The Russian Interpreter

The girl stopped to pick up a snail shell. Manning saw that she was already holding a number of objects – a pearl-grey wing feather, a pebble, a chalk-white segment from some animal’s backbone.

‘I like your collection,’ he said.

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Oh.’

‘Perhaps I could help you find some more things?’

‘Perhaps you could.’

Manning felt pleased with himself. He had made plenty of worse opening moves than that. An assured and worldly note had been struck, he felt.

‘You just look at the ground, do you?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘As you go along?’

‘That’s right.’

Manning gazed seriously at the ground, looking for topics of conversation. Almost without their noticing it, the outskirts of the forest closed in around them.

‘Do you like rambles?’ asked Manning.

‘Quite.’

‘What about rallies?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which do you prefer?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said, and gave a small laugh.

They were getting on quite well, thought Manning. A very uncomplicated, idyllic relationship was being established.

‘A crow,’ he said, pointing at one.

‘Yes?’ she said expectantly.

‘I said, a crow.’

‘What about the crow?’

‘I was just remarking that it was a crow.’

She gave another little laugh.

‘I see,’ she said.

Inside the forest the country was broken, and no two acres of it were alike. At one moment they would be walking over dry pine needles, across long slopes that revealed nothing but ranks of dark conifer trunks in every direction. At the next they would be in birch country, following water-logged clay tracks which twisted down through sudden pockets of open valley filled with sunshine. Speckled patches of snow lit the shadows and northern slopes. People got their second wind, and began to sing again.

‘I’ve never seen you around the Faculty,’ said Manning.

‘No?’

‘No.’

They had been walking for about an hour when pungent woodsmoke drifted towards them through the trees, and the sound of resinous timber crackling and spitting in the fire. They came to a clearing hazy with the smoke. There were shouts of recognition – it was the advance party, roasting potatoes and boiling millet porridge.

They sat down and ate. The black from the potatoes got over their faces, and the millet porridge tasted of nothing. Presently they sang. Manning watched the girl as she took the time from Sasha. He was definitely getting off with her – he really was doing very well. An agreeable feeling of confidence and experience seized him.

‘Now,’ said Sasha, ‘let’s have a song from our two English friends.’

Proctor-Gould looked at Manning. Manning shook his head firmly.

‘In that case,’ said Proctor-Gould, getting to his feet and addressing the company, ‘I shall have to ask for your forbearance and offer my humble services as a soloist. With your kind permission I should like to sing you a rather light-hearted little song entitled, “My Father Was the Keeper of the Eddystone Light”.’

He sang. It was considerably worse than Manning had expected. Proctor-Gould hunted about for each note uncertainly, and did not often find it. Manning looked round at the girl and smiled. She gazed at Proctor-Gould seriously, no doubt baffled by the strange modes of English song.

‘Incidentally,’ whispered Manning, leaning close to her ear, ‘my name is Paul.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’

‘You’re Glad?’

‘Yes.’

Manning tried the name over to himself. Rada – Glad. He had never heard of anyone called Rada before.

‘It suits you,’ he whispered.

‘What?’

‘Your name – Glad. It’s beautiful.’

She stared at him. Then she whispered:

‘Do you know what I think, Paul?’

‘No?’

‘I think you’re a buffoon.’

Proctor-Gould reached the end of his song, and there was a certain amount of polite, baffled clapping. The girl got up and walked away to the other side of the clearing.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘Your very generous response encourages me to go on and sing you another very old favourite in England, “Green Grow the Rushes Oh”.’

A stupid-looking man next to Manning who had been trying for some time to open a bottle of fizzy fruit-juice by thumping it up and down against the ground at last succeeded. The cap exploded off the bottle, and contents rose into the air like a geyser, then fell as a fine, sticky rain over Manning.

‘“I’ll sing you one-oh”,’ sang Proctor-Gould. ‘No, no, I’ll start again. Might as well begin on the right note. “I’ll sing you –” No. “I’ll –” Hm. “I’ll –” H’hgm. “I’ll sing you one-oh …”’

Manning slipped away into the woods out of earshot. The whole expedition was intolerable.

10

Manning relieved himself gloomily in a quiet corner of the forest. As he finished, something struck him sharply on the shoulder. It was a piece of dead wood. He looked round. About twenty feet away stood the girl with fair hair. She was looking round a birch tree at him, resting her head against the trunk, and biting at a twig she had bent down from the branch above her so that she showed her teeth. She looked like a shot out of a silent film.

‘My name’s Raya,’ she said, taking the twig out of her mouth. ‘If you’re interested.’