Kingsley Amis - Russian Hide-and-Seek

A visitor who knew the house as it normally was would have noted certain arrangements made for the occasion. The standard of behaviour expected tonight was far higher than that at, say, Igor Swianiewicz’s parties, which were as different as they could possibly have been from the present gathering. Otherwise the outer doors would have been barred and heavy furniture run up against them, to be removed only when the last departure was reliably reported. As it was there was free access to east and west halls, in which hard chairs and folding tables were set, and only the more expensive appointments had been locked away. All internal doors except those of the downstairs lavatories, where the floors were covered with sheets of waterproof material, had of course been securely blocked.

The more sober spirits were grouped at the western end. It was here that, about eleven o’clock, Mrs Tabidze yielded to persistent requests and began telling fortunes with a pack of playing-cards. She stipulated that she would not choose her clients – individuals must suggest themselves, thereby nettling Alexander, who felt that this undemanding way of holding the stage would be unacceptably degraded if one were seen to bid for it. Nina had no such inhibitions. Ignoring Theodore’s mild dissuasion she went forward and sat at the small baize-covered table on the other side of which Agatha Tabidze was putting out the cards face down in heaps of half a dozen and turning them over apparently at random. Nina’s virtues were rehearsed, then some of her accomplishments, like making a good lemon soufflé; this part was light and facetious in tone. Her engagement was treated rather more sedately, with a few minor facts revealed which it seemed she had not thought at all generally known. Finally – it was soon clear that the fortunes told were to be of no great comprehensiveness – Mrs Tabidze drew a fresh card and said in a gentle voice,

‘And what is to come will be good. Soon there will be a time of trial, not of your making, for between the two of you there will never be any serious difficulty, yet none the less it will be a troublesome time. But it will pass, and you will be together, and you will be happy.’

There was shouting and applause from the couple of dozen in the west hall. Nina jumped to her feet and embraced Mrs Tabidze, then, streaming with tears and grinning broadly, ran to Theodore’s arms. Petrovsky made a confused re-announcement of what had just been made public and the company cheered, renewed their applause and proposed and drank toasts. One of the drinkers, a burly bearded man in a short bottle-green jacket and white trousers, immediately afterwards clapped his hand across his mouth and made off towards the lavatories at a lurching trot. Then things quietened down for a time. Successively, two middle-aged ladies, each the wife of an official, were taken at a smart pace through their pasts, presents and futures. General attention wandered; after emotional farewells, or in one case after being hauled upright and supported from either side, several people left. When the second lady had been dismissed there was a pause, and the entertainment, already languishing, seemed about to cease altogether. At last Commissioner Mets put up his hand and was accepted.

The fortune-teller had run into a small difficulty in that her acquaintance with her new customer was recent and slight, though it certainly included the fact that he held an important and therefore sensitive post; banter, the obvious recourse, would not do here. Hesitantly at first, consulting the cards a great deal, she told the Commissioner that he was a man of wide knowledge, refined taste and steady judgement, that he showed total dedication to his job but was always extending his horizons in new directions, and other things no self-respecting bureaucrat could demur at. When the talk turned to the inevitable difficulties along the way and the patience that would in time resolve them, someone gave a great yawn, but the next moment Mrs Tabidze turned up a card, looked at Mets and gave a sharp exclamation of surprise. She was not hesitating now; it was just that the words would not come.

‘Those difficulties we were speaking of,’ she said. ‘Are some of them… is one of them exceptionally severe?’

‘Yes,’ said Mets in a neutral tone, sitting forward in his chair with his hands pressed together.

‘In fact, would a stronger word be more appropriate? Quandary? Dilemma? Crisis?’

‘Yes. Well, in a way, in a manner of speaking.’

‘And has it presented itself recently? Very recently?’

‘Somewhat recently.’

Mrs Tabidze turned up another card and stared at it for some time in silence. Without lifting her eyes she said slowly, ‘Then I have to tell you that within a comparatively short time, certainly no more than four weeks, the situation will have resolved itself in your favour. You will have achieved success.’

‘How satisfactory. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

‘I’ve never known her to behave like that before,’ said Tatiana Petrovsky to her husband. ‘It’s as if she really had seen something in those cards.’

‘Oh, old Agatha’s a marvellous actress.’

‘I don’t think it’s that, or not only that. There’s something funny going on here.’

Alexander had had a poor evening: no real chance to show off, irritating conversation with parents, and now boredom with no end in sight. He was weighing the merits of getting sonorously drunk against those of denouncing the company as rotten with credulity and superstition before storming off to bed (quicker, for one thing) when Sonia Korotchenko passed him on her way to the vacant chair at the baize-topped table. He made no sound but gave a start that scraped his foot on the stone floor. If asked at any previous stage, he would have stated with total confidence that she had not turned up at the party. Where was her husband? Not in sight, or not completely or identifiably; a pair of trousered legs and the crook of an elbow on the far side of a nearby pillar might quite well have been his. Several voices asked more or less loudly who that woman was, meaning the one now seeking (with some determination, to judge by the set of her bare shoulders) to have her fortune told.

For a moment Alexander considered withdrawing as quietly as he could. It was impossible, no, but it was most unlikely, that she should not know he was there, far from impossible that within a minute she would tell of or otherwise reveal, as it might be by diving at his genitals, something he would on the whole prefer should remain undivulged, and quite certain that parts at least of this risk would be removed if he should prove not to be there after all. And yet – the limelight was always the limelight, whatever colours it showed one in, and the sort of things she did were apt to lose heavily in the telling. He was finally decided to stay by Mrs Tabidze’s expression of restrained disquiet coupled with having heard from his parents something of what she knew about the lady in the low-cut muslin dress – the same, he was nearly sure, that she had twitched so unreluctantly over her head on her previous visit to the house. It could well be her only garment if when at home she went about naked all the time instead of just when receiving visitors.

After thoroughly shuffling and cutting the pack Mrs Tabidze put it out as before and glanced at the top card on each heap. Alexander could see her chewing at her lips and hid a grin. After a false start she said rather hoarsely,

‘When you were very young you made a long journey. You and your mother and father came from-’

‘I don’t want to hear about the past, I know about the past.’ Mrs Korotchenko sounded as if her mouth and lips were dry. ‘Tell me about the future.’

‘Very well… You will have a long and happy married life. You will continue to be a source of strength and comfort to your husband. Over the years, you- ‘That’s the sort of thing that happens to a lot of people. Isn’t anything going to happen to me that never happens to anybody else? And shall I never do anything? Surely I shall do something, however trivial, that nobody else has ever done?’