by Jonathan Coe
There was only one thing that he knew for sure: at the foot of his marital bed, on Sunday night, he had found a used corn plaster. A Calloway’s Corn Cushion, no less. Which meant that Norman Sparks had been in that bed, perhaps only a day or two before. That was the only reality in his life at the moment, and everything else, for all he knew, might be a figment of his or the British security services’ or for that matter Baron Moens de Fernig’s vivid imagination. No wonder Shirley thought that he looked strange. He felt as though he was beginning to go mad. Having a nervous breakdown, or something.
He looked across at Shirley. She was talking to that American, Ed Longman, again. Thick as thieves, nowadays, those two. Nice to see at least one of these Expo romances flourishing, he supposed, in a relatively uncomplicated way. He wondered how many of the love affairs taking shape at this fair would stand the test of time: how many of the couplings begun in its heady, unnatural atmosphere would lead to anything substantial: to marriage, or to children. Shirley and Longman seemed pretty tight together, at any rate. He was looking into her eyes and pressing something into her hand. She saw Thomas looking at them and winked at him.
Thomas sighed, drank more beer, and looked at his watch. Chersky was late. He did not much care for being made to wait here, alone with his thoughts. The more he contemplated his wife’s betrayal, the more depressed he felt, and the less he could decide what to do about it. He had promised to wake her before leaving the house on Monday morning, but in the event he had not done so: unable to talk to her, look at her or even be close to her, he had spent the rest of the night in the spare bedroom and then sneaked out of the house at six in the morning after looking in on the sleeping Gill. Since arriving back in Brussels he had not phoned Sylvia, let alone begun writing the letter he knew would finally have to be written. In fact, apart from calling on Emily in the American pavilion earlier that morning, he had done nothing apart from sitting in his cabin, and at various bars and cafés around the Expo site, in a daze of indecision and inertia.
‘My dear Mr Foley,’ a familiar voice now said, ‘I’m so sorry for being late.’
It was Mr Chersky, looking somewhat flustered and out of breath. He had his briefcase with him, filled with the usual sheafs of papers. Thomas already had the latest issue of Sputnik open on the table. He stood up and shook Chersky by the hand, hoping that his eyes did not give any indication of the new wariness he felt towards him.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Miss Knott saw me come in, I believe. I’m sure she will bring me my usual, without me having to ask. This is the sign of a good English pub, isn’t it? Knowing your “regulars”, as I believe they are called.’
‘You’ll be returning to Moscow a veritable expert on the British way of life,’ said Thomas, flatly.
‘I hope so. That is certainly my intention. Now – did you get the chance to read our last number? I would welcome your thoughts.’
‘Yes, I did read it,’ said Thomas, casting his eye across the large sheet of cheap newsprint, folded in half as always to make up a four-page issue. ‘I have to say that I don’t think you’ve made much progress. It has all the same faults as the earlier ones.’
‘Namely?’
‘Well, I’ve told you all of this before. First of all, it’s the statistics. There are too many statistics!’ He started to read aloud from an article extolling the triumphs of the Russian childcare system. ‘Listen to this: “In the Soviet Union there are 106,000 accommodations in children’s sanatoriums, 965,000 accommodations in permanent, over 2 million in seasonal crèches, and 2.5 million accommodations in kindergartens and children’s summer playgrounds.’ ”
‘Well?’ said Andrey. ‘Don’t you think that’s impressive?’
‘Of course it’s impressive. But this is hardly the way to make your readers –’
‘Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen.’ It was Shirley, carrying another pint of bitter and a packet of crisps. ‘Here you are, Mr Chersky. I don’t have to ask what you want any more, do I?’
‘Indeed you don’t, Miss Knott.’
‘I’m going to buy shares in Smith’s crisps when I get home,’ she said, putting the drink carefully down on the table. ‘In a year’s time I reckon the whole of Russia will be eating them, if you have anything to do with it.’
‘You might be right.’ And as she walked away, he called after her, laughing, ‘But not with the salt on! Salt is bad for you, remember?’
Shirley laughed too. ‘Oh, Mr Chersky, you are a card!’
Andrey was still chuckling to himself as he took his first sip of the beer. ‘Ah, the English sense of humour. Finally I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. And, as I hope you noticed, there is also more humour in the paper now than before. That’s your influence, Mr Foley.’
‘Yes, I was going to mention that. This collection of “humorous” sayings from Russian children.’
‘Charming, aren’t they?’
‘Baffling, would be my own way of putting it. What about this one? “Is the knife the fork’s husband?’ ”
Andrey laughed long and hard at this. Thomas stared at him.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said, and Andrey turned off his laugh abruptly.
‘Neither do I,’ he admitted. ‘I was hoping you could explain it to me. What about this: “What if a rooster forgets he’s a rooster and lays an egg?” Isn’t that funny?’
‘Not especially.’
‘Hm!’ He snorted with displeasure. ‘The writer assured me that these were hilarious. I thought I just wasn’t clever enough to understand them.’
‘I think you should forget about humour for a while.’
‘Very well. That sounds like a good idea. Especially as our next issue will be devoted entirely to science. And the main feature is an excellent piece of work. Even you, Mr Foley – even you who are so hard to impress – you are going to enjoy this article.’
‘Why, what’s it about?’
Mr Chersky had opened his packet of crisps and was munching through them, as usual, with an expression like that of a gourmet enjoying an especially fine example of haute cuisine.
‘It’s about the man of the future,’ he said, between mouthfuls. ‘A very eminent Soviet scientist has written an article explaining how mankind will have evolved one hundred years from now.’
‘And . . .?’
‘Well, of course you will have to read it. But it will be one of many things in this particular issue to interest you, I think. We also have a good article about Russian advances in nuclear fusion. Of course, in the interests of journalistic truth and impartiality, we had to report – with great sorrow, naturally – that the British scientists who have been working in this area seem to have greatly overestimated their own achievements. Which reminds me . . . there was one fact I wanted to check with you. Is it true, as I have heard, that the replica ZETA machine has been removed from the British pavilion to save embarrassment?’
This question was accompanied by a smile but also by an insolent, challenging look. Thomas’s own smile barely concealed his distaste. Honesty, however, compelled him to say: ‘Yes, it’s true.’
‘Good. We will mention it in the article. Only, it’s always best to check the facts first, don’t you agree?’ He finished the last of his crisps, folded up the empty bag carefully and put it into the side pocket of his jacket. ‘And in the next issue but one, you’ll be pleased to hear, we will be talking about Soviet ladies’ fashions, and contrasting them with their American counterparts. Miss Parker has been most helpful in supplying us with some designs. And talking of Emily –’ (his smile became even more charming, and at the same time – Thomas thought – even less sincere) ‘– I understand that you are planning an excursion with her in the next few days. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ said Thomas, carefully, wondering how Andrey could have heard
of this already, and realizing at once that there were hundreds of ways.
‘It sounds a delightful idea. A summer picnic, in the Belgian countryside! This Saturday, I believe.’
‘That’s right.’
‘She told me that you know of a most attractive location. A field of golden buttercups, she said, by the banks of a river, not far from Leuven.’
‘Something like that,’ said Thomas – who had seen Emily, and shared his imagined impression of this scene, only a few hours before.
‘Then only one question remains.’Andrey gathered his papers and shuffled them together into a neat pile. ‘What time shall I pick you both up?’
Pastorale d’Eté
Early in the afternoon of Saturday, 9 August 1958, Andrey and Emily came to collect Thomas from the gateway of the Motel Expo Wemmel. As he might have predicted, they were travelling in some style. Andrey was driving a 1956 ZiS 110 convertible sedan, in pale blue: the very pinnacle of Soviet car production. The weather promised to be perfect and Andrey had folded the roof of the car all the way back to allow maximum exposure to the sunshine. His eyes were shielded by cobalt-blue polarized sunglasses and he was wearing a light-cream sports blazer, with a silk neckerchief tucked into the open collar of his white shirt. Emily, for her part, wore a white linen shirt, navy-blue slacks, a navy-blue patterned paisley headscarf, and cat-eye sunglasses. They looked like a pair of movie stars. Climbing into his allotted space on the back seat, Thomas felt scruffy and self-conscious by comparison.
It took little more than half an hour to drive the thirty-five kilometres to Wijgmaal, where the arrival of the Russian car caused something of a sensation. It was a sleepy, suburban town, split in two by the narrow strip of green water that was the river Dijle. Half a dozen children were playing on the grassy recreation ground near to the bridge, but they abandoned their game and came running when the visitors appeared. ‘Kom kijken! Kom kijken!’ they shouted to all their friends, trotting along in the wake of the car and running their hands along its bodywork, treating it as though it were a cat that did not particularly want to be stroked. Andrey waved back at them and maintained the fixed, white-toothed grin that, to Thomas at least, was beginning to look more and more calculated and sinister. Look at him, he thought: he’s loving this attention, even though he would probably run these kids over at the drop of a hat if it suited his purposes.
‘Beautiful car,’ was all he said, however, as they unloaded the picnic things from the boot.
‘Not bad, is it?’ Andrey agreed. ‘You see, even we Russians know something about design.’
‘And yet, I would have thought,’ Thomas said, lifting up one of the two heavy wicker baskets, ‘that the use of cars like this would be restricted. To people high up in the Party, I mean.’
Was it just his imagination, or did Andrey seem to bridle for a moment, before resuming his usual air of slightly menacing bonhomie?
‘You have a very inaccurate idea of how things work in my country,’ he said. ‘This car belongs to the Soviet Embassy in Brussels. All I had to do was ask.’
‘I had no idea that magazine editors were granted such privileges.’
‘We are a nation that loves literature.’
‘And is that why they give you so much freedom of movement?’
‘Freedom of movement?’
‘It’s just that somebody told me most of the Soviet pavilion staff were confined to a hotel when they weren’t working. And they were taken to and from the pavilion every day by bus. They’ve not seen anything of Brussels itself at all. Whereas you seem to have more or less the run of the place.’
‘The “somebody” who told you these things was misinformed,’ said Andrey, shortly. ‘Now – which way shall we go? I think we are sure to find a pleasant spot in that direction.’
He pointed roughly south, upstream along the Dijle, back towards Leuven. But Thomas shook his head.
‘No, we have to go this way,’ he said, and gestured northwards from the bridge. ‘It doesn’t look as nice, but once we’ve followed the curve of the river for a few minutes, you’ll see. It will be much prettier.’
Emily could sense the tension between the two men and did her best to defuse it, by saying: ‘Thomas has very definite ideas about where we should be having this picnic. He seems to be quite the expert on this part of Belgium.’
‘Very well,’ said Andrey, grimly. ‘Let’s follow the expert.’
The river, as Thomas’s mother had told him, was not very wide at this point, and the bridge they were standing on crossed it without rising or falling at all. Although there was no clear path to be seen, it was easy enough to scramble down to the water’s edge, and from there they started to pick their way through the long grass, Thomas and Andrey carrying a basket each, Emily a rolled-up picnic rug under each arm.
The sky was deep-blue, almost azure, and there was a wonderful stillness all around them. To their left, the river meandered, a pale, mysterious green, opaque and cloudy in the afternoon sunlight; to their right, after two minutes’ walk from the bridge, a broad meadow opened out, dotted here and there with thistles, its grass bleached to grey-brown by weeks of dry weather. Thomas carried his mother’s map with him and led the way, looking back occasionally at Emily and Andrey, who were walking too close together for his liking, and talking in a way which seemed to be far too murmuringly familiar.
Soon they had reached a place where the river curved languidly to the west, and at the point of the curve there was a wide expanse of long grass – partly shaded by a nearby cluster of sycamores – which positively insisted that passers-by throw down their picnic rugs and linger there. So that was what they did. And after only a few minutes they heard voices, and the sound of approaching bicycles: Thomas looked back towards the bridge and saw that the others had arrived. After Andrey had derailed his plans for a quiet afternoon with Emily à deux, he had admitted defeat and, falling in with her original suggestion, given her free rein to invite as many people as she liked. So now Anneke was here, along with her friend Clara and a dark-haired young man he didn’t recognize. The three of them dismounted from their bicycles and began to push them along the riverbank towards the picnic spot. Thomas and Emily went to meet them halfway; Andrey stayed where he was.
‘My, my!’ said Emily to Anneke, admiringly. ‘Now that’s a sensible mode of transport, if ever I saw one. Did you ride them all the way from Brussels?’
‘It wasn’t so far,’ said Anneke. ‘About an hour and a half. And as you know, there are no hills in Belgium.’
She looked flushed and healthy from her morning’s exercise: her skin, which had already been sporting an even tan for the last few weeks, glowed with new vitality, and her eyes were shining brightly. Clara was sweating and gave off a faint, not displeasing animal smell. But Thomas was more interested in the third member of their party. He was tall and thickset and carried himself well. He looked to be roughly in his mid-twenties. He had a neatly trimmed black moustache and dark, enquiring brown eyes which returned Thomas’s stare with challenging but friendly curiosity.
‘Oh – this is my friend,’ Anneke explained. ‘His name is Federico. I hope you don’t mind that I brought him along.’
‘Of course not, my dear,’ said Emily. ‘An Italian gentleman – how exotic! Could this little gathering be any more cosmopolitan?’
Federico nodded at her and smiled.
‘Federico is a waiter at the Italian pavilion,’ said Anneke. ‘We met for the first time a few days ago. I’m afraid he doesn’t speak much English.’
‘Well, never mind that, dear. He’s awfully ornamental, at least. Now come along and spread yourselves out. We were just about to dive into the food. We worked up an appetite just driving here, so Lord knows what you must be feeling like.’
Andrey stood up when the ladies approached and offered Anneke and Clara each a gracious kiss on the hand. He shook hand
s briefly and formally with Federico, and then poured glasses of wine for everyone. When they were all seated, with their glasses poised, he said: ‘Allow me, if I may, to propose a short toast. We live in a world in which political barriers are constantly being erected between people of the different nations. Many of these barriers, in my view, are needless. The fact that we can sit down together like this – six people, from five different countries – proves that they are needless. Expo 58 proves that they are needless. So let us raise a glass to our generous and forward-thinking hosts, the people of Belgium, and to Expo 58!’
‘To Expo 58!’ everyone echoed.
‘I would also like to thank Mr Foley,’ Andrey continued, ‘for bringing us to this truly delightful spot. Tell me, Thomas, how did you hear of it? Where did you obtain your information?’
‘It was my mother’s suggestion,’ said Thomas.
‘Your mother?’
‘Yes. My mother is Belgian.’
‘Really? You’ve kept that a very closely guarded secret from the rest of us.’
‘We’re all entitled to our secrets, Mr Chersky,’ said Thomas. Andrey gazed back at him coolly. ‘And as for my mother, she used to live near here. Very close to where we’re sitting right now.’ But he realized, at that moment, that he would very much rather keep the rest of his mother’s story to himself. There were at least two people present with whom he preferred not to share it. ‘She told me about this river. She used to come here herself, I believe, when she was a young girl. Perhaps even on days like this.’