The Russian Interpreter

And what could he do with this passenger on his back? He could not visit anyone, because it would implicate them. He could not run, or hide, or try to shake the man off, because it would seem suspicious. He could only behave normally. Or rather, make gestures of normality – bold, unambiguous, theatrical gestures that signalled normality to a man a hundred yards away. He could do nothing but walk, not too slowly, not too fast, down this enormous highway, between the hugely-spaced grey blocks and their attendant tower cranes, then continue through more vast, empty boulevards and prospects, until he returned to the great rhetorical remoteness of the university, and his own tiny room, there to go through the gestures of falling into an untroubled sleep.

Two long black cars sped by, one after another, their engine notes mingling and gradually dying. Silence again. And the footsteps.

Why follow him? The unreasonableness of it appalled him. What could he do that would illuminate anything for them? Where could he lead them that it would interest them to be? What fragment of information could he be expected to provide?

Then he remembered the crumpled slip of paper in his wallet – the receipt for the suitcase at the Kiev Station. Could they possibly know about that?

For the first time, Manning felt frightened. It was an indefinite fear, of being small and vulnerable among large forces that were indifferent to him. He thought of being questioned in bare rooms by men who saw him as nothing but an information-bearing object, uninteresting in itself. He thought of living for a great part of his life among hard, alien surfaces and clanging doors, unloved, unesteemed. He could not go on with this charade when possibilities like that opened out from it. He could not pretend to behave normally. The fragile pretensions of normality were crushed under the weight of such threats.

A line of tall evergreen bushes bordered the pavement. Just in front of Manning there was a break in the bushes, where muddy wheelmarks across the footway led to a track disappearing into the darkness of the construction site beyond. Without premeditation Manning turned off on to the track, and as soon as he was hidden by the bushes, began to run.

His own behaviour instantly terrified him. Oh God. be thought, I’ve done a stupid thing. How can I undo it? Oh God, how can I undo it?

He looked about him as he ran. Dimly, in the light filtering through from the highway, he took in the paraphernalia of construction – a shed, a heap of wooden scaffolding, a trailer covered with a tarpaulin. He must hide. But where? Somewhere darker. He ran on. The side of a building loomed vaguely, with unglazed windows. A doorway without a door. Into it. Inside it was completely dark. His footsteps reverberated about the bare concrete walls. A smell of cement and damp. Stop panting! Quiet, quiet.

Silence. Oh, you fool, you fool! No, stop. Not even think. Press against wall. Try not to be.

Wait for the man.

Not a sound. What’s he doing? Would have run to gap in bushes – must have reached it by now. Looking cautiously round corner?

What’s happening? Why silence so long?

Suddenly, the footsteps – running. Coming along the track towards the building, louder and louder. Now outside the door!

Now stopped. Not five feet from the door. Can hear him panting. Can hear soles of shoes on the ground – shirrrrrr. Pause. Shirrrrrr. He’s turning to look, first one way, then the other.

Then step, step, step – coming nearer. The echoing crunch of a step on the concrete floor of the doorway. He was inside the room. The whole room was suddenly full of his breathing, of the scurring of his shoes on the concrete. Oh God! Don’t breathe! Don’t even look at him! Keep face pressed against concrete wall! Just wait.

And wait.

He must be looking this way. The darkness dissolves in his presence. Any moment … any moment….

Two decisive steps on the concrete, and quieter steps going away on the beaten earth outside. Silence.

Gone.

Breathe. Wait. Complete silence outside. Wait longer. Still silence. Now what?

What indeed?

Slip back to the highway? Then what? Run? Run down that endless road – run and run and run until the breath gave out? The hopeless futility of it appalled him. But what else was there to do? He had panicked. The consequences stretched before him like a progression of rooms in a dream, each opening inexorably off the last.

With infinite precaution he crept to the door and edged his head slowly round the lintel. After the darkness inside the building, the dim light outside from the street-lamps on the highway seemed like day. He made out odd planks lying on the ground, flattened drums, torn sheets of tarred paper. Nothing moved. There was the noise of a lorry passing on the highway. Then silence.