2005 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (26 page)

“Mayevskyj! Acclaimed engineer of first order! I have been honoured to read your fascinating thesis on tractor history which you sent to me,” he says in Ukrainian, pumping my father’s hands up and down. Now I understand why he did not respond to my questions. He does not speak English. My father introduces us.

“Mikhail Lewis, my son-in-law. Distinguished trade unionist and computer expert. My daughter Nadezhda. She is a social worker.” (Pappa! How could you!)

Over tea and a packet of past-sell-by-date biscuits I have found in the larder, we gradually discover the reason for the mystery man’s visit. It is simple enough: he has come to find his wife and son, and to take them home to Ukraina. He has grown increasingly concerned about the letters he has been receiving from England. Stanislav is not happy at his school, where he says the other boys are lazy, obsessed with sex, they boast endlessly of their material possessions, and the academic standard is low. Valentina is also unhappy. She has described her new husband as a violent and paranoid man, from whom she is seeking a divorce. Though now that he has met the respected gentleman-engineer (with whom he has already enjoyed a stimulating correspondence on the subject of tractors) he is inclined to believe that she may have exaggerated a little, as she has sometimes been known to do in the past.

“One may forgive a beautiful woman a little exaggeration,” he says. “The important thing is that all is forgiven, and now it is time for her to come home.”

He has come over to England on an exchange programme with Leicester University to extend his knowledge of superconductivity, and he has been allowed to take some weeks’ leave in addition. His mission is to find his wife (although he granted her a divorce, he has never for one moment ceased to consider her as such) and woo her, and win back her heart. “She loved me once—surely she can love me again.” On his free days, he has caught the train from Leicester and lain in wait outside the house, hoping to catch her by surprise. He has scoured the town, and enlisted the help of the President of the Ukrainian Club, but as the days have gone by and she has not appeared, he fears he may have lost her for ever. But now—now he has met the eminent Mayevskyj and his charming daughter and distinguished son-in-law—now maybe they will help him in his endeavours.

I can see my father stiffen, as he realises that this renowned leading Ukrainian scholar is also a rival in love. It is one thing for him to divorce Valentina himself, quite another to have her snatched away from under his nose.

“This you must discuss with Valentina. My impression is she is absolutely determined she must stay in England.”

“Yes, for such a beautiful flower, the wind in Ukraina blows very hard and cold at this moment. But it will not always be so. And where there is love, there is always enough warmth for the human soul to thrive,” says the intelligent-type husband.

“Tosh!” I snort into my teacup, but manage to disguise it as a sneeze.

“One snag remains,” says my father. “Both have disappeared. Valentina and Stanislav. No one knows where they are. She has even left two cars here.”

“I know where they are!” I cry. Everyone turns to stare at me, even Mike, who cannot understand a word of what is going on. My father catches my eye and glowers, as if to say, Don’t you dare tell him.

“The Imperial Hotel! They’re living at the Imperial Hotel!”

The pubs in Peterborough are all busy on Saturday afternoon, with shoppers, market folk and tourists. The Imperial Hotel is heaving. Some regulars have taken their drinks outside on to the pavement and are clustered around the doorway, talking about the football. I park the Ford Escort a few yards away. We decide Mike should be sent in to reconnoitre—he will merge with the crowd. He is to look out for Valentina or Stanislav, and if he sees them he is to slip out discreetly and alert Dubov, who will then move in for his charm offensive. He and my father are sitting in the back of the car, with excited looks on their faces. For some reason everyone is talking in whispers.

After a few moments Mike emerges, pint in hand, to report that there is no sign of Valentina or Stanislav. Nor is there anyone who matches my description of Bald Ed. There is a double sigh of disappointment from the back of the car.

“Let me look!” says Pappa, his arthritic ringers struggling with the catch of the car door.

“No no!” cries Dubov. “You will frighten her away. Let me look!”

I am worried that my father seems to be on another emotional rollercoaster, I fear that Dubov’s competitor presence has pricked his male pride, and rekindled his interest in Valentina. He knows she is no good for him, but he cannot resist the magnetism that draws him despite himself. Foolish old man. It can only end in tears. Yet beneath the contrariness of his behaviour, I sense that he is driven by a deeper logic, for Dubov has the same magnetism, the same seductive energy as Valentina. Father is in love with both of them: he is in love with the life-beat of love itself. I can understand the fascination, because I share it too.

“Shut up, both of you, and stay where you are,” I say. “I’ll go and look.”

The back doors of the car are fitted with childproof locks that cannot be opened from the inside, so they have no choice in the matter.

Mike has found a seat near the door. A crowd of young men is clustered around the TV screen, and every few minutes they let out a chorus of roars. Peterborough are playing at home. Mike has his eyes fixed on the screen as well—his pint is now drunk half-way down. I go up to the bar and look around. Mike was right—there is no sign of Valentina, Stanislav or Bald Ed. Suddenly there is a surge of cheering. Someone has scored. The man pulling pints at the other end of the bar had his head lowered, but now as he turns towards the TV our eyes meet, and at once we recognise each other. It is Bald Ed—but he isn’t bald any more. Some scraps of shaggy grey fluff cover his pate. His belly has grown, and started to sag down over his belt. In the weeks since I last saw him, he has really let himself go.

“You again. What do you want?”

“I’m looking for Valentina and Stanislav. I’m a friend, that’s all. I’m not from the police, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“They’re gone. Done a runner. Moonlight.”

“Oh no!”

“Appen yer scared them off last time.”

“But surely…”

“Her and t’ lad. Both gone. Last weekend.”

“But have you any idea…?”

“‘Appen she reckoned she were too good for me.” He looks at me with sad eyes.

“You mean…?”

“I don’t mean nothing. Now, fuck off, will yer? I’ve got a pub to run, and I’m on me own.”

“Oh no! Gone!” There are gasps of dismay from the rival lovers in the back seat, then a glum silence settles over the car which, after a few moments, is broken by a long trembling sigh.

“Come, come, Volodya Simeonovich,” murmurs my father in Ukrainian, reaching his arm around Dubov’s shoulder. “Be a man!”

I have never heard him use the patronymic before. Now he and Dubov are starting to sound like something out of
War and Peace
.

“Alas, Nikolai Alexeevich, to be a man is to be a weak and fallible creature.”

“I think we all need cheering up,” suggests Mike. “Why don’t we go in for a drink?”

The crowd has dispersed at the end of the match and we manage to find enough stools to squeeze around the table; even a chair with a back for Pappa. The noise in the pub is too much for him, and he withdraws into a wide-eyed blankness. Dubov perches his broad buttocks on the small round stool spreading his knees for balance, chin up, alert, drinking in the atmosphere. I notice his eyes scanning the crowd, keeping a hopeful watch on all the entrances.

“What would everyone like to drink?” asks Mike.

Father asks for a glass of apple juice. Dubov asks for a large whiskey. Mike orders another pint. I would really like a cup of tea, but I settle for a glass of white wine. We are served by Bald Ed, who for some reason brings the drinks over to our table on a tray.

“Cheers!” Mike lifts his glass. “To…” He hesitates. What is the appropriate toast for such a diverse group of people with such conflicting desires and needs? “To the triumph of the human spirit!”

We all raise our glasses.

The triumph of the human spirit

“The triumph of the human spirit?” Vera snorts. “My dear, that is charming but quite naive! Let me tell you, the human spirit is mean and selfish; the only impulse is to preserve itself. Everything else is pure sentimentality.”

“That’s what you always say, Vera. But what if the human spirit is noble and generous—and creative, empathic, imaginative, spiritual—all those things we try to be—and sometimes it’s just not strong enough to withstand all the meanness and selfishness in the world?”

“Spiritual! Really, Nadia! Where do you think the meanness and selfishness come from, if not from the human spirit? Do you really believe there is an evil force stalking the world? No, the evil comes from the human heart. You see, I know what people are like deep down.”

“And I don’t know?”

“You are fortunate that you have always lived in the world of illusion and sentiment. Some things it is better not to know.”

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree.” I feel my energy draining away. “Anyway, she’s disappeared again. That was what I was ringing to tell you.”

“But did you try the other house—the house in Norwell Street with the deaf asylum seeker?”

“We called in there on the way home, but there was no one. It was all dark.”

Tiredness settles over me like a damp blanket. We have been talking for almost an hour, and I haven’t the energy to argue any more. “Vera, I’d better go to bed now. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Nadia. Don’t worry too much about what I said.”

“I won’t.”

And yet this dark knowledge of Vera’s troubles me. What if she is right?

Despite being rivals in love, Pappa and Dubov get on like a house on fire, and under strong invitation from my father Dubov moves out of his cell in the hall of residence at Leicester University and makes himself at home in what was formerly my parents’ bedroom, then Valentina’s room. His belongings are carried in a small green rucksack, which he stows at the foot of the bed.

Three days a week, he catches the train to Leicester and comes back late in the evening. He explains to my father the latest developments in superconductivity, drawing neat diagrams in pencil, which are labelled with mysterious symbols. My father waves his hands in the air and declares that it is all as he predicted back in 1938.

Dubov is a practical man. He wakes early, and makes tea for my father. He cleans the kitchen and puts things away after every meal. He gathers up the apples in the garden, and my father teaches him the Toshiba method. Dubov declares that he has never tasted anything so delicious in all his life. They spend the evenings talking about Ukraine, philosophy, poetry and engineering. At weekends they play chess. Dubov listens raptly as my father reads him long chapters from the
Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
. He even asks intelligent questions. In fact, he could be the perfect wife.

Like my father, Dubov is an engineer, though he is an electrical engineer. While he has been hanging around the garden looking out for Valentina, he has had plenty of opportunity to study the two derelict cars, and he is smitten with the Rolls-Royce. Unlike my father, however, he can actually get down under the chassis. His diagnosis is that her sickness is not too serious: she is leaking oil from the sump because the plug is loose. As for the suspension sag, the most likely problem, he believes, is a broken spring bracket. The reason she does not run is probably an electrical fault, maybe the generator or the alternator. This he will look at. Of course if Valentina and the key cannot be found, she will also need new ignition.

Over the next week my father and Dubov decide to strip down the engine, clean all the parts, and spread them out on the ground on old blankets. Mike’s help is enlisted. He spends two evenings on the internet and on the telephone trying to track down scrap dealers who might have a similar Rolls-Royce in their yard, and finally locates one near Leeds, two hours’ drive away.

“Really, Mike, you don’t have to drive all the way up there, you know. The car’s probably a write-off anyway.”

He says nothing, and looks at me with a dreamy stubborn expression I have sometimes seen on my father’s face. I can see he has been smitten too.

Eric Pike volunteers to mend the spring bracket. He arrives on Sunday in his blue Volvo with a welding torch and a mask.

How dashing he looks with his sweeping moustache and big leather gauntlets, bravely gripping the red-hot metal in a pair of huge pincers and bashing it with a hammer! The others stand in a semicircle a good distance away, and gasp in admiration. When he has finished, he flourishes the glowing bracket in the air to allow it to cool, and accidentally leaves the torch propped up against the toolbox still turned on, laying waste to the pyracantha hedge in the process. Then, fortunately, it rains, and all four of them huddle in the kitchen poring over technical manuals that Mike has downloaded from the internet. It’s all much too masculine for my liking.

“I’m off to Peterborough,” I say. “I’ll get something for supper. What would anybody like?”

“Get some beer in,” says Mike.

Of course the shopping is just a front. I am really going to look for Valentina. I am certain Bald Ed was not lying when he said she was gone; but where could she go? For a while I drive around aimlessly, peering between the swishing windscreen wipers, up and down the empty Sunday streets still littered with Saturday-night debris. I have worked out a circuit: Eric Pike’s house, Ukrainian Club, Imperial Hotel, Norwell Street. On the way I call at the supermarket and load up a trolley with the sorts of things I think that my father and Dubov might like: lots of sweet and fatty cakes, meat pies that can be reheated in the oven, frozen vegetables that are already prepared, bread, cheese, fruit, salad that can be shaken out of bags, soup in tins, even a frozen pizza—I draw the line at boil-in-the-bag—plus a few six-packs of beer. I load the shopping into the boot and drive round the circuit once more. As I am heading up past the Imperial Hotel on my second loop, a green car parked half on the pavement catches my eye. It is a Lada—in fact it looks like Valentina’s Lada.