The Squire Quartet. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ are splendid,’ Squire murmured, vaguely. The two men walked apart again, Rugorsky to resume his staring at the stones above his head. Squire went and sat in a chair, slowing his breathing, experiencing the extent of the cathedral.

      ‘Shall we go?’ he asked, when Rugorsky eased his bulk into the next chair.

      ‘No. Wait, you see. Waiting is important. Keep the minute while you can, in order to remember. It’s a long bus ride. Just be still. That’s important.’

      They sat where they were, both men immobile.

      Finally, Rugorsky stood up. ‘Now we can leave. Perhaps something has sunk in.’ He tapped his head. ‘You do not have religious feeling?’

      ‘No, not really. Frankly, I was glad when I got rid of God.’

      ‘I see. I have not outgrown a religious impulse, despite all examples I see of godlessness all round. I mean, at home. Without God, I can see no meaning in anything.’

      ‘The meaning lies within us.’

      Once they moved outside the cathedral, Rugorsky appeared nervous again. He used the sticky brown handkerchief to mop his brow, and looked pale.

      ‘Are you feeling well, Vasili? You surely won’t be in trouble just because you took a morning away from the conference? A lot of the other delegates have been taking, or plan to take, days off. Herman told me he was going down to a beach for a swim.’

      He stood gazing back at the stonework rising above them. ‘It’s Friday, yes. I forget which day it is. In just three days, you see, I must return to Russia. To be frank, I don’t much relish the prospect. Tomorrow night, the conference is finished.’ He shot Squire one of his telling glances as they strolled across the square, from shadow into sunlight. ‘Do you ever experience the feeling that you have come to a dead halt in your life? Do you understand what I mean?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Rugorsky ran a hand through his white hair. He stood still, gazing about him as he spoke.

      ‘Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. You see, I am a man with a weight upon his mind. It would be impossible for me to explain everything, and without explaining everything, then I can’t explain anything.’ He was silent. He clutched his shirt sleeves, looking up at the cathedral for a while.

      He laughed shortly. ‘You see, I tell you nothing what I mean. Even so, I tell to you more than I tell to anyone I know in Russia. It must be the mark of a generous man, don’t you think? I don’t know what to do.’

      Squire said, ‘That feeling of a dead end. Perhaps it’s characteristic of the age of fifty. One does run into difficulties then.’

      ‘Of course. Circumstances accumulate at the age of fifty; possibilities are fewer than they once were … It’s really a beautiful cathedral, mainly because it can still be used for the purposes for which it was designed many centuries ago, in confidence. There would be worse fates for a man than to have one room to live in across the square there – and watch the cathedral and see the people – wicked people no doubt, be sure of that – going in and out all the time.’

      He regarded with longing the crumbling buildings across the square, where children played in doorways, and a woman languorously arranged a garment on a balcony railing. At that moment, another grey bus lumbered up from the plain in a cloud of exhaust fumes, and expired with a sigh under the central palm trees.

      ‘Are you having trouble with Kchevov?’

      ‘It’s a mistake to throw out God.’ He patted his white forelock into place, turning as he did so to scrutinize Squire. ‘I speak as a member of a country or nation, so to say, which has experience in that area. It’s a mistake to throw out God.’

      ‘Difficult, painful – not necessarily mistaken. Maybe the evolution of the human race demands it … Although God is in many ways the greatest human idea so far.’

      Perhaps Rugorsky did not care for the remark. Turning to walk on, he said, flatly, ‘Georgi Kchevov can make trouble for me. I don’t wish him to know more than he must do. Did you destroy the note I put under your door last night?’

      Squire patted a pocket of the jacket he was carrying over his arm. ‘I must admit I didn’t. I’ve got it here with me.’

      Another heavy silence. Then Rugorsky said, ‘Now we must look at the Castle.’

      They walked past the tourist stalls. Out of habit, Squire stopped and bought some postcards. He would send a card to Teresa, damn her, and to Deirdre, and possibly one to Willie and Madge in their new home. Rugorsky stood solidly by his shoulder, breathing hard, bored by the transaction. Squire also bought some little toy Sicilian carts for souvenirs, and tucked them in his jacket pocket.

      Surrounding the cathedral was a maze of mean streets, through which Rugorsky led confidently. The alleyways were full of people, some selling vegetables, sentimental religious baubles, or toys. Sunshine blazed through an archway; they went towards it, emerging in a small square behind the cathedral. Ahead was the Castle of Nontreale.

      The great stone walls of the Castle, tufted with fern here and there, were fringed by white Fiats, nestling together round the ramparts like fleas round a cat’s ear. The Castle had withstood many attacks throughout the ages, before eventually succumbing to the internal combustion engine. Although it lay more or less in ruins, and the lizards flickering over its hot stonework were its chief occupants, its two great towers remained intact, looking towards the distant sea.

      The towers faced northwards, the direction from which all invaders had come. Nontreale was poised on the brink of a great basalt core of rock which loomed above the plain as it had done ever since prehistoric times. Its Castle stood on the very edge of the precipice, with the road far below, then – below the labouring road – plain, studded with vines and villas, across which the shadow of the eminence was flung.

      A narrow and crumbling path, fringed with wild flowers at which butterflies sipped before fluttering away into the abyss, led round the base of the northern wall and the two towers. ‘Let’s go that way,’ Rugorsky said, pointing.

      ‘It’s only a goat track,’ Squire said.

      ‘We get a good view. Come on.’ He gripped Squire’s arm and led him forward.

      It seemed to Squire that they would have enjoyed a better view from the top of one of the towers, but he followed the Russian. It felt cold as they entered the shadow of the fortress.

      The chill entered Squire. As they moved forward with their right hands steadying themselves against the rough wall, he found himself dwelling uneasily on Howard Parker-Smith’s early morning call. Parker-Smith had more information concerning Vasili Rugorsky. Rugorsky was in trouble back in Leningrad.

      ‘He’s been embezzling public funds,’ Parker-Smith said. ‘All these Russians involve themselves in graft as they rise in the hierarchy – it’s a disease. The authorities probably allowed him a visa to Sicily so that they could turn everything over while he’s away. I guess there’s not a shred of paper left in his office by now. They’ll bag him when he gets home again.’

      ‘How do you know this?’

      ‘Same way Rugorsky now knows it,’ Parker-Smith said. ‘A friendly colleague of his at Leningrad University СКАЧАТЬ