‘For Georgia, USSR, read Texas, USA,’ Ian said.
The menu was written exclusively in Russian, and while the other three chose from it, I used my eyes instead on the customers. There were three men at the next table, and beyond them, sitting with their backs to the wall, two more. Very few women. The faces, I realised, were livelier, and varied. The two men over by the wall, for instance, were not Moscow types: they had sallower skins, fierce dark eyes, black curling hair. They ate with concentration, intent on their food.
The three men at the table next to ours were on the other hand intent on their drink. Not much tablecloth showed between full bottles, empty bottles, full and empty glasses. The men, one huge, one medium, one small, were diving into vast tulip-shaped glasses of champagne.
Malcolm looked up from the menu and followed my gaze. ‘Georgians,’ he said. ‘Born with hollow legs.’ I watched with fascination while the gold liquid disappeared like beer. The eyes of the smallest were faintly glazed. The huge one looked as sober as his grey flannel suit; and there were three empty vodka bottles on the table.
Ian, Malcolm and Stephen all ordered expertly, and I told Stephen just to double his for me. The food when it came was strange and spicy, and light years away from the grey chunks down the road. The huge man at the next table roared at the waiter, who hurried to bring a second bottle of champagne.
‘Well, how’s it going, sport?’ Malcolm said, forking some chicken in bean sauce into his mouth.
‘The smallest one’s legs are full,’ I said.
‘What?’ He looked round at the three men. ‘No, I meant the Sherlock Holmes bit. What’ve you come up with so far?’
‘The German who died at Burghley called on Alyosha with his dying breath,’ I said. ‘And that’s about all.’
‘And anyway, you knew that,’ said Stephen.
I kicked him under the table. He gave me a sharp enquiring look and then realised that except for Misha we wouldn’t have been aware that they knew. Neither Malcolm nor Ian commented, however. The four of us ate thoughtfully.
‘Not much in that, is there, sport?’ Malcolm said.
‘Alyosha must exist,’ I said. ‘Alyosha. Moscow.’ I sighed. ‘I’ll have to go on looking.’
‘What’ll you do next?’ Ian said.
I took off my glasses, and squinted at them, and polished some non-existent smears with my handkerchief.
‘Er,’ I said.
‘How bad are your eyes, sport?’ Malcolm said, interrupting. ‘Let’s look through your windows.’
Short of breaking the frames, I couldn’t have prevented him. He took the glasses firmly out of my hand and placed them on his own nose.
To me, his face, and all the others in the place, looked a distorted blur. Colours told me roughly where hair, eyes and clothes were, but outlines had vanished.
‘Christ,’ Malcolm said. ‘You must have corkscrew vision.’
‘Astigmatism,’ I said.
‘And some.’
They all had a go at looking at the world through my eyes, and then handed them back. Everything became nicely sharp again.
‘In both eyes?’ Ian said.
I nodded. ‘And both different. Frightfully handy.’
The small man at the next table was propping his head up with his champagne glass and seemed to be going to sleep. The friends kept up a steady intake and ignored him. The huge one roared at the waiter again and held up three fingers, and with my mouth open I watched three more bottles of vodka arrive at the table.
Coffee was brought for us, but I was glued to the scene in front. The small man’s head, still balanced on the glass of champagne, sank lower and lower. The glass came to rest on the table, and the hand holding it dropped away, and the little man sat there with his head on the glass, fast asleep.
‘Georgians,’ said Malcolm, glancing at them, as if that explained everything.
The huge man paid the bill and stood up, rising to a good seven feet tall. He tucked the three full bottles of vodka under one arm and the sleeping friend under the other, and made the stateliest of exits.
‘Bloody marvellous,’ I said.
The waiter who had served them came and spoke to us, watching the departure with respect.
Malcolm said, ‘The waiter says they started with a whole bottle of vodka each. Then they had two more bottles of vodka between them. Five in all. Then the two bottles of champagne. No one but Georgians could do that.’
I said mildly, ‘I thought you didn’t speak Russian.’
He gave me a startled glance and a short burst of the flat hard stare of the first evening.
‘Yeah, sport. I remember. I told you I don’t speak Russian... Well, I don’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t know it. It means I don’t let the Russkies in general cotton on. Right, sport?’
‘Right,’ I agreed.
‘It’s not in your file,’ Ian said, conversationally.
‘Dead right. The Russkies have my file too, don’t forget. I learned the lingo in private from twelve long-playing records and some text books, and you just forget that piece of information pronto.’
‘Never misses a trick,’ Stephen said.
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Our friend Randall.’
Ian regarded me with slightly narrowed eyes, and Malcolm called for the bill.
The two sallow men from over by the wall had gone in the wake of the Georgians, and the place was emptying fast. We collected our coats and hats and shuddered out into the saturated air. It seemed colder to me than ever. The other three made off for the metro, and I risked a fine by crossing Gorky Street above ground instead of tunnelling under. After eleven at night there were even fewer cars than usual to mow one down, and not another pedestrian in sight, let alone a policeman.
The Intourist Hotel lay in the distance, down the slight hill, with its large canopy stretching out over the pavement. I turned up my coat collar, wondering, for about the tenth time, why most of the centre of the canopy was an intentional rectangular hole, like a skylight without glass, open to every drop of rain or snow which care to fall. As a shelter for people arriving and departing the canopy was a non-starter. Of as much practical use as a bath with no plug.
A mind floating along in neutral is in rotten shape for battle. A black car rolled quietly down the road beside me and came to a halt ten paces ahead. The driver got out of the car, and the front passenger door opened. The front passenger stood up on to the pavement, and as I approached, he sprang at me.
The surprise was absolute. His hand snaked out towards my spectacles, and I hit it violently aside as one would a wasp. When it came to saving my sight, my reflexes were always instantaneous: but for the rest, I was unbalanced.
He crowded after me across the pavement to pin me against the unyielding stone of the flanking building. His friend hustled to help. There was a fierce brutal strength in their manner, and there was also no doubt that, whatever they intended next, their first target was still my eyes.
One wouldn’t actually choose to fight while wearing a thick overcoat and a fur hat, even if the opposition were similarly handicapped. To fight, however, seemed imperative.
I kicked the storming passenger very viciously on the knee, and when his head came forward I grabbed hold of the woolly balaclava he wore under his hat and swung him round so that his head hit the wall.
The driver arrived like a whirlwind and grabbed my arm, his other hand again aiming at my glasses. I ducked. His fingers sank only into fur. My hat, dislodged, fell off. I let go with a kick at him which connected but not very effectively, and I also opened my mouth and started shouting.
I shouted ‘Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya’ at the top of my voice, roaring into the empty street, which had no traffic noise to drown the decibels.