Laughter in the Dark

by Vladimir Nabokov

  "How long does the bus take to go round the village?" he asked in his slow, careful French.

  "A couple of minutes," said the bartender sadly.

  "Not quite clear what they do with those wooden balls. Wooden? Or is it some metal? First cupped in the palm, then launched forward ... rolling, stopping. Awkward if he happens to get into conversation with the little girl on the way and she blurts it all out before I tell him. Will she? I wonder. Not much chance of their talking though. She was unhappy, poor child, and will sit quite still."

  "It seems to be quite a big village, judging by the time it takes to go round," he remarked.

  "It doesn't go round," said an old man with a clay pipe who was sitting at a table behind him.

  "It does," said the gloomy bartender.

  "It did up to last Sunday," said the old man. "Now it goes straight on."

  "Well," said the bartender, "that's no fault of mine, is it?"

  "But what shall I do now?" cried Albinus in dismay.

  "Take the next one," said the old man judiciously.

  He got home at last and found Margot in a deck chair on the terrace, eating cherries, with Rex sitting on the white parapet in bathing shorts, his long hairy brown back turned to the sun. A quiet happy picture.

  "I missed the blessed thing," said Albinus, grinning.

  "You would," said Margot.

  "Tell me, did you notice a small man in white with a goldenish beard?"

  "I did," said Rex. "Sat behind us. What about him?"

  "Nothing--just a man I used to know once."

  28

  THE next morning. Albinus made conscientious inquiries at the Tourist Office and then at a German boarding house, but no one could tell him Udo Conrad's address. "After all, we've nothing much to say to each other," he thought. "Probably I'll run into him again, if we stay here any longer. And if I don't, it doesn't much matter."

  A few days later he woke up earlier than usual, threw open the shutters, smiled at the tender blue sky and at the soft green slopes, luminous yet hazy, as if it were all a bright frontispiece under tissue paper, and he felt a strong longing to climb and wander, and to breathe the thyme-scented air.

  Margot awoke. "It's still so early," she said drowsily.

  He suggested they should dress quickly and go out for the whole day--just the two of them ...

  "Go by yourself," she murmured, turning over to the other side.

  "Oh, you lazybones," said Albinus sadly.

  It was about eight. At a good pace, he got out of the narrow streets, cut longitudinally in two by the morning shade and sunshine, and began the ascent.

  As he was passing a tiny villa, painted a warm pink, he heard the click of shears, and saw Udo Conrad pruning something in the small, rocky garden. Yes, he had always had a green thumb.

  "Got you at last," said Albinus gaily, and the other turned but did not smile back.

  "Oh," he said drily, "I didn't expect to see you again."

  Solitude had developed in him a spinsterish touchiness, and now he was deriving a morbid pleasure from feeling hurt.

  "Don't be silly, Udo," said Albinus, as he approached, gently pushing aside the feathery foliage of a mimosa tree, which leaned wistfully in his way. "You know quite well I didn't miss it on purpose. I thought it would go round the village and come back again."

  Conrad softened a little. "Never mind," he said, "it often happens like that: one meets a man after a long interval and suddenly feels a panicky desire to give him the slip. I took it that you didn't enjoy the prospect of having to chatter about old times in the moving prison of a bus; and you avoided it neatly."

  Albinus laughed: "The truth is, I've been hunting for you these last days. Nobody seemed to know your exact whereabouts."

  "Yes, I only rented this cottage a few days ago. And where are you staying?"

  "Oh, at the Britannia. Really, I'm terribly glad to see you, Udo. You must tell me all about yourself."

  "Shall we go for a little walk?" suggested Conrad dubiously. "All right. I'll put on some other shoes."

  He was back in a minute and they started to climb up a cool shady road winding between vine-clad stone walls, its blue asphalt still untouched by the hot morning sun.

  "And how's your family?" asked Conrad.

  Albinus hesitated and then said:

  "Better not ask, Udo. Some terrible things have been happening to me lately. Last year we separated, Elisabeth and I. And then my little Irma died from pneumonia. I prefer not to talk of these matters if you don't mind."

  "How very distressing," said Conrad.

  They both fell silent; Albinus pondered whether it might not be rather glamorous and exciting to talk about his passionate love-affair to this old pal of his, who had always known him as a shy, unadventurous fellow; but he put it off till later. Conrad, on the other hand, was reflecting that he had made a mistake in going for this walk: he preferred people to be carefree and happy when they shared his company.

  "I didn't know you were in France," said Albinus. "I thought you usually dwelt in Mussolini's country."

  "Who is Mussolini?" asked Conrad with a puzzled frown.

  "Ah--you're always the same," laughed Albinus. "Don't get into a panic, I'm not going to talk politics. Tell me about your work, please. Your last novel was superb."

  "I'm afraid," said Udo, "that our fatherland is not quite at the right level to appreciate my writings. I'd gladly write in French, but I'm loath to part with the experience and riches amassed in the course of my handling of our language."

  "Come, come," said Albinus. "There are lots of people who love your books."

  "Not as I love them," said Conrad. "It'll be a long time--a solid century, perhaps--till I am appreciated at my worth. That is, if the art of writing and reading is not quite forgotten by then; and I am afraid it is being rather thoroughly forgotten this last half century, in Germany."

  "How's that?" asked Albinus.

  "Well, when a literature subsists almost exclusively on Life and Lives, it means it is dying. And I don't think much of Freudian novels or novels about the quiet countryside. You may argue that it is not literature in the mass that matters, but the two or three real writers who stand aloof, unnoticed by their grave, pompous contemporaries. All the same it is rather trying sometimes. It makes me wild to see the books that are being taken seriously."

  "No," said Albinus, "I'm not at all of your mind. If our age is interested in social problems, there's no reason why authors of talent should not try to help. The War, post-War unrest--"

  "Don't," moaned Conrad gently.

  They were silent again. The winding road had taken them to a pine grove where the creaking of the cicadas was like the endless winding-up and whir of some clockwork toy. A stream was running over flat stones which seemed to quiver under the knots of water. They sat down on the dry, sweet-smelling turf.

  "But don't you feel rather an outcast, always living abroad?" asked Albinus, as he gazed up at the pine-tops that looked like seaweeds swimming in blue water. "Don't you long for the sound of German voices?"

  "Oh, well, I do run into compatriots now and then; and it is sometimes quite amusing. I've noticed, for instance, that German tourists are inclined to think that not a soul can understand their language."

  "I could not always live abroad," said Albinus, lying on his back and dreamily following with his eye the outlines of blue gulfs and lagoons and creeks between the green branches.

  "That day we met," said Conrad, also reclining, with his arms under his head, "I had a rather fascinating experience with those two friends of yours in the bus. You do know them, don't you?"

  "Yes, slightly," replied Albinus with a little laugh.

  "So I thought, judging from their merriment at your being left behind."

  ("Wicked little girl," thought Albinus tenderly. "Shall I tell him all about her? No.")

  "I had quite a good time listening to their conversation. But I did not feel exactly homesick. It is a queer
thing: the more I think of it, the more I feel certain that there comes a time in an artist's life when he stops needing his fatherland. Like those creatures, you know, who first live in an aquatic state and then on dry land."

  "There would be something in me yearning for the coolness of water," said Albinus with a sort of heavyish whimsicality. "By the way, I found a rather nice bit in the very beginning of Baum's new book Discovery of Taprobana. A Chinese traveler, it appears, ages ago, journeyed across Gobi to India, and stood one day by a great jade image of Buddha in a shrine on a hill in Ceylon, and saw a merchant offering a native Chinese present--a white silk fan--and--"

  "... and," interrupted Conrad, " 'a sudden weariness of his long exile seized upon the traveler.' I know that sort of thing--though I haven't read that dreary fool's last effort and never will. Anyway, the merchants I see here aren't particularly good at provoking nostalgia."

  They were both silent again. Both felt very bored. After contemplating for a few minutes more the pines and the sky, Conrad sat up and said:

  "You know, old boy, I'm awfully sorry, but would you mind very much if we went back? I've got some writing to get done before midday."

  "Right you are," said Albinus, rising in his turn. "I must be getting home too."

  They descended the path in silence and then shook hands at Conrad's door with a great show of cordiality.

  "Well, that's over," thought Albinus, much relieved. "Catch me calling on him again!"

  29

  ON HIS way home, as he was entering a bar-tabacs to get some cigarettes and pushing aside with the back of his hand the streaming, tinkling bead-and-reed curtain, he collided with the retired French colonel who, for the last two or three days, had been their dining room neighbor. Albinus stepped back onto the narrow sidewalk.

  "Pardon," said the colonel (a hearty fellow). "Fine morning, what?"

  "Very fine," agreed Albinus.

  "And where are the lovers today?" inquired the colonel.

  "What d'you mean?" asked Albinus.

  "Well, people who cuddle in corners (qui se pelotent dans tous les coins) are usually called so, aren't they?" said the colonel, with what the French call a goguenard look in his porcelain-blue, bloodshot eye. "I only wish," he added, "they wouldn't do it in the garden immediately under my window. It makes an old man envious."

  "What d'you mean?" repeated Albinus.

  "I don't feel equal to saying it all over again in German," laughed the colonel. "Good morning, my dear sir."

  He walked away. Albinus entered the shop.

  "What nonsense!" he exclaimed, staring hard at the woman who sat on a stool behind the counter.

  "Comment, Monsieur?" she asked.

  "What perfect nonsense," he repeated, as he stopped at the corner, and stood there, with knitted brows, in the way of passers-by. He had the obscure sensation of everything's being suddenly turned the other way round, so that he had to read it all backward if he wanted to understand. It was a sensation devoid of any pain or astonishment. It was simply something dark and looming, and yet smooth and soundless, coming toward him; and there he stood, in a kind of dreamy, helpless stupor, not even trying to avoid that ghostly impact, as if it were some curious phenomenon which could do him no harm so long as this stupor lasted.

  "Impossible," he said suddenly--and a queer, twisted thought occurred to him; he followed its weird, bat-like shudder and flight as if, again, it were a thing to study, not to be frightened of. Then he turned round, almost knocking down a little girl in a black pinafore, and hastily went back the way he had just come.

  Conrad, who had been writing in the garden, went to his study on the ground floor for a notebook he needed, and was in the act of looking for it on his desk by the window when he saw Albinus' face peering at him from outside. ("Bother the man," he thought swiftly. "Isn't he going to give me any peace now?--popping out from nowhere.")

  "Look here, Udo," said Albinus in a strange, blurred kind of voice, "I forgot to ask you something. What did they talk about in the bus?"

  "Pardon?" said Conrad.

  "What did those two talk about in the bus? You said it was a fascinating experience."

  "A what?" asked Conrad. "Oh, yes, now I see. Well, it was fascinating in a way. Yes, quite right. I wanted to give you that example of how Germans behave when they think no one can understand? Is that what you mean?"

  Albinus nodded.

  "Well," said Conrad, "it was the cheapest, loudest, nastiest amorous prattle that I've ever heard in my life. Those friends of yours talked as freely of their love as though they were alone in Paradise--a rather gross Paradise, I'm afraid."

  "Udo," said Albinus, "can you swear to what you're saying?"

  "Pardon?"

  "Are you perfectly, perfectly sure of what you're saying?"

  "Why, yes. What's the idea? Wait a bit, I'm coming into the garden. I can't hear a word through this window."

  He found his notebook and went out. "Hullo, where are you?" he cried. But Albinus had disappeared. Conrad walked out into the lane. No--the man was gone.

  "I wonder," muttered Conrad, "I wonder whether I haven't committed some blunder (... nasty rhyme, that! 'Was it, I wonder, a--la, la, la--blunder?' Horrible!)."

  30

  ALBINUS descended into the town, crossed the boulevard without quickening his steady pace, and reached his hotel. He went up and into his room--their room. It was empty, the bed was not made; some coffee had been spilled and a little spoon was gleaming on the white rug. With bent head he gazed at that shiny spot. At that moment Margot's shrill laugh sounded from the garden below.

  He leaned out of the window. She was walking by the side of a youth in white shorts, and the racket which she brandished as she chattered, glistened like gold in the sun. Her partner caught sight of Albinus at the third-floor window. Margot looked up and stopped.

  Albinus moved his arm as if grabbing something to his breast: it was supposed to mean "come up" and so Margot understood it. She nodded and lazily came down the gravel walk toward the oleander shrubs which flanked the entrance.

  He walked back from the window, squatted down and unlocked his suitcase, but then remembered that what he was looking for was in another place. He walked over to the wardrobe and thrust his hand into the pocket of his yellow camel's-hair overcoat. He rapidly examined the thing he had got out to see if it was loaded: then he posted himself at the door.

  As soon as she opened it he would shoot her down. He would not bother to ask her any questions. It was all as plain as death and, with a kind of hideous smoothness, fitted into the logical scheme of things. They had been deceiving him steadily, astutely, artistically. She must be killed at once.

  As he waited for her at the door, his mind went out to track her. Now she would have entered the hotel; now she would be coming up in the lift. He listened for the click of her heels along the corridor. But his imagination had outstripped her. Everything was silent. He must begin afresh. He held the automatic pistol and it seemed like a natural extension of his hand which was tense and eager to discharge itself: there was almost a sensual pleasure in the thought of pressing back that incurved trigger.

  He almost fired at the white closed door when he heard the light patter of her rubber soles--yes, of course: she was wearing tennis shoes, there were no heels to click. Now! But at that moment he heard other steps.

  "Will Madame permit me to fetch the tray?" asked a French voice outside the door. Margot came in at the same time as the chambermaid. Unconsciously he slipped the pistol into his pocket.

  "What d'you want?" demanded Margot. "You might have come down, you know, instead of calling me up so rudely."

  He made no reply, but watched with bowed head while the chambermaid placed the crockery on the tray and picked up the little spoon. She lifted the tray, beamed, went out, and now the door closed.

  "Albert, whatever has happened?"

  He lowered his hand into his pocket. Margot, with a shiver of pain, dropped down on a chai
r by the bed, bent her sunburned neck and began to untie quickly the laces of her white shoe. He looked at her glossy black head, at the bluish shade on her neck where the hair had been shaved. Impossible to fire while she was taking off her shoe. She had a sore place just above her heel and the blood had soaked through her white sock.

  "It's absurd how badly I rub it every time," she said, lifting her head. She saw the black gun in his hand.

  "Don't play with that thing, you fool," she said very calmly.

  "Stand up," whispered Albinus, and clutched her wrist.

  "I won't stand up," answered Margot, pulling the sock off with her free hand. "Let me go. Look, it's got stuck to the sock."

  He shook her so violently that the chair rattled. She gripped the edge of the bedstead and began to laugh.

  "Please, shoot me, do," she said. "It will be just like that play we saw, with the nigger and the pillow, and I'm just as innocent as she was."

  "You lie," whispered Albinus. "You and that scoundrel. Nothing but trickery and de-de-deceit, and ..." His upper lip trembled. He struggled with his stammer.

  "Please, put that thing down. I won't speak to you until you have. I don't know what's happened and I don't want to. I only know one thing: I am faithful to you, I am faithful ..."

  "All right," said Albinus hoarsely. "You can say what you have to say. But after that you shall die."

  "You need not kill me--really, you needn't, darling."

  "Go on. Speak."

  ("... if I were to rush to the door," she thought, "I might just manage to run out. Then I'd scream, and people would come running up. But then everything would be spoiled--everything ...")

  "I can't speak as long as you're holding that thing. Please, put it away."

  ("... or perhaps I could knock it out of his hand? ...")

  "No," said Albinus. "First of all, you must confess ... I've got information. I know all ... I know all ..." he repeated in a broken voice, walking up and down the room and striking the furniture with the edge of his palm. "I know all. He sat behind you in that bus, and you behaved like lovers. Oh, of course, I shall shoot you."

  "Yes, I thought as much," said Margot. "I knew that you wouldn't understand. For God's sake, put that thing down, Albert."

  "What is there to understand?" screamed Albinus. "What is there to be explained?"