Voyage By Dhow (21 page)

It was the three-quarters of this gear that one would have supposed to have been useless that the Asiatics seized upon and converted to the ends of art, piercing, splicing and amalgamating them to provide a variety of musical instruments, tiny, antique-looking fiddles, lutes, pipes and rebecks. Soon the bowels of the ship quivered with the wild skirl of Oriental music.

Supreme theatrical art had transformed a man who had tasted human flesh into a tender princess stripping the petals from a lily while a suitor quavered a love song.

Whatever these men had suffered in the camps, nothing had been able to take their art away.

Incredibly, at last the war came to an end. I was demobilized and decided to visit Central America. I travelled to Guatemala City, where little tribal life was to be found although primitive groups of great interest had managed to survive in the Cuchumatanes mountains occupying much of the north of the country.

Guatemala was the only one of the small countries of Central America not described as being in the USA’s ‘backyard’. Instead it remained stubbornly resistant to all efforts to extinguish its persistent nationalism. Guatemala had held out against all foreign pressure, defended by the poverty of its resources and the absence of oil or very significant amounts of gold. The great barrier of the Cuchumatanes mountains offered better protection than the highest of walls. It was defended also by the national character and the stubbornness of some of the toughest and most dedicated of the Central American Indians.

From Guatemala City I went on to join friends at work in the highlands of Guatemala. Here they were studying the life of the Maya Indians of that area, whose existence as they reported to me was a blend both of sophistication and extraordinary spirituality. This was perhaps most apparent in the Mayan attitude to death. Their Chilam cemeteries were in the centre of the villages and the dead were seen as remaining in contact with the community and even included in family conversations and projects. These people lived wholly on maize and beans, and when these exhausted the soil in which they grew, the family, tribe, or even nation led a nomadic existence until an area where cultivation had not taken place was discovered. It was migrations of this sort that had covered Central America with the ruins of deserted cities.

I had hoped to be able to assist my friends, the Elliots, in their studies of this fascinating race, but was prevented from doing so by the landing in Guatemala of a force of mercenaries from the United States who proceeded to occupy strategic points throughout the country before overthrowing the government, and substituting a right-wing dictatorship in its place. The newcomers had a programme for a revision of the national psychology. Indian communities such as the Chilams would all become peons in the employment of farms, be paid wages, cease to grow maize and beans, and be liable for call-up in case of war. In particular, employment laws were part of the campaign to do away with Indian culture, for the Maya would now be compelled to work in slaughterhouses and even attend church. The old, stubborn and isolated Guatemala had at last joined its neighbours in the backyard.

I settled to write a book (
The Volcanoes Above Us
) about my sad adventures in Central America, which to my immense surprise eventually became a Book Society Choice for 1954. An even greater surprise was to receive a letter from the Writers’ Union of the USSR to say that they would like to reach an agreement with my publishers to issue the book. It went on to suggest that it would be useful if their representative could visit this country to discuss the possibility with me.

I wrote back to say that I would be delighted to meet the Union’s representative, and a week later I took a telephone call from a London hotel to announce the arrival of Valentina Evashova in this country. It was arranged that we should meet in my agent’s office in Bloomsbury and it was here that our first encounter took place later in the day. A little to my surprise the distinguished professor bore a remarkable outward resemblance to a Russian peasant of the kind portrayed in one of the Soviet films to be seen in London cinemas at about that time. She was sixtyish, short and a little stout, and bundled in garments of the kind a prosperous peasant might have worn to attend a political meeting. Her expression, on the other hand, was intelligent and shrewd. She had dyed her hair dark red. She spoke rapidly in confident and faultless English. Valentina’s wit was quicker than either mine or that of the agent, thus her replies to our questions were ready within split seconds of their being put.

Valentina was critical by nature and ready with instant judgements on all the problems encountered in such meetings. Her eyes ranged dubiously over the office in which she had been received. It was small and bright, but essentially modest in its furnishings and equipment. Later she made some passing comment on this and in a way it was a forewarning or reference to the grandeur of similar establishments in the Soviet Union.

Valentina had been authorized by the Soviet Writers’ Union to inform me that they would print six million copies of
The Volcanoes Above Us
in paperback form. After some minutes passed without mention of any reward likely to be offered for these rights, she brought up the subject almost in passing. Russia, she said, paid no overseas royalties, but compensated foreign authors in a way most of them agreed was equally attractive. They were invited to visit the Soviet Union, not as mere tourists but as the honoured guests of the nation. The hospitality of the country was theirs to be enjoyed. They were invited to come and go where they liked, and stay as long as they liked. They could, for example, be accommodated for any length of time and without cost to them in a dacha at Sochi in the perpetual summer of the Black Sea. Guides could be given them to explore Central Asia, spend a month with a tribe in Sinkiang or hunt a unique species of boar in Outer Mongolia. As tactfully as possible I pointed out that my agent had worked very hard on the English production and marketing of this book, to which her reply was that she was sure that he too could be invited to become a guest of the Soviet Union.

On this and two subsequent occasions when Valentina visited this country on behalf of the Writers’ Union we were happy to have her stay with us in Essex. It was an environment which must have seemed as exotic to her as later in my case were the Black Sea coast and the valleys of the Caucasus. As was inevitable she was out of her depth with the class system. The village policeman she glimpsed in passing while pruning his roses would be unlikely, she thought, to terrify local evildoers. She was astonished by the behaviour of a son of the local big house who had never quite recovered from his public school, but our gardener impressed her by the pleasing gravity of his expression as he demolished the weeds. ‘Is he an intellectual?’ she asked.

My publisher had thought fit to organize a party for Valentina, choosing the Ivy restaurant for the venue. Included were a Collins director, his film-star wife, and the uncontrollable dog from which she declined to be separated. This could not possibly have been other than a memorable experience for a woman acclimatized to the Muscovite equivalent of what the Ivy had to offer. Everyone who had done rather well in everything came here, and their gay chatter and laughter bubbled all around us. Did they laugh in Moscow? Undoubtedly, but it would not have been like this. I suspected that this gaiety was a convention, and to some extent even a practised art. I could not imagine what I had seen of the Russians fabricating mirth. Valentina had had no practice in subterfuge of this kind. As a Russian she had never been introduced to the mechanism of social pretence. Thus at our small party she was inevitably the odd one out who could not laugh things off and thus reach an easy compromise with unpalatable truth.

My forthcoming visit to the Soviet Union was soon discussed. ‘Leningrad,’ she said, ‘is not completely recovered from the war. You should make a start with Moscow, which offers everything of our country and life-style that the foreigner will wish to see. Be careful in crossing the street on dark nights. We have introduced new laws for car-driving, which is still to be improved. Ask the hotel porter to provide you with a torch whenever you leave the hotel after dark. It is not advisable to drive a car yourself, but if you wish to do so no charge is made for a qualified instructor to accompany you. You will be asked to avoid driving down steep hills or in the medieval district of the city where the roads are narrow. These are indicated by signs.’

Discussion of where best to go next came up and Valentina rattled off a list of historic cities and their principal attractions. ‘Time is short,’ she said, ‘so perhaps we shall be obliged to select a very special few. Had you anything in mind?’

‘Would Central Asia perhaps come into this?’ I asked, a little doubtfully, and I charted the lines of disappointment in her face.

‘Everything depends upon you,’ she said. ‘It is your choice. Central Asia is very large, but four-fifths of it is desert. Were there any towns you had in mind?’

‘I thought perhaps Bukhara, or Samarkand.’

‘No one may visit Bukhara at this time,’ Valentina said. ‘There has been an outbreak of plague. Samarkand is open to travellers. It is a capital of the tribal people, which you might not find interesting. All the same, you only have to say the word and it can be arranged.’

‘You remember I told you about the tribals I took back to the Soviet Union. Most of them were Uzbeks.’

‘And was there anything special about them?’

‘Yes, they were natural artists. It’s hard to explain. But they were in some way different. Not like us. Very few of the other tribals came through. I think the Uzbeks may have been saved by their art.’

‘I’ll give the Union a ring,’ Valentina said, ‘and if there’s no plague in Uzbekistan you shall certainly go. You may need an adventurous guide who won’t be too scared even if you do run into the plague. I suggest Natasha, whose background has toughened her in a way you may need. She was in Leningrad as a child at the time of the siege. The government ordered Russian civilians to stay in the city, even if they were starving. Natasha was only fourteen but her mother dressed her up as a young soldier and got her out. She speaks your language as well as you do, and she’s beautiful if a little cold. When would you like to go?’

‘As soon as I can,’ I told her, and a week later I boarded the plane for Moscow at Heathrow. If at any time the mere boarding of a plane could be an experience, this was one. The enormous flying machine awaiting us must have been designed to represent the power of the nation that had built it. It spread its great wings over an area emptied by its lesser competitors. I climbed the twenty-two steps and trudged silently over a splendidly carpeted floor, following the stewardess. She lifted the voile curtain of the compartment I was to enter. One of its two seats was already occupied by an exceptionally well-dressed man, who rose to bow, shake hands and introduce himself. This was Dr Bryansky, a lecturer in English History at the University of Kazan.

A soft thunder of the engine extinguished the music of Borodin and the great machine moved forward, shaken suddenly as if by a mechanical palsy as it took off. A few moments passed, the red cabin light went out and the music started again, Borodin replaced by a march. What was to follow prepared me for the Russian scene that awaited me more than anything else could have done.

The passengers were on their feet, and were now moving out into the aisle. Dr Bryansky seemed about to join them. ‘Shall we walk together?’ he asked, and I replied, ‘With pleasure.’

The aisle was now filled with two ranks of strolling passengers, and these we joined. ‘What would you like to talk about?’ Bryansky asked. ‘Some special subject, perhaps?’

‘Well, perhaps not at this moment, Doctor,’ I said. ‘My trouble is that I’m a writer, and I’m going to be called upon in the near future to produce a coherent description of my experiences, starting more or less now.’

‘I sympathize,’ Bryansky said. ‘I imagine you’ll be making a start with Moscow. Have you ever been there before?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is my first visit to the Soviet Union.’

‘You picked the worst possible time. Moscow is for spring and autumn. We shall be lucky if the plane is permitted to land if there happens to be a fog.’ Bryansky’s pessimistic gesture was one with which I was to become familiar, but at that moment the red light showed once more and the passengers broke up their social promenade, bowed to each other and made for their seats.

It was after dark when we landed, and spaced ranks of persons, one behind the other, awaited arrivals at the airport. Valentina, holding carnations, stood in the precise centre of the front line. I suspected that the Zil limousine seen at the kerb through the airport doors would be for us, and it was.

A room had been reserved for me at the Sovietskaya, and as we drove yard by yard through a swirling mist Valentina told me about the hotel. According to Valentina it was a quiet place, favoured by visitors concerned with the arts and sciences. It was a hotel, she said, that put itself out to make guests feel at home, and in accordance with this, dinner would feature a typical English menu in my honour. This proved indeed to be the case, our first course being Brown Windsor soup, followed by roast beef. While we tackled this, the orchestra entertained us with pieces most favoured by the British.

Valentina had a surprise for me. Only four weeks had elapsed since the signing of the contract for the book, but on this very day the first copies of the Russian version had appeared on the bookstalls. At the time there were no bookshops in the country and these horse-drawn stalls, parked at various licensed positions throughout the streets, occupied a unique position in the Soviet Union, having to some extent succeeded in remaining private enterprises.

The most energetic and successful of the bookstalls, Valentina said, were in the heart of the city, just as close as businesses could be to Red Square. This particular day was a national holiday and even our Zil limousine was only permitted to cover a short distance of Tverskaye Street—often described as the Oxford Street of Moscow. With the Kremlin in sight we continued on foot, then turned into the narrow and somewhat gloomy side-alley where the leading booksellers were in business.