The Punctual Rape, page 5
Berg paused to see how the widow was taking it. Cracking her fingers, and staring into space, she gave the impression that she was not altogether listening. He had been prepared for some sort of outraged reaction, because he knew what her temperament was like. But she sat in silence and said nothing. Monika, on the other hand, was staring at him intently, but whether she was interested in his speech he couldn’t tell.
He continued. ‘I’m within my rights to speak in this direct way. After all, the money I pay for my lodgings is money I have to earn. And why should I squander hard-earned money on the garbage I’ve been served tonight? When I say garbage I mean it. If there isn’t an improvement, and if I don’t get value for money, then I’ll just have to look for other accommodation. I’m not a difficult person, but I like fresh food freshly cooked. That’s all I ask for.’
He sat down and waited for the widow to say something. From the corner of his eye he noticed that Monika was laughing into her hand. Suddenly, in the silence, he felt a rush of blood to his head: why didn’t the widow speak? Why was Monika sniggering? Had they both misunderstood his speech?
Mrs Jacobitz rose after a moment and began to gather the dirty dishes.
‘In the old days, you know, we used to say grace before and after meals. But these are godless times. Totally godless.’ She took the heap of dishes to the kitchen, leaving Berg and Monika alone.
‘Why didn’t she say something?’ Berg asked at once. ‘Why?’
‘I’m sorry I laughed at you,’ Monika said. ‘You looked so absurd giving your little speech that I couldn’t help it——’
She raised her hand to her mouth and laughed again—and Berg, who felt that his direct question demanded a direct answer, was irritated.
‘I feel sick,’ he said. ‘Sick.’
He went out of the room and climbed the stairs. He was positive that the widow had heard him and had understood—unless she was totally insane, in which case she had no right to manage a lodging house. But if she had understood, why had she just ignored it? Had she made up her mind to ignore things she just didn’t want to hear? And why had Monika robbed his speech of any dignity, by sniggering so childishly into her hand?
In his own room he felt a recurrence of the nausea and although he wrapped his head in a wet towel and stuck a finger down his throat, he brought nothing up. He lay down: beyond his closed eyes, the room was spinning. Behind his eyes he experienced continual images of the cold stew—black lumps, thick and dreadful, congealed in their own grease.
Eleven
Vaguely Lazlow gestured towards a chair and Berg sat down. Lazlow stood at the window for a time, looking out. A lorry went past with several sleeping soldiers huddled together in the back, and then a horse and cart driven by a farmer whose face was muffled in a black scarf.
‘I don’t enjoy keeping you in a state of ignorance,’ Lazlow said.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Berg answered.
‘I’m talking about the Site and the fact that you haven’t been told what goes on there.’
Berg waited in silence: was this the moment? Every nerve in his body had become suddenly tense; he felt like a man about to be initiated into some divine and secret rite.
‘You’re not a fool, Berg. You must have wondered about the Site. No doubt you’ve come to the conclusion that what goes on there is a matter of some security. No doubt, too, you’ve felt it to be an oversight on my part that I haven’t informed you.’
Berg said, ‘I didn’t like to mention the subject.’
Lazlow sat down. The lenses of his spectacles were clouded by a reflection of light, making it difficult for Berg to observe his eyes.
‘I’d like very much to tell you the truth. To put you in the picture completely. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.’ Lazlow laid his hands on the desk. Even the customary cigarette—the temptation—was missing. ‘This morning I received a directive from above. Directives, as you know, are crosses we have to bear. The one that reached me this morning instructs me to tell you that on no account are you to learn of the business at the Site.’
Disappointed, Berg sighed: he felt suddenly weak as the sense of anticipation evaporated. ‘I don’t understand. Why can’t I be told?’
‘I’m not sure. There may be many reasons. My directive didn’t say. But one possibility is that your background is being scrutinised. Such things take time, as you know. Another may be that they’ve discovered something in your past—some trifle—that makes them hesitate in letting you know too much. Naturally, they have to be extremely careful in a matter as delicate as this one.’
‘But don’t you think I have a right to know?’
Lazlow looked grim. ‘Let’s not start talking about rights. There’s no telling where that sort of talk can lead. No, I’ve been given an instruction but I haven’t been given any reasons.’
Berg looked at his hands. A film of sweat had formed between the fingers. His heart was pounding against his ribs in a way that must have been audible to Lazlow in the silent room.
‘You know that I travelled a long way to take up this post,’ he said. ‘I want to make my career here. But how can I expect to advance if I’m kept in the dark?’
‘Believe me, Berg, I sympathise. But instructions are instructions. If they’re not ready to tell you, then that’s that. When they are ready, whenever that might be, then you’ll learn all you want to know.’
‘But that might take weeks, months,’ Berg said.
Lazlow shrugged and looked impatient. ‘We’re dealing with bureaucracy. How can I tell how long it will take? It might be months. Even years. Who knows?’
Berg gazed at the floor. Already he had spent five days, five dreary days, shut in his office with nothing but Miss Selz, a cabinet of files, and a silent telephone, and the one thing that had sustained him was the prospect of learning what was happening at the Site. Five dead days, a strange mixture of boredom and anticipation—and now this.
‘It’s absurd,’ he said. ‘It’s outrageous.’
Lazlow got up. ‘Let me remind you that your post here is a junior one. Your career has hardly begun. Yet you talk as though you had some rights. Let me give you some advice. So long as one learns not to speak out of turn, it is possible to travel far in one’s career.’
Berg wondered if he had gone too far. Had he overstepped the mark? Had he offended Lazlow? If he had it could put his whole position in jeopardy—and then what? Jobs weren’t easy to find, unless you worked in the fields or in a factory.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I spoke out of turn.’
‘Remember in future,’ Lazlow said. ‘And be patient.’
Berg stood up to leave. When he got to the door, Lazlow said, ‘There is, however, one thing that you might like to do. If you feel that you have a real grievance, and only if you feel that you have, you can make an official complaint. You will have to state your case in a hundred words. You will have to demonstrate as succinctly as possible why you feel that the information being withheld from you is essential to your work. If you like, I’ll let you have the official form.’
Berg stopped in the doorway. ‘What happens then?’
‘After you’ve completed the form it goes through the usual channels and eventually it is dealt with. Again, this takes time. By the time your complaint is actually dealt with you may already have been given the information you want.’
Lazlow opened his desk and took out a sheet of paper which he handed to Berg.
‘Is this the official complaints form?’ Berg asked.
Lazlow nodded. ‘Before you decide to take this step, I think I should point out that it’s possible, just possible, your complaint might upset someone in the hierarchy. They can be very, touchy, you know. Put yourself in their position. A junior clerk, someone who has only just joined the organisation, has the sheer gall to put in an official complaint. Now, they might not like that. On the other hand, I might be over-pessimistic. Your case could be dealt with in a perfectly straightforward way, without any of them getting upset. But it’s my duty to point out what might happen.’
Berg looked at the form. Apart from a code number printed along the top, there was no other writing on the paper. It angered him to think that he was being denied access to the truth, that they had directed Lazlow not to tell him because of—because of what? Some minor technicality, no doubt: perhaps his great-grandfather had been a foreigner. Gazing at the complaints form, he resolved to complete it even at the risk of upsetting someone, some faceless creature, high in the hierarchy.
‘Think carefully, Berg,’ Lazlow said.
‘I will,’ Berg answered.
When he returned to his own office he filled his pen and immediately began to write. At the end of the first sentence, he paused. He listened to Miss Selz typing and then said, ‘Have you ever filled in a complaints form?’
Miss Selz stopped typing. ‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘I’m perfectly within my rights.’
Miss Selz laughed. ‘Oh? You think you have rights?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I have rights.’
The typist swung round in her chair, giving Berg a momentary glimpse of the shadow between her knees that rose, darker and darker, to her thighs. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone filling in such a form. You’ll only get yourself into hot water, if you ask me. And anyway, how do you know that Lazlow will pass the form on to the appropriate authority? He might decide not to, without telling you. You can’t be sure.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ Berg said. ‘It was his idea.’
‘Oh, he’s full of good ideas,’ the typist said. ‘Suppose he does pass it on? How do you know that it won’t get him into trouble as well as you?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Suppose they say that you’re a troublemaker, they’re bound to ask themselves why Lazlow employed you in the first place and why he doesn’t seem able to control you. Don’t you see? You might land him in it, without meaning to.’
Silently Berg continued to write. When he had written about fifty words he stopped and put his pen down. The whole business seemed suddenly futile. If there was a chance that Lazlow might be reprimanded himself—and what the typist had said seemed plausible—then why should he even bother to pass the complaint on to the appropriate authority? It was obvious that rather than run the risk of a reprimand, he would simply destroy the complaint without telling Berg. On the other hand, even if he did put the complaint through the correct channels there was no guarantee that it would ever be dealt with: it might lie for years amongst a million other complaints, totally unattended.
He picked up the paper, read what he had written and then, sighing, screwed the paper into a ball and threw it into the wastepaper basket.
Miss Selz said, ‘That’s the proper place for it. It’s best not to do anything foolish.’
‘Pointless, you mean. Not foolish.’
‘Call it what you like. But I think you’ve done the right thing by throwing it away.’
Berg got up from his desk. He felt intensely depressed. He looked through the window and up at the unyielding patch of grey sky. What was the point of complaining anyway? People didn’t listen. He had complained to Monika about the way she entered his room whenever she felt like it, and it hadn’t made a scrap of difference. She still sat on the bed as if it were her own. He had complained to Mrs Jacobitz about the food and nothing had happened. It was as inedible as ever, pigs’ swill. And these were only simple complaints, not nearly as complex as an official complaint that had to be fed into an enormous and anonymous machine, where it was sifted, digested, passed from hand to hand, ignored, perhaps even lost.
He turned to look at Miss Selz.
‘I’ve been here for five days,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t done a thing. When do I start work proper?’
‘What do you mean?’ Miss Selz continued to type.
‘I mean that I don’t seem to be doing anything. Or should I say that there doesn’t seem very much to do? Whatever way you look at it, this job could hardly be called exacting.’
‘I told you you’d get bored to the teeth, didn’t I?’
He sat down. ‘I’m not bored. I’m just as prepared as I was to work hard. If only there was some work to be done.’
‘Why don’t you read the files again? You never know. Your telephone might ring.’
Berg sighed, removed a batch of files from the cabinet, and started to read them. He was already as familiar with them as he was ever likely to be, but to pass time he did complex arithmetical sums. He divided the total tonnage of metal pipes delivered in the last eighteen months by the number of steel brackets used to hold the pipes in place. He multiplied the number of bricks delivered in the past year by the average size of electric cable. None of it made any sense: the parts of the sums were as meaningless as the answers he obtained. But it killed a little time, it removed sizeable fragments from the blank hours of the day.
Later, when it was time to leave, he put on his coat and went along the corridor to tell Lazlow that he had decided not to submit the formal complaint after all. He paused outside Lazlow’s door and as he was on the point of knocking, he heard voices from within the room. One was Lazlow’s, the other was Miss Selz’s. He was about to turn round and leave when he heard Miss Selz gasp—a long sound that seemed to be part sob, part sigh. At first it occurred to him that the girl was upset about something and that Lazlow, who seemed to be making low noises from the base of his throat, was attempting to console her.
He bent and put his eye to the keyhole impulsively. Through the tiny aperture, he saw that Miss Selz was lying on top of Lazlow’s desk. Her skirt had been pulled up to her waist and her knickers were at her ankles. The tops of her stockings had been rolled down to just above her knees and the knees themselves were raised in the air. She was simply lying there, limp, as if devoid of life. And then Lazlow came between the keyhole and the desk, obscuring Berg’s view.
Astonished, Berg stood up. He walked out of the building and into the street. He was trembling and his heart was racing. What astounded him was not the realisation that Lazlow and Miss Selz were lovers but that he had actually seen—through the keyhole—the girl spread across the desk, almost naked, lying there as if something had only recently descended upon her and had drained her of her life. She had been almost naked and if the keyhole had been any wider he would have been able to see as far up as her breasts. For a second he was tempted to return and look once again, to be absolutely certain that he had not been deluded.
Miss Selz naked. He had never seen a naked woman before. Only once in his mother’s bedroom had he seen, by accident, the nipple on one of her breasts as she had leaned over to pick up a glass of water. It had looked to him like a small piece of brown rubber tubing, nothing more, nothing to get excited about.
On the corner he stopped, catching his breath. Miss Selz and Lazlow: Lazlow and Miss Selz. Her fingers on the keyboard. Her smooth white fingers in the folds and secret places of Lazlow’s skin. The picture of her was burned into his head. He caught his breath, leaning against the wall and panting as if he had been running.
And then, looking round, he saw a man on the other side of the street reading a newspaper. The paper moved a fraction and for a moment the man’s eyes met Berg’s; but only a moment before the face disappeared again behind the paper.
Berg turned and walked quickly away.
Twelve
He found it difficult that night to sleep. When he did his dreams were filled with birds that rose feverishly into the sky, the sounds of their cries drowned by the mounting crescendo of their wings. When he forced himself awake he saw continual images of Miss Selz’s body, each image so different from the previous one that he could no longer recall exactly what he had seen through the keyhole. Sometimes he saw her breasts, small and tight and sharp, liquid glistening on the pale skin. At other times he saw her feet, trapped in the undergarment, and Lazlow’s body descending like a shadow across her.
He wondered how long they had been lovers and why they risked making love in his office. On the hard surface of that desk, too, where Berg had seen Lazlow clasp his hands or carve a cigarette open with a paper-knife. Was there some significance in the way he folded his hands? Did the destruction of the cigarette have a special meaning? Did Lazlow clean the desk after Miss Selz had lain there? Or did he not? Did he perhaps enjoy the lingering smells of her body on the grain of wood?
Berg turned on his side. Images and half-formed thoughts flashed in and out of his head and he ached, positively ached, to look at Miss Selz again.
It was clear now that Lazlow didn’t employ her just because she was the fastest typist in the district, but that he had other reasons for tolerating her continual lateness. It was all very clear. Since they were lovers, what did they talk about? Berg imagined that he was one topic of their conversation and that whatever he said to Miss Selz was duly reported back to Lazlow. In future he would have to be careful.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep. Some hours later he was awakened by a dull and repetitive noise that seemed to come from the street outside. He tried to ignore it but when it persisted he rose sleepily from the bed and went to the window. Apart from a single yellow lamp that burned about a hundred yards away, throwing a feeble circle of pale light, he could see nothing. There was no one in the street. He turned from the window and realised, suddenly, that the noise originated from somewhere within the house; that in fact it seemed to come from Monika’s room—as if she were striking the wall with the palm of her hand. He went out to the landing. Under her door was a strip of light. He went towards it slowly: he was still half-asleep and he didn’t want to make any noise. Outside her door he stopped. The sound was quite clear now. She was knocking against the wall that adjoined the two rooms: a continuous and rhythmic knocking. But why? If she went on doing it he would never get any sleep and would almost certainly miss hearing the alarm in the morning.
