The Russian Interpreter

‘I can’t help being a little anxious at times, Paul. I feel that these unconstructive moods of yours must affect your work. And naturally I feel that they are to some extent a reflection on myself.’

‘Now, Sasha, don’t start all that again.’

‘I know it’s not entirely easy, living in a foreign country. It’s up to me to make you feel happy here.’

‘That’s the trouble, Sasha. It’s not up to you – it’s up to me. All you have to do is leave me in peace, and not fuss, fuss, fuss around all the time.’

‘Paul, you were feeling out of sorts when you walked through that door!’

‘Well, now I’m feeling worse.’

Sasha went on gazing anxiously at Manning. Then he smiled.

‘I prescribe more relaxation. I’ll get us some seats for the theatre.’

Manning felt like a spoiled child. He would have liked to stamp his foot.

‘I don’t want to go to the theatre,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing but rubbish to see.’

Sasha was hurt. His whole face tensed for a moment before, as Bazarov recommended, he scorned his suffering and mastered it, and forgave Manning. He was always hurt by Manning’s contempt for national institutions of which he had been taught to be proud. Once he had been unable to bring himself to speak to Manning for two days because Manning, irritated by some skirmish with the bureaucracy, had told him that pigs were treated with more respect in England than men in Russia. In the end, his eyes full of a special bewilderment with which he sometimes softened the pain, he had told Manning: ‘It’s just not true, Paul. In the Soviet Union a man feels he is needed, which is the greatest respect that anyone can be paid.’

Now he suggested a concert.

‘I don’t want to go to a concert, either,’ said Manning. ‘I want to get away from Moscow for a bit.’

‘All right. I’ll organize something. Perhaps we could go to Zagorsk again. Or if the weather stays as warm as this it might be possible to take a picnic up the Oka.’

‘I want to get right out of the country. I want to go to Finland for a week.’

‘What – now?’

‘As soon as possible.’

‘I don’t know whether that could be arranged, Paul. Why not wait until the summer vacation? I don’t know what the committee would say about your leaving the country now.’

‘You could ask them.’

‘Yes.’

‘They’d do whatever you recommended. You could let me off the leash for a bit.’

Sasha looked more anxious than ever,

‘You see, Paul,’ he said, ‘I’m personally responsible for you to the committee. I’m responsible for seeing that your research goes well while you are in our country. Now, it’s not true to say that I keep you on a leash. You are perfectly free. I ask only that you give me some account of where you have been, and that you consult me before you make any major trips. Isn’t that the truth?’

It was close to the truth. Manning let his annoyance expire in a long sigh. It was very difficult to complain of the way Sasha treated him. He felt ashamed of himself for returning all Sasha’s kindness and thoughtfulness with ungrateful petulance.

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said gloomily, looking out of the window again, ‘I haven’t got enough money to go to Finland just now, anyway.’

Sasha was silent.

‘I’m sorry, Sasha,’ said Manning.

‘If you do decide you want to go,’ said Sasha, ‘I’ll certainly ask for you.’

‘No, no. It was just one of those ideas one has.’

‘I only want to do what’s best for you, Paul.’

‘I know you do. I’m sorry.’

Sasha’s gentle eyes rested on Manning, full of earnest sympathy.

‘I know the feeling, Paul,’ he said. ‘A great restlessness. I get it too on a day like this. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go to the Conservatory this evening. My friend Yuri Shchedrin – I told you about him; we used to play duets together when we were boys – is singing twelve Schubert songs. We’ll forget our troubles. We’ll forget Soviet public utilities. We’ll forget Moscow.’

Excited, as he always was by the sound or the thought of music, he began to sing ‘Frühlingsglaube’ in his sweet, soft tenor.

‘Die linden Lüfte sind erwacht …’

‘That would be nice,’ said Manning.

‘And afterwards we could go on to that Georgian grill in the Arbat. Have a shashlik – drink a bottle of wine – look at the pretty girls.’

‘I look forward to it,’ said Manning. And suddenly he did. He felt unable to look beyond the prospect of small pleasures in the immediate future, as if he were a child. In various pleasant or unpleasant ways Sasha often made him feel like a child. He picked up his bag and went to the door.

‘I apologize for my childishness,’ he said.

Sasha waved the apology away.

‘Incidentally,’ he said as Manning opened the door, ‘I hear there was someone round here looking for you last night.’

‘So the doorkeeper told me.’

Sasha looked at him expectantly. When Manning did not elucidate further, he asked:

‘That would be your friend Gordon Proctor-Gould, would it, Paul?’

‘Would it?’

‘I thought it might be. I believe he’s trying to get in touch with you.’

‘You’ve met him, have you?’

‘No, no. I heard about him.’

‘From whom?’