Iain Pears - Stone's Fall

'Thank you. My name is Matthew Brad . . .'

He held up his hand. 'We do not have second names,' he said with a smile. 'It is uncomradely and also there are far too many people who do not wish to give them. So Matthew will do nicely.' His mouth twitched with amusement as he watched me try to look comradely.

I quite took to him. He was short, only about five foot four high, weedy and underfed, badly dressed and looked less than healthy. His hands twitched nervously all the time, as though he was trying to pull rings off his fingers, but the rest of him was totally still and calm. His eyes watched me through thick lenses, and they were kindly and a little sad.

'You have come for the talk?'

'Ah, yes. I suppose so. I'm not sure why I'm here, to tell the truth.'

'Comrade Stefan no doubt has his reasons.'

'I'm sure Comrade Stefan has,' I said, and was quite proud of myself for suppressing the twitch of amusement. It was only because I was quite touched; Hozwicki, as I have mentioned, was not exactly the most friendly of people. He trusted no one, and liked even fewer. To tell me to come here, where he must have realised I would hear him being referred to as Comrade Stefan – thus exposing him to ridicule if not worse if I ever repeated it in the King & Keys – was a gesture. Not exactly an open offer of friendship, but probably the closest to it I or anyone else would ever get. 'Who is the speaker, might I ask?'

'Ah,' he said. 'It is Comrade Kropotkin.'

The anarchist aristocrat. The Russian revolutionary. The Anarchist Prince. All titles dreamt up by the headline writers on the Daily Mail , who excelled at such things. He was an odd fellow, by all accounts; a genuine Russian prince who had turned to rural collectivism and revolution. He had been imprisoned in Russia, thrown out of Switzerland, France and America, and came to rest in a comfortable part of Brighton, where he went for long walks with his dog and was perfectly sweet to the neighbours when not advocating stringing them up from the nearest lamp post.

'And what is he talking about?'

'The evils of Darwinism.'

'Is it evil?'

'Comrade Kropotkin has argued in the past that Darwinism is but a reflection of capitalism because it emphasises competition and struggle over co-operation and co-existence. It justifies the exploitation of man by man, and strengthens the class ideology of the oppressors.'

'Excellent. So what will be new today?'

'That we must find out. If we can understand him. There are so many people of so many different nationalities here, with so many languages, that English is the only one everybody has a chance of understanding. I don't suppose you speak Serbo-Croat?'

'Not really.'

'A pity. I would have pressed you into service to give a running translation. Our Serbs are very bad at languages.'

'Who else – I mean, what other languages are represented?'

Josef screwed up his eyes to think. 'Well, there are Russians and Germans. Many Latvians and Lithuanians and Poles. A few Serbs. One Dane, although he comes only rarely. Many English, although for some reason few Irish, which I find strange as they are the most oppressed of all. Some Ukrainians and a few Belgians. The French tend to stay in France. And of course we have many, many people who speak only Yiddish.'

'A veritable Internationale,' I said, with what I hoped was a tone of approval. 'And how many policemen?'

He gave me an odd look, but realised full well that I was lighth-eartedly broaching a serious point. 'That is Serge, who hasn't arrived yet.'

'You aren't tempted to throw him out?'

'Oh, no. Obviously the police are going to infiltrate, so why bother? We do nothing here that is of great interest to them. It is not as if we hold open meetings on bomb-making.'

'Those are by invitation only?'

'Precisely,' he said with a twinkle in his eye. 'Seriously, the authorities here are stupid and coercive, but somewhat milder than their counterparts abroad. As long as we do not frighten them, they leave us alone, more or less. And nothing frightens authority more than not knowing what is going on. Then they fantasise about plots and evil, and react. So we show there is nothing to be afraid of.'

'And this Serge knows you know about him?'

'The subject has never come up, but I imagine so. Do you wish to meet him? You are a journalist, I take it.'

'How did you know that?'

'Because the moment you open your mouth you start asking questions. Because you clearly know nothing about anarchism and because you are a friend of Stefan, who is a journalist as well. You don't work for the Daily Mail , do you?'

'Certainly not,' I said, almost offended.

'That is good.'

'You don't mind me coming?'

'Oh, no. The more publicity the better. Comrade Kropotkin has written many articles for newspapers, here and abroad, showing the origins and nature of what we believe. He has just finished a long article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica . And now, if you will excuse me.'

The courteous anarchist moved off towards the stage. He walked with a limp, I noticed, and he looked as though moving was painful for him. He weaved an erratic course as he went, stopping frequently to greet people, pat them on the back, talk briefly with them. One woman he bowed to in an oddly old-world fashion. She was dressed simply, with a muffler around her head as though she had a cold, and a sprig of flowers in her hair. She briefly broke off her conversation with a large unshaven man to greet him, and half turned to respond with an unsmiling, cold nod of the head.

'These, eh?'

'What?' I turned, to see a grim man staring at me as though I had just advocated the abolition of taxes for land-owners. Powerful, intelligent, his eyes radiating annoyance at his feeble grasp of language.

He waved his arm. 'Chairs. They must organise.' He spoke with such a thick and indeterminate accent that it was difficult to realise his understanding of English grammar was rudimentary, as it was almost impossible to make out anything at all.

'What?' I repeated, almost panicking.

He picked up a chair, put it into my hand and propelled me roughly across the room until it was next to the one in a line, and made me put it down. Then he gestured to all the other chairs.

'Again.'

'Ah. Right.' He was not the sort of man who would brook any refusal. I half expected him to whip out a revolver and shoot me on the spot if I so much as looked reluctant. So I picked up another chair, and then another, and slowly set them out, row by row.

'Good. Very good.' A thunderous clap on the back and a broad smile signified my labours for the common good had met with approval. 'Drink.'

He thrust a bottle of beer at me, contrary to the 1892 Regulation of Drink Act, and scowled, or maybe it was a smile. Hard to tell. I smiled back, as best I could. I really didn't want a drink, but again I felt it unwise to refuse. We toasted each other, smiled again, indulged in another bout of backslapping, and then he drifted off.

'And you will be Comrade Matthew, the journalist friend of Comrade Stefan,' came a cold female voice behind me. It spoke with a heavy German accent, but was both grammatical and comprehensible.

I spun round. I opened my mouth to speak. Suave and sophisticated, able to deal with any eventuality. That was the way I wanted to be, and very definitely the way I wasn't. I couldn't say a word.

'Are you here to hear the speech? It is not often we get journalists here, so I imagine you are here to see Comrade Peter.' She spoke quietly, and was one of those who did not look at the person she was speaking to. Stared hard, rather, somewhere above my left shoulder, communicating a contempt which fully matched the harshness of her voice.

'Um.'