Russian Hide-and-Seek

5

A quarter of an hour later Alexander and Polly the mare were moving at a gentle canter past the spot where he had persecuted the sheep, an incident that failed to recur to his mind. He was in a kind of hurry, but his goal would stay till he came; it was a beautiful morning and there was much to look at in the scene about him, if he could only concentrate his attention on it. This proved difficult; somehow it always did; the run of the hoofbeats, the steady leaping motion of the horse under him, the unchanging sunshine were perhaps, in this case, what caused his eyes to lose their focus, so that he gazed rather than looked. Another and habitual distraction stemmed from ignorance. He could particularise no further from grass, flower, bush, tree, tree-stump than he could from sun or sky. Only the grosser objects on view penetrated to him: a stretch of canal with a towing-horse just coming into view round a bend, a great broad road ultimately linking London and Birmingham with lesser roads passing above and below it and elaborate access systems. His eye was caught by a metal sign, flaked and corroded far past legibility but still bearing a trace of blue paint. Horse and mule traffic passed to and fro on the main roadway and, in the distance, the sunlight winked off the metalwork of a motor-car.

Alexander’s path took him now between fields of standing grain, wheat on one side, as he could have recognised if he had looked, barley on the other, as he could not. After that came row after row of the green tops of some root vegetable which a man was furthering with a device on the end of a pole, and after that came a house, but for its dilapidated tile roof a nearly cubical object of concrete and two sorts of brick irregularly distributed, as though to insist on its unlikeness to all others whatever. If such had really been the architect’s purpose it was at once undone by the next house, and the next, and the next. Soon Alexander was walking his horse between a double row of identical unique dwellings; to them he did pay attention, and of a friendly sort. They showed him the end of his journey was near and, more than that, he knew them to be among the very last houses in the district built before the Pacification. They always put him in mind of that legendary era, and so he looked at them with respect, even a little awe. There was no one to offer him the opinion that they were offensive to the eye and the mind.

The main street of the village was quite different. It had in it many of the things appropriate to such a street in the middle of England: a post office, a grocer’s shop, a greengrocer’s, a butcher’s, a baker’s, a barber’s, a saddler’s, a newsagent’s (though the news he supplied came in only two forms, Russian and an English translation), a bank, an eating-house, a small cinema, houses by the dozen. But there was no garage, book-shop, pub or church, nor any building that had formerly served those functions, for the most visible difference between centre and outskirts was that nothing here had stood for more than fifty years. The whole of the original street had been destroyed, some said by fire, in a single day and night, during which period an unknown number of people died, some said Russians as well as English, women as well as men. But it was impossible to say such things with any certainty, because no English survivor had ever been found, nor any English witness; the village had been a Russian military post during the Pacification and its inhabitants evacuated to neighbouring villages. Soon afterwards, in a move possibly related to the events of that day and night, the authorities had officially renamed it New Kettering, but this had never caught on among the English and today even the Russians called the place Henshaw.

The street itself, the road-surface, was remarkably smooth along the middle, owing in great measure to the careful maintenance of the rammed rubble in the various pot-holes. Sickly trees, their lower parts protected by wire guards, stood at twenty-metre intervals along the edges of the gravel footpaths. The buildings, two- or one-storeyed, mostly wooden (there had been plenty of timber then), were the product of English labour under Russian supervision and recalled the domestic designs of neither country. They were narrow from front to back, with few and small windows. That school of architects and furnishers which had ruled, a century earlier, that an object made with nothing but utility in mind must be beautiful might have been strongly impressed by the results of such single-minded rejection of the superfluous. Dark greys and browns predominated, but here and there a shop-sign or a painted door-frame showed a touch of brighter colour.

The people on view at this hour, nearly all of them women, were clothed after much the same style. They had turned out in some numbers, many of them to join the queues outside the greengrocer’s (soft fruit on sale) and the butcher’s (fresh-meat day). They smiled, greeted one another, gossiped, even laughed. The weather was going to be fine again, husbands and sons would be pleased with their suppers and things in general were no worse than last year,. indeed there had been positive improvements, of which the most momentous was the recent introduction of a third fresh-meat day in the week. Some had heard their elders speak of strikes, often adding that whatever else the Russians had done they had certainly put a stop to all that, and the more thoughtful, after an honest attempt to imagine themselves living through a strike, would feel a glow of comfort. Now, as Alexander passed, quite a few of the villagers looked up at him. A middle-aged man touched his hat, although the ordinance requiring this had long lapsed. The glance of all was without fear, without respect, without hostility, all but a pair of obvious pre-wars, husband and wife, who showed a faint, faded contempt as they turned their backs.

None of this was Alexander’s concern; he turned his horse and trotted up a short side-street. At its end there was a house slightly larger than the others and standing back from them. He saw easily that it antedated the Pacification; in fact it belonged to a much earlier period, with red-brick walls, a strip of lawn in front, and from gate to front door a short walk between brick pillars and covered by trellis from which white and blue flowers hung down. More flowers, of various colours, grew in beds at the edges of the lawn and under the windows of the house. To the right of the front door a wooden signboard mentioned J. J. Wright MD and surgery hours below the equivalent in Cyrillic characters. Alexander gave the mare’s reins to a boy of twelve who had followed them from the high street in hopes of a small reward, and plied the brass knocker energetically.

Quite soon a girl of about twenty appeared. She had fair hair bleached in streaks by the sun, bright brown eyes with greenish flecks in them and a pink-and-white complexion. True to Nina’s guess, this girl also had a fine pair of breasts. She looked very healthy and wore a blue skirt and white shirt.

‘Darling, how marvellous to see you!’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting-’

That was as much as she said, because by that point Alexander had hastened across the threshold into the tiny hall, seized her in his arms and begun to kiss her with great intentness, nor did he leave it at that. The series of muffled sounds she made indicated first mild surprise, then more acute surprise, then pleasure and excitement. After a while he released her in part.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘And I love you.’

Undressing as they went, they hurried up the wooden staircase and into a low-ceilinged bedroom at the back of the house from which fields of cereal and a large plantation of conifers were to be seen, if one should look. They were out of view from the bed on which, very soon indeed, Alexander closed with the fair-haired girl. Their activities there went on for some time, longer, to go by her responses when they ceased, than she had expected or was used to. At last she said tenderly,

‘You went at me as if you were trying to split me in two. What’s happened?’

‘Nothing, I just thought of you and then I couldn’t get you out of my mind. If you hadn’t been here I don’t know what I’d have done.’

‘Darling Alexander.’

‘My dearest, most beautiful Kitty.’

Russian was very much the preferred medium of exchange between the two speech-communities; it was taught in all schools, and there was no incentive for the units of supervision, except for some of those under Director Vanag, to learn the language of the subject nation. The arrangement suited Alexander perfectly: he had gone to some pains to be able to speak English without accent, or to seem to do so to Russian ears, and he had carefully chosen and mastered some relatively elaborate phrases of salutation and of colloquialism, together with a few useful simplicities like the ones he had spoken and heard just now on arrival, but his vocabulary had remained small and his ability to carry on a conversation smaller still.

For the moment, at least, this was a supportable weakness. Humming to himself, he set about stroking some of the portions of Kitty that he had not bothered with before. He reflected foggily that one great advantage of pretty girls was that they remained positively, actively attractive at all times and at every stage of the game, then, more foggily still, how altogether serviceable it was that what girls, whether pretty or not, most liked receiving exactly matched, coincided with, was no more nor less than what men were most inclined to offer. Kitty gave little groans of contentment. Sweet smells and bird-song drifted in at the open window, where a bumble-bee entered and, after a quick half-circuit of the room, went out again.

‘How lucky we are,’ said Kitty. ‘We might never have met each other. Have you ever thought of that?’

‘No,’ said Alexander truthfully. He went on, ‘And I don’t believe it, darling. I think we were intended to meet.’

‘You mean by God, or Fate, or…?’

‘One of those. Something brought me to England and made you cross my path. You remember how we first met?’

‘Yes, you picked me up in the street in Northampton.’

‘You know, you’re very sweet, Kitty love, but you can be frightfully crude sometimes. I did not pick you up. I’ve told you a hundred times how it was. An important dispatch had to be taken to the Military Secretariat. At the last moment the officer who was supposed to take it went sick and I was sent instead. I was just coming out of the building after delivering it when for no reason at all I looked over my shoulder and saw you crossing the road away from me, and straight away I just knew we were made for each other, so I ran after you and nearly got knocked down by a waggon and said something to you – I can’t remember what it was…’

‘I can. It was, “Would you like to go for a walk?”‘

‘I dare say it was, that’s quite unimportant. And then you told me it was the first time you’d been in that part of Northampton for over a year.’

‘Did I?’

‘That was later, of course. Well, surely you can see it? I mean, you must agree that what we feel about each other is quite exceptional?’

‘Oh yes, I can’t imagine many people having such a lovely time as we do or being as happy. And nobody anywhere being happier.’

‘Well then, darling Kitty, it would obviously be absurd if something like that could have happened and then never did after all.’

‘I can understand it would be a pity, my love. Well yes, I supposed it might be rather absurd too, in a way.

He pushed the thick fair hair back from her brow and took her face between his hands. ‘Let me tell you how I feel – how you make me feel. When I’m with you, even when I’m not but I think of you so hard it’s almost as if I can see you, then I feel the blood going through my body with a new life, so that I tingle from head to foot, and I’m so much aware of everything round me that it’s as if I’d been half blind and deaf and sort of numb before, and I seem to be within just one second or one metre of understanding the secret of the universe. Everything’s incredibly grand and yet completely simple. And then,’ he added, determined to go carefully with the next part, ‘I wish you could have been… kidnapped and taken prisoner by Vanag’s men so that I could come riding in to rescue you.

Rather disappointingly, she seemed not to notice his change of tack there. ‘I wish I knew half as much about how I feel as you do about how you feel. I only know I feel wonderful in every way and it’s all because of you.’

This was so near to what he would have said himself in her situation that he looked her closely in the eye, but found he was unable to go on doing so; his gaze shifted to her mouth and the thought, all thought, began to slip deliciously away. There was not a great deal about what followed that was the product of intention. The sound of the shutting front door recalled them to the bed where they lay and to each other.

‘Daddy,’ said Kitty. ‘He sometimes comes in for a few minutes in the middle of his rounds.’

‘Good, I want a word with him.’

Dr Joseph Wright, a small, pale, bespectacled man with brown hair turning grey, was some years too young to be a true pre-war but, having had both parents killed during the Pacification, he resembled one in many ways. So for his younger daughter to be openly and regularly screwed by a Russian officer, one whom moreover he disliked and despised personally, made him angry. This condition he kept to himself as far as possible; the girl seemed to have, no objection to the state of things, and the associated benefits, in the shape of the occasional bottle of cognac or few kilos of fuel, were certainly welcome enough, but it was (or could any day turn out to be) much more important to stay in the general good books of one of the Shits – a term in common use even among those many who had no very serious objection to the presence of their masters. Conversely, the meanest understanding could foresee the probable results of trying to cross a Russian officer, especially this Russian officer. And, above all, there was nothing to be done about it, a verdict which sooner or later closed every such inquiry.

When he had politely finished dressing upstairs, Alexander came down and entered the sitting-room at the back of the house. This was cool and rather dark, with trailing plants in baskets and on pedestals and brackets, and more of the same and of other types in a small conservatory at one end. Here a tap dripped slowly into water in a pot or bowl.

‘Good morning, doctor -please don’t get up.’ He was unaware of the Englishman’s dislike, but always found himself behaving with some circumspection in front of him.

The doctor answered civilly in Russian, which was difficult for him – the civility, not the Russian: nothing annoyed him more than this facile mode of linguistic condescension. Because of this he missed the next remark offered, but pricked up his ears at the one after, a question, banal enough, to be sure, about his practice. As he made some equally tedious reply to this unprecedented show of interest, it occurred to him that the young bastard must want something. What it was remained unuttered till Kitty had come in with a tray of tea and shortbread. Soon after that an evening in March of that year was mentioned. Dr Wright remembered it well as one of an irregular series stretching back over about a year, curious soirees in this house held at the irresistible wish of Ensign Petrovsky, who also provided all the drink, most of the food and two or three of the guests, uncouth brother-officers of his. Wright’s part, as well as that of stomaching the occasion, was to provide the remaining guests from among the local populace, a task that called for only modest powers of persuasion with those under about fifty, while those above that age would often surrender principle for unlimited vodka. Well, the wanted something was now discovered: the mounting of a further performance some time soon. What remained mysterious was what was in it all for this particular Shit, who could be very readily believed to want to seem interested in England and the English, but who surely had no real interest in these matters, or indeed in anything more external to himself than making an impression. Oh, and sex, of course.

Just when Wright was expecting a date to be suggested, Alexander puzzled him by saying, ‘There was an interesting conversation about religion, about the Church of England. One of your friends mentioned a Reverend Mr Glover, I think, who lives in a nearby village.’

‘Yes, in Stoke Goldington. Not far.’

‘Is the gentleman in good health?’

‘Well, he must be nearly eighty, but as far as I know he’s well enough.’

‘Do you know him, doctor?’

‘I’ve met him occasionally,’ said Wright, by now almost shaking with curiosity. ‘Not for some years, though.’

‘I wonder, if I asked you very charmingly, whether you’d arrange for me to visit him. I mean, get his permission for me to call.’

‘His permission? You people can visit anybody you please.’

‘This is a matter of some delicacy, my dear doctor. I should like him to express his willingness. If he doesn’t, then there’s really no point in my calling.’

Wright felt renewed puzzlement. Kitty, the teacup forgotten in her hand, had been showing absorption in this duologue much more obviously than her father. Now she said,

‘Darling, what do you want to see an old clergyman for?’

Alexander had foreseen such a question from her without being any the better equipped to tackle it when it came. Alone with her he would have been loftily secretive, but he sensed that her father would somehow puncture anything like that. It seemed best to turn frank instead, though not artlessly so. ‘There’s somebody called Commissioner Mets,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ said Wright, beginning to understand. ‘I’ve heard of him.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Kitty.

‘A bureaucrat with an unusual job. He’s going to give us back our culture.’

‘What’s our culture?’

‘English plays, English paintings, English music,’ said Alexander. ‘And English religion. That’s where I come in. I’m to interview Mr Glover on the Commissioner’s behalf, but unofficially.’

‘Oh,’ said Kitty, now quite lost.

‘But you’re a… you’re a soldier,’ said Wright, not substituting a noun, merely omitting an adjective.

‘I shouldn’t be acting in that capacity, doctor, just as a sort of free-lance intermediary. The Commissioner seems to think I know more about the English than he does; well, he hasn’t been here very long. I said I’d put in a word for him.’

‘And you want me to put in a word for you.

‘Yes.’

‘And if both these words are heeded, your Commissioner stands a chance of getting old Glover to lend a hand with restoring the English Church.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I can assure you that any – what was it? – willingness Glover might express to do something, anything you people want would be quite insincere, more words, mere words.’

‘Then tell him,’ said Alexander, suddenly tiring of all this patience and simulated modesty, ‘that I shall be calling on him tomorrow evening at six o’clock and that he’ll make himself available if he knows what’s good for him.’

This speech tickled Wright, who had long given up hope of hearing anything straightforward or tolerable from that quarter. ‘By all means.

Alexander thanked him, put on his cap and strode out of the room, followed by Kitty. Not very long afterwards the front door was again heard to shut. The doctor picked up his bag and prepared to leave in his turn.

‘Shan’t be long, my dear. I wish you wouldn’t call that fellow "golubchik” in front of me. I mean, he is helping to hold us all down by force.’

‘Sorry, daddy. There doesn’t seem to be much force about these days. No need for it.’

‘I suppose not. Let’s just say that it might have been his grandfather who killed my parents.’

‘You don’t like him at all, do you?’

‘In a sense I can never like any Russian, but your position is quite different; I wouldn’t try to change it even if I could. Anything that helps to make life less intolerable is to be seized on. These days.’