Читать книгу The German Numbers Woman - Alan Sillitoe - Страница 14

Sunspots had given so much trouble that Howard hadn’t heard Moscow for a week, no sound of Vanya on his usual qui vive. A wobbly-wobbly note, like the noise of a bathtub eternally filling, might turn into his reappearance, but the sound died, though he listened assiduously and long for anything intelligible. Ionised gases and the sun’s ultraviolet rays in the upper atmosphere, bending the radio beams back to earth, were troublesome at dawn and dusk, and solar flares played havoc for days.

The magician’s cabin was full of complications, a test bed of patience needed even from the most devoted. He became angry when things weren’t perfect, always hoping for something, maybe a signal from God’s miracle department saying that the application in triplicate to get his sight back had been approved. Neither the in-tray nor the out-tray held any such plan. The condition had been so long with him that he was beyond that kind of hope, more an animal longing he ought not to need anymore, but necessary for him to go on living.

You could always hope, because sunspots altered by the hour. A special radio station devoted to news of them morsed out periodical bulletins from a place called Boulder:

‘FORECAST SUN ACT LOW TO MODERATE. MAG FIELD ACTIVE TO WEAK STORM. HF CONDITIONS NORMAL TO MODERATE,’ followed by a long dash from the beacon.

Atmospheric conditions varied with the equinox, yet he doubted this was the reason for Moscow’s demise, because certain random whistles and occasional taps at the key were beginning to come back, or the tuning-up of transmitters (that fizzled to nothing) or muffled voices too far out to identify.

Either there was no work for Vanya, or no planes were flying because of bad weather, or everyone was on holiday, or the system had been discontinued for lack of use, or the frequency had been changed for security reasons, or the transmitter had broken down and Vanya had gone back to his village till a telegram arrived by landline saying the equipment had been mended.

Whatever the reason, Moscow came back, and Vanya was his unmistakable, competent, idiosyncratic self. Howard’s typed log soon filled with latitudes and longitudes, and the serial numbers of Russian aircraft grew into a column on his typewriter. He recalled kids on street corners before the war writing on penny jotters the number of each car that passed, a futile pastime he’d laughed at, but which he now seemed to be following with his collection of Russian plane numbers.

Last year at the end of the tourist season Laura had taken him to Paris, and he resisted the temptation at both airports of asking her to note the numbers of any Aeroflot planes she might see on the tarmac. At London Heathrow, going through the security screen, the man took the morse key and oscillator from Howard’s bag and asked what it was for.

‘Looks like one of them little tap-tap things,’ the girl assistant said.

Howard explained that indeed it was, and gave a demonstration to prove it was no part of a secret terrorist weapon.

‘I’ve always admired blokes who can use one of them,’ the man said. ‘It must be wonderful to send messages like that.’

Howard was gratified at being wished a good journey.

‘He’s blind, as well,’ he heard the girl say. ‘Did you notice?’ as Laura led him away for coffee.

At evening in the hotel he took out his key to send an item or two to himself. Rich days of different air and unusual food, and going around galleries with a hired commentary plugged into his ear – perfect for a blind man – demanded some therapy before going to bed, a few paragraphs of impressions:

‘Light comes out of darkness as I see the paintings, according to colours conjured up by myself. The shapes, too, face and bodies, seascapes, buildings and sunsets and harvest fields. I smelled petrol but we leaned over the bridge and caught an odour of water. I touched the stones of Notre Dame, their surface like the sides of a well-used matchbox. Inside, the world of peace expanded in all directions.’

Sitting in a tearoom on the rue de Rivoli, after a couple of exhausting hours in the Jeu de Paume, he heard the German Numbers Woman counting in her precise and authoritarian voice. He flushed red and felt a thudding beat of the heart. How could she be in Paris? Her employers were so happy with her year-in and year-out duty at the microphone that she had been awarded a special excursion to France. They even paid a woman to look after the children while she was away.

Laura was frightened when he half stood for no reason, clattering his cup, a spoon falling. ‘Oh, it’s her!’ he cried, then sat, because the recitation of numbers had stopped, the bell of the till rang her off. ‘Does she have children?’

She couldn’t think what he meant. ‘Who?’

‘The woman going out.’

‘She’s only a German tourist.’

‘What was she like? Tell me.’

‘There was a man with her. They were deciding what tip to leave. I hardly saw her. Tall and blonde, I think.’

His hands shook. Something had upset him, the heart pounding through his shirt. Her happiness was in knowing he couldn’t see her tears, surreptitiously dabbed with the napkin. ‘What was she wearing?’

‘I’m not sure. I only saw her in the mirror. A red see-through mac.’

‘Did she have a hat on?’

Such holidays were difficult, but she wouldn’t give them up. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Weren’t you sure?’ He turned his head in the direction of the door, hard to stop himself blundering out to follow her. Perhaps she was in Paris with the American boyfriend he had given her, and someone in her small German town was taking care of the children as a favour, without payment. From then on he imagined her a few paces behind, or one room in front of them in a museum. Where had she gone? Useless and hopeless. He would never catch her in the crowds. The darkness grew more sombre than it had for weeks.

Laura noted that for the rest of the holiday he was edgy, moody, and apologetic about his behaviour, which upset her even more. Back home he couldn’t find the German Numbers Woman on the airwaves for a week, proof if he needed any that she was still in Paris.

Hearing Vanya again was like resuming touch with an old friend. Maybe he hadn’t been off the air at all, simply that his services were so infrequently needed that Howard hadn’t tuned in at the right time. As simple as that. He often lost patience while waiting for transmissions, moving from atmospheric emptiness to a search for equally interesting items, of which there were still many. But here was Vanya, bouncing out his wares with the usual alacrity.

Astute due to his aircrew training, Howard made guesses as to where planes were going to and coming from. If a plane received two positions within a certain time he could, with Laura’s help (though he called for it as little as possible) calculate the airspeed and work out the plane’s direction, and speculate on what was being carried if it was not travelling on a usual airline route. One vector suggested a flight to Tripoli in Libya, taking God knew what, then Vienna, to bring back vintage bottles of the Blue Danube maybe, another to China for chopsticks and tinned dog, one over the Himalayas to India for tea, and one to a place in Afghanistan, no doubt a bit of private enterprise for drugs.

He plotted one to Archangel, and one to Spitzbergen, while still another was on its way to Yakutsk for a cargo of smoked reindeer meat. The speed of one plane was calculated as so fast, at 1175 miles per hour, that it must have been the Konkordski, going from Rostov to Samarkand. Another plane trundled along so slowly it could only be piston engined – or the wind was so strong it almost stood still. Or was it going in circles? Or it had landed somewhere and taken off again between the two calls. Or Vanya’s mechanism had got the second position wrong, which sometimes happened.

He went into the wireless room instead of waiting for Laura to read him the newspaper he had just brought back, and picked up stations so far west they were still belting out good mornings. With others it was good afternoon, so by knowing the time zone of their messages he could guess the longitude. The radio officer of a ship coming up Channel fixed his oscillators to tinkle out the first bars of ‘My Darling Clementine’, a ruse to wake the coast stations. Another ship’s operator was sending ‘Three Blind Mice’ to get himself into a social mood. Howard decided to concentrate on the eight-megacycle band. Let the spectrum live for me. I don’t care when I die. Short wave will go on pulsating after I’m dead, and even then my soul will find a home between the earth and the heaviside layer.

At tea Laura told him that the man who had changed her wheel in the rain had phoned to say he would call after supper tomorrow night. ‘I’m glad he kept his promise, aren’t you?’

In one way yes, in another no. ‘Of course. There’s a lot to thank you for.’

A stranger in the house on such a pretext would highlight his disability, bring it to mind in relation to the non blind outside his wireless room. ‘It’ll be nice to have a chat.’ Laura helped him to be king of himself, but he was a Lord of the Universe when concealed within his earphones. He felt no excitement at meeting someone with the same radio aptitudes as himself but who had his sight as well. ‘It’s marvellous you’ve fixed it up.’

He listened until ten o’clock to chatter among the stream of cargo planes coming over the Atlantic, then turned the wheel slowly through the static till alighting on a recognisable voice. Lighting a cigarette to take his ease, he heard a woman calling someone who couldn’t hear her. She was on a boat by the name of Daedalus, and her friend was on the Pontifex. Hearing both, he willed them to come together. Loud and clear, they called through space. The woman with the gruff voice and heavy foreign accent suggested they change to another channel, but as the English and younger woman, who sounded as if she came from somewhere north of London, couldn’t hear there was no complying, but she persisted in calling: ‘Pontifex, Pontifex, can you hear me? Over.’

Their powerful transmitters, especially the Englishwoman’s, brought them together. ‘Where have you been, Carla? What were you doing with your radio? I could hear you all the time.’

He didn’t get the answer, because Carla was talking on one frequency and the Englishwoman on another – working duplex it was called. When they occasionally changed to get better reception Howard decided to stay with the Englishwoman. ‘I miss you a lot. The others on board joke about when I was with you. I’m happy when I’m with you. When I got back on board everybody said how happy I was, but I was ready to cry when I said goodbye to you. They were watching me saying goodbye so I said goodbye quickly because I didn’t want them to see me cry.’

He wouldn’t make a typescript in case of missing something, and cursed the static that threatened to diminish her voice.

‘Carla, I want to stay with you forever. I want to do everything with you. Whenever I go on shore alone I imagine you’re with me.’

‘I love you too, Judy,’ Carla said, now using the same channel, ‘but I must go on the bridge.’

‘I could talk to you forever. I’d love to be able to talk your language. We’ve known each other for over a year and haven’t been together more than one month. I can’t tell you over the radio how much I want you.’

Howard couldn’t wheel off it, though knew he should. Eavesdropping on a private conversation was different to recording impersonal morse. It wasn’t a ship-to-shore telephone line either, only a boat-to-boat chat, which didn’t diminish the sensation of excitement and theft. Maybe Judy did most of the talking because it saved her friend the effort of trying to be fluent in a foreign language. ‘I phoned you at home, but your husband answered.’

‘He not my husband. Boyfriend.’

Judy laughed. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘I no tell.’

Dynamite if whoever it was had a communications receiver and knew how to tune in. The airwaves were public property, after all. Maybe he knew already, or at least suspected. Could even be he didn’t mind, different if it was another man.

‘I’m hungry,’ Judy said, ‘so I’ll take some bread to my cabin, with sausage and an orange. I can’t talk tomorrow evening because we don’t sail till one o’clock. We’ll talk on Wednesday, though, the day after tomorrow. Don’t forget. I know it’s difficult, but we’ll try at eleven, though wait till twelve because other crew sometimes come in the cabin where the radio is and I don’t want to talk with anyone listening.’

‘What about skipper?’

‘Oh, he’s in bed, and the others have gone to a disco. They heard me last night and said why do you want to talk to a Spanish woman? She doesn’t understand you. And I said: “She’s a very nice person.” But they only laughed. They tease me, but I don’t care. I love you very much. My hand is painful when I have to press the button to you. When I have a chance I’ll bring my camera to the radio corner and take a picture so you’ll know where I am. The men on board say: “Why have you got a woman lover?” And I say: “Haven’t you heard how nice Spanish women are? She’s fantastic. I see her every two months, and I’m more happy than if I see an English person every day.” I tell them you’re married, and we’re just friends. Oh, my finger’s gone to sleep. Can you hear me now? Say again? It was good to see you in Valencia. I was happy.’

‘We meet again soon, then?’

‘It’s very difficult, and a long way to come. Maybe we’ll meet next in Barcelona.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why not? When you’re with your boyfriend you forget me, I know. I’m going to my cabin now to eat French honey. Then I’ll have a drink, and one cigarette. I’ll be on my own. When it’s dark the reception’s better on the radio, isn’t it? The frequency’s clear.’

‘I want to go to sleep.’

‘Typical! I could talk all night, even though I have to get their breakfasts at six in the morning. I don’t like to get out of bed either. After lunch I have to be on again at four.’

‘Must go now,’ Carla said. Howard thought she sounded weary.

‘OK, speak to you on Wednesday. Love you, Carla. Goodnight.’

He heard the sound of kisses.

The voice of Judy enchanted, went deeply in, he couldn’t say why. The tone spoke to him, more he hoped than to her lover. Though they had signed off he waited for more, a forlorn hope that she would come back. Laura came in to tell him it was time for his drinks before going to bed, so he plugged in the tape recorder in case there was more talk on the wavelength, not wanting to miss a word of their conversation.