Tom wandered out, crossed the Staatsbrücke again, and went up the Linzergasse, the main street that led from it. It was now after 9 p.m. Bernard, if he were here, would be at a medium-priced hotel, Tom thought, and as likely this side of the Salzach as the other. And he would have been here two or three days. Who knew? Tom stared into windows that displayed hunting knives, garlic presses, electric razors, and windows full of Tyrolean clothes—white blouses with ruffles, dirndl skirts. All the shops were closed. Tom tried the back streets. Some were not streets, but unlighted narrow alleys with closed doorways on either side. Toward ten, Tom was hungry, and went into a restaurant up and to the right of the Linzergasse. Afterward, he walked back by a different route to the Café Tomaselli, where he intended to spend an hour. In the street of his hotel, the Getreidegasse, was also the house where Mozart had been born. Perhaps Bernard, if he was lingering in Salzburg, frequented this area. Give the search twenty-four hours, Tom told himself.
No luck at Tomaselli’s. The clientele now seemed to be the regulars, the Salzburgers, families enjoying huge pieces of cake with espressos-with-cream, or glasses of pink Himbeersaft. Tom was impatient, bored by the newspapers, frustrated because he did not see Bernard, angry—because he was tired. He went back to his hotel.
Tom was out on the streets again by 9:30 a.m., and on the “right bank” of Salzburg, the newer half, he rambled in a zigzag, watching out for Bernard, pausing sometimes to look into shop windows. Tom started back toward the river, with the idea of visiting the Mozart Museum in the street of his hotel. Tom walked through the Dreifaltigkeitsgasse into Linzergasse, and as he approached the Staatsbrücke, Tom saw Bernard stepping off the bridge on the other side of street.
Bernard’s head was down, and he was almost hit by a car. Tom, who wanted to follow him, was held up by a long traffic light, but that didn’t matter, because Bernard was in plain view. Bernard’s raincoat was dirtier, and its belt hung out of one strap nearly to the ground. He looked almost like a tramp. Tom crossed the street and kept some thirty feet behind, ready to dash forward if Bernard turned a corner, because he did not want Bernard to vanish into a small hotel in a little street where there were perhaps a couple of hotels.
“Are you busy this morning?” asked a female voice in English.
Startled, Tom glanced into the face of a blonde floozy who was standing in a doorway. Tom walked on quickly. My God, did he look that desperate, or that kooky in his green raincoat? At ten in the morning!
Bernard kept walking up the Linzergasse. Then Bernard crossed the street and half a block farther went into a doorway over which there was a sign: ZIMMER UND PENSION. A drab doorway. Tom paused on the opposite pavement. Der Blaue something, the place was called. The sign was worn off. At least Tom knew where Bernard was staying. And he’d been right! Bernard was in Salzburg! Tom congratulated himself on his intuition. Or was Bernard only now engaging a room?
No, evidently he was staying at the Blaue something, because he did not appear in the next minutes, and he had not been carrying his duffelbag. Tom waited it out, and a dreary wait it was, because there was no café nearby from which he might watch the doorway. And at the same time, Tom had to keep himself hidden, in case Bernard might look out a front window of the establishment and see him. But somehow people who looked like Bernard never got a room with a view. Still, Tom hid himself, and he had to wait until nearly eleven.
Then out came Bernard, shaven now, and Bernard turned right as if he had a destination.
Tom followed discreetly, and lit a Gauloise. Over the main bridge again. Through the street Tom had taken last evening, and then Bernard turned right in the Getreidegasse. Tom had a glimpse of his sharp, rather handsome profile, his firm mouth—and of a hollow that made a shadow in his olive cheek. His desert boots had collapsed. Bernard was going into the Mozart Museum. Admission twelve schillings. Tom pulled his raincoat collar up and went in.
One paid admission in a room at the top of the first flight of steps. Here were glass cases full of manuscripts and opera programs. Tom looked into the main front room for Bernard, and not seeing him, assumed he had gone up to the next floor, which as Tom recalled had been the living quarters of the Mozart family. Tom climbed the second flight.
Bernard was leaning over the keyboard of Mozart’s clavichord, a keyboard protected by a panel of glass from anyone who might wish to press a key. How many times had Bernard looked at it, Tom wondered?
There were only five or six people drifting about in the museum, or at least on this floor, so Tom had to be careful. In fact, at one point he stepped back behind a doorjamb, so Bernard would not see him if he looked his way. Actually, Tom realized, he wanted to watch Bernard to try to see what state of mind he was in. Or—Tom tried to be honest with himself—was he merely curious and amused, because for a short time he could observe someone whom he knew slightly, someone in a crisis, who was not aware of him? Bernard drifted into a front room on the same floor.
Eventually, Tom followed Bernard up the next and last stairs. More glass cases. (In the clavichord room had been the spot, a labeled corner, where Mozart’s cradle had rested, but no cradle. A pity they hadn’t put at least a replica there.) The stairs had slender iron banisters. Windows were set at angles in some corners, and Tom, awed as always by Mozart, wondered on what view the Mozart family had looked out. Surely not the cornice of another building just four feet away. The miniature stage models—Idomeneo ad infinitum, Cosi fan tutte—were dull and rather clumsily done, but Bernard drifted through them, staring.
Bernard turned his head unexpectedly toward Tom—and Tom stood still in a doorway. They stared at each other. Then Tom fell back a step and moved to the right, which put him behind a doorway and in another room, a front room. Tom began to breathe again. It had been a funny instant because Bernard’s face—
Tom did not dare pause to think anymore, and made for the stairway down at once. He was not comfortable, and even then not much, until he was in the busy Getreidegasse, in the open air. Tom took the little short street toward the river. Was Bernard going to try to follow him? Tom ducked his head and walked faster.
Bernard’s expression had been one of disbelief, and after a split-second fear, as if Bernard had seen a ghost.
Tom realized that that was exactly what Bernard had thought he had seen: a ghost. A ghost of Tom Ripley, the man he had killed.
Tom turned suddenly and started back toward the Mozarthaus, because it had occurred to him that Bernard might want to leave the town, and Tom did not want this to happen without his knowing where Bernard was going. Should he hail Bernard now, if he saw him on a pavement? Tom waited a few minutes across the street from the Mozart Museum, and when Bernard did not appear, Tom started walking toward Bernard’s pension. Tom did not see Bernard along the way, and then as Tom drew nearer the pension, he saw Bernard walking rather quickly on the other side, the pension side, of the Linzergasse. Bernard went into his hotel-pension. For nearly half an hour, Tom waited, then decided Bernard was not going out for a time. Or perhaps Tom was willing to risk Bernard’s leaving; Tom himself didn’t know. He much wanted a coffee. He went into a hotel which had a coffee bar. He also made a decision, and when he left the bar, he went straight back to Bernard’s pension with an idea of asking the desk to tell Herr Tufts that Tom Ripley was downstairs and would like to speak with him.
But Tom could not get past the modest, drab entrance. He had one foot on the doorstep, then he drifted back onto the pavement, feeling for an instant dizzy. It’s indecision, he told himself. Nothing else. But Tom went back to his hotel on the other side of the river. He walked into the comfortable lobby of the Goldener Hirsch, where the gray-and-green uniformed porter at once handed him his key. Tom took the self-operating lift to the third floor and entered his room. He removed the awful raincoat and emptied its pockets—cigarettes, matches, Austrian coins mingled with French. He separated the coins, and tossed the French into a top pocket of his suitcase. Then he took off his clothes and fe
ll into bed. He had not realized how tired he was.
When he awakened, it was after 2 p.m. and the sun was shining brightly. Tom went for a walk. He did not look for Bernard, but rambled around the town like any tourist, or rather not like a tourist, because he had no objective. What was Bernard doing here? How long was he going to stay? Tom felt now wide awake, but he did not know what he should do. Approach Bernard and try telling him that Cynthia wanted to see him? Should he talk to Bernard and try to persuade him—of what?
Between four and five in the afternoon, Tom suffered a depression. He had had coffee and a Steinhäger somewhere. He was far up (as the river flowed, up the river) beyond Hohensalzburg but still on the quay on the old side of town. He was thinking of the changes in Jeff, Ed, and now Bernard since the Derwatt fraud. And Cynthia had been made unhappy, the course of her life had been changed because of Derwatt Ltd.—and this seemed to Tom more important than the lives of the three men involved. Cynthia by now would have married Bernard and might have had a couple of children, though since Bernard would have been equally involved, it was impossible for Tom to say why he thought the alteration of Cynthia’s life of more importance than that of Bernard’s. Only Jeff and Ed were pink-cheeked and affluent, their lives outwardly changed for the better. Bernard looked exhausted. At thirty-three or thirty-four.
Tom had intended to dine in the restaurant of his hotel, which was considered the best restaurant of Salzburg also, but he found himself not in the mood for such fine food and surroundings, so he wandered up the Getreidegasse, past the Bürgerspitalplatz (Tom saw by a streetmarker) and through the Gstättentor, a narrow old gateway wide enough for a single lane of traffic, one of the original gates of the town at the foot of the Mönchsberg, which loomed darkly beside it. The street beyond was almost equally narrow and rather dark. There’d be a small restaurant somewhere, Tom thought. He saw two places with almost identical menus outside: twenty-six schillings for soup-of-the-day, Wiener schnitzel with potatoes, salad, dessert. Tom went into the second, which had a little lantern-shaped sign out in front, the Café Eigler or some such.
Two Negro waitresses in red uniforms were sitting with male customers at one table. There was a jukebox playing, and the light was dim. Was it a whorehouse, a pickup joint, or just a cheap restaurant? Tom had taken only a step into the place, when he saw Bernard in a booth by himself, bending over his bowl of soup. Tom hesitated.
Bernard lifted his eyes to him.
Tom looked like himself now, in a tweed jacket, with his muffler round his neck against the chill—the muffler that Heloise had washed the blood from in the Paris hotel. Tom was on the brink of going closer, of extending his hand, smiling, when Bernard half stood up with a look of terror on his face.
The two plump colored waitresses looked from Bernard to Tom. Tom saw a waitress get up with what seemed like the slowness of Africa, with an obvious intention of going to Bernard to ask, eventually, if something was the matter, because Bernard looked as if he had swallowed something that was going to kill him.
Bernard waved his hand negatively, rapidly—against the waitress or him, Tom wondered?
Tom turned and went through the inside door (the place had a storm door), then walked out onto the pavement. He pushed his hands into his pockets and ducked his head, much like Bernard, as he walked back through the Gstättentor, toward the more lighted part of town. Had he done wrong, Tom asked himself. Should he have simply—advanced? But Tom had felt that Bernard would let out a scream.
Tom went past his hotel and on to the next corner, where he turned right. The Tomaselli was a few yards on. If Bernard was following him—Tom was sure Bernard was going to leave the restaurant—if Bernard wanted to join him here, very well. But Tom knew it was something different. Bernard thought he was seeing a vision, really. So Tom sat at a conspicuous middle table, ordered a sandwich and a carafe of white wine, and read a couple of newspapers.
Bernard did not come in.
The big wood-framed doorway had an arched brass curtain rod which supported a green curtain, and every time the curtain moved, Tom glanced up, but the person entering was never Bernard.
If Bernard did come in and walk toward him, it would be because Bernard wanted to make sure he was real. That was logical. (The trouble was, Bernard was not doing anything logical, probably.) Tom would say, “Sit down and have some wine with me. I’m not a ghost, you see. I spoke with Cynthia. She’d like to see you again.” Pull Bernard out of it.
But Tom doubted that he could.
23
By the next day, Tuesday, Tom made another decision: to speak to Bernard by hook or by crook, even if he had to tackle him. He would try also to make Bernard go back to London. Bernard must have some friends there, apart from Jeff and Ed whom he would probably shun. Didn’t Bernard’s mother still live there? Tom wasn’t sure. But he felt he had to do something, because Bernard’s air of misery was pitiable. Each glimpse of Bernard sent a weird pain through Tom: it was as if he were seeing someone already in the throes of death, yet walking about.
So at 11 a.m., Tom went to the Blaue something, and spoke to a dark-haired woman of about fifty at the downstairs desk. “Excuse me, there is a man called Bernard Tufts—ein Englischer—staying here?” Tom asked in German.
The woman’s eyes went wider. “Yes, but he has just checked out. About an hour ago.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
Bernard had not. Tom thanked her, and he felt her eyes following him as he left the hotel, staring at him as if he were just as odd as Bernard, simply because he knew Bernard.
Tom took a taxi to the railway station. There were probably few planes out of the Salzburg airport, which was small. And trains were cheaper than planes. Tom did not see Bernard at the railway station. He looked on platforms and in the buffet. He then walked back toward the river and the center of town, watching for Bernard, for a man in a limp beige raincoat carrying a duffelbag. Around 2 p.m. Tom took a taxi to the airport, in case Bernard was flying to Frankfurt. No luck there, either.
It was just after 3 p.m. when Tom saw him. Bernard was on a bridge over the river, one of the smaller bridges that had a handrail and one-way traffic. Bernard leaned on his forearms, gazing down. His duffelbag was at his feet. Tom had not started across the bridge. He had seen Bernard from quite a distance. Was he thinking about jumping in? Bernard’s hair lifted and fell over his forehead with the wind. He was going to kill himself, Tom realized. Maybe not this instant. Maybe he would walk around and come back in an hour, in two hours. Maybe this evening. Two women, walking past Bernard, glanced at him with a brief curiosity. When the women had gone by, Tom walked toward Bernard, neither fast nor slowly. Below, the river foamed quickly over the rocks that bordered its banks. Tom had never seen a boat on the river, that he could recall. The Salzach was perhaps rather shallow. Tom, at a distance of four yards, was ready to say Bernard’s name, when Bernard turned his head to the left and saw him.
Bernard straightened up suddenly, and Tom had the feeling that his staring expression did not change at the sight of him, but Bernard picked up his duffelbag.
“Bernard!” Tom said, just as a noisy motorcycle pulling a trailer passed by them, and Tom was afraid Bernard hadn’t heard him. “Bernard!”
Bernard ran off.
“Bernard!” Tom collided with a woman, and would have knocked her down, except that she struck the handrail instead. “Oh!— I’m terribly sorry!” Tom said. He repeated it in German, picking up a parcel the woman had dropped.
She replied something to him, something about a “football player.”
Tom trotted on. Bernard was in sight. Tom frowned, embarrassed and angry. He felt a sudden hatred for Bernard. It made him tense for a moment, then the emotion passed away. Bernard was walking briskly, not looking behind him. There was a madness in the way Bernard walked, with nervous but regular strides that Tom felt he could keep up for hours until he simply dropped. Or would Bernard ever simply drop? It was curious, Tom tho
ught, that he felt Bernard was as much a kind of ghost as Bernard apparently thought he was.
Bernard began to zigzag meaninglessly in the streets, but he stayed rather close to the river. They walked for half an hour, and now they had left the town proper behind them. The streets were thin now, with an occasional florist’s shop, woods, gardens, a residence, a tiny Konditorei with a now empty terrace giving a view of the river. Bernard at last went into one of these.
Tom slowed his steps. He was not tired or out of breath after all his fast walking. He felt odd. Only the pleasant coolness of the wind on his forehead reminded him that he was still among the living.
The little square café had glass walls, and Tom could see that Bernard was seated at a table with a glass of red wine in front of him. The place was empty, save for a skinny and rather elderly waitress in black uniform with a white apron. Tom smiled, relieved, and without thinking or pondering anything, he opened the door and went in. Now Bernard looked at him as if he were a bit surprised, puzzled (Bernard was frowning), but there was not the same terror.
Tom smiled a little and nodded. He didn’t know why he nodded. Was it a greeting? Was it an affirmation? If so, an affirmation of what? Tom imagined pulling out a chair, sitting down with Bernard and saying, “Bernard, I’m not a ghost. There wasn’t much earth on top of me and I dug my way out. Funny, isn’t it? I was just in London and I saw Cynthia and she said . . .” And he imagined lifting a glass of wine also, and he would slap Bernard on the sleeve of his raincoat and Bernard would know that Tom was real. But it was not happening. Bernard’s expression changed to one of weariness and, Tom thought, hostility. Tom felt again a slight pique of anger. Tom stood up straighter, and opened the door behind him and stepped smoothly and gracefully out, though he did it backward.
Ripley Under Ground Page 25
