The Starlings of Bucharest

by Sarah Armstrong

  I went back to my leaflets and had a last cigarette before Alan and Ursula came over to fetch me. We all went in together.

  Marku had said his uncle had been here with a film company. I wondered if anyone was keeping an eye out for me, too. I turned to Alan.

  ‘Was Mircea Drăgan at one of the festivals? Is he here?’

  ‘No, he’s not here this year. He won a diploma at the last festival. Do you remember what the film was, Ursula?’

  ‘Explozia,’ she said. ‘Explosion. But in English I think it was called The Poseidon Explosion.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that,’ I said. ‘What did he look like? Drăgan?’

  Alan thought. ‘Quite thick set, dark hair. Why?’

  ‘I was supposed to interview him, but the man I saw was thin and balding.’

  ‘How odd,’ said Alan. ‘Didn’t you ask why he didn’t look like Drăgan?’

  ‘I thought it might have been an old picture that I saw, when he was younger.’

  ‘You really need to do more research, Ted,’ said Ursula. ‘You can’t let people take advantage of you.’

  The lights went down and we settled back in our seats, headphones on.

  CHAPTER 17

  It felt as if it should have been dark when we came out, but the sun wasn’t near setting. Alan sighed every couple of minutes.

  ‘I mean, he’s just perfect, isn’t he?’

  I exchanged a glance with Ursula.

  ‘We’ve seen the winner. We might as well go home.’

  Alan seemed drunk on Kurosawa adoration, wandering a bit behind us on the cobbles of Red Square.

  ‘Do you want to have a bath before we eat?’ asked Ursula.

  I looked at Alan, then realised she was talking to me.

  ‘Yes, all right. Shall I meet you in the café?’

  ‘We usually spend our second night in the Metropol, our way of celebrating the festival opening. Come to my room about eight, and we’ll have something to eat before we go.’

  ‘Before we go out to dinner?’

  ‘Yes. It can take an hour to get a single course in the Metropol. It’s never a good idea to go there when you’re hungry.’

  She told me her room number, 103, and I went ahead while she waited for Alan to catch up.

  I had a bath, then I checked in Smith’s Moscow what that round platform was that I had seen in Red Square: ‘Lobnoye Mesto’, he said. ‘Place of the Skull’. I flicked forward. Hundreds of deaths by hanging, whipping, scalding, molten lead straight down the throat. But that last one was just for traitors.

  I changed my clothes to less closely resemble the festival hotel staff, and knocked on Ursula’s door on the first floor a little early. I noticed her long turquoise dress, a gold tint on her eyelids, and I felt underdressed, again. Her bare feet pressed into the thick Chinese rug in the centre of the floor.

  She had a suite. A dressing room, a drawing room with an ornate waist to ceiling mirror, a bathroom with an even larger bath than mine, even an iron balcony with French doors. She didn’t show me the bedroom, but I’d seen enough.

  ‘How did you get this room?’ I asked.

  ‘I slept with the right person.’ She smiled, slyly. ‘Really, it’s just the luck of the draw. Hungry?’

  She led me back to the drawing room. There was white and black bread, cream, olives, crackers, red caviar and, I smiled, herring.

  ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Why does cream come with everything?’

  ‘It’s sour cream. It goes well with savoury food. Try a bit of it all. Especially the herring.’

  I loaded my plate, and Ursula poured champagne into three glasses. I hoped Alan would take his time. I didn’t feel that I knew Ursula at all, but I wanted to.

  ‘Are you married, Ursula?’

  She brought my glass and whispered into my ear. ‘Ask me personal questions at the restaurant.’

  I shivered. She clinked her glass against mine, and saluted the mirror with it.

  ‘Kippis!’

  She sat in an armchair next to the window, and lit a Prima cigarette.

  ‘Did you order this food from the restaurant?’

  ‘No. I dragged Alan to the Beriozka. He likes it really. There’s a brochure around here somewhere.’ She flicked through a pile of magazines on the floor next to her. I saw Sight and Sound and other film magazines. She’d been doing her homework. I had asked Mr Benstrup about getting some subscriptions into the office, but he’d sent me to the library. She found the right magazine and held it out to me. I sat in the chair opposite her own, plate on my lap and champagne on the floor. I flicked through the brochure, and laughed at the huge lumps of meat next to tinned peas.

  ‘Vegetables are a rarity,’ said Ursula, when I pointed it out.

  Everything else looked better than what I had at home. Jars of olives and béarnaise sauce, caviar and hot dogs, milk in strange little pyramid containers, thirteen types of cheese, not including processed cheese. ‘Knorr soups?’

  Ursula wrinkled her nose. ‘I didn’t like those. But, here, if it’s Western, it’s seen as worth having.’

  The last half of the booklet covered alcohol and tobacco with large, full page adverts of Heineken, Cointreau, Beefeater and Marlboro.

  ‘I wish I ate this well,’ I said. ‘They’ve got everything.’

  Ursula shook her head. ‘It can be in the brochure, but not in the shop. Like the menu, it’s a promise of what is possible, only.’

  ‘But, still, I thought the Russians were badly off.’

  Ursula put her glass on the table. ‘These shops aren’t for Russians, Ted. They’re for foreigners. They’re for us.’

  There was a knock. Ursula let Alan in. He was wearing a tie. I felt my open collar, and wished I’d at least brought one.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘This looks delicious. Except for the herring.’

  ‘Ted is being polite and trying it. Maybe you should too.’

  Alan waved his finger. ‘I fell for that emotional blackmail before. Maybe we should ask Ted what he thinks of the herring.’

  ‘It’s fine. I couldn’t eat a lot.’

  Ursula laughed, and handed Alan a plate. ‘I’ve hooked him.’

  ‘Did you bring your itinerary, Ted? I can tick some of the good films for you.’

  ‘No. I’ll bring it tomorrow. I started writing some notes up about the North Vietnamese film, though.’

  Alan picked up his champagne and sat down. ‘You can’t write about Girl from Hanoi, Ted.’

  ‘But that little girl was an amazing actress. And it was a great film.’

  I thought of the two little girls running across the bridge and started to well up again. I busied myself lighting a cigarette. It was too late. Ursula had noticed and came across to put her arm around me.

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  Alan topped up my champagne. ‘You have to remember the politics. It shows the Americans as violent imperialists, just the kind of thing the Soviets want us to take home as a message. Any American films they show will be the seediest, grubby side of America. Anywhere that is even vaguely Communist will be idealised. I’ll go through the list for you so you don’t watch things you can’t write about.’

  ‘All right, but that seems self-defeating. All films have some kind of sub-text. Think of Casablanca and its message about the war. It doesn’t make it a bad film.’

  ‘True,’ said Ursula, ‘and there is a huge amount of good in these kinds of festivals. Where else would you see films from Mongolia, Cuba or Syria?’

  ‘Or Finland,’ added Alan.

  ‘And of course they often give awards to revolutionary governments rather than films, but you could say Cannes awards them to style over substance. And there can’t be anything bad about seeing what is out there and allowing other cultures to influence your own.’

  Alan grunted, ‘Not too much.’ He added, ‘The films you absolutely should never watch here a
re the British films. They cut them so badly. Russians don’t even notice that the films they see are hacked to bits.’

  ‘What do they cut?’

  ‘Sex, mostly. Not that there’ll be any sex in Great Expectations. I mean, what a choice to represent Britain. Have we got nothing going for us but a Victorian writer and a dubious history of child exploitation? Why do we keep promoting Dickens to ourselves? It’s not like society has improved that much, is it? What’s Finland got this year, Ursula?’

  ‘Home for Christmas.’

  I finished my plate full of samples. I didn’t like the herring one bit, but I finished it. The caviar was fine, and I half-heartedly dipped some dark bread into the sour cream.

  I wasn’t sure about Alan’s opinion, and I wondered what Ursula thought about it, but I didn’t want to start a real argument while they enjoyed their pretend arguments so much. I liked listening to them, back and forth. Without them to guide me, I’d probably be sitting in my room, worried that the telephone would ring. Even so, was he serious that I couldn’t write about it? Wasn’t the point of film to see other places and other lives? I decided to write it anyway, and see what Mr Benstrup thought.

  Ursula was standing by the door, a midnight blue silk shawl draped over her shoulders and Alan draped on her arm. She held out her other arm to me. ‘Shall we, gentlemen?’

  We walked down the wide stairs like that, in a row, and I felt so proud. I caught sight of two of the North Vietnamese women, who half-bowed their heads, and smiled. They liked me because I’d cried at their film. Alan and Ursula liked me because they were kind. I fitted in with them without even trying. For the first time ever I felt at home. Home for a couple of weeks, anyway.

  CHAPTER 18

  The gardens across the road were full of people making the most of the warm summer evening. I had fallen behind the others, and Ursula stopped Alan so I could catch up. People looked at us as we walked past, clearly not from here, but they were interested rather than hostile.

  We crossed roads and, as they talked, I looked at the people carrying loaves of bread, their string bags full of paper packages. As we approached the Metropol, Alan pointed out the Bolshoi and saluted the statue of Marx.

  ‘Do they mind you doing that?’ I asked.

  ‘They get a lot of people who mean it.’

  Ursula said, ‘The problem wasn’t really Marx. He just had the idea. It was other people who implemented it.’

  Alan separated himself a little to look at her face. ‘I didn’t know you were a Marxist.’

  ‘I’m not.’ She looked confused. ‘You don’t have to believe something by learning about it. It’s not all fixed, and I like to understand what I am rejecting.’

  Alan shook his head. ‘I’m just not interested. I like my world the way it is. Do you know anything about Communism, Ted?’

  ‘Not a thing. This is my introduction.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’ Alan laughed. We’d arrived at the doors of the Metropol. ‘Watch what happens now.’

  The doorman nodded to us, and opened the door. We unlinked arms to pass through.

  ‘Think that happens for the great hordes? What you have to remember is that you can only fly to Arkhangelsk, and you can only take the train to Murmansk.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘That you’ll never really know what’s going on here, only what they show you. It doesn’t have to make sense, it’s just the way it is.’

  Alan headed towards the stairs on the left, and was stopped by a slim, smartly dressed man who greeted him by name. I was starting to think everyone in Moscow had a suit but me.

  ‘Christopher, this is a surprise.’ Alan introduced me, and we shook hands.

  ‘Christopher Hughes,’ he said.

  Alan said, ‘I’m sure you remember Ursula.’

  ‘I do indeed.’ As Christopher shook her hand he made a slight bow.

  ‘How’s your wife finding Moscow?’ asked Alan.

  Christopher looked thoughtful. ‘Ah. Moscow didn’t agree with Martha, I’m afraid. She headed back quite a while ago. Not long after I last met you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. I am sorry, Christopher.’

  ‘Never mind. It happens.’ He shook it off quickly with a professional smile. ‘You’re keeping up your tradition of first night at the Metropol, I take it?’

  ‘We are. This is Ted’s first visit to the Metropol, and Moscow.’

  He looked at me. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’ He turned back to Alan. ‘I would try the other restaurant tonight, Alan. Your normal venue is pretty packed. You’d be much better off on the fourth floor.’

  Alan nodded. ‘Would you like to join us?’

  ‘Another time, thank you.’ He shook our hands again, and waved as he left.

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Ursula.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Alan was still watching Christopher through the doors. ‘We were being warned off.’

  ‘I don’t mind going to the tea-room,’ said Ursula, ‘but it won’t be the same for Ted.’

  ‘We can come back another time.’

  We headed for the stairs.

  ‘What a shame about his wife,’ said Alan. ‘I suppose not everyone can put up with it here. I think they were only just married when I last saw him. Sweet little thing, Martha. She called him Kit and I thought it suited him. I really thought they’d last.’

  ‘He doesn’t look old enough to be married and divorced,’ I said.

  ‘He’s not much older than you,’ said Alan, ‘mid-twenties, I’d say.’

  Ursula said, ‘He acts much older than that, so serious.’

  Alan said, ‘I suppose that when he’s speaking to us he’s hard at work, representing Britain. I’ve met him a few times, yet I know next to nothing about him. If I hadn’t met his wife I wouldn’t even have known she existed. He smiled a lot when he was with her. What a shame that ended.’

  We’d reached the first floor when I felt my meal voucher in my pocket. ‘Does this place accept vouchers?’

  Ursula shook her head. ‘That settles it. We have to go to our usual place.’ She walked across the corridor, and looked through the restaurant door. ‘Whoever it was must have gone. It’s half empty.’

  She sat down and beckoned to us. Alan shrugged.

  ‘I’ll blame you both, if he asks.’

  We sat either side of Ursula, a spare chair between Alan and me. A waiter brought us menus, and Ursula quickly ordered some wine before he disappeared. She put her hand on my arm. ‘I will order for you. There are certain things you have to try to know that you have been to Moscow.’ She lowered her head, ‘I promise they are all better than herring.’

  I was embarrassed that I hadn’t disguised my feelings better, but relieved that she knew. When the waiter returned, Ursula ordered for us all again.

  ‘Now we relax, drink, and wait until we are nearly starved.’

  Alan still looked preoccupied, scanning the other tables. I had a look too. There was a large table with about eight women, and half the others had two or three people on them. No one was paying us the slightest attention. The room was strangely bright for a restaurant. A fountain trickled in the centre of the room.

  ‘Ursula, you said you would tell me about yourself when we got here.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I am married, and live in Helsinki. I have two children and a dog.’

  I was surprised it was so straightforward. ‘Why didn’t you say that before?’

  ‘That mirror in the room. I’m convinced there’s a camera behind it.’ She lowered her voice. ‘In fact I have covered the one in the bedroom with a blanket.’

  I looked at Alan.

  ‘Not because he’ll be there.’ She laughed. ‘It’s just the principle. Privacy is important.’ She waited for Alan to say something, but he was still distracted. ‘That first year we were here together, I’d had enough of the provocations, so I asked Alan to pretend to have an affair with me. Now every other year we have our fake Moscow fling,
and no one bothers us. No one believes it, but everyone pretends to. Alan is married too, aren’t you? Alan?’

  She patted his hand, and he came back to the conversation.

  ‘Yes. Thirty-six years married.’ His eyes slid away again. ‘Ursula, do you recognise any of those women? You’re good at faces. Are they from the festival?’

  ‘They are right behind me,’ Ursula hissed. ‘I can’t turn around, it’s too obvious.’

  I didn’t recognise anyone at the women’s table, but I’d had such a quick look as the group of women at the festival had walked past that I wasn’t surprised. There was a lot of talking going on, not one conversation, but many, and I caught snatches of different languages as well.

  ‘Are they translators?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Alan. ‘They’re not allowed to talk to the attendees, but I suppose they are just talking to each other.’ He nodded his head towards the empty bottles on the floor by their chairs. ‘That’s a lot of wine they’ve gone through. Is anyone— Oh.’ He put his head down. ‘I’ve spotted a couple of minders. Don’t look.’ He pointed with his finger in a way which made not looking much harder. ‘I think you’re right, Ted.’

  Ursula sighed. ‘What we do now is talk about anything and everything. We don’t look around and we don’t second guess. Only this table exists and the food which, with any luck, will start arriving within the hour.’ She held Alan’s hand. ‘Yes?’