EPILOGUE
THE CELLAR OF B STAIRCASE
"Excuse me, Mr Kuryakin? His Lordship has
instructed me to say that he would be most obliged if you would consent to my
taking your portrait; he likes to keep a record of the cases he has worked on.
That's most kind of you. Would you be so good as to step this way, sir? The
Bursar has very considerately placed a cellar room at my disposal, but do watch
the steps as you go down, the third from the bottom is a little uneven..."
The speaker was Wimsey's – um, Wimsey's what? "Servant" was the correct word,
Illya supposed, though it went against the grain to think of a living breathing
human being in those terms. "Assistant" didn't quite catch the obsequious
attitude the man assumed, and "friend" conspired in disguising the stark
economic reality of their relationship. At any rate, he was Wimsey's man, and
Illya suspected he would be putting him in a difficult situation if he refused,
much as he disliked having his photograph taken.
The cellar at the bottom of B Staircase turned out to be a dingy little room
with whitewashed brick walls, one end of which was set up as a miniature studio,
with a large white screen and several impressive lamps, the other end containing
a bench with the equipment needed for developing film. Evidently wealth and
influence could penetrate even below the ground of this venerable institution,
for space was at a premium in the little College, and the Bursar would certainly
have had to move something out of there to make way for Wimsey's toys.
"If you would take a seat, sir? It will take me a few minutes to adjust the
lighting. It's all a matter of light and shade, you see. The art of the portrait
photograph lies not in directing light on what anyone can see, but in bringing
hidden truths into plain view. I deduce from your discomfort that this is the
first time you've had your portrait taken, sir?"
"Please don't call me 'sir'," Illya said.
For an almost imperceptible moment, the servant hesitated, then his brows drew
together in a sort of twitch, over as soon as it had begun. "Certainly," he said
coldly. "How would you prefer to be addressed, Comrade Kuryakin?"
"Mr Kuryakin will do, Mr Bunter."
"As you wish, Mr Kuryakin."
The man managed to make it sound as if he were accepting an order, an order
which, moreover, he found personally distasteful, and thereby to place Illya in
the ranks of the oppressors. It irritated Illya, and, as always when he felt
wrong-footed, he became ungracious.
"How long have you been Wimsey's servant?" he asked, the question coming
out a touch more aggressively than he had intended.
"I have been in his Lordship's personal employ since 1919," said Bunter,
carefully setting the camera on a tripod and then lowering it. "Before that I
was his batman during the Great War."
"Batman?" said Illya.
"A form of military manservant, who performs duties akin to those of a bedder,"
said Bunter, switching off all the lights but one, and turning that one on Illya,
as if this was an interrogation. "I presume you are familiar with those, Mr
Kuryakin? Or have your political principles rendered yours unemployed?" The
question was phrased in the politest terms, but even a foreigner could not miss
the underlying sarcasm.
"I make my own bed," said Illya stiffly.
"Very admirable, I'm sure," said Bunter. "As I mentioned, I was his lordship's
batman and his regimental sergeant. I dug him out when a trench collapsed on
him, which I can assure you was a far more difficult service than making his
bed. Might I ask you to stand and turn a few inches to the left?"
Illya groped for the meaning behind Bunter's words. He was certain the man was
trying to wrong-foot him again, but he was missing a link somewhere. Was Bunter
suggesting that, as a Soviet, he, Illya, thought he should not have saved his
commanding officer from the agony of suffocating in mud? Anger flared in him and
he said "I know all about trenches, if that's what you're getting at. I spent
three months digging them during the Battle of Moscow."
Again a minimal alteration in Bunter's features suggested an emotional response,
but once again it was gone before Illya could read it properly. Bunter's
expression was one of impeccable politeness as he said "Not that I am in any
sense doubting your word, Mr Kuryakin, but surely you were rather young for such
arduous labour?"
Illya glared. He generally avoided thinking of the war, because there was
nothing about it that was pleasant to remember and a great deal that he should
much prefer to forget, but this mocking doubt, from a lackey of the aristocracy,
touched a vein of Russian pride in him; his country's honour was at stake. "I
was nine," he said, lowering his eyes slightly to meet Bunter's probing gaze
head on. The camera clicked, and he started, having completely forgotten that
this was the object of their meeting.
"I'm sorry," said Bunter gently. "It was not my intent to malign the courage or
suffering of the Soviet people. If I am honest with you, Mr Kuryakin, as you
deserve, my intention was to provoke you, in the interests of obtaining a
truthful portrait. Since I now have that, I suggest that we discontinue this
conversation. I do not believe I will have to take another shot."
The light snapped off, and total darkness filled the cellar. For a moment Illya
remained standing by his chair, furious at Bunter's confession. Once again he
had been wrong-footed – how could he have fallen for such a cheap confidence
trick? - but he had no intention of being beaten so easily. As the red light
began to glow over the developing bench, he fired a return salvo.
"Since we are being honest with each, Mr Bunter," he said, "Can you tell me what
brings a man to dedicate his whole life to the welfare of another person? Don't
you have any pride?"
To his astonishment, Bunter positively smirked; it could not have been more
unexpected if the man had winked at him. "I assume from this question," he said,
"that you have as yet no experience of Love, Mr Kuryakin?"
Illya was completely taken aback. He knew what love was, of course – the catch
in the throat, the flutter in the gut – but this was something quite different.
Was it possible to love someone so much that you would give up everything to
devote yourself to their service? A scandalous suspicion presented itself for
his attention - he had heard, of course, of the love that dare not speak its
name, that supposedly could exist between two men... But Wimsey was married and
had children, had, indeed, a veritable superfluity of heirs, and Bunter had been
the Terror of Piccadilly. Bunter must be speaking of platonic affection, which
was admirable, and perhaps not dissimilar to the devotion he himself was
required to bring to the Soviet state. Still, it was capitalist decadence to
suggest that a single individual could be worthy of that kind of selfless love,
although Bunter, as an oppressed member of the proletariat, could hardly be
blamed for falling for this ideological trick.
The oppressed member of the proletariat was at that moment waving him over to
the bench, apparently in order to demonstrate the process of photographic
development. Feeling somewhat discomfited, Illya nevertheless joined him at the
water tray. His unease gave way to scientific interest as he watched Bunter's
capable fingers rock the blank sheet of paper gently back and forth, back and
forth; and then the miracle happened.
Beneath the ripples in the water, dark shadows began to blossom against the
white paper, like bruises forming under skin. There seemed to be no principle
determining where the shadows would gather, for the paper darkened irregularly,
the patches spreading out and joining up until it seemed as if the whole
photograph would be nothing but blackness. Soon only two blotches of white
remained, one near the centre and one down in the corner. Their purity sullied
into pale grey and black spots began to fester within the pallor, but then the
process halted, and as the shadows around them continued to deepen, the blotches
seemed to grow paler in contrast. Illya watched, fascinated, as the boundaries
between light and dark sharpened and acquired definition until suddenly, like a
kaleidoscope, the pieces fell into place and he realised he was looking at the
image of a face. His face, apparently, although it didn't look anything like
him. Or at least it looked like him, but how he would look if he were someone
else. His hair, which he had expected to be pale on the photograph, was one of
the blackest parts of the picture, an extension of the darkness that surrounded
him; and the darkness had entered his eyes, too, giving them inky depths in
which secrets swam as numerous as fish. The patch of white at the bottom was his
hand, raised as if to ward off an approach - whether in the form of a blow, or
of unwanted intimacy, it was impossible to tell. It cast a shadow over what
little was visible of his face, and indeed perhaps it was the light itself he
was seeking to ward off, the light that had plucked him, a man of shadows, from
the obscurity of the shadows, and exposed him to the gaze he was holding, half
defiant, half provocative.
"I don't look like that," he said wonderingly.
For the first and only time since he had met him, Bunter smiled. "I assure you,
you do, Mr Kuryakin," he said.
"I look like a spy," said Illya. "But I'm not a spy! I'm a scientist."
"If I might venture an observation," said Bunter, turning the lights back on, "I
have been a gentleman's gentleman for over thirty years and in that time I have
learned that, of all things, it is labels - and titles - that tell us least
about a man. One would not think, would one, that an English aristocrat and a
Russian Communist could have much in common? But I can assure you that I have
never met a man who reminds me more of his Lordship in his younger days. If you
will forgive the impertinence, Mr Kuryakin, the British class system is hardly
an opponent worthy of your talents, but I am certain that one day you will find
one that is. And now if you will excuse me, sir, I must tidy up here. Please
take care on your way out, the third step from the bottom is a little uneven..."
As Illya disappeared around the bend in the staircase, he thought he heard
Bunter murmuring to himself while he cleared away the chemicals. "A tough nut
indeed... Where did I put the fixer?... Couldn't be more like Peter if they were
two peas in a pod... Never want to let you see beneath the mask... Tsk, this
bulb will need replacing... Dear me, who'd have thought that that was what the
Bolsheviks were breeding?"
END
For the curious, Bunter's portrait of Illya can be found here.
