He greeted Elfrida with a kiss, Gribb with a faint mock-salute and Flapping Eagle with a limp-wristed thumbshake.
– So, Ignatius, he murmured, you’ve found a protégé, and such… such an attractive one, too. I shall have to look to my laurels, eh?
– The competitive spirit, said Gribb, not quite you, is it, Count?
– You’re probably right, said Cherkassov. Yes. Probably you are.
– Be that as it may, continued Gribb, it is I who should feel ill-at-ease, the one ugly duckling in a gathering of swans.
Cherkassov laughed and patted Gribb on the head.-You’re worth more than the lot of us Ignatius, he said casually.
Flapping Eagle found their relationship puzzling, the more so since both Irina and Elfrida instantly murmured their agreement, like a reflex response. There was a curious dichotomy between Cherkassov’s respectful words and condescending action, as though Gribb was to him a figure who should be kept on a pedestal-but also at a distance. He forgot this thought as Irina swooped towards him, grey eyes luminous as ever.
– A drink, Mr Eagle, she offered, and handed him a glass of wine, but only after cupping it in her hands for a moment.
– There, she said brightly, now I’ve warmed it for you.
– What better place to chamber a wine? said Flapping Eagle, smiling, and again the tiny frown burgeoned between Elfrida’s brows.
– I’m ravenous, announced Count Cherkassov. Shall we finish our wine as we eat? It was Irina’s turn to look fleetingly irritated; then she dazzled her husband with a huge smile and said: -But naturally, my darling. Excuse me for a moment while I check things. (And, turning to Flapping Eagle:) I make do without a staff nowadays; it creates certain lapses of gentility.
Then she was gone.
Count Aleksandr dominated the conversation. His habitually vacant eyes were at this moment more distant than void. He spoke solely to his wife; the others might have vanished upon entering the dining-room. Irina sat tense and tight-lipped as he spoke, but did not attempt to interrupt, or to involve her guests in what seemed to Flapping Eagle to be some sort of private ritual.
– Good times, Cherkassov was saying. Cavalry charges the morning after the ball. Hunting down Cossacks across the wide plains. The salons of Petersburg, the wit of the men, the beauty of the women, the free flow of wine and intercourse-and not all of it social, eh?
He laughed: shrilly, nervily.
– Aleksandr, said Irina at last; but what had been meant as a reproof sounded more like concern. He ignored her.
– Intercourse, he repeated. It was all we had left. The rabble grew, its cries grew louder, its weapons grew in power. What were we, after all, but dogs who had had their day? Night and the executioner awaited us all.
His voice had acquired a disturbing, rhythmic, pounding quality.
– They hanged us, or shot us, or spilt our guts; a last drink, a last cigarette, a last laugh was all they allowed. But this they could not disallow: that we were friends. That remains for always. This room holds that memory. Let us drink to it.
Eight places had been laid at the large round table. Flapping Eagle sat at Irina’s right. On his right was an empty chair. Then came Ignatius Gribb: an island between two unoccupied seats: another sign, perhaps, of his place in the Cherkassovs’ social pecking-order, since he alone had no immediate neighbour with whom to converse. The sequence around the table was completed by Cherkassov, then Elfrida and finally, between her and Irina, the third vacant place.
Flapping Eagle, listening to Cherkassov’s elegy, wondered whom the Count saw in this room, wondered who filled the empty chairs, what ghosts sat where he himself was sitting; but at that moment Cherkassov started slightly, and his eyes changed; still glazed, they were no longer distant. He smiled around the table a little sheepishly, and Irina visibly relaxed.
– A toast, he said. A toast to the evening and our friendship, which all the tides of history cannot sweep away.
The five of them stood and drank.
Flapping Eagle, sitting down again, remembered Virgil Jones’ description of K: Valhalla. He felt a pressure on his thigh. Looking down, he saw a scrap of paper. Without lifting it above the level of the table, he read the Countess’ message.
DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS NOW.
FOLLOW ME TO THE GARDEN LATER.
I.
Irina and Elfrida were making a brave attempt to start a flow of inconsequential chatter when their hopes were dashed by a terrible din, pounding its way through the dining-room wall. It was as though an army of cans, pans and other hollow objects had hurled itself simultaneously to the floor. The horrible crash was followed by the sound of a thin voice raised in incantation-or even song-to the insistent, clamorous accompaniment of a rhythmically-struck gong. The voice said: SVO-BO-DA! SVO-BO-DA!
– Moonshy, said Irina Cherkassova with some resignation.
– How awful for you, said Elfrida automatically. Flapping Eagle once more had the impression that he was watching some ill-understood ritual, unfolding tonight as it had done for all time and would continue to do for all time to come. Perhaps it was the total absence of surprise that created the impression, but it was swiftly confirmed by the countess, who explained:
– Mr Moonshy shares this house with us, Mr Eagle. Not content with being the town quartermaster, a powerful enough platform for enforcing his ridiculously egalitarian views, he feels the need to disrupt our evenings with his clamourings. I believe the intent is to make us understand that we belong to the oppressor-classes. We tolerate his outbursts: they are harmless if somewhat ennuyeux.
Count Cherkassov was standing now. -Excuse me, he said, I’d better go to the door. Please continue with your meal.
– It’s the inevitable next stage, said Irina. He’ll come to the door and deliver his harangue. I sometimes think he raids his wine-stores. Don’t you think that would be a true poetic irony, the demagogue given dutch courage by breaking his own principles? She essayed a laugh.
– But what was he shouting? asked Flapping Eagle.
– SVOBODA, said Irina Cherkassova. In Russian, it means LIBERTY. A ludicrously unnecessary request, in the circumstances.
Mr Moonshy’s thin but penetrating voice made its presence felt at the door.
– Liberty, it cried, Liberty is herself in chains!
– Good evening, said the voice of Aleksandr Cherkassov.
– It is the eve of liberation, said Moonshy. The twilight-time of the bosses. For that reason alone it is a good evening.
– Would you like a glass of wine? asked the Count.
– Thank you, said Moonshy normally and then burst out: Too many martyrs have spilt too much blood! The transgressors shall face a terrible vengeance! It is the eve, I tell you. The eve of destruction!
Irina whispered to Flapping Eagle: -It has been for several centuries. Then she continued, a shade too loud: -I was reading a fascinating story only the other day. Would you like to hear it?
Elfrida said: -Oh, please.
Irina pursed her lips and placed the tips of her fingers against each other in a pose of great concentration. -It’s rather a serious tale, she said. It is about the Angel of Death. In the story, he is sent out by God to collect the dead souls; but he finds a frightening thing happening to him, for as he swallows each soul it becomes a part of him. And so Death is changed, metamorphosed as it were, by each dying creature. The poor Angel finds it a bigger and bigger strain, and also begins to have doubts about whether he even exists as an independent being with all these people inside him; so he returns to God and asks to be relieved of his function. And what do you think he finds? This: that God too, is tired of his job, and wants to die. God asks the Angel to swallow him and of course the Angel cannot refuse. So he does, and God dies; but the effort of swallowing him breaks the heart of the Angel. And there is a very sad ending, when he realizes that Death cannot die, for there is no-one to swallow him. Don’t you think that a very pretty, neat tale?