Life in the West (26 page)

Rugorsky said ‘Excuse, please,’ to one of the slender Italians who came forward with a beaming smile and ploughed by him in the direction of the bar. He took no notice of what Squire had just said. Either he had not fully heard and understood, or he was pursuing his own line of thought.

‘Let us return to the subject of prostitution,’ he said suddenly, applying a sly grin over his shoulder at Squire.’ You see, you were not in such a perfect socialist state as China, which the West thinks so very well of just now.

‘Maybe you don’t need a lecture on why we in Russia feel it necessary to pretend we have vanquished such long-standing social problems. It is a genuine dilemma that we are a new post- revolutionary society and we feel ourselves vulnerable to both the bad examples and the warlike ambitions of the West. To admit that there is a prostitution problem is to open the door to a whole range of evils to which we do not yet feel ourselves strong enough to confess. Do you understand?’

‘I’m quite sympathetic to that argument, which I’ve heard before. But isn’t it more the case that there is no one secure enough, no one with enough moral standing, who can even admit that prostitution exists?’

Rugorsky frowned. He removed an aged brown handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose vigorously. ‘Perhaps we should try not to talk morals to each other. You see, frankly, though I see much to admire in the West, in the way of outspokenness, for instance, which we in Russia cannot yet achieve, nevertheless I see what a moral mess you live in. You no doubt see it too.

‘I think that Russian society is superior. Not in its rulers, absolutely not — I think worse of them than you do because I have the peculiar advantage of having known them all my life — but in the people.’

‘Isn’t belief in the morality of “the people”, whoever they are, always sentimental at bottom?’

Still pressing forward, Rugorsky ignored the comment.

‘You see, these pinball tables — well, we can easily classify and even appreciate to some extent their garish colours, much like the products of fairgrounds and circus, but the truth is that they are wretched traps to make the already miserable more miserable, and their wives also. They are the products of a society in poor health. Krawstadt spoiled truth by doctrinaire phraseology.’

The bar was crowded with thirsty delegates, but Squire and Rugorsky managed to push through to a table for two at the back of the room. In no time, one of the efficient waiters was by their side, and two capuccinos were ordered.

‘I don’t wish to talk about pinball tables. It is trivia.’

‘Possibly so. Yet everyone round the conference table, you included, has been stired up by them. Maybe they are important. The SPA should consider the matter.’

Rugorsky regarded him steadily. ‘You see, you are quite a clever man. Also, I think, an honest one as far as you can be. But you have had things too much your own way. You do not know real adversity. Maybe you know nothing about the way society operates. When I come to the West, I feel genuine envy and genuine pity, both at once. That’s what I felt for you when I first met you, in front of “Hugh Gaitskell”
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with your delightful wife in her expensive dress. But you don’t know where to look for truth. You’re a good man lost, Tom.

‘Don’t get angry. I don’t mean offence. Only the truth. If you’re angry, reflect that the poor old dog before you drinks coffee he could not afford, and in any case will go back to his terrible communist country soon.

‘I mean to tell you another difference between us. I greatly care that the West and particularly your country, the country of Shakespeare and liberal thought, is suffering such ills. You do not care what my country suffers. You are hostile to it. Yes. There is your real resemblance to Winston Churchill, as d’Exiteuil said. You gloat secretly that we suffer because our leaders are bad, because we are communists. That’s what you fear, communism, as your ancestors probably feared the Inquisition.

‘You spoke of the difficulties with building in Moscow for the Olympic Games. Well, you have a grasp on such a little bit of truth that it turns to lies in your mouth. Why do we have to have these confounded Olympic Games in the first place, do you think? It’s to show our progressiveness to our own people, so that they are not discouraged. It’s to show the capitalist world that we also can stage-manage the big events, because we are perpetually on the defensive against you. There is no other way in which we can manage except by concentrating all our building potential. The potential is so small that we must as usual make sacrifices — and you’re glad. When all’s said, we’re still a poor country and life for most is hard — and you’re glad.’ His thick eyelashes came down as he stared at the table.

The coffee arrived.

Looking down at his cup, Squire said, ‘My dear Rugorsky, how can I answer all the arguments you put forward? Perhaps the fundamental error you make — forgive me if I speak out as you encourage me to — lies in making such great distinction between your rulers and your ruled. One hopelessly bad, one hopelessly good. That’s unreal — and isn’t it a very Russian error of thought? Are not your rulers of the people, and have people not conspired to be badly ruled? You threw out the Romanovs, if I remember rightly.

‘Every country gets the rulers it deserves. I say that knowing how England has a mediocre team at present. But our system which communists and persons of ill-will seek constantly to undermine, at least allows a chance of changing the team peaceably. Your system is designed to give the people no such chance. So you have a self-perpetuating autarchy, which condones and often perpetuates the crimes of Stalin and his henchmen.

‘And if you are a poor country after half a century of Marxism, then it’s Marxism and the system it has created which is to blame. Quite simple.’

‘No, you see, reality is not so simple.’ Rugorsky lifted his cup and placed it to his thick lips, whilst fixing Squire with glittering eyes. ‘To give an instance, I did not put forward so many arguments when I spoke; you only say I did. Then you grasped the point of major antagonism, building up explosively the area I tried to defuse, trying to imply I am a member of a criminal nation. You long for a confrontation, I believe. You are fierce.’

Squire said impatiently, ‘No, I’m only too bloody polite. Quite honestly, if the USSR’s as poor as you say, it is because of the barbarous killing off of the kulaks, and the miserable consequences of the enforced collectivization of agriculture. I listen patiently, but really — a system so criminal and repressive can earn nothing but poverty.’

The Russian inclined his head in a submissive gesture.

‘Perhaps you think of my country as one big lock-up, as Solzenhitsyn wants you to do. But I must tell you, you meet many good fellows in a prison, you know. Some may even become your friends and spiritual leaders. So I take the liberty to tell you once more, whilst all the while drinking your coffee, that I care much more about your country than you do about mine. I love England, you see — that’s my weakness.

‘If you really wish to help people in Russia who work for happier times, then you must do so quietly. You must not make inflammatory speeches, even when idiots like Krawstadt open their mouths so widely.’

The coffee was good. Squire drained his cup and sighed.

‘So far, I have kept silent in public. But most of the speakers give vent to a Marxist bias. I was provoked, let’s say. How does my keeping quiet further the cause of enlightenment in the Soviet Union?’

‘Because…’ Rugorsky tapped a plump finger on the table top. ‘Because it is important that these international gatherings take place. Otherwise, we all get locked up in our own countries. If it is reported that there is political dissension, or if the political system of my country is insulted in public, then we shall not be allowed to leave home again. This is what d’Exiteuil understands. I believe he’s a sensible man.

‘There’s also the personal aspect. If I and Kchevov are involved in trouble, it will be interpreted at home as loss of face. We shall not be allowed again in the West, or maybe even in other socialist countries. I can only live, I tell you frankly, by breathing decadent capitalist oxygen at least once in the year. Perhaps you do understand these things a little, I think. You also travel.’

Looking him in the eye, Squire said, ‘You’re a charmer, Rugorsky, but I know and you know that you are trying to have it both ways. You admit or pretend you find your own country unbearable, yet you lecture me on the faults of mine.’

‘Why not?’ The Russian finished his coffee and regarded the bottom of the cup with an amused expression of regret. ‘If you can’t stand your own wife any more, it doesn’t stop you seeing faults in other men’s wives. Well…perhaps it does. That’s not a good analogy I chose.’ They laughed together.

They had both been aware that a tide of people was carrying Jacques d’Exiteuil towards their corner. The ever-active conference chairman was talking to two other candidates, patting another on the back, squeezing Maria Frenza’s hand, and grinning at Rugorsky and Squire as he approached. His coppery hair and thin features reminded Squire — not for the first time — of a Beerbohm cartoon of the poet Swinburne.

‘We will talk more, Thomas,’ Rugorsky said quickly, heaving his shoulders forward, so that he leaned across the table almost as if to embrace Squire. ‘But not in front of Frenchmen, who are too subtle for simple Russian and English men.’

D’Exiteuil put his arm round Maria Frenza’s narrow shoulders and pushed her forward so that she and he together blocked away the table at which Squire and Rugorsky sat from the rest of the crowd. His smile was even broader than before.

‘Well, well, well, here in Ermalpa we have really a united nations! After the heat round the conference table, here is Winston Churchill sitting down with — ’ D’Exiteuil paused for a moment, almost as if he had been going to make an unfortunate comparison. Then he added, ‘The Russian bear.’

Rugorsky fixed his glittering eyes on Signora Frenza and reached for her hand. ‘Is Madame Frenza also pleased with me because I am being good and not squeezing people to death?’

The question was translated into Italian, and Maria Frenza replied that she understood the hug of the bear to be very enjoyable if one was a lady bear.

This made Rugorsky laugh. He threw his head downwards rather than upwards to laugh, so that his mirth was directed towards the empty coffee cup. Then, with a dextrous movement surprising in one so heavy, he grasped Maria Frenza round the waist and had her sitting on his knee the next moment. He buried his snout in her crop of dark tawny hair.

‘You see, I promote you to be a lady bear, with full territorial privileges!’

She laughed politely, making the best of it.

D’Exiteuil dithered a bit, nodding his head from side to side and playing his fingers on the table top. ‘I’m sorry I have no lady to offer you,’ he said to Squire.

‘I’m content, though I’d also enjoy getting my arm round that slinky waist. Perhaps I see politics in everything these days, Jacques, but here before our eyes is a lampoon on statesmanship in the manner of Gillray. You will have to stand in for, say, Harry Truman. Rugorsky and I are Stalin and Churchill, at the conference table at Potsdam. Maria is Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany. You have allowed the bear to grab Maria. See how warmly it embraces her — and how she cannot help responding because she was born that way…’

James Gillray’s pen depicts a crowded cartoon scene. Bright colours and fountains of words issuing from every mouth add to the congestion.

Four principal characters are grouped about a table, which has been laid for a feast and is partly covered by maps and bodies. The scene is a butcher’s shop. Carcasses hang from hooks at the rear of the shop, labelled ‘Jews’, ‘Gypsies’, ‘Finns’, ‘Serbs’, ‘Indians’, and so on. Blue-and-white striped aprons hang by the door, which sports the name of the firm, ‘The Big Three, Pork Butchers and Slaughterers, Potsdam’.

Winston Churchill sits on the left of the picture. He is depicted as a grotesque drunken baby, his eyes small and piglike, a filthy cigar shaped like a factory chimney causing smoke to pour from his mouth and ears. The cigar is labelled’ British Miners’. The ashen countenances of miners are visible in the wreaths of smoke which coil above Churchill’s cap.

The British warlord wears an absurd ill-fitting uniform which bulges over his massive belly. His posterior is covered by a great baby-napkin, made from old Union Jacks, and bulging with excreta, some of which, labelled ‘Dominions’, oozes from the folds of the napkin to the floor. The boots on his feet are tanks. His face is red and mottled with greed as he stretches over the table to grasp at a portion of Signora Frenza.

The signora is firmly within the grasp of the great Russian bear. The bear is massive and hairy, and dominates the whole right-hand side of the cartoon. It has Stalin’s features: his stiff upstanding scalp hair, his full moustache, his heavy features and brown eyes, his foul pipe. Blood drips from the pipe, while from its pungent smoke, coiling above the head of the animal generalissimo, emerge wan faces of his victims, labelled ‘Intellectuals’, ‘Peasants’, ‘Engineers’, ‘Soldiers’, and so on. He does not sit on a throne, like Churchill, but on a model of the Kremlin, from the windows of which Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Bucharin, and others peer hopelessly.

The bear wears on its upper portions a white tunic, buttoned to the throat and decorated with many medals. Covering its lower portions are military trousers, the flies of which have burst open to reveal — thrusting from amid black fur — a penis of terrifying proportions, the head of which is an ICBM. The bear is about to plunge this weapon into the vagina of Maria Frenza, which has opened in a silent scream. Hence the title of the print, appended in Gillray’s rapid lettering below the picture, ‘Love and Peace Prevail again in Europe, 1946
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