Rates of Exchange (11 page)

And so he stands there in the lobby of Slaka airport, with fifty minutes gone since his arrival, his luggage at his feet, with no meeter, no greeter, no money, no city, no hotel, no food, no
bed, no lectures, no professors, no, in a sense, future. A fresh flow of passengers, men in dark suits, women in dark dresses, entire families of six or seven, all dressed in their Sunday best, a
complete football team in their blue blazers, streams out through the door marked
NOI VA
. He turns to see; when he turns back, someone is standing in front of him. It is a
small unshaven man, in dirty black trousers, grey shirt, exposed braces, a small denim cap. He smiles at Petworth, with a twisted smile: ‘Private Tacs,’ he says, bowing slightly. It
seems to Petworth that Private Tacs is an odd emissary; but messages come everywhere in strange packets, and this is a proletarian country. ‘Petworth,’ says Petworth, holding out his
hand. The man does not take it: he shakes his head. ‘You like private tacks to Slaka?’ he says, ‘I take dollar, Anglisch pount, very cheap rate.’ ‘I see,’ says
Petworth, temptation flowering suddenly in his mind; a path to survival opens before him. ‘You like stay private house?’ asks the man, ‘Very cheap, dollar only, pount.’
Temptation grows, but currency offences are crimes against the state, attracting the most severe penalties: ‘No, thank you,’ says Petworth, standing solidly against his wooden pillar.
‘Okay,’ says the man, stepping back and disappearing, with a magical rapidity, into the crowd. A hope come, and then gone again, Petworth leans sadly back against the wooden pillar,
staring up at the clock, which has now ticked away an entire hour since his arrival here.

But now another plane must have come in, for in front of him the crowd mills and eddies frenziedly; he stands there with his feet protectively set over his luggage as the people press busily by.
Then in the mass a space appears; in the space he sees, some little distance away, someone standing there, halted, looking across, smiling at him questioningly. It is a lady, in her middle years;
she wears a big black coat with a fake fur collar. Petworth smiles faintly in return; the lady looks and twists her hair, which appears to be a large blonde wig. Again it is not the sort of
emissary that Petworth has expected, but letters come in strange envelopes, and this is a different land, under another ideology; he raises an eyebrow. The lady, smiling a little more, begins to
step toward him through the crowd; as she does so, she allows her coat to fall open, revealing a very low-cut dress struggling to hold in a very large bust. Petworth stares; the lady, coming
closer, puckers her mouth in the gesture of a kiss. It is now that Petworth suspects temptation of another kind; the whores in the main hotels and nightclubs should be avoided at all costs. The
lady comes close now, wreathed in a pall of distinct scent; now she pushes her arm through his. ‘Chaka, chaka?’ she says. ‘Sorry, my mistake,’ says Petworth, trying to
retrieve his arm, ‘I thought you were . . .’ ‘Chuka, chaka, na?’ asks the lady, ‘For dollar, very cheap?’ ‘Na, na,’ says Petworth firmly, this is not
what he has come so far to exchange. ‘Ah,’ says the lady making a
moue
, ‘Very nice.’ ‘I’m sure,’ says Petworth, getting his arm free, ‘But
I’m an official visitor.’ The lady goes into the crowd; exhausted by his temptations, Petworth leans back against the pillar. He is tired of false messages, and wants only a true one.
Then he looks up, and realizes that it has very probably come.

For there, standing in front of him, smiling politely toward him, is a far more probable emissary: a middle-aged man with grey in his hair, refinement in his face, wearing a smart rectangular
suit, with an honour of some sort in the buttonhole, and over the suit a topcoat, which is loosely draped over his shoulders. ‘Feder,’ says the man, looking at him. ‘Ah,
Petworth,’ says Petworth. ‘Please, Feder,’ says the man. ‘From the Min’stratii Kulturi?’ asks Petworth. ‘Ah, Min’stratii Kulturi
Komitet’iii?’ says the man, ‘Man, na. Feder? Cueta?’ ‘I don’t understand,’ says Petworth. ‘Ah,’ says the man, raising a finger; then he lifts
his hand into the air, and seems to scribble with it. ‘Oh, you have a message for me?’ asks Petworth. ‘Na, na, not a message,’ says the man, scribbling again in the air.
‘A letter?’ asks Petworth. ‘Na,’ says the man, shaking his head. ‘You have a book?’ says Petworth, ‘A story, a history?’ ‘Na, ma,’ says
the man, encouragingly. ‘A poem, a play, a novel,’ says Petworth. ‘How you write?’ says the man, ‘Für schriften?’ ‘A pencil, a brush,’ says
Petworth. ‘Na, stylo,’ says the man. ‘What, a pen?’ asks Petworth. ‘Da, da,’ says the man, with delight, ‘A pen. Please, your pen.’ ‘Ja,
ja,’ says Petworth, agleam with the glow of literate contact, and he reaches into his pocket and produces his silver Parker ballpoint: an old travelling companion, and the true author of so
many of his lectures. ‘Ah, da,’ says the man, gratefully, taking the pen, ‘English so hard. I do not really speak. So, slibob. In our tongue, thank you.’ And then the man
bows, smiles, holds up the silver pen, and moves off into the crowd with it. The afterglow of literate contact remains with Petworth for a moment; then, ‘Here, my pen,’ he shouts,
hurrying off after the loose overcoat, which is disappearing, with some rapidity, around the corner of the kiosk that is marked
COSMOPLOT
.

Another new flight has evidently come in: a busy new flow of passengers – old ladies, men in ties, an entire orchestra carrying their instruments in cases – streams from the doors
marked
NOI VA
and blocks Petworth’s way as he hurries in pursuit. Petworth stumbles over double basses, falls over euphonium cases; when he reaches the corner of the
stall marked
COSMOPLOT
, the man in the topcoat has quite disappeared. The stall is decorated with posters of peasants dancing in blousy costumes, the women in trousers, the
men in skirts; of a market place with a high clock tower in it; of pinnacled castles high on crags in some Transylvanian wonderland, where all stories are said to start. The girl in the blue
uniform still writes away behind the desk at her document; as Petworth comes up to her, she looks up with suspicion. ‘Did you see a man go by, with an overcoat over his shoulders?’
Petworth asks, breathing hard. ‘A man? You want a man?’ asks the girl. ‘He’s taken my pen,’ says Petworth. ‘Oh, yes?’ says the girl, returning to her
document, ‘Do you say a man has taken your pen? Well, I hope you do not want to borrow a pen of me. I have only one pen, and it is an official one.’ ‘No,’ says Petworth,
‘I don’t want your pen. I want to find that man and get mine back.’ ‘Oh,’ says the girl, ‘Do you tell that this man steals your pen?’ ‘He took it
away from me,’ says Petworth. ‘Well, it is not my business,’ says the girl, ‘I am not policeman. You must go to that policeman over there and make a document, if you like
to.’ The girl points – with her pen, not his pen – to one of the blue armed men, who stands a little way away from the Cosmoplot desk, his Kalashnikov automatic rifle over his
shoulder, talking to a girl in a grey coat, with a shoulderbag.

‘Yes, I see,’ says Petworth. ‘Of course, if you do this, you will spend many hours at the police house, and they will make very many questions of you,’ says the girl,
‘Perhaps it is not so important, just for one pen.’ ‘It was a Parker,’ says Petworth. ‘Also I wonder if that man truly steals your pen,’ says the girl, still
writing, ‘In our country such crimes are not permitted. Perhaps he likes to think you gave it to him. Perhaps if they ask him he tells you try to change it for something illegal, for dollar.
Often when such things happen it is best to buy a new pen. You can buy one at this place over here, do you see it, it is marked
Litti
? There they can sell you pen. Now, do you see how busy I
am? I must write on my document with my pen.’ ‘I don’t suppose,’ says Petworth, struck with an idea, ‘you’ve had any messages for me? My name’s Petworth.
I’m an official visitor, and I’ve not been met.’ ‘Are you turstii?’ asks the girl. ‘Am I thirsty?’ asks Petworth. ‘No,’ says the girl, tapping
with her pen on the desk, ‘Are you turstii? Do you make here a tour by Cosmoplot?’ ‘No,’ says Petworth, ‘I’m an official visitor.’ ‘Then, please, not
here,’ says the girl, ‘Here for turstii only.’ ‘You can’t suggest any way I can get in touch with my hosts?’ asks Petworth, pleadingly. ‘Not here,’
says the girl, bending her eyes to her writing, ‘You are in wrong place. And now you see I am busy.’ For a crowd of large middle-aged women, most of them with dyed blonde hair and
garish plastic luggage, have suddenly swarmed around the stall, picking up leaflets and asking many questions in Russian. ‘Well, thank you,’ says Petworth hopelessly, turning back into
the crush.

An hour and a quarter has passed now since he first came through the door marked
NOI VA
, a door which opens again, to emit many more new passengers: elderly men, young
ladies in headscarves, a whole bevy of priests in cowls, wearing grizzled patriarchal beards. Petworth stands, looking two ways: somewhere ahead of him in the crush is his silver pen, somewhere
behind him his piled luggage, the blue suitcase the briefcase of lectures, his yellow Heathrow bag, his grey overcoat. Beyond the moving throng is the pillar where he has stood for so long, waiting
for his meeter to meet him, his greeter to greet him. Jostling the old men, pushing at the priests, he pushes his way back to his territory. The pillar still stands there, with a space around it;
it is only his luggage – the suitcase, the briefcase, the yellow bag, the grey coat – which has gone. He looks around, walks to the next pillar, walks back, and knows the low point of
human fortune. He is here, in a foreign country, under a changed ideology; but, like some old car abandoned on the motorway, he has been stripped of all his functional equipment. He has no money,
no hotel, no friends, no contacts, no pen, no property, no lectures, no books, no clothes, and, in a sense, no future at all. For a moment he thinks, not knowing what to do. ‘You will spend
many hours at the police house, and they will make very many questions of you,’ the Cosmoplot girl has said, but questions are all that are left. Petworth turns and walks slowly through the
moving flow of people, the black-dressed ladies, the darksuited men, the priests in their orthodox robes, toward the armed man with the Kalashnikov, and the police house where they ask the
questions.

III

Just behind the Cosmoplot stall, the armed man still stands there, talking to the girl in the grey coat. ‘Please,’ says Petworth to him, ‘Do you speak English?
Someone has stolen my luggage.’ ‘Va?’ says the armed man, turning, his nose hard and fierce, his gun swinging on its short strap, ‘Va?’ ‘My luggage,’ cries
Petworth, ‘Stolen!’ ‘Please,’ says the girl in grey, ‘He does not understand you. But I know how to interpret. Describe please these luggages to me, and I will explain
you.’ ‘Thank you,’ says Petworth, turning gratefully to the girl, who has a white tense face, a mohair hat on her head, a shoulderbag over her shoulder; and in her hands and at
her feet a blue suitcase, a bulging briefcase, a heavy overcoat, and a plastic bag which says ‘Say Hello to the Good Buys at Heathrow.’ ‘What consists your luggages?’ says
the girl, patiently, ‘Please explain it. He is a policeman and likes to help.’ ‘That’s my luggage, there,’ says Petworth, ‘You’ve got it.’
‘These?’ says the girl, staring at him, ‘No, these are not your luggages.’ ‘I left them over there, by that pillar,’ says Petworth. ‘But they are not your
luggages,’ says the girl, firmly, ‘They are the luggages of another. They belong to Professor Petworth.’ ‘Exactly,’ says Petworth, ‘Me.’ ‘He comes
from England to make some lectures,’ says the girl. ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, ‘I’m Petworth.’ ‘Oh, do you like to think so?’ says the girl, looking at
him, and laughing, ‘Well, I am sorry, you are not.’ ‘I’m not?’ asks Petworth. ‘No, really you are not,’ says the girl, ‘I have his photograph, sent
from Britain. Do you think you are that man?’ Petworth looks at the photograph; it shows a large round balding face, of late middle age, wearing heavy glasses, and underneath it the legend
Dr W. Petworth
. ‘Well, no,’ Petworth admits, ‘That’s someone else.’ ‘I have looked three hour for this man,’ says the girl, ‘Now I find his
luggage. But it is not you. You do not even look like a professor.’ ‘I’m not, yet,’ says Petworth, ‘But I am Petworth.’ ‘You are not,’ says the girl,
‘Please go away.’

‘Wait, I think I know who that is,’ says Petworth, pointing at the photograph, ‘There’s another Petworth, who teaches sociology at the University of Watermouth, I get his
mail sometimes. He’s not very well known.’ ‘And you, who are you?’ asks the girl; the armed man steps nearer. ‘Well, I’m an even less well-known Petworth than he
is,’ Petworth admits, ‘But I’m the one they sent.’ The armed man pokes Petworth with his fingers: ‘Dikumenti,’ he says. It is a happy intervention, for out comes
the grey letter from the Min’stratii Kulturi Komitet’iii, which the girl seizes. ‘Oh, oh, yes, you are the one, really!’ she cries, ‘Oh, Petwurt, you have confused me,
you do not look like yourself. And there I waited for two hour at
INVAT
, to bring you past the custom, but I looked for that man with the big head. Well, no matter, it is
just a small confusion, quickly solved.’ ‘Then you’re from the Ministratii Kulturi Komitet’iii?’ asks Petworth. ‘Oh, Petwurt,’ the girl says admiringly,
looking at him with her white, saddened face, ‘You are in Slaka just three hour and already you speak our language. Actually we say it so: Min’stratii. Do you see the difference? You
intrude a redundant “i.” But that is natural error for an English. Yes, I am from there, your guide for this tour. My name is Marisja Lubijova, Oh, dear, that is hard for you. Do you
think you can say it?’ ‘Yes,’ says Petworth, ‘Marisja Lubijova.’ ‘Very good,’ says the girl, ‘But I think it is too long for you. You call me Mari,
like all my good friends. And in Slaka it is your first time? I don’t think so, you speak our language so well.’ ‘Yes, my first time,’ says Petworth. ‘Then I welcome
you to my country,’ says Lubijova, ‘Do we do it the English way? How do you do, shake the hand, I wish you very nice visit?’ ‘What’s the Slaka way?’ asks
Petworth, ‘In customs they gave me a comradely hug.’