The Russian Interpreter

‘For Professor Rubeshchenskaya,’ Manning heard himself translating, ‘a small memento from her friends in the department at Edinburgh…. For Sasha Zaborin, a volume of his beloved Schubert songs from his old pupils Michael Sloane and Trevor Westland…. For Dean Korolenko, a bound volume of the Proceedings of the Institute of Civic Studies, from the Director and staff of the Institute … And lastly …’

But for whom the last volume was destined Manning didn’t quite catch. He was in the process of descending from the remoteness of the sky into a chair which had somehow appeared to catch him.

‘You’ll feel better sitting down,’ said a gentle, anxious voice. Manning could see Sasha’s thin, wind-blown hair somewhere at the edge of his field of vision.

‘Come over a bit funny,’ he said.

‘You’ll be all right.’

‘Making a fool of myself.’

‘Russian hospitality. It happens to everyone.’

Events became confused, as if in another world. Manning had an impression of applause, of glasses clinking, of laughter. At some stage the chairs were pushed back. People were moving about. Faces bent over him.

‘Hallo,’ he said to them, smiling.

One of the faces was Korolenko’s.

‘Your friend Lippe,’ it seemed to be saying, ‘is ill. She was found in the street. She was taken to the First City Hospital.’

‘Thank you,’ said Manning.

More faces. People leaving the room. Other people coming into the room. Manning caught a glimpse of Proctor-Gould. Old Gordon seemed to be in a bad way as well. Two men in overcoats were holding his elbows. His face was very white.

Then arms were placed under his own armpits, lifting him to his feet, helping him towards the door.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Very kind. Bit tricky at the moment.’

He swivelled his head to see who it was helping him. Not anyone he knew. Two men in overcoats. Friends of friends, perhaps.

Outside the door in one of the great marble corridors of the university, he saw Sasha. He was talking to another man in an overcoat, looking over the man’s shoulder and frowning anxiously at Manning.

‘Sorry, Sasha,’ said Manning.

Farther on down the corridor Konstantin was hovering.

‘Sorry, Kostik,’ said Manning. ‘Ashamed to be seen by you in this condition. I truly am.’

Konstantin shook his head and waved his hand deprecatingly.

‘Never kept our appointment,’ said Manning. ‘Sorry, Kostik.’

Konstantin was left behind. They were going down a broad staircase. People were staring. Manning’s feet muddled up the edges of the stairs, tumbling over them inertly. He felt infinitely sad and ashamed.

‘Sorry,’ he told the men who were holding him. ‘God, I’m sorry!’

He began to cry.

Outside the night was blessedly cool and dark. Down, down the unending flight of ceremonial stairs to the roadway. He was being put into the back of a car. Then the car was full of silent men in overcoats, smelling of scent and cigarettes and sweat.

‘Put his head down,’ said one of them, as the car accelerated across the piazza. ‘He’s going to be sick.’

37

Manning’s acclimatization to captivity was softened for him; on the first day the prison took its place as one more of the after-effects of drunkenness – intimate, timeless, and unreal. By the second day it already felt natural, and indeed inevitable.

There seemed to be no one else in his section of the prison. From the little exercise yard where he was taken for an hour each morning he could sometimes hear the noises of human activity – a shout, someone laughing, a bucket scurring along a stone floor. But he saw no one except the warders who unlocked him and brought him his food. The food was not very much worse than it had been in the Faculty canteen. He was still wearing his own clothes, though his belt, tie, watch and money had disappeared, and the laces had been removed from his shoes. Someone had fetched a few of his belongings and placed them in his cell; he had his own toothbrush and his own shaving tackle, though the blades had gone. Each morning he was unlocked and allowed to slop along in his unlaced shoes to the ablutions at the end of the corridor – a lavatory without a seat or a door, and a sink with a cold tap and a block of hard, cheese-coloured soap. The duty warder fitted one of his confiscated blades into the razor for him, and waited while he made his toilet. All he lacked was a towel. By some administrative oversight, none of his own towels had been included with his belongings, and none was issued by the prison, so that he was forced to dry his hands on his one spare handkerchief, which quickly became sodden.