8 – TOUR.

I

In the bright clean early sun of the next morning, Petworth sits amid ferns in the great quiet lobby at the Hotel Slaka, awaiting the arrival of his guide. The arrangements for his departure from Slaka have gone competently well. A limping porter has brought down from the gaunt, troubled spaces of his great bedroom the luggage – the blue suitcase, the battered briefcase of lectures, the depleted plastic bag that still declares ‘Say Hello to the Good Buys from Heathrow’ – which Petworth has quickly and carelessly packed in the half dawn before going down to early breakfast; he has eaten that breakfast, the same breakfast as yesterday, and the day before, though he has made an order for something quite different. He has collected his passport from the blue Cosmoplot girl who bustles under the portraits of Marx and Wanko at the great desk in the customless lobby, and it rests hardbacked in his pocket; he has signed the great bill that will go to the Mun’stratuu, the cost of his three painful nights. The angled sun falls across the dust and into the red plastic chairs of the lobby, where only a few figures move, and where they are just taking down the shutters on the small stall that is marked LUTTU. It falls, too, on the ancient fac¸ades around the quiet square outside, where only one or two pink trams move, and even the newspaper seller has not yet begun his work of the day. Petworth sits in his chair and looks out through the great plateglass windows, looking out for a sight of the big black car that, according to the programme he also carries in his pocket, will take him off with Lubijova on his journey through the forest, his journey to new lectures, new intellectual duties, to the familiar story of his travels. It is good to be moving again; to leave, on a clean new day, Slaka behind, its confusions, its pains, its sadnesses, its treacheries, to go back to the life he should never have left.

In the corner of the square, a big black Russian Volga, with a great grinning grille, comes out of shade into sunlight. It moves slowly, and stops under the hotel portico. In the front is a big-necked driver in a grey shirt; in the back sits Lubijova, in the coat in which she had met him at the airport. Lubijova gets out, and waves through the glass; Petworth gets up, and gathers together his baggage. ‘Oh, you are ready, really I didn’t expect it,’ she says, coming over to him, swinging her shoulderbag, ‘And do you sign already the bill at the desk?’ ‘Yes, I’ve done it,’ says Petworth. ‘And your baggages all here,’ says Lubijova, ‘Today you are very efficient.’ ‘I am,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, I think perhaps that means you want to be very good on our trip,’ says Lubijova, ‘I hope it. Of course already I worry about it. You know, Petwurt, you are not like my other tourists. But now we are going to be together really for quite a long time. So I think we try a bit to enjoy it, don’t you say so?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, ‘Of course.’ ‘And I understand perhaps you are very sad of last night,’ says Lubijova, ‘You have had a disappointment, I know it. I think I realize very well why you are so sick in that nightclub.’ ‘I was sick in the nightclub, was I?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, don’t you remember it?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Do you make your mind a nothing? Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps what is good is a new start for everything. Really we could have a nice time, I believe it. And do you see what a nice sun we have made for you, for your journey?’ ‘Yes, it’s a lovely day,’ says Petworth. ‘So, no more things you must do?’ asks Lubijova, ‘You don’t forget some things, your shirt at the laundry? You carry your passport? You pay them all your small bills? You pack your suit away? You don’t want to make a nice kiss to the girl at the desk?’ ‘No, thank you,’ says Petworth, ‘Yes, I’m ready.’

‘So we go,’ says Lubijova, ‘Give me your documents case, and then we can move these baggages by ourselves. Look, it is a very fine car. Now you will ride like an apparatchik. I am sorry there are no curtains today for the windows, but even for a famous lecturer there is not always everything. Give this driver your baggages, he will put them away.’ Outside, in the sun, the big-necked driver meets them and takes the luggage round to the car’s great bulbous rear. ‘Now, where do you like to sit?’ asks Lubijova, ‘In the front with a view, or in the back with your guide?’ ‘Oh, in the back,’ says Petworth. ‘Good,’ says Lubijova, ‘Then I believe you forgive me just a little for being angered of you last night. You understand me now, I think. I like to look after you and I am always for your good. I think you have learned a little lesson.’ The big grey driver gets in; it is possible to recognize, from the familiar wart on the back of his neck, that this is the same man who, two days ago, took them up the hill to the Restaurant Propp. He turns, and Lubijova nods to him; he sounds an unnecessary flourish on a very fancy klaxon, starts the engine, and moves out into the square. ‘So, now for more than a week you are leaving Slaka,’ says Lubijova, ‘Please say your goodbye to it. Do you think you will miss it? Perhaps now these things have happened you do not. In any case you go back there again before you turn back to England. Remember, you come back for our day of National Rejoicering, before you fly away. You will think it is just for you.’ The car circles the square that Petworth has gazed down on so often from his great balconied bedroom, where the raucous nymphs play on the ceiling; now it turns up the narrow street, above which Marx, Lenin and Wanko hang, familiar now, on their wires. Petworth turns back to the square for a last view, to see that a big grey truck is stopping in it, in the empty early morning, just below the sign that says SCH’VEPPUU. The great, swaying hydraulic arm begins to ascend, with on the platform at the end of it three rocking workmen; then the square goes from sight.

‘Plazscu P’rtyuu, you know that,’ says Lubijova, pointing to the left, where the great vacant public open space is just visible, empty except for the guards standing like stone round Grigoric’s tomb, ‘Yes, it is pretty, the journey to Glit. The way is through the forest, you will like it. We take perhaps three hours, so I think you relax. You will see many things, the real visage of the country. In the big city, that is not the true life of a people. Perhaps all cities are everywhere the same. But always the country is different and more real, don’t you say?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, looking out from the car at the usual central boulevard that leads through the city, where the neon signs still flash. ‘Of course I will look after you to the best, and explain you what you see,’ says Lubijova, ‘You know I am very good guide. I remind you, I will be with you always, I come everywhere. Also don’t forget, on these travels you do not take photographs, unless in the correct places. Especially forbidden to the camera, our industrial projects and our railways engines. They are very pretty, but you must not make an image of them. For other things, please ask me first.’ ‘I don’t have a camera,’ says Petworth. ‘Then we do not worry, not a problem. So, we ride like a king and queen, and we stay at the nice hotels,’ says Lubijova, as the car speeds on out of the city, passing the university to the left, with its statue of Hrovdat, and the great monumental crosses of a roadside cemetery to the right, ‘Don’t you like to wave through the window at all the people? But really there are no people, we are so early. And now we nearly leave the city. Over there the power station and the cathedral. Oh, what a pity, I think you didn’t see it.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, always you are too busy,’ says Lubijova, ‘You like to follow a different religion, I have noticed. Well, it is not a matter, it is not so worth a visit.’ ‘No, I suppose not,’ says Petworth.

The black car drives on, at high speed; the bright sun shines. It lights up the cloud of white dust that rises in the air above the cement factory, the plume of orange pollution spurting high from the huge ejaculating chimneys of the power station. It lights up the great white cliffs of the high-stacked workers’ apartments, which, blank and repetitious, could well be anywhere in the world, except for the distinctly Slakan note of void public space, absence of cars, want of human figures. It lights up the hazy dust storm blowing between the buildings; it lights up the rubble and rubbish that is piled in the gutters, looking like the shifted snows of winter. It lights up, in the main road in front of them, a gang of soldiers who, so visible everywhere, are active here too, working in their vests on the roadbed, digging out holes and filling them with rocks. Their jackets and guns are spread over the white-trunked trees that line the route; a big military truck stands by, with an officer on top of the bonnet. ‘Always you see we are working,’ says Lubijova, ‘Here we make better our roads, always good. And always our industry, developing all round you. Here are many great and startling projects.’ Petworth looks round, and sees a large lumber yard, in which vast hoses are spraying outjets of water onto high stacks of wood, turning them black. Then, suddenly, peripheral Slaka, a city without suburbs, ceases; there is straight road and brown plain in front of them, and beside the straight road a small wooden hut, with many Cyrillic signs on it, and in it a number of the blue armed men. The driver turns and speaks. ‘Tells he must just go to this police post, and report where into the country he takes you,’ says Lubijova. The car stops, and the man goes into the post; Lubijova turns to Petworth, smiles, and puts her finger to her nose. ‘Perhaps with him you try to be just a little cautious, if you can,’ she says, ‘You know these people, they are such officials, and they make report. See, he comes back, it is all right. And now we take you into the dark forest.’

The black car moves again, up the white straight road that cuts ahead over the dark brown plain; sun splashes into it. In her corner, Lubijova sits, her shoulderbag on her knee; Petworth sinks into the limousine’s deep cushions, his head on the crocheted headrest, and gives in to the innocence of sight, the flat pleasure of the unfamiliar world before words and the mind have familiarized and named it. ‘Now, do you remember where you make this journey?’ asks Lubijova, ‘I hope you do, it is all written in your paper. Today is Glit. That is a nice place, very old, and we spend there three nights of a very old hotel of a typical kind. There is a fine castle and we will go there; also here you speak two lectures at the university, you know what they are. Then is Saturday and we leave, to Nogod. This is also a good place, of course it is, because we have there a whole weekend and we would not want to make a weekend in a bad place. There will be some amusements, I expect, and you find there a lake with fishes. We go there with a train, because this driver must turn back before then to be with his wife. On Monday you make also two lectures, and then to Provd by another train. Provd is different, you will impress. It is a part of our country that had some backward people and was very silly, but now they make many remarkable new projects. You will see them. Here also two lectures. Then on the night in Wednesday, we take a plane, because it is quick, and come back here again to Slaka, so you can see the National Rejoicerings. Rejoicerings?’ ‘Rejoicings,’ says Petworth, ‘Celebrations.’ ‘Well, permit please just one little mistake,’ says Lubijova, ‘You know usually I am always translating you very well. I hope you are glad of it, now I am with you always.’ ‘I am indeed,’ says Petworth.

The sun shines in, the great car speeds across the wide flat plain, which spreads out toward a distant horizon; here, faintly seen, are the mountains toward which they are heading. If landscapes have the variety of paintings, some coloured and warm, some plain and pastelled, thinks Petworth, staring out, then this is a landscape of very limited palate: matt, abstract, simplified, almost black and white. Few things move in it; there are no hedges or divisions. Wide tracts of green-brown space spread everywhere; in sheens of light, water sits in moraines and marshes. ‘The Vronopian plain, very typical,’ says Lubijova at his side, ‘Also I think a little bit dull. Quite different are the forests and the mountains, where all our visitors like to come. You will enjoy them very much.’ Heat and stillness prevail; on the green-brown land, a few white specks wander, the small ducks that move everywhere; occasionally great static flocks of white and brown sheep appear, guarded by single, rigid, upright human figures, shepherds who in their black suits and white shirts somehow resemble Methodist lay readers. The heat grows; Petworth begins to nod. ‘Here more duckses,’ says Lubijova, tugging at his arm, ‘And do you remember the word for it? Do you get proficient now in our language?’ ‘Crak’akuu,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, you are very good,’ says Lubijova, ‘What a pity that in the towns we go to those words are no good.’ ‘No good?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, we have so many languages here,’ says Lubijova, ‘Don’t you know it? We are such a mixed people, all different. Of course our government likes very much to help and give us one language so we can talk all to one another. I am sorry, this plain is perhaps too long, but it will be very interesting in one hour. Perhaps you like to make now a little sleep, and I will wake you when you are in nice place? I think you are very tired of last night.’ ‘I am, rather,’ says Petworth.

‘Of course,’ says Lubijova, ‘You had only a very small time at your bed. Perhaps you know now it was not such a good idea to go there to that club, when is finished the oper. But of course you must go, of course you must listen to your lady friend.’ ‘Who?’ asks Petworth. ‘Petwurt, you know who,’ says Lubijova, ‘Your new lady friend, the wild English one who goes with Tankic. Who is she? Where do you meet her?’ ‘Oh, that’s Mrs Steadiman,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, she is his wife?’ cries Lubijova, ‘Really he likes to marry her? Then I think both of you do not choose your ladies very well, she is not such good friend. Once it is famous that all the British are reservated, but not any more, I think.’ ‘She is quite energetic,’ says Petworth. ‘Energetic, yes, I think so,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, she nearly makes you some very bad trouble. But perhaps you think it is nice to visit a prison.’ ‘Not at all,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, I think you nearly did it, last night,’ says Lubijova, ‘You know, Petwurt, to me, you are such a strange man. Always you are making yourself problems that are ridiculous and no one knows how to help you. How can I understand you?’ ‘It seems very understandable to me,’ says Petworth. ‘But don’t you think of anything serious?’ asks Lubijova, ‘But, no, I suppose you think it is nicer to go to a topless.’ ‘A topless what?’ asks Petworth. ‘Of course, that topless club where the strip lady makes the dance of the seven scarves. And you are taking one of those scarves to give to your energetic English lady, and the policemen make you turn it back to her.’ ‘I did that?’ asks Petworth. ‘You don’t remenber it?’ asks Lubijova. ‘No,’ says Petworth, ‘Was it before or after I was sick?’ ‘Oh, before,’ says Lubijova, ‘It is lucky you were sick only after those policemen take you outside. When you had poured your drink all over the suit of poor Professor Rum.’ ‘I poured drink over Professor Rum?’ asks Petworth. ‘Of course you were angry,’ says Lubijova, ‘You did not like him to leave with your good friend the lady writer. You are lucky he understands it, and likes to be gracious and forget about it. Also that Mr Tankic knows so well those policemen, and comes with you when they take you in the police van to your hotel. Or perhaps you would not now be here with me.’

In front of them the driver, with his square neck, sits solidly. Evidently he possesses some kind of élite or official status; for, when he sounds his curious klaxon, cars draw to the side to let him pass, horse-drawn carts tug suddenly to a halt, even peasants leap into the ditches, under their own volition. Occasionally the unobligingness of one of the drivers of the few cars he passes offends him; he sticks a baton through the window, draws to a halt, and walks back to speak to the errant owner. ‘You see he likes to treat you as very special guest,’ says Lubijova, ‘Don’t you think you should be responsible?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, desperately delving in memory to try to recover the events of the previous late evening. He remembers some things: the departure in a crowd from the great warm womb of the opera house; the group of welldressed uncertain people standing in the warm street, disputing where to go next; the cramped taxi ride, with a backside imprinted on his knee; the dim dull cellar of a state nightclub, a cellar and nothing more, where the people sit on iron chairs at plastic tables, drinking a warm light beer, the only drink on offer; a limp floorshow, with a gloomy Fifties singer in a pink ballgown, a choir of ten militiamen singing upliftingly in close harmony in their uniforms, and yes, one small blonde strip artiste, slowly and artistically removing gauzy veils from her thin body to the drum-rolls of a besuited, bespectacled threepiece band, and wearing, in addition to her diaphanous harem costume, a large earthenware pot on the top of her head. He remembers more: the disappointment when the seventh veil around the thin thighs is about to fall, and the lights cut, leaving only, in some bleak and deceitful exchange, one single spotlight which illuminates no longer the girl, who has disappeared into total blackness, but the earthenware pot, which wobbles, teeters, is steadied by a momentary hand, held upright, and the act ends. But the faces of his company are hard to recover, though he suspects that round the table were a laughing Budgie, a grinning Tankic, a silent Rum, a withdrawn Princip, an icy Lubijova, with only Plitplov having neglected to come.

The driver turns and says something: ‘Tells here in this village there is a different name for a goat,’ says Lubijova, ‘And look now, here start our dark forests, very green. Also some mountains you cannot see so well, because there comes now a fog, but do not worry, I will describe you. Now do you see what a nice tour we make? And now is not so far to Glit. Don’t you like it?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, looking out at a small huddled settlement of unpainted wooden houses, and the rising forested hills, and a hazy solid mass beyond, ‘So what else happened, last night?’ ‘Really you don’t remember it?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Well, perhaps you must ask your energetic friend. I do not think she is the best for you. Really, in my country, it is not so polite, if a stripteasing is just a little bit boring, to stand up in a club and make a better one yourself.’ ‘She did that?’ asks Petworth. ‘And you helped her,’ says Lubijova, ‘Why do you think are coming all those policemen? I don’t think it is a wonder your lady-writer disappoints, and is sad, and likes to leave.’ ‘I see,’ says Petworth, ‘She left then, did she?’ ‘She tried it,’ says Lubijova, ‘And then you tried it to stop her. Naturally Professor Rum speaks to you, he is her protector. And then you are very noisy and asking for a fight of him. I did not think it of you, Comrade Petwurt. Of course I know you are jealous and you like to think she likes you. But I do not think it was so intelligent to do this, do you?’ ‘Well, no,’ says Petworth. ‘Don’t miss please our forest, it is very good,’ says Lubijova, ‘Our tourists enjoy it very much. And here still live, do you know, the wolfs and the wild pigs. Strange things happen here, don’t you wish you could get out to look? But, of course, you cannot. We must go on.’ ‘Quite,’ says Petworth, ‘And what happened then?’ ‘Oh, you poured your drink, and the policemen taked you outside,’ says Lubijova, ‘And that is how you go to your hotel, not a very good way for a visiting lecturer.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, ‘And Katya? She went with Professor Rum?’ ‘Oh, Petwurt,’ says Lubijova, ‘Don’t you understand it, I have always been right. I have told you it is not so wise to like so much this lady. Well, now you know that one is not what she seems. She is strange, well, of course, she is a writer. Now, over there, the Storkian mountains, do you see? Many people like to come there in the summer to make the trails of horseback, and in the winter to make ski. I wish you could see them better, but one day you will come back.’

The road, lined with thicket and trees, now climbs a rocky defile, reaches a peak, stares down into a deep gorge. In the black car, high in the dark forest, Petworth stares into one too. ‘She is not what she seems?’ he asks. ‘I try to make you understand,’ says Lubijova, ‘And I think she does also, with her story of the witch.’ ‘I see,’ says Petworth. ‘And last night you are very silly,’ says Lubijova, ‘And she will not like to see you again. Oh, Petwurt, I am sorry for you, I know how you like to think. She is free, she is courageous, she is a good woman who waits just for you. But really you know nothing, about our life here, what it is like, how we must live. Perhaps she does like you, it could be so. But to survive here, that is not simple, when we must always be reliable. And I think even your friend likes to survive, that is why she needs her protector, why she goes with Professor Rum. Of course he is a little bit dull, a little bit old, perhaps nothing much there in the bed. But he is important man in the academy, and also very high in the party, and with our Politburo. People need such friends, who can look after them very well. Perhaps you think you can do it, but I don’t think so.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘We have a saying in my country,’ says Lubijova. ‘Some advance on their knees, others on their backs,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, do you know it?’ says Lubijova, ‘Perhaps you say it in your country too. But you must understand her position.’ ‘Very well,’ says Petworth. ‘She is artist, a little bit rebel,’ says Lubijova, ‘She likes to take a chance, perhaps not too much, or she would not be success. But you must ask why they permit her to write those books. Always there is a reason. Do you know what we call that here?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, courage with the permission of the police,’ says Lubijova, ‘And to have it you must be always clever. And now you know why those two are always needing each other.’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, staring down into the deep gorge that drops away from them beside the road.

‘So I hope now you understand something,’ says Lubijova, ‘Why always we see them together. Of course it is a very good exchange. He likes her charms, and recommends everywhere her work; think how nice for him to be seen with a person who is beautiful and respected, and has a great talent and a little courage. And for her, well, she is safe, you should please. It is not so strange, such things happen in all countries.’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘And so they go together, always, in the oper, in the theatre; even at an official lunch for an important foreign visitor, like Comrade Petwurt.’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘And there you make a meeting,’ says Lubijova, ‘And who knows, perhaps she is a little bored, perhaps he has made a bad love, perhaps it is important to show that she is not one of those bureaucrats at all. So she makes a friend of you, and everyone notices. But of course it must have its purpose.’ ‘What purpose?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, look down there, how far,’ cries Lubijova, suddenly clutching Petworth’s arm, ‘Of course that is expert driver, but I still frighten. This is bad road, and there are many accidents.’ Petworth looks down from the road that narrows, dips, bends, turns this way and that in great hairpin bends that slowly bring them toward the green base of the great gorge below them. ‘It’s all right,’ he says, patting the hand on his arm. ‘Oh, Petwurt, I regret,’ says Lubijova, looking at him, ‘I hope you don’t disappoint with what I tell you, I think you do. Perhaps you have made some feelings about it that are a bit indiscreet. Well, please, I think you try to forget them. Perhaps already things begin to change. Perhaps Professor Rum is not so powerful, perhaps is time to make some new friends, there are changes now in our country. Always it is well to know someone new as well as someone who is old. But I don’t think that new one can really be you, Petwurt. Do you think you can really help a person like that?’ ‘Well, no, of course I can’t,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, what a shame, poor Petwurt,’ says Lubijova, looking at him, her thin white hands clutching her shoulderbag, ‘You come, you find your sexual princess, and then, what a pity, she is more complicate than you thought. Well, you know, people are strange in all countries, you must expect that. And in another place such signs are not easy to read. That is why you have with you a guide, I think, to read the signs. Oh, look, this famous waterfall, do you see it? Do you know what we call it? The waterfall of the virgin. I don’t know why, there are none in my country. But it is very pretty.’

A great blind bend comes up in front of them; as they approach it, the big-necked driver suddenly turns his head, and begins to talk. ‘Always they do this,’ says Lubijova, ‘I interpret you. Tells we are almost to Glit. Tells you will see it when we are come across the next hill.’ Round the bend, down the twisting slope, and into the bottom of the gorge the huge black Volga goes; then it ascends again, climbing up till it reaches a new summit. From the summit there is a view; another large gorge, with thickly wooded slopes, and in the romantic landscape high houses, huddled together, red and gold roofs, a castle up on an eminence, with sharp, pencil-like towers. ‘Oh, do you see it, Glit?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Now we are really in another place. You know, everything is different, the people, the language, even the foods. Do you know this place was once very famous, more than Slaka? Here came all the trade, many secret spices, some from Tashkent, carpets from the Turk, silk from the east. Always we like to tell many stories about Glit. It is very nice, always I like this town. Of course there is a fine socialist reorganization, but it is still not so very different from the old time. Naturally, many tourists like to come here for our fine mountains and valleys, and also the beautiful altarpieces of the churches. But you do not interest in those. Also there are many opportunities of leisures both in the country and in the town.’ ‘I’m sure,’ says Petworth. ‘We say, those who see Glit always come back,’ says Lubijova, ‘Look now please, the gateway of the town, very old. Over there a tower with a gold roof that is very interesting. A lady in a typical dress of the region. Notice the balconies in the style of the Turk. They tell of Glit that outside every house hangs one pot of flowers, and those flowers are the souls of those inside. Look into the rooms, you see some women ply at old trades. Now the market place, how those peasants love to sell the fruit and the flowers. Don’t you like?’ ‘It’s very attractive,’ says Petworth.

‘Of course not all is old here,’ says Lubijova, ‘There is a new town with a universitet and a technic, you will see it tomorrow. But today I think you like to enjoy just this nice town. Here a river, isn’t it clean and deep, as always in the mountains. Our people like to fish here, what a pity you do not do it. And here, look now, it is our hotel, I hope you like. It is very ancient and very typical.’ There is a carillon from the klaxon, and the big black Volga halts outside the small low building, which has a restaurant garden, filled with umbrellas, overlooking the deep rushing river. Taking their luggage inside, they go into a low shady room; at the desk there is no girl in Cosmoplot uniform, but an old woman in a headscarf. ‘She likes please your passport and my permission of travel,’ says Lubijova, ‘Of course I stay here too. Now, go with that boy, he takes you to your room, I will attend all these papers.’ Petworth is led along a corridor to a room, a small clean room, with a very narrow bed, a quiet innocent room with no misery attached, where nothing has yet happened. He puts down his luggage; water is splashing outside the window, the gurgle of the local river, quieter than Slakan traffic, a small hint of something closer to peace, though Petworth does not quite feel entirely peaceful. Putting away his battered briefcase, unpacking his blue suitcase, he remembers that there is an historical world, and that history means trouble. There is a knock at the door of his room: ‘It is Mari, your guide,’ says a voice, ‘That room is good for you? It makes you comfortable?’ ‘It’s very nice,’ says Petworth, opening the door. ‘Not so big, like in Slaka,’ says Marisja, looking around, ‘But for the country it is nice. Mine is just like it, but you have a river. Well, my dear Petwurt, you have an afternoon, all free. What do you like to do? You can make a tour by your own, or if you like it I can guide you somewhere. I would like to show you a castle, if you want it.’ ‘Please,’ says Petworth. ‘It is high,’ says Lubijova, ‘But I think you are still quite young. Please to finish your unpack and then you will find me in the lobby.’

When they go out of the hotel, Lubijova takes him by the arm. ‘The car has gone, you see, that Volga,’ she says, ‘We are not his only work. And so we are together by ourselves. You know, always I like this town.’ And indeed Glit seems a likeable town, with old balconied houses, narrow streets busy with people, high stone towers, squares crammed with old trucks and horse-drawn carts. Girls walk by in bright peasant costume; men sit by the walls on sacks. They begin to mount stone steps that lead them above the town: ‘Now we go up quite a long way,’ says Lubijova, ‘Show me you can do that without a gasp.’ But Petworth is gasping by the time they reach the cracked old wooden doors of the castle, flanked by two worn stone lions: ‘Well, perhaps you are not so fit,’ says Lubijova, pulling at a bell, ‘But then of course you are a scholar. Does he come? Yes, he comes.’ An old man in felt slippers opens the door, to admit them into a cobbled courtyard. ‘You know he tells we are the only ones?’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, it is late for the tours. Now I explain you this castle. Once there were many rulers from elsewhere who liked to oppress us. They liked to live in this castle that looks at the city and watch what the people did. If they made some money, these men took some. If they had nice wives or daughters, also they took them. Look, here is a well, very deep. But you must not drink the water of it, do you know why? It is because here were dropped the people of the town who were not so good, who did not like to pass away their wives or their daughters or their gelt, their coins. Throw down a stone, see how deep. Yes, they were very bad, those people. It was not so nice to live when they were here. But the people had their secret, it was inside them, they knew those big proud rulers in their fine clothes were not real. They had just invented themselves and they could blow away in the air. And they blew away, and they are dead. And now the people have this castle, which they can enjoy, and because those bad people left one good thing, we can forgive them just a little. But not too much, just a little.’

There are great towers going up into the air; up on the towers, pigeons coo, dropping their detritus onto history. ‘Over here, Petwurt,’ says Lubijova, ‘This is, what do you say, the lattice?’ ‘The latrine,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, in case you do not think it, here you see that some things in the world are improved,’ says Lubijova, ‘You would not like to make business in that. I think now we go inside, and then I take you up a tower. Here a capella, notice please the altarpiece. A very good carver has made it. Do you recognize his subject? This is Saint Michael, see how he battles with the worm.’ ‘The worm?’ says Petworth. ‘What do you like to call it?’ asks Marisja. ‘A dragon,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, we teach something to each other,’ says Marisja, ‘It is a dragon. Next time I shall be better guide. And here in the glass tomb, what do you call it? Is it a skillet?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, looking into an exposed tomb, cased with bubbled glass, in which there lies a skull, a ribcage, a bone system, all still clad in the tatters of some ancient finery, the scraps of a dusty feathered hat, embroidered coat and waistcoat, frogged trousers, high boots, ‘A skillet’s something you cook with. This is a skeleton.’ ‘What a pity he has no one now to mend his cloths,’ says Marisja, ‘But, you know, I think he lies there to teach you something. I hope you learn, or for all these years he has been wasting his time.’ ‘I think I get the point,’ says Petworth. ‘Over here, the nose mummy of a saint in a case,’ says Marisja, ‘And then we go up a tower that is very nice.’ From the tower, there is an oceanic, pastoral horizon to look at, with waving treetops. ‘Well,’ says Marisja, when they reach the top, ‘My dear Mr Petwurt, I think today you have seen really a castle. Not like the other time, when you made your tour in a different place. Oh, don’t worry, I am not going to ask you more about your day with the lady writer. I think here we like to forget her. And it is easy, with such a nice view.’

Later, as the sun has begun to fade, they go back down toward the old town of Glit. ‘Do you like to eat something?’ asks Marisja, ‘I know near here a place you will like. You can try in it the special eatings of Glit.’ In a back street, they find a small old restaurant, with low ceilings; a good many people occupy its tables. The occupiers are, it seems, tourists, for some are talking in German, some in what Petworth thinks is Bulgarian; they are tourists not of Petworth’s kind, but those for whom travel has something to do with pleasure and desire, and they are happy, happiness being what tourists are supposed to have. The menu comes, and a familiar litany begins. ‘Now, what do you like?’ Marisja asks, ‘Here is the veal of a sheep, or do you like to eat a brain? Here a soup with feet in it, and here a typical thing of the place, a cream with a cumber made of the chords of the yurt.’ Petworth stares at the written list, but the words are new again, and his head is tired, from a sleepless night, an uphill walk, a rural air, a beating sun. The pleasure of the strange is not what it was: ‘An ordinary soup and a plain omelette,’ he says. ‘Oh, Petwurt, I disappoint,’ says Marisja, ‘I thought you came to enjoy all our customs? You told me that, do you remember it, right when I met you at the airport, and you wanted my embrace? But perhaps you do not delight yourself so much now? Perhaps you don’t like my country?’ ‘Of course I do,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you know how you look?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Like a girl who sulks because her love had gone wrong. You like to be British, so polite, but really you are very obvious. Well, I shall take a brain. I like to enjoy myself. You know this is a very special experience for me?’ ‘Is it?’ asks Petworth, ‘Why?’

‘If you knew just a little my country, you would understand, but, poor Petwurt, really you don’t know very much about the world outside your head, I think. Here it is not so easy to travel around, and stay in a provincial hotel, and eat like this in a typical restaurant. You must be a very good person with an excellent file at the police, and you must get a certain permission. Well, dear Mr Petwurt, I have an excellent file, and you are my permission. If you like to disappoint now, well, please do it, but don’t want me to share it. I like to make a very good time. I know you travel a lot, it is all ordinary; this, for you, but it is special for me. Don’t forget, I am not some lady writer. I don’t have a great courage, just a very dull life at Slaka. I do not have admiring lovers and a famous academician who watches out always for me. I do not write and imagine wonderful things, I just make some interpretations, and read some menus for you, and keep you away from bad troubles. And I hope you don’t think that is so easy, do you? So I shall have a brain and, if you want a good advice from your guide who tries always to help you, you will forget this lady. She is well looked after.’ ‘Looked after?’ asks Petworth, ‘Has something happened to her?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘But perhaps she makes some travels too. She has some little troubles you have helped her with. Our writers’ union has a fine summer house on Lake Katuruu. Perhaps she likes to go there. It is very peaceful and there she can meet some more writers and discuss there her obligations in a clear and constructive way. She will be very well there and you do not need even to think about it.’ ‘She’s been sent there?’ asks Petworth. ‘I don’t know,’ says Marisja, ‘Perhaps she remains still in Slaka. They do not tell me these things. Oh, here is the waitress to take an order. Do you like to make it, in the language of Glit? No, all right, I interpret you, I will do it.’

The waitress who takes the order wears under her white apron a hidden black purse, so that she looks pregnant with money. A single candle lights the table, shining on the ringless long white hands, the pale face and blue eyelids, of Marisja Lubijova. ‘I am naughty, I order you a brain,’ she says, ‘Now, do you please forget altogether this lady. I don’t think you saw a real person, any more than a real castle. A lady like that is very strange. I know a little bit her story, you remember I gave you her book, do you still have it? You know she has had many husbands, did she tell you so? One was a famous man, a minister, everyone here knew of him, he was popular. Well, one day, this man, he shot himself.’ ‘I see,’ says Petworth, ‘How did it happen?’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t know everything,’ says Marisja, ‘But they are happy together, always in public, and then one day no more. She is not with him, then she makes a book, and it is accepted. On the day it is in the bookstore, that man sits at his desk in his very nice dacha, for he is a successful man, and he has somewhere a gun, and he puts it up here and he shoots his head. Who knows why? A marriage is a very secret thing. We do not know who is betrayed, or how. Perhaps even it was not at home, perhaps at work, in the Party. But now she is a famous writer and all want her book, and he is not a minister or anything else. It is not your world, Petwurt.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Always you are so intense and sad,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, that is your privilege. Or perhaps it is the privilege of your people. You expect certain things, like an American, well, we are not the same. We know we have a duty to make some useful lives, and we can be content. You are not content, I think. You do not know why you are in the world, do you?’ ‘I suppose not,’ says Petworth.

‘Oh, my dear Petwurt, you are so strange,’ says Marisja Lubijova, laughing at him in the candlelight, ‘Always you are smoking and drinking and taking black coffee and looking at the girls. Oh, yes, I have seen you, you look so, at all the ones who are nice. And here of course there are many to look at. Our girls are highly pretty and they are feminine without being victims of an oppression. I think this is why Englishmen always like them and want to marry them, now and again.’ ‘I expect so,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, my dear, I think you are a man of many vice,’ says Marisja, ‘And do you get a great pleasure of your pleasure?’ ‘Not particularly,’ says Petworth. ‘No, always you are looking for something, I feel it,’ says Marisja, ‘But I don’t know at all what it is.’ ‘Neither do I,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you know what I think?’ asks Lubijova, ‘I think you have come here to make yourself some guilt. That is why you have come. Well, you have chosen the right place. Here they will be pleased always to hear your confession. I think some people know that already, don’t you?’ ‘Who?’ asks Petworth. ‘Your good old friend,’ says Lubijova, ‘Your Plitplov.’ ‘I’d forgotten him,’ says Petworth. ‘He will not let you,’ says Lubijova, ‘After all, he knows so well your wife. What does he know? What does he find out about you?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Petworth. ‘You don’t like to tell,’ says Marisja, ‘You know I am your friend.’ ‘I really don’t know,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, marriage is a secret thing, we do not know who is betrayed, or how,’ says Lubijova, ‘Perhaps it is so secret that those who are there do not know it. But I hope you do not trust him, this Plitplov.’

They sit at their table, in another country; the aproned waitress comes to them with a bottle of wine. ‘And you, are you married?’ asks Petworth, as the waitress applies a knife to the top of the bottle. ‘Oh, me?’ asks Lubijova, looking up, ‘Do you think so? Why do you think it?’ ‘Your name, Lubijova,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, no, it does not mean that,’ says Marisja, ‘It means I am a woman. Which I think you noticed, I believe you notice women. Well, I am one of those. It is my maiden’s name.’ ‘So you’re not married,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, it is possible,’ says Lubijova, ‘Often when we marry we keep our maiden’s name. If you like to change it, you must stand in a line for many hours. So perhaps I am married.’ ‘But are you?’ asks Petworth. ‘You are very interested, of a sudden,’ says Marisja, ‘Well, I am and I am not.’ ‘That makes it much clearer,’ says Petworth. ‘You see, once I was, not any more,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘When I am student, I marry a boy who liked to be a doctor.’ ‘Are you divorced?’ asks Petworth. ‘No, do you know what that boy did?’ asks Marisja, ‘He was very political, his father was high in the Party. So as a doctor he went away to Vietnam, to help those people against imperialism. And I stay here and make my examen with your Plitplov.’ ‘And what happened?’ asks Petworth. ‘Of course he died,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘Not with a bullet, he caught a small something that was not so small, and he was not such a good doctor to make better himself. And this is what happened to him, and also to me.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘No, it was not such a close relation, we were two students who studied together,’ says Marisja, ‘But close enough that I have small son. You must come a bit close for that.’ ‘A son,’ says Petworth, ‘Don’t you miss him when you travel like this?’

‘Not so much,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘You see, this is my work, and we like to put first our work here. I am interpreter, I like my job, I think I do it quite nicely. Of course one pays a little price. But it is good to make travels. I go quite often, I am one of those you see in the dolmetsch boxes, in the congresses, with the headsets. Four channels, you click so, Russian, German, English, French. No one notices you, you make the world happen.’ ‘And what happens to your son?’ ‘So many questions,’ says Lubijova, laughing, ‘Here we have very good families. The world is hard but we are close. He lives at a certain apartment where is my mother. She likes to look to him, she is happy. He goes to a kindergarten, he is happy. They teach him to march up and down like a soldier in the square. I come home and I bring good things. When I am not with you, do you know what I am doing? I am finding a line, buying some tins, perhaps some toilet paper. Or there are some nice jams from a hotel. Our lives at home are not so bad, but you do not see them. And this is why my son plays now with his toys in Slaka, and I am happy in a restaurant of Glit here with you. This wine, you like it?’ ‘I do,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, it is not so bad, it is of this region,’ says Lubijova, looking at him with her pale face and dark hair across the table, ‘Well, now we have made an exchange. On the first night I have found out about you. You like to travel, you like the darks. And now you have found out about me. So I think we make again a little toast. Do you think you remember how to do it?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, lifting his glass. ‘Oh, Petwurt, no, it is not like that,’ says Lubijova, laughing, ‘You have forgotten. I hope you have not forgotten all those lessons you learn in my country.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth.

‘Now,’ says Lubijova, looking hard at him, ‘Put up the glass, then the eyes. Remember you must be always very sincere. I like you, you are fine, I want you in my bed, my dear. Think it very hard, can you do it? I hope so. Of course you can, see, you look at me in just the right way. I am glad, your time here has after all not been waste, I was beginning to think so. But perhaps now you begin to learn something. So, my friend: what toast? To your tour in the countryside. No, that is not so good a toast, far too ordinary. Do you remember the other? Zu frolukuu daragayuu?’ ‘What’s that?’ asks Petworth. ‘Yes, you forget everything,’ says Marisja, laughing, ‘Of course, to the beautiful ladies. This time sincerely. To the ones you met already, also the ones perhaps you meet now. And for your sake, I hope these will be the better ones.’ The chatter chatters in multilingua from the surrounding tables; the waitress comes with a nameless soup made of dairy products. They eat the meal, while the candle gutters; they walk back through the darkness in the narrow streets of Glit to their hotel. ‘If you’d like one more drink,’ says Petworth, just outside the entrance, ‘I still have my duty-free whisky.’ ‘Oh, you want to make some more toast?’ cries Marisja, ‘Well, in my country it is our custom to drink and talk very late, discussing the fine concepts until we are stupid. But, my dear, I think tonight, not. You must be very tired, and I am also. And tomorrow your lecture must be good. Also, don’t forget it, we have many more times together. Yes, I think really you will need your bottle, in some more days, but not now.’ They go inside the illlit lobby and part. Soon, in the clean narrow bed, by the gurgling river, Petworth sleeps. In a dream, there is despair: he is looking for a word for a thing, but he does not know what the thing is, because the word will not come. There is a desire to incorporate, to make what is outside inside; and it seems that a body is there, a body that presses itself against him, puts something to his mouth. But when he wakes in the darkness, he is alone, with the water running outside, in the tight narrow bed.

II

Over the days that follow, Petworth finds himself once more in a quite familiar world, following a quite familiar course. He is a visiting lecturer again, with a busy life: events come and go away, and so do the people in them, none of them characters in the world historical sense. A small battered car with a faceless student driver in it comes to the hotel in the morning, to take him and his guide through the streets of Glit and out to the campus of the university, a new university, out of town on a scoured and treeless hill. The pourers of concrete have poured and poured; the buildings sit straight and squat in the rounded mountain landscape. Like most new universities, it is, inside, a place of exposed pipes and frankly steaming ducts, and with numbers instead of names on all the doors. He walks along corridors where posters flap and the tiles have begun to crack; a small professor, a shy man called Professor Vlic, appears from behind a bookstack and greets him. ‘And your poetic laureate? It is still the excellent John Masefield?’ asks Professor Vlic, leading him into a very tiny study, with three miniature easy chairs and a coffee table, ‘I always please to see a visitor from Britain. And your British disease, you still have it? Or does it go away and everyone likes again to work? Your Iron Lady, how does she? Does she perform, does she make her miracle?’ It is lecture talk, and Petworth talks it; Professor Vlic dispenses coffee from a coffee-maker; a canary in a cage hangs tweeting from the bookcase. ‘We hope you stay with us all day, we like to use you,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘In the morning I allow you an hour and some questions. I make a short speech to introduce, just some nice things of you. Our students perhaps not like yours, a little quiet, it is not their language. Of course they look forward much to your conference. You have your paper, do we go there?’

A little later, Petworth finds himself in a great auditorium, which rakes backward into gloom and darkness; smudged student faces sit there, gloomy too. At the back, at the end of a row, sits a man who is holding up a newspaper, P’rtyuu Populatuuu; for a moment Petworth thinks of Plitplov, but Glit, surely, is too far away for even that mobile man. A line of short stout lady professors sits in the front row, thinking Marxist thoughts and knitting. At the podium, a long introduction unfolds from Professor Vlic, in the language he still does not know, though a name roughly resembling his own sounds now and again, as, it seems, Petworthim does this, Petwortha once did that. The desks creak, and there is a wind blowing through the room. Taking a lecture from his briefcase, a piece on the difference between ‘I don’t have’ and ‘I haven’t got’ which has won some international acclaim, Petworth goes to the podium and begins to speak. The faces here seem darker, browner than they were in Slaka; the man with the newspaper does not put it down. The faces strive to look as if they are listening; at the end of the lecture there is only one question. ‘I believe Marx was very pleased with the British Darwin because he destroys the telegogu and establishes at last a critical Utopia,’ says one of the ladies in the front row, putting down her knitting; ‘I believe so,’ says Petworth. At the end of the session, when Petworth is led out, the students all stand up, except for the man with the newspaper. ‘I hope you take some lunch with us and we make a dialogi,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘Most of our professors are women, as you see, and they have very good ideas and also some babies, so their day is difficult. Perhaps you talk to them now and this afternoon.’

Petworth is taken through the tiled corridors to the cafeteria, where he eats a cold bad lunch of a familiar kind off a tray at a plastic-topped table: ‘And do you believe, as Boehme did, that there is one deep level of speech that sounds below all languages?’ asks one of the short, stout lady professors. ‘I enjoy very much your bog,’ says another of the lady professors. ‘My bog?’ says Petworth. ‘Your excellent bog,’ says the lady, ‘Of course I have read it.’ In the afternoon, there is a faculty seminar, where the short stout lady professors continue with their knitting and their thoughts. ‘Tell me please, Prifusorru Patwat,’ says one of the ladies, ‘You know perhaps that somewhere at around the dawn of our experimental century arosed a crucial question, not first time, but dominating all since; that question I refer is so. What is the relation between the objective and historical world, which our scientists and men of physics view as reality, and the inward world of the seer, do you say perceiver, the psychic ego, from which place only may such a world be known? As you know, the reconciliations of these thoughts have been many, from Hegel to Marx to Freud and your own Wittgenstein, who was not yours truly. Now, do you tell me, how do you reconcile this ultimating question?’ ‘Also,’ asks another lady, ‘Do you think it is possible to reconcile the reception-aesthetic of an Iser with a Lukacsian Hegelianism?’ Perhaps we should leave Petworth for a moment and find the toilet as he deals with these questions, and other such matters that, in seminar rooms throughout the world, faculties discuss with visiting speakers: the poverty of the library; the folly of the university administration; the lunacy of a ministry that institutes an educational reform but fails to have it ready when term starts, so that the students are not told and the books do not come and classes must be cancelled and the students protest and the police come and the poor faculty are compelled to remain at home working on their own research. ‘You have given us excellent afternoon and I like if you please to dine you this evening,’ says Professor Vlic, as he leads Petworth out of the seminar room and toward the battered car, in which, after going back once for his briefcase, and again to collect the offprint of an article by one of the lady professors, Petworth retums to his small old hotel by the river.

So Petworth works, by the day, by the evening. That night at eight, Professor Vlic comes to the hotel with a gloomy elderly lady. ‘My wife,’ he says, ‘She does not speak at all English. She will sit very quietly. She has a magazine.’ ‘Won’t it be boring for her?’ asks Petworth, at the table under the umbrella by the river. ‘Not at all,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘She eats. And perhaps your guide will say some things to her. I hope you have tried all our nice foods, very good in Glit. There is a typical thing, a cream of cucumber made with the chords of a yog, or do you like perhaps to eat a brain? I hope you try our things. And how is your monetarism? You think it is working? I think now money is not making sense any more. All our economies are wrong, capitalist and socialist. Of course our disasters are more rational, we plan them better. And yet everywhere people seem to have some riches. New clothes, a television receptor, perhaps a little car. Even our people here have many possessions. But I wonder, do these things represent what truly we desire, or does money make us take them? I have an apartment to sit in, a car to go in, am I happier man? I do not laugh any more, my worries are bigger. You have been in United States?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Is it as Tennessee Williams portrays, a decadent nation?’ asks Professor Vlic, ‘Always people lying in hot tubs? And everyone divorcing to be singles? Did you take an analyst while you are there, to get your head straight? It looks quite a straight head to me. Did you go to a sex shop? And what do you buy there, I don’t even know what they sell. Do they have topless seminars now in the universities, the topless physics, the topless mathematic? How is your ego and your id? Look, I now recommend the cake eskimo. It is a specialism of this place. If you like, I will ask them for it.’ ‘Thank you,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, so sorry,’ says Professor Vlic, after a long conversation with a sad waiter, ‘It is eaten all. A fruit instead, perhaps? He has one orange.’

It has been a usual day, and the one that follows promises to be much the same. The battered car comes, and Petworth gets in it to travel to the university; in the same gloomy auditorium he stands to lecture on the Uvular R. The audience is smaller today, perhaps because the Uvular R is of less pressing interest, perhaps because of the gloomier weather, or because of the presence of a rival attraction – for somewhere outside there seems to be a noise of students shouting, and even the occasional celebratory bang. But the man with the newspaper has not failed to come, and today he looks even more like Plitplov than ever; for in some moment of curiosity he lets the newspaper slip, to reveal a neat white sports shirt of the kind that Plitplov wears, though others wear them too, and in any case it could be an optical illusion. Later, as they walk to the university cafeteria, a window or two seems to have caved in in the corridor, perhaps as a result of the morning’s celebrations, and in the air there lingers a strange smell of acrid smoke. After lunch there is another faculty seminar, and Professor Vlic, evidently a liberal soul, says he wants it to be even more of a dialogi; he insists on explaining what a dialogi is. ‘In dialogi,’ he says, as they sit in the small seminar room, from which it seems possible to hear the sound of firecrackers going off, ‘each partner must be considered consenting person and no one should be subservient and no one on top. Of course in dialogi different partners will have different priority and the objects of attention will not be quite the same. But if dialogi shall work well, and be a true coming together, the different elements will be fit to the satisfaction of both partners. A tendency toward individuation exists in dialogi, but should be criticized. Our aim is not partial dialogi, but whole dialogi. Now I call you to begin.’

The dialogi goes on most of the afternoon; afterwards, Professor Vlic leads him out to the battered car in the car park. Round about, the broken glass seems quite wide-spread, there are a few steaming canisters about, and several khaki vans with wire mesh over their windows and shadowy people sitting inside stand round the university. ‘Has something happened?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, it is just a small thing,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘I think there has been just a little demonstration about our languages. You know, we have here so many, of the north and the south, of the Indo and the Turkish. All of them confuse, but all of them like to be the main language of the country, which is why now is a tiny problem.’ ‘I thought there was a language reform,’ says Petworth. ‘One reform, and some people ask always for more,’ says Professor Vlic, ‘Well, it is a little problem, and we solve it quite quickly. Your lecture is very good, and tonight we like to thank you. Please to be our guest at a special faculty dinner at a restaurant in the town. Your guide, also, please. Now the man takes you back. The policemen will let you through, it is arranged. If you can be ready at eight we collect you and take you to a very nice place.’ There is time to change in his innocent quiet room overlooking the river; there is time to take a little pleasure in his pleasant visit to Glit. Then he sits with Marisja Lubijova in the hotel lobby until a very small car containing four of the short stout lady professors, who now wear bright flowered dresses and carry large handbags, stops and takes them off, through the cramped, quiet old streets of Glit, to an ancient timbered restaurant somewhere. Inside the restaurant, the Restaurant Nada, many are gathered together, the faculty faces of the day, and there is laughter; hands pat Petworth’s arms, smiles flash in his face, and he is steadily pushed toward a seat in the centre of the table.

‘Here is a white wine, here a red, here a juicy if you like it,’ says Professor Vlic, who sits in the place opposite him. And down the table, to either side, stretch the long rows of lady professors, smiling and laughing, gossiping and talking. The restaurant has a low ceiling, and pots of flowers hang from it; a goat is looking curiously in through the window at the long, bottle-laden table where, in two happy rows, the learned people sit, chatting as, at faculty dinners, faculty diners do. ‘I have read your great poet of debunkery, Philip Larking,’ says a stout lady to Petworth’s right, ‘I like to visit him and talk to him for three days and make a thesis.’ ‘Do you know also a campus writer Brodge?’ asks a lady to his left, ‘Who writes Changing Westward? I think he is very funny but sometimes his ideological position is not clear.’ ‘You like it, Glit?’ asks a lady across the table, ‘Really it is very pleasant, except in the earthquakes. Then our buildings fall down and it is not so amusing.’ ‘Oh, my English, I wish it was gooder,’ says another lady across the table, ‘Your language, so difficult. Always those sentences that appear correct, but you must not say. I swimmed. This is the lady I want to eat.’ ‘And some things you may say in Britain but not at all in the United States,’ says the lady to his right, ‘Elevator, not lift. Hood, not bonnet.’ ‘When you visit the United States,’ says the lady beyond her, leaning toward him, ‘You should not say to a lady, please may I stroke your pussy. It is quite correct, but it has a meaning that is not intended. But I do not know what it is.’ ‘Oh, you don’t know it?’ asks the lady beyond, ‘Then I will tell you.’ Laughter spreads down the table; a sizzling pot of strange food appears on the table in front of him; more, and more, of an unusual wine is poured.

There are voices, strange voices, singing in Petworth’s head, the words of an English that is not quite English, English as a medium of international communication. He is well attended, and the ladies all lean toward him; he talks himself, of Sod’s Law and Hobson’s Choice, of laughing like a drainpipe and not having a sausage, the happy small talk of the passing linguist. ‘I have been in Wales, that was very dark,’ says a lady across the table. ‘You are in Glit,’ says the lady next to him, ‘Here always a strong oral tradition, we like to tell the stories.’ ‘Oh, yes, we are famous of it,’ says the lady beyond. ‘I believe you have some very bad inflations,’ says the lady on the other side, ‘We have some here also, but they are not the same.’ ‘Do you like to hear one of our stories?’ ‘The one about the tailor?’ ‘No, the one about the shah.’ ‘In Wales there are many teashops, always closed.’ ‘Each partner in a dialogi should be considered a person and consenting always to the part.’ ‘Do you think Larking likes to see me for three days?’ ‘Once in a certain kingdom, not ours, there lived a shah.’ ‘A tzar?’ ‘It is a wine made from a grappa that a frost has bitten.’ ‘Here ours is a Marxist inflation, caused not at all by the entrepreneurial processes of capitalism but by the workings of economic laws.’ ‘The shah had a beautiful fair wife, a great hareem, a big Turk slave and a fine black horse.’ ‘I have been to a place called Rhyl where always is showing the film Going With the Wind.’ ‘Oh, don’t they love you?’ whispers, in his ear, his guide Marisja Lubijova, as she makes her way out of the room, toward the lavatory or wherever, ‘Oh, aren’t you success? And how much you like to enjoy it.’ Petworth looks up, and sees her walking away, swinging her shoulderbag.

The food comes, the ladies smile. ‘The shah loved alike his wife and his horse, and one day when he had ridden the first he went for a ride in the desert on the second.’ ‘Of course we have abolished entirely the bourse and therefore our market is entirely scientific.’ ‘On that way he meets a wizard who sits under a tree, and the wizard tells to him: “If you can answer please my question, you can have all your desires, don’t you like that? And if you cannot, I can have your beautiful wife. What do you say? Is it bargain?” ’ ‘I hope you went to our castle, we have much history here.’ ‘“Now my question,” says the wizard, “What is the strongest, the loveliest, the fattest, the most beautiful thing in the whole world?” ’ ‘If you walk past there just a little way, you will come to a place that is very interesting.’ ‘And the wizard then tells: “Now you have fourteen nights, until the moon, to make your travels and find it out. Then at the moon you tell me, or I take your wife.” ’ ‘Do you like now to take some spirits, for the end of our nice meal?’ ‘So for fourteen day that shah makes travel, and then he comes back to the wizard, and tells, very sad: “No, still I do not know what is the strongest, the loveliest, the fattest, the most beautiful thing in the whole world.” ’ ‘A visky or a bols? A Tichus or a Blackuu and Vuttuu?’ ‘Because of these fundamental differences, therefore the two systems are not at all the same, but are subject to different historical forces.’ ‘I think he likes to try the custom of the country, give him rot’vuttu.’ ‘And so that wizard goes away with the beautiful wife, and the shah is very sad and lonely. Oh, do we pay? Please, not you. You are our very nice guest.’

A great pile of vloskan, that paper fiction, grows in the middle of the table, supplied from the purses of the laughing ladies. ‘But, please, you don’t tell us what is the strongest, the loveliest, the fattest, the most beautiful thing in the whole world?’ ‘I do not know, but if you find him, bring it to me,’ says the lady professor, laughing. ‘We thank you, a good visit,’ says Professor Vlic, rising, shaking hands. ‘Time to go, Comrade Petwurt,’ says Marisja Lubijova, leaning across Petworth’s shoulder in a wifely intercession, ‘You have had nice evening, but tomorrow you take that train to Nogod. Kiss goodbye all the nice ladies, make them farewell.’ ‘Of course, you must kiss us all,’ says the lady professor who has told the imperfect story of the shah, ‘But then we take you back.’ ‘No, I think he needs some fresh airs,’ says Lubijova, firmly, as Petworth makes his embraces, writes down addresses, lists the titles of some useful books. He is led outside; the small smoky restaurant has grown remarkably hot, and even the outdoor air of Glit is almost glutinous. In the streets, as he walks back with his guide, the moon shines, and the scent of flowers from the balconies fills the evening. In the market place, the fountain burbles – though here there is a new smell, the aroma of acrid smoke, and more broken glass lies scattered about the pavements. There is a tired hysteria in Petworth, a sense of being over-used, spent in some massive verbal orgy; he pauses by the fountain. ‘Yes, look at you,’ says Lubijova, standing and looking at him, ‘Oh, yes, you please now. You feel better. Always you like to amuse, always you like to be with the ladies. Are you an American, Comrade Petwurt? Don’t you think of anything but sexing? Do you dream to be a star? Do you think the world exists to make you feel very okay?’ ‘I’m tired,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, you should be happy,’ says Mari, ‘I think they were all in love with you, and would like to sleep with you.’ ‘Really?’ says Petworth, ‘Why?’ ‘Of course,’ says Marisjia, ‘Because your speeches are a good success, and that is always erotic. And also in your eyes it shows always you like women, and they like to be liked. Even under Marx.’

Later, in the small innocent bedroom where nothing has happened, and no pain has yet come, Petworth sits on the clean narrow bed; his duty-free bottle of whisky is open before him on the bedside table, and he has a toothglass in his hands. Words are spilling through his mind, in strange excess, a medley of sounding voices that penetrate and confuse. But it is as Katya Princip, that deceptive novelist, has said to him, in another place, now distant: the more words, the more country. But what country is it? The English that is no longer English, the English of second language users, reels through his head, a head that hardly feels like his. The acrid smoke-smell from the market place is still burning strangely in his nostrils. His throat is still tanged with the strong sweet taste of rot’vuttu, which is never to be missed. His body feels an empty place, longing for some fullness; there is a misery of feeling about a relationship that has betrayed, gone. A little along the bed, also holding a glass, sits Mari Lubijova; her hair has come down, and her round grey eyes, in her white tense face, are staring at him. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what to think of you,’ says Mari, ‘You are a soft person, you come from a soft place, you are not like these men here at all. And you are the worst I have ever guided.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘No, really, I should not say these things,’ says Mari, ‘Even I should not be here. But you must understand, perhaps I am always just a little bit jealous.’ ‘Jealous?’ says Petworth, ‘Why, of what?’ ‘Really, Petwurt, you can’t think?’ asks Mari, staring down into her glass, ‘Then you are not very bright. But of course, I know what I am. I am just your guide, your interpreter. I am invisible person. A voice, a sort of machine, I do not have words of my own. Just your words to take there, the words of others to bring to here. Well, of course, it is my job. And I hope I try to do it very well.’

‘Yes, of course,’ says Petworth. ‘And I hope you understand I try to look after you a little, or you would be always in misfortune,’ says Mari, ‘Perhaps you blame me for what goes wrong.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘I think you do, a little,’ says Mari, ‘And perhaps you are right. It is hard to know how betrayal works. Please, I take some more of your whisky? I think you do not like to carry it all the way home again.’ ‘Please,’ says Petworth. ‘You know, when you are interpreter, you are not supposed to like the words you hear,’ says Mari, ‘All your speakers are the same. But, what is funny, in public places, all the speakers say almost the same things. You can have all those phrases ready in your head; you know you will need them. We wish you amity, friendship, concord of the peoples. We make here a fine progress. We wish you all come together in new ways. And because you know what will be said, you learn to change things a little bit, sometimes to make them easier, sometimes to make them better. You like to help your speaker a little, you want him to succeed.’ ‘Yes, I see,’ says Petworth. ‘Perhaps you do that for yourself,’ says Mari, ‘Because if you are interpreter, it is easy to grow a little afraid. You speak all the time, but always the words of others. Then you wonder: is there inside me a person, someone who is not the words of those others? You think: can I have still a desire, a wish, a feeling? But of course if you think like this, it is bad for your job, you must forget it. You are not here for that, you are here to make those exchanges, to let the others talk, so the world can go on. But, excuse me, please, sometimes I do have a little feeling. And now, I am sorry, it is jealous.’ ‘Yes, I understand,’ says Petworth, looking at her tense white face as she sits beside him on the bed.

‘So,’ says Mari, raising up her glass, ‘At least I hope I have taught you some things. I believe you know how to make a toast; show me you can do it. I don’t like you to forget the lessons you have learned here in my country. Raise please the glass.’ ‘I remember,’ says Petworth, raising his glass. ‘Now, wait, what do we drink to?’ says Mari, ‘Yes, I think dialogi, you have heard of it, I believe? Dialogi is a linkage of context and relation, made in the assumption that both partners like to enjoy the same things. The aim is not partial dialogi but whole dialogi. If dialogi shall work well, there must be a true coming together. All elements must fit to the mutual satisfaction of both parties. So, please drink to dialogi. Do it right. Look with the eyes, be always sincere, remember what to think: I like you, you are fine, I want you so much in my bed.’ There is a face, Mari Lubijova’s, curiously close to Petworth’s, and coming closer; for some reason he momentarily recalls a grey-haired lady who smokes a cigarette in a dark London office of the British Council. The face is very near, and then it turns. ‘No,’ says Mari, dropping her head and putting down her glass, ‘Is not such a good toast. I am afraid you will do something to me and I do not like it.’ ‘I will?’ asks Petworth. ‘Please understand,’ says Lubijova, ‘Really I do not find you at all attractive in that way. You are not a bit my kind.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘I hope you do not try to force me,’ says Mari. ‘Of course not,’ says Petworth. ‘You are bourgeois reactionary without a correct sense of reality,’ says Mari, ‘You are not serious, and no important thing matters to you. You live a decadent life.’ ‘That sums me up pretty well,’ says Petworth. ‘And no sooner do you go from one trouble than you find another,’ says Mari, ‘You have had one lesson with the ladies, don’t you learn?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Of course I like to offer you a nice tenderness, but not at all in that way,’ says Mari. ‘No, of course,’ says Petworth, ‘I wasn’t going to . . .’

‘Of course all this is not true, none of it,’ says Mari, ‘To me you are attractive, perhaps just a little bit beautiful, Petwurt, and strange. Perhaps not in your own country, but here. And you know those who watch us and listen to us, they would like us to make some love.’ ‘Who do you mean?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, please, you know them, they are always there,’ says Mari, ‘But I do not think it is their business. I think we disappoint them, yes?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘But I cannot go now,’ says Mari, ‘I think we turn out the light and be together very quiet for a bit. And if we say nothing, no one can tell anything of us.’ ‘Who would tell?’ asks Petworth. ‘Of course,’ says Mari, ‘Someone is always telling of you and me. So we are quiet together, and we make no words.’ Outside the window there is the noise of the rushing river, and there is a scent of trees in the air. But it is totally quiet and entirely dark in the little bedroom, and there is absolutely nothing to hear or see. A clock ticks, but one cannot tell how much time is passing; certainly it is some time later when Mari, in the dark, says: ‘Comrade Petwurt, now I go. You must sleep very nicely, don’t forget you must make an early wake, to go on that train to Nogod. Thank you for the drink, thank you to be with me, thank you to be quiet. And perhaps even we did make some love, if not in the usual way.’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘But there is nothing to know, nothing to tell,’ says Mari, ‘And I hope you understand now that I am really your very good guide. And always I like to look after you very, very well.’ ‘I do,’ says Petworth. ‘And now I will sleep next door, where they have put me,’ says Mari, ‘And I hope you do not mind if I think of you a little?’ ‘I’d like you to,’ says Petworth. In the dark room, the door opens, and Mari stands for a moment in the light from the corridor; in his clothes, Petworth turns on his side, and sleeps.

III

‘So now you go to another city, isn’t it nice?’ says Marisja Lubijova, as Petworth lifts his luggage aboard the train that has belatedly come to a halt at the single platform of the railway station at Glit. It has been a long wait, and many cups of acorn coffee have been taken by the few waiting passengers, under the eyes of the two or three armed men who walk the platform; but it has come at last, a train of old, red-painted coaches, drawn by an ancient black steam engine with a large red star on its nose. Telegraphic noises come from an office; a few black-uniformed railwaymen make signals; Petworth and Lubijova struggle down the central aisle and find a seat opposite two young soldiers, who sit under a window with a red sign on it saying NOKU ROKU. ‘Yes, you will like it, Nogod,’ says Marisja, opening a volume of Hemingway and spreading it on her knee, ‘It is also old but not at all like Glit. There is a lake and some hills there, also a kloster and a kirkus. We will stay in a nice modern hotel, and have a good weekend of leisures, you have worked very hard. I hope you enjoy now a rest. Don’t you like our train?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, as the rails rattle under them, ‘But I suppose the signs mean I can’t smoke?’ ‘Oh, dear, poor comrade Petwurt,’ says Marisja, ‘Do you want to? We don’t so much like those things in our country. I think you find our regulation a little hard. Well, it is for your good, we do not like you to be ill.’ ‘I’ll just go and stand at the end of the car,’ says Petworth. ‘I don’t think is permitted there either,’ says Marisja, looking down into her book, ‘But if you like to look.’ The soldiers stare at him as he rises; he walks to the end of the coach and stands by the door. Lighting a cigarette, he leans through the open window, and looks out.

The train is moving very slowly; beside the track, there are peasants walking along with produce who seem to advance almost as fast. It rattles over the stone and wooden bridges and through the short tunnels of the mountainous landscape; there is a sharp smell of woodsmoke, an ancient dust in the air. Forest closes round the track, and small streams bubble. Presently a man in a black uniform, with much dandruff on it, comes by; he points to Petworth’s cigarette, and says: ‘Negativo.’ ‘Ah, da,’ says Petworth, turning, and beginning to walk down the shaking train, looking for a place where the signs do not say noku roku. The train seems very empty; the corridors are wide between the seats, which are also wide and plush. Wooden doors divide the carriages into sections; at halfopen windows, curtains blow; the seats change colour from blue to brown as he walks on. He opens a door, and beyond is a dining car, its tables covered with dirty white cloths. The car is empty except for one grey-jacketed attendant and two men, who sit together at a table under one of the familiar signs that say noku roku. One of the men has a big black beard and gold bangles on both his wrists, and he smokes an aromatic Balkan cigarette; the other, his back to Petworth, wears natty sportive trousers and smokes a large curved pipe. The men turn to look at him, and the one with the pipe gets up suddenly. ‘Well, is it really?’ he cries, ‘Is it truly my good old friend Dr Petworth? Are you also on this train?’ Petworth stares: ‘Well, Dr Plitplov,’ he says, ‘Fancy meeting you.’ ‘Such a strange thing,’ says Plitplov, laughing, ‘You are come to take a meal, no, is too early. You like to take a drink. Please, sit down here with us, we would like it.’

‘I was looking for somewhere to smoke, actually,’ says Petworth, ‘There doesn’t seem to be anywhere on this train.’ ‘No, is not permitted, in such a public place,’ says Plitplov, puffing at his pipe, ‘But of course in my country many things are possible, if you know a someone. And this gentleman my friend here, I am sorry, he does not speak English, he knows well the crew of this train. He likes to make a lot of travels. Well, sit down, please, make a smoke, it is all right. Also we drink some very fine brandy. Please won’t you take some? It is not too early in the day for you?’ The attendant, prescient, has already appeared, with a clean new glass; Plitplov fills it from a very large bottle that sits on the table in front of him. ‘Well, I think we drink to a very fine coincidence,’ says Plitplov, raising his glass, ‘Here I am going to make some businesses in Nogod, I think you go there too; and on the train who I meet except my very good friend! And your lectures in Glit, tell me? I hope they went very nicely?’ ‘I think they were all right,’ says Petworth, drinking, ‘You didn’t happen to be there, did you? I thought I saw you.’ ‘In Glit?’ cries Plitplov, laughing, ‘At your lectures? I don’t think so. Oh, my friend, I know in our academical life, lectures are most important, and of course I would like to be there. But really life is more than some lectures. How I wish I could hear you at Nogod, always you are quite fascinating, as I remember of Cambridge. But no, I must make a congress there. You know perhaps Nogod is a famous place to make a very good congress. But your nice guide, you have not lost your nice lady guide?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, ‘She’s further down the train.’ ‘How well that lady looks after you,’ says Plitplov, ‘Please, some more in your glass.’ ‘Only a little,’ says Petworth, ‘Too much.’ ‘I don’t think,’ says Plitplov, ‘In my country your too much is only a little. Drink it please, it is a special brandy that is kept on this train only for certain people. It is good I am one of them.’

From time to time the train stops; the stations have no names and the train halts at nowhere. People with big suitcases get off, get on; the landscape as they move begins to flatten gradually. ‘And your tour, you like it?’ asks Plitplov, ‘You are pleased to come?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Then you are grateful to me?’ asks Plitplov, ‘You know I had a hand in the pie. Really I am sorry we do not make a bigger time together, but we all have our businesses, and we do not agree on all things, like Hemingway. Oh, you are wrong there, you cannot be right all the time. How was your strip?’ ‘My strip?’ asks Petworth. ‘Your strip after the opera,’ says Plitplov, ‘You know I did not come because I had headache.’ ‘Not terribly enjoyable,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, of course, these things, for tourists only,’ says Plitplov, ‘There are better things I can show you. But there is always your nice lady guide, she doesn’t like it. In Nogod, where do you stay? What is your hotel?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, really there is only one, the Universe,’ says Plitplov, ‘I stay there also. Let us take together a little dinner. This gentleman my friend knows very well Nogod. He can meet you some ladies, find you some dancings, if those are your pleasures. I know you like to make nice time.’ ‘I shall be busy giving lectures,’ says Petworth. ‘Perhaps you will,’ says Plitplov, ‘Perhaps you will not.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, it is nothing,’ says Plitplov, ‘But here in my country we are having some little troubles, not very much. But it is the language reform, so a lecture on language could be even a provocation. But don’t think of it, I am wrong to mention. Of course you will give your lectures, I wish I could hear them.’

The landscape flattens further; beyond the windows show the shores of a large lake. ‘Perhaps you should find now your guide,’ says Plitplov, ‘In Nogod there are three stations, none of them with names. Take care, my friend, and I will find you. Is not such a big place. I may be a little elusive, but yes, we will make together a little dinner. Is it agreed?’ ‘If we can arrange it,’ says Petworth. ‘Of course,’ says Plitplov, ‘You know I like to make plans for you, plans of many kinds.’ Petworth walks shakily down the shaking train, down the wide corridors, through the wooden doors. Marisja Lubijova sits reading in her spectacles: ‘You are gone a long time,’ she says, setting aside her book, ‘Oh, comrade Petwurt, what are you doing? I let you go for a moment, and now you are smelling of drink.’ ‘I met someone, guess who?’ says Petworth. ‘I don’t want to play game with you,’ says Marisja, staring at him, ‘Who is on the train?’ ‘Dr Plitplov,’ says Petworth. ‘Really, your good old friend?’ says Mari Lubijova, ‘And he goes to Nogod?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth. ‘Why does he follow you?’ asks Marisja. ‘I don’t think he does follow me,’ says Petworth, ‘Our paths just keep crossing.’ ‘Petwurt, I think you are a very simple man, really you do not know anything about life, how to live it. Of course your paths cross. That is because he likes to follow you. But what is his reason? What does he want from you?’ ‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ says Petworth, breathing brandy fumes. ‘Oh, yes, he does all this for nothing,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘What does he know about you? How does he know you so well? And your marriage?’ ‘He just came to that course in Cambridge,’ says Petworth. ‘That is all?’ asks Marisja, ‘I don’t think so. You know, I cannot even imagine him as student. That man, he likes to think he was borned knowing everything. Well, Petwurt, take up please your baggages. Look, we are nearly here.’

And beyond the windows there is an urban landscape, a blowing wind, washing hanging between tenements, a long black wall, an advertisement, very tattered, for P’rtyuu Populatuuu, a heap of coal, a smell of oil fumes, a platform with people on it. They descend from the train; there is a high glass ceiling, a line of parcel trucks, a concourse, a number of people waiting expectantly, a few armed men, a forecourt, a few orange taxis. Marisja Lubijova walks firmly to the head of the line and claims one; meanwhile Petworth notices, coming toward them with waves and shouts, Plitplov and the man with the big black beard. ‘Quick please, inside,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘He does not come again in a taxi with us.’ They drive through the town, which has a humid atmosphere and a somewhat Mediterranean feel. Unseen shouters shout in the streets, children run about, car horns hoot with abandon, behind half-screened open windows unshaven men at desks answer telephones. The Hotel Universe is a high modern hotel by the lake, with a pool and a pier; there are display cases of souvenirs in the lobby and a blue Cosmoplot girl behind the desk. ‘You stay at the Universe,’ says Marisja, conducting the formalities, ‘I must stay at the small annexe behind.’ Petworth’s hotel room is the universal room, with bigger table lamps in it than has the rest of life, a small television set that will not switch on, and a card on the dressing table that says: ‘Please tickle one:  I like very much my stay;  it is all right;  I disappoint.’ The cafeteria where, a little later, they meet to take a little lunch is called a Butter’um, and is like a hamburger joint, without hamburgers. ‘Why does he come?’ asks Marisja, over the salad, ‘Now I think our nice weekend will really not be so well.’ Through a glass wall they can see into the lobby: in the lobby stands Plitplov, talking to the blackbearded man, and a man in a big felt hat, and someone who looks curiously like Professor Rom Rum. ‘We try not to mind,’ says Marisja, ‘We try to enjoy ourselves. The Mun’stratuu has been very efficient, and many things have been arranged.’

And many have. Over the weekend, Petworth is taken to various spots round the lake, to sit in cafés drinking light beer; he is taken by coach to a monastery high up a hill, where a little old moustached man issues him with very large felt slippers, which he wears to be shown, by a monk in a great vestment, an ancient hand-illustrated Bible in an alphabet that is now very little used. ‘Those places,’ says Marisja afterward, wrinkling her nose, ‘How they love to sell their propagandas to the foolish people who think it is all so.’ He is taken to a circus, the Kyrku Hyvardim, where he looks at the sad-faced lions, the romping monkeys, and feels curiously at home. He is taken to a state-run fish-farm, and given a lecture on rural reform; he is taken to a cinema to watch films, filmed in the style of heavy photographic realism, evidently shot by big cameras that are not easy to move around, about heroes of labour, campaigns for teaching things to deaf children, factories with steaming chimneys, and nuclear power stations. Occasionally Marisja Lubijova translates – ‘Katrina advances revolutionary ballet by her prize posture,’ she explains – but most of it is floating images, as the heavy urgent commentaries go on in the language he still has not managed to learn. Plitplov is not to be seen, until on Sunday night, after his guide has gone to her annexe behind the Universe, Petworth sees a sign saying CONGRUSS’UM. Two of the blue armed men guard an open door; through it Petworth can see a big hall with a platform with many flags on it. Men sit on the platform and in front of them are signs with their names on. Photographers stand at the side of the hall and step forward now and then, their cameras flashing. To the side of the stage, four translators sit in a box marked DOL’METSCHUU, their mouths moving rapidly. It seems to Petworth that one of the translators is Plitplov. One of the blue armed men closes the door, and gestures Petworth away; he goes to the lift and back to his room, where the big table lamps and the small television set seem to look at him, listen to him.

The weekend is over; in the morning it seems that the cycle will begin again. His lectures in a folder, he goes down to breakfast in the Butter’um; during the meal, of bad black coffee and bread rolls, Marisja is called away to the telephone. ‘There is a small confusion,’ she says when she comes back, ‘Your tour will not be quite the same. I am afraid you miss your last city. You do not go after it all to Provd. What a pity, you would like it. But there are some little troubles there that make it not a good idea. Also your lectures here, perhaps you do not give them. Instead we take you to a nice state farm with tractors, you will have a very nice day. Also tomorrow we try to find you a ticket for a plane back to Slaka, so you have more time to go to the Wicwok shop and find some nice souvenirs.’ ‘Is it to do with the language reform?’ asks Petworth. ‘Something like that,’ says Mari, ‘It is not very important and it will all soon be solved. But what a pity for your tour. Now you will not be able to give your best lectures.’ It seems to Petworth that when they go out into the lobby there are rather more of the blue armed militiamen than usual, and that, at the nice state farm with the tractors, as they trudge along furrows, Marisja Lubijova is whiter and more tense than he is used to. When they get back to the hotel, the sign saying congruss’um has gone; after he goes to his room, the telephone rings. ‘You are alone?’ says a voice, ‘No person is with you?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, ‘Is that Plitplov?’ ‘Someone of that sort,’ says the voice, ‘You wonder about a dinner, you think you are neglected.’ ‘I haven’t worried,’ says Petworth. ‘I think we make a raincheck, you understand this expression, it is American,’ says the voice, ‘I like to take now the way back to Slaka. I have an anxious wife, very delicate, and she has not seen me for three days. Do you make your lectures?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, a little word of advice from an old friend,’ says the voice, ‘I think you tell your nice lady guide you like to go back to Slaka too. It is not so hard to arrange. You are important official visitor.’ ‘I fly back tomorrow,’ says Petworth. ‘Is good,’ says the voice, ‘I hope the planes go. Sleep very well, my friend.’

It is crowded at the airport at Nogod, when the taxi delivers them there the following morning. At the two check-in desks long lines contend. ‘It is impossible,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘Wait here, please, I go to try to make you some arrangements. You don’t go away? I don’t lose you again?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, standing, as he has stood before, his back next to a pillar, his luggage tumbled at his feet. Around him, the crowd bustles in its unending business; faces, foreign, unfamiliar faces, but more familiar than they were once, surface for a moment and then disappear into the press. At the end of the concourse, a big clock ticks: a stall says LUTTU, another COSMOPLOT. Back in an old metaphysics of Petworthian absence, Petworth waits. The airport smells of carbolic soap; signs say NOKU ROKU, but everywhere the sweet scent of Balkan tobacco prevails. Buses stop outside the concourse, and the crowd thickens and thickens; there is no noise of planes taking off. Then, after a very long time, he sees Lubijova pushing back through the crowd toward him. ‘There is a small confusion,’ she says, ‘Perhaps it is not so small. All want to go to Slaka and the planes do not come so it is not possible. But a plane comes tonight and I think we go on it. You see, they treat you like a very important visitor. You don’t mind to wait? They will send away most of these people. They think their tickets are good but they are not.’ In a small crowded bar looking out toward the tarmac, Petworth sits out the afternoon, drinking rot’vuttu. ‘You can tell always the usual travellers by Comflug,’ says Marisja, sitting opposite, ‘They bring their binoculars, to look at the under of those planes when they land. Then if it does not look right, they make change of the flight. But it is no use today.’

Airports are indeed much the same the world over: Heathrow last week, Nogod now. A few unwarmed planes wait on the tarmac, a few people are allowed to go to the exit gates, a flight or two, during the afternoon, takes off. Night begins to fall, the landing strip lights up, then the big beam of a landing light is switched on in the sky. ‘We go to the gate now, this is our plane,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘You must carry on all your bags, we do not check them. Perhaps it is better I explain you. It is not because you are important visitor we go on this flight. I know the stewardess who takes it, I teach her some English. And she is mistress of the captain, so we get a place. Here it is always best to know somebody. Don’t you think I am good guide?’ They push out to the plane in a great crowd; at the steps, a long-legged green stewardess in a hard hat greets Marisja Lubijova, and embraces her. ‘Here is my friend,’ says Lubijova. ‘Yes, it is your friend,’ says the stewardess, ‘Please walk the steps, and at top go right, not left.’ At the top of the steps, the passengers with them turn into the forward cabin, where the stewardess seats them in neat rows, as if packing a box of people. But to the right is a green curtain, and the long-legged stewardess lifts it: ‘Please, in here,’ she says. Petworth walks through; behind the curtain is a curious world. For the rear cabin seems filled to the brim with green stewardesses, lolling in most of the available seats. In their Comflug uniforms, they come in many kinds: some are young and some quite elderly; some are blonde, and some are arabesque; there are thin-faced ones with flashing eyes and big-boned ones with wide flat features. There is an off-duty look to them; their horse-rider’s helmets are up on the rack, their shoes are scattered about the cabin floor. The bulkhead signs say LUPU LUPU and NOKU ROKU, but their belts are unfastened and an aromatic haze of cigarette smoke blows above their heads.

Petworth sits in a row with two young green stewardesses; Marisja Lubijova is found a seat on the other side of the aisle. The stewardess next to Petworth says something to him, in the language he has still not succeeded in grasping; ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ he says. ‘English?’ says the girl, ‘He is English.’ ‘English? Is he English?’ say the three girls in the row behind, rising to look at him. ‘Do you like a Russ cigarette?’ asks the girl next to him, ‘Do you like to take some vodka?’ ‘Yes, thank you,’ says Petworth. ‘I learn English,’ says the girl, ‘I like to make flight to the West.’ ‘I also learn it,’ says the girl in the seat beyond. Outside, the engines fire, and begin to roar; there is an announcement over the intercom. ‘Do you like that cigarette? Do you like that vodka?’ asks the girl next to him, ‘We buy them in Russ.’ The plane is taxiing; the lights of Nogod disappear in the windows. ‘Is that where this flight has come from?’ asks Petworth. ‘Tashkent,’ says the girl, ‘We are all off duty in Tashkent. It is nice there, at the autumn. You go, you goed?’ There comes the great rush into airspeed; Petworth puffs on his cigarette. ‘We say: you have been,’ he says, never less than a pedagogue, ‘No, I haven’t been.’ ‘Oh, you should have been, when you have chance,’ says the girl, ‘I know you like.’ ‘Vulu suftu’un burdu pumfluttu,’ says a female voice over the intercom., ‘Plaz’scu otvatu ummerg’nucuna proddo flugsu’froluku.’ One of the girls, holding a paper cup of vodka, stands and does a little mocking dance, pointing at the exits; the others applaud and raise their cups to her. ‘Have a nice day, I hope you enjoy your flight,’ says the girl next to Petworth, ‘Here, more vodka, you like?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ says Petworth. ‘This is a nice man,’ says the stewardess. ‘What a nice man,’ says a girl in the row behind.

‘Yes, he is very nice man, I like,’ says the long-legged stewardess, standing up in the aisle, smiling at him, ‘He is your man?’ ‘Oh, please,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘I am his guide, that is all. He makes a tour.’ ‘Oh, yes, I believe you, his guide,’ says the stewardess, ‘Listen, I like to ask him something. Do you interpret?’ ‘Oh, Petwurt, listen, this is nice, you have invitation,’ says Lubijova, after a moment, ‘She tells how she is the mistress of the captain who flies our plane. Well, it is this man’s birthday and she likes to be with him. They make a party in the cockplace, what do you call it?’ ‘The cockpit?’ asks Petworth. ‘There,’ says Marisja, ‘And she likes to take you there because you are visitor here and such a nice man.’ ‘To the cockpit?’ asks Petworth. ‘Yes, they are making there some celebratings,’ says Marisja. ‘But this is a Russian plane, and I’m a Western visitor,’ says Petworth, ‘I’m sure it’s not permitted.’ ‘But here is party,’ says the long-legged stewardess, ‘Everyone likes party.’ ‘Is it a good idea?’ asks Petworth. ‘Well, that man cannot leave his cockpit, you would not like that,’ says Marisja, ‘I think we must go to him. It is a very nice invitation. Come, we are going.’ ‘You said I couldn’t even photograph railway engines,’ says Petworth, but the stewardess beside him is pushing him up, and Marisja Lubijova holding wide the green door-curtain. Led by two stewardesses, Marisja and Petworth pass down the long aisle of the plane. The passengers, the men in hats, the women in headscarves, sit pressed together in tight rows, just as Petworth had been on his journey from London, a journey that now seems long ago; they look up, displaying a little curiosity, but not too much, as they all walk up the plane to the door of the pilot’s cabin.

The cockpit seems curiously small and very technical; beyond its windows, up ahead, a great black darkness lies. But inside all is comfortable and cheery; the pilot sits in his seat, his co-pilot beside him, each holding plastic cups of peach brandy; the flight engineer, behind, takes, to save space, the second stewardess onto his knee. It is cramped, but the pilot rises very civilly, to shake Petworth by the hand, and then he shakes the other hands too, as explanations are made. ‘Tells this is a new plane from Russia,’ Lubijova says, ‘Tells he likes to show you how to fly it.’ In front of the plane, in the moonlight, the great massed bulk of mountains rises; the pilot pulls levers and ratchets for Petworth, who nods very politely. ‘He asks if you like to sit down and fly it,’ says Lubijova. ‘Very easy,’ says the long-legged stewardess. ‘I don’t think I’d better,’ says Petworth, looking at a mountain top very close to the wing. ‘You like rot’vuttu?’ asks the stewardess. ‘Oh, yes,’ says Petworth. It is hard to pass drink around the overcrowded cockpit, but somehow it is managed, and when the long-legged stewardess sits on the knee of the pilot, and Marisja Lubijova on that of the co-pilot, there is more or less room for everyone. A flash of lightning illuminates the mountains; the captain raises his cup and says to Petworth, in English: ‘Welcome, amity and concord.’ ‘Indeed,’ says Petworth. ‘Also amity and Boeing, amity and Tupolev,’ says the co-pilot. It is a very good party, with much laughter: ‘Now we all sing a little song for a birthday,’ explains Marisja Lubijova, ‘I don’t think you have it in your country.’ But all good times come to an end; a grid of lights appears on the horizon. ‘Slaka, my friend,’ says the pilot, tapping Petworth’s arm and pointing. Petworth recognizes the jagged cup of mountains, spots, even, the orange pollution on the horizon. Handles are being pushed; something heavy bangs in the wing. ‘He asks do you like to land it?’ asks Marisja Lubijova, amid much laughter. ‘Next time,’ says Petworth, laughing too, looking forward into the night.

The world in front looks like a great black hole. In the hole it seems impossible to perceive a destination, except that there are lights, lights growing in size, lights becoming so big that they seem to be on collision course with the plane. There seems no sense in continuing in this direction, but the direction continues; something slaps up at them out of the darkness, with a white line on it, and the plane bounces and rocks. Brakes come on, machinery groans; there is a well-lit runway ahead. And, standing there in the cockpit, he bounces too, his brandy spilling into technical parts that other brandies cannot reach. There has been fear in him, he knows, and the fear will not go away. For now the big Ilyushin turns, taxis in slowly through the airport lanes. And even at night it is possible to see that quite a number of armed men are standing about at various points on the tarmac: clustered around the other planes that stand in line on the apron; gathered waiting on the stand to which the small van with a sign on it saying HIN MIM that has appeared out of the darkness leads the great aircraft. A flight handler waves his lighted bats to bring the plane into parking position; blue buses begin to move from the ill-lit terminal; the armed men cluster round. The engines cut; steps are wheeled up to their side. ‘Tells he hopes you enjoyed it,’ says Marisja Lubijova, rising from the lap of the co-pilot, ‘Tells he was very pleased to see you.’ Through the windows, it is possible to see the passengers getting off, and going to the blue buses that will take them to the door marked INVAT. The pilot shuts down the plane; led by the long-legged stewardess, Marisja and Petworth, the flight engineer and his companion, walk through the now empty cabin of the Russian jet.

At the bottom of the steps, four of the armed men who wait around planes wait around the plane as Petworth descends with his companions, his hair awry. He should not be here; it is not right. He expects, perhaps even feels he deserves, disaster, a quick arrest. But the officer of the party salutes him, the flight engineer nods, and they go not toward the drab terminal building and the door marked UNVAT but to a quite different entrance, where there is a pleasant room, and the green stewardesses are there again, and there is another drink, and a number of warm embraces from the scented girls, with their wheeled flight-bags, and their neat neck-scarves, and then they are all on the forecourt where the blue-armed men walk, and Marisja puts him into an orange taxi, which is soon on the long straight road to Slaka. ‘Oh, it is Pervert,’ says the lacquered-haired Cosmoplot girl at the Hotel Slaka, ‘Passipotti.’ ‘Now, dolling,’ says Marisja Lubijova. ‘I know, I know, he needs it,’ says the girl, ‘Tomorrow, it is late. I give you same room.’ And late it is, as Petworth goes up in the lift, along the corridor past the floormaid, and into the massive bedroom where the cupids frolic on the ceiling and the tram gantries flash through the curtains. He looks down through the window, where, somewhere, Marisja Lubijova goes, disappearing into the mysterious life she has in Slaka; he turns toward the big duvetted bed.