You Who Know, page 19
A Swiss Lady Dedlock is also querulous, for this sniffing or snorting of little lines (not very ladylike) which used to be an amusing game, grows tedious and is too much trouble; she has been told moreover that it does things to one’s nose (and hers is ladylike). Spikes are likewise a bore. One has to go picking at one’s veins, which is not recommended and altogether it’s the sort of thing slummy people do outside railway stations. Men of course always have it easy; they can smoke opium or something. Hash one has smoked, chewed, otherwise ingested; altogether much too Turkish-immigrant. She’s forever trying new sorts of pills and they all make one constipated and with that she’s quite enough trouble as it is. People get AIDS, rather working-class of them, like a sour stomach or farting. A lot of people—even those one knows—get cancer. Sex too, all those different positions, not in the least comfortable she can only think of three really that are at all tolerable and doesn’t even enjoy those much. Why are there such lots of ways of making music (assuming one knows how) and so few of living?
In the blandest and Swissest of towns one can get mugged and this, thinks Castang, is a pity, since to walk, of a summer night, is among the greatest of pleasures and used to be free. Vera has no diamond rings and even my watch is a beat-up old Longines but the urchins don’t know that and would when frustrated kick one’s teeth in, so that the price to pay now is a shadow of fear; nasty thought of hospitals and insurance companies, so that really one would prefer the plastic bomb at the moment of turning on the ignition. And there, one will have to put up with whatever’s in store. In science as in art there are no certainties. A pity, that the world is full of sad people, not right in their head, bitterly unhappy—which comes to the same thing. Young girls are at risk and so are old men, and so are all the others. They’re all carrying guns and knives in every variation, they’ve loud whistles and little bombs of tear-gas, a pile of silly junk sold to the credulous, to the cowards who are frightened of everything and the blusterers who claim to be scared of nothing. Is there anybody left at all ruled by anything beyond the fear which puts paid even to hope; let alone faith or charity? Stay at home, dear people, behind as many bolts and bars as you can muster; watch horror movies on television.
These two characters are well past their best. The woman, who hurt her spine many years ago, limps still when attempting any distance, takes the arm of a man whose elbow was shattered by a gunshot. Surgery patched them up and they learned to manage. His legs are sound and her arms. If one could put them together, discarding the damaged or unserviceable bits, one would have a talented, experienced, fairly efficient human being. And one is put together, thinks Castang happily. By love. It just looks like a passably battered middle-aged couple. And the world is full of them, which might be a hopeful thought. They may be seen in railway stations (like Frau Dedlock’s junkies) thinking of one another, helping each other. Which is why railways remain nice while autoroutes stay horrible.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked. “Isn’t it pretty, the lakefront, from here?”
“Yes, it’s far enough one can’t see any greasy food fragments. Nobody has vomited on the pavement. We remain unaware that they haven’t washed much lately. Angry? What does that word mean?”
“That I could have called down hideous retaliations.”
“Ach—I hold pretty loosely to this life of mine. One learned that in the police, because one had to. So did you. Now we’ve comforts, and they dull us. But the equation stays the same.”
“Oh that,” said Vera. “When you were nearly drowned I wasn’t frightened. Got over that, years ago. Remember when you got shot? It did worry me when the children were small. I thought of the pain to go through. It would be so harsh and bitter. The woman needing her man, the girls needing their father. And by the skin of our teeth, we come through, don’t we?”
“One had to think of the others—the enormous majority which faces and has to overcome worse.” Yes: Castang thinks of the trains, which carry away, and which leave behind.
“Not the cancer, the gunshot,” said Vera, her voice growing stronger. “Being burned alive. Starving, slowly. Torture, and knowing one couldn’t face it. But perhaps worst of all never having known love. So many people haven’t. While we have given and taken so much, and do we know, what it is and how to value it?”
“Suppose,” said Castang, “that the retaliation were against the children? Since cruelty also knows no limit?”
“Wouldn’t we have to say that they’d had happy lives? They’ve known love. And that then, like us, they need know no fear. It’s unthinkable. And so many have lived it. You have to think, I’m afraid, of the young girl in the line, in the camp. Hair cut, dirty, but beautiful, sixteen years old, a virgin. I do not want to die. No, dear, come out of there, come behind the shed, I’ll look after you. I’ve thought of that …
“I’m sorry. We’re down, pretty well.” The lit and neatened boulevards of Lugano; swept, trimmed, and dull.
“Tired?” asked Castang.
“Yes. I’d like a rest. Come to that, I didn’t eat much, and didn’t notice what I ate.”
“What a pity!” said Castang laughing.
“Would I be very silly if I said I wanted a pizza or something, somewhere cheap and vulgar? Noisy music, and a shot of Valpol?”
“Not in the least,” laughing harder. “And then we’ll phone for a taxi. It’s a long way still.” Music—hard rock and acid rock, but who needs definitions; salsa-reggae-caribbean-samba? A zither, a cymbalom, gypsy squawks and slithers? An eighteenth-century gavotte, a Chopinesque polka or the seventh-symphony’s-slow-movement…?
“A pizza,” said Castang, “would go down a treat.” The place was full of children of the same age as their own. It was stuffy, noisy, and smelly.
“Just what was wanted,” said Vera gratefully. A margarita, a half of Valpol, a disgusting ice-cream, and a racket one-can’t-hear-oneself-think.
“So do you want one of my lines of poetry? I have them for all occasions but this one’s a hotty if banal nowadays, all about how the glacier knocks in the cupboard and the desert sighs in the bed?”
“Go right ahead,” screamed Castang, with his mouth full.
“Jesus how did Auden manage to be that good?
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And Jill goes down on her back.’”
“Well perhaps that’s not altogether fair,” said Castang mildly.
“Though I like it; isn’t that the one about the crack in the teacup, and ‘time coughs when you would kiss’?”
“What?”
“I said it’s too noisy in here to talk.” Vera’s smile has an edge to it. Sarcastic, sardonic, sly? Not quite but something beginning with an s. Sinister, maybe.
Unfortunate thus to find Coralie in a corner when he asked the night porter for the key, making herself small on one of those sofas. Vera caught a corner of her lip up, on her teeth.
“We can’t discuss this in a hotel lobby. I’m very tired, and I’m going to bed. Don’t let me get to hear of her any more. I’m not Jane, you know. I won t run away, but … Make it under ten minutes.” Pushing the button for the lift. Castang stood his ground.
“Do they know where you are? … They’ll guess, though … Do you need any money?”
“I don’t want any.”
“Eamonn died. We’ll all die and so will I, but I’m not in any special hurry. You’ve plenty of living left to do.”
“Do you think he’ll come after me?”
“I doubt it. Not his style, which is that nothing is important—not even you.
“But the advice I’d give you would be to get out of here. Not the autoroute this late, that’s a needless risk. But take the first train out, in any direction. And forget him, me, Eamonn. I know that sounds easy but you’re young, you know.
“I don’t believe you’re at risk from him—but you remember the Englishman? There at Como? He might get on to you, try to use you, for purposes of his own; that might be a danger.
“I’d go home then, but I wouldn’t stay. You’ve clothes and stuff there—a car perhaps? Start a new world.
“I know; I don’t come out of this well. But remember what my wife said; that fear paralyses us, so that one has to walk up to it. One feels better then. You have to walk out of that door and keep going.”
The sapphire eyes looked at him, steadily, but there was nothing to read there. She got up. “Goodbye,” she said, picking up her bag. She had one of those pouch affairs, made of pieces of parti-coloured leather, in which girls keep all sorts of junk. She slung it over her shoulder.
“So I’ll just say thanks, shall I?”
Castang’s mind had gone back—back—to a young French boy with whom he used to share patrol duty at night, on the streets in Paris. He used to talk enthusiastically about an Italian girlfriend who caused him tribulations. Neither of them knew any Italian. The boy—what was his name?—spoke of her always as La Bella Iocchi.
He turned and went upstairs. An idea came to him in the lift.
Vera was in bed; her eyes didn’t turn.
“I’ve got a quote for you—a philosopher. If that’s what they call them at Harvard University. ‘I think for scientific or philosophic purposes the best we can do is to give up the notion of knowledge as a bad job’.”
She said nothing; didn’t move.
“I’m just going to do my teeth.”
When they took the room the reception girl had put the usual question “Twin or double?” Vera had said, “I’ll go and look”, and when she came back, “Double, it’s the better room”. Castang doesn’t comment; it’s a nice big bed. He got into it, saying mildly, “I hope you sleep. I’m a bit stirred up; I’ll have a cigarette still. Did you think of the window? Oh, good,” turning out the little light. He stretched his legs, coming to terms with fatigue. That’s a little “police” exercise, an alternate contracting and loosening of the instep muscles. The woman beside him stayed absolutely immobile. He put out the cigarette, stretched his neck muscles, breathed slowly, as near down to the bottom of his lungs as he could get.
A small, chill, uninflected voice said, “My whole body is one solid block of ice. Warm me.”
It’s a hot summer night. But women are like that. He knows very well that it does not mean “Make love to me”; simply “Show solidarity”.
LUGANO, A DOLOROUS CALL
A good conductor will tap for a stop, say—mildly—“But it isn’t just Ta-tum-ta-ta-tum, is it?” And the next time around—for the Wiener Philharmoniker has done this several hundred times too many—“Let’s leave out the nostalgia, gentlemen, please” (women hornplayers are still a comparative rarity but in Wien, even more so). “Let’s forget my imperial Hapsburg sentiments. Leave in the pain.” Because the Schöne Blaue Donau is not just Grand Valse Noble, and nor is it the inevitable encore done for the Japanese tourists at the New Year Concert, before we all have a glass of champagne and the drummer settles down to the Radetsky Marsch and hoorah, we can all clap in unison on the back-beat. It has—it used to have—its place in the best of symphonic concerts simply because it is Noble. So let’s forget the Wiener Pallawatsch of so many bad conductors, shall we? Those opening horn-calls echo Leonora’s. Dolour.
Music, damn it, is so much more economical than words. What a poor thing prose is. And what an extraordinary thing is a waltz. Look again at the finale of Casque d’Or. She has her two hands clasped lightly behind his neck. With his right hand he guides her behind her waist. His left arm hangs straight down. Since Castang’s left arm has no strength in it, this detail has always struck him.
Breakfast. This function took place in a gloomy room, facing north, illustrative of incompetence, widespread among modern architects who forget essentials and have to cram them into odd corners at the last moment, which is why you find yourself of a summer morning, in quite expensive establishments, eating by electric light in the basement.
The management will retort that you have a nice bedroom, facing south and the lake. But Vera hates breakfasting in her room; far too much mess and never enough coffee. She wishes to be showered, dressed, lipstick on and hair done, before anything as serious as breakfast; has anyhow the acutest dislike of being found in her nightie by waiters. She seems in quite a reasonable state of mind but is silent, peeling a peach, with a tendency to break off and stare at the coffee pot. Whereas Castang, quite brisk, is eating cholesterol.
“Monsieur Castang, I have a call for you. I’m sorry, I have no phone to bring to the table; will you take it over at the desk?”
“I suppose I’d better.”
“Tell them to ring again later,” said Vera, pretty crisp.
“It’ll be business … Castang here, but I’d better warn you, in the middle of a crowded room.”
The voice comes unaltered, quiet and level. “I should like to see you.”
“Sorry, I don’t propose to climb the hill.”
“And you think about leaving today, perhaps?”
“I hadn’t given it thought.”
“Buying little souvenirs? Picture-postcards?”
“Look, my coffee’s getting cold.”
“You’ll get more. I am serious. You know what I’m talking about. I incline to view it as a hostile act, which would tend to annul the agreement between us.”
“Come, that’s nonsense.”
“Not good business, Monsieur Castang.”
“I’ll choose my words carefully. I had, have, no means of persuading—the person in question—to any course of action whatever. It must have been evident to you that I had no foreknowledge. Seeing—it—took me by surprise. I had no communication between the morning and the evening. Indeed, how could I?”
“Precisely what I propose to determine.”
“Could be described as an impressionable person. Likeliest I’d say is that last night’s conversation—this is an open line, right?” A dry chuckle.
“I’m aware. My contacts with that hotel are excellent. I have no rancour towards your wife. On the contrary, I feel respect for courage and I do not make threats. I do not need to. But I am going to be sure that you have not abused, I’ll call it a latitude.”
“Then say what’s in your mind—if you’re not bothered about it being recorded.”
That dry little laugh again. “No; throughout this town I have good relations. You were noticed in company with an English busybody. I don’t lay claim to having your every movement observed and dissected. I ask myself, as is natural, whether you have shown weakness of purpose. I know these English; I don’t underestimate their talent for conspiracy.”
“Now I understand. I could give you my word, which you’d respect, but I think I can do better. These people you speak of—they’ve no opinion of my methods. They think me a fool and they wrote me off.”
“What are your methods, Castang?”
“I’m like Maigret, I haven’t any.”
The chuckle. “Come up here; we’ll talk about it.”
“No. I’ve two good reasons for refusing.”
“Don’t be afraid to speak out.” A busy moment, at breakfast. Waiters arrive, write enigmatic little chits, leave again in a hurry. The hell with being cautious.
“You might say I’m frightened of being offered a big bribe and being tempted to accept it. But my better reason is that I’ve nothing to say, beyond what my wife said already, last night.”
“Fine words. I’m a businessman; I’ll say put it to proof.”
Castang looked across the room. Vera’s eye was on him. She stood up, shrugged, picked up her bag, walked towards the door.
“Sorry, I was thinking … that’s your privilege.”
“Prettily expressed. I’ll give it a little thought. Say, I’ll devise a test. Are you courageous, Castang?”
“No more than my wife.”
This time, a genuine laugh. “Stay within reach of your telephone. For—it might be an hour. Will you do that? I hesitate to say—you’d better.”
“I’m quite used to having my arm twisted.”
The connection broke and he felt no appetite, but he ordered some fresh coffee and lit a lovely post-breakfast cigarette.
He found Vera brushing her teeth.
“I may have a bit of business, still. Over by lunchtime with any luck. Will you check on the train times? Anything at all we can bring home, for the girls? Meet you for lunch, downstairs? We might have to stay one more night—I’ll tell Monsieur Suarez the doctor had to check me over.” She spat, rinsed, spat, nodded. Business? I won’t enquire; I never do. Just don’t piss me about, okay? But the phone rang sooner than expected, and women have always little chores to occupy them.
“I’ve a meeting. So you’re on your own this morning, okay?” Chill look, and chill nod. And what can he do about that?
The message had been short, simple.
“You’ll need to be fairly quick; you haven’t much above fifteen minutes. Your wife must stay behind. You go to the landing stage, the one called Paradise. There’ll be a boat making a tour, round the lake. You buy a ticket—one. You walk to the after-deck. Open, but you wear your raincoat, you separate yourself from any tourists. There won’t be many, it’s a cloudy day. You stay there at the back and wait.
“This is your test. Disregard it and you must accept the consequences.”
She has ostentatiously not listened, not asked, doesn’t want to know: he is on his own. Her buté look of sheer obstinacy; the word means to butt one’s head against the classical brick wall.
Yes, but one must do what one has set out to do. Because one has to. I, you, he or she.
He had better not tell her, because she wouldn’t be at all long in picking up the thread. These tourist boats, tuff-tuff-tuff. On the afterdeck you’re a sitting target. Duck? Pigeon? But that is “the test”. Or the first part of it; there will be more to come.
