Yellow Blue Tibia (10 page)

‘You speak English?’ I repeated, more forcefully.

‘A little. I am in the process of translating the poetry of Robert Brownking, the celebrated Englishman. It is good poetry, with a commendable awareness of the proletariat consciousness.’

‘Browning,’ I said.

‘Exactly.’

‘You said, Brownking.’

‘Exactly.’ Lunacharsky’s eyes made little darting movements, left to right. ‘You know him?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You speak English too?’

‘Yes.’

‘[It’s perfectly cricket, jolly-chap old-chap],’ he boomed, perhaps in the belief that this was an idiomatic Anglophone expression.

I stared at him. The whole scenario had a peculiar and dreamlike feel. My neck still smarted from where the mosquito had bitten it.

‘[I work as a translator,]’ I said. ‘[And have rendered several English writers into Russian, Browning amongst them.]’

‘[Brownking,]’ he said, darting his eyes left and right. ‘I only meant that he was [king] among poets, ha, ha-ha. King Robert the Brown! That is all that I meant by ha, ha-ha.’

A cellar space large enough for half a dozen tables had been filled with a dozen, and around all of these were crowded many hunchshouldered men. Some of these customers were indeed leaning over chessboards; but on most of the tables there were only bottles, glasses, and colourless fluid distributed unequally between the two.

‘This way,’ said Lunacharsky, guiding me from the door into the centre of the room on a path that involved some near-balletic contortions on my part to squeeze through the crush. ‘We’d best make a start.’

‘A start?’ I repeated, with a sense of apprehension.

On the far side of the room the ceiling dropped vertically three feet, turning the remaining space into a wide, low alcove. The right angle of this ceiling feature had been decorated with a line of dour-coloured tassels. Lunacharsky ushered me between the tables, and as I made my way I came close enough to see that this line was not of tassels, but rather an unbroken set of mould-stalactites. On every wall condensation glittered like toads’ eyes in the electric light.

‘Friends,’ Lunacharsky announced, stopping abruptly with his hand on my shoulder. ‘Our special guest is here! Long promised - now here he is! The noted Russian science fiction writer and expert on UFOs, Konrad Skvorecky!’

‘It’s Konst
urgh
,’ I said, as an elbow impacted with the small of my back. The elbow had been pushed out to enable the owner to clap his hands vigorously together; and as I contorted my body to avoid further blows my ears were assailed by applause rendered more thunderous by the enclosed space.

When the noise had died away Lunacharsky announced, ‘We’re all aware of the excellent science fiction stories that our friend has written. But until recently I was not aware that he was also one of the great scholars of the UFO experience.’

‘I’m not,’ I said, but my words were drowned by another flurry of applause.

Silence again. Everybody was looking at me expectantly.

‘So,’ I said. ‘This is neither a chess nor a science fiction club? You are, rather, UFO enthusiasts?’

The silence seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. Finally somebody in the far corner spoke. ‘You have a sense of humour, comrade!’

At that, several people laughed.

The reality of the situation was starting to dawn on me. ‘You have all assembled here to hear me talk?’ I said.

‘Of course!’ bellowed somebody from the back with a voice of which a Cossack would be proud.

‘You are,’ said Lunacharsky, grinning in fear and shimmering his eyes furiously from left to right, ‘our
special
guest. One of the most respected scholars of the UFO experience in all the Soviet Union!’

‘No I’m not,’ I said.

‘What’s that?’ somebody called from the back of the little room. ‘Speak up!’

‘I am no expert in UFOs,’ I announced. ‘I fear you have been misinformed about me.’

‘You are privy to the secrets of Project Stalin,’ said a voice.

‘My taxi driver, Saltykov, told me—’ I started.

‘I read your
novels
,’ shouted someone else. There was a clamour of excited voices.

‘Stalin briefed you personally!’

‘You were present at the Kiev excavation!’

‘You know! Tell us!’

‘Comrades, comrades,’ shouted Lunacharsky, rolling his shoulders and flapping his hands in front of his chest. ‘One question at a time. Comrades! Friends! Fellow seekers-for-the-truth! Let him speak! Let him speak! I present to you:
Konrad Skvorecky
!’

‘Not
Konrad
,’ I said, crossly, ‘my name—’ and the applause swarmed up locustlike to devour my words. I cleared my throat. Eventually the applause died away. I looked quickly from table to table: many faces in the smoky dimness, and all staring at me with an intimidating eagerness.

‘Well,’ I said, croakily. I coughed again. ‘The first thing is that my name is Konstantin, not Konrad.’

This was greeted with perfect silence, and the several dozen pairs of eyes focused an intense attentiveness upon me. I glanced over towards Lunacharsky, but he too was nothing more than a pair of staring eyes. I began to find the sheer momentum of the room’s anticipation oppressive.

‘The second thing,’ I said, ‘is that I have no expertise whatsoever where UFOs are concerned.’

This pebble made no ripple on the smooth surface of the room’s eager attentiveness. It occurred to me that my audience might be taking this as nothing more than a polite gesture towards modesty on my part, like an Englishman’s demurral. ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I have no knowledge about them. I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I have made no study of the phenomenon, nor do I believe that such devices even exist.’

I paused. Somebody gulped in the dark, perhaps taking a drink.

‘There are no such things as UFOs,’ I tried.

This did not break the stillness either.

‘If you believe in UFOs,’ I said, ‘you are deluded.’

‘Comrade!’ said somebody from a table nearby. ‘Comrade, we understand what you are saying.’

‘You do?’

‘Certainly. We understand your need to
express yourself
in this manner.’ There was a murmur of agreement.

‘KGB!’ somebody hooted.

‘Wise! Be indirect! Good thinking!’

‘I don’t think,’ I said, ‘that you have properly understood what I am saying.’

There was an expectant hush.

‘There are
no such things
,’ I enunciated clearly, ‘as UFOs.’

A murmur went from table to table, but not of dissension, or outrage, but rather of dawning comprehension. Somebody clapped.

‘No,’ I said, becoming annoyed. ‘You are deliberately misunderstanding me. Do not transpose my negatives for positives. I am not speaking ironically, or in code; I am stating a simple truth.’

‘The truth
is
simple,’ somebody boomed, from the back of the cellar. ‘It is the attempt to cover up the truth that is complicated! That cover-up forces complications upon us!’

‘That’s not it,’ I said.

‘Well
said
, Comrade Skvorecky,’ said somebody else. ‘No! - we must hold fast to the dialectical! We
must negate
the official version!’

‘That’s not - look,’ I said. ‘There’s little point in inviting a speaker to come if you . . . look, you’re not
listening
to me!’

The murmuring ceased; and I was greeted again with the spookily attentive silence. ‘Don’t close your minds!’ I said. As soon as I said this I understood that it was exactly the wrong note to sound. Everybody clapped, as if I were a fellow brother and martyr. When the noise had died down I tried again.

‘There are no UFOs!’ I cried. ‘Nobody gets abducted by them! They don’t hover over fields in Georgia shooting silver beams of light at farmers!’

‘Comrade?’ called somebody from over to the right. ‘Comrade! Comrade?’

‘What is it?’

‘Your face . . .’ he said.

‘My face is—’

‘It is
burned
? Those are
burn scars
on your face?’

‘Indeed. The story behind those scars is . . .’

‘Radiation burns,’ boomed somebody else. ‘It’s a common side-effect of abduction!’

The room erupted in noise, and my piping denials were wholly swallowed up. There was a prolonged hubbub. Finally, when the noise had settled a little, somebody else cried out, ‘What was it like inside the craft, comrade?’

‘I was never abducted,’ I said.

‘Did they undertake a physical examination?’

‘What
colour
were they, comrade?’ somebody else shouted.

‘Were you stripped naked, comrade?’

‘Child-sized, or were you touched by some of the tall breed?’

‘I,’ I said, and my voice collapsed into a rubble of coughs. It was very smoky in that subterranean space, and a lifetime of smoking had left my lungs in a poor way.

‘The tall breed can be as high as three metres,’ somebody declared.

‘They like to probe the rectum!’ shrilled somebody, with a squeaky but penetrating voice. ‘They like to probe the
rectum
!’ he repeated.

‘Comrades,’ I said, getting my voice back under control. ‘Comrades, please listen to me.’

‘Was it a
Moscow
abduction?’ somebody demanded.

‘When Stalin himself ordered . . .’

‘Not only advanced technology was discovered in Kiev, but the entire
history of humanity
. . .’

‘Petrazavodsk! I was there!’

‘They like to
probe
the rectum!’

‘How long were you away? Time dilation can mean—’

‘They like to
probe the rectum
!’

‘The case of Andrei Kert’sz, he was gone for six months, although
he
thought that only a few hours had passed . . .’

‘When,’ boomed somebody above the roar, ‘spaceships travel close to the speed of light . . .’

‘Rectum!’

‘To
map
the incidence of abduction
across
the Soviet Union is
to realise . . .’
screeched somebody.’

‘Ghost rockets!’

‘Radiation burns!’

‘They like to
probe
!’

‘The correlation between abductions and sunspot activity . . .’

‘Project Stalin!’

‘A properly
dialectical
understanding of the UFO phenomenon . . .’

‘Comrades,’ I tried again, but I was immediately drowned out by the high-pitched voice of rectum-man, who seemed, indeed, very insistent that the room hear what he had to say: ‘They like to probe the rectum! They like to probe the rectum! They like to probe the rectum!’

‘
Friends
,’ a voice bellowed, commanding the crowd in a way my raspy throat could not. It was Lunacharsky; standing beside me, with both his arms up. The ceiling was so low that this meant he was touching it. ‘Silence! Comrades, be quiet! Please!’ And the noise gradually sank back down. ‘Comrades,’ said Lunacharsky. ‘I think we’d all like to thank our friend Konrad Skvorecky for his insights . . .’

Applause filled the little space like expansive aural foam. It was the concrete manifestation of my own impotent annoyance. I nodded my head like an idiot. Feeling oddly powerless in the face of this public approbation, I turned to find the stairs with the thought of getting away and finding the nearest Metro. The taxi driver, Saltykov, was standing between the exit and me. ‘It was a very interesting talk,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I have to go now.’

‘I insist that you come and meet my friend.’

‘No thank you.’

‘I insist, and so does he. He is American.’

‘I’d prefer to go.’

‘He’s your friend too. That’s what he says.’

In the noise and dark I wasn’t certain I’d heard this correctly. ‘I’m sorry? I don’t know any Americans.’

‘His name,’ said Saltykov, gesturing towards the deepest corner of the basement bar, ‘is James Tilly Coyne. He represents the Church of Scientology.’

A little disoriented, I found myself threading through the crush of humanity two steps behind Saltykov. There was a table fitted snug into an alcove. ‘Please sit down,’ said Saltykov. He nudged me, and I ducked my head to fit under the alcove. In the furthest corner of the recess, nursing a bottle of beer without a glass, sat Dr James Tilly Coyne, US citizen. He beamed at me. ‘An excellent performance,’ he said. In some sense, a way in which I could not quite understand, the disorientation of finding this individual sitting here, in this bar, was connected with the disorientation of sitting with Frenkel in the restaurant earlier that day. They seemed to be aspects of the same disorientation.

Let us say that science fiction is a kind of conceptual disorientation of the familiar. Of course if that were true, you’d think I’d be more comfortable with the sensation.

CHAPTER 6