Rates of Exchange (19 page)

It is not an easy task. Breakfast is served, not in the great dining room, but in a small room at the back of the hotel, where many besuited men, as neat as himself, sit reading newspapers and
awaiting service. ‘Is nicht schnell here, nicht schnell,’ says the bald man, reading an East German newspaper, whose table he joins, none being empty, ‘This is why they haf bad
economy.’ Petworth picks up the menu, a well-thumbed card written in several languages, and offering rich fare: sausidge and pig-bacon, sheese and eggi. A waiter comes at last, with a laden
tray for the bald man; Petworth determines to set to work on the new tongue. ‘Pumpi, vurtsi, urti, kaf’ifii,’ he says to the waiter. ‘Moy,’ says the waiter, picking up
the menu, shaking his head, and bearing it away. He comes back again a moment later, bearing a new menu. Petworth looks at it in mystery, for its offerings are much the same as the last.
‘Ranugu up pumpu? Ku up kaf’ufou?’ asks the waiter, taking out his pad. ‘They make a small linguistic revolution here,’ says the bald German, leaning forward,
‘They change a little all the grammatiks. This alzo is vy they are nicht schnell.’ ‘Ah,’ says Petworth, reading the new menu, ‘Pumpu, verstu, irtu,
kaf’ufuu.’ ‘Slubab,’ says the waiter. ‘Now the old words are to be no more used,’ says the bald German. Petworth looks around. At the next table a man reads the
red-masted party newspaper,
P’rtyuu Pupulatuuu
, which has the headline
Untensu Actuvu
. ‘I see,’ he says. ‘It is a very important political matter,’ says
the bald man, ‘Even Wanko may be replaced.’ The important political matter evidently delays things greatly; it is not until just before nine o’clock, the hour at which Petworth
should be meeting Marisja Lubijova in the lobby, that his breakfast arrives. There is just time to gulp a little of the large bowl of irtu, snatch a few bites of the vertsu, drink down the pumpu,
and sip a little of the hot acorn-flavoured kaf’ufuu, before he rushes out to the crowded hall, where a new group of Ivanovas mills round the desk marked
R
’
GYSTRAYUU
. In a plastic transparent raincoat over her long grey coat, and shaking a folded umbrella, Marisja Lubijova is already there.

‘So, you are come, Comrade Petwurt,’ she says briskly, ‘And you have put on your nice suit for our official day. But don’t you think you need perhaps a coat for the
rain?’ ‘I haven’t had time to go and get it,’ he says, ‘They were very slow with breakfast.’ ‘Of course, you are not now in America,’ says Lubijova,
looking at her watch, ‘And do not be long, already we are late for our sightseeings. Did you remember to call your wife?’ ‘She wasn’t there,’ says Petworth. ‘So
I suppose I must make a new arrangement,’ says Lubijova, ‘You go, I will do it. And did you get your passport?’ ‘I asked for it last night,’ says Petworth, ‘It
wasn’t ready.’ Lubijova looks at him crossly: ‘Oh, Petwurt, can’t you do just one thing? Now you are not a person, is that what you want? Do you like it that you don’t
exist? That I can’t take you to the Mun’stratuu?’ ‘I’ll go and ask for it now,’ says Petworth. ‘Go upstairs now, bring your coat,’ says Lubijova,
‘They will give it to me, don’t you think so? I think you don’t try very hard. Here you must fight a bit. Go, be quick.’ Petworth goes up to his room, to see from the window
that the men on the hydraulic platform are raising up a new sign saying
SCH
’
VUPPUU
to replace the old sign saying
SCH
’
VEPPII
; when he comes down again to the lobby in his raincoat, Lubijova is standing outside the elevator doors, waving his passport aloft. ‘Of
course it comes if you make it,’ she says, ‘She gives it to me. Also I have arranged a new telephone call. It is for six o’clock, after your programme today is finished. Now, do
we go and do it? Or perhaps first I must button up your coat for you? Petwurt, Petwurt.’

It is a chilly Lubijova who walks ahead of him out of the lobby and into the square, where a heavy nineteenth-century bourgeois realist rain is washing down the high-gabled buildings and teeming
over the moving street-crowds and the clanging trams. A squad of men in oilskins are digging up the cobble-stones between the tram-tracks; Lubijova walks through them. ‘This way,
please,’ she says sharply, ‘See how the men are working. Always we are improving our city. Always the work goes on. Look where you go, you are not from the farm, I think. First I take
you to a very special place. Usually for foreigners it is forbidden, but you have a special permission, you are an official visitor.’ Walking ahead, Lubijova dives suddenly into a
dirty-windowed eating place, where many wet people eat hot dogs in standing position. ‘Not here, we go to the back,’ she says, leading the way to the door of an elevator, where an old
lady in a chair sells tickets. The elevator is crowded, the ascent long; suddenly the doors open, and Petworth finds himself, in the driving rain and the whistling wind, on a very wet roof, with a
short wire fence around it, high above the city, which is visible below, moving remotely about its business. ‘You see, this is our skyscraper,’ says Lubijova, ‘Of course you must
not photograph. Now from here is a very good view, but we cannot really see it. I hope you do not suffer the vertige. Now, please, look on this side. Over there the power station, do you see it,
through the mist, it is more than sufficient for our needs. Near there the cathedral, but it is not visible. Well, it does not matter, it is not so interesting. Now we go this side, and here you
see the old town. You can see the bridge Anniversary May 15, and the festung and the capella. At night you can go there and see a sound and a light. Is that how you say it in English?’

‘Well,’ says Petworth, ‘A son et lumière.’ ‘Oh, what an interesting language you have, no wonder nobody understands it,’ says Lubijova, ‘I think
you have a very strange language and are a very strange people. Some of them cannot even get back a passport.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Petworth. ‘Now come to this
side,’ says Lubijova, ‘There, with the trees, the Park of Brotherhood and Friendship with the Russian peoples. The people of Slaka love very much to walk there and enjoy the scents,
especially when it does not rain. Near there, do you see a building with a red star on top? This is our Party Headquarters, a very fine building, and behind there is our best open space, the
Plazscu P’rtyuu.’ ‘There’s been a change in the language?’ asks Petworth. ‘Some radical elements have pressured our government to make certain changes,’
says Lubijova, ‘They ask for a linguistic liberalization, but I do not think it is very important. So there you see it, from the best view our very beautiful city. I hope you impress. On a
nice day you would stay here a long time and take much pleasure, but today it is not perhaps so nice, so I think we go down again.’ On the long elevator ride down, Lubijova stands away from
him in the further side of the lift; out in the open air again, she walks several steps in front of him. They take the narrow old street where Marx and Engels, Lenin, Brezhnev and Wanko bounce
furiously on their wires in the driving rain; they pass by the colonnade of the Military Academy, under which disconsolate soldiers stand with portfolios under their arms; they walk beside the
Palace of Culture, covered in ivy, out of which, from some basement, there comes the unexpected sound of jazz.

They turn down another street, a street of a few small shops. Most of these stores seem curiously turned in on themselves, concealing rather than revealing the goods they offer to sell. Shops at
home insist on display, but these do not; they secrete this and that, showing small stacks of one thing, or a single object: light fittings, bottles of soft drink, flowers, tins of beet, a hint of
meat, a notional vegetable or two. ‘I hope you look,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘We know your press tells always we have very bad food shortage. Well, now you can see there is plenty
of everything. Oh, look, here is a line, a queue, do you call it? I suppose you think it is for food. Do you like to join it and see?’ The long line of people stands in the rain: ‘Do
you see how they all excite, to go into this shop?’ asks Mari, ‘Do you know why, you don’t guess? Well, it is because our people are all very good readers, and today come out the
new editions, and also in the new language. I hope your people wait so long in the rain, just to buy books!’ ‘I don’t think so,’ says Petworth. ‘Of course, your
newspapers tell we do not like to respect at all our writers,’ says Marisja Lubijova, ‘Well, now you can go home to tell them they are wrong. Oh, look, now we go in. Can you wait me,
please look around, I like to buy something.’ He watches Lubijova push through the jostle of people toward the counter; he turns to look at the shelf upon shelf of books, the millions of
infolded words, all written in the language he does not know. Some are titled in the Cyrillic alphabet, some in the Latin, but the alphabet does not matter, for the codes will not yield, the signs
refuse to become meaning.

The raincoats of the shoppers steam in the greater warmth; an assistant with a great ladder pushes Petworth aside, to climb to a distant top shelf. Petworth inspects more titles; from above, a
book disturbed by the assistant tumbles down onto his head and cracks open, as if that might be a route to contact. ‘Comrade Petwurt, here, come,’ calls Lubijova, standing at the
counter in her plastic coat, ‘This is one of our new books, just out today. Do you like perhaps the cover?’ Petworth takes the book, in a green paper wrapper, illustrated with a line
drawing of an expressionist dark castle, which is seen through a rough shattered mirror; he looks at the title, which is
Nodu Hug
, and the name of the author, Katya Princip. He flicks the
pages, the blocks of mysterious words, the units of meaning, the paragraphs, the chapters, the claim on time, the appeal to imagination. ‘You know we have here a very good Writers’
Union and even in the world some of our people are very famous,’ says Lubijova, ‘Well, here is a book by one of the best, it is Katya Princip. Of course not everyone likes her books,
some people say she is not correct.’ ‘Not correct?’ asks Petworth, ‘Why?’ ‘Not correct because she diverts from the socialist realism, which we like, and goes to
the fantastic. But she has a good imagination and often we like the fantastic here in my country, so many people appreciate her works very much. Also she writes a very strange kind of story, how
can I tell you? It is like the stories we tell to children, with in it dreams, and staircases that go to nowhere, and castles, perhaps; but really those stories are not for the children at all,
they are for us. No, I do not explain you very well, but please take it. I have bought for you this book.’

‘For me?’ says Petworth, picking up the green book, and ruffling again through the pages, ‘That’s very kind. But there is just one problem, I can’t read it. I think
you should keep it for yourself.’ Lubijova, in her plastic coat, stares at him severely: ‘Petwurt, really, do you like to annoy me again?’ she says, ‘Is this what you do
always with a present that is for you? Of course I know you cannot read it, you have to have a guide. But, you see, Petwurt, perhaps you don’t know it, but I am really a little bit psychic.
Do you believe in that, I hope you do? And, do you know, I have an instinct; it tells me that when you go away from Slaka you will understand that book, just a bit. Also we have two weeks together,
I can explain you some of it. Of course I don’t read it yet myself, but I can tell you it is, what do you say, a folk-story, and some of it happens in a big forest and near a castle.
Nodu
Hug
, the title, that means not to be afraid. Anyway, Petwurt, there is another reason why you must have it. I cannot tell it to you yet, but you will see.’ ‘Then I’ll take
it,’ says Petworth, ‘Thank you very much, Mari.’ ‘And don’t you realize something else,’ says Lubijova, laughing at him, seizing his arm, taking him toward the
entrance to the store, ‘That I have forgiven you your passport? Well, we cannot let all those bureaucrats upset us, I think we like to be comrades. Now, how much time have we more, an hour,
almost, right, we do something else that is very nice. Turn your coat, we go round that corner, round another, and then do you know what we do? We stand again in a line; poor Petwurt, it is all
lines for you today. But that line is very different and quite interesting. Now, put please the book inside your pocket, I don’t want it wetted by that rain. And turn your coat, now we
go.’

They go, round the corner, round another; and then, suddenly, Petworth finds himself standing on the edge of a great central square. The square glistens, vast, in the rain; there is a wide vista
down to a large monument, where tangled bronze soldiers and workers collaborate in some interlocking enterprise; round the monument are stalls, the stalls of many flower sellers. People crowd round
the stalls and wander the square, robed black Africans, a group of Arabs in burnouses, a gaggle of Ivanovas led by a blue Cosmoplot guide holding up high a beflowered umbrella; but the square still
looks empty, so large are its spaces, so big its surrounding buildings, which are square, and white, and colonnaded. ‘This place, do you know it, I hope you do,’ says Lubijova,
‘Oh, don’t you, Petwurt, really? Of course it is Plazscu P’rtyuu, where is our government, and where our people like to come to make their celebrations. Can you imagine how many
peoples can pass here, with their banners? Well, you do not need to imagine, because you will see it all of course on National Culture day.’ And Petworth sees that, into the steps of the
buildings, great reviewing stands have been built, covered in red bunting. Indeed red is the colour of many things: of the long banners that blow out from the poles that stand high over the square,
of the carnations that the flower-sellers are selling from their stalls round the monument, of the trim round the great photographs that, four storeys high, hang from the fac¸ades and stare
down at them as they walk the clean white stone pavement, photographs in the style of grand or epic realism. An engrandized Marx stares across the square towards a superhuman Lenin; Brezhnev and
Wanko enfold together in a vast embrace.