The Polyglots (48 page)
As I went up, he said, ‘There is the question of his daughter——’
‘I have two daughters,’ Captain Negodyaev was saying, ‘Màsha and Natàsha——’
‘There’s only one on the passport,’ rejoined the official.
‘Quite so,’ flustered the other. ‘Màsha does not appear on the passport because she is grown up, is married, and lives with her husband, Ippolit Sergèiech Blagovèschenski, away in South Russia. And Natàsha——’
His eyes filled. His face twitched. He gulped. ‘The gong has—hasn’t sounded yet?’ he asked nervously.
‘Not yet.’
Red-eyed, he looked at his wife. A tiny tear glittered on her lashes. ‘Our cherub,’ she lisped, ‘is gone—gone from us—to the cherubim.’
I told the passport official.
‘I see,’ said the man.
And while we stood there and waited, and while we paced on in silence I heard no stealthy steps; no cool covert hands hid my sight. There was no gurgling laughter, no shrug, no ecstatic delight. It was doleful in the gathering twilight, and the lights of England blinked at us ruefully, sadly. The gong echoed to the sound of the sea, and the gulls, the wind, and the drizzling rain.
THE END
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