And now it is a little later still, and Petworth is sitting in a metal chair in the rain outside a café in the market place of Slaka. The metal chairs are all affixed to the ground, arranged in straight rows, looking outward. The crowds press in front of them; they sit in their row, with Katya Princip to one side of Petworth, Marisja Lubijova to the other, and Professor Rum, ruminative, beyond her on the end of the line. ‘You see, nobody serves us,’ says Lubijova, ‘They do not serve here because it rains.’ ‘Do you like to go inside and see if they bring some beer to us?’ asks Princip. ‘All right, I do it,’ says Lubijova, going into the crowded inner café. ‘She does not please with you, that one,’ says Princip, ‘She sees you in bad company. She does not like to leave you.’ ‘She admires your novels,’ says Petworth, ‘She bought me your book.’ ‘Not all who admire the novels admire the novelist,’ says Princip, ‘And not all who admire the novelist admire the novels. Let us ask Professor Rum.’ Princip moves to Petworth’s other side, and begins a conversation; Petworth stares at the red banners that dangle over the square on high poles. ‘He explains he is of the party of socialist realism,’ says Princip, ‘He thinks he will not like my new book at all. In it no characters who are people. The central figure is a cake with two horns.’ Lubijova comes out of the interior of the café and stands before Petworth: ‘I am sorry, it is no use,’ she says, ‘They have finished all their supply of beer.’ ‘Then we get something else,’ says Princip, ‘Tea with a tort. I go and arrange it.’ ‘Comrade Petwurt, take care please with this lady,’ says Marisja, sitting down beside him, ‘She does foolish things and she gets you into trouble.’ ‘Realismus,’ says the Academician Rum, stirring from thought at the end of the row, ‘You tell?’ ‘He asks me to explain you that the problem of realismus is to combinate the reality inherent in the historical process with the sufficient subjective perception, do you agree?’ ‘Well, yes,’ says Petworth.
‘And here we are,’ says Princip, returning with a tray on which stand four tall steaming glasses of water. In the water are small iron bombs, which emit a seeping brownness that twists into strange hieroglyphs. ‘Now take your drink please and look at the market hall, up at the top, because it is almost time for this thing.’ And high up on the bell-tower, something is indeed happening. Below the clock face, decorated with necromancer’s symbols, two wooden doors are opening, very jerkily. From inside the doors, on tracks, come two stiff wooden peasants, each one carrying a cudgel. The peasants come forward, bow down to the crowd, then turn to face each other. They slide a little closer, and as they do so their cudgels rise into the air. The clock above them begins to strike; at each clang of the bell, they belabour each other. ‘Do you count them,’ says Princip, ‘One, two, three, four, five, six.’ The crowds have stopped, and everyone is looking up. Petworth then notices that affixed to the top of the tower are crowdcontrol television cameras, looking back down. ‘Don’t you please I bring you?’ asks Katya Princip, ‘Now you see my wish. You see, I like things just a little bit magical. Perhaps you do too.’ ‘I do,’ says Petworth. ‘And every day at six when the men come out I come here,’ says Princip, ‘So this is where everyone finds me. If you ever like to do it.’ ‘Oh, Petwurt, Petwurt,’ cries Lubijova, ‘Your wife!’ ‘My wife?’ cries Petworth. ‘On the telephone,’ says Lubijova, ‘I arranged you to call her from the hotel at six o’clock.’ ‘Oh, do you have a wife?’ asks Princip, ‘You don’t have a ring.’ ‘His wife waits a call from him,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, now it is too late. Now we make all the arrangements over again, oh, Petwurt, Petwurt, and they will not be pleased with you.’ ‘Six o’clock?’ says Petworth, ‘But we’ve only just finished lunch.’ ‘It was a long, long lunch,’ says Lubijova, ‘And don’t forget, tomorrow you must make a conference at the university. I think he goes to his hotel.’ ‘I think so too,’ says Petworth, dimly recalling another social engagement, which it might not be entirely wise to talk about.
‘Come, I take you,’ says Lubijova, standing up in front of him. ‘Which hotel?’ asks Princip. ‘Slaka, in Wang’luku,’ says Lubijova. ‘My dear, let me take him, I go by there,’ says Princip, ‘My apartment is right by that corner. I go there anyway.’ ‘I think I come too,’ says Marisja Lubijova. ‘Really, no need,’ says Princip, ‘He does not have to have always two beautiful ladies.’ ‘Do you know your arrangements, Comrade Petwurt?’ asks Lubijova anxiously, ‘Do you remember your programme? I shall come to the same place in the hotel, the same time. But will you have eaten your breakfast?’ ‘I can manage,’ says Petworth. ‘Well,’ says Lubijova, doubtfully, ‘Perhaps.’ ‘Of course,’ says Princip, seizing Petworth’s arm. Professor Rum rises, adjusts his topcoat, and puts out his hand to Petworth. ‘He says he is pleased to meet you and he looks forward to hearing you when you make conference,’ says Lubijova, ‘Even though he does not understand English and he thinks you are a pragmatist.’ ‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow,’ says Petworth to Lubijova, ‘And thank you so much for the tour and the book.’ ‘The book, perhaps it was not such a good idea,’ says Lubijova, ‘But I wanted to make you nice present.’ ‘You did,’ says Petworth. ‘We go this way, to the tram,’ says Princip, ‘Do you go yet on a tram?’ ‘Not yet,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, Petwurt, Petwurt,’ cries Lubijova, hurrying after them as they walk, ‘Your passport, I think you take it. Remember, you do not exist without it. Yes, I see you tomorrow.’ ‘Oh, she is cross, that one,’ says Princip, looking after her as she goes off through the market in her mohair hat, ‘Or perhaps it is jealous, you know she likes you. Yes, of course. You are not so macho as our men, and that makes you attractive. Why do you think I like so much to go with you?’ ‘I’m pleased you do,’ says Petworth, as they cross the market, past the sere-faced peasants standing behind the stalls, the flowers, the twisted vegetables. ‘Now here we wait the tram,’ says Princip, ‘Oh, hold please my arm, I think you took too many toasts. And when that tram comes, push, push, push. We are not so polite here, like the British.’
They stand in the crowd until the high-prowed pink tram comes; the sign on its front, over the uniformed woman driver, says WANG’LUKU. ‘Push, push, go inside, I have two tickets,’ says Princip, ‘If you do it well, you get seat, and one beside for me.’ He does it well, and finds two seats; the tram grinds off. ‘So, Mr Petwit, I am glad you are my admirer,’ says Katya Princip, sitting down beside him, ‘You know I am a little bit yours, too. Yes, I think I come to your lecture tomorrow. If you speak it very slowly.’ ‘I will,’ says Petworth. ‘Isn’t it nice, on a tram?’ says Princip, putting her arm through his, ‘I told you, once I drove one. When I could not write.’ ‘But you can write now,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, I have some protection,’ says Princip, ‘It is best always to have some protection. But I am not reliable, you know. I have friends in America who make to me some telephone calls. I go abroad perhaps too many times, and meet wrong people. I am not polite to those apparatchiks. So often they like to watch me. That is why I am not such good friend for you, really. And you not a very good friend for me. That is a pity.’ ‘A great pity,’ says Petworth, staring down as they rattle over the Bridge of Anniversary May 15. ‘Oh, look, look, we go over the river,’ says Princip, ‘Do you see all those fishermen down there, fishing even in the rain? Do you know how we call them? We say they are the men from HOGPo.’ ‘Why?’ asks Petworth. ‘There are so many fish down there,’ says Princip, ‘Someone has to find out what they are thinking. And so, Mr Petwit, you have a wife. Is she a nice one?’ ‘A good woman,’ says Petworth. ‘That is what we say,’ says Princip, ‘Every man needs a good woman, and when he has found her he needs a bad woman also. Well, you are nice, Mr Petwit, you drink too much and smoke too much and you are not character in the world historical sense, and all that makes you attractive. But perhaps I don’t after all come to your lecture. We are both really not cautious enough, and here this is dangerous.’ ‘You think we shouldn’t meet again,’ says Petworth. ‘What would we do it for?’ asks Princip, ‘So I can tell you the real stor
y of Stupid?’
From a hazed memory, Petworth now remembers something. ‘When you were at the airport, with Professor Rum,’ he says. ‘Oh, the airport, where you saw me wave to you,’ says Princip, ‘I had come back from Provd, there was meeting of the Writers’ Union.’ ‘Who was the man, the other man, who waved after the taxi?’ ‘Oh, this man with the umbrella?’ asks Princip, ‘We did not know him. He was foreign, from somewhere else. He did not speak Slakan so well. You see, Mr Petwit, here there is so much following. You are a nice man, in a nice place we would like each other. But I don’t think so in Slaka. Look, we are almost at Wang’luku. Get up, comrade, push, push.’ Above the tram, Marx and Engels, Wanko and Grigoric, bob in the narrow street. Then they are in the square, busy tonight with people, crowded round the newspaper seller, buying from the man with the balloons. ‘So, I have brought you home,’ says Katya Princip, in her sheepskin waistcoat and batik dress, looking at him with grey-green sad eyes, ‘I have really liked to meet you. But I cannot be your good witch, I cannot be your bad witch, it would be so nice and very silly. Did you like to meet me?’ ‘Very much,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, if you don’t have me, you have my book,’ says Princip, ‘And if you open it very carefully, and learn the words very slowly, and look for the hidden places, the corners that are secret, then in a certain way you can have me. Perhaps, now you know me you will have me much more like that than if we decided to be silly and go and make some love. Do you know the title, what it means? It means not to be afraid.’ ‘Then perhaps we shouldn’t be,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, you like to like me, I like to like you,’ says Princip, ‘And in a nice world it would all be very nice. But it is not a nice world and everyone must take care for themselves. Now I think you go in your hotel.’
‘Then come in for a minute,’ says Petworth. ‘You don’t understand, they will take notice there, they watch everyone,’ says Princip, touching his lips with her finger, ‘Oh, Mr Petwit, I have told you. You are really not a character in the world historical sense. You come from a little island with water all round. When we were oppressed and occupied and when we fought and died, and there were mad mullahs and pogroms against the Jews, what did you have? Queen Victoria and industrial revolution and Alfred the Lord Tennyson. We sent Karl Marx to explain you everything, but you didn’t notice. What did you do with him, put him in Highgate cemetery, some would say the best place, I know. You never had history, just some customs. Now, go in there. Think of your nice Mrs Petwit, all the little Petwits if you have some. Perhaps in your room you make a little toast for me. To the beautiful lady, this time really meaning it. So, enjoy our country, please, and make a good lecture. I like to be there, but I will not, because I like you, I really like you.’ She stands looking at him, in her white dress and sheepskin coat; then she kisses his cheek, turns, and is gone into the crowd. Petworth turns too, stepping in through the glass doors, past the limping doormen. In the lobby, a crowd of oriental gentlemen stands round the desk; there is noise and emptiness, people and personlessness. He goes to the desk to change his identay’ii for his key; ‘Pervert, don’t you know what time is, six and a half,’ says the lacquered-haired girl, tapping her watch crossly, ‘Do you know you have missed your telephone? Well, is too late now.’ He goes up in the great lift, past the white floormaid, and into his dark room, that empty place for his filled spirit. Brandy tastes like nausea in his throat; an unfamiliar pulse beats at the back of his head; there is post-surgical pain in his feelings. He takes off his official suit, knowing that he has missed something, or that something is missing. Ten minutes later, naked in the vast bathroom, under the groaning, creaking shower, hard water hitting a head filled with the sediment of his governmental lunch, hand twisting taps that will not quite come to balance, so that now the water turns his white body scalding hot, now freezing cold, his face staring upward into the painful flood, while the split peach of his buttocks and the limp profitless dangle of his thighs flicker at him from the opposite, misting mirrored wall, a gloomy nude, his long day by no means over, he tries to call himself back to duty, sociability, affability, to find a face that will meet the face of Mr Steadiman.
5 – CD/GB.
I
The clocks on the nearby government buildings, the chimes in the belfries round about, are all ringing seven as Petworth descends the rough stairs to the cellar bar of the Hotel Slaka, looking for Mr Steadiman. His hair is wet from his hasty shower, his head heavy from the day’s hospitality; he knows himself for a man of sorrows, who, in one day, has met and found, loved and lost. Raising the curtain to the Barr’uu Tzigane, he expects the gloomy cavern to match his mood. But something has changed in the underground place; yesterday’s drabness has turned into something almost resembling joy. Behind the caravan bar is a laughing gipsy barman, while the whores who sit, teasing and giggling, in a line along the bar in front of him, drinking specialist drinks, are brighter, more glittering, and far more numerous. They all turn to look through silver eye make-up at Petworth as he comes in; in the lap of one, a new one, with hennaed red hair and a golden dress, a small beribboned lapdog barks brightly at his entrance. At the red-checked tables there is much busyness and noise; laughter and jollity sound as Zaïrean timber talks to Ukrainian grain, Indian cloth to Polish leather. Bright-sad music is in the smoky air; among the tables, with their gleaming table lamps, two small gipsies in frilly sleeves pass, fiddling furiously. It is a frivolous place, almost too frivolous for a man not hunting frivolity. But diplomatic matters attend him, the duties of his visit; he steps inside and walks slowly among the tables, staring from side to side, looking for the Second Secretary from the British Embassy.
Evidently the task will not be easy. Mr Steadiman, to identify himself, has promised to wear a suit; but a suit is precisely what all the many single men who sit at the tables – staring, waiting, looking at the girls, gazing dubiously down into small drinks – have elected, on this evening, to wear. Steadiman, no doubt, has no desire to draw special attention to himself; and yet, as Petworth looks carefully around, going from table to table, it seems to him that none of the men who sit there quite looks like a British Second Secretary. This suited man wears a black plastic hat; that one smokes a plastic-ended cigar. This one works steadfastly on notes, a pocket calculator clicking away in his hand; that one has his big bullet head thrust deep down into the pages of P’rtyuu Populatuuu. That one is Chinese; these two are black Africans. Steadiman, presumably, has not arrived, or obscured himself so well that he will make himself known. A table comes vacant in one of the dark alcoves; Petworth sits down at it, facing the curtained doorway. After a moment, looking rather surly, a red-checked waitress halts beside him; Petworth orders a Sch’veppuu. He sits, and looks carefully round the room; only the pretty whores at the bar look back at him, and one, the new one with the henna hair and the lapdog, mouths a kiss at him; Petworth ignores it. The gipsies play, the men at their tables sit and work, from time to time the door curtain rises and a man comes in – a turbanned man, a black man, a bespectacled man, a man in a see-through fold-up raincoat – but none of them look like a Steadiman. Meanwhile, his drink, like Steadiman himself, fails to come. Staring at the whores, jogging their pretty legs, in silver boots and high-heeled shoes, up and down, Petworth broods on blonde hair, a batik dress, a brief happy tram-ride, a bleak separation, on the sadness and solitude behind the public spaces of society and exchange.
The clocks on the nearby government buildings, on the belfries around, chime seven-thirty, and still Steadiman has not come. Petworth is just thinking of returning to his room, or of attempting a taxi, when the door curtain lifts once more. A man stands there, looking expectantly round the noisy room: a tall man, fresh-faced, forty-ish, thin, wearing a suit, carrying a rolled umbrella. He steps into the room, looking – carefully at the whores along the bar, evidently seeking someone; and Petworth knows that this man has been somewhere in his story before. The man steps onward, between the tables, and Petworth suddenly recalls where he has seen t
his face, this suit, this umbrella, this look; this is the man who jostled him in the entrance to the arrivals hall at Slaka airport, as Lubijova led him toward his taxi; this is the umbrella that waved after the taxi, when, looking back, Petworth saw Professor Rum, Katya Princip, and a third figure, a man with a sack, this man, chasing his arrival. The man is now moving from table to table, a crisp, confident expression on his face, speaking to the people sitting there: the man with the black plastic hat, the man with the plastic-ended cigar. His quest is clearly unsuccessful; he turns now to the man with the pocket calculator, then the man behind P’rtyuu Populatuuu. Petworth now realizes suddenly that it is he who is being looked for; at the same time he understands at once who his follower is. He rises from his seat and goes toward the man, who, an expression of waning confidence on his features, is now approaching the solitary Chinese. ‘Excuse me,’ Petworth says, coming up to the man, who, rejected by the Chinese, has now turned to the two black Africans, ‘Would you happen to be Mr Steadiman?’
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