Adam Thirlwell - Politics

Osip was arrested because he had written a poem in which he had described Joseph Stalin like this: ‘Fat fingers as oily as maggots, / Words sure as forty-pound weights, / With his leather-clad gleaming calves / And his large laughing cockroach eyes.’ It was not a very friendly description. So Stalin had him arrested.

But they didn’t arrest him just to be nasty to Osip. No. They wanted to know who had seen this poem too. They wanted to know what people had thought.

Osip is uniformly considered to be a hero. And he was a hero. I do not want you to think that I think anything else.

Obviously, if Osip had told them names, then the people he named would be in trouble too. So surely Osip did not tell the police these names? Surely he did not betray them?

He betrayed them.

Q. When this lampoon had been written, to whom did you recite it and to whom did you give written copies?

A. I recited it to: (1) my wife; (2) her brother Yevgeny Khazin, a writer of children’s books; (3) my brother Alexander; (4) my wife’s friend Emma Gershteyn, who works in the research-workers’ section at the Central Council of Trade Unions; (5) Boris Kuzin, of the Zoological Museum; (6) the poet Vladimir Narbut; (7) the young poetess Maria Petrovikh; (8) the poetess Anna Akhmatova and (9) her son Lev Gumilyov.

I know that he was worried about the possibility of torture. I know that. Maybe there were even untranscribed pauses in this interrogation. But look at Osip. Look at him be extra helpful — ‘my wife’s friend Emma Gershteyn, who works in the research-workers’ section at the Central Council of Trade Unions’. It is the extra detail I am interested in here. As well as being scared of torture, Osip was trying to be charming.

I am not getting at Osip. Honestly, I like him. Because I like him, I do not want to idealise him too much. If I had been in the Lubyanka prison, being interrogated by Stalin’s secret police, I would have told everything. I would have been scared of torture too. I think I would have said much more than he did. Like Osip, I always want to appear helpful. Everyone does.

And this is what infidelity is. It is the selfish desire to be helpful to more than one person.

Infidelity is natural.

19

But why was Nana jealous? Was she jealous of Anjali or Moshe?

She was jealous of Anjali with Moshe. She was jealous of Anjali’s sexual ability. Anjali, Nana had noted, came even quicker than Moshe. This made Nana feel sad. Anjali was every boy’s favourite. Not only that, she was every girl’s favourite. Anjali was simpatico.

‘So that was good it was really good?’ Nana said to Anjali. ‘Was lovely, no it was really really good,’ said confused and fractious Anjali. ‘I din think, I haven’t come like that oh well frages. It was just. I feel all tingly. Like it wasn’t jus my cunt but all over?’ she said. ‘Mso glad,’ said Nana. ‘It sounded lovely,’ she said.

Poor Nana. She hated sex. She hated its competitiveness. She was glad that Moshe and Anjali had enjoyed themselves. She was not feeling angry with them. She was angry with sex. She wished there were no more sex. She just wished that Moshe would hold her. But instead he was lying on the floor, looking blissful.

Anjali stood up, looking for tissues. There were some Kleenex on the floor by the bed. She crooked her legs and wiped herself, along the top of her thighs up to her pubic hair. She used one up then dragged out another. Then

Moshe got into bed with Nana. Clean dry Anjali got in too. They shuffled each other, happy.

But really only Moshe was happy. And even Moshe was nervous. He was nervous about what might happen next — the precise nature of future shenanigans.

You’re offered it once, he thought, but that’s just to keep you sweet. You do it once then they make you watch over and over again.

Moshe was no fool, you see. He needed more positive signs.

20

In August 2000, the Italian police intercepted some conversations in Arabic between Al Qaeda members.

A suspected Al Qaeda member from Yemen, called Mr Abdulrahman, told an Egyptian living in Italy that he was ‘studying airplanes’. Then he added: ‘God willing, I hope that I can bring you a window or piece of airplane the next time we meet.’ According to the Italian version of the Arabic, he went on: ‘We must only strike them, and hold our heads on high. Remember well: the danger in the airports.’

It is not easy, spotting clues.

Referring to America, Mr Abdulrahman said, ‘We intermarry with Americans, and thus they study the Koran. They have the feeling they are lions, a world power; but we will do them this service, and then the fear will be seen.’ He also said, ‘There are big clouds in the sky, there in that country the fire has been lit, and awaits only the wind.’

The Italian police, speaking in their defence, said that such images can often mean the opposite of what they appear to mean. And I have a lot of sympathy with these carabinieri. Mr Abdulrahman does not sound like an international terrorist. He sounds like an alcoholic. He sounds like my friends when they have taken a lot of drugs.

It is not easy, spotting clues. In retrospect, everything is so much clearer.

1

The weekend afterhis first ever threesome, Moshe was excitable. He wanted to see what would happen next. He wanted to find out what sexual treats were in store for him. But unfortunately for Moshe, what happened next was not sex. It was not a sexual treat. It was, in fact, an absence of sexualness of any kind.

Nana went away on holiday. She went away with Papa for ten days.

This is not the best time for a digression, I know. But I cannot always choose the digressions. Some of them are inevitable. And this holiday was inevitable. Nana and Papa had booked their September holiday, if you remember, as early as the shopping trip to Savile Row in Chapter 4. It was Papa’s treat to Nana for when she finished her MA. Papa had bought two Go flights to Venice. This was Nana’s ideal holiday. They would fly to Venice and in the middle of their Venice holiday they would make one pilgrimage to a small town in Romania. It would be fun to travel on the Central European trains. Because although Papa quite wanted Benidorm, or Torremolinos, Nana wanted a cultural holiday.

That was what Nana was like. It was what she liked. I can’t help that.

2

I do not know what your views of holidays are. Maybe the only place you have ever been to for a holiday is Mykonos. Maybe your definition of a holiday is to rent a small flat furnished with a wicker coffee table and a collection of Mills and Boon novels, and have sex with at least one boy a day. Or maybe the only place you would ever go to is a skiing resort. Unless you can ski all day, and have a quick tuna sandwich on the piste for lunch, then a holiday is not a holiday.

People are funny about holidays. Everybody has their theory of the perfect holiday. And I do not want your theory about the perfect holiday to influence your take on Nana and Papa’s holiday.

I can imagine this would not be your ideal holiday. Perhaps it makes you question why anyone would like Nana. But you must not let your theory put you off Nana and Papa.

The point of Nana and Papa abroad is that this is the one section of true love in the book. It may seem dowdy and geeky, it may not seem like your kind of holiday at all, but this was love. It was purely altruistic.

You must not misinterpret.

No. In this book, Nana and Papa are true love. That is what I want you to remember. So the title of this chapter is true and not true. If, for you, a romance is always sexual, then the title is not a true title. But if romance means perfect love, then it is true.