Manning shook his head. They drove slowly through the eastern suburbs into the centre of Moscow, not talking. The sky was growing light. Manning caught a glimpse of the university skyscraper floating over the city on the Sparrow Hills, already brilliantly sunlit, the illuminated red star on its pinnacle extinguished against the perfectly cloudless summer sky. At an intersection in the north of the city the sun burst into the car, shining straight down a long boulevard opening from their right, dazzling them. To Manning the streets and the sunlight looked as ordinary and expected as the walls of his cell. He had not yet adjusted to his sudden release. All he felt was a certain dull irritation that he had not been given time to shave before leaving.
‘We’re going to have a lot of time in hand,’ said Sasha. ‘I don’t know whose idea it was, starting this early. Perhaps we’ll be able to get breakfast at the airport.’
The car cruised slowly out to the north-west. Manning wanted to ask about Konstantin and Raya, but felt that it might imply that he knew of some reason why they should be in trouble. It might be wrong to inquire even about Katerina.
‘What’s happening to Proctor-Gould?’ he asked eventually.
‘I don’t know, Paul.’
‘He was arrested?’
‘Oh, yes. You haven’t heard any of the details?’
‘I haven’t been told anything.’
‘Korolenko was arrested, too, of course.’
‘Korolenko? Have either of them been charged?’
‘I don’t know. There was a lot about it in the papers for a start. It’s all public knowledge – I don’t suppose it matters if I tell you.’
He glanced at one of the men sitting next to Manning. The man raised his eyebrows disclaimingly, and looked out of the window.
‘It was all to do with those books which Gordon was presenting at the Faculty dinner that night,’ said Sasha. ‘Apparently the police had examined them beforehand. According to the papers, the books had been in a suitcase which you had deposited at the Kiev Station. I don’t know whether that’s right…?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the police took the case away from the station, examined the books, and then replaced them in the left luggage office in order to see who they were intended for. The police said that the book which Proctor-Gould gave to Korolenko had a very heavy binding in which there was some money concealed.’
Manning looked out of the window, warmed and dazzled by the serene sunlight which shot into the car between each building shadow. So it had been royalties after all. The terrible deviousness which Proctor-Gould had imposed upon himself was entirely quixotic. Manning remembered the various moral attitudes he had struck about him, and felt ashamed.
At Sheremetyevo Manning opened the brown paper parcel and put on his tie. They got fresh ham rolls at the buffet, and when the girl had raised steam in the Espresso machine, large capuccino coffees.
‘It’s rather ironical, coming to the airport like this to see you off,’ said Sasha. ‘I told Gordon at that dinner that I was ready to go to England as one of his clients.’
‘Oh,’ said Manning.
They sat, waiting for time to pass. Sasha told Manning the Faculty gossip, but to Manning it sounded unreal and dull, like the annals of some village club. He got permission to go to the men’s room under the supervision of one of the guards to shave.
He had his face close to the mirror, and was absorbed in trying not to breathe and steam up the last few clear inches of the glass, when a finger came between himself and his reflection. He stared at it. In the condensation on the mirror it scribbled a six-pointed squiggle, like two cursive w’s – ‘shsh’ – then deleted it, and was immediately withdrawn.
Manning slowly straightened up, and without turning his head looked into the mirror above the wash-basin next to his. The face reflected in it was Konstantin’s. They gazed at each other in the mirror, neither of them giving any sign of recognition. The guard paced slowly up and down the room, gazing at the floor, tapping his ring idly against each hand-basin as he passed, missing out the two which Manning and Konstantin were using. Without hurrying Konstantin dried his hands, and went into one of the lavatory cubicles on the other side of the room.
Manning finished shaving as quickly as he could, cutting himself messily, and asked the guard for permission to use the lavatory. The man nodded, without ceasing his patrol. Manning locked himself into the cubicle next to Konstantin’s, tore off a piece of toilet paper and scribbled on it:
‘Kostik! You’re safe! How did you know I was out?’
He dropped the paper over the partition and waited. He waited for what seemed a long time. The tapping of the ring against the basins began to sound impatient; he became frightened that the guard would order him out. Then Konstantin’s hand appeared over the top of the partition, and a sheet of toilet paper fluttered down. It said:
‘1. Paul! My great joy at your safety and freedom.
‘2. My humble thanks for your silence.
‘3. A message I promised I would deliver from Katya. She is out of hospital (it was hunger and exposure), but not well. Her mother has died. R. and I are looking after her. She insists you should know that while she was in hospital the police visited her and asked her about you. She told them you had deposited the books at the Kiev Station, and she asks your forgiveness.
‘4. R. and I – both all right. Knew about you through R’s father.’
The guard tapped on the door of the cubicle.
‘Finished?’ he said.
‘Coming,’ said Manning. In great haste he tore off another piece of paper and scribbled:
‘Tell K. police would probably have known anyway. I kiss her feet and ask her forgiveness for involving her. My love to her, to R., and to you, Kostik.’
He dropped it over the partition. Then he put Konstantin’s note in the lavatory pan and flushed it away.
39
The stubby silver Tu-104 screamed and shook, straining against its wheel-brakes. Dust and scraps of paper on the apron fled back from the blast of its jets. Manning pressed his face against the vibrating window glass, trying to make out Sasha or Konstantin among the scattering of spectators. But the only person he could distinguish for certain was one of the police escorts watching discreetly from a doorway.
He gave up trying to see and felt the shaving cut on his neck. It was still wet. He would arrive in London with blood on his collar. London … the name sounded as strange and promising as Samarkand or Valparaiso. Was the same brilliant summer’s day just starting in London? Would anyone know he was arriving? Would his mother have been told about him?
The engine note rose. Suddenly Moscow, and all its cares and heavinesses, seemed remote and insubstantial. He had an almost physical sense of the city and his life in it as being behind him. For the first time he began to take in his sudden liberty.
Then the engine note fell again, and each engine in turn was switched off.
A great silence fell. Manning could hear passengers making small interrogative noises to each other. He had a sensation of falling. And only at that moment did he really appreciate the true quality of the nightmare from which he had just been delivered.
The steps were wheeled forward again, and the door of the plane was opening. Manning strained to see what was happening, but he was on the wrong side of the cabin. There were voices. Then the noise of someone coming swiftly up the steps, and pretending to pant, as if to demonstrate that he had hurried.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the voice of one of the stewardesses.
The door was shut again. One by one the engines started and rose to a scream. And down the gangway in the centre of the cabin came Proctor-Gould, grinning guiltily, peering round to find a seat, and too confused to see.