The Russian Interpreter

20

Pulled by the strange centripetal force that cities have, Manning and Katerina ended up, as they usually did, on Mokhovaya Street in front of the old university. For some time they had said nothing. Katerina looked ill. She sat down on the low wall which the drunken man had fallen over, and admitted that she felt sick and dizzy with hunger.

‘Did you have any lunch today?’ asked Manning.

She shook her head.

‘Now that’s stupid, isn’t it, Katya?’

‘I didn’t feel like it at the time.’

‘We’ve been through all this before.’

‘I’ve told you – I’ve never eaten much. When Kanysh was here I couldn’t eat knowing he was hungry.’

‘Anyway, let’s go and have a proper meal somewhere now.’

She shook her head again.

‘Come on.’

‘I honestly don’t want to, Paul.’

‘Now be sensible.’

‘Don’t try to bully me, Paul. You know you can’t.’

Manning looked at her helplessly.

‘You must have something,’ he said, irresolute.

For a long time she didn’t reply, but sat with her head in her hands, looking at the pavement. Then she gave a long sigh, and stood up.

‘If we can go somewhere quiet I’ll come and watch you eat. I might have some soup.’

‘How about the Faculty canteen? It’ll be empty at this time of night.’

Katerina thought, turning her lower lip over doubtfully with her index finger.

‘I haven’t got my pass with me,’ she said at last.

‘I’ve got mine. They’ll let you in with me. I don’t suppose there’ll be anyone on the door now.’

But, as they shortly discovered, there was. The same old woman with the crooked glasses, sitting on the same broken chair.

‘No one can come in here without a pass,’ she said.

‘She’s forgotten it,’ said Manning. ‘What does it matter?’

‘No one can come in here without a pass.’

‘Oh, never mind,’ said Katerina, flushing. ‘Let’s go to an Automat instead.’

‘No,’ said Manning, beginning to lose his temper. ‘Now we’re here we’re going in.’

He turned back to the old woman.

‘Look, she’s a member of the Philological Faculty. She’s got a pass, but she’s forgotten it. I’ll vouch for her.’

‘She can’t come in without a pass.’

‘Well, I’m afraid she’s going to.’

‘Paul, please don’t make a scene!’ begged Katerina. She was wringing her hands in misery.

‘Come on, Katya. We’re going in.’

‘Please, Paul!’

‘I’ll call the Dean!’ cried the old woman.

‘Call him, then! We’ll be in the canteen.’

But at that moment the dispute abruptly ceased. All three of them had become simultaneously aware that the Dean was already present. It was a creak on the stairs that they had heard. They turned, and there stood Korolenko, on the creaky eleventh stair, silently watching them. They gazed back, their mouths open as if to speak, the speech evaporated.

Every one was afraid of Korolenko. He was a neatly-built, shortish man, and he carried himself with the unexaggerated correctness of a born professional soldier. His head was bald, and gleamed like a polished helmet in the light over the stairs. His cheeks were sunken, his mouth set in a precise line. His features were completely immobile, apart from a tic which drew the right-hand corner of his mouth up from time to time, as if in a brief ironic smile. Perhaps it was an ironic smile. The complete stillness, the soldier’s willed passivity, from which the spasm surfaced, concealed his nature like a suit of armour. It was surprising he had moved enough to make the stair creak.

They stared at him, hypnotized, waiting for him to speak first. When he did, it was to say something that Manning found very surprising.

‘Katerina Fyodorovna Lippe,’ he said, without expression of any sort.

He knew her.

Manning glanced at her. She was looking down, as if bowed before him.

‘Did I hear this young man say that you had forgotten your pass?’ asked Korolenko in the same voice.

Katerina said nothing.

‘You have no pass, Lippe. You have no right to enter any part of the university.’

Katerina looked up.

‘Now, that’s not correct, Igor Viktorovich,’ she said pleadingly.

‘You were expelled from the post-graduate school of the Philological Faculty three years ago. Since then you’ve had no connexion with the university.’

‘Igor Viktorovich, you know that’s not true!’

Katerina’s voice had risen imploringly, and her eyes were filled with tears.

‘You come back to haunt us.’

‘Igor Viktorovich!’

‘You hang around the university like a lost dog. Have you no work to do? No home to go back to?’

‘Please, Igor Viktorovich!’

‘You fasten yourself upon people like our English comrade here and fill them up with slanders about our university, about our country.’

‘No! That’s not true! Don’t say things like that! Please don’t say things like that!’

Katerina had gone very red in the face, and her voice broke. She sounded as if she was unable to catch her breath. Korolenko, on the other hand, had remained completely impassive. Now he turned to Manning, and the corner of his mouth twitched up, as if ironically deprecating an unpleasant necessity.

‘You must excuse us,’ he said. ‘A small domestic matter. No doubt you have similar problems at English universities.’

‘Look,’ said Manning, ‘I must make it clear at once that never on any occasion have I heard Katerina say anything critical or disloyal.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ replied Korolenko. ‘She has a record of negative contribution.’

The mouth twitched sardonically up again, and he turned to the doorkeeper.

‘She was creating a disturbance here tonight?’

‘She was trying to get in without a pass.’

‘Quite.’

‘It’s my responsibility entirely,’ said Manning. ‘I invited her to eat in the canteen.’

‘I see,’ said Korolenko. ‘As you will no doubt recall, the canteen is not open to members of the general public.’

‘I’m sorry. We’ll go somewhere else.’

‘However, we shouldn’t like you to take away an impression of inflexibility or over-zealous adherence to the rules. So on this occasion I will waive them.’

Manning looked at Katerina. She was screwing her handkerchief around in her hands in anguish, and two tears were running down her cheeks.

‘I think we’d prefer to go away and eat somewhere else now,’ said Manning.

‘No, no, no,’ said Korolenko. ‘I insist.’

‘I think …’

‘As my guests. I will give instructions for the bill to be sent up to me.’

Manning looked at Katerina uncertainly. She would not catch his eye.

‘Please don’t mention it,’ said Korolenko, as they hesitated in silence. ‘Bon appetit.’

He remained on the eleventh stair, watching them. Propelled by his unblinking gaze, they walked slowly across the lobby to the head of the basement stairs, and went down to the canteen. The smell of grease and cabbage rose around them. Inside, the bare bulbs shone on a glass case with three round yellow cakes in it, and on one solitary student at a table, sitting with his elbows on the dirty oilcloth, gulping down soup.

Manning fetched bowls of soup and glasses of tea from the counter. But Katerina would not touch hers. Several times it was on the tip of his tongue to ask her how she knew Korolenko, and whether she had really been expelled. But he did not, and Katerina volunteered nothing. She sat pale and strained, her eyes cast down, saying nothing, nothing at all, waiting only for Manning to finish and escort her past the doorkeeper again.