The Russian Interpreter

38

The night man took him out of his private section and through the main body of the prison, unlocking and re-locking each door they passed through. They crossed an open yard, the night man silently leading the way. Slopping along in his unlaced shoes, Manning had some difficulty in keeping up with him. In the grey half-light he could see odd groups of men in prison overalls slouching away towards the other side of the yard – perhaps on their way to the kitchens to start preparing breakfast. The air was cold. Manning shivered.

They went into a large office with a stone floor, and a bare electric bulb shining down on ugly brown tables and filing cabinets. There were a number of men in the room, some in uniform, some wearing civilian clothes; some sitting down at the tables, some standing with their hands in their overcoat pockets.

‘Hallo, Paul,’ said one of them in English. Manning had difficulty for a moment in distinguishing which of them had spoken. Then he saw; it was Sasha. He opened his mouth to reply, but his vocal chords seemed to be inert.

A man sitting at a table pushed a slip of paper and a pen across to Manning.

‘Sign this,’ he said.

Manning signed, blindly. It could have been a fictitious deposition, or his own death warrant. The man slid a rough brown paper parcel across to him and opened it briefly for him to see. Manning caught a glimpse of his tie, his watch, and a pile of loose change. The man pulled out a pair of shoe laces and tossed them to Manning.

‘Lace up your shoes,’ he said.

Fumblingly, Manning crammed the laces through the holes, conscious of nothing but the indifferent gaze of everyone in the room. Then one of the men in civilian clothes opened the door for him, and he was taken out into a dark, echoing archway. A picket door was unlocked with a tremendous clatter. Manning looked round to see if he could see the night man among the figures about him, to say good-bye, but in the poor light he couldn’t pick him out. He stumbled as he stepped through the picket.

They were in the street. A modest Pobyeda saloon stood at the kerb, and they got into it, one man on either side of Manning on the back seat, and Sasha next to the driver.

Sasha at once turned round and gazed at Manning in the twilight. He compressed his lips, then leant over and squeezed Manning’s hand.

‘It’s good to see you, Paul,’ he said in Russian. He sounded moved, and he was blinking awkwardly. Manning nodded back, for some reason still unable to say anything. Sasha looked away.

‘Was it bad in there?’ Sasha asked. Manning began to shake his head, then nodded once. Suddenly he was seized by the dawn coldness, and began to shudder violently. Without a word Sasha struggled out of his overcoat and pulled it round Manning’s shoulders.

‘All right?’ said the driver.

‘All right,’ said Sasha.

The car moved off, and drove slowly up the empty street. They passed women sweeping the gutters, and at the corner a dozen people waiting for a bus, their faces all turned the same way in expressionless expectation.

‘We’re going to Sheremetyevo,’ said Sasha. ‘You have a seat booked aboard the 8.30 a.m. flight to London.’

‘I’m being deported?’

‘Yes. You’ll be at London by half past ten. We collected all your stuff from your room and packed it up – it’s in the boot. Your thesis and all your notes are in the small brown case. Is there anything you want me to collect from anywhere else to send on later?’

Manning shook his head. They drove slowly through the eastern suburbs into the centre of Moscow, not talking. The sky was growing light. Manning caught a glimpse of the university skyscraper floating over the city on the Sparrow Hills, already brilliantly sunlit, the illuminated red star on its pinnacle extinguished against the perfectly cloudless summer sky. At an intersection in the north of the city the sun burst into the car, shining straight down a long boulevard opening from their right, dazzling them. To Manning the streets and the sunlight looked as ordinary and expected as the walls of his cell. He had not yet adjusted to his sudden release. All he felt was a certain dull irritation that he had not been given time to shave before leaving.

‘We’re going to have a lot of time in hand,’ said Sasha. ‘I don’t know whose idea it was, starting this early. Perhaps we’ll be able to get breakfast at the airport.’

The car cruised slowly out to the north-west. Manning wanted to ask about Konstantin and Raya, but felt that it might imply that he knew of some reason why they should be in trouble. It might be wrong to inquire even about Katerina.

‘What’s happening to Proctor-Gould?’ he asked eventually.

‘I don’t know, Paul.’

‘He was arrested?’

‘Oh, yes. You haven’t heard any of the details?’

‘I haven’t been told anything.’

‘Korolenko was arrested, too, of course.’

‘Korolenko? Have either of them been charged?’

‘I don’t know. There was a lot about it in the papers for a start. It’s all public knowledge – I don’t suppose it matters if I tell you.’

He glanced at one of the men sitting next to Manning. The man raised his eyebrows disclaimingly, and looked out of the window.

‘It was all to do with those books which Gordon was presenting at the Faculty dinner that night,’ said Sasha. ‘Apparently the police had examined them beforehand. According to the papers, the books had been in a suitcase which you had deposited at the Kiev Station. I don’t know whether that’s right…?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, the police took the case away from the station, examined the books, and then replaced them in the left luggage office in order to see who they were intended for. The police said that the book which Proctor-Gould gave to Korolenko had a very heavy binding in which there was some money concealed.’

Manning looked out of the window, warmed and dazzled by the serene sunlight which shot into the car between each building shadow. So it had been royalties after all. The terrible deviousness which Proctor-Gould had imposed upon himself was entirely quixotic. Manning remembered the various moral attitudes he had struck about him, and felt ashamed.

At Sheremetyevo Manning opened the brown paper parcel and put on his tie. They got fresh ham rolls at the buffet, and when the girl had raised steam in the Espresso machine, large capuccino coffees.

‘It’s rather ironical, coming to the airport like this to see you off,’ said Sasha. ‘I told Gordon at that dinner that I was ready to go to England as one of his clients.’

‘Oh,’ said Manning.

They sat, waiting for time to pass. Sasha told Manning the Faculty gossip, but to Manning it sounded unreal and dull, like the annals of some village club. He got permission to go to the men’s room under the supervision of one of the guards to shave.

He had his face close to the mirror, and was absorbed in trying not to breathe and steam up the last few clear inches of the glass, when a finger came between himself and his reflection. He stared at it. In the condensation on the mirror it scribbled a six-pointed squiggle, like two cursive w’s – ‘shsh’ – then deleted it, and was immediately withdrawn.

Manning slowly straightened up, and without turning his head looked into the mirror above the wash-basin next to his. The face reflected in it was Konstantin’s. They gazed at each other in the mirror, neither of them giving any sign of recognition. The guard paced slowly up and down the room, gazing at the floor, tapping his ring idly against each hand-basin as he passed, missing out the two which Manning and Konstantin were using. Without hurrying Konstantin dried his hands, and went into one of the lavatory cubicles on the other side of the room.

Manning finished shaving as quickly as he could, cutting himself messily, and asked the guard for permission to use the lavatory. The man nodded, without ceasing his patrol. Manning locked himself into the cubicle next to Konstantin’s, tore off a piece of toilet paper and scribbled on it:

‘Kostik! You’re safe! How did you know I was out?’

He dropped the paper over the partition and waited. He waited for what seemed a long time. The tapping of the ring against the basins began to sound impatient; he became frightened that the guard would order him out. Then Konstantin’s hand appeared over the top of the partition, and a sheet of toilet paper fluttered down. It said:

‘1. Paul! My great joy at your safety and freedom.

‘2. My humble thanks for your silence.

‘3. A message I promised I would deliver from Katya. She is out of hospital (it was hunger and exposure), but not well. Her mother has died. R. and I are looking after her. She insists you should know that while she was in hospital the police visited her and asked her about you. She told them you had deposited the books at the Kiev Station, and she asks your forgiveness.

‘4. R. and I – both all right. Knew about you through R’s father.’

The guard tapped on the door of the cubicle.

‘Finished?’ he said.

‘Coming,’ said Manning. In great haste he tore off another piece of paper and scribbled:

‘Tell K. police would probably have known anyway. I kiss her feet and ask her forgiveness for involving her. My love to her, to R., and to you, Kostik.’

He dropped it over the partition. Then he put Konstantin’s note in the lavatory pan and flushed it away.