From Aberystwyth with Love

Chapter 21

A room in a basement, off a long corridor with lots of doors. A corridor lit by single naked sixty-watt bulbs hanging from a dim cobwebby ceiling. The far-off sound of typewriters, gurgling radiators. No cries of pain. Yet. A ride through the streets of night-time Hughesovka in the back of a van marked ‘Jones’s Meat Pies’. I don’t know why. I’ll ask the interrogator. A room with the same single naked bulb. Walls painted in dark, sea-green gloss paint to halfway and a lighter paint of indeterminable shade above. The light switch next to the door jamb was a crude utilitarian metal box studded with bare rivets. You can tell a lot about your fate by the light switch. In the room, there was a table, two hard chairs, a lamp to point into my face, a manila folder and a pad of legal-size notepaper, for taking notes legal and otherwise. With my hands handcuffed behind my back I was made to sit in the chair. It wasn’t comfortable; it wasn’t meant to be. A man sat in the chair opposite me. Apart from the drab olive-green military tunic with the letters GKNB on the collar, he looked like one of the Cossack dancers performing in the bar of the Hotel Newport. He had a red, merry face with bushy white eyebrows and a big bulbous nose. He looked like a nice guy, I wanted to hug him. The soldier standing guard at the door might have been nice too but the emptiness in his face, the absence of solicitude suggested he could go either way: whichever way the wind was blowing. I yawned. The man sitting opposite me drummed his fingers on the desk and leafed through the folder. The first page had a photo of me. Somewhere in the night a church struck four. I yawned again and thought of Calamity. We had been separated shortly after arrest. Was she sitting now in a similar pea-green basement room opposite a granite-faced lady Russian hammer thrower who was leafing through a similar folder? I regretted bringing her along. I felt a keen homesickness for the comforting certainties of Aberystwyth, even the unpleasant ones like arrest. One good thing about Aberystwyth is, the cops like their sleep. The idea of interrogating someone in the middle of the night would be considered daft beyond words. The man leafing through the folder containing my life history sighed in a way that suggested it fell short of the mark. Finally he looked up, slowly and painfully as if he had a stiff neck.

‘So you are a spinning-wheel salesman.’

I said nothing; it’s the same deal in every country in the world: the point of an interrogation is for the cop to listen to the sound of his own voice; to marvel at how clever he is; if you butt in and interrupt the mellifluous flow of self-love you are likely to make your interrogator genuinely annoyed instead of pretend-annoyed. You have to let them gorge first on their own cleverness. It’s the sort of cleverness that comes easily to someone who has another human being entirely in his power, but you can’t say that for one very good reason: you are entirely in his power. Back in Aberystwyth, when Llunos pulls someone in off the street for questioning, he doesn’t really expect to receive answers. You’re there to listen to what he’s decided you are guilty of. The main thing to remember is, you are of no importance.

‘You don’t look like a spinning-wheel salesman.’

‘That’s the secret of my success.’

He nodded thoughtfully and returned his attention to the dossier. He spoke to the pages. ‘You are familiar with the story of Sleeping Beauty? Tell me, on what part of the spinning wheel did she prick her finger?’

I shifted in my seat and was overwhelmed by a flood of pins and needles from my wrists. ‘Strictly speaking, there isn’t anywhere on a Saxon wheel that could prick her finger, there are no needles, although there are cases where the distaff can get sharpened to a point after years of use if remedial action is not taken. It might be sharp enough to give you a jab, but not really break the skin.’

He made a steeple of his fingers and peered at me over them. ‘It is interesting that you opt for a literal interpretation. You do not consider, for example, the possibility of a more . . . allegorical approach, looking for the meaning within the gestalt?’

‘I must confess I had overlooked that particular avenue.’

My interrogator considered; a faraway look entered his eyes and, for a while, it seemed that I no longer existed for him. He thought for a long minute or two. I waited, fascinated by the sweep of the second hand on his wristwatch which was the only thing moving in the room. Eventually he spoke, but as much to himself as to me. ‘A father forbids his daughter from visiting a big tower. You are a man and know what a tower symbolises, I do not need to be so indelicate as to spell it out. In the tower is a terrible secret locked away in a room. The father warns her that entering this room will be perilous. She agrees not to go there, but as she grows the secret room preys upon her mind. And then one day, many years later, perhaps at a time when she has almost forgotten this room, she becomes aware of changes in herself. Physical and emotional changes. It is the most natural thing in the world which all girls must pass through and yet to her, like all girls, it is deeply disconcerting. Perhaps she is distracted by these changes and follows a dark instinct inside her and, without ever consciously intending to, finds herself climbing the steps to the tower. She knows it is wrong, she knows that to disobey her father is the greatest sin a little girl can commit and yet somewhere buried deeply inside her is the knowledge that there comes a time when every young girl must commit this very sin. She reaches the top, her heart beating with fear and excitement and unfocussed expectation; and behold! The door is ajar. Almost as if this day had been preordained, which of course it had. She goes into the room at the top of the forbidden tower and finds a spinning wheel. She begins to spin . . .’ He paused in contemplation. ‘I must admit the verisimilitude breaks down a little here. This has always struck me as an unsatisfactory part of the story: would a teenage girl symbolically on the trail of her first sexual adventure sit down at mummy’s spinning wheel? But no matter. She spins and the rest, as they say, is history. She pricks her finger, there is blood and the girl is ruined, save for the intervention of a good fairy.’ He stopped and looked at me expectantly. ‘You see?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I see.’ I had no idea what he was talking about.

He grimaced. ‘You do not see. You have no children and so for you the true significance will always remain purely in the realm of the abstract. But me, ah me! I have a daughter, a beautiful wonderful daughter who is more precious to me than the droplets of blood that visit the chambers of my heart. In this sad sordid world there is nothing as important to me as her happiness. To see her married to a respectable man who would look after her . . . I do not care whether he be rich, although being poor is not easy, just so long as he were a decent man who meant well by her . . . This is my only dream. And this humble goal is none the less a very difficult one to achieve because you and I as men of the world know well what dark qualities are to be found in the hearts of men. Yes, if you had a lovely daughter like mine, you would live this tale every day of your life.’ He paused and said, almost sheepishly as if embarrassed to bring the matter up, ‘You are not really a salesman, are you, Louie Eeyoreovitch?’

‘Truly, I am a humble salesman.’

‘It will be much easier for you if you tell the truth. You might as well. Calamity has told us everything.’

‘She wouldn’t tell you the time of the next train to Devil’s Bridge.’

‘She wouldn’t need to, we already have that information.’

‘If you’ve harmed her, I will make you pay for it, somehow. One day.’

‘Yes, I know, when you get back from the camps. They all say that. But twenty years carrying a pick in a subterranean labyrinth north of the Kolyma River is a long time to keep the flame of hatred alive. Those long dark arctic nights, when the sun shines for less than an hour or two, invariably give a man a different perspective on these things.’

‘She’s just a kid.’

‘Then what are you doing embroiling her in a man’s game? Tell me, why are you really here in Hughesovka?’

‘I’m attending the Lower Don Collective Spinning Wheel conference.’

‘They’ve never heard of you.’

I shrugged.

‘Have you ever played the game known as tug-of-war?’

‘Once or twice, at the donkey derby.’

‘Do you know how they cut down trees along the Kolyma? We could give them chainsaws but that would be too easy. They might even enjoy it. No, we give them nothing and the clever ones, the survivors, tie rope around the bole of the tree and play tug-of-war to rock the tree out of the frozen tundra. Could you do that wearing nothing but kapok pyjamas in temperatures so cold your spit freezes in mid-air? You think, perhaps, you could handle it. I see you are a brave man, you think if needs must be you will die out there and it will not be so very bad. You think life is a treasure but we must all lose it one day, we must all open the chest to find it empty and acquire therewith the sickening knowledge that it will never again be filled. You think, faced with this, the most implacable fact of all facts, that it ill-behoves a man to quibble about the date of his exit; you think a man is nothing without dignity and to squeak and babble and moan about this is the mark of a man who has abandoned his dignity and is therefore not a man any more. You think all this, I see, because you are a brave and noble man. But you err, my friend, alas! How you err! Your God is not so merciful as to let you die out there in the frigid desert. He has a much worse fate for you in mind, a terrible fate reserved only for the strong ones, for the brave noble strong ones. You will survive! In temperatures so low it is impossible that a man could last a day you will survive twenty years. On a diet so poor and meagre, on a bowl of thin gruel once a day, you will chop down trees or break rocks and it will be impossible, and though it be impossible still you will do it. Every second will be a torment, and each of those seconds of torment will last the entire twenty years. It is impossible that a man so ill-fed, so badly clothed, so overworked could live to tell the tale, and yet you will. And then, when your twenty years are up, they will release you and two weeks after returning to civilisation you will catch cold and die. This is how it happens; no one knows why, but it does. I tell you this because I like you. Please, Louie Eeyoreovitch, I beg you, do not make me do this. Tell us what brought you to Hughesovka.’

‘I’ve already told you.’

He opened a drawer and took out a photo. It was the picture of the levitated dog. ‘Could you explain how a humble spinning-wheel salesman came to have this in his possession?’

‘I found it on the beach.’

‘That is not a good answer, Louie Eeyoreovitch. Mere possession of this item is a crime against our people punishable by a minimum of ten years’ penal servitude.’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘So you say, and yet I see you have cow-horn buttons on your jacket. It reeks of guilt. Who but a malefactor has such things? Did no one tell you we have canteens in our camps? And chess sets too, so there is no need to hoard your bread and chew rooks and knights in the middle of the night. In fact, all camps have libraries with modest audio-visual facilities. We are not so backward as you imagine. You insult us with your cow-horn buttons. Tell me about the photo.’

‘I found it on the beach in Aberystwyth and put it in my pocket.’

‘And travelled on the Orient Express with this photo which you intended delivering to a contact in exchange for a large sum of money.’

‘No.’

‘Do you know how much this photo is worth on the black market? Twenty thousand US dollars.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Yes, because you found it on the beach. If you confess this, if you admit that you came to Hughesovka in order to sell this photo on the black market, I will help you.’

I said nothing.

‘I will personally ensure that you are merely deported; and, what is more, I will tell you what you really want to know: I will tell you how it was that Vanya’s daughter came to be possessed by the spirit of Gethsemane Walters.’ He noted the surprise on my face and smiled. ‘Oh yes, we know all about your errand. Jones the Denouncer has told us everything. We have been aware of the Gethsemane Walters case for many years now. The solution to the mystery can be found right here in Hughesovka. It could be yours, all you need to do is admit to something that we already know.’

He clicked his fingers to get the attention of the guard. ‘Leave us now, Pascha. It is time you went home. The hour is late. Do not come back tonight, no matter how terrible the cries of pain you hear.’

The guard clicked his heels in acknowledgement and left. My interrogator watched the door and then gave me a sad, wistful look, the one headmasters wear when they insist the punishment they are about to inflict will, through some miraculous mechanism unknown to biological science, hurt them more than you. He sniffed and dabbed a tear from his eye.

‘Louie Eeyoreovitch, you are a brave spy. Your country should be proud of you. As my parting words to you I will give you a piece of advice. In the camps you will hear many stories, most of them are not to be credited. Do not eat the wallpaper paste, it will make you ill. And as for selling the underlinen of dead comrades for a crust of bread . . . once many years ago it might have been possible but not now, you will merely be ridiculed, and quite possibly attract a further five years for desecration of the grave which belongs to the State.’

He paused and stared at me quizzically. I shrugged. He stood up and strode past me to the door. I twisted round in my chair to watch. He turned to me and put his index finger to his mouth, commanding silence. He seemed to be smiling like someone playing a practical joke. He opened the door with exaggerated care and peered outside, then withdrew his head and softly closed the door again. He returned with a broad smile upon his face. ‘Louie Eeyoreovitch!’ he shouted. ‘My dear, dear friend Louie Eeyoreovitch!’ He threw out his arms, grabbed me in a bear hug and dragged me to my feet. He unclasped me and then with renewed fervour threw his arms round me again and squeezed me. He kissed me on both cheeks. ‘Louie Eeyoreovitch!’ he exclaimed. ‘How can I ever thank you? My daughter, my lovely daughter, my dear heart’s blood, lost to me, alone in the world full of evil predatory men, and through the exquisite offices of our benevolent and ever-merciful Lord, she met you! My darling dear Natasha has come back and all because of you, the noble, thrice-blessed Louie Eeyoreovitch!’