Perfect Freedom, page 51
“Because I told him to,” Robbie said. He felt embarrassed and guilty, but not for his father’s sake. His father was a cipher. One had only to look at him to see that he was half gone on drink. He was bloated and unwieldy. His fumbling attempts at fair-mindedness would prevent him from taking a strong stand. He was spent and ineffectual. “I knew I could trust you when you told me this was home. This is just the sort of place Carl needs as a base. I told him you’d make no objection if I wanted him to use it.”
“In brief, if I understand you correctly, you’re working for the enemy.” Stuart folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling.
“What do you mean?” Robbie protested defensively. “Whose enemy? The Germans have won the war. They’re perfectly willing for the French to run their own country so long as they cooperate.”
“I see. Well, how long is our friend to honor us with his presence?”
“Three or four days this time. We have to be back in Paris within a week.”
“And your mother?”
“I tell you, she has a house outside Toulon.” Robbie’s voice began to break. “She’s aged. She needs rest and special care. I’ll be coming down again from time to time.”
“Splendid. Now let’s see.” Stuart withdrew his eyes from the ceiling and looked at Robbie vacantly. “Where’ll we put you? I’m afraid the house isn’t running quite as you remember it.”
“I thought we’d take my house,” Robbie said.
“It’s all under wraps. Almost everything’s been put away.” Stuart looked at him thoughtfully and Robbie pushed at his hair. “Your hair looks better that way,” Stuart said, nodding at him. Robbie smiled in acknowledgment. “Yes, your house,” Stuart agreed. “That’s the best idea. You can camp out somehow.”
“What about meals? Shall we have lunch here?”
“I think not. You can get whatever you want from the kitchen and take it over there. You haven’t forgotten how to cook?”
“No, indeed,” Robbie said with another smile. He wondered if his father had already had a lot to drink this morning. There was something definitely odd about his eyes. Robbie stood up. “Well, I’ll go along and help Carl with the things. Will you be around?”
“I’ll be around. Come for a drink before dinner if you like. But not Carl, if you don’t mind. And don’t feel you have to.”
“I’ll see. It’s wonderful to be here again.” He hurried out, eager to escape the accusation he felt in his father’s manner. It was only a pale reflection of what he knew Maurice would make him feel.
Carl had burst into his life once more when he was alone and frightened by the cataclysm that had been taking place around him. Raoul had been ordered to follow the government in its flight from Paris. He didn’t know where Maurice was. As far as he could learn, he had crossed over to England with remnants of the French army after Dunkerque. Carl offered familiar protection in his hour of need. Maurice would have understood that. Maurice knew all about Carl. Fidelity ranked high on Maurice’s scale of values but he had made it clear before he went away that he didn’t expect his young mate to live a monkish life. Dignity and self-control were his watchwords. So long as Robbie didn’t debase himself, he would be forgiven. He wasn’t sure whether consorting with the enemy, as Maurice too would consider Carl, counted as debasing himself. Carl had made him feel safe again in the ominously moribund occupied city. He seemed to know everybody of importance who was left and all the important new arrivals.
Maurice would be glad to know that somebody was looking after him but Robbie knew there was more to it than that. In Carl’s company, he underwent a personality change that would have shocked Maurice; he became a stereotype homosexual because that was what Carl thought he had become. Carl didn’t understand him any better than his father. He felt as trapped in falsity by one as by the other. Only Maurice could restore him to himself. He assumed that Carl’s duties would take him away quickly, as happened with everybody, and was startled by his suggestion that they take a trip into Unoccupied France together. He wanted to refuse but something from the past made it impossible. He prayed that Maurice would never find out about it. If everything went smoothly there was no reason why he should.
Stuart sat for what seemed like a long time after Robbie had left, presumably thinking, but when he came to with a start from some sort of reverie, he found that his mind was blank. He knew that he had to turn Carl over to the military authorities but that wasn’t thought. It was a simple duty. Why? Had he always done his duty as the world saw it? That was something to think about but he wondered if it mattered. Nothing he did to Carl would restore Helene or Robbie to him. There was a war on. He knew which side he was on. Carl was the enemy. Thought wasn’t required. It was an automatic reflex: Destroy the enemy.
He wasn’t sure that Robbie was the enemy—yet. Could he report Carl without implicating Robbie? He could turn friendly, try to lure the German into town alone for a drink and set a trap for him. How deeply was Robbie involved in their mission? Was the nature of their work such that it would be known immediately that Carl had an accomplice? He could of course kill the man with his bare hands if there were no other way.
He found himself pacing the big room and stopped in front of the glass doors that were open to the warm September morning. He looked out. These stones, these trees, this glimpse of sea and sky were all that was left that he could call his. That and whatever beliefs remained within him that made him a man. What do I believe? he wondered. I believe, he said to himself and stopped. It was as complete an answer as most men could give to the question but he wasn’t satisfied. He wished he had been born with blind instincts so that when he was wronged he could strike back. He wished he had an instinct to kill.
What would it be like? He tried to imagine it. Did you steal up on your victim while he slept and stick a knife into him? The moment between selecting the vital point and performing the act would be one he would find impossible to bridge. If you had a gun—he had a gun, he remembered, and it was a reproach to him. Damn Boldoni for insisting he take the thing. Well, could you take a gun and walk up to a man and pull the trigger?
He heard voices calling down the glade and he retreated into the room, his mind at last operating as he tried to settle on the best method of dealing with Carl. The authorities were undependable these days. Robbie might be involved. He hadn’t much choice.…
Robbie and Carl threw open windows and pulled covers off furniture. A look at the bedroom revealed that the mattress had been removed so that the sofa in the living room offered the only sleeping accommodations.
“You think he doesn’t mind too much my being here?” Carl asked as Robbie started to unpack his bag.
“Oh, he minds, but he’ll work it all out in his head. He always does. It probably has something to do with the wrong he’s done me.” Robbie spoke flippantly and ended with a caricature of outraged innocence. Carl laughed and approached him.
“Wicked boy,” he said, patting Robbie’s cheek. “You deserve a reward, eh?” He dropped his hand to the boy’s buttocks and gave them a squeeze.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Robbie said, and laughed, too. “What do you want for lunch? I’m allowed to take anything I can find in the kitchen.” Carl smiled into his eyes as the boy leaned against him with his hand on his shoulder.
“You’re beginning to like Paris again, now that my countrymen have taken over, eh? I hope it won’t go to your head.”
“To my head, indeed.” Robbie despised the person he turned into with Carl. They both roared with laughter.…
Stuart spent a strange afternoon during which time seemed to slow to an eternity and an invisible curtain seemed to have dropped between him and the world around him. When he handled objects he couldn’t feel them. He noticed it when he went to get the gun. It seemed without substance as he checked its mechanism to make sure it was ready for use. He hid it behind some books on his night table and then went out to his car and drove into town and drew out a large sum of money from the bank, all the while feeling that the car, the bank, the bundle of bills that were delivered to him were not there.
Something else wasn’t there. His freedom was gone. He felt as if he had been delivered of a great burden. He doubted if he would ever be free again. Whatever happened, whether real bars closed around him or he was confined by the figurative bars of the mind, he would be a prisoner of his act.
When he returned to the house, the little black car was gone and he made a slow tour of the whole place, aware that it was a tour of farewell but feeling nothing. He made careful note of all the things there were to do, figs to be picked, zinnias cleared out, orange trees pruned. He returned to the house and wrote letters. He wrote to his business manager in New York explaining that he was going to try to get to England to offer his services and that until further notice all income was to be paid to Helene. He left a blank for her address and made a mental note to get it from Robbie. He wrote a similar letter to Paris. He wrote a note to Agnes telling her that he was leaving, instructing her to arrange for the disposal of the pigeons and outlining a general program for the maintenance of the house.
Then he just sat, staring at his desk top. As the afternoon wore away, he was suddenly seized by an attack of nerves and he sprang into activity to quiet himself. He packed a bag, he went out to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich, he took a shower, perhaps his last for some time. Nothing helped. He remained taut with apprehension. Would he be able to manage it? Would his nerve fail him at the last moment? Would Robbie give him trouble?
He returned to the living room and made himself a stiff drink. And then, because he knew that alcohol couldn’t alter his resolve, he had another and another until he was slightly drunk. He became sleepy and went unsteadily to the bed-room and got the gun and carried it back and stuck it under the pillows on the sofa. Then he stretched out with his head over it and went to sleep.
Robbie came in not long afterward and saw the bottle beside his father’s sleeping form. He shrugged his shoulders and went on to his house to report to Carl that Stuart had passed out.
Stuart awoke slowly in the dark. Before he was half awake the consciousness of what he had to do was upon him. His head ached and his stomach felt hollow. He groped for the bottle and took a drink out of it and then he pulled the gun out from under the pillows and rose fumblingly and started toward the door. He stumbled against some furniture and steadied himself and completed the perilous journey across the marble-paved floor.
At the door, he steadied himself once more and looked out at the terrace and the moonlight and the cypresses. The fountain tinkled silver in the pool. At the head of the steps, as if returning from a midnight plunge, the white limbs of Apollo glowed. He was indifferent to the spell of the moonlight and the night’s fragrance and the murmur of the sea. Beyond the olive trees he had seen a light shining from Robbie’s house.
He moved in a company of ghosts, ghosts of things, ghosts of people. There was an act to be accomplished. Would it give meaning to everything, or would there never be a meaning, never an end in sight? He carried the gun at his side as he moved heavily toward the house beyond the olive trees.
He stopped once and stood still in an attitude of intent listening. Somewhere in his mind he heard the ghostly tinkling of the mechanical piano and he lifted his head defiantly. You stars, you worlds, whirling through eons of time into dark infinity, what is the significance of a man? What secrets do you withhold out there in your immensity? Where does the pattern begin and end?
He lowered his head slowly and looked around him. His mind played with memory, retreating back across time, back to the beginning when he had stood here with Helene and said, “And you see, we’ll put the house here,” drawing lines in the dust with a stick. He lifted the automatic and looked at it disinterestedly. It glinted sharply in the moonlight. He let his hand drop to his side and looked up at the light. He felt that he was on the verge of a discovery that had been withheld from him all his life, the basis of a greater faith than any he had known. He would know in a moment. He must first commit his act of war.
He started again toward the light. The uncertainty had gone out of his body. His sandals slapped against the steps as he mounted them and he made no effort to silence them. He was prepared for them to come out and greet him. It would be easier if they did. He heard voices and a burst of laughter and he edged his hand back against his leg so that they wouldn’t see what he was carrying. He reached the open door and they were before him. Robbie was standing naked in the door of the kitchenette, laughing. Carl was sitting on the edge of the sofa with his trousers unbuttoned as if he were about to take them off. He turned, a smile on his lips, as Stuart appeared in the door.
Looking into his eyes, Stuart calmly lifted the gun and pulled the trigger three times. Carl rose slowly from the sofa but his face was gone and he crashed forward onto the floor, his trousers tangled around his knees. Stuart had the impression that it had all taken place in utter silence. He turned to Robbie. The boy’s eyes, wide and staring, were on Carl. He turned and began to vomit onto the floor of the kitchenette. Stuart put the gun into his pocket and leaned against the door, looking into the night.
He had done it. He felt nothing at all, neither remorse, nor the satisfaction of revenge, nor horror. His mind was clear. His head no longer ached. He felt as if he had acquired an extra lucidity. His thoughts turned to his next moves. He intended to spend the night with Boldoni. He would get off first thing in the morning and drive to the Spanish border. Once across it, he would be safe, but whether he should cross it openly or by the underground system he had heard of depended on whether or not his crime would be detected. He had to hide the body. That was going to be unpleasant. Would Robbie report him? Robbie was the unknown element in the situation.
As he thought of the immediate future he realized that for the first time since his legacy had permitted him to give up his job, he was acting under the stress of necessity. The choice was no longer his. At least, not if he wanted to save his own skin. He had recognized that this would be so this afternoon but he hadn’t known what it would feel like. It felt fine. He sensed a whole world of comradeship waiting to receive him. He had joined the ranks. He had killed the enemy and earned a place in the mainstream of the common struggle.
Man’s desires were too untrustworthy to be dignified by perfect freedom. Individual right? Individual freedom? The emphasis was all wrong. Common rights. Common freedom. Love was the beginning, not the end. Only through order could the true freedom of the spirit be achieved.
He had rejected his uniqueness and gained proportion. He knew now that what mattered was not just himself but himself as part of a human community, and he saw too that it mattered most of all how that community was constituted. The romantic cries, “Love,” and means, “I am all.” True wisdom replies, “I am all and you are all; this is the basic contradiction that must be resolved.”
He was aware of silence. The sound of Robbie’s retching had stopped. It was followed presently by another sound, a high, monotonous whimpering. He tore his mind away from his thoughts and he turned. Robbie was still standing in the door of the kitchenette. One hand supported him against its frame. The other was rubbing his head in a circular movement. Around and around it went through his hair. His face was contorted and from his throat emerged the insistent lament. He looked as if he had lost his mind.
Stuart went to a chair and snatched up a pair of trousers. Without allowing himself to look full at the form on the floor, he reached across it and pulled a blanket down over it. Then he took the trousers to Robbie.
“Here, put these on,” he said roughly. He shook the boy by the arm. Robbie recoiled from him but Stuart kept his grip on his arm and half-led, half-dragged him across the room to the door. Around and around Robbie’s hand went through his hair and his whimpering rose in intensity.
“For God’s sake, pull yourself together,” Stuart ordered him. “And put your pants on.” His words had no effect and he shook the boy more forcefully. “I don’t want to hurt you but, by God, I’ll give you a beating if you don’t stop this.”
“Why don’t you shoot me, too?” Robbie screamed.
Stuart released Robbie’s arm and lifted his hand to strike the boy, but Robbie flung himself against him and clung to him. He lifted a tear-streaked face. He smelled of vomit. “Why can’t you love me?” he pleaded. “I wanted it so much. You never have.”
Stuart fought back the revulsion he felt at the sick smell of him. “You can’t imagine how sad it makes me for you to say that. Until two years ago, you were one of the lights of my life. I was so proud of you. I’m still very proud of your work. I hear of you quite often. Robi—isn’t that the way you sign yourself—like Toni?—Robi is getting to be quite well known. I’ll soon be referred to as Robi’s father.” He watched Robbie’s face dissolve with grief and a sob broke from him. He buried his face against Stuart’s neck and kissed it.
“I wanted so much for you to love me when I needed you,” he cried through his sobs.
Stuart again fought back revulsion, now mingled with disbelief, as he felt Robbie’s erection lifting against him. He remembered the time he had seen him playing with himself, thinking that he was going to be quite a man. “For God’s sake,” he said in a voice that had become hoarse with distaste. He held the naked boy and soothed him and felt his erection subsiding. He waited until the sobs had become shuddering sighs and then disengaged himself gently from his embrace.
“Put your pants on,” he said. “I want to talk to you.” Robbie did as he was told. Stuart took his arm and supported him out to the path that led down through the terraces. He sat the boy on the retaining wall and seated himself beside him. “I don’t know whether we can talk to each other but there are things I have to know,” he said. “Are you going to report me to the police? I can’t stop you, of course, but you won’t be able to do it until after I’m gone.”
