Rates of Exchange

by Malcolm Bradbury

  Later, as the sun has begun to fade, they go back down toward the old town of Glit. ‘Do you like to eat something?’ asks Marisja, ‘I know near here a place you will like. You can try in it the special eatings of Glit.’ In a back street, they find a small old restaurant, with low ceilings; a good many people occupy its tables. The occupiers are, it seems, tourists, for some are talking in German, some in what Petworth thinks is Bulgarian; they are tourists not of Petworth’s kind, but those for whom travel has something to do with pleasure and desire, and they are happy, happiness being what tourists are supposed to have. The menu comes, and a familiar litany begins. ‘Now, what do you like?’ Marisja asks, ‘Here is the veal of a sheep, or do you like to eat a brain? Here a soup with feet in it, and here a typical thing of the place, a cream with a cumber made of the chords of the yurt.’ Petworth stares at the written list, but the words are new again, and his head is tired, from a sleepless night, an uphill walk, a rural air, a beating sun. The pleasure of the strange is not what it was: ‘An ordinary soup and a plain omelette,’ he says. ‘Oh, Petwurt, I disappoint,’ says Marisja, ‘I thought you came to enjoy all our customs? You told me that, do you remember it, right when I met you at the airport, and you wanted my embrace? But perhaps you do not delight yourself so much now? Perhaps you don’t like my country?’ ‘Of course I do,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you know how you look?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Like a girl who sulks because her love had gone wrong. You like to be British, so polite, but really you are very obvious. Well, I shall take a brain. I like to enjoy myself. You know this is a very special experience for me?’ ‘Is it?’ asks Petworth, ‘Why?’

  ‘If you knew just a little my country, you would understand, but, poor Petwurt, really you don’t know very much about the world outside your head, I think. Here it is not so easy to travel around, and stay in a provincial hotel, and eat like this in a typical restaurant. You must be a very good person with an excellent file at the police, and you must get a certain permission. Well, dear Mr Petwurt, I have an excellent file, and you are my permission. If you like to disappoint now, well, please do it, but don’t want me to share it. I like to make a very good time. I know you travel a lot, it is all ordinary; this, for you, but it is special for me. Don’t forget, I am not some lady writer. I don’t have a great courage, just a very dull life at Slaka. I do not have admiring lovers and a famous academician who watches out always for me. I do not write and imagine wonderful things, I just make some interpretations, and read some menus for you, and keep you away from bad troubles. And I hope you don’t think that is so easy, do you? So I shall have a brain and, if you want a good advice from your guide who tries always to help you, you will forget this lady. She is well looked after.’ ‘Looked after?’ asks Petworth, ‘Has something happened to her?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘But perhaps she makes some travels too. She has some little troubles you have helped her with. Our writers’ union has a fine summer house on Lake Katuruu. Perhaps she likes to go there. It is very peaceful and there she can meet some more writers and discuss there her obligations in a clear and constructive way. She will be very well there and you do not need even to think about it.’ ‘She’s been sent there?’ asks Petworth. ‘I don’t know,’ says Marisja, ‘Perhaps she remains still in Slaka. They do not tell me these things. Oh, here is the waitress to take an order. Do you like to make it, in the language of Glit? No, all right, I interpret you, I will do it.’

  The waitress who takes the order wears under her white apron a hidden black purse, so that she looks pregnant with money. A single candle lights the table, shining on the ringless long white hands, the pale face and blue eyelids, of Marisja Lubijova. ‘I am naughty, I order you a brain,’ she says, ‘Now, do you please forget altogether this lady. I don’t think you saw a real person, any more than a real castle. A lady like that is very strange. I know a little bit her story, you remember I gave you her book, do you still have it? You know she has had many husbands, did she tell you so? One was a famous man, a minister, everyone here knew of him, he was popular. Well, one day, this man, he shot himself.’ ‘I see,’ says Petworth, ‘How did it happen?’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t know everything,’ says Marisja, ‘But they are happy together, always in public, and then one day no more. She is not with him, then she makes a book, and it is accepted. On the day it is in the bookstore, that man sits at his desk in his very nice dacha, for he is a successful man, and he has somewhere a gun, and he puts it up here and he shoots his head. Who knows why? A marriage is a very secret thing. We do not know who is betrayed, or how. Perhaps even it was not at home, perhaps at work, in the Party. But now she is a famous writer and all want her book, and he is not a minister or anything else. It is not your world, Petwurt.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Always you are so intense and sad,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, that is your privilege. Or perhaps it is the privilege of your people. You expect certain things, like an American, well, we are not the same. We know we have a duty to make some useful lives, and we can be content. You are not content, I think. You do not know why you are in the world, do you?’ ‘I suppose not,’ says Petworth.

  ‘Oh, my dear Petwurt, you are so strange,’ says Marisja Lubijova, laughing at him in the candlelight, ‘Always you are smoking and drinking and taking black coffee and looking at the girls. Oh, yes, I have seen you, you look so, at all the ones who are nice. And here of course there are many to look at. Our girls are highly pretty and they are feminine without being victims of an oppression. I think this is why Englishmen always like them and want to marry them, now and again.’ ‘I expect so,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, my dear, I think you are a man of many vice,’ says Marisja, ‘And do you get a great pleasure of your pleasure?’ ‘Not particularly,’ says Petworth. ‘No, always you are looking for something, I feel it,’ says Marisja, ‘But I don’t know at all what it is.’ ‘Neither do I,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you know what I think?’ asks Lubijova, ‘I think you have come here to make yourself some guilt. That is why you have come. Well, you have chosen the right place. Here they will be pleased always to hear your confession. I think some people know that already, don’t you?’ ‘Who?’ asks Petworth. ‘Your good old friend,’ says Lubijova, ‘Your Plitplov.’ ‘I’d forgotten him,’ says Petworth. ‘He will not let you,’ says Lubijova, ‘After all, he knows so well your wife. What does he know? What does he find out about you?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Petworth. ‘You don’t like to tell,’ says Marisja, ‘You know I am your friend.’ ‘I really don’t know,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, marriage is a secret thing, we do not know who is betrayed, or how,’ says Lubijova, ‘Perhaps it is so secret that those who are there do not know it. But I hope you do not trust him, this Plitplov.’

  They sit at their table, in another country; the aproned waitress comes to them with a bottle of wine. ‘And you, are you married?’ asks Petworth, as the waitress applies a knife to the top of the bottle. ‘Oh, me?’ asks Lubijova, looking up, ‘Do you think so? Why do you think it?’ ‘Your name, Lubijova,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, no, it does not mean that,’ says Marisja, ‘It means I am a woman. Which I think you noticed, I believe you notice women. Well, I am one of those. It is my maiden’s name.’ ‘So you’re not married,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, it is possible,’ says Lubijova, ‘Often when we marry we keep our maiden’s name. If you like to change it, you must stand in a line for many hours. So perhaps I am married.’ ‘But are you?’ asks Petworth. ‘You are very interested, of a sudden,’ says Marisja, ‘Well, I am and I am not.’ ‘That makes it much clearer,’ says Petworth. ‘You see, once I was, not any more,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘When I am student, I marry a boy who liked to be a doctor.’ ‘Are you divorced?’ asks Petworth. ‘No, do you know what that boy did?’ asks Marisja, ‘He was very political, his father was high in the Party. So as a doctor he went away to Vietnam, to help those people against imperialism. And I stay here and make my examen with your Plitplov.’ ‘And what happened?’ asks Petworth. ‘Of course he died,’
says Marisja Lubijova, ‘Not with a bullet, he caught a small something that was not so small, and he was not such a good doctor to make better himself. And this is what happened to him, and also to me.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘No, it was not such a close relation, we were two students who studied together,’ says Marisja, ‘But close enough that I have small son. You must come a bit close for that.’ ‘A son,’ says Petworth, ‘Don’t you miss him when you travel like this?’

  ‘Not so much,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘You see, this is my work, and we like to put first our work here. I am interpreter, I like my job, I think I do it quite nicely. Of course one pays a little price. But it is good to make travels. I go quite often, I am one of those you see in the dolmetsch boxes, in the congresses, with the headsets. Four channels, you click so, Russian, German, English, French. No one notices you, you make the world happen.’ ‘And what happens to your son?’ ‘So many questions,’ says Lubijova, laughing, ‘Here we have very good families. The world is hard but we are close. He lives at a certain apartment where is my mother. She likes to look to him, she is happy. He goes to a kindergarten, he is happy. They teach him to march up and down like a soldier in the square. I come home and I bring good things. When I am not with you, do you know what I am doing? I am finding a line, buying some tins, perhaps some toilet paper. Or there are some nice jams from a hotel. Our lives at home are not so bad, but you do not see them. And this is why my son plays now with his toys in Slaka, and I am happy in a restaurant of Glit here with you. This wine, you like it?’ ‘I do,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, it is not so bad, it is of this region,’ says Lubijova, looking at him with her pale face and dark hair across the table, ‘Well, now we have made an exchange. On the first night I have found out about you. You like to travel, you like the darks. And now you have found out about me. So I think we make again a little toast. Do you think you remember how to do it?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, lifting his glass. ‘Oh, Petwurt, no, it is not like that,’ says Lubijova, laughing, ‘You have forgotten. I hope you have not forgotten all those lessons you learn in my country.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth.

  ‘Now,’ says Lubijova, looking hard at him, ‘Put up the glass, then the eyes. Remember you must be always very sincere. I like you, you are fine, I want you in my bed, my dear. Think it very hard, can you do it? I hope so. Of course you can, see, you look at me in just the right way. I am glad, your time here has after all not been waste, I was beginning to think so. But perhaps now you begin to learn something. So, my friend: what toast? To your tour in the countryside. No, that is not so good a toast, far too ordinary. Do you remember the other? Zu frolukuu daragayuu?’ ‘What’s that?’ asks Petworth. ‘Yes, you forget everything,’ says Marisja, laughing, ‘Of course, to the beautiful ladies. This time sincerely. To the ones you met already, also the ones perhaps you meet now. And for your sake, I hope these will be the better ones.’ The chatter chatters in multilingua from the surrounding tables; the waitress comes with a nameless soup made of dairy products. They eat the meal, while the candle gutters; they walk back through the darkness in the narrow streets of Glit to their hotel. ‘If you’d like one more drink,’ says Petworth, just outside the entrance, ‘I still have my duty-free whisky.’ ‘Oh, you want to make some more toast?’ cries Marisja, ‘Well, in my country it is our custom to drink and talk very late, discussing the fine concepts until we are stupid. But, my dear, I think tonight, not. You must be very tired, and I am also. And tomorrow your lecture must be good. Also, don’t forget it, we have many more times together. Yes, I think really you will need your bottle, in some more days, but not now.’ They go inside the illlit lobby and part. Soon, in the clean narrow bed, by the gurgling river, Petworth sleeps. In a dream, there is despair: he is looking for a word for a thing, but he does not know what the thing is, because the word will not come. There is a desire to incorporate, to make what is outside inside; and it seems that a body is there, a body that presses itself against him, puts something to his mouth. But when he wakes in the darkness, he is alone, with the water running outside, in the tight narrow bed.

  II

  Over the days that follow, Petworth finds himself once more in a quite familiar world, following a quite familiar course. He is a visiting lecturer again, with a busy life: events come and go away, and so do the people in them, none of them characters in the world historical sense. A small battered car with a faceless student driver in it comes to the hotel in the morning, to take him and his guide through the streets of Glit and out to the campus of the university, a new university, out of town on a scoured and treeless hill. The pourers of concrete have poured and poured; the buildings sit straight and squat in the rounded mountain landscape. Like most new universities, it is, inside, a place of exposed pipes and frankly steaming ducts, and with numbers instead of names on all the doors. He walks along corridors where posters flap and the tiles have begun to crack; a small professor, a shy man called Professor Vlic, appears from behind a bookstack and greets him. ‘And your poetic laureate? It is still the excellent John Masefield?’ asks Professor Vlic, leading him into a very tiny study, with three miniature easy chairs and a coffee table, ‘I always please to see a visitor from Britain. And your British disease, you still have it? Or does it go away and everyone likes again to work? Your Iron Lady, how does she? Does she perform, does she make her miracle?’ It is lecture talk, and Petworth talks it; Professor Vlic dispenses coffee from a coffee-maker; a canary in a cage hangs tweeting from the bookcase. ‘We hope you stay with us all day, we like to use you,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘In the morning I allow you an hour and some questions. I make a short speech to introduce, just some nice things of you. Our students perhaps not like yours, a little quiet, it is not their language. Of course they look forward much to your conference. You have your paper, do we go there?’

  A little later, Petworth finds himself in a great auditorium, which rakes backward into gloom and darkness; smudged student faces sit there, gloomy too. At the back, at the end of a row, sits a man who is holding up a newspaper, P’rtyuu Populatuuu; for a moment Petworth thinks of Plitplov, but Glit, surely, is too far away for even that mobile man. A line of short stout lady professors sits in the front row, thinking Marxist thoughts and knitting. At the podium, a long introduction unfolds from Professor Vlic, in the language he still does not know, though a name roughly resembling his own sounds now and again, as, it seems, Petworthim does this, Petwortha once did that. The desks creak, and there is a wind blowing through the room. Taking a lecture from his briefcase, a piece on the difference between ‘I don’t have’ and ‘I haven’t got’ which has won some international acclaim, Petworth goes to the podium and begins to speak. The faces here seem darker, browner than they were in Slaka; the man with the newspaper does not put it down. The faces strive to look as if they are listening; at the end of the lecture there is only one question. ‘I believe Marx was very pleased with the British Darwin because he destroys the telegogu and establishes at last a critical Utopia,’ says one of the ladies in the front row, putting down her knitting; ‘I believe so,’ says Petworth. At the end of the session, when Petworth is led out, the students all stand up, except for the man with the newspaper. ‘I hope you take some lunch with us and we make a dialogi,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘Most of our professors are women, as you see, and they have very good ideas and also some babies, so their day is difficult. Perhaps you talk to them now and this afternoon.’

  Petworth is taken through the tiled corridors to the cafeteria, where he eats a cold bad lunch of a familiar kind off a tray at a plastic-topped table: ‘And do you believe, as Boehme did, that there is one deep level of speech that sounds below all languages?’ asks one of the short, stout lady professors. ‘I enjoy very much your bog,’ says another of the lady professors. ‘My bog?’ says Petworth. ‘Your excellent bog,’ says the lady, ‘Of course I have read it.’ In the afternoon, there is a faculty seminar, where the short stout lady professors continue with their knitting and their tho
ughts. ‘Tell me please, Prifusorru Patwat,’ says one of the ladies, ‘You know perhaps that somewhere at around the dawn of our experimental century arosed a crucial question, not first time, but dominating all since; that question I refer is so. What is the relation between the objective and historical world, which our scientists and men of physics view as reality, and the inward world of the seer, do you say perceiver, the psychic ego, from which place only may such a world be known? As you know, the reconciliations of these thoughts have been many, from Hegel to Marx to Freud and your own Wittgenstein, who was not yours truly. Now, do you tell me, how do you reconcile this ultimating question?’ ‘Also,’ asks another lady, ‘Do you think it is possible to reconcile the reception-aesthetic of an Iser with a Lukacsian Hegelianism?’ Perhaps we should leave Petworth for a moment and find the toilet as he deals with these questions, and other such matters that, in seminar rooms throughout the world, faculties discuss with visiting speakers: the poverty of the library; the folly of the university administration; the lunacy of a ministry that institutes an educational reform but fails to have it ready when term starts, so that the students are not told and the books do not come and classes must be cancelled and the students protest and the police come and the poor faculty are compelled to remain at home working on their own research. ‘You have given us excellent afternoon and I like if you please to dine you this evening,’ says Professor Vlic, as he leads Petworth out of the seminar room and toward the battered car, in which, after going back once for his briefcase, and again to collect the offprint of an article by one of the lady professors, Petworth retums to his small old hotel by the river.