Anthony Burgess - Tremor of Intent

Hillier turned to Clara. He was shocked but wretchedly excited to see so much shoulder exposed and even an upper quadrant of her right breast. She seemed all right, though, not frightened any more. 'I'll buy you a new dress, my darling,' he groaned. 'I promise you.' She said: 'You didn't hit hard enough. Look.' The man seemed to prepare to raise himself with one hand-press from his prone moaning. Hillier gave him the gentlest of butt- thumps and, with a sigh of content, the man subsided. Hillier said: 'I hope you'll see me dress again. Often. But in future in my own clothes. Give me a hand with these boots. Too big for me, but never mind.' Then came the breeches. Under them Hillier saw, with pity, patched drawers. He struggled into the uniform, panting. 'How do I look?'

'Oh, do be careful.'

'Now his belt. Where's the cap? Ah, behind the door. Treating the place as his own, the svinyah.' The breeches were roomy, but the tunic would hide all bagginess. 'I'd better pad myself out a bit.' He stuffed Clara's bath-towel in his chest. 'And now.' He took the loaded syringe from his dressing-gown breast-pocket, squirted a sample at the air, then, in the man's bare forearm, plunged the rest deep and rough. Some rilled along the skin, meeting russet hairs. Then, to both their astonishments, the man came to. He came to suddenly, as if from a fairy-tale kiss. He re-entered consciousness in a state of robust drunkenness, blinking, lip-smacking, then smiling. His liberated under-mind began a drunken Russian monologue to which Hillier listened fascinated: 'Dad in bed mother warm snow on ground said hot tea now no samovar hit Yuri hard on snout Lukerya cry tears freeze give cold boiled beetroot juice dad drunk.' He tried to get up, gazing with love on Hillier. Hillier, with a new idea, said to Clara: 'Where's your stepmother's cabin?'

'Along here, we're all along here together.'

'Old Nikolayev school hit hard not know how long river.'

'Go and see if it's locked. If it is, get the duplicate key from the purser's board. But hurry.' She took from the door-hook a little fur cape. She couldn't go out with a torn dress. Hillier loved her.

'Salgir longest river Crimea but very short. South slopes Yaila mountains very fertile.' He repeated it: 'Ochin plodorodnyiy.' Then he tried once more to get up. Hillier pushed him gently down. 'Behind shed summer day Natasha skirt up big belly she show I not show she show I not show.' Well, thought Hillier, he was beyond that pudeur now. 'She show I not show she show I show.' At last. 'Old Nikolayev see hit hard on snout tell dad dad hit hard on bottom.' A lot of hitting in that distant Crimean boyhood. Clara panted back in.

'There's that place where they make tea at the end of the corridor. There are keys there. I've opened up. Is that right?'

'Good girl. Delightful, excellent girl.' Hillier raised the smiling burbler to his feet without difficulty. 'Lean on me, old man. A nice long sleep, tovarishch. You're going to beddybyes.'

'In her bed?'

'Why not? It'll be a nice surprise for her.'

The burbling had changed to song: 'Whish, little doggies, off you go. Over the crisp and silver snow.' A song of the Northern Crimea, probably, the south being free from the referred terrors of the steppes. Think of those men in Balaclava helmets. Think of Florence Nightingale. The corridor was empty. There was no trouble at all about propelling him to the bed of Mrs Walters. 'Mama is sitting by the stove. In her samovar tea, in her bosom love.' The room, sniffed Hillier, was redolent of sex. V grudye lyubov. In her bosom love. Soon there was no more song, only healthy snoring.

'I must get ready to go now,' said Hillier.

She raised her face. This time the man in that uniform was very gentle.

It was the difference between the eucharist and what the breadman delivered. Crammed, like bread, into tunic and trouser pockets, were the Innes beard and the Innes passport, the ampoules and syringe (needle capped for protection), dollars from Theodorescu and black-market roubles from Pulj, a packet of White Sea Canal from the dead-out police-officer, as well as his card of identity (S.R. Polotski, aged 39, born Kerch, married, the dirty swine). The Tigr, safety-caught, snarled from his hip. He marched down the gangplank noisily, barking jocular Russian at the young constable at its foot ('Bit of all right here, son. Bags of wallop and some very nice-looking tarts. Any sign of any suspicious characters, eh? No, I thought not. Load of codswallop that report was. All right, carry on, carry on') and, having play-punched the bewildered youth on the chest, he marched oft towards the ramp that led up to the little terminal. It was nicely dark on the quay, only a few working-lamps staring imbecilically, but it was brighter inside the terminal, though the customs-hall was in shadow, not being in use. A girl was serving beer at a little bar, the only customers Tartar dock-labourers; there was another girl at a souvenir kiosk, doing no trade. Near the landward door were a couple of constables, smoking. They stiffened when they saw Hillier, ready to throw him a salute, but he waved at them jollily as he marched through, singing. He sang S. R. Polotski's song about the little doggies in the snow, lah-lahing where he had forgotten the words. One of the constables called to his back: 'Find anybody, comrade captain?' but he sang over his shoulder: 'Niktooooh, false alarm.' And then he clomped down steps, entering a little area of bales and packing-cases and a few parked lorries.

The night was delicious and smelt of strawberries. A light wind blew straight down from the mother land-mass, a reminder that the Kremlin was up there, despite the subtropical nonsense of warmth and oranges on that little southern uvula.

It was darker than it ought to be by the dock-gates and guardroom. If Hillier were what he pretended to be he would do something about that: not easy to check true face with passport parody in that light. A man in uniform with a rifle, shabby as a leftover from the Crimean War, came to attention for Hillier. In the guardroom two men played cards, one of them moaning about the deal. A very simple game, without guile; the comrades were hopeless at poker. A third man was, with sour face, mixing something with hot water in a jug. Hillier marched through. It struck him that there ought to be a police-car somewhere, but he inhaled and exhaled with a show of pleasure to the empty street that led out of dockland: he was walking for his health. On either side of the street were little gardens, grudgingly lighted to show cypress and bougainvillea and lots of roses. On a bench inside the right-hand garden a young couple sat, furtively embracing. That did Hillier's heart good. Deeper within the garden someone cleared his throat with vigour. A dog barked, miles away, and set other dogs barking. These, and the smell of roses touched (or did he imagine this?) with the zest of lemons, were pledges that life went on in universal patterns below the horrors of power and language. Hillier had to find the Chornoye Morye Hotel. He thanked distant Theodorescu for that bit of information about Roper's whereabouts. He was supposed, of course, to know very well where that hotel was. But even police-officers could be strangers in a town. Indeed, the stranger they were the more they were respected. He marched on.

He was aware of fertile champaigns to the north, and hills beyond those: country scents blew down, unimpeded by traffic-smells. But at the end of the street which led from the docks he saw traffic and heard trolley-hissing and clanks. Trams, of course. He had always liked trams. He saw no unpredestined traffic: this blessed country with its shortage of motor-cars, where a drunk could lie down between kerb and tramlines and not be run over. Hillier arrived at the corner and looked on a fine boulevard, very Continental. The trees were, he thought, mulberries, and their crowns susurrated in the breeze. It was not late, but there were not many people about, only a few lads and girls, dressed skimpily for summer, aimless in pairs or groups. Of course, there would be an esplanade somewhere, looking out at winking lights on the water. Perhaps a band played the state-directed circus-music of Khatchaturian from a Byzantine iron bandstand, people around listening, drinking state beer. He hesitated, wondering which way to turn.