The Birds Fall Down (16 page)

“Are family disputes ever completely settled?” asked the other.

“Then,” said Chubinov, “came the letter from Baron Roller. Please, please don’t look at me like that. I must tell you. The letter from Baron Roller. This is how it went, didn’t it? ‘I consider it necessary to share with you the impression made by a talk I have just had with his Majesty. When your name was mentioned in connection with the present political situation, his Majesty expressed himself to the effect that your return to Russia would be at the present time highly undesirable. I have judged it—’”

“Enough,” said Nikolai. “Laura, you should not have heard all this. Do not believe what this fool has said about the Tsar. He is speaking of him as if he were a man. So he is, but he is the man chosen to be an intermediate between God and Man, and he takes on himself the guilt of earthly power, so that other men, unsullied by political action, can the more easily work out the destiny which in the end brings them to reconciliation with God.”

“The only objection to that is that there is no God,” said Chubinov.

“There is a God,” said Nikolai, baring his teeth. “Laura, Laura, you must listen. If in the course of the Tsar’s assumption of the burden of power, he is forced into an apparent loss of honour, that is to be considered as a sacrifice he has made for the sake of his people. I do not even need to forgive him. Whatever he has done against me is part of his intercessory function, it is not, it cannot be a sin. Chubinov, you will not get me off my knees before the Tsar. I perpetually pray to him as a saint, and as a martyr too. You may think this strange, Laura, for of course the Tsar will die in his bed, his people will always protect him. But there are martyrs, Laura, who die in their beds. Do not think I am not telling the solemn truth because I am gasping, I am panting. I am simply choking with rage. You are half-English and the English overestimate the value of calm. I am enraged, I would kill this man if I could, for about God and what He wills for Russia I enjoy perfect knowledge of the truth, and this man is blaspheming. Vassili Iulievitch, you talk repulsive nonsense of a very degraded type. A country schoolmaster with some disgusting digestive disease might think as you do. Yet I have to thank you. For you have done me a great favour, tonight I shall sleep as I have not slept for years.”

“Nikolai Nikolaievitch,” said Chubinov, “what you are now saying shows that you haven’t understood what I’m trying to tell you.”

“It’s you who don’t understand,” said Nikolai. “For years I’ve suspected that there had been a conspiracy against me, that some descendant of Judas had wriggled on his belly into my home and into my Ministry and had stolen my secrets and distorted them so that I was disgraced. But I’d no proof and it’s well known that such suspicions are often the first signs of insanity. A letter suddenly had a profaned and fingered look, my keys had or had not a tiny particle of wax on them. So I was haunted by the fear that I was mad and might do all the things that madmen do. I had heard of madmen stripping off their clothes, and was afraid that some day I might show my nakedness, perhaps to innocent children, or that I might become violent, and that would be a serious matter with a man of my strength. Nobody would be able to overcome me. Also I had heard of lunatics who turned against their families, and I love mine, though I have often had to chasten them. My dread even cast a shadow on the brightest radiance which shines upon my life. Since my disgrace God has been very good to me, He has been with me constantly, when I say His name it is a living thing on my lips. But lunatics often believe themselves to be visited by God when that is a deception of the Devil, as they show by their blasphemies and their indecorous gestures. But now you have told me that I was the victim of a conspiracy, and I am not mad. You couldn’t have done me greater kindness.”

Chubinov was on the point of weeping. “What, you thought you were mad? Oh, my poor venerated one, oh, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, I never dreamed of this suffering! But couldn’t you have gone to a good doctor, who would have told you that you weren’t? The science of psychiatry has made marvellous advances in the last few years.”

“You’re idiotic like an idiot in Gogol,” chuckled Nikolai. “You’re such a fool that you achieve a certain eminence by being such a supreme example of your type. I’d like to give a great party in your honour, such as I used to give when I was young, with the gipsies coming in to sing, and immense quantities of champagne and brandy, costing money which should have gone to the poor.” He laughed hugely into his beard, but Chubinov rose and stood over him.

“But you can’t take it like this!”

“But I can. I’m disgraced, I can devote myself to God and forget about my disgrace, and I can thank God for letting me know through your imbecility that I am not mad. It’s all over and done with.”

“But no. No. It’s still going on. Listen. We have that last letter from Roller, the very last one, the one he wrote when he was taking the waters at Vichy. The one in which he said no, he could not come to visit you in Paris, because the Tsar had expressed a wish that he should not.”

“Oh, that letter,” breathed Nikolai.

“You don’t like thinking of it. No wonder. He was the friend of your childhood. He didn’t like writing it either. That could be told from the disorder of his handwriting which is usually exceptionally neat.”

“Well, the poor devil has his own Judas in his own office. You have covered Russia with such Judases. It’s horrible, but I don’t see how it affects me.”

“But you’re wrong. We didn’t get that letter from him. We got it from you.”

“From me? But I got it only a month ago.” Nikolai was frozen for a moment, then he cried out in a cracked shout, “How do you know that whoever copied it for you got it from me and not from Roller? He may have told you so. But all spies, even the ones who spy for the right side, are liars.”

“Believe me, you must believe me, we got it from you.”

“It can’t be so. I am in exile, and exile is the misery which even other forms of misery pity as truly miserable, but it has one source of contentment, I am alone now with those I know and can trust. Vassili Iulievitch, you have been cheated. Dealing with cheats, you are bound to be cheated—was it not so with me? Your Judas got that letter from Roller.”

“No. No. It came from you, from your home.”

“You cannot prove it.”

“Oh, yes, I can prove it. But don’t make me do it. Miss Laura, try to get him to believe me. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Nikolai Nikolaievitch. How is it that I still feel I must obey you? Well, it was the tearmark which proved it. There, I’ve said it. The great tearmark in the middle of the page. The man who copied it told me about it. Court officials aren’t much given to weeping before they are disgraced. Roller hasn’t been disgraced, and never will be. He is a lesser man than you, and nothing great and tragic and beautiful will ever happen to him as it happens to you. But reading that letter from your old schoolfellow in your study in the apartment on the Avenue Kléber, of course you wept. Don’t you remember shedding that tear? I’m sure you do. You’re ashamed when you weep, you don’t forget it. Oh, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, now do you believe me? And do you see what it means? You’re still being spied on. Not, as you may perhaps have suspected, by people who hang about your doors, who look at you through binoculars from a window across the street. But inside your own house, in your own rooms, you’re watched all the time. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I have to tell you this. I have a reason.”

V

“I repeat, Miss Laura, you are arrogant like your grandfather. I don’t deserve your reproaches. Yes, I see that your grandfather is looking very ill, though I don’t think he’s actually had a stroke. But no, I could not have stopped my story at the point where it simply dispelled his fear that he is mad. Yes, you may have been making signals, but I was doing what I have to do. I have to do it, will you not understand, I have to do it. I must tell your grandfather a long and complicated story, for both our sakes. I am not, as you put it, talking and talking and talking, I am telling the story in an orderly fashion. I spent hours last night in taking full notes of what I have to say and arranging them under the headings of A, B, C, and D. We’ve now reached the end of section A. By the time we’ve reached the end of D, though he will be no happier, as I warned you, he will at least have the relief of understanding what has happened to him, and you’ll be grateful, yes, even you will thank me. And what was the meaning of that expression you applied to me in English? What you said to me in French was disgraceful. Disgraceful. The upbringing of such girls as you is even worse than I had supposed. But I demand to know the meaning of that English expression. I demand.”

“It doesn’t matter. But as for A, B, C, and D, my grandfather will be dead before you’re half-way through it.”

“I will not. This miserable son of an admirable father could not possibly kill me. Sit down, both of you.” Nikolai took his time when they had obeyed him, smoothing the knees of his trousers with shaking hands, putting his fingers behind his beard to straighten his tie, breathing slowly in and out of his great nostrils. “I wish I had a secretary to take notes of all this,” he murmured, and Laura knew he was thinking of Monsieur Kamensky. But perhaps that was not such a good idea. Then he said in a businesslike tone, “Vassili Iulievitch, you and your terrorist friends have over a long period been receiving information about me and you are here because you wish to discuss your informant.”

Chubinov would not speak until he had moistened his lips. “I know and I do not know.”

Nikolai said, “You have the desperate aspect of a man who has at last decided to tell the truth after a lifetime of lies.” He reflected, and nodded. “I see the situation. A tells you he’s getting information about C through B. But really he’s getting it from D, whom he wishes to shield from inquiry. This often happens to us on our side of the fence. We’ve found that it’s no reason for doubting the honesty of A or the validity of the information he brings in.”

“It often happens to us too,” said Chubinov. “Deception is there but the truth also. One can’t always work by the book.” They exchanged nods. They were speaking quietly again and with a comradely air. Laura was reminded of the way the policemen had talked to each other when they went round the house in Radnage Square the morning after burglars had taken the silver. It was a curious thing to find one’s family talking like that. “The affair, however,” Chubinov went on, “is more complicated than that. Indeed—indeed, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, it might save us both much pain if you could tell me whether you yourself have any idea who it can be that’s spying on you. Is there any man who comes and goes about your house and yet absents himself so often that he might be living another life somewhere else?”

“There’s one such man,” said Nikolai. “You, Laura, know who I mean—” She nodded and they smiled at each other. “But he’s not the spy.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Chubinov. “It isn’t,” he went on apprehensively, “that you feel that the man is good and loves you very much and wouldn’t betray you?”

“It’s partly that.”

“I might have guessed it. People who are very cruel—and you’ve made countless hundreds, no, thousands, weep—they’re always sentimentalists.”

“How utterly you are abandoned to evil! The mere mention of goodness and trust confuses you. But these are side-issues. The man of whom I speak couldn’t be the spy for quite another reason than his noble simplicity and his devotion to me: an official reason.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is?” asked Chubinov piteously. “I wouldn’t repeat it. I give you my word for that. After all, my father was your friend.”

“What have you not done,” asked Nikolai, “since my friend begot you?”

“Since I was born,” replied Chubinov, “I’ve lived as much like you as possible. My father admired you above all other men, and it’s been my aim to be a second you, but I’ve done my imitation, as you put it a moment ago, on the other side of the fence.”

One of the Frenchwomen said to the other, “You said they’d settled their family dispute. Now listen to them yapping. I tell you, that’s how family disputes always get settled. We’ll never be real friends with Melanie again.”

“This is what I told you,” said Laura. “You talk and talk and talk. Do get to the point. You mayn’t think my grandfather’s ill, but I do.”

“Arrogance, sheer arrogance,” said Chubinov. “Miss Laura, you are deformed by your class. Well, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, if you will not help me, I’ll have to give you the whole story. Tell me, does the name of Gorin mean anything to you?”

“It does indeed,” said Nikolai. “I’ve never been able to forget a disreputable connection between you and him. When you were still at Moscow University and had just begun breaking your father’s heart by joining the Union of Social Revolutionaries, you started a seditious journal named
The Morning Star
. In its first number, which I am pleased to say I contrived should be the last, you published an article calling for the assassination of the Tsar. The only sympathetic response you received was from a man named Gorin, who was then an engineering student at the polytechnic in Karlsruhe in Germany, and played a prominent part in a Union of Expatriate Social Revolutionaries which had been started by the Russian students there, God forgive them.”

“That’s the man,” sighed Chubinov. “But did you ever meet him?”

“No. I never even saw him. He came to Moscow shortly after he wrote to you, but we didn’t arrest him. We hardly troubled to watch him. It was ascertained that he was of no importance.”

“Of no importance?” repeated Chubinov, raising his eyebrows.

“Quite negligible. He was one of the older men in the movement, older than you, much older than you, and in such poor health that he was always retiring to somewhere in the South to a certain sanatorium.”

“Now, why do you say that?”

“As to his age, we had his birth certificate. He was born in Baku. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. As for the sanatorium, it regularly reported his admission and his discharge. He was visited there by the police on one or two occasions.”