‘What do you see in that, Sergei?’
‘Nobody in that youngster’s position, nobody as bright as he, is really as smitten as that at the sight of a girl he knows so little, even a girl as attractive as my daughter. So smitten, I mean, that he really forgets the existence of his elders and supposed betters and goes rushing off without a word. Not really. Do they? So as well as the conscientious researcher we seem to have the romantic lover. – I don’t of course mean‘ -he turned to Mets – ‘that he isn’t in fact a conscientious researcher.’
‘No no, Controller, point taken.’ Mets looked at the ground and went on, ‘There must be cases where three parts are taken.’
In fact Theodore had briefly weighed the advisability of interrupting an animated conversation among important persons and decided against it; it was his bad luck that nobody had noticed the little bow and wave he had given between laying eyes on Nina and moving away. Now he stood in front of her and looked at her. She was wearing her satin-weave waistcoat over a white blouse with mauve edging and the white culottes then in favour for sports. He noticed the freckles at the base of her neck. After some hesitation they shook hands, awkwardly, as if repairing a quarrel. Neither spoke. Elizabeth began patting herself lightly on the arms and thighs.
‘I seem to have gone invisible,’ she said. ‘I hope it won’t get any worse.’
‘I’m so sorry, Elizabeth; I was coming to you.’
‘Of course, in your own good time.’
‘Why aren’t you dressed for tennis?’ Nina sounded accusing.
‘Well, there wouldn’t be much point in that, I can’t play it. You see, it’s never really caught on in Russia,’ Theodore found himself explaining,’ and since I’ve been over here there doesn’t seem to have been time to learn. Anyway, I…’
‘Merciful God, it’s not a crime not to play tennis,’ said Elizabeth. She looked as though she had caught the sun a little. ‘No need to cite extenuating circumstances.’
‘I was only-’
‘I think I’ll go and try and fix up a four for us; there’s-’
‘No, stay,’ said Nina, this time with excessive urgency, then at a more natural level, ‘let’s go and sit down.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t stand any more of this.’ Elizabeth was now equally agitated. ‘Why two grown-up people have to gape and roll their eyes and babble nonsense at each other just because they want to, I suppose I’d better say have sex with each other I simply… If anybody wants me I’ll be by the further court.’
Theodore looked troubled. ‘I hope it was nothing I said or did.’
‘No. You’ll have to bear with her. She took a bad tumble over Alexander about a year ago – she was very serious about him, still is, but of course as far as he was concerned she was just another girl. Not even that in a way. He doesn’t like girls to scold him and make fun of him, give him any sort of opposition. I can never understand why she can’t see that if she’s really after him she’s going about things completely the wrong way. He wants to be told that he’s wonderful, not that he’s wrapped up in himself. I can’t understand it; she’s usually so bright about things like that. But she won’t discuss it. Anyway, she’s dead against…’ Nina stopped.
‘Strong emotion in others.’
‘Yes.’
‘I see. Alexander told me he’s tried to persuade her to have an affair with him but she’d turned him down. About a year ago.
‘You don’t want to believe everything he says,’ said Nina, more easily now that the talk had shifted from strong emotions.
‘I can assure you I’m very far from doing that, but I believe him in this case because to a small degree it shows him in a disadvantageous light.’
‘Or alternatively in an engagingly frank and humble light. It’s always one light or another with him, you’ll find.’
‘Obviously you know him very well.’
Theodore had not changed his view of the truth of the statement under discussion. He had already noticed that Alexander talked for effect sometimes, but he was confident of being able to identify these occasions accurately enough, more so at least than Nina, whose manner at their previous meeting, as now, had suggested an unrancorous envy of her brother’s sexual success. This envy might lead her, he judged, to take the less favourable view in questions relating to that success. What was much more interesting was how on earth she came to have anything to be envious about. With the amiability driven from her face by tension she was as beautiful as most men would require. She sensed the direction of his thoughts and said quickly, ‘Is he coming this evening, do you know? You’ve seen him since I have.’
‘No, I don’t know,’ he answered untruthfully but usefully for smothering the digression. ‘Aren’t you going to play tennis?’
‘We can’t yet. I mean the older ones have to play first, the important ones, that is.’
‘Good. You’ll tell me when you want to play?’
‘Yes, but I don’t really want to play,’ she said.
They had strayed away from the marquee and the courts and there was nobody near them. This time he did take her hands and kissed them and let them go. Presently he said,
‘I’m excited, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but very certain as well. Confident. Till a few seconds ago I thought I never could be.’
‘And happy.’
‘Yes.’
Later Nina and Elizabeth played tennis and lost almost every point that involved Nina, who also kept forgetting things like her turn to serve and thereby annoying Elizabeth. Later still the two girls and Theodore and another young man who had attached himself to Elizabeth went up for their five minutes with Igor Swianiewicz. He was said to be the richest man in the district; he was known for a fact to have made his fortune by selling supplies illegally. But he was generous – as well as giving what were thought to be good parties he reputedly allowed the mothers of his illegitimate children to buy from him at a reduced rate – and after all somebody had to run a system of that kind, as even Director Vanag would have agreed. There was also the consideration that virtually every Russian household had had unofficial dealings with him. He spent the first part of the allotted five minutes describing the house he was having built in Cornwall, the second part asking his listeners riddles with obscene but otherwise impenetrably mysterious answers, and the third part telling them that a dozen English ought to be shot every day to teach the others a bit of respect.
When that was finished, they went into the marquee for supper. The noise was like that of a mob perpetually on the point of breaking through a line of police. Great wafts of stale sweat relieved with dense cigar-smoke drifted through the sticky air. It was not easy to find four places close together; a waiter came to the rescue by grabbing an unconscious woman under the armpits and hauling her out. The heels of her shoes made an excited whining sound on the canvas floor. At the other end of the tent, a very fat man who had climbed up on a table at once fell off it again on to a large tray of empty bottles and dirty glasses just then being carried past by another waiter. Two younger and less fat men, each with his hands at the other’s throat, went out of sight under the same table and those near them moved their legs aside as they continued without pause to eat, drink, smoke and bawl anecdote, assertion or invective. The main dish, narrowly preceded by a cold nettle soup with capers in it, was beef stroganoff served complete with knife and fork on the plate; the texture of Theodore’s portion, if nobody else’s, was such that it might well have included a stray tennis-ball sliced up along with the meat. There was wine on the table and vodka and brandy were swigged, in many cases straight from the bottle. Bowls of tired fruit and cups of coffee arrived after another short interval, not because the English waiters were efficient in the ordinary sense but because they wanted to pack up and go home; no doubt this threw some light on Igor Swianiewicz’s corrective proposal.
‘It was stuffy in there,’ said Nina when they had finished and emerged.