Rates of Exchange (42 page)

There are great towers going up into the air; up on the towers, pigeons coo, dropping their detritus onto history. ‘Over here, Petwurt,’ says Lubijova, ‘This is, what do you
say, the lattice?’ ‘The latrine,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, in case you do not think it, here you see that some things in the world are improved,’ says Lubijova,
‘You would not like to make business in that. I think now we go inside, and then I take you up a tower. Here a capella, notice please the altarpiece. A very good carver has made it. Do you
recognize his subject? This is Saint Michael, see how he battles with the worm.’ ‘The worm?’ says Petworth. ‘What do you like to call it?’ asks Marisja. ‘A
dragon,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, we teach something to each other,’ says Marisja, ‘It is a dragon. Next time I shall be better guide. And here in the glass tomb, what do you
call it? Is it a skillet?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, looking into an exposed tomb, cased with bubbled glass, in which there lies a skull, a ribcage, a bone system, all still clad in
the tatters of some ancient finery, the scraps of a dusty feathered hat, embroidered coat and waistcoat, frogged trousers, high boots, ‘A skillet’s something you cook with. This is a
skeleton.’ ‘What a pity he has no one now to mend his cloths,’ says Marisja, ‘But, you know, I think he lies there to teach you something. I hope you learn, or for all these
years he has been wasting his time.’ ‘I think I get the point,’ says Petworth. ‘Over here, the nose mummy of a saint in a case,’ says Marisja, ‘And then we go up
a tower that is very nice.’ From the tower, there is an oceanic, pastoral horizon to look at, with waving treetops. ‘Well,’ says Marisja, when they reach the top, ‘My dear
Mr Petwurt, I think today you have seen really a castle. Not like the other time, when you made your tour in a different place. Oh, don’t worry, I am not going to ask you more about your day
with the lady writer. I think here we like to forget her. And it is easy, with such a nice view.’

Later, as the sun has begun to fade, they go back down toward the old town of Glit. ‘Do you like to eat something?’ asks Marisja, ‘I know near here a place you will like. You
can try in it the special eatings of Glit.’ In a back street, they find a small old restaurant, with low ceilings; a good many people occupy its tables. The occupiers are, it seems, tourists,
for some are talking in German, some in what Petworth thinks is Bulgarian; they are tourists not of Petworth’s kind, but those for whom travel has something to do with pleasure and desire,
and they are happy, happiness being what tourists are supposed to have. The menu comes, and a familiar litany begins. ‘Now, what do you like?’ Marisja asks, ‘Here is the veal of a
sheep, or do you like to eat a brain? Here a soup with feet in it, and here a typical thing of the place, a cream with a cumber made of the chords of the yurt.’ Petworth stares at the written
list, but the words are new again, and his head is tired, from a sleepless night, an uphill walk, a rural air, a beating sun. The pleasure of the strange is not what it was: ‘An ordinary soup
and a plain omelette,’ he says. ‘Oh, Petwurt, I disappoint,’ says Marisja, ‘I thought you came to enjoy all our customs? You told me that, do you remember it, right when I
met you at the airport, and you wanted my embrace? But perhaps you do not delight yourself so much now? Perhaps you don’t like my country?’ ‘Of course I do,’ says Petworth.
‘Do you know how you look?’ asks Lubijova, ‘Like a girl who sulks because her love had gone wrong. You like to be British, so polite, but really you are very obvious. Well, I
shall take a brain. I like to enjoy myself. You know this is a very special experience for me?’ ‘Is it?’ asks Petworth, ‘Why?’

‘If you knew just a little my country, you would understand, but, poor Petwurt, really you don’t know very much about the world outside your head, I think. Here it is not so easy to
travel around, and stay in a provincial hotel, and eat like this in a typical restaurant. You must be a very good person with an excellent file at the police, and you must get a certain permission.
Well, dear Mr Petwurt, I have an excellent file, and you are my permission. If you like to disappoint now, well, please do it, but don’t want me to share it. I like to make a very good time.
I know you travel a lot, it is all ordinary; this, for you, but it is special for me. Don’t forget, I am not some lady writer. I don’t have a great courage, just a very dull life at
Slaka. I do not have admiring lovers and a famous academician who watches out always for me. I do not write and imagine wonderful things, I just make some interpretations, and read some menus for
you, and keep you away from bad troubles. And I hope you don’t think that is so easy, do you? So I shall have a brain and, if you want a good advice from your guide who tries always to help
you, you will forget this lady. She is well looked after.’ ‘Looked after?’ asks Petworth, ‘Has something happened to her?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ says
Marisja Lubijova, ‘But perhaps she makes some travels too. She has some little troubles you have helped her with. Our writers’ union has a fine summer house on Lake Katuruu. Perhaps she
likes to go there. It is very peaceful and there she can meet some more writers and discuss there her obligations in a clear and constructive way. She will be very well there and you do not need
even to think about it.’ ‘She’s been sent there?’ asks Petworth. ‘I don’t know,’ says Marisja, ‘Perhaps she remains still in Slaka. They do not tell
me these things. Oh, here is the waitress to take an order. Do you like to make it, in the language of Glit? No, all right, I interpret you, I will do it.’

The waitress who takes the order wears under her white apron a hidden black purse, so that she looks pregnant with money. A single candle lights the table, shining on the ringless long white
hands, the pale face and blue eyelids, of Marisja Lubijova. ‘I am naughty, I order you a brain,’ she says, ‘Now, do you please forget altogether this lady. I don’t think you
saw a real person, any more than a real castle. A lady like that is very strange. I know a little bit her story, you remember I gave you her book, do you still have it? You know she has had many
husbands, did she tell you so? One was a famous man, a minister, everyone here knew of him, he was popular. Well, one day, this man, he shot himself.’ ‘I see,’ says Petworth,
‘How did it happen?’ ‘I don’t know, I don’t know everything,’ says Marisja, ‘But they are happy together, always in public, and then one day no more. She
is not with him, then she makes a book, and it is accepted. On the day it is in the bookstore, that man sits at his desk in his very nice dacha, for he is a successful man, and he has somewhere a
gun, and he puts it up here and he shoots his head. Who knows why? A marriage is a very secret thing. We do not know who is betrayed, or how. Perhaps even it was not at home, perhaps at work, in
the Party. But now she is a famous writer and all want her book, and he is not a minister or anything else. It is not your world, Petwurt.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth. ‘Always you
are so intense and sad,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, that is your privilege. Or perhaps it is the privilege of your people. You expect certain things, like an American, well, we are not the
same. We know we have a duty to make some useful lives, and we can be content. You are not content, I think. You do not know why you are in the world, do you?’ ‘I suppose not,’
says Petworth.

‘Oh, my dear Petwurt, you are so strange,’ says Marisja Lubijova, laughing at him in the candlelight, ‘Always you are smoking and drinking and taking black coffee and looking
at the girls. Oh, yes, I have seen you, you look so, at all the ones who are nice. And here of course there are many to look at. Our girls are highly pretty and they are feminine without being
victims of an oppression. I think this is why Englishmen always like them and want to marry them, now and again.’ ‘I expect so,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, my dear, I think you are
a man of many vice,’ says Marisja, ‘And do you get a great pleasure of your pleasure?’ ‘Not particularly,’ says Petworth. ‘No, always you are looking for
something, I feel it,’ says Marisja, ‘But I don’t know at all what it is.’ ‘Neither do I,’ says Petworth. ‘Do you know what I think?’ asks Lubijova,
‘I think you have come here to make yourself some guilt. That is why you have come. Well, you have chosen the right place. Here they will be pleased always to hear your confession. I think
some people know that already, don’t you?’ ‘Who?’ asks Petworth. ‘Your good old friend,’ says Lubijova, ‘Your Plitplov.’ ‘I’d forgotten
him,’ says Petworth. ‘He will not let you,’ says Lubijova, ‘After all, he knows so well your wife. What does he know? What does he find out about you?’ ‘I
don’t know,’ says Petworth. ‘You don’t like to tell,’ says Marisja, ‘You know I am your friend.’ ‘I really don’t know,’ says Petworth.
‘Well, marriage is a secret thing, we do not know who is betrayed, or how,’ says Lubijova, ‘Perhaps it is so secret that those who are there do not know it. But I hope you do not
trust him, this Plitplov.’

They sit at their table, in another country; the aproned waitress comes to them with a bottle of wine. ‘And you, are you married?’ asks Petworth, as the waitress applies a knife to
the top of the bottle. ‘Oh, me?’ asks Lubijova, looking up, ‘Do you think so? Why do you think it?’ ‘Your name, Lubijova,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, no, it does
not mean that,’ says Marisja, ‘It means I am a woman. Which I think you noticed, I believe you notice women. Well, I am one of those. It is my maiden’s name.’ ‘So
you’re not married,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, it is possible,’ says Lubijova, ‘Often when we marry we keep our maiden’s name. If you like to change it, you must
stand in a line for many hours. So perhaps I am married.’ ‘But are you?’ asks Petworth. ‘You are very interested, of a sudden,’ says Marisja, ‘Well, I am and I
am not.’ ‘That makes it much clearer,’ says Petworth. ‘You see, once I was, not any more,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘When I am student, I marry a boy who liked to
be a doctor.’ ‘Are you divorced?’ asks Petworth. ‘No, do you know what that boy did?’ asks Marisja, ‘He was very political, his father was high in the Party. So
as a doctor he went away to Vietnam, to help those people against imperialism. And I stay here and make my examen with your Plitplov.’ ‘And what happened?’ asks Petworth.
‘Of course he died,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘Not with a bullet, he caught a small something that was not so small, and he was not such a good doctor to make better himself. And
this is what happened to him, and also to me.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘No, it was not such a close relation, we were two students who studied together,’
says Marisja, ‘But close enough that I have small son. You must come a bit close for that.’ ‘A son,’ says Petworth, ‘Don’t you miss him when you travel like
this?’

‘Not so much,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘You see, this is my work, and we like to put first our work here. I am interpreter, I like my job, I think I do it quite nicely. Of
course one pays a little price. But it is good to make travels. I go quite often, I am one of those you see in the dolmetsch boxes, in the congresses, with the headsets. Four channels, you click
so, Russian, German, English, French. No one notices you, you make the world happen.’ ‘And what happens to your son?’ ‘So many questions,’ says Lubijova, laughing,
‘Here we have very good families. The world is hard but we are close. He lives at a certain apartment where is my mother. She likes to look to him, she is happy. He goes to a kindergarten, he
is happy. They teach him to march up and down like a soldier in the square. I come home and I bring good things. When I am not with you, do you know what I am doing? I am finding a line, buying
some tins, perhaps some toilet paper. Or there are some nice jams from a hotel. Our lives at home are not so bad, but you do not see them. And this is why my son plays now with his toys in Slaka,
and I am happy in a restaurant of Glit here with you. This wine, you like it?’ ‘I do,’ says Petworth. ‘Yes, it is not so bad, it is of this region,’ says Lubijova,
looking at him with her pale face and dark hair across the table, ‘Well, now we have made an exchange. On the first night I have found out about you. You like to travel, you like the darks.
And now you have found out about me. So I think we make again a little toast. Do you think you remember how to do it?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, lifting his glass. ‘Oh, Petwurt,
no, it is not like that,’ says Lubijova, laughing, ‘You have forgotten. I hope you have not forgotten all those lessons you learn in my country.’ ‘No,’ says
Petworth.

‘Now,’ says Lubijova, looking hard at him, ‘Put up the glass, then the eyes. Remember you must be always very sincere. I like you, you are fine, I want you in my bed, my dear.
Think it very hard, can you do it? I hope so. Of course you can, see, you look at me in just the right way. I am glad, your time here has after all not been waste, I was beginning to think so. But
perhaps now you begin to learn something. So, my friend: what toast? To your tour in the countryside. No, that is not so good a toast, far too ordinary. Do you remember the other? Zu frolukuu
daragayuu?’ ‘What’s that?’ asks Petworth. ‘Yes, you forget everything,’ says Marisja, laughing, ‘Of course, to the beautiful ladies. This time sincerely.
To the ones you met already, also the ones perhaps you meet now. And for your sake, I hope these will be the better ones.’ The chatter chatters in multilingua from the surrounding tables; the
waitress comes with a nameless soup made of dairy products. They eat the meal, while the candle gutters; they walk back through the darkness in the narrow streets of Glit to their hotel. ‘If
you’d like one more drink,’ says Petworth, just outside the entrance, ‘I still have my duty-free whisky.’ ‘Oh, you want to make some more toast?’ cries Marisja,
‘Well, in my country it is our custom to drink and talk very late, discussing the fine concepts until we are stupid. But, my dear, I think tonight, not. You must be very tired, and I am also.
And tomorrow your lecture must be good. Also, don’t forget it, we have many more times together. Yes, I think really you will need your bottle, in some more days, but not now.’ They go
inside the illlit lobby and part. Soon, in the clean narrow bed, by the gurgling river, Petworth sleeps. In a dream, there is despair: he is looking for a word for a thing, but he does not know
what the thing is, because the word will not come. There is a desire to incorporate, to make what is outside inside; and it seems that a body is there, a body that presses itself against him, puts
something to his mouth. But when he wakes in the darkness, he is alone, with the water running outside, in the tight narrow bed.