A Shadow of Myself. Mike Phillips

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СКАЧАТЬ been required to talk in any great detail until the World Service interview. By the time he was invited to the festival in Prague, he had almost forgotten the misery and embarrassment he had felt on the afternoon of the first preview.

      Oddly enough, sitting in his hotel room in Holesovice he had been thinking about Mr Mensah. If what George said was all true, did his father’s friends know? Why had Kofi never told him?

      He leant over to pick up the telephone, but as he did so the volume of music outside increased another notch. He got up and pushed the window shut, then, glancing at the clock, realised that he had been sitting on the bed for more than half an hour. He moved quickly to the door, then slowed down, thinking about how to deal with George. He dialled London again. Still no answer. Perhaps, he thought, putting the phone down at last, the man might have got fed up waiting and left.

      As he got out of the lift he was still torn between curiosity and a kind of reluctance to encounter George again. Instinctively he looked at the armchair, but now it had been turned round to face the room, and it was occupied by a bulky old man with a bald head and a bushy beard. Joseph felt a surge of relief, then a movement caught his eye and he saw George sitting at the bar waving at him, his hand raised above his head.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Joseph said. ‘I had some things to do.’

      George shrugged.

      ‘I understand.’

      He rapped lightly on the bar.

      ‘Prosim. Slivovice.’

      ‘You’re a Czech?’ Joseph asked him.

      George frowned, his mouth twisting a little, as if it was an unpleasant notion.

      ‘Me? No.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I am German.’

      ‘I thought your mother was Russian.’

      ‘She is. But I was born in Berlin. East Berlin.’

      ‘How come?’

      The barmaid, a wispy blonde with a pale translucent skin, put two glasses in front of them, and he put a note on the counter. George slid off the stool and stood up, put some money on the counter and grunted something.

      ‘What?’

      ‘I say thank you to her. Dekuju.’

      To Joseph it sounded like dekweege, and he repeated it to himself, testing the sound. George grinned at him and picked up his glass.

      ‘Drink,’ he announced. ‘We go.’

      ‘Wait a minute,’ Joseph said. ‘Go where? What are you talking about?’

      ‘Home.’ George’s voice had lost all traces of uncertainty as if everything had been discussed and arranged. ‘My wife Radka, and my son Serge. They are in Prague. Yes. You eat with us.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Joseph told him.

      He was confused again, because, in the last few minutes George had, somehow, subtly begun to take charge, in much the way he imagined an older brother would, as if Joseph had accepted the truth of his story, and as if, all of a sudden, they had an established and long-standing relationship.

      ‘There is no problem,’ George said. ‘You come. You are my brother. My son you are his uncle. Yes? There is no problem.’

      ‘I don’t know that,’ Joseph declared firmly. ‘Even if what you say is true this is still weird. I phoned my father in London, but he wasn’t in, and until I speak with him all bets are off. So cut the brotherhood shit till I know what’s going on here.’

      George frowned, listening intently, his lips moving fractionally, as if mouthing some of the words.

      ‘I understand,’ he said slowly. ‘This is not easy for you. No one has told you. But for me, too. Because you are English you think this is some mad man from the East.’

      ‘That’s not it,’ Joseph cut in quickly. ‘That’s not how I feel. Not the way you think.’

      He was about to say that he was troubled and disturbed, that he couldn’t begin to describe how he felt, but it struck him at the same time that to do so would be to enter George’s story, to tell him that it was real. He stopped, uncertain how to proceed. George’s eyes, he noted, a tremor starting somewhere inside his guts, were the same colour as his own. A few seconds passed while they stood staring at each other.

      ‘So,’ George said slowly. ‘You come?’

       THREE

      George’s car was a shiny dark-red Jaguar. It looked brand new. The interior was lined with soft cream-coloured leather into which Joseph sank, his muscles relaxing and coming to rest by an instant reflex. Through the darkened windows a premature twilight softened the harsh geometry of the city’s suburban fringe. Suddenly Joseph felt like a part of the surroundings, gliding imperceptibly through its streets, floating on a carpet whose discreet vibrations filled him with a sense of power and command. As soon as they’d got into the car the stereo had started up, playing a Stevie Wonder album that Joseph remembered buying as a teenager. George tapped his fingers on the wheel in time to the music, looking round and smiling at Joseph, but for a couple of minutes he said nothing.

      In spite of his determination to maintain his distance, Joseph found himself studying George’s profile, searching it for signs of a resemblance to himself or his father. He was conscious of waiting for George to speak, to explain more about who he was, how he had arrived at this time and place, but in a few minutes he was also overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of the situation. He looked round the interior of the car again. There was no way, he thought, that George could be a common or garden confidence trickster. To drive a car like this he’d need to be making some serious money.

      ‘What do you do for a living?’ Joseph asked, pitching his voice above the music.

      George grinned, as if the question amused him.

      ‘Business. I’m a businessman.’

      ‘All right,’ Joseph said. ‘What kind of business?’

      ‘Business, you know. I buy. I sell. Only business.’

      There was something final about the tone in which he said this, as if he had no intention of volunteering anything further, and Joseph tried another tack.

      ‘How old are you?’

      ‘I was born in 1958. In Berlin.’

      That would make him four years older than Joseph.

      ‘Is that where you live?’

      George glanced sideways at Joseph, smiling reflectively, as if he understood the point of all these questions, and had no intention of giving too much away.

      ‘Sometimes.’

      His enigmatic manner had begun to drive Joseph to a high point of exasperation. He peered out of the window, trying СКАЧАТЬ