Authors: Malcolm Bradbury
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.’