The Pearlkillers

by Rachel Ingalls

  ‘Yes, very nice,’ he said. ‘Could be anyone.’

  ‘It’s unmistakable and you know it.’

  There was a knock at the door. Anders went to answer it. Ingrid was outside with the trolley. ‘I’ll take that,’ he told her. He wheeled the food into the room, shutting the door after him.

  Sten wouldn’t eat much. He drank a few sips of wine and started to ask if Anders remembered this and remembered that. Anders answered shortly: yes, yes.

  ‘I remember, but what of it?’

  ‘I think of those days as very happy times.’

  ‘And I think of them as dead.’

  ‘But I also remember that I never had the complete control over you that I wanted.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No. I always felt that your influence over me was greater than mine over you.’

  ‘I didn’t. I thought we were equal.’

  ‘Would your wife want to know’, Sten asked, ‘that you once loved me more than you could ever love her?’

  ‘Not more than. That’s not the truth, either.’

  ‘Pretty close to it.’

  ‘Is that what you’ve come for?’

  ‘I thought you might be interested in reading something. Wait.’ He pushed the folding table a few inches away and leaned down towards the knapsack he’d left on the floor by his chair. ‘You’ll have to get it for me,’ he said. ‘I can’t reach.’

  Anders crossed to the chair. He picked up the bag by its strap.

  ‘Go ahead and look,’ Sten told him. ‘There’s a copy. And if there wasn’t, I could just write another.’

  Anders shook out about a hundred and fifty pages of paper covered with writing. They were spattered with blots and crosshatched by corrections and underlinings. He began to read the first page, then skipped, and skimmed through several more at random. The book purported to be a true account of the expedition to South America; Anders and his ship’s officers had taken part in it, although Sten was the main figure: the pathfinder and hero.

  ‘What’s this for?’ Anders asked.

  ‘Publication, of course.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. It’ll be a great success.’

  ‘It would contradict what I’ve already made public’

  ‘And why not? It’s my fiction against yours.’

  Anders re-read some of the lines. The style was worse than the paraphrases invented by Erika’s magazine. It was quite possible that such a thing could become a success in the world. He would have to sue, but Sten would be made rich, could hold out for a long time while the lawyers on both sides ate up their money, and then do a bolt with what he had left, leaving Anders and his family to live with the publicity. The photograph would be very convincing, too. He’d seen how they could be faked and yet he too always believed in the veracity of pictures. Even when the methods of cutting and reduplicating had been pointed out, the joins revealed – they had the look of truth.

  ‘Good, eh?’ Sten said.

  ‘You must have cooked this up in a hurry. It’s a mess to read. And from what I can see, the story doesn’t appear to hang together.’

  ‘As well as anybody else’s. Anyway, the content may be negotiable. The style’s the thing.’

  ‘You think I can give you more for it than the magazines or the newspapers?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I know all about blackmail, remember? And when you take a story like this to a publisher, the first thing they do is to check the facts, to see if it could get them into trouble.’

  ‘Oh, some of these outfits would print anything, especially if they saw the chance of money in it.’

  ‘You’d have to prove your identity. And if you did that, you might have to go back to jail. Or it could be worse, not being in jail; I expect there are a lot of people in Vienna out for your blood, maybe some from other places and from before my time. Or afterwards. I don’t know what’s really been happening to you in the past seven years, do I? Quite a lot, undoubtedly.’

  ‘I’m beyond all that now.’

  ‘You don’t have children.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Is there anyone in this world you’d want to think well of you?’

  Sten grinned. He said, ‘Only you, Anders. And what’s a good opinion worth? I’d rather have cash any day. Wouldn’t you? It’s just your vanity. I don’t accuse you of anything bad.’

  ‘Only failure, stupidity, deception.’

  ‘There’s something I’ve noticed about these famous explorers,’ Sten said, ‘and the stories about their discoveries. It’s very interesting: there are always two. That’s right. I’ve noticed that, haven’t you? There’s the official commentary and there’s also the real story: the gentleman’s version, and,’ he sneered, ‘the servant’s.’

  ‘The original and the one somebody thought up for the purpose of getting rich quick.’

  ‘Even the famous ones – there’s always the other story. I wouldn’t be so quick to say which is more truthful. You aren’t concerned with the truth – you never were. Your expedition after knowledge was a sham to begin with.’

  ‘Who’s ever interested in truth for its own sake? Not many. I wanted to do something to make people admire me, and to live up to the expectations of my ancestors. Truth didn’t enter into the scheme very much; if you could say what truth is, anyway.’

  ‘It’s Vienna.’

  ‘That’s only fact. There are a lot of facts in the world. The life here – that’s a fact, too.’

  ‘The life here is hypocrisy.’

  ‘It’s a good life for a lot of people.’

  Sten laughed. He looked at the food on his plate, pushed his fork at it, changed his mind and lifted his glass again.

  Anders wondered how long the game was meant to go on, whether he could stop it in a few days, or if it would take weeks. He could leave, of course. But if he did that, Sten might become so infuriated that he’d take it out on the family.

  ‘I may not need to use the book,’ Sten said. ‘We could write a new one together.’

  ‘How would I explain that? You’re supposed to be dead. And I thought you were.’ He tapped the manuscript with the handle of his dinner knife. ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ he added.

  ‘All you have to do is help. We can think up something. In the old days you were good at it.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His hand tightened around the knife and opened again. He leaned back in his chair. It was possible that Sten, entering prematurely into old age, had a wish for the respectability of having his name printed on the cover of a book that could be found in a medical scholar’s office. It was also possible that, nearing death, he had become lonely, wanting the old times again, with both of them working together in some large city like Paris, Berlin or London, but being on top this time: that he wanted them to share a life again, perhaps even – as they had once planned – in America. Maybe he was crazy enough to hope for such a thing, and not to realize that it was too late for Anders to go back to the other life, just as at one time it had been too late to come back to this one.

  And Sten really was dying, anyone could see that; he must know it himself. He wouldn’t last any longer in America than in Europe. Perhaps he still never saw what he had no wish to see.

  ‘Think about it,’ Sten suggested.

  ‘I have my family.’

  ‘What do you care? You’re the owner here. You can do anything you like. You could kick them all out, if you wanted to. Why not? Do they earn their keep?’

  Anders smiled, but maybe with his damaged eyesight, Sten couldn’t see.

  ‘Think about it,’ Sten repeated. ‘I know a lot about South America. I’ve talked with people.’

  ‘There’s a difference,’ Anders said. ‘I went there.’

  ‘In your dreams.’

  ‘No, I went.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Yes, I can prove it.’ He picked up the gold statuette and took it across the room. He held it out, saying, ‘Look
. Where do you think I got it?’

  ‘I’ve seen such things in the salerooms.’

  ‘Oh? Like this one?’

  ‘One meets a great many people who’ve travelled to distant places and have things to sell.’

  Anders returned to his desk. He put the idol back in its place.

  ‘Ugly-looking thing,’ Sten said.

  ‘I got it in South America, where I worked for nearly five years. I ran a boat up and down the river, taking the miners from place to place; and the ranchers and the traders and anybody else – everybody else, all on the move. I think it comes from farther north, but it’s real, all right. How did you think I got my money? Where did you imagine I was for those years – back here?’

  Sten looked hard at Anders. He frowned. Finally he said, ‘You lied about the expedition.’

  ‘I had to. It was too great a failure, and it was public. I lied because of my family.’

  ‘What a fine thing it is’, Sten said bitterly, ‘to have a family.’

  Anders stood up. ‘I’ll drive you back to the seamen’s hostel myself,’ he said. ‘And we’ll talk some more about this tomorrow. I have to think everything over carefully.’

  Sten nodded. He rocked from side to side, holding the arms of the chair as he prepared to lever himself upwards. Anders moved the table away; he said, ‘You won’t mind if I hang on to the manuscript?’

  ‘Give it back, Anders.’

  ‘It’ll be safe with me. Why would I want to get rid of it? I haven’t even read the thing yet. I’ve got to read it before I make up my mind what to do.’

  ‘You can read it when I’m in the room with you. I don’t feel right without it.’

  Anders put the strap of the empty knapsack into Sten’s hand. He said, ‘If you’re worried, just remember that you’ve still got the photograph. It isn’t as though the book were evidence of anything. It’s only a story you made up.’

  ‘I want it back.’

  ‘I’ll let you have it tomorrow afternoon. And now I’m taking you home.’ He held the terrace door open, pulled down the lantern from its bracket on the wall and lit it. He turned the light high so that Sten could see. Sten walked like an invalid – painfully and with many hesitations – and kept his head down. Anders was suddenly afflicted by a horror and remorse that continued to oppress him all night long, travelling down over his intestines like qualms of nausea. It wasn’t fear. He didn’t know what it could be. If it hadn’t been associated with Sten, he might have thought it was compassion.

  *

  The family had, as usual, a great deal to discuss over breakfast. Among other topics, they touched on that of the horses. They asked about the last night’s guest. They hoped that Anders was going to stand out for a really fine pair of chestnuts and, if they could afford it, a grey as well.

  He followed Erika on to the terrace, where Elsie was talking to Ekdahl. ‘I need your advice,’ he said. ‘Would you have the time this morning – now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I made an appointment; nothing definite, but perhaps ….’

  ‘If it’s the Russians, all right. But if it’s a beau, this is more important.’

  ‘Anders, is someone ill?’

  ‘It’s not so simple as an illness. Come for a walk. Half an hour.’

  She nodded. They set off towards the lake. The light streamed down over them. It was the first day of the year that had begun with a real heat in the sun – warm enough to row out on the lake and talk there. But he knew how well sound carried over water, as from parts of the forest, where some dips and trails were like echo-chambers, throwing words and noises to people miles away. He knew all about the properties of water: the changeable element of which the human body was largely composed.

  ‘Over on the path there,’ he said. ‘Where the bench is. And the hillside behind won’t give back the sound. It absorbs everything.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We found out about it when we were children. There’s always been a bench there. I expect that’s why: it’s a good place for talking. And a good view. You can see the lake and the house.’

  They sat down. He thought how lovely the old building looked from that point, set in all its lands, and how pretty the sun was on Erika’s hair and face.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  He began to tell her most of the truth, beginning with the shipwreck, Spain and Vienna. From then on, he smudged the edges. He said that he and Sten had been friends and business associates. He didn’t tell her that one of the businesses had been a brothel, but he admitted to having been poor, starving, sick, driven to living from hand to mouth, to cheating people, stealing, committing other petty offences, and having been put in jail.

  He could see that the disgrace of prison didn’t alarm her. Prison, to her, carried the connotation of political acts. It was society’s repository for anarchists as well as criminals. To the rest of his family, of course, the idea of jail was unthinkable, the shame indelible.

  He told her everything that came after Vienna. And then he recounted the events of the previous evening.

  ‘You’ve got the manuscript?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s pathetic. And outrageous. It’s just like him. I found myself laughing a lot. But – you see the quandary I’m in: it doesn’t depend on me alone. I can’t decide just for myself.’

  ‘The decision’s easy, Anders. The man wants to ruin you.’

  ‘That’s one of the things I’ve been wondering about. You may be right. I think he probably does. And I almost think I may be ready to let him do it.’

  ‘You can’t. You have duties to others – you just said so yourself.’

  ‘If I could act on my own, and not think about everyone else; that was the trouble in the first place. And I kept doing it. I take everyone else into account. But one shouldn’t.’

  ‘He hates you for your family and your house and lands, and your education and position of responsibility, and the work you’ve done. He’s going to try to spoil the whole of that.’

  ‘Do you think the rest of the family could understand what I did? Do you think they’d forgive it?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think you should keep quiet.’

  ‘But you understand.’

  ‘I approve of your motives. And I think it was actually more difficult to do what you did – to keep up a lie and not lose your nerve.’

  ‘Like you and your Russians.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about that. Do you think he’ll bring the photograph with him, or leave it at the hostel?’

  ‘He’ll bring it with him. He doesn’t trust landladies and chambermaids. But a photograph can be copied, easily. He’s right about that.’

  ‘You see that tree down there?’ Erika asked. ‘Near the lake, not far from my boathouse. Bring this Sten there at seven o’clock.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to help. Don’t think any more about it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll kidnap him. Put him in a hospital ward in a white jacket. I know lots of medical students. Don’t worry. If it doesn’t turn out, there’s tomorrow.’

  She stood up and began to walk back to the house. He didn’t move. He still wasn’t sure what to think. He wanted to stay with his family, not to be near Sten again, yet he couldn’t quite rid himself of the feeling that had come over him late the night before. And after reading the manuscript, he no longer believed Sten was so dangerous as he had at first appeared. He didn’t want to hurt Sten; for old times’ sake, and also because it was so obvious that the man didn’t have long to live.

  ‘Anders,’ Erika called. He looked up. She was standing at the bend in the path, waiting for him. He got up and walked forward to her.

  ‘There’s something you have that I’d like you to give me,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. Anything.’

  ‘That little gold statuette you showed me once.’

  ‘Ah. I’m very attached to tha
t. We’ve been through a lot together. It’s become like a mascot to me.’

  ‘I have an idea that it might bring me luck. And besides, if I do you a favour, who can tell – somebody might be able to ask me for a favour. You know how these things work.’

  ‘Not really,’ he said. He’d lost the sense of what she was hinting at. ‘But I’ll give it to you. Come back to the house.’

  They walked through the lower gardens that were still half dug-up, climbed the stairs and went along the terrace. He opened the door to his study and took down the statue from the shelf above his desk. Without looking again at the face of the god, he put it into her hands. She thanked him and walked out of the door, heading away towards the boathouse.

  *

  Sten arrived early. He wouldn’t speak, or go anywhere, until Anders had returned his manuscript. Then he agreed to walk down to the lake. Once again his progress was slow, but he appeared to be enjoying the exercise. He blinked into the hazy early evening sunlight and said softly, ‘It’s a fine country. I’d forgotten how beautiful it can be. They say it happens to us all as we grow old – we remember our early years more and more. Of course, my really early years weren’t here, but it’s strange how much it still affects me. Maybe it’s partly because of you. This is a wonderful place, Anders. Did you spend your childhood here?’

  ‘Most of it; yes. And my father grew up here, too. And my grandfather. It’s not such an old house. My great-grandparents had it built shortly after they married.’ As they skirted the sunken gardens, he held out his arm. Sten fastened on to it with a grip like a monkey. Anders thought: He used to be such a good-looking man: his face and head, the eyes, his way of standing, all his postures; and with an easy, athletic walk. Even if it was true that they’d broken Sten’s bones, how was it possible that a body so well-proportioned had become this crabbed gremlin whom one could scarcely bear to be near? And what terrors he must have gone through as the change had begun; Sten had always hated every sign of age in himself, and looked for them all the time, fearfully, the way religious people watch themselves for spiritual failings. In seven years he had undergone a shrivelling change more profound than that which had overtaken Aunt Emmelina and Aunt Irmintrude in the last thirty years of their lives.