The Unsettled Dust (10 page)

‘At that stage it was rather understandable,’ observed Dyson.

‘At that stage perhaps it was,’ acknowledged the old man. ‘And yet no one and nothing on the island had done me any harm. I was no more than a raw lad trespassing; not perhaps in the full legal sense, but assuredly pushing in where I wasn’t wanted. Trespassing, and not equipped to understand. What right of complaint had I?’

‘What happened next?’ asked Jay.

‘I was striding along, all but forgetting the things that had upset me, and working out a lot of nonsense about putting up small, modern houses on the island and what I could hope to get out of it for myself, when I came upon a house where there was a crowd of folk at home, and, what was more, and to judge by the noise, giving some kind of a party. There were lights on inside the house, though they looked yellow and rather dim, as room lights always do when seen from the daylight outside, but I stared in, and could see a quite a mass of people bobbing about and enjoying themselves. I suppose they were twenty or thirty yards away, down the length of the garden in front of the house. The garden was completely gone to seed like all the others. The party looked pretty
peculiar
too. You know how it is when you see a lot of strangers enjoying themselves inside a room at a little distance, when they don’t know you’re looking in at them. And, of course, this lot were foreigners as well. They were wearing all kinds of gay clothes in very bright colours, and really seemed to be beating it up. They were too far away for me to hear very much, especially as all the windows were tight shut, as they usually are abroad. I rather imagine that they were double windows too; to keep out the winter snow and cold. That was quite the usual thing in Finland. One thing I wondered about was the light; whether gas or electricity could be laid on to the island. It might be useful to know. I craned about but couldn’t see. I was too far away, and the lights themselves seemed to be out of my line of vision.

‘That jolly party took a further small weight off my mind, as you may be able to imagine, but what was my surprise to find that the next house was giving a party too, and the next after that. I looked in at both of them but couldn’t see any more than in the first house, in fact rather less, because these two houses were set even further back among the trees, and further away from the path I was on. Every time there seemed to be a good-sized crowd, and of all ages, including plenty of children. It was just like Christmas, especially with all that mist, and now with dusk coming down in a big way. It occurred to me that it must really be some kind of national celebration. I wouldn’t have expected to know what.

‘The next three or four of the houses were locked up and empty, or looked like it, and I walked down to have a closer look at the jetties I’ve mentioned. It was the usual story. In the first place, they had been very heavily built of wood, like the bridge and many of the fences, but all of them seemed fallen to pieces, and really pretty dangerous anyway with children around, as there were. There was nothing to stop anyone going out on to them, and there was the swift current sweeping past to the narrows. In England, the local authority would have compelled them to be cleared away and the
waterside
fenced. And I had been right in what I thought when I looked across from the other side: there wasn’t a boat in sight, not even a sunken boat, as far as I could see. Probably the current was enough to carry away a small boat that had been neglected.

‘And then I came upon a wooden house painted in faded blue, where there was still another of those parties. I was getting used to them by now, and didn’t suppose there was much more I could learn by just staring in from a distance through the front windows. But I stopped and looked for a moment all the same.

‘I saw at once that this time there was a face looking back at me. It was a small, round, white face, which was peeking out watching the darkness fall. At the other houses everyone had been too busy with the festivities to do a thing like that. They had all been looking inwards.

‘It was a child, which had somehow detached itself from the general goings-on. And this time there were rather special goings-on. The child caught my eye and waved to me through the glass with its little white hand. It was wearing some kind of dark tunic, buttoned right up. I waved back.

‘As far as I was concerned, the things happening behind the child were very interesting. Believe it or not, in the room was another of those figures that I had seen come out of the house on the ridge above; very tall, very wide, all black, just the same; but this time I had some idea of the answer: it was an Orthodox priest, in his black robe and high black
headdress
. I had seen pictures of them, but I had never seen one in real life, and if you had asked me before that moment, I should have answered for sure that they had died out long ago. As I realised what it was, I felt better once more. The figure I had seen coming out of the house on the ridge had upset me badly.

‘This man was occupying himself in handing something out. All the people at the party seemed to be getting one of these things. The last corners were formed up in a queue. Every time the priest handed out, the recipient, whether a man or woman, gave a kind of bob and passed on. I saw it happen about three times before the child at the window waved to me again. I presumed that he had already received his object. I imagined that the children might have come first, as there seemed to be none of them in the queue. On the other hand, there were no other children near the window either. I could not be sure whether the child who waved was a boy or a girl, but I thought it waved like a boy.

‘Again I waved back, and then thought it was time to move on. I was very interested in the priest and the distribution, but it would have been rude to go on peering. When the child realised that I was going, it made the most violent gestures inviting me into the house instead. You know how vividly children can do it. In this case, it was just as well from one point of view, because we were unlikely to be able to
communicate
in any other way.

‘All the same, I shook my head. It was hopeless to think of going in and probably being unable to speak to a soul, especially as I should have had to begin by explaining what I was doing there, with that handout going on. I might have been in real trouble and taken for a thief.

‘Still I found it difficult to proceed on my way and
disappoint
the child so badly. There was a kind of urgency about the little lad which made one care. And there was the foreign factor too. I didn’t want to make some social blunder.

‘I smiled as broadly as I could manage, pointed to my watch, moved my shoulders as if I had to hurry off to an engagement, and tried to look sorry. I must have done it fairly well because the next thing that happened was that the child jumped down from whatever it was kneeling on at the window and came running out down the garden towards me. It was indeed a boy, about ten I should say, dressed not in shorts but in breeches, which little girls didn’t wear in those days. He also wore boots up to his knees. I was a trifle concerned about what was likely to happen next.

‘The boy somehow got through the gate, though it looked both heavy and collapsed, and at once proceeded to offer me something. Yes, it was the medal you’ve seen. That was what the priest had been giving out. Blessed medals: I mean medals that had been blessed. The boy grabbed at me, but of course I couldn’t understand a word. “English”, I said, rather
hopelessly
, and of course wouldn’t take his medal from him.

‘He snatched hold of my hand to prevent my getting away, and went in for more dumb show. I can’t tell you how good he was at it. He made me understand quite clearly the blessing that went with the medal, the luck if you like. He imitated all sorts of things going wrong, and how the medal would save me and make things go right again. The only thing I had to do was have the medal always with me and cross myself at the moment of need with it in my hand. He had let go of me because he saw that now I shouldn’t just walk off. He showed me again and again. And all without a single further word. He made me feel it was a matter of life or death. Which of course it was, as you have all seen for yourselves.’

‘We have that,’ said the barman reverentially.

I saw a flash of impatience pass across Rort’s face, but he did not comment.

‘Not that I believed anything of the sort at the time,’
continued
the old man. ‘Naturally. All the same, I was terribly struck by the boy’s cleverness and his sincerity. What reason had he to care about
me,
like that?

‘In the end, I took the medal, supposing that he could always get another one for himself, and did everything I could to say Thank you. He just stood there with his boots close together on the mud track and smiled at me, like the boy scout on the poster who has just done his good deed. And yet more than that: the boy had his own way of smiling. I daresay it was just that he was a foreigner.

‘I wondered if there was anything further. Apparently there wasn’t. So I then went through the same kind of pantomime to say Goodbye. I felt that just an ordinary casual goodbye would hardly do. But I didn’t have to worry. Goodbye, the actual English Goodbye, was an expression the boy knew.

‘Before walking off, I looked back at the house. The priest in his high black hat and long black robe had come out and stood all by himself under the porch, looking at us down the length of the weedy garden path. I now saw that he had masses of white beard. It covered his entire face, so that you could see only his sunken eyes. As you probably know, Orthodox priests do not disfigure the image of their Maker. The priest stood quite still, and I had no idea as to whether there was something I ought to do. But I couldn’t think what, so I smiled feebly and just shuffled off. The boy didn’t stop to watch me. Immediately I turned, I heard him dash back into the house. I did look behind me through the mist after a minute or two, but I could see nothing of the festivities, not even the lights. Owing to the house being set back among the trees. Nor were there any more houses with parties. All the rest of them that I saw were shut up like tombs.

‘Although the mist was at its thickest on the bridge, and although it was almost night anyway, I had no trouble at all in getting across. I just watched steadily on until I reached the other side and didn’t worry about the loose planks and the holes. Only when I arrived safely did it pass through my mind for a moment that I had had my medal to protect me. But the crossing was not really dangerous if you used
reasonable
care, as you will have gathered: so I gave no further thought to the notion.

‘When I got back to our hotel I realised that I was actually ahead of the time I had settled with Mr. Purvis, though so much had happened to me that this seemed incredible. When the moment came, I knocked him up (he was flat out with his boots off), and we had something to eat, despite all the eating we had done already, but I said nothing about my adventures. Mr. Purvis, fine man though he was, wouldn’t have taken much stock in things like that. I merely told him I’d been for a longish walk; which helped to explain how I had managed to get up another appetite.

‘Inevitably, Mr. Purvis asked me whether I had seen any likely houses. Young and ignorant though I was, I had by now begun to feel rather differently about the idea of Mr. Danziger buying up my island, with me getting a cut. I don’t think I could have said
why
I felt different about it, but I knew very well that I did. All the same, I told Mr. Purvis
something
of what I had found: not laying it on at all, and not making it sound extra attractive.

‘Mr. Danziger wouldn’t care for a place like that,’ said Mr. Purvis.

‘He spoke to settle the matter. I can almost hear him now. He went on to say that Mr. Danziger wasn’t looking for an investment: that when an investment was among the things he was looking for, he never failed to indicate that fact to Mr. Purvis. I felt, even then, that Mr. Danziger, if he was the successful business man everyone took him to be, would probably be glad to be put in the way of a promising
investment
at any time, even when he wasn’t expecting it. But Mr. Purvis had not brought me to Finland in order to argue with him, and, in any case, I was really relieved that the island would remain undisturbed, as far as my influence went. Nor am I saying that Mr. Purvis was necessarily mistaken in his view of Mr. Danziger. Probably he was quite right. In any case, he seemed pleased with me, because he ended our meal by buying me a Finnish liqueur called Lakka. They make these different liqueurs out of berries picked in the Arctic, and very good they are. I’ve never met with better liqueurs anywhere.’

‘Can you get them in England?’ asked Gamble.

‘No, no. Like many good things, they don’t travel,’ replied the old man.

We waited for him to resume.

‘Curiously enough, in view of how firm he had been with me the night before, it was Mr. Purvis who raised the question of my island and the houses on it, the next morning with Mr. Kirkontorni. I should not myself have mentioned the matter again, however much I thought about it.

‘Mr. Kirkontorni knew at once what Mr. Purvis was talking about, and didn’t have to ask me for details.

‘“They’re the houses of the Russians,” he said.

‘“How’s that?” asked Mr. Purvis.

‘“In the days before the war,” said Mr. Kirkontorni, “
Finland
was very popular with the Russians in summer. They used to build villas on the coast and on the lakes, and Unilinna was one of the places they liked best. The families spent the summer here, and a very gay time they made of it. I can remember them myself. Though I was only a child at the time, I’ve never seen or heard the like of their great dinners, and musical parties, and dances. Unilinna has never been quite the same place since they left; either for the money they brought or for the fun either. We had mixed thoughts about them at the time, but most of us have missed them badly since they went. All day they scattered gold and all night they sang. Not that what I’ve said is popular everywhere politically. And people are right there too: at politics the
Russians
have never been good.”