The Miernik Dossier

17. TRANSCRIPTION OF A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MIERNIK AND ILONA BENTLEY (LISTENING DEVICE LOG; 26 MAY).

(Door opens and closes. Indistinct voices of two subjects. Sound of ice tray being emptied. etc.)

MIERNIK: I behaved very badly to Inge. I’m sure Léon is angry.

BENTLEY: Why should he be? Everyone has strong feelings. Léon understands that, if anyone does.

MIERNIK: But the French are so preoccupied with themselves.

BENTLEY: I suppose that the Poles are not. Or the English, or the Eskimos. You shouldn’t whip yourself, Tadeusz.

MIERNIK: Humanity should make a treaty with itself never to talk about the Germans.

BENTLEY: I’ll sign it.

MIERNIK: You must have more feeling about them than you let on. I can’t believe…

BENTLEY: As I said, I was young.

MIERNIK: But old enough to remember.

BENTLEY: When I am reminded, yes.

MIERNIK: I’m sorry. We’ll talk about other things. The Polish Question.

BENTLEY: That hasn’t been answered?

MIERNIK: Not for the Poles. You know the story about the Frenchman, the Englishman, the American, and the Pole who were asked to write about elephants? The Frenchman wrote about the sexual life of the elephant, the Englishman about the way the elephant treated small dogs, the American about the mass production of elephants. The Pole wrote a twenty-thousand-word monograph entitled “The Elephant and the Polish Question.”

BENTLEY: (Laughs.)

MIERNIK: You are extremely beautiful.

BENTLEY: When I laugh?

MIERNIK: At all times. Was your mother dark like you?

BENTLEY: Yes. My father was fair, like Nigel. English fairness.

MIERNIK: As soon as I say you are beautiful, you mention Nigel.

BENTLEY: That is the Hungarian part of me. Subtle.

MIERNIK: I like Nigel very much. I wonder if you do not find him frivolous.

BENTLEY: Why should I? He’s sort of solemn.

MIERNIK: That side of him I have never seen, except when he is doing his job. Then he has the Foreign Office manner. He glows with secrets, there is a dynamo of class privilege smoking under his good manners. But at all other times he does nothing but joke.

BENTLEY: They learn all that at school in England. It means nothing.

MIERNIK: You find it attractive?

BENTLEY: I find it irrelevant.

MIERNIK: In Nigel’s case only, or in the English as a whole?

BENTLEY: I’m English.

MIERNIK: Half.

BENTLEY: Half, then. But I don’t notice English manners particularly. I notice yours.

MIERNIK: Mine? Why?

BENTLEY: Because they are different from my own.

MIERNIK: And from Nigel’s?

BENTLEY: Yes. He would never mention any unhappiness he may have had. You mention little else. It’s a difference in cultures more than personality.

MIERNIK: Perhaps he has never been unhappy in the way that I have been unhappy.

BENTLEY: Nonsense. Everyone is unhappy.

MIERNIK: Even you?

BENTLEY: Even I.

MIERNIK: Even the beautiful are unhappy. That is very disillusioning.

BENTLEY: You’re an idiot.

MIERNIK: No, it’s important that the ugly, the miserable believe that the beautiful are serene.

BENTLEY::What an idea. The Edwardians thought that nothing gave the poor greater pleasure than the sight of a rich man. That’s an odd viewpoint for a modern Communist.

MIERNIK: You think I’m a Communist?

BENTLEY: Well, aren’t you?

MIERNIK: No.

BENTLEY: Why on earth not?

MIERNIK: Why on earth should I be?

BENTLEY: The Polish Question. Surely that’s a Communist question from now on?

MIERNIK: No.

BENTLEY: But they control your country. They will go on controlling it for the rest of your life, unless Nigel is right and the bombs go off.

MIERNIK: The bombs?

BENTLEY: The H-bomb. The Americans will fry us all.

MIERNIK: Nigel thinks that?

BENTLEY: Don’t you?

MIERNIK: No. The Americans do not make horror.

BENTLEY: Ha! Ask the Japanese.

MIERNIK: The Americans were out of character when they did that. They say it saved lives because they didn’t have to invade. Perhaps they’re right.

BENTLEY: They were simply trying to keep the Russians out of Japan. Pure capitalist thinking. They wanted a client state in Asia. Markets.

MIERNIK: Ilona, I think you are a Communist!

BENTLEY: Would that be so terrible, if I were?

MIERNIK: Ugly. It would be ugly. Tell me that you aren’t.

BENTLEY: All right. I’m not. Am I less ugly now?

MIERNIK: Infinitely.

BENTLEY:: You interest me. Your emotions are so generalized. The Polish Question, the Germans, the Communists. What do you feel as an individual towards other individuals?

MIERNIK: Everything. Despite my nose.

BENTLEY: Your nose? What’s wrong with your nose?

MIERNIK: Cyrano, c’est moi.

BENTLEY: Nonsense. It doesn’t matter in a man. Even Cyrano found that out. He got Roxane in the end, didn’t he?

MIERNIK: Truth in life and truth in art are not the same.

BENTLEY: You think women don’t like you?

MIERNIK: I think that it’s safer to assume that they don’t.

BENTLEY: What nonsense.

MIERNIK: A matter of experience. I should be terrified to kiss you.

BENTLEY: My God.

MIERNIK: It’s true. Your beauty frightens me.

BENTLEY: Frightens you? Really frightens you?

MIERNIK: Yes.

BENTLEY: Come here.

MIERNIK: I think not, Ilona.

BENTLEY: Come here.

MIERNIK: The beauty and the beast. I’ll get you another drink.

BENTLEY: Come here. (A pause in the tape. Male voice groans.)

BENTLEY: Did that terrify you?

MIERNIK: A little.

BENTLEY: You’re going to sit down again? You’re going to stop?

MIERNIK: What else should I do?

BENTLEY: You really are afraid. You’re really afraid.

MIERNIK: I told you I was.

BENTLEY: That’s very exciting. Is your heart beating very fast? Let me feel. No, under the shirt. Yes, feel that. It’s leaping in its cage, poor heart.

MIERNIK: Ilona, you’re cruel.

BENTLEY: Tell me that later. Here, put your hand there. On my skin. My heart isn’t at all like yours, is it? Do you feel anything?

MIERNIK: It’s a very calm heart.

BENTLEY: There, now feel it. There is no cloth in the way now. Move your hand. You’ve touched breasts before. Haven’t you?

MIERNIK: Yes.

BENTLEY: Wait. Now you can touch everything. Get up. Take off your clothes. Take them off. Quickly. You’re covered with hair. That’s very exciting. You are a beast. No, stay standing. I’ll take off your shoes. You’re very big, bigger than Nigel. He has no hair, just a little there and around there. He has no skin at the end. The end of yours is moist. It smells like the forest, like ferns in the forest.

MIERNIK: Ilona, my God.

BENTLEY: Come down on the floor. Take off your glasses. Put your face there. Kiss. How do I smell? Do you like that smell? Is it a forest smell? Is it a sweet taste? Not inside so much. Find the place. Find the place. There. Sweetly, do it sweetly. Now kiss my mouth. Yes. Taste yourself, taste myself. Turn over. Let me see it. It’s beating too, like your heart. Feel the wet, feel the warm. You’re beating inside me like a heart. Now you’re happy. Now you’re beautiful. (Long pause in tape.)

BENTLEY: You make love with your eyes closed.

MIERNIK: I do?

BENTLEY: You do. Why do you close your eyes?

MIERNIK: I don’t know. Don’t you?

BENTLEY: Never. I watch faces.

MIERNIK: What do you see?

BENTLEY: I don’t know. Pain.

MIERNIK: You saw pain in me?

BENTLEY: I think so.

MIERNIK: It was not pain, Ilona.

BENTLEY: Did all this surprise you?

MIERNIK: It positively astonished me.

BENTLEY: You didn’t say so.

MIERNIK: There’s a time for keeping quiet.

BENTLEY: Did my talking disturb you?

MIERNIK: I never heard anyone talk like that.

BENTLEY: Sometimes I say worse things.

MIERNIK: Like what?

BENTLEY: You’ll hear in a minute.

MIERNIK: Say only beautiful things. You are too beautiful.

BENTLEY: Would you say I’m good at it?

MIERNIK: Yes.

BENTLEY: So are you, my lad. It’s all that hair, and the smell of you.

MIERNIK: Thanks.

BENTLEY: I’m trying to make you laugh. One should laugh after sex. Between sex.

MIERNIK: Laugh?

BENTLEY: Out of the joy of it. It’s all we have, Tadeusz. Bits of flesh that fit together.

MIERNIK: We have more than that.

BENTLEY: You think so?

MIERNIK: Why did you do this, Ilona?

BENTLEY: Because I wanted to. I wanted to see your face.

MIERNIK: Nothing more than that?

BENTLEY: I’ve told you. That’s enough. In fact, that’s everything.

MIERNIK: I don’t think so.

BENTLEY: You thought so five minutes ago, didn’t you?

MIERNIK: That was five minutes ago.

BENTLEY: Yes. I’ll make you think so again in a minute. Keep your eyes open this time.