‘The track perhaps, but not him. He’s definitely been in Bavaria. Where he is now, I have no idea. Still we know he is.’ She said it emphatically with a hope that the saying would engender the reality.
James gave her a look which was all bleakness. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can manage without him. Sure I do all the daily routine, the rotas, the accounts, but as for the rest, the finances, the spirit…’ He shrugged his shoulders in a way that said it all. ‘And I’ve rung everyone. Even those I think I wasn’t supposed to know about,’ he grinned so that behind that narrow impassive face she saw the mischievous boy. He vanished quickly. ‘You’re the only one who’s had anything from him.’
Helena allayed the sudden suspicion she read in his face, ‘And I can’t think why.’ It was only half a lie. Since she had left the shadowy terrain of Bavaria, the sense she had had that Max Bergmann might be her father, had become overlain with common sense. Yet the need to find him was as acute as ever and had now been joined by the need to find out more about him, if only to disprove the disturbing intuitions that had come over her.
She waited for Sam to deposit the two mugs of tea before continuing.
‘I suspect there was another letter, besides the one to me. Have you really been through all his papers, James? Checked for any contacts neither of us might have known about?’
He shrugged. ‘I think so. All the business papers are in here and next door. Max always kept his own office locked and I haven’t been in there. He’s a very private man, you know. Anyhow, I put it off and then when you said you had received that letter, I put the thought out of my mind altogether.’ He looked at her a little petulantly. ‘Anyhow, he never kept anything in there. It was as bare and tidy as a cell, except for the lecture or book he was currently working on. Sam typed those, so I’ve looked through the last texts. No clues there.’
‘You’re sure?’ Helena studied him.
‘You can read for yourself.’ He opened a drawer and pushed a sheaf of papers at her. ‘Everything he wrote before we left for Norway just before Christmas.’
‘I still think we should go in there,’ Helena murmured. ‘Look, I have this hunch, it’s no more than that, that his disappearance may have nothing at all to do with what we know of him. It’s something else. Where did Max come from by the way?’ she slipped the question at him as if it were an aside.
‘Sweden.’
‘I thought it was Norway.’
‘His passport says Sweden.’
‘I see,’ Helena swallowed that, let it ride for a moment. ‘And you don’t think he’s vanished for…’ she scrutinized his face before going on, ‘for financial reasons. This place isn’t bankrupt, is it.’
‘Not yet. The endowments will keep us going for a while. Max was good at the financial side, though you wouldn’t think it to read him or look at him. But the place will fall apart without him sooner or later,’ he glanced at her with an air of sadness.
‘I think we should go into his office.’
‘Fine,’ he shrugged, ‘as long as it’s clearly your decision.’
‘My decision. I’ll take the flack. I just hope there’s someone to take the flack from.’
‘So you think he might be dead after all.’
‘No, I don’t think that,’ she was emphatic. ‘Though I didn’t contact the police in Germany. I presume you still don’t want them nosing around?’
James took off his spectacles and wiped them slowly on the bottom of his pullover.
Strange, Helena thought, how he was transformed without them. Quite handsome, but also oddly naked.
‘I consulted with the Trustees. At the Board Meeting Max didn’t turn up for. Which was when, by the way, I realised something was amiss. Max has never missed a meeting before. He’s punctilious about that. In any case, we discussed it. We agreed that to call in the police prematurely would end up with publicity which was bad for the movement, whatever the real story is. The money would dry up. You know that as well as I do. So far there have only been two small notices in the press, one here and one in England,’ he paused. ‘Anyhow, Max is police shy, for all the reasons I presume you know,’ he looked at her meaningfully.
‘Because of direct action?’ she said it blandly.
James twitched, glanced involuntarily over his shoulder, nodded once abruptly. ‘I’m not supposed to know,’ he mouthed at her.
‘Neither am I,’ she grinned, mouthed it back.
They gazed at each other like two childish conspirators.
‘In any case, we should go into his office.’
‘After lunch,’ he put it off, ‘which is just about now.’ His watch beeped a moment later.
‘Do you know when Max came to the United States?’ Helena asked casually as they got up.
‘In the fifties I presume, perhaps a bit earlier. He never talks about his early years. Too long ago, I guess.’
‘Yes,’ Helena murmured. ‘But I think we should find out more. Will you introduce me? To his oldest friends I mean. I don’t really know any of his contacts at this end.’
‘I’ll make you a list. Though I have talked to everyone,’ he gave her a somewhat querulous look. ‘You won’t push them too hard though, will you? I don’t want anyone withdrawing support while we still need it.’
Two long tables were set in the high-ceilinged dining room, around them a motley assortment of men in woollen sweaters and tweedy jackets. Not unlike a dining hall in one of the lesser Cambridge colleges, Helena thought. She looked automatically towards Max’s place only to find it empty. The room didn’t have a centre without him, and indeed, the men looked shabbier than usual, disheartened. And they stared at her with less veiled an interest. Or perhaps it was her imagination.
James sat in the place next to Max’s and gestured her beside him. Then he stood and quickly said the grace Max had invented and was wont to recite in resonant tones.
‘For the food and drink placed before us, we, her children, thank Nature, whose bounty we work daily to replenish and in whose keeping we remain.’
The food was all vegetarian and Helena ate quickly, unthinkingly. Without Max here she had a greater sense than ever of being an interloper. And the spirit had definitely gone out of the place. The man beside her had developed an inordinate fascination with her crotch and however she crossed her legs or moved her chair, his eyes focussed only there. Meanwhile, the two men across from her were bickering, their insults flying like electricity, so that soon the whole table seemed to be immersed in petty squabbles.
‘I’ll see you in half an hour,’ Helena whispered to James, tried to move invisibly from the room.
There was a wrack of snow-shoes by the back door. She put on a pair over her boots and walked pigeon-toed out into the afternoon. The weather had held and the air was as bracing as a cold morning shower. She breathed deeply, made her way towards a little copse of trees she liked to wander in at the crest of the meadow.
She had brought Andy Newman here two winter’s ago, almost, she now thought, in order to get Max’s benediction. That certainly hadn’t been forthcoming. Max had been polite, of course, but he had somehow contrived not to notice Andy’s presence, continued to talk as he always did, but over his head. If their relationship had been different, she would almost have thought he was jealous. But perhaps that was how a paternal jealousy manifested itself? She had no way of knowing.
It was strange how she could hardly remember Andy anymore. His features wouldn’t coalesce into a face. Yet for the ten months or so that they had been together, she had been more than happy to have him around. It solved certain problems living with a man.
Helena smiled into the trees, as she suddenly remembered having read that in Anna’s Book about Bettina. Perhaps things hadn’t changed that fundamentally, despite all the contemporary casualness and freedoms.
She had slipped into the relationship with Andy from one day to the next. He was a tall thin man, with a narrow equine head and a penchant for Fair Isle sweat
ers. He was preparing a film for the BBC on the environment and had come to her with some queries. They had started to talk and the talk stretched, growing more passionate as they found a fund of common interests. He had asked her if she would act as a consultant on the project and she had accepted happily. And then somehow, the talk extended into the evenings and one night he simply stayed over.
It hadn’t been a particularly memorable night, but then sex was hardly in her experience what it was cracked up to be either in books or in some of her friend’s tales.
Helena suddenly flushed into the trees remembering her night with Adam Peters. It would take a deceiver to prove her wrong. She shunted away the memory violently, walked more quickly, forced herself to look at the trees. Instead, her mind presented her with those poisonous scenes from her childhood which had engulfed her in Germany. She picked up some snow and formed it into a ball, hurled it into the distance. She didn’t want to think about all that, not now, though she knew there were links there that one day she might have to confront. That was the problem with navel gazing. Once one started, there was no end.
It wasn’t long after they had been to see Max - whose presence so excited Andy that he had to take off his specs several times in rapid succession to wipe the steam from them - that Andy had walked out on her, just like that, from one day to the next. As unemphatically as his coming.
They hadn’t exactly had a row. They didn’t row. He had merely turned to her in bed that night after they had performed their little act and said, ‘You know, you make me feel two feet tall. I’m getting tired of your favours.’ His aristocratic nose had quivered a little. And that was that.
She hadn’t thought she was doing him any favours. Then she had thought contradictorally and with a burst of resentment that a lot of people would queue up for her favours. And that if he felt two feet tall, maybe he was. But she hadn’t really known what he meant.
It came to her with a sinking sense that perhaps now she did. If nothing else, her encounter with Adam Peters had given her an intuition of that.
She had left Germany the very day she had fled from Adam Peters. There seemed to be nothing more she could do in Bavaria, short of sitting and waiting for Max to appear. And the word waiting wasn’t in her vocabulary. Another strategy presented itself, one which wouldn’t bring her into Adam Peters’ vicinity. She would go to America. She had been planning to go for some time in order to do some more work on Union Carbide. And on route, she would try to talk to some of Max’s friends, sniff around Orion Farm. She was certain that once there, she could unearth something of the reasons for Max’s disappearance and reasons, like a plot line, would lead her to Max. Then too, she hoped that she could put paid to that sequence of imaginings that had begun to haunt her about Max’s paternity.
She had only stopped off in London long enough to tend to cats and plants, sort through the post, say hello to Claire and check in at the office to pick up her Bhopal files. Her editor, Karl, had suggested once she was already in the US, she should fly to LA. The LA police force had just set up an anti-pollution squad. It would make a good article. She also suspected he thought it would make a good holiday.
‘Twenty-five pounds for your thoughts,’ a voice from behind startled her.
Helena turned to see a man of about forty on cross country skies skid to a halt directly beside her. He had dark curly hair and laughing brown eyes that crinkled in a pleasantly attractive face. A bauble hat sat precariously on his head.
‘Wait a minute, how much is twenty five pounds?’
She smiled, despite herself. ‘A lot more than my thoughts are worth.’
‘Oh?’ he looked at her curiously, ‘I thought you might be thinking what a bunch of stinkers that lot in there are. I’d pay quite a lot to have it shouted bright and clear.’ Suddenly, he shouted into the trees, ‘Lousy lot of rotten fakes.’ There, I feel better. Can I walk with you? Ski with you, I mean.’
Helena shrugged.
‘Please.’ He lifted his hands in prayer, clattering his skipoles. ‘I saw you in there. Said to myself what a relief it is to feast one’s eyes on a woman. Even a beautiful Englishwoman who’s pretending to be a boy.’ He looked down at her baggy jeans and shook his head scathingly. ‘Men really shouldn’t be allowed out on their own. It’s bad for their souls, you know.’ He laughed merrily.
‘Why did you come then?’
‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself for the last ten days.’
She giggled. He had all the mock drama of a New York comedian. ‘And the answer?’
‘Still haven’t found it, though I’ve looked everywhere. It’s all that Max Bergmann’s fault, you know the fellow who runs this place. Though I notice he manages to stay away. He convinced me it would be good for my soul or some other invisible part. Told me I’d find myself. Frankly I’d much rather lose myself at the moment,’ he looked at her with frank lasciviousness.
‘You’re a writer?’
‘That’s what my agent keeps telling me.’
‘So you’re not a writer.’
He grinned. ‘I’m a writer. But I’m a better procrastinator. Rafael Santucci’s the name,’ he put out his hand.
‘Helena Latimer,’ she took it, ‘And you’ve brought your typewriter?’
‘Yup. I’ve brought my typewriter. Brought my paper. I’ve got all the necessary. My soul. Nature. Peace and Quiet. Only one thing wrong.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Everything.’
She laughed.
He gestured her over to a fallen tree trunk, patted some snow off it, and bowed to make way for her. ‘So what are you doing here?’
‘Passing through,’ Helena was non-committal.
‘From somewhere to somewhere.’
‘I like this place.’
‘You like this place?’
She nodded.
‘That’s either gotta be because you’re crazy or cause they don’t allow you into the men’s group. Have you ever spied on one of those groups they hold here with that priest or therapist or whatever he is?’
Helena shook her head.
‘No, of course not.’ He took the bobble hat off his head and twirled it round and round on his finger. He looked at it reflectively. ‘Well, I tell you something. It’s taught me.’
‘Taught you?’ she was suddenly curious.
‘Ya, before this I used to think only women really knew how to complain. But now I know that men are better at that too,’ his face was suddenly wreathed in smiles.
‘Ya gotta hear men complain to hear the real thing.’ He started to count on his fingers, ‘My cock’s too big; my cock’s too small. I can’t get it up. She won’t let me get it down. My father didn’t love me. My mother didn’t love me. No, she loved me too much. I make too much money to have time to have a soul. I have too much soul to have time to make money. My girl competes with me. My girl puts me down. I can’t feel it when I do it. I can’t do it when I feel it.’ He stopped, looked at her. ‘Enough?’
‘I’m rivetted.’
‘Good. You staying long?’
‘Probably only until tomorrow.’
‘Even better. Will you give me a lift outta here? To anywhere. I’ll tell you some more stories.’
Helena laughed. ‘I’ve never met an American without a car.’
He looked sheepish. ‘I was dropped here. My own choice. Thought I wouldn’t stay the course otherwise. Run off and chase the whiskey bottle, not to mention the wine, women and song.’
‘But now you want to go in any case?’
‘I’ve gotta go, nice lady,’ he met her eyes seriously, ‘or I’ll end up by beating some smug motherfucker up. And I’m not a strong man.’
They made their way back to the house. Helena noticed that for all his antics, he handled his skis with professional grace.
‘Do you write comedy?’ she asked him.
‘Me? he glanced at her caustically. ‘I’m America’s most serious writer. That’s why I don’t wr
ite too often.’ His eyes crinkled and he waved her off, ‘I’ll be waiting for you, so don’t think you can vanish without me.’
Helena went back to James’s office with a smile on her face. It vanished as soon as she saw him. He was palpably nervous.
‘My responsibility, remember?’ she urged him on.
He handed her a ring heavy with keys. ‘All yours. It has to be one of these.’
Helena tried the keys, beginning to despair as she reached the end of the ring. None of them seemed to fit.
James shrugged, ‘That’s all there is. Obviously he doesn’t want anyone in there.’
‘Are these the cleaner’s keys?’
He shook his head. ‘Mine.’
‘Well the cleaner must have some,’ Helena persisted.
‘I don’t like to ask.’
‘James this is serious. We’re not going to steal anything. Just say Max asked you to do something and forgot to give you the relevant file. Say anything,’ she urged him on.
He went off with a hangdog expression only to come back some minutes later with a grin on his face. ‘He wasn’t there. So I borrowed them.’
‘Good,’ she resisted the urge to pat him on the back.
At last the office door opened. They stood there for a moment as if Max might suddenly materialise behind his desk. But the room was empty.
The old pine desk glowed in its coatings of beeswax. The books were neatly lined on the shelves, just as Helena remembered them. She scanned the shelves first, as if they might provide a clue she had missed - the volumes of Nietzsche, Jung, Heidegger, Rousseau, poetry by Whitman and Frost, two volumes of Goethe, she hadn’t remembered those, and then scores of more recent specialised books on farming and soil preservation, as well as the standard environmental texts that replicated her own.
She leafed through the Goethe quickly, volumes on the morphology of plant and animal life, on geology and meteorology, was struck for a moment by a tone which reminded her of Max’s writings; but there were no clues here, no marginal notes.
Dreams of Innocence Page 57
