Came the Dawn

by Roger Bax

  The little man waved me to a seat on the port side of the boat, with the lieutenant beside me. Denny sat down opposite the lieutenant and our host opposite me. He said: “First let us get acquainted. My name is Alexander Kleinman. The lieutenant here is Stepan Gorbenko—Stepan Ivanovitch Gorbenko. You know we have patronymics in Russia?”

  I said: “Patronymics? Oh, you mean that business of taking your father’s name? Like Ivanovich? Yes, I read about that in a book. War and Peace it was called. A very good book, by a man named Tolstoy. You know it, I expect.”

  Kleinman nodded. So far he evidently couldn’t make us out at all. He said, “You like literature?”

  I smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid I can’t say I know much about it,” I said. I hadn’t really intended to start a discussion on literature right at the beginning of the party. It would follow, I felt, a well-worn track. I quite expected that Kleinman would announce he was a great admirer of Dickens.

  “In Russia we like your Dickens,” said Kleinman.

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean, I can understand that. He is a very fine novelist, with a lot of sympathy for the under-dog.” That seemed to dispose of Dickens to everyone’s satisfaction. “By the way,” I went on hurriedly, “my name is Philip Suthers. My friend’s name is Jack—er—Henry Jack.”

  Denny beamed.

  “Good,” said Kleinman. “Now that we all know each other, let us have a highball, yes?” He grinned with difficulty, as though he had a sore face, and showed three gold teeth. On the whole I preferred his face in repose.

  Stepan had selected one of a dozen half-litre bottles of Moscow vodka which adorned the table, and was jerking the waxed cardboard stopper out of it by hitting the bottom of the bottle with the palm of his hand. It was a simple little trick which Denny and I had ourselves often performed. Stepan looked pleased when we expressed interest, and demonstrated how it was done. Then he poured the vodka into four glasses in what appeared to me to be lethal quantities.

  “Before we drink,” said Kleinman, “please help yourselves to food.” He waved his bony hand over the board.

  Denny piled an assortment of zakuski on to his plate and I followed suit. The atmosphere up to now was far from free and easy—I felt that Kleinman was watching everything we did and was waiting to catch us out in some mistake. I knew there were plenty of mistakes we could make, and I couldn’t reach Denny to kick him under the table even if I’d wanted to.

  When our plates were stacked high with food, Kleinman raised his glass ceremoniously. “I propose you a toast,” he said. “To an enjoyable vacation.” So far he hadn’t bothered to translate a word of the conversation—Stepan was evidently expected just to tag along quietly. We nodded our appreciation of the toast. I took a little sip of the colourless liquid and put down my glass. Foreigners, I had noticed, always approached vodka with a certain initial caution, and this was supposed to be our first experience of the stuff. Denny went one better in corroborative detail. He choked. Stepan bounced up and began thumping him on the back. Kleinman looked amused and I began to feel a little less constrained. I said: “It’s pretty strong stuff. It would make a good varnish remover.”

  “Eh?” said Kleinman.

  “Just a joke, Mr. Kleinman. Gosh, I can feel it burning now.”

  “The trouble,” said Kleinman, “is that you are scared of it. It is not really strong—not so strong as your goddam visky. But you must know how to drink. One big swallow, it is gone, then you eat. Watch Stepan, he will show you.”

  Stepan had already emptied his glass, but he was very ready to demonstrate his technique. There was quite a ritual attached to it. He broke bread and nibbled a piece, then he flicked the side of his neck with the nail of his first finger, and clinked glasses with us. We all drank “bottoms up” without disaster, and Kleinman applauded.

  “This is a magnificent banquet,” I said.

  “It is all from cans,” said Kleinman. “On a boat it is the best we can do. But Russian food is good. Look at Stepan here—he is from the Ukraine, where the food is the best in Russia. What a man! What a stomach!” He patted the lieutenant’s stomach playfully while Stepan poured another round. Kleinman seemed to treat Stepan as something between a puppet and a poor relation.

  “If I may,” I said, “I should like to propose a toast myself.”

  “Sure!” said Kleinman. “Please—go ahead.”

  “To your boat, then—the Neva.” We drained glass number two, and I made two marks with my thumbnail on the tablecloth. I was glad to see that Denny was eating steadily through the various dishes—we had always found the important thing with vodka was to have plenty of blotting-paper to soak it up. I was also keeping an eye on both the Russians to make sure there was no heel-tapping. At Russian banquets—particularly when there were soldiers or sailors present—there was always an element of rivalry in the drinking. When foreign guests were being entertained it was almost a point of honour for the Russians to get them drunk without getting drunk themselves. But occasionally I had known the Russians cheat. At one banquet I had actually seen Vishinsky himself slip some water into his vodka glass when he thought no one was looking and then brazenly propose a toast. Tonight, however, nothing of the sort could happen, for there was no water on the table. We could all watch each other drinking level.

  After we had drunk the toast to Neva Denny said: “I like your boat. I like the sound of her engine.”

  “Yes, it is a good engine,” said Kleinman without enthusiasm. His little eyes focussed on Denny. “Do you know about engines?”

  “A little,” said Denny. “I am an engineer, you know.”

  Kleinman seemed rather surprised. I remembered that he had us pigeon-holed as English gentlemen. He said, “You work in a factory?”

  I caught Denny’s eye. He said: “Well—er—not exactly. I—I own one.”

  “Ah!” said Kleinman. “Of course.” He grinned. “A capitalist.”

  “In a small way,” said Denny modestly.

  “Mr. Jack,” I observed, “employs only about thirty workmen.”

  “What happens to the factory while you are away?” asked Kleinman.

  “I have a good manager,” said Denny. He looked very solemnly at Kleinman. “He does the work—I draw the money.”

  “Of course,” said Kleinman. “And you, Mr. Suthers—what is your line of business?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t do anything very much,” I said. “I just amuse myself, you know. I have a private income. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

  Kleinman looked startled. “I don’t get you,” he said.

  I explained the phrase, and the three of us laughed. Kleinman seemed more satisfied now that he had us fitted into a social background. The lieutenant was twisting his glass round and round and his face had a fixed, mirthless grin as though he knew he had to look happy, but couldn’t see why. I wondered what he was really thinking—it wasn’t much of a party for him so far. I said: “It’s a pity our friend, the lieutenant, doesn’t speak English. He must feel out of it.”

  Kleinman gave a contemptuous downward flick with his hand. “Nichevo. Don’t bother about him—he has vodka, he is quite content. Tell me, Mr. Suthers, do you visit many countries in your yacht?” It was clear he was determined to pump us dry before the real drinking began.

  “Before the war,” I said, “I went to France and Holland. But now, of course, it’s not so simple. There are many shortages in England, and it’s not easy to prepare a boat for sea. Also, my friend and I are not very experienced sailors, and it is difficult to find a good paid hand.”

  “Like Joe?” said Kleinman. He didn’t miss anything, or forget anything.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “But you like visiting other countries, when you can do so?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You have never been to Russia?”

  There wasn’t much finesse about that. I looked hard into his beady eyes. “Unfortunately, no,” I said. “My friend h
oped to go during the war, but they sent him to Egypt instead. It was Egypt, wasn’t it, Henry?”

  “It certainly was,” said Denny, with a mouth full of caviare. He was beginning to get a vodka flush. “Don’t ever go to Egypt, Mr. Kleinman. There’s nothing but sand and camels.”

  “You were in the Army?”

  Denny nodded. “Five years. In tanks.”

  “It was a great fight against the Hitlerite scoundrels,” said Kleinman, rather unexpectedly. “You should have been at Stalingrad, where the outcome of the whole war was decided.”

  “What were you?” asked Denny tactlessly. “A political commissar?”

  “I was guarding the rear,” said our host. “Stepan-Ivanovitch, more vodka!” I scratched in number three as Kleinman raised his glass. “Another toast,” he said. “To the day when you visit our great country, Russia.”

  We drank that with proper enthusiasm. If Kleinman had known how soon that day was to be he wouldn’t have looked so pleased with himself. I said: “I’ve heard and read a good deal about your country, Mr. Kleinman. Of course, there are various views about it in England, as you probably know. Not everyone at home approves of what you do. But then, you don’t always approve of us. It’s a pity relations can’t be better. We could do so much good in the world if we worked together.”

  That speech seemed to fit into the party line all right, for Kleinman nodded vigorously. “That is just it,” he said. “All that is needed is co-operation between us, instead of disagreement. But we must have patience. One day your country will change its opinions and will agree that the Soviet Union is right, and then there will be co-operation.” His voice dropped a little. “You know our great leader and teacher comrade Stalin has said that there is no reason why our country and yours should not be friends.”

  Denny leaned across the table and said twice, in a loud voice, “It’s the right spirit.” I wasn’t quite sure at first to what spirit he was referring. His speech was getting rather thick and a lock of black hair was falling across his forehead. He said, “Let’s drink to comrade Stalin.”

  I thought myself that there was a certain lack of reverence in his tone, but Kleinman didn’t appear to notice it, and anyway we weren’t posing as anything but plain outspoken Englishmen. The lieutenant struggled to his feet when he realized what the toast was about and stood rocking slightly as we clinked glasses. The pace was getting a bit gruelling. I had been pretty drunk several times in my life, but I had never before sat down at a table with the cold-blooded intention of finishing up underneath it.

  That last glass seemed to loosen the lieutenant’s tongue. He’d obviously been bottling up a lot of things all the evening out of deference to Kleinman, but the vodka had made him bold. He began to ask Kleinman various things about us. Kleinman was a bit impatient and tried to brush the questions aside, but the lieutenant persisted. This, of course, was where we had to appear out of the conversation. I looked inquiringly at Kleinman and presently he said, “The lieutenant is interested to know if you have ever studied dialectical materialism.”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t understand it if I did,” I said. Kleinman translated, and to my surprise the lieutenant looked rather relieved. He grinned self-consciously and said: “It is the same with me. For many months I have been studying the history of Marxism, to get a diploma, but I cannot get it.” Kleinman wasn’t interested in the lieutenant’s academic failures and asked him to pour out some more vodka. I felt sorry for Stepan, who was plainly a simple soul in need of a friendly ear. I said to Kleinman: “Ask Stepan Ivanovitch to tell us about himself. Has he always been in the Navy?”

  That started something. No sooner had Kleinman translated than Stepan planted his elbows on the table among the debris and plunged into the story of his life. I looked at Kleinman and went on eating unconcernedly, as though I expected to be put wise when the torrent of words was over. But I was fascinated, not only by the strength of the torrent, but by Stepan’s vitality, and by a new boastfulness. It seemed that he had become a sailor only as a result of the war. “Before the war,” he said, “I was a coal-miner in the Donbass.” He made a gesture as though he were lifting a heavy pick, and an empty vodka bottle went crashing to the floor. “I was a shock-worker,” he said, “a Stakhanovite.” He threw out his chest and gave it one or two blows with his fist, making it rumble like a drum. “I was the strongest man in the pit.”

  Kleinman translated, though the pantomime made Stepan’s drift fairly clear.

  Denny said, “What’s a Stakhanovite?” and we listened patiently while Kleinman explained how the original Stakhanov had made history by discovering that if you did less walking at work you saved time. But Stepan was now impatient of Kleinman’s interventions. He was stabbing the air in front of Denny with a fork to give emphasis to his words. “In the Donbass,” he said, “our pit in 1941 was the best in the whole of the Ukraine. We over-fulfilled our plan by thirty-five per cent. I myself produced at the coal-face half as much again as any other man.” He held up his great fists, knotted his muscles. “I tell you, I am strong. I can tear a seam of coal to pieces. I can fill two buckets while my comrade fills one. That is heroic labour.” He glanced at Kleinman. “That is Leninist-Stalinist work.”

  I spluttered and pretended it was the vodka, while Kleinman gave us a fair translation. Stepan was really wound up now. He was as full of his prowess as a child. He reeled off statistics of coal production and showed us a medal of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour that he’d received from President Kalinin. He seemed to be a model son of the Soviet Union, vigorous, earnest and unquestioning. Kleinman watched him with a slightly sardonic expression, as though he was finding the exhibition somewhat naive.

  The party was now beginning to warm up appreciably. Denny and the lieutenant were both visibly oiled. Denny, a diligent mixer and a patient man, was soon engaged with Stepan in something that sounded like bilingual baby talk. ‘Plate’, Denny would say, holding it out rather shakily for another helping of smoked salmon. ‘Ple-it’, Stepan would echo after him. Presently I heard Denny trying to get his tongue round ‘tarielka’ as though he had never heard a Russian word pronounced in his life. I had to fight down a tendency to giggle helplessly, and concentrate on Kleinman, who was struggling hard to keep his wits about him. The effort had given his face an apoplectic hue but it had been largely successful. He said, alarmingly, “I am sorry for your man by himself on your boat.”

  I waved my hand airily. “He’s quite happy,” I said. “I told him he could help himself to our rum. He likes rum.” I put my hand confidentially on Kleinman’s arm. “Tomorrow,” I said, “we will all have a party on board Dawn. Not like this, perhaps—with all this luxury—but still, a good party. And you shall try our rum.”

  “So you are not getting the hell out of it tomorrow?” said Kleinman.

  I said with great intensity, “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are not leaving tomorrow?”

  I shook my head, raised my glass and waved it tipsily. “No,” I said. “No, we are not leaving. Do you know what we are going to do tomorrow? You don’t? Well, I’ll tell you. We shall be drunk. Quite, quite drunk. All day long. We shall lie in our bunks and sleep. Won’t that be lovely?”

  Kleinman grinned, and reached for the vodka bottle. For him, that was the watershed—if you can call it that—between sobriety and intoxication. From that moment he seemed to stop worrying and really begin to drink. From that moment, too, my own recollections become a little hazy. I know that we began to get very matey. I asked him to tell me what Russian women were like, and the subject being very much to his taste he went into a lot of detail. He told me about an adventure he’d had with some girl in Kazan, and pretty soon the conversation at our end of the table had definitely taken a turn for the worse. He had picked up a good deal of smut in Chicago as well as his frightful accent and odd vocabulary, and he told me a lot of old stories. At some point in the night I remember noting with surprise that I’d chalked up
twelve vodkas on the tablecloth, but that must have been comparatively early. I remember, too, in a vague sort of way, seeing Denny and the lieutenant get up and stagger out to have a look at Neva’s engine, which I don’t think Kleinman would have approved of at an earlier stage in the evening. They were talking and laughing a great deal, just as though they understood each other. I imagine they were merely repeating the same words over and over again, but they were evidently having a thoroughly good time.

  I had been afraid that Kleinman might get political and quarrelsome in his cups but—perhaps significantly—he soon forgot his ideology when he began to get tight. Our toasts were becoming more frequent and more silly, and our relations were getting better and better. I began to think I had misjudged him—he now seemed to me a friendly little chap. I know I shook him by the hand several times and asked him to come and stay in my flat when he came to London. He tried without much success to write down my London address in a little book and I drew a sketch-map of the district. He also showed me a game which he said was a Russian variation of noughts and crosses, but you played it with nude blondes.

  Then, inevitably, someone started to sing. I suppose it was the lieutenant. He had a strong tenor voice and no inhibitions. He started off with some rousing naval songs in which Kleinman tried to join, though he obviously didn’t know the words. Then he gave us, of all things, ‘The Miners’ Song’ and some dirge about ‘bending our broad backs for Stalin’. Having got this required music off his chest he produced a balalaika from the forepeak—practically breaking up the cabin to get it—and began crooning old Ukrainian folk-songs. Vaguely I knew that I knew them, and vaguely I remembered that I was not supposed to know them. They brought back old nostalgic scenes and memories—frozen dug-outs on the Don, peasant huts and bomb-shattered provincial hotels, broken-down Russian buses and stranded Russian aeroplanes, early morning vodka parties with Red Army officers and Russian correspondents, and dancing with buxom Russian waitresses in the empty palaces of the Crimea. For me, these songs were part of the warp and weft of the war years and now I had to hum them and pretend they were new to me. I felt very sentimental and was sorry for myself in a maudlin way. I was getting very drunk.