ‘The whole soul of Russia is in it.’

  ‘It’s Bach,’ said Manning shortly. He felt very tired, as though suspended a foot above the surface of the earth, and drifting past things without ever quite making contact.

  Proctor-Gould gave a little giggle. He seemed remarkably cheerful altogether, as if restored to himself. His crumpled plastic mac hung open, and Manning could see that there was fluff on his blazer again, and an egg-stain on his trousers. The range of ballpoint pens and propelling pencils had reappeared in his breast pocket. As they walked about the park earlier he had been interested, even amused by Manning’s account of his conversation with Konstantin. When Manning had explained about the substitutions, and Raya’s visits to the office behind the Izvestia building, Proctor-Gould had laughed ruefully.

  ‘Well, well,’ he had said. ‘Wheels within wheels.’

  And when Manning had told him about Konstantin’s demands, he had merely clicked his tongue and shaken his head.

  Now Manning brought up the subject again.

  ‘What are you going to do about it, Gordon? Konstantin said he wanted a definite assurance by this evening.’

  ‘I’m going to get back to signing up clients, Paul. That’s what I’m here for. The whole Raya incident is closed and forgotten.’

  ‘But what about the books that Konstantin’s got?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet, Paul. I might go to the militia and charge him with stealing. I might not.’

  Manning stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘This is a great change of line, Gordon.’

  ‘I don’t have to think about protecting Raya any more.’

  ‘But last time we talked about this, Gordon, you agreed that the books might contain something incriminating that you didn’t know about.’

  ‘I suppose they might. That rubbish-bin over there might contain the Russian Crown Jewels, wrapped up in a copy of Pravda. But it’s not very likely.’

  ‘And what happened to your concern about other people’s property? You were prepared to pay nearly 300 roubles to get the first case of books back, just because some of them didn’t belong to you.’

  ‘All right, Paul. I’ll give Konstantin the same for the second case, if he’s interested in selling.’

  ‘You don’t seem very concerned about it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m deeply concerned.’

  Proctor-Gould reflected for a moment, and then began to giggle again.

  ‘On second thoughts, Paul,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I will buy the books back. I don’t think I’ll complain to the militia, either. We’ll just sit tight and let him hand the books over to the security people. Think of them, Paul, sitting there examining every full stop, comma, colon, and semi-colon throughout twenty-seven books to see if it has a micro-dot stuck to it! Not to mention the dots over the i’s.’

  He couldn’t stop tittering. The sound began to irritate Manning.

  ‘You are a most extraordinary man, Gordon,’ he said. ‘One moment you’re being as pompous as a bishop, and the next you’re sniggering like a schoolgirl. What’s come over you?’

  Proctor-Gould stopped tittering, and looked into the distance.

  ‘I suppose it’s nervous relief,’ he said slowly. ‘For a moment this week I really did think we were sunk with all hands.’

  Manning ground his shoe back and forth in the gravel.

  ‘You mean, the first lot of books …’ he began.

  ‘Just one of them, Paul.’

  ‘What was in it.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How do you mean, you don’t know?’

  ‘I was simply given it and told who to deliver it to. I didn’t inquire about the contents, I assure you.’

  ‘But you knew they had something to do with intelligence?’

  ‘I knew that the man who handed me the book had something to do with intelligence.’

  Manning couldn’t bring himself to look at Proctor-Gould. He felt a great sense of sourness, a distaste with the world in general.

  ‘So you were lying to me before?’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘These things involve deception. You know that, Paul.’

  ‘But, Gordon, you gave me your word, voluntarily, that you had no knowledge of anything that might incriminate you.’

  ‘I wanted to set your mind at rest, Paul. I didn’t want you to be involved in any risks that I might have been running.’

  ‘Well, I was involved, wasn’t I? And I am still. If you’re caught I shall certainly be arrested too.’

  ‘There’s been some risk, certainly….’

  ‘I think you’ve behaved badly, Gordon, very badly.’

  ‘I haven’t asked you to accept any risk that I didn’t share.’

  ‘Gordon, you didn’t ask me to accept the risk. You were the one who was asked. You put me in danger without my even knowing about it.’

  Proctor-Gould pulled at his ear.

  ‘I wasn’t empowered to tell you about what I was doing. How could I have been? You know what happens in these cases as well as I do. Where I’ve done wrong is in telling you even now. I regret that. I regret it deeply. However, what’s done is done. I’m sorry I had to involve you, but it’s all over now. We’ll go to the Kiev Station this evening and get the books out. By ten o’clock the one book that matters will be out of our hands.’

  ‘You’re giving it to someone at Sasha’s dinner for the Faculty this evening?’

  ‘Let me just say that by the time the dinner is over there will be no more risk of any sort for either of us. Is that all right, Paul?’

  Manning felt a profound sense of resentment.

  ‘It’s not just the risk.’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have agreed to take part in a deception of this sort even if I had been asked. How can there be anything honest in the world if we behave like this?’

  ‘Come, come, Paul. Even your friend Konstantin can see the value of espionage.’

  ‘He may be right. But I don’t want to be involved in it myself. The end may be acceptable, but the means are deceitful and mercenary.’

  Proctor-Gould looked round, surprise and hurt lengthening his long face.

  ‘Mercenary?’ he said. ‘Paul, you don’t think I’m being paid for doing this, do you? You don’t think I’m putting not only my safety but my whole career in jeopardy for a few pounds on th
e side?’

  Manning stared at a concrete Apollo Belvedere on the other side of the path. Water dripped like representational blood from the upraised stump of its concrete arm.

  ‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re doing it out of some self-important idea of the public good, as a contribution to improved Anglo-Soviet relations.’

  Proctor-Gould frowned.

  ‘Don’t you know how these things work, Paul?’ he said. ‘Don’t you know how these things are arranged? Let me enlighten you. A man rings you at the office in London one day. He says he works in a department of the Foreign Office concerned with developing unofficial contacts with Russia. Would you be kind enough to meet him for lunch and give him the benefit of your experience in the matter? You have lunch with him. He asks intelligent, sympathetic questions about your job. He expresses surprise at your answers. He makes notes. Then he says, there seems to be a tremendous amount of valuable material here which could help other people who have professional contacts with Russia. Could you perhaps write it down for him in the form of a memorandum? You write the memorandum and send it to him. He rings up to say he is delighted with it. Could you possibly come to dinner some, time the following week at his flat? He has a friend in the department who has read the memorandum and would very much like to meet you and discuss one or two points arising from it. You go to dinner. The friend knows all about you already. He asks after mutual friends from Cambridge. After dinner you sit and drink whisky and soda. The friend starts to talk about your memorandum. It’s so revealing and so perceptive, he says, that it makes him want to know more. What kind of people are these officials you have dealings with in Moscow? What sort of life do they lead? What are their tastes? What do they believe in? What do they want? Could you write a supplementary memorandum going into this sort of biographical detail? Perhaps at this point you begin to demur. They hasten to reassure you. They don’t want the information for any ulterior motive. It’s just that if Britain is to establish a real understanding with Russia, which is the best guarantee of a lasting peace, the Government must have accurate, up-to-date information about the people they are dealing with. That’s all. You write the supplementary memorandum, perhaps in rather cautious terms. They are still delighted. Once again you are invited to dinner at the flat. They tell you your memorandum has gone up to ministerial level, and remark how pleasant it is to know someone who is in Moscow so often. For one thing the postal service is not very reliable. One of them has a friend there he’d like to send a little present to, if he could find someone to take it. Perhaps next time you’re over you’d be kind enough to oblige? You refuse, politely. You point out that you can’t afford to get involved in anything that might make the Soviet authorities suspicious, since your job depends on having their confidence. At this they become rather grave, and look at each other meaningfully. Your attitude creates rather an awkward situation, they say. Unless they continue to take the most scrupulous care to preserve security, the Soviet officials who look into these things will almost certainly discover that you have had three meetings with British intelligence, and submitted two reports to them. British intelligence? Well, they belong to a department of it, certainly – a perfectly innocuous department, of course, dealing with more or less open information about Russia, of the sort provided by returned travellers. All the same, the Russians would probably not make much distinction between one department and another. Your hosts point out that they could scarcely recommend the continued expense of time and manpower on keeping the connexion with you secret if you are no longer working for the department. And the trouble is, they explain, that if the Russians discover you have been approached by British intelligence they will never be able to be sure that you refused to work for them. So you would certainly never get another Soviet visa. Which, they would imagine, might be rather awkward in your line of business.’

  There was a silence. The music from the loud-speakers had stopped. Was it the end of the slow movement? Or had the last movement gone by as well, unnoticed?

  ‘So you take the present?’ said Manning.

  ‘You may well decide to.’

  ‘And perhaps bring one back?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘How many presents have you taken back and forth?’

  ‘That doesn’t concern you, Paul.’

  The music started again. It was the Komsomol march, ‘Brave Boys.’ The poignant late spring light changed. The day became brisk.

  ‘I see your difficulty, Gordon,’ said Manning.

  ‘I’m glad you do, Paul.’

  ‘But there’s no reason why I should cooperate in your undertaking.’

  ‘You’re not expected to cooperate, Paul.’

  ‘Yes, I am, Gordon. I’m expected to return you your books from the Kiev Station. As you remember, I have the ticket.’

  Proctor-Gould stared at Manning, his eyes infinitely lugubrious.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ said Manning, ‘if you really are in the business you might as well bring a few presents in for Konstantin. I think they might stand a better chance of doing some good.’

  Proctor-Gould went on staring at Manning in silence. Manning looked up, caught his eye, and looked away again awkwardly.

  ‘You’re not thinking of hugging that cloakroom ticket to yourself, are you?’ said Proctor-Gould.

  ‘No,’ said Manning, ‘I’m thinking of giving it to Konstantin.’

  35

  Manning had got about four or five hundred yards from the gates of the Park of Culture and Rest when Proctor-Gould’s black Chaika caught up with him. Proctor-Gould held the door open.

  ‘Jump in, Paul,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll walk, thanks, Gordon.’

  He began to walk again. The driver let in his clutch and cruised along level with him, the door still open like an outspread wing, sweeping people out of the way.

  ‘There’s something I want to explain to you, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould.

  ‘You’ve explained already.’

  ‘This is something else altogether.’

  Manning stopped.

  ‘Well, for God’s sake get out of that car,’ he said. ‘The whole street’s staring at us.’

  Proctor-Gould scrambled out, and planted himself squarely in front of Manning, his hands in his blazer pockets, his great eyes fixed anxiously on Manning’s face.

  ‘What is it, then?’ said Manning.

  ‘Paul, I’m afraid I wasn’t really telling you the truth back there in the park.’

  ‘Oh, Gordon …’

  ‘I had a very good reason for keeping the real situation to myself, as you’ll see….’

  He stopped, and looked round. A small crowd was beginning to collect about them, staring intently into their faces, perhaps thinking, from the manner in which Manning was edging away, and Proctor-Gould crowding in upon him, that they were about to fight. The more private Proctor-Gould’s disclosures became, thought Manning, the more public were the surroundings in which he chose to make them. He would end up telling the ultimate secrets of his heart from the top of the university skyscraper through a public address system. Manning looked round.

  ‘There’s a beer house just down the road,’ he said. ‘Let’s go there.’

  It was crowded inside the beer house. There were no chairs or stools, and the customers stood at shelves along the wall eating bread and cheese and drinking out of paper cups. In one corner two men were embracing each other with laughter and tears. ‘We haven’t seen each other for twenty years,’ they kept explaining to the other customers, who smiled, and wagged their heads, and winked.

  ‘Abstemious lot here,’ said Proctor-Gould as they queued at the counter. ‘They’re all buying fruit juice.’

  ‘You haven’t been inside one of these places before?’ said Manning, surprised.

  Proctor-Gould shook his head. He looked vaguely round the room. Under the signs saying: ‘It is forbidden to bring and consume spirits,’ the customers w
ere busy emptying their paper cups of fruit juice into the ash-trays, and refilling them from half-bottles of vodka they carried in their pockets. But Proctor-Gould Was already thinking about something else.

  ‘Paul,’ he said, in a low voice which made several men in the queue turn round and gaze at them expressionlessly. ‘You didn’t really believe all that stuff I told you about getting involved with British intelligence, did you?’

  Manning looked at him carefully.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he said.

  Proctor-Gould smiled.

  ‘Rather cloak-and-dagger for your taste, I should have thought,’ he said.

  ‘It sounded about right to me.’

  ‘I obviously have a career as a story-teller. Because it wasn’t the truth, Paul. The truth is rather simpler. If I may give you a tip, it usually is.’

  They collected two paper cups of beer, and found themselves a space at the shelf.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Manning. ‘Let’s have the new version.’

  ‘It’s soon told, Paul,’ said Proctor-Gould, leaning along the counter towards Manning and talking in the same low voice. ‘As you know, there are a number of what are called “underground” writers in this country. They work in secret, and their manuscripts are smuggled out of the country and published in the West.’

  Manning looked up from his beer, met Proctor-Gould’s unblinking gaze, and looked away again, disconcerted.

  ‘Now,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘somebody else – I don’t know who – arranges for the manuscripts to be got out. I’m part of a chain which brings the royalties back to the author. That may sound mercenary to you, Paul, like everything else, but these people are no different from any other writers – they have to live. I don’t know the author in question myself – I don’t even know his pen-name in the West. All I know is that I’m given a book with a number of 100 dollar bills made up inside the binding, and that I’m due to hand it over to the next link in the chain tonight. I believe there are some cuttings of reviews with the money, too. I don’t know whether you think this sort of operation is worthwhile, Paul?’