Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

Like Greg, they were close to the earth, detached from our world. Torchlight cancels time. Had mighty vessels collided off Cuba, nuclear-fission smashing civilization, these sorry wraiths could have become aristocrats, teaching brute survival to those, like anonymous Meinnenberg refugees, frantically plunging for cabbage stalks, potato skins, crouching from rumours of approaching hordes or flame. No passion sprang from the faces stiff as masks. If a Magian star had once lured outsize tribes across Europe, they had shrunk, with coinage and language, were wedged, almost inert, like climbers stricken on the cliff face, like the satyrs, demons, wild men that strayed into the edges of medieval manuscripts. Or circus folk proscribed by Animal Rights. Or possibly our Latvians.

Despite some revulsion, I yet, in a manner, bonded with them, though to Nadja they must be anthropological examples of minor significance.

To encouraging growls, a couple, their eyes thickly ringed by charcoal, had loped forward, dangling a third, like a half-filled sack, one onlooker stooping to kiss him. Voices immediately livened, mouths widened into grins, many toothless, fires flared from darkness above, hovels and street filling with a grinding, wailing chant.

Nadja was to admit that she had actually been fascinated, as if by a screen murderer, a Peter Lorre, whose simplest action – selecting a razor, handling cord, emptying a jug – is hideously fateful. The unmelodious chant she interpreted as ‘To the Oak, to the Hill, the Cleansing’ interminably repeated.

By now, I was bored, sickened by monotony and stench, longing for a fountain, dragon-fly glitter, even Blue Grass tunes, above all, for drink, strong, very expensive. My flickering sympathies evaporated into morose anticipations of the difficult trek home. The other visitors had already left. Nadja remained, rapt, seeking clues in these graveyard tableaux to Dancing the God, which must require lunatic guesswork as much as insight.

No garlanded hackabout followed, no antique melody traceable to Transylvania. A pocked, thin-haired creature, possibly female, handed us balls of dirty cloth to throw at a wooden hunk, headless, trussed in a ragged blue sash, which was then swung over a fire to another monotonous dirge. And then . My prayer was partially answered. The full moon slid over the summits, complementing the fires, and, on cue, an outburst of Scott Joplin-like jazz from a tinny transistor, the glum celebrants regaining vigour like Underworld spectres refreshed by sacrificial blood. Slow, twitching gyrations transformed to hopping, like children avoiding pavement cracks. Almost all joined in, Nadja alarming me by showing inclination to seize my hand and drag me amongst them.

Relenting, she confided, with unreliable seriousness, that the dead had certainly been present; several still were, surly and unappeased. Counting dim figures, we would never reach the same number. The fumes, wavering lights, the moon, ‘Bright Moon of the Nameless’, did indeed create intimations of tricky rivals.

‘At least,’ Nadja finally permitted departure, ‘we were not made to watch sizzling cats!’

Far, too far off, urban lights were almost unreachable as grails. Disturbed, a crow flew past, low, wing-beat irregular. ‘That’s Cledon .’ Nadja’s assurance was unassailable. ‘A prophetic sign. Not very good.’

‘I don’t like it, Erich. I feel…’

‘But I could scarcely refuse.’

I had learnt from my cowardly, devious refusal of Claire’s appeal, but Nadja’s fine eyes darted impatiently. ‘With your face and arms you can do absolutely but absolutely anything. You are Thor, but asleep. Raise hammer.’

Since our excursion she had been admitting headaches, keeping her own bed, not complaining but subdued, leaving me to late-night movies, mostly sci-fi fantasies of outer space convulsions, domestic pets mutating to double-headed monsters, seas to salt-pans, outweighing Custom and the ill-balanced crow.

Whether she had really learnt much from Custom I had yet to discover. She was more preoccupied by this new intrusion that disagreeably confirmed Cledon .

Andrejs Ulmanis had telephoned. Harshly implying rights of entry, he wished to visit us. Now. Immediately. No discussion. On a matter of neighbourly understanding, he insisted, costing us nothing. A brief formality.

I could only assent, Nadja mouthing annoyance. We waited, fractious, uneasy, until, an hour later, he strode in without knocking, ponderous, blue-shirted, examining new surroundings, not in admiration of paintings, books, carpets but as if suspecting a recording machine or bugging plant. He held papers, like a warrant to search the house.

Nadja, with a mutter only with some effort likely to be construed as apology, at once left us, though doubtless listening behind the door and willing me to refuse all requests. At her departure his tough, lined face minutely relaxed, reducing him from manic desperado to an old-timer lounging outside the saloon. Or an indigent peasant forced to appeal to a notorious usurer.

‘My carte de séjour needs renewal.’ This he forced out, barely moving his lips, which, thick, cracked, seemed designed to spit rather than release words. ‘The French authorities…’ the emphasis did suggest spit, ‘demand I supply a certificate of good living.’

The formula, like his French, must be inexact, ‘Signed by citizens of repute and substance…’ Crashing speech, and I feared a giggle from behind the door. ‘This I will require from you both. Your professional service. It will assist our voyage to America. The USA.’ His manner denoted no wholesale admiration for the USA. With the same intonation, matching his pale, wary eyes, he explained that two respectable signatures would suffice. A privilege undesirable but which, in conscience, could not be refused.

He laid several stamped, embossed documents on the enamelled table between us, jabbing a stubby thumb at particular paragraphs, expecting instantaneous compliance, perhaps my forging of Nadja’s signature.

Handling them cautiously, befogged by the prose style of officialdom, I made a gesture intended as conciliatory but which he understood as need for a pen. This, as additional favour, he supplied, then smiled, not in gratitude but like a fellow conspirator completing a deal. But, as one large man confronting another, I ignored the pen, fearing being outmanoeuvred like a footballer, enthusiastic but untrained. Instead, attempting the manner of repute and substance, I assured him of the honour he was doing us, yet regretting the signatures must be delayed, explaining, untruthfully, that we had no legalized status, possessed only Nansen passports, outdated, not universally recognized and viewed with barely credible suspicion by those same French authorities, unquestionably scoundrels, three of them criminals. A letter must be written, a permission obtained. Sadly, but unavoidably, he must wait.

It sounded clumsily false, inciting a blue glare as he squared as if for assault, but at this, commendably prompt, Nadja returned, amiable, hospitable, offering coffee. Stalled, he rose, giving her a cursory grunt. At the door, ‘I will allow you the time required. Now I leave. I will come back.’

‘How very kind!’ Nadja’s softness was dangerous, her expression subtly mischievous. Beast routed by Beauty, he scowled at the Juan Gris, then the door closed like a gunshot.

The garden was bright with well-seasoned flowers, August leaves tinged with brown.

‘Darling Nadja, I suppose we must sign. It will hasten their packing and delight God the Father America. Two points for us.’

Almost never predictable, she was indignant, colour touching her ovalled pallor, her eyes charred.