Исай Лукодьянов - The Black Pillar

"That's enough for today," he heard Morozov say. "Let's go back to the launch."

"Do you want some tea?" asked the woman.

"No," answered Will.

He lay in his cabin, his dry hands with their swollen veins clenched on top the blue blanket. His face, at once pale and sunburnt, was as immobile as a sphinx. His lower jaw, covered with a grey stubble, jutted out strangely.

Norma Hampton sat by his bunk and looked at his immobile face.

"I'd like to do something for you."

"Fill my pipe."

"No, Will, anything but that. You mustn't smoke."

He was silent.

"Does it hurt less now?"

"Yes."

"You never complained of your heart three years ago. You're wearing yourself out with work. You go to the most god-forsaken places. You haven't spent three months in England these last three years."

Will was silent.

"Why don't you ask how I came to be in Japan?"

"How did you come to be in Japan?" he asked indifferently.

"Oh Will!" she sighed, catching her breath, and leaned forward. "Please don't think that I've been having a good time these three years. He turned out to be… Well, anyway, in June, when there was a job going as Tokyo correspondent, I put in for it. I left him."

"You're always the one to leave," said Will in even tones.

"Yes." She laughed bitterly. "I'm like that. But here's what I want to say to you, Will: I want to come back, very much."

He said nothing for a long time. Then he glanced up at her and said:

"Don't your ears hurt?" he asked.

"My ears?"

"Aye. The pendants are too heavy." Involuntarily Norma touched her earrings; big green triangles with a pattern.

"I read in the papers that you were here on the rig, and I knew this was my last chance. I wired to the office and left on the 'Fukuoka'."

"Go away," he said. "I want to sleep."

"You're not sleepy. We're no longer young, Will." The woman's voice sounded cracked. "I'd fill your pipe and plant roses and petunias in the flower-bed in front of the house. We've done enough wandering around the world. We could spend all our time together. Every evening. Will… All the rest of our evenings."

"Listen, Norma."

"Yes, dear."

"Does Howard write to you?"

"Very seldom. When he wants money. He hasn't much use for us nowadays."

"For me, anyway."

"He's our son, just the same. And, Will, you could…"

"No," he said. "That's enough! Enough, damn it all!"

"Very well." She passed her hand over the blanket and stroked his leg. "Only don't excite yourself. Perhaps you'd like some tea?"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," said Will.

Kravtsov came in, dishevelled, in a white shirt wide open at the neck, and crumpled trousers.

"Well, how are you feeling now?" he began in the doorway, and stopped short. "Excuse me-am I in the way?"

"No. Norma, this is engineer Kravtsov from Russia. Kravtsov, this is Norma Hampton, a reporter."

Norma tossed her golden mane and, smiling, gave her hand to Kravtsov.

"Pleased to meet you. The whole world's been writing about you, Mr. Kravtsov. The readers of the 'Daily Telegraph' will be glad to read anything you care to say…"

"Wait, Norma, later," said Will. "How long since you returned from the rig, laddie?" "Just this minute. How do you feel?" "The doctor's going to keep me in bed a long time, I think. Well, let's hear it."

Hurriedly and excitedly, Kravtsov related how the pillar had attracted the truck and container, and carried them up.

"It did, did it? I wonder what it is-a magnetic phenomenon, or gravitational, may be?" "I don't know, Will. It's a strange anomaly." "What does Morozov say?" "He doesn't say anything. He just said that (he horizontal power of attraction increases as the object approaches the pillar, not directly in proportion to the distance but to an increasing degree."

"What's going to happen now?" "Now? More measurements. Today they were merely rough and elementary. Now they're putting permanent remote control instruments on the rig, they'll transmit all the data from there to the 'Fukuoka Maru'. Well, Will, I'm glad you're better. I'll be off."

"Mr. Kravtsov," said Norma Hampton. "You must give me more details about the pillar."

Kravtsov glanced at her. "How old is she?" he thought. "Her face is young and so is her figure. But her hands are old. Thirty? Fifty?"

"Have you eaten anything today?" asked Will.

"No."

"You're crazy. Go and have something at once. Norma, give Mr. Kravtsov some peace."

"There'll be a press conference at eight, Mrs. Hampton."

"Why at eight? It was to be at six."

"It's been put off till eight."

Kravtsov nodded and went to the door. He opened it and collided with Ali-Ovsad.

"Hi! Careful!" exclaimed the old driller, who was carrying a teapot with pink flowers. "I knew it, that you'd be here. Go eat," he added sternly. "Hurry-scurry hungry: you've forgotten all about eating."

"I'm going, I'm going," and Kravtsov, smiling, went off down the passage, feeling slightly sick from hunger.

Ali-Ovsad went into Will's cabin, cast a sidelong glance at Norma, and put the teapot on the table.

"Drink tea, Englishman," he said. "I made it myself. Good tea. Azerbaijanian tea. Nothing like it nowhere."

A shaggy cap of clouds covered the ocean. The wind had freshened; the blue of the evening had deepened. The riding-lights on the "Fukuoka Maru" were lit. She was rolling.

At the door of the saloon where the press conference was to be held, a young man with high colouring took Kravtsov by the elbow.

"Comrade Kravtsov," said he with a friendly look in his smiling grey eyes. "Elusive Comrade Kravtsov, let me introduce myself: Olovyannikov, special correspondent of 'Izvestia'."

"Very pleased to meet you." Kravtsov gave him his hand.

"I didn't want to bother you yesterday, but this morning, when I tried to catch you by the coat-tails you flew off at terrific speed. But being a polite gentleman, you flung me an apology in English."

"Was that you?" said Kravtsov, smiling. "Forgive me, Comrade Olovyannikov. And this time, in Russian."

"Gladly, Alexander Vitalyevich. It may interest you to know that I phoned your wife before leaving Moscow…"

"You phoned Marina?"

"I phoned Marina and concluded from her words that she thinks a lot of you."

"What else did she say?" cried Kravtsov, who had taken a great liking for this smiling reporter.

"She said she was longing for you. That everything at home was all right, and that your Vovka was a young rascal who's getting more and more like his daddy."

Kravtsov laughed and shook Olovyannikov's hand.

"What do they call you?" he asked.

"Lev Grigoryevich. Your mother's well and she also asked me to give you her love and say that she was longing for you. I wasn't able to talk to Vovka-he was fast asleep. Marina asked me to get you some Esperanto magazines, but unfortunately I was rushing to the airport."

"Thank you very, very much, Lev Grigoryevich."

"Not at all."

They went into the saloon and sat down on a settee by the wall.

The world press was chattering noisily, smoking and laughing while it waited. Norma Hampton had driven Stamm into a corner and, shaking her lion's mane and notebook, was worming what information she could out of the Austrian. Ali-Ovsad, who had dressed up for the occasion, with all his decorations on his navy-blue jacket, came up to Kravtsov and sat down by his side, forcing his neighbours to make room for him. Kravtsov introduced him to Olovyannikov, and Ali-Ovsad immediately began to tell the correspondent about his quondam complicated relations with the press.

"They used to write a lot about me," said he in his usual dignified manner. "They always used to write: 'Driller Ali-Ovsad standing on the derrick'. I'd read and think 'Does Ali-Ovsad always stand on the derrick? Ali-Ovsad has a family, a brother who's an agronomist and knows all about grapes; and sons. Why must they always write that Ali-Ovsad stands on the derrick?"