He prefers it that way. If Kurt Hamling should happen to be his father, he absolutely doesn’t want to know.
‘He’s always taken an interest in us, in you—’
‘All right!’ he cuts in.
‘He knows you better than you think. He’s also convinced that you let yourself be led astray, but that you’ll refuse to admit it. As he puts it so well, it’s wrong to make it a point of honour, Frank.’
‘I don’t have any honour.’
‘These gentlemen are patient with you, I know.’
Really? What does that mean?
‘They’ve let you receive parcels. They allowed me today to come with Minna, who’s so worried about you.’
‘Is she ill?’
‘Who?’
‘Minna.’
Why does he cut the thread of Lotte’s thoughts? Now she no longer knows what to reply and tries to throw the old man a questioning look.
‘No, she isn’t ill. What makes you think that? I had her thoroughly examined last week. A young doctor who doesn’t know his stuff wanted to operate on her, but the other one said it isn’t necessary. She’s already feeling better.’
He senses something mysterious and stifling. ‘Well, now she has time to rest,’ he says on the off-chance.
His mother hesitates. Why? Then, as the old man doesn’t seem to have any objection, she risks saying:
‘We’ve reopened the business.’
‘With what girls?’
‘There are two new ones, apart from Minna.’
‘I thought your friend Hamling advised you to close down.’
‘At the time, yes. He didn’t yet know the harm that Anny did.’
He has understood. He understands all at once why they are here. He understands everything. The old man doesn’t let any opportunity go by.
‘Did they ask you to continue?’
‘They explained it was for the best, from every point of view.’
In other words, the apartment in Green Street has become a kind of mousetrap. Who is looking through the fanlight now, trying to listen in on conversations on behalf of these gentlemen?
That’s why Lotte is so embarrassed . . .
‘So in other words,’ he says grudgingly, without a trace of irony, ‘everything’s going well.’
‘Very well.’
‘Is Sissy better?’
‘I think so.’
‘Haven’t you seen her?’
‘There’s so much work, you know. I don’t know if it’s the weather.’
What can they still say to each other? Worlds separate them, an infinite void. Even that perfumed handkerchief, which assumes such importance in the room that Lotte notices and stuffs it in her bag.
‘Listen to me, Frank.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re young.’
‘You already said that.’
‘I know better than you that you aren’t bad. Don’t look at me like that. You have to realize I’ve never thought about anything but you, that everything I’ve done, since you were born, I’ve done for you, and that now I’d give the rest of my life for you to be happy.’
It isn’t her fault that he is distracted in spite of himself. He just about makes out the meaning of her words. He is looking at Minna’s handbag. Except for being red, it is exactly the same as the black bag Sissy had, the famous bag with the key that he waved about on the waste ground and finally put down on a heap of snow. He never did find out if she came to get it.
‘I told them you knew Kromer, because it’s true. He was your friend, and I don’t want you to keep denying it. I can’t get it out of my mind that he was your evil genius and that he was clever enough to get away and leave you in it.’
Is that it? Is that what she came to tell him: that Kromer is out of harm’s way? He is too close to the stove. He feels hot. Through the window – it’s the first time he has sat in this spot – he can see the gate, the sentry box, the guard and a section of street. It doesn’t have any effect on him, seeing the street again, the passing trams.
‘You really have to tell them the whole truth, everything you know, and they’ll take it into account. I’m sure of it. I trust them.’
The old man has never seemed so far away.
‘Tomorrow they may let me come and leave a parcel. What would you like me to put in it?’
He is ashamed for her, for himself, for all of them. He is tired. He feels like answering, ‘Just shit!’
He would have done it once. But since then he has learned to be patient. Or maybe it’s weakness.
‘Whatever you like,’ he stammers reluctantly.
‘It isn’t fair that you should pay for the others, don’t you see? I’ve also done a lot of harm without meaning to, I realize that now.’
And she is paying for it by agreeing to her brothel becoming a trap for perverts! The most surprising thing is that it would have seemed quite normal to Frank four or five months ago. In fact, he doesn’t get indignant. He is thinking about something else. Throughout the conversation, he has been thinking about something else, without realizing that he hasn’t taken his eyes off Minna’s handbag.
‘Just tell them what you know. Don’t try to outwit them. You’ll get out of here, you’ll see. I’ll take good care of you and . . .’
He has stopped hearing her. It is all very far away. True, he is always tired, and there are times during the day, especially in the mornings, when he feels dizzy. It’s all down to exhaustion.
She stands up. She smells good. She is all bright and rustling, with fur around her neck.
‘Promise me, Frank. Promise your mother . . . Minna, you tell him.’
Minna doesn’t dare look at him.
‘I’m very unhappy, Frank!’ she manages to say with some difficulty.
‘You still haven’t told me what you’d like me to bring you,’ Lotte resumes.
That’s when he says it. He is the first to be surprised. He always thought it would happen much later, right at the end. He feels too weary all of a sudden. He speaks without thinking, without having the impression that he has made a decision.
He says in a low voice, aware of what these words mean to him, but only to him:
‘Couldn’t I see Holst?’
There is something astonishing about what happens next. It isn’t his mother who replies. She probably doesn’t even understand and must be quite lost. As for Minna, she has stifled a kind of sob that could pass for a hiccup. Minna knows a lot more about it than Lotte.
But it is the old man who raises his head, looks at him and asks:
‘Do you mean Gerhardt Holst?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s strange . . .’
He searches among his pieces of paper and ends up fishing one out, which he examines attentively. While this goes on, Frank stops breathing.
‘He’s just put in a request for a visit.’
‘A visit to me?’
‘Yes.’
Of course he is not going to leap for joy and start prancing about in front of them! But his face is transfigured. Now, like Minna’s, his eyes are full of tears. All the same, he doesn’t yet dare believe in it. It’s too good to be true. It would mean that he isn’t wrong. It would mean . . .
‘Has he asked to see me?’
‘Wait . . . No.’
He freezes. When it comes down to it, the old man must be a sadist.
‘That’s not exactly it. A man named Gerhardt Holst has made a request for a visit. He’s even gone to the highest authorities. But it isn’t for him.’
Hurry up, for God’s sake! And Lotte’s listening to all this as if listening to the radio!
‘It’s for his daughter.’
No! No! No! He mustn’t cry. He can do whatever he likes, but he mustn’t cry, or he might spoil everything. It isn’t true! It isn’t possible! The old man will grab another piece of paper and discover that he has made a mistake.
‘You see, Frank,’ Lotte says in a voice blissfully th
robbing with emotion, as if her radio has just played a sentimental song, ‘you see, everyone has confidence in you. Like I was telling you, you have to get out of here, and to do that you should listen to these gentlemen.’
Fool! Idiot! He isn’t even capable of hating her, and it is best that she remains unaware of the gulf there is between them.
It is again Lotte who asks, with the expression of a pious worshipper addressing a monsignor:
‘Have you granted permission, sir?’
‘Not yet. The request has just been sent through to me by another office. I haven’t had time to examine it.’
‘I think you’d give her so much pleasure! She’s our next-door neighbour. They’ve known each other for years.’
It isn’t true. Why doesn’t she shut up? Or rather, what does it matter what she says? Even if it all falls through, even if Sissy doesn’t come, the fact remains that Holst made the request.
They have understood each other. Frank was right. Let Holst come instead, and it will be the same, not completely, but it will have the same meaning.
Let them have done with it, Lord! Let them do him the mercy of not questioning him any more this morning and allow him to go back to his room. There! He thinks of it quite naturally as ‘his room’. All he wants is to collapse on to his bed and hug that truth to himself while it is still warm, to stop it from evaporating.
‘She’s a respectable girl, a really genuine girl, you can believe me.’
How can you hate someone so stupid, even if she is his mother? And the other one with that fake cousin act of hers, who takes advantage of the fact that they are standing to go close to him and touch him without anyone noticing!
‘I thought,’ the old man cuts in, ‘you were asking earlier to see Gerhardt Holst?’
‘Him or her.’
‘You don’t have a preference?’
As long as he isn’t making a blunder!
‘No.’
It just took a glance through the glasses to indicate to one of the altar boys with moustaches that it’s time to take him back. He isn’t sure afterwards how he left the office. His mother and Minna have stayed there. What else is Lotte going to say about Sissy?
He gets to his room almost at the same time as the dish, which is still hot, and he is content to hold it tight between his knees, without eating, just letting the heat of it seep into him. The window over there, above the gymnasium, is closed. It doesn’t matter. From now on, at a pinch, he can do without it. There is a lump in his throat. He would like to talk. He would like to talk to Holst, as if Holst were here.
Before anything else, there is a question that it is vital to ask.
‘How did you understand?’
It seems impossible. It’s wonderful that something like this should be possible. Frank has done everything for Holst not to understand. He didn’t even understand himself. He was content to prowl around Holst, and there were times when he forced himself to believe that he hated or despised him; he laughed at his tin box and ill-fitting boots.
When did it happen?
Was it the night Holst, on his way back from the tram depot, found him with his back against the tannery wall, his knife open in his hand?
He must stop. It’s too much. He must keep calm, remain sitting quietly on the edge of his bed. He won’t even lie down, because then it would be worse, then he might start yelling as he looks at the window.
He won’t go mad. Now is not the time. He will recover his composure little by little. The fact that it has happened means it is almost over.
He has always understood. It’s one of those certainties you don’t try to explain to yourself. In any case, he wouldn’t have the strength to hold out much longer.
Holst has understood!
What about Sissy?
Did she, too, always know it would happen like this? Frank knew. Holst knew. It’s an incredible thing to say. It feels like a blasphemy. But it’s the truth.
Holst should have come and killed him on Sunday night, or the following morning, and he didn’t.
It had to happen like this. Frank couldn’t do anything else. He didn’t yet know why, but he felt it.
The reason he hasn’t been afraid of torture, the officer with the ruler or the old man and his acolytes is that nobody will ever be able to make him suffer the way he made himself suffer when he pushed Kromer into the bedroom.
Will the old man say yes?
He absolutely must hold out a hope, to give the man the idea that it’ll be a useful move. Frank can’t wait for them to come and get him. He won’t promise anything, because that would be clumsy, but he will let it be understood that he will be much more talkative afterwards. Just let them come and get him.
He’ll cut them some slack. He’ll cut them some slack as of today, a good deal of slack. About whatever they like. About Kromer, for example: it won’t make any difference, now that he’s in a safe place.
Deep down, he even wonders what he would like most: to talk to Holst or to Sissy. In actual fact, he has nothing to say to Sissy. He just has to look at her. And she has to look at him.
‘Tell me, Mr Holst . . .
‘How did you discover, Mr Holst, that a man, whoever he is . . .’
He doesn’t have the words. None of them expresses what he would like to say.
‘He can be a tram driver, can’t he, or anything? He can wear boots that make little boys turn to look at him in the street and the young men shrug their shoulders . . . He can . . . He can . . . I know what you’re going to say . . . That none of that matters . . . He just has to do what he has to, because everything is of equal importance . . . But what about me, Mr Holst, what could I do?’
Holst can’t possibly have put in a request for a visit on behalf of Sissy. Frank is starting to weaken, to ask questions, to doubt. Could it be one of the old man’s tricks? If it is, with what hatred Frank would pursue him down into the depths of hell!
And to think that Holst, who avoids all contact with the occupiers, who must have suffered at their hands, should have approached the highest authorities, as the old man put it! To do that, he would have been obliged to go through middle men, to make compromises, to humiliate himself in front of people!
They don’t come to get him. It’s taking a long time. He can’t sleep. He doesn’t want to sleep. He would like to get it over with immediately.
He has lain down, though, without meaning to. He no longer knows if he put the soup dish down on the floor. If he knocks it over, the smell will linger all night. It happened once. He feels like crying. He won’t tell Holst that he cried. He won’t tell anyone. Nobody can see him. He reaches out an arm, as if there is someone next to him, as if it is still possible there might be someone next to him one day.
It might have been possible, but everything would have had to be different!
He can’t accept the idea that Chief Inspector Kurt Hamling could be his father.
Why does he think about that?
He doesn’t think about anything. He cries like a baby. He is sleepy. In such cases, his nurse would put a bottle between his lips, and he would sniffle two or three times, start sucking and calm down.
It won’t be much longer now. Not that time matters. How old is the woman at the window? Twenty-two? Twenty-five? Where will she be in ten years, or in five? Maybe her partner will be dead? Maybe he’s already dead? Maybe she herself has in her body the germ of some disease that will carry her off?
What will Holst say to him? How will he behave?
Sissy will be silent, he knows. Or else she will simply say, ‘Frank!’
The old man will be present. It doesn’t matter. He’s hot. Does he have a fever? As long as he doesn’t fall ill, not now! The old man is wearing his glasses, he is dressed in black from head to foot. Why, when he is usually in grey? Frank is a Catholic. He has had Protestant friends and he has occasionally attended their services. He has seen pastors.
He has to be careful, because the American desk is chang
ing shape and becoming a kind of altar. Lotte is ridiculous to dress as she does. It happens to her whenever she thinks it’s necessary to look distinguished. Then she overdoes the greys and whites. He vaguely remembers the photograph of a queen who dressed like that, but in an even softer, more diaphanous style. That was a queen, though. Lotte keeps a brothel, and she is diaphanous, too. As for poor Minna, she looks as if she is straight out of a convent. She is Cousin Minna.
Why is she crying? Lotte drops her handkerchief, which is rolled up into a ball, and it is Holst who bends down to pick it up and hand it to her at the end of his long arm. He says nothing, because now is not the time to speak. The old man reads from his little pieces of paper and almost gets confused. It is a very complicated prayer, and of the utmost importance.
Sissy looks Frank in the eyes, so intensely that his pupils hurt.
The revolver has gone, and in its place is a key, a key they will be given instead of rings. The idea isn’t a silly one. He has never heard of it being done before, but it is fine. Who are they going to give it to? It’s obviously the key to a room, with a window, a blind. It’s getting dark. They will have to lower the blind and light the lamp.
He looks. His eyes are open. The light has just been switched on in his classroom. The plainclothes man is standing by his bed, the soldier is waiting at the door.
‘I’m coming,’ he stammers. ‘Don’t worry, I’m coming . . .’
He can’t move. He is forced to make a violent effort. His legs are stiff, his back hurts. The man waits. The courtyard is dark. The floodlight sweeps across it like a lighthouse by the sea. Frank has never seen the sea. He never will. He only knows it through films, and in films there are always lighthouses.
He went to the cinema twice with Sissy. Twice!
‘I’m coming . . .’
He puts his jacket back on. He has the feeling he has forgotten something. Oh, yes! He has to be very nice to the old man, to encourage him.
The little office. The stove hums. It’s much too hot. That may be deliberate, too. They leave him standing, it’s a standing session, when today, he doesn’t know why, he would have been relieved to sit down.
‘Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Kromer?’
The man doesn’t let anything get past him! He has realized that now is the right moment!
The Snow Was Dirty Page 21
