The Russian Interpreter

‘All the same, if you insist on forcing your moral ideas on their attention they may feel compelled to do something about it.’

‘Exactly, Paul, exactly. The problem, as in all things in life, is to find the acceptable mean. That’s why I want you to help me in clarifying the situation.’

‘You want me to tell Raya to remove herself?’

‘No, no, no. I want us all to sit down to a round-table conference and discuss the situation like sensible people.’

Manning looked at Raya. She looked gravely back at him. He supposed that he should want to turn his back on her and never see her again. But he felt a great desire to remain in the same room as her, on any terms whatever. Besides, her decision to move in on Proctor-Gould was no doubt a pure caprice. It would pass, and she would return to him as suddenly and strangely as she had abandoned him, provided he was still at hand.

‘All right,’ said Manning. ‘Just this once. Don’t think I shall come running every time you crook your finger.’

‘Of course not,’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘Once we’ve got these few basic points straightened out we shan’t need you, anyway.’

Manning pointed at the table in the centre of the room. ‘Round-table conference,’ he said to Raya. At once she sprang off the bed and set a chair for herself.

Now that the moment for communication had come, Proctor-Gould seemed suddenly abstracted. He sat down at the table, but almost immediately stood up again, and cleared his throat.

‘Firstly …’ he began.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Manning. ‘Sit down.’

‘Ah,’ said Proctor-Gould, sitting down, but not abandoning the sleepwalker’s air that men have when they are about to tell a joke or make a speech.

‘Firstly, Paul,’ he began again, and the slightly hesitant way in which he said ‘Paul’ made it sound like a special concession to informality, ‘will you tell Raya what very great pleasure it gives me to have her here in this room?’

Manning winced, and Proctor-Gould at once began to giggle and pull at his ear

‘I hope I can rely on you, Paul,’ he said humorously, ‘to remove any unfortunate double meanings as you translate.’

‘He’s glad you’re here,’ said Manning to Raya.

‘I’m glad I’m here, too,’ said Raya. She got up and kissed Proctor-Gould on the ear. He put his arm round her and giggled again.

‘What did she say?’ he asked.

‘Glad to be here.’

‘Tell her I think she’s an absolute sweetie,’ demanded Proctor-Gould, giving her hips a squeeze, and rubbing his hand briskly up and down her further thigh, as if to restore circulation.

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘Go on, tell her.’

‘It’s not a logistical point.’

Proctor-Gould thought about this for some time in silence. Then he gave Raya’s thigh a couple of final rubs.

‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back to business, then.’

He gave Raya a dismissive pat on the bottom, rested his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together, and leaned forward with a serious air.

‘Now, the first point is this,’ he said, hammering it into the air with his clasped hands. ‘Can we establish what Raya’s plans are? Does she intend to remain here tonight?’

Manning translated.

‘Yes,’ said Raya.

‘Well, of course,’ said Proctor-Gould, ‘I’m very pleased. Delightful. Now could you, Paul, with the utmost tact, find out approximately – or even exactly – how long she intends to remain after tonight? Is she anxious to get home tomorrow? Or would she want to stay, say, another night? But put it with the utmost delicacy.’

‘How long are you staying altogether?’ translated Manning.

‘Until we are tired of each other.’

‘I see,’ said Proctor-Gould when Manning had translated it to him. ‘Yes. I see that. But do you think she realizes the position she may be putting herself in vis-à-vis the authorities?’

‘Of course she does. If she didn’t have some understanding with the authorities she wouldn’t be here in the first place.’

‘Ask her anyway.’

Raya shrugged.

‘Why ask, Paul? I know you’ve always thought I was a police spy.’

‘Look, Raya, you must have some understanding with someone or you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’d get into trouble.’

‘I might. I might not.’

‘You’d be mad to risk it.’

‘That depends how one wants to live. In this country one has only two alternatives. Either one must behave with an absolutely scrupulous regard for one’s personal safety; or else one must totally ignore it and do exactly as one pleases, in the hope that one will be thought to be a member of some different species, not subject to the rules at all.’

Manning stared at her, absolutely undecided what to think about her. She looked pleased by his uncertainty, as uncompromising as any god in her refusal to dispel his doubt by supernatural demonstration.

‘Give poor Gordon some sort of report on the conversation,’ she ordered. ‘He’s looking terribly worried.’

Manning reported, and Proctor-Gould leaned forward across the table to listen, his brown eyes very wide open, his thumb and index finger fondling the lobe of his ear incessantly.