The German Numbers Woman

by Alan Sillitoe

  He could do nothing but kiss her warm lips. Her stupefaction was washed aside as he drew her from the stool into an embrace, her bosom against her shirt. ‘I love you, is what I’ve been trying to say.’

  When her arms came around him, some form of agreement in her action, he let a hand roam under her sweater, and pressed it against the warm flesh of her back. Any moment he would relax, leave her, step aside, and they could amicably part as if nothing had taken place. They would say their polite goodbyes, and he’d give a last heartfelt promise to take good care of Howard – she assumed. But the move was postponed, scorned in fact, ignored because such kisses would never allow it. With other women he always wondered what the hell am I getting into? – but the question didn’t come now, as if he had been waiting for such a woman all his life. Her forehead was wet with kisses, everything happening without words but with more surety.

  She was a woman who for some reason hadn’t evolved to the age she was supposed to be, and he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, as he might with anyone else – crude assumptions as they had always been. It didn’t matter. She acted out of her body, all reflection gone, otherwise why with him who, though feeling love, was never to be loved or trusted?

  She only knew she was letting herself go, be carried wonderfully away, as if she had waited for it even before Howard turned up at the station dance, even before the encounter with her uncle, feelings from so far back there was no resisting or holding off. I love him, she told herself, hardly knowing she loved her freedom more.

  He knew nothing more piquant, more profoundly erotic, than hunger in a woman for what (never mind who) was strange and morally forbidden. What magic button had he touched? He’d give a lot to know. At this stage there was nothing you could do with them, because they were hungry beyond what you could provide, yet hoped you might satisfy. He felt it, and knew he wasn’t wrong. ‘I love you, I love you,’ she muttered, bringing such a tight response from his arms that, if it increased, she would break as she deserved.

  ‘We can’t stay down here.’ He loosened his hold. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I know.’

  He licked her tears away, and led her by the hand, nothing else for it, all the signs there of her wanting to be with him and no one else. He brought her to the double bed in Amanda’s room, a happy thought that Amanda wouldn’t be needing it anymore. They kissed by the window and he thought let the cows on the hillside see, as he lifted the sweater up and off, and unlatched the vital clip at the back, lips to her warm breasts. He broke away, the drill to get out of his shoes first, unclasp his watch, while she unzipped the skirt and let it fall, as if she had done it many times before though he knew she hadn’t.

  Naked on the bed, she said with a young woman’s smile from oh, so long ago: ‘I’m sending my husband and my lover out to sea!’

  I’ll be back, at any rate, thinking how hopelessly naive to mention her husband, whom he had no difficulty in blotting from his mind. ‘This is like being in love for the first time in my life’ – something they always liked to hear.

  ‘And I want you both safe and back, though I shouldn’t be thinking about that now, should I? Because I love you more than I can say.’

  Her nipples were almost flat on the surface of her breasts, till his caresses brought them out. ‘I want to see you again and again.’

  No hurry, he said, let’s have no hurry, none of that. Kiss her in every place – she deserves as much – until she doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going, and then make her come.

  She gasped and bucked, then mostly lay unmoving, so he halted halfway through his travels, kissed her closed eyes and ecstatic lips, and went slowly in.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Howard fixed himself at his desk to tap out a letter to the police, as satisfying a task as he had ever been set. They would find someone to transcribe it, or they wouldn’t. If they didn’t, or thought it was a hoax, or a joke, or a mysterious nothing to be thrown aside, the expedition would be a success for what he knew to be the criminal fraternity. But if it was interpreted properly and passed to Interpol, or whatever agency was mobilised to take action, his adventure would enter even further into the unpredictable.

  He polished the brass parts of the key with a square of yellow cloth, the metal angles and edges sharp or smooth under his fingers, a solid piece of the best British mechanism, with its springs and narrow gaps to spark the longs and shorts of intelligent incrimination, a telegram to stiffen the lips and set the heart to bump, if it got to where he hoped, and if they knew what to do with it.

  Hot breath went like the best polish onto the slate base and across the maker’s mark, sliding and smoothing to bring out a shine for anyone but himself to admire. A sighted man might see his face in the glow: mirror, mirror on the wall, who is going to play the most dazzling morse key of all? He saw it, even more glistening than buttons on parade, so the time was for feeling good, because all things bright and beautiful were coming his way. Laura had unaccountably fallen in with his going to the Azores, because Richard had converted her by a matter of fact account of a safe and happy life on the boat. How Richard had done it he would never know, though his was not to reason why, only to be glad he had somehow managed to talk her round, though more than one visit had been needed to convince her.

  When the winged steeds of retribution descended from the sky onto the open sea – a mountainous island in the background – or when the police surrounded them on getting back to a lonely estuary in England (the crew thinking themselves safe, and about to cook an evening meal of celebration) the customs officers would not be able to include him among the guilty, because how could a blind man be one of the smugglers, and who but he, having appended his name and address, could have sent the morse-warning which had put them on the alert?

  A foolproof coup was the order of the day, and if Judy happened to be caught up in it, as well she might, and was taken with the rest of the crew, at least there was a chance of his getting close and proving her innocence, though he hoped, and had good reason to suppose, that the boats would be far apart when the crisis came. While no plan drawn up before battle could be expected to look tidy after victory or defeat, one had to be made nonetheless.

  The first requisite for good sending was to be comfortable, so he drew up the chair and adjusted the cushion behind him. A spoken message on the tape recorder would be easier to make, and more facile for those to understand who received it, but sending in morse was a more difficult medium, thus more memorable, more intriguing, giving the message a patina of importance which other methods couldn’t have. That which was more difficult was more believable – or so he hoped. They would need a few days to find the appropriate person to transcribe it, though little would be lost, because the boat would be just out of the Channel.

  Long experience told him that in sending morse the upper arm should be vertical, the elbow resting against his side, and the forearm going horizontally towards the key. He adjusted the contact gap a tenth of a turn and, putting his fingers on the key, sent a few flourishes, like the soloist tuning his instrument before the orchestra can begin. His elbow remained stationary, movement a mere up-and-down flexing of the wrist, and never more than an inch or two. Thus he could send for half an hour at twenty words a minute in near perfect morse without making a mistake, so that whoever read it, if he knew his job, would find it simple to transcribe. The last thing necessary was to set the tape recorder going, and hope for as little outside noise as possible.

  What he proposed saying, and went on the express, had been rehearsed for days. He had played and replayed his recorded logs to extrapolate dates and positions, names of boats and people, movements from day to day, and whatever was gleaned on future intentions to fit into the collage based on evidence picked up from correspondence with Richard and whatever he knew about him, whose tapes he ran through over and over so as to mull on them and miss nothing. The satisfying acuity of his intuition allowed him to put such evidence tog
ether as would convince anyone. If his element was darkness, where conventional vision was of no use, the advantage to him was multiplied in that he saw what no one else could when it came to creating a shapely web from a scattering of loose ends, threads drawn so neatly to the centre that the picture would be plain for all to see.

  Two boats were setting out on a certain date and on a certain course, and at a certain speed, for an island of the Azores, where a significant transfer of drugs would take place. He gave the radio frequencies his messages had come from, in case they had also been picked up by the authorities, but who hadn’t been able to make the same interpretation.

  He would have been a detective if his life had taken a different course. Joining the police on leaving the Air Force would, he thought, have been a more acceptable move, and fighting against those who profited from selling hard drugs a good enough cause. Whoever fecklessly used such psychic dynamite to blast away any vestiges of sense would be helped in spite of themselves. Reducing physical pain was one thing, but imbibing drugs so as to extend the limits of perception, or reach a state of mind thought to be otherwise unreachable, which the mind would in any case reveal in its own good time, was an admission of inferiority, a denial of hope. Young people might take them out of curiosity or, because they were mentally ill and not yet medically diagnosed, in an effort to forestall the onset.

  The use of drugs to calm or stimulate was bound to lose its power, but people went on taking them in the hope that more would work this time, or next time, or the time after. And after a while it seemed to – easy to think such help was needed forever. He supposed many indulged out of bravado, or for the experience, imagining themselves strong enough not to be damaged by what even the worst could do, and assuming they could stop when they liked because sufficient willpower would always be available. Perhaps that was so, but many suffered torments which called for more and larger doses, so that what began as self indulgence ended in despair and maybe death.

  However much he suffered mentally there would never have been any such drugs for him, not even if they had been offered free. The mind anguished for a reason, and was not to be tampered with, all wounds being curable by time and endurance, and respect for its processes.

  Great wealth was made by those evil-doers who transported and sold drugs, people who had no moral or human feelings because they considered life to be cheap, and were convinced that those who bought drugs, often with what they stole or mugged – thus lengthening the chain of distress – were the lowest of the earth. The more drug distributors who went to jail therefore the better. Argument was useless, and if action meant that Richard was put away for a long time then he, Howard, would see himself as the instrument for saving his soul. And perhaps even Richard would then so regard it when he’d had time to reflect and repent.

  He knew his views could be thought of as reactionary, yet they reinforced his purpose. The message’s melodic chatter eased his soul, oscillations concatenating into the microphone of the recorder, a text distilling into morse the computerised manifestations of his intuition. Speed and rhythm were as perfectly matched as he could make them, but when he had finished, and signed himself off, he wondered whether his story hadn’t after all been assembled from a farrago of false assumptions, that he was no more than a madman enslaved by the talk of two lovers, infatuated by one of their voices.

  He pushed back the chair and searched the table for a miniature tape recorder often used as a standby. He put the larger one close, wound back the tape, and set the mini going to make a copy of the letter, so that in the future, if nothing came of his denunciation, he would know that he had made it.

  The tape to be sent slotted into a case, and fitted the shape of his pocket, to lie there till stage two went into operation – thinking in nostalgic service terms as if to bolster himself for doing what he had no option of carrying out. Fat chance, he smiled, of me not dropping it in the postal box.

  When Laura called from the front door he went to help, but she bundled the plastic bags into the kitchen, unable to pretend he could be useful anymore. ‘Don’t bother.’

  Maybe it was part of her willingness for him to go away and enjoy himself. If so he thought it a fair bargain, change being good in anybody’s life. She was touching him again, kissed him more often, laughed at the slightest thing, resentment unaccountably gone. He wanted to ask a question, but since there had never been any need for answers in their life he didn’t, knowing the answer to be that it was Richard who had changed her mind, set her at rest regarding all fears, though without giving away the real reason for the trip, as indeed how could he? Richard also knew how to be devious, though Howard had much to thank him for, because who didn’t want peace of mind at home? The left hand rarely knew what the right hand did, so that no one could see behind your eyes, or guess what you were thinking, or know that whatever you did express could be the basest lies. As for body language, tell me another, for who better than a blind man could disguise it, muffle the signs, or make so many that no single one could be picked out?

  ‘I’ve bought you a new duffel bag.’ When she took off her coat he caught the ravishing odour of her body mixed with the new perfume, glad she had bought something expensive for herself. ‘I got it from the camping place in town. It’s in the plastic bag. You’ll get most of what you have to carry in it. The rest can go in the hold-all you took to Boston.’

  Even the name of the place could now come out in normal parlance, without vindictive overtones. She hadn’t told him what Richard had said, but it would be ungentlemanly to question her surrender to him. He was more than satisfied that she had. ‘That should just about take care of my luggage allowance,’ he said. ‘I can’t see us being away all that long.’

  She shot the coffee grinder into action. ‘Yes, but you’ll need clean shirts.’

  ‘Only three: one on my back, one in the wash, and one to spare. We managed that way in the Air Force.’

  ‘What about sweaters?’

  ‘Two, I would think. It’s not a sailing boat, where you have to work at the mercy of all weathers. A spare anorak, and that should be it, apart from the usual socks and underwear.’

  She kissed him. ‘Well, darling, we’ll lay it out tomorrow, then go over the list.’ You could cut the unreality with a knife but he seemed not to feel it. For her also the rarified air of release took some getting used to. Hard to tell whether she was in love with him anymore, though he was certainly a factor in her life. But she loved Richard carnally and therefore, she thought, more truly.

  ‘I’ll take the morse key and oscillator,’ he said. ‘They can be stuffed between clothes to keep them safe. I’ll need a couple of spare batteries as well.’

  ‘Will you have time to play with that?’

  ‘Who knows? But Richard and I might want to have a secret exchange of views while on board. Or I could do some sending to keep my nerves in trim. It’ll be a pastime, if I get bored.’

  She imagined them a thousand miles from land, sitting on the deck in the warmth of the evening, Richard tapping out a long message saying he had made love to her, and giving all details. She had encouraged him (and she felt that she had) and when such a text sank in Howard in his despair would tumble into the depthless water and drown. Her flash of nightmare had Richard laughing at the ease of how it had happened. That’s all she would need to release her, and a new life would be hers. She saw no need for such pessimism.

  In any case Richard would do no such thing as tell Howard. It was in his interest not to. He would guard Howard well, because he would rather have his friend’s wife for a mistress than some bewildered disconsolate widow who might become a millstone of responsibility. ‘What do you mean? Why should you and Richard want to keep anything secret?’

  Shouldn’t have said that. He had waited for her query. Subtle though you be, liar that you are, silly words escape. Judging by those who would be on board there might be every need to communicate secretly with Richard. ‘No one, of course. It was only a
silly schoolboy remark.’

  She couldn’t believe him or anyone, though must give the impression that she did, and laugh at his funny ways, at how like a child he must have toys to take away with him. She was sufficiently relaxed to say this. Nothing threatened to blight her frankness anymore.

  ‘I don’t mind that you find me so silly,’ he said lightly. They embraced, and she felt him wondering why she had changed her perfume from the common scent she had used before. ‘I’m strong enough to let you go without any worry, though I shall miss you terribly.’

  He was flattered. It was good to feel cared for. At least she wasn’t tearful in her assertion that she would be bereft. ‘Everything will be fine. I know it will.’

  ‘There’s a change in my life,’ she said. ‘It’s a step forward, and I have to think it’s for the good.’

  ‘So it must be. It can only make me happy for you.’

  ‘It’s taken me long enough.’

  ‘Seems to me,’ he said, ‘that it’s happened since Richard came into our lives.’

  She was glad he couldn’t see the wash of crimson that must have gone over her. ‘You could say that. If not him, then something else. Or someone else. I like to think it would have happened anyway. A change is a way of absorbing the shock of your going. That’s what I think it is.’

  Such uninhibited talk was more interesting than otherwise, worth it for whatever reason. He wanted to say that Richard isn’t all you think he is, but that would let a very sprightly cat out of the bag, and the old argument about him not being let off the leash might be resumed. ‘He’s a good old friend, that’s all I know.’

  ‘Very true,’ she said, ‘which is why I don’t mind you going. He explained everything.’ She put the cup before him. ‘I have no qualms. All we have to do is decide what you’re taking. Another thing is I called at the library, and found a couple of books about the Azores.’ She wanted to know what Richard would be seeing as well. ‘I’ll go through them. There might be something interesting.’