The Russian Interpreter

‘Now, the other suitcase,’ he said. The hot flush of adrenalin through his arteries had evidently passed. He sounded merely surly, and he avoided looking at either Raya or Manning.

Manning translated. Raya raised her eyes and looked at Proctor-Gould without saying anything. She seemed to be studying him, and she looked as if she were troubled by some thought remote from either of them.

‘I want the suitcase,’ repeated Proctor-Gould, still not looking at her.

She sighed and got to her feet.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

They went downstairs. Proctor-Gould’s black Chaika was waiting at the kerb, and they got in. Raya gave an address to the driver, and the car moved off in a northerly direction, through Okhotniy Ryad into Sverdlov Square. Proctor-Gould stared out of the window expressionlessly. Raya sat on the jump-seat opposite him, watching his face, her forehead a little puckered as if she were puzzled by something.

23

They drove to a public dining-room, Dietary Dining-Room No. 37, in a forlorn street behind the White Russia Station. Outside, the stucco was flaking. Inside, the room was as bleak as a prison, and the clattering of metal trays and the scrape of cutlery on plates echoed noisily between the bare walls. It was half past three; a dozen or so late lunchers or early diners were gulping down their dietary mush with all possible speed. The air was steamy, and heavy with sour smells.

They bought yoghourt and coffee in order to be allowed in, and then Raya led them across to a table in the corner. There was a young man wearing steel-framed spectacles sitting at the table, with a number of empty coffee cups in front of him. He got to his feet as they approached. Without looking at Raya he took the tray from Manning and set it down. Then he gravely shook the two men’s hands. He did not seem surprised to see them.

‘This is Konstantin,’ said Raya.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Konstantin in Russian, as they all sat down. He neither got nor asked for the other half of the introduction.

Manning guessed that Konstantin was somewhere in his late twenties. He seemed surprisingly shabby for a black-market speculator. His jacket was slightly too small for him, exposing soiled shirt-cuffs and three or four inches of scrawny wrist. The lapels of the jacket were permanently cockled, and the tie, tied crooked in a collar which was loose about his neck, had become neutral in colour with age and dirt. He looked quite unlike any of the elegant young men who came up to Manning in the street from time to time and offered to buy his clothes or his foreign currency.

His face fitted no better than his suit. It was pallid and anxious, with a high, bony forehead. The lenses of his spectacles were thick, and seemed to slope backwards. Behind them his short-sighted eyes lurked magnified and ambiguous. Every now and then he impatiently pushed the bridge of the spectacles closer to his nose, and as they all sat for a long moment in silence he played with a coffee-spoon, beating it rapidly against the palm of his hand, and making as if to snap it in two.

Manning glanced at Proctor-Gould for instructions. Proctor-Gould looked tired, as if he had compressed a whole week’s emotional energy into that one burst of anger.

‘Does he speak English?’ he asked Manning. ‘No? You’d better do all the talking, then.’

Manning turned to Konstantin.

‘An unfortunate mistake has occurred,’ he began. ‘Raya has disposed of some English books belonging to my friend here, not realizing that he wanted to keep them.’

Konstantin nodded.

‘It was a silly misunderstanding,’ said Manning. ‘My friend, of course, is anxious to get them back.’

Konstantin nodded again.

‘They were in a suitcase, a locked suitcase. I wonder if you’ve seen them?’

‘Yes,’ said Konstantin, nodding rapidly, almost impatiently.

‘You acquired them from Raya?’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Konstantin. Manning waited for him to go on, but Konstantin appeared not to think that any explanation was called for. He shook the coffee-spoon between his fingers as if it were a castanet, until it fell with a clatter into one of the empty cups.

‘Well,’ said Manning, ‘we want the books back.’

Konstantin’s eyes swam inscrutably behind his lenses.

‘Have you any proof of ownership?’ he asked, throwing the words away with such rapidity and diffidence that Manning did not at first catch them among the noise of the dining-room. ‘Any documents? A receipt? A customs certificate?’

The question took Manning by surprise. He consulted with Proctor-Gould, who shook his head, staring at Konstantin curiously.

‘All right,’ said Konstantin, shrugging. ‘Would you be prepared to come round to the militia-post and make a formal complaint?’

Again Manning consulted with Proctor-Gould.

‘He says he wouldn’t,’ Manning translated to Konstantin, ‘because he doesn’t want to involve Raya.’

‘I see,’ said Konstantin.

‘Anyway, the question is academic. You could scarcely go to the militia yourself, since you’d be charged with receiving.’

‘Not if the books weren’t stolen.’