Trial Run

14

Stephen lent me his bed and went to share Gudrun’s, which seemed to please them both well, and was certainly all right by me. Foreign students were positively encouraged to lie together, he said sardonically, so that they didn’t go out and pursue the natives.

I shivered a good deal, and at the same time felt feverish, which boded ill.

I didn’t sleep much, though that didn’t matter. My hand throbbed like a pile-driver but my head was clear, and I much preferred it that way round. I spent most of the time thinking and wondering and guessing, and coming back to the problem of the next day. I had somehow got to take some positive steps towards staying permanently alive.

In the morning Stephen fetched some tea, lent me his razor, and bounced cheerfully off to a student breakfast.

He returned with some things like empty hamburger buns from the basement supermarket, and found me studying the long string of letters on the envelope which had held the telex.

‘Deciphering the chemical junk?’ he said.

‘Trying.’

‘How’s it coming?’

‘I don’t know enough,’ I said. ‘Look... when all this was written in Russian and German, was it translated? I mean... are you sure that this is what was meant?’

‘It wasn’t translated,’ Stephen said. ‘It was those letters in that order, but written in formal German script... the sort you see in books. The Russian script version was more or less phonetically the same, but there are more letters in the Russian alphabet, so we adjusted the Russian letters to be the equivalent of the German... was that all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You see here where it reads “antagonist”?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Was that word translated into Russian or German? Or were the letters a n t a et cetera written in German script?’

‘It wasn’t translated, as such, because antagonist is much the same word in all three languages.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Is that of any help?’

‘Yes, in a way,’ I said.

‘You amaze me.’

We buttered and shared the hamburger buns and drank some more tea, and I coughed on and off with an ominous hollowness.

After that I cadged a sheet of paper and wrote the long row of letters into sensible words, adding a few reasonable-looking decimal points. The revised effort read:

Stephen looked over my shoulder. ‘That, of course,’ he said, ‘makes a world of difference.’

‘Um,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Would you do me a favour?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Lend me an empty tape for your recorder, and another one with music on it. Or rather, two empty tapes, if you have them.’

‘Is that all?’ He sounded disappointed.

‘That’s for starters.’

He rustled around and produced three tapes in plastic boxes.

‘They’ve all got music on,’ he said. ‘But you can record on top, if you like.’

‘Great.’ I hesitated, because what I wanted him to do besides sounded melodramatic; but facts had to be faced. I folded the list of chemicals in half and gave it to him. ‘Would you mind keeping that?’ I made my voice as matter-of-fact as possible. ‘Keep it until after I’ve got home. I’ll send you a postcard to say it’s OK to tear it up.’

He looked puzzled. ‘I don’t see...’

‘If I don’t get home, or you don’t get a postcard from me, will you send it to Hughes-Beckett at the Foreign Office. I’ve put the address on the back. Tell him that Hans Kramer had it, and ask him to show it to a vet.’

‘A vet?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Yes, but...’ He realised exactly what I’d said. ‘If you don’t get home...’

‘Yeah... well... fourth time unlucky, and all that.’

‘For heaven’s sake.’

‘Do you have lectures on Saturdays?’ I said.

His eyebrows vanished upwards under his hair. ‘Is that a general invitation to put my head in the trap alongside yours?’

‘Probably just to make phone calls and tell taxis where to go.’

He gave an exaggerated shrug and a large gesture of surrender, and put on an expression of ‘ve have vays of not believing a vord you say’. ‘What first?’

‘Ring Mr Kropotkin,’ I said. ‘And if he’s in, ask if I can come to see him this morning.’

Kropotkin, it seemed, was not only in but anxious. ‘He says he’s been trying to get you at the hotel. He says to arrive at ten o’clock, and we can find him inside the first stable block on the left, on the racecourse.’

‘Fine...’ I blew a cooling breath on to my hot, swollen fingers. ‘I think I’ll also try Ian Young.’

Ian Young was back on British soil and seemed to take a while to realise who he was talking to. He was feeling fragile, and no one, he said eventually, with a mixture of misery and admiration, could drink like the Russians; and please would f not talk so loudly.

Sorry, I said, pianissimo. Could he please tell me how best to make a telephone call to England. Try from the main Post Office just round the corner from my hotel, he said. Ask for the International operator. He was discouraging, however, about my prospects.

‘Sometimes you can get through in ten minutes, but it’s usually more like two hours, and with the new flap going on this morning you’ll be lucky if you get through at all.’

‘Newer than the dust-up in Africa?’ I said.

‘Oh sure. Some high-up guy has defected. In Birmingham, of all places. Shock, horror, drama, and all that. Is it important?’

‘I want to ring my vet... about my horses,’ I said. ‘Could I get through from the Embassy?’

‘I doubt if you’d do any better. There’s no one like the Russians for blank obstruction. Brick wall specialists, the Russians.’ He yawned. ‘Did you get your telex last night?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Make the most of it, I should.’ He yawned again. ‘Do you feel like swilling the hair of the dog with me? Round about noon?’

‘Don’t see why not.’

‘Good... Go past Oliver’s office, and past the tennis court... and my flat’s in the row at the back of the grounds, second door from the left.’ He put down the receiver with all the gentleness of the badly hungover.

The snow had temporarily stopped, though the sky was a threatening oily yellow-grey and the air cold enough to freeze the nose’s mucus lining in its tracks. I started coughing and gasping for breath before we’d gone a hundred steps, and Stephen thought it extraordinary.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said, his own lungs chugging easily away like an electric bellows.

‘Taxi...’

We caught one without much difficulty, and immediately, within its comparative warmth and with the help of the pocket bronchidilator inhaler I kept in my pocket like loose change, my chest stopped its infuriating heaving.

‘Are you always like this when it’s cold?’ Stephen said.

‘It depends. The river didn’t help.’

He looked mildly anxious. ‘You caught a chill? Come to think... it’s not surprising.’

We stopped twice on the way. The first time, to buy two bottles of vodka; one to give to Kropotkin and one to keep. The second time to buy me yet another hat to top off my assorted clothing, which now consisted, from the skin outwards, of a singlet, shirt, two sweaters, jacket, and Stephen’s spare coat, which was a size too small and left my forearms sticking out like an orphan.

The main roads had already been cleared of the overnight snow, but the Hippodrome itself was white. There were horses there all the same, exercising on the track, and even one or two trotters pulling sulkies. We paid off the taxi practically at the stable door, and went inside to inquire for Kropotkin.

He was waiting for us in a small dark office used by one of the trainers of the trotters. There were heaps of tyres everywhere, which seemed stunningly incongruous in a stable until one remembered the sulkies’ wheels, and apart from that only a desk with a great deal of scattered paperwork, and a chair, and large numbers of photographs pinned to the walls.

Nikolai Alexandrovich cordially grasped my hastily offered left hand and pumped it up and down with both of his own.

‘Friend,’ he said, the heavy bass voice reverberating in the small space. ‘Good friend.’

He accepted the gift of vodka as the courtesy it represented. Then he set the chair ceremoniously for me to sit on, and himself lodged comfortably with his backside half on the desk. Stephen, it seemed, could stand on his own two feet: and, via Stephen, Kropotkin and I exchanged further suitable opening compliments.

We arrived in due course at the meat inside the pastry.

‘Mr Kropotkin says,’ Stephen said, ‘that he asked everyone in the world of horses to give any help they could in the matter of Alyosha.’

I expressed my warmest appreciations and felt the faintest quickening of the pulse.

‘No one, however,’ Stephen continued, ‘knows who Alyosha is. No one knows anything about him.’

My pulse returned to normal with depressing speed.

‘Kind of him to try,’ I said, sighing slightly.

Kropotkin stroked his moustache downwards with his thumb and forefinger and then set off again into a deep rumble.

Stephen did a dead-pan translation although with more interest in his eyes.

‘Mr Kropotkin says that although no one knows who Alyosha is, someone has sent him a piece of paper with the name Alyosha on it, and the piece of paper originally came from England.’

It hardly sounded the ultimate solution, but definitely better than nothing.

‘May I see it?’ I said.

It appeared, though, that Nikolai Alexandrovich was not to be rushed. Bread and butter first; sweeties after.

‘Mr Kropotkin says,’ Stephen translated, ‘that you should understand one or two things about the Soviet system.’ His eyebrows went upwards and his nostrils twitched with the effort of keeping a straight face. ‘He says it is not always possible for Soviet citizens to speak with total freedom.’

‘Tell him I’ve noticed. Er... tell him I understand.’

Kropotkin looked at me broodingly and stroked his moustache.

‘He would like it,’ Stephen said, relaying the next wedge of rumble, ‘if you could use everything you have learned here at the Hippodrome without explaining where you heard it.’

‘Give him my most solemn assurance,’ I said sincerely, and I think Kropotkin was probably convinced more by my tone than the actual words. After a suitable pause, he continued.

‘Mr Kropotkin says,’ Stephen faithfully reported, ‘that he doesn’t know who sent him the paper. It was delivered to his flat by hand yesterday evening, with a brief note of explanation, and a hope that it would be handed on to you.’

‘Does he sound as if he really doesn’t know who sent it, or do you think he’s just not telling?’

‘Impossible to know,’ Stephen said.

Nikolai Alexandrovich showed signs at last of producing the goods. With great deliberation he drew a large black wallet from an inside pocket and opened it wide. His blunt fingers carefully sank into a deep section at the back, and he slowly drew out a white envelope. He accompanied the hand-over ceremony with a small speech.

‘He says,’ Stephen said, ‘that to himself this paper does not seem to be of much significance. He wishes it were. He would like it to be of some use to you, because of his earnest desire to express his thanks for your speed in saving the Olympic horse.’

‘Tell him that if it should not turn out to be a significant paper, I will always remember and appreciate the trouble he has taken to help.’

Kropotkin received the compliment graciously, and slowly parted with the envelope. I took it from him at the same unhurried pace, and drew out the two smallish sheets of paper which were to be found inside.

They were fastened to each other with a small paper-clip. The top one, white and unremarkable, bore a short paragraph written in Russian.

The lower, also white but torn from a notebook and ruled with faint blue lines, was chiefly covered with a variety of geometric doodles, done in pencil. Near the top there were two words: For Alyosha, and about an inch lower down, surrounded by doodled stars, J. Farringford. Underneath that, one below the other, as in a list, were the words Americans, Germans, French, and below that a row of question-marks. That seemed to be more or less all, though near the bottom of the page, in their own individual doodled boxes, were four sets of letters and numbers, which were DEP PET, 1855, K’sC, and 1950.

On top of all the scribbles, across the whole page from top to bottom, there was the wide flowing S-shaped scrawl of someone crossing out what they had written.

I turned the small page over. The reverse side bore about fifteen lines of what must have been handwriting, written in ballpoint, but this had been meticulously scribbled over, line by line, also in ballpoint but in a slightly different colour.

Kropotkin was watching me expectantly. I said, ‘I am very pleased. This is most interesting.’ He understood the words, and looked heavily satisfied.

The business at that point seemed to be over, and after a few more compliments on both sides we stepped from the office into the central corridor of the stable block. Kropotkin invited me to see the horses, and we walked side by side along to where each side of the corridor was lined with loose boxes.

Stephen made choking noises behind me as we reached them, which I guessed was because of the smell. My own nose twitched a bit over the unusually piercing stink of ammonia, but the trotters seemed none the worse for it. They would be racing that evening, Kropotkin said, because the snow was not yet too deep. Stephen manfully translated to the end, but gulped at the eventual fresh air as if it were a fountain in the desert.

There were still several horses exercising on the track, and to my eyes they came from lower down the equine class system than racehorses or eventers.

‘All the riding clubs are here,’ Kropotkin explained through Stephen. ‘All stables for horses in Moscow are in this district, and all exercising is done at the Hippodrome. All the horses are owned by the State. The best horses go for racing and breeding, and the Olympics; then the clubs share what is left. Most horses stay in Moscow all winter, because they are very hardy. And I wonder,’ added Stephen on his own account, ‘what it smells like in these barns come March!’

Kropotkin said a solemn goodbye at the still unattended main entrance. He was a great old guy, I thought, and through him and Misha I had learned a good deal.

‘Friend,’ I said. ‘I wish you well.’

He pumped my hand with emotion in both of his, and then gave me the accolade of a hug.

‘My God,’ said Stephen as we walked away. ‘Talk about schmaltzy sob-stuff...’

‘A little sentiment does no harm.’

‘Ah... but did it do any good?’

I handed him the envelope and coughed all the way to the taxi rank.

‘To Nikolai Alexandrovich, by hand,’ said Stephen, reading the envelope. ‘So whoever sent it, knew Kropotkin fairly well. You’d only use that form of someone’s name... the patronymic Alexandrovich without the last name Kropotkin... if you knew him.’

‘It would be more surprising if they didn’t know each other.’

‘I guess so.’ He picked out the two small clipped-together pages. ‘This paragraph on the front says, “Note paper”... sort of jotting paper, that is... “used at International Horse Trials. Please give it to Randall Drew”.’

‘Is that all?’

‘That’s the lot.’

He peered at the second page, and I waved uninhibitedly at a taxi cruising with its windscreen light on. Once more on our way, Stephen handed back the treasure trove.

‘Not much cop,’ he said. ‘A case of the lion straining to produce a gnat.’

The taxi driver spoke into my thoughtful silence.

‘He wants to know where we’re going,’ Stephen said.

‘Back to the hotel.’

We stopped however on the way at a shop he identified as a chemist. The Russian letters on the shop-front, when approximated into English, read Apotek. Apothecary... what else? I went inside with him, seeking dampeners for the troubles in fingers and chest, but ended only with the equivalent of aspirins. For his own purchase, he leaned across a counter and spoke low to the ear of a buxom battleaxe.

She replied very loudly, and all the nearby customers turned to stare at him. His face was a scarlet study in embarrassment, but all the same he stood his ground and brought the transaction to the desired conclusion.

‘What did she say?’ I asked, as we left.

‘She said “This foreigner wants... preservativy...” And don’t bloody laugh.’

My chuckle anyway ended in a cough. ‘Preservativy being contraceptives?’

‘Gudrun insists.’

‘I should darned well think so.’

At the hotel we went straight through the foyer to the lifts, as I had taken my room key with me to the University so as not to advertise my absence to the reception desk.

Up to the eighth floor, past the watchful lady at the desk, and along the corridor... and the door of my room was open.

Cleaners?

Not cleaners. The person who was standing inside was Frank.

He had his back to the door and was over by the dressing shelf under the window, head bent, looking down at something in his hands.

‘Hello, Frank,’ I said.

He turned round quickly, looking very startled: and what he was holding was the matroshka. Intact, I saw, with all her secrets still inside. His fingers were still tight with the effort of trying to open her.

‘Er...’ he said. ‘You didn’t come to breakfast. I... er... came to see if you were all right. After last night. I mean, falling in the river...’

Not bad, I thought, as a spot of thinking on the feet.

‘I went to the Hippodrome to see the horses work,’ I said, playing the game that anyone could play if they had a lying tongue.

Frank relaxed his grip and put the painted doll slowly down on the shelf, giving his best weak-schoolteacher laugh.

‘Right on, then,’ he said. ‘Natasha was worried about you not coming to breakfast. Shall I tell her you’ll be in for lunch?’

Lunch... the prosaically normal in the middle of a minefield.

‘Why not?’ I said. ‘And I’ll have a guest.’

Frank looked at Stephen with sustained dislike, and took himself off; and I descended a bit feebly on to the sofa.

‘Let’s have a drink,’ I said.

‘Scotch or vodka?’ He pulled the morning’s newly-bought bottle out of his overcoat pocket and stood it on the shelf.

‘Scotch.’

I took two of the Apotek’s pills with it, without noticeable results.

Looked at my watch, now miraculously ticking again despite immersion. Eleven-thirty. Picked up the telephone.

‘Ian?’ I said. ‘How’s the hangover?’

From the sound of it, on the mend. The hair of the dog had bitten an hour ago, no doubt. I said I couldn’t make it after all before lunch, and how about him tottering along to my room at the hotel at about six?

Totter, he said, might just about describe it, by then: but he would come.

Stephen was sweeping the walls with the tape-recorder, trying to find the tender spot. I pointed to it, but again there was no whine. And then, just as he was about to give up, the whine suddenly began.

‘Switched on, by God,’ he said under his breath.

‘Let’s have some music.’

He pulled the three tapes from his obliging overcoat and slotted in an energetic rendering of Prince Igor.

‘What next?’

‘I brought some paperbacks... which would you like?’

‘And you?’ he said, looking at the titles.

‘Drink and think.’

So the bug listened for an hour to Stephen turning the pages of The Small Back Room against the urgencies of Borodin, and I listened inside my head to everything I’d been told, both in England and Moscow, and tried to see a path through the maze.

Lunch seemed unreal.

The Wilkinsons were there, and Frank was there. Frank hadn’t told the Wilkinsons he’d saved my life the evening before, and behaved throughout as if nothing of the sort had ever happened. What he thought of my silence on the subject was a mystery.

Natasha and Anna tried by a mixture of scolding and persuasion to make me promise to stop disappearing without telling them where I was going and I helpfully said I would do my best, without meaning a word of it.

Frank ate my meat.

Mrs Wilkinson talked. ‘We’ve always voted Labour, Dad and me, but isn’t it funny, in England it’s always the far left people who want more and more immigrants, but here, where it’s about as far left as you can get, there aren’t any. You don’t see black people walking around in Moscow, do you?’

Frank took no notice.

‘It just strikes me as funny, that’s all,’ Mrs Wilkinson said. ‘Still, I don’t suppose there’s much of a queue in India for wanting to live in Moscow, come to think.’

Mr Wilkinson muttered to his small-sized chips, ‘They’ve got more sense.’ He wouldn’t say much else for the rest of the day.

Frank came to life with a routine damnation of the anti-black policies of the National Front.

Mrs Wilkinson gave me a comical look of bewilderment and despair at never being able to get through to Frank.

‘Front,’ I said mildly, ‘is an overworked word. A cliché. We have Fronts for this and Fronts for that... One should always ask what... if anything... is behind a Front.’

It was again ice-cream with blackcurrant jam. I quite liked it.

Stephen ate like Frank and told me afterwards that the Intourist Hotel food was high class luxury compared with the students’ grub.

Apart from all that, which seemed to be going on in a separate life, I was more positively hearing the voices of Boris and Evgeny, and Ian, and Malcolm, and Oliver, and Kropotkin, and Misha and Yuri Chulitsky, and Gudrun and the Prince and Hughes-Beckett and Johnny Farringford... and the dead voice of Hans Kramer: I could hear them all clearly.

But where, oh where, was Alyosha?