The Russian Interpreter

‘Do you believe me?’

Manning stared at him.

‘I suppose I do,’ he said. ‘I suppose I do.’

‘I must admit, it wasn’t very satisfactory. It was one of the jobs I wanted you for.’

‘Will you please tell me what’s going on?’ cried Raya.

‘You can’t imagine how maddening it is to be left in the dark while this sort of argument flashes about one’s head.’

They looked round. They had both forgotten about her.

‘He’s inviting you to sleep here,’ said Manning briefly.

‘That’s very kind of him,’ she replied. ‘Yes, please.’

‘I wish you’d stop trying to irritate me,’ said Manning. ‘Come on. I’ll see you to a taxi.’

‘She accepted my invitation, didn’t she?’ said Proctor-Gould.

‘Look, don’t be stupid,’ said Manning. ‘Anyway, what about your rule?’

‘What rule?’

‘I thought you had a rule about not getting emotionally involved while you were over here?’

‘Who said anything about getting emotionally involved, Paul?’

‘If spending the night with people isn’t getting emotionally involved with them …’

‘Don’t leap to conclusions, Paul. I shall doss down in the arm-chair. There’s no question of getting involved in any way at all.’

‘What about the danger of blackmail?’

‘Blackmail, Paul?’

‘You were warning me about it, if you remember.’

‘Good heavens Paul! You don’t think Raya’s a police spy, do you?’

‘Well, we don’t know, do we?’

‘I don’t think that’s a very chivalrous attitude, Paul.’

‘Gordon, three days ago it was your attitude!’

‘At that stage I hadn’t met Raya. I was speaking generally. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in life, Paul, it’s that success goes to the man who knows when to modify his general principles to meet the situation in hand.’

‘You really have tumbled head over heels, haven’t you, Gordon!’

‘Paul, there’s no question of tumbling head over heels, or any involvement of any sort whatsoever. I’m just offering Raya somewhere to sleep for the night because she’s almost certainly missed her last bus.’

‘Gordon, let’s not delude ourselves. You’re in love with Raya.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Oh, Gordon! You’re making a pass at her! I may say it’s the most preposterous, clumsy, witless pass I’ve ever seen made.’

‘Paul, let me assure you I have no designs upon Raya.’

‘Let me tell you something, Gordon. You’re the archetype of a certain sort of impotence….’

‘Now, Paul, let’s not raise our voices….’

‘You flirt with other men’s women. You get prostitutes in and pay them for drinking Nescafé….’

‘Now, come, come, Paul….’

‘You launch into little adventures where there’s no possibility of failure because there’s no possibility of success….’

There was a sharp rap on the door. They swung round. The old woman from the floor-clerk’s desk was standing on the threshold.

‘Quieter! Quieter!’ she whispered furiously. ‘It’s after midnight – you’ll wake the whole hotel!’

After she had gone Manning and Proctor-Gould stood for a moment looking at each other in silence.

‘Well,’ said Manning, ‘Raya and I are going.’

He looked round to tell her. But she had vanished. She had disappeared from the room without trace.

It was Proctor-Gould who saw her first. She was in bed, with the covers drawn up over her nose, apparently fast asleep. Propped up against the carafe of water on the bedside was one of her playing cards. On it was written in her childish ballpoint hand:

‘A call at 8.0 a.m., please, with cheese, fruit, sour milk, and coffee.’

16

Manning spent a good deal of the night walking up and down his room in Sector B, his fists clenched, unable to believe that he had been treated so badly.

‘I can’t believe it!’ he said to himself aloud over and over again, raising his eyebrows and running his hand through his hair, until the window was grey with dawn, and he was too exhausted to remember what it was that he couldn’t believe. When he woke up two or three hours later he could believe it even less, and when, as he sat haggard and sleepy in the Faculty Library, he received the usual message that Proctor-Gould had phoned and asked him to go over to the hotel, it seemed to him that his impressions of what had taken place the previous evening had simply been mistaken, and that nothing had really changed at all.