by MARY HOCKING
‘Do you talk to the people in the pension?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘They don’t talk to me.’
‘What do you do all day?’
‘I stay in bed in the morning.’
‘And in the afternoon?’
‘I sit here.’
‘And in the evening?’
‘I go to bed.’
Rest had not done her any good; it had merely destroyed the rhythm of her life. She felt lost and useless, and she envied the pension staff who were too busy to notice the passage of time. She looked at Mitchell sullenly. He had cut her off from the current of life, and now she sensed that he was about to lecture her for apathy. To prevent this, she said:
‘They want me to pay weekly.’
‘Why?’
‘They don’t like it that I don’t have any luggage.’
And no doubt they did not like it that she wore the same dress every day, Mitchell thought. He wondered what she did about underclothes. Very little, judging by her appearance. He found himself disturbed, not for the first time, by the peculiarly urgent appeal of her body. He felt that if he were to run a hand up the taut line of her thigh the exploration would be the most hazardous he had ever made; he could feel the repercussions of it now as though an electric shock had passed through his body. He was not usually one to let the act lag far behind the thought. Yet now he found himself moving a little further away, holding back from her with a constraint he had not known even as a young man when intimacy had presented more problems.
She misinterpreted his withdrawal, and said insistently:
‘I have to pay them today.’
He took out his wallet. When he handed her the money she counted it and then said grudgingly: ‘This is more than I owe them.’
‘But you must spend something during the day, surely?’
She folded the money and put it in her pocket; her fist went in after it. That small, clenched fist seemed a symbol of the whole person. They sat in silence, staring down the grass slope to the stone cottages hunched beside the lake. There did not seem anything to say; he had made the payment and it was obvious that as far as she was concerned the purpose of his visit had been achieved. It was a little humiliating; he could not remember the last time a woman had been so unaware of him. He said:
‘Your husband must be a remarkable person!’
It was a careless remark, prompted by a rather childish jealousy. He was quite unprepared for its effect.
‘Oh, you feel like that? Without even knowing him, you can feel that!’ The taut lips relaxed in a smile that was surprisingly tender, the guarded eyes softened. ‘If you had known him as I knew him . . .’
Mitchell realized wretchedly that she was going to confide in him. While she talked he sat still, seeing how the long grass on the sloping hillside quivered and parted as the first breath of evening stirred. He did not really listen to what she said. He already knew something about her husband. Kratz had worked at a rehabilitation center for the victims of concentration camps. It had not been a very successful venture and most of the organizers had given up; but Dr. Kratz, it seemed, was not interested in success and he had carried on. When someone asked him why he did this he was reputed to have replied, ‘What else is there to do?’ One of his patients had been Miriam. Mitchell watched the colours deepen as the sun bronzed the lake and turned stone to rose. It seemed that Miriam Kratz could be counted as one of the doctor’s successes; at least he had taught her something of love. Mitchell was not best pleased to discover that this unhappy creature had had an experience he had never known. He was glad when the flow of words ceased.
‘He must have been much older than you,’ he said.
She brought that clenched fist out of her pocket; for a moment he thought that she was giving him back the money. Then he saw that she was holding a photograph. He was not good at this kind of thing—what could you say when you looked at the picture of another man? He rehearsed a few safe phrases in the seconds before he looked at it.
The man in the photograph was fair skinned, blond; only the slightly hooked nose and something about the full, rather sad mouth told one that he was a Jew. The eyes were what Mitchell noticed. The eyes looked out of the photograph fearlessly; they seemed to look straight at him, still retaining, against all odds, an unmistakable liking for the human race. It was difficult to believe that those eyes had ever looked on the barbarism of a concentration camp. Mitchell handed the photograph back.
‘Did he ever try to leave East Berlin?’ he asked.
‘No. He had his clinic and he would not leave that. He did no harm and he wasn’t afraid.’
‘Were you?’
‘Yes. I was always afraid.’
‘He has been away a long time.’ Some inner resentment made Mitchell brutal. ‘Haven’t you ever felt like giving him up?’
‘I shall never give him up.’
Something about the look of her carried more conviction than the words. Mitchell was surprised at the change in her. In Berlin, she had seemed shadowy, her only asset the pathos of the waif. But here, under the harsh scrutiny of the sun, she appeared more substantial. He was conscious of the sinewy strength of the thin body, of the stubbornness underlying the passive features; there was something of the inflexibility of the peasant about her. He thought suddenly: she will weather suffering, even outlive it. Just for a moment, he was a little afraid of her.
‘I have to meet Dan Burke in half an hour,’ he said abruptly.
She took him by the sleeve, those thin, strong fingers holding tight again. She thanked him with an intensity of emotion which embarrassed him.
‘It means so much to talk about my husband, so much . . .’
She made no mention of the money, which she took for granted, it was his interest that mattered. No doubt he was the first person who had been rash enough to show any interest in Mikail Kratz for a very long time. ‘Show them even a flicker of sympathy,’ Burke had once said of the Berlin unfortunates, ‘and you’ll find them mewing outside your door for the rest of your life.’
It was cooler that evening, but the next day the heat was intense. Waiters in the hotel quarrelled, there was a fight in the road leading up to the old part of the town, the tourists sat listlessly in the shade and the people coming off the passenger boats had faces like skinned tomatoes. Alperin was driven from his lakeside seat. His inertia was replaced by a feeling of claustrophobia; the town had become a small, tight oven from which he must escape at all costs. He decided to take a trip to the mountains. No one followed him this time. He took the postal bus to a small village in the Valle Maggia. When the bus stopped the driver said, ‘You have four hours here.’ It was not the kind of place in which Alperin wanted to spend four minutes. Here were no wooden chalets bright with window boxes, no cowbells ringing from green flower-canopied slopes, no cool, snowcapped peaks to refresh the eye in the distance. This was a shanty town, ugly, bare, speaking only of the utmost poverty. The houses, dark and rough-tiled, clung to the slopes of the hills and men laboured on terraces so steep that they had to work on all fours. Grass grew through the roofs of the ramshackle outhouses. The children stared at Alperin in his peaked sun cap and neat linen suit and one or two stones clattered behind him as he hurried along the rough path that served as a street. One should pity them, of course; these were the people who did not appear in the bright holiday posters, these were the oppressed of this complacent little country. Nevertheless, he was glad to leave them and their ugly village behind him.
Unfortunately, the prospect ahead was not encouraging. The valley was narrow and wooded; the mountain peaks were hidden from view. There were a lot of insects and it was much hotter than it had been by the lake. He felt more trapped than ever. He took out his map and studied it. The nearest town was five miles away and if he went there he would almost certainly have to walk back; he had no desire to walk ten miles in this heat. He put the map away and told himself that he m
ust take a stroll and enjoy the natural beauty of his surroundings. The map had shown that a river ran through the valley, but when he fought his way to it through tangled undergrowth he found only a trickle of water running between stones white as bleached bones. In the wall of rock above blue and purple scars marked the passage of a staunched waterfall. He sat down on a boulder and ate his packed lunch. The thought of being trapped in this place for four hours brought him close to panic. When he had finished his lunch he walked for a while beside the stream, but the valley got narrower and changed direction so that the sun shone only on the higher slopes opposite. He lay down in the grass and tried to sleep, pestered by flies. Above him, he could see the mountains like blue shadows stencilled on the sky. He felt exhausted and so disappointed that he wanted to cry. On the way back in the bus he applied a little elementary psychology to himself. All this touring of the lake in search of the calm reaches of thought, this turning to the mountains for the release of the spirit, was a way of avoiding the agony of the final decision that alone could release him. So be it, he had learnt his lesson. Tomorrow . . . no, tonight, he would speak to the man, Huber.
Huber did not come to the café that evening. He did not come the next evening either and Alperin was driven to go in search of him. He found him sitting under a magnolia tree outside a scruffy bar in a square in the old part of the town. There was a boy with him. Alperin went up to Huber and said:
‘I want to have a word with you.’
He expected Huber to dismiss the boy, but he made no movement. Alperin, whose life had been sheltered by his own obsessions, was surprised at the coolness of his reception; although he drew up a chair and seated himself between Huber and the boy, Huber did not acknowledge his presence.
‘You must have a drink with me,’ Alperin said.
He ordered coffee and brandies for himself and Huber; as the boy remained, he ordered a Coca-Cola for him. He decided to wait until the brandy arrived before he spoke, it would be a civilized accompaniment to what he had to say: it was very important to be civilized about this. Huber and the boy were very quiet. Alperin looked at the magnolia tree. There was something about the texture of the heavy petals, waxen in the moonlight, that repelled him. His preference was for frail flowers that bowed tremulous heads before the wind; the magnolia had fought its battle with the wind a long time ago and now it was still and very assured. The magnolia, Alperin decided, was one of nature’s less innocent achievements.
The drinks came. The brandy did not seem to have any effect on Huber but the Coca-Cola had an extraordinary effect on the boy. Alperin had begun to talk generally about the unsatisfactory climate in which scientific research was carried out in England, when the boy stood up and emptied his glass over Alperin’s head. Then he picked up Alperin’s brandy and drank it. After that he strolled away across the square. Alperin, shocked and temporarily blinded, groped for his handkerchief.
‘What an extraordinary thing!’ he said, trying to sound amused. ‘Is he simple?’
When he had mopped his face he put the handkerchief down on the table and knocked over Huber’s brandy. This did not matter because Huber had gone. Alperin went back to his hotel and had a very bad night.
The next day he hardly left the hotel. He made constant excuses to go to the reception desk; he bought postcards, enquired about boat and train timetables, made arrangements for his departure next week. When he was not at the reception desk he was sitting at one of the tables outside the hotel. All day he kept watch on the hotel in case Huber called to see him. But Huber did not come and by the evening an unpleasant thought had occurred to Alperin. Suppose they no longer wanted him? Sometime during the dead hours of the night the thought translated itself into fact. He was an outcast: it was not a role that was in the least attractive to him. He saw himself walking eternally down a dark corridor flanked by doors which were forever closed to him. There was no escape but suicide. Sleeping pills, which he did not possess but could surely obtain, seemed the best answer since he was rather squeamish and had no flair for the dramatic. While he was wondering how he could obtain the sleeping pills, he fell asleep. When he woke he felt so sick and his head was so heavy that the idea of making himself worse by taking pills of any kind was out of the question. He decided instead to make a determined effort to find Huber.
He searched for Huber all day and failed to find him. But the search itself, being the most purposeful thing he had done since he arrived, kept him in good spirit and he felt that at last he was getting to grips with reality. He had had a bad fright, but he had learnt his lesson: now he was ready to act. He slept well that night and found Huber the next afternoon.
Unfortunately, he lost him again a few minutes later. One moment, there was Huber strolling by the side of the lake, gazing at the sailing boats bobbing aimlessly up and down in the water; the next moment, he turned sharply to the right and boarded a bus. Alperin began to run. He was not a good runner, but he was very determined; he put his head down, gritted his teeth and charged. He felled a small child, got entangled with a poodle, and fractionally missed being run over by a hell-bent Mercedes. He was in great distress by the time he neared the bus; he saw the door closing but had no breath to make a spurt so he flapped his arms desolately in the hope that passersby would attract the attention of the driver. The bus moved off fast. A man at the cigarette kiosk nearby, who had watched Alperin’s performance with interest, said to him:
‘Last bus today.’
‘Last bus! But it’s only three o’clock.’
The man explained, ‘Special bus for fair at Rossario. Only one bus there and one bus back at night.’ He turned to serve a customer.
Alperin stumbled into the hotel and made for the reception desk. The garrulous Englishman, Mitchell, was talking to the receptionist; she continued to give him her entire attention in spite of Alperin’s frantic signals. Mitchell’s companion, crouched in the one comfortable chair in the foyer, said pleasantly:
‘You’ll never make it.
She loves not you nor me as all we love her.
Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,
She would not hear.’
Mitchell did hear. He turned and said rather irritably:
‘I’m sorry, were you . . .’ He stopped, staring at Alperin. ‘Good God! Has there been an accident?’
In the mirror to the side of the reception desk, Alperin caught sight of his face, purple as though someone had tried to strangle him. He said huskily:
‘I missed a bus.’
The receptionist turned to answer the telephone.
‘There’s another bus in an hour.’
‘Not to Rossario.’
‘Rossario!’ She looked at him, cradling the receiver beneath her chin. She was young and incapable of hiding her surprise. ‘You want to go to the fair?’
‘Yes.’
They were all looking at him now, the girl giggling, the man, Burke, with amusement that was not reflected in his eyes, and Mitchell with a return of the heavy good humour which Alperin found so painful.
‘A fair!’ Mitchell looked across at his companion. ‘I didn’t know there was a fair at Rossario, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t know there was a fair at Rossario.’
‘But we must go! They do this sort of thing so well; they really know how to enjoy themselves—no inhibitions about noise and vulgarity. Yes, indeed we must go.’ He turned and strolled towards the entrance. Alperin called after him:
‘May I come with you, please?’
Mitchell turned round. Alperin, who had never before foisted himself on anyone felt his flesh crawl as Mitchell glanced across at Burke. Burke shrugged his shoulders. Alperin said desperately:
‘You see, I’ve missed the bus and I . . . I have to meet someone.’
‘You mean you want to go now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’ Mitchell looked thoughtfully out at the lake. Alperin’s overtaxed heart thudded against his damp shirt. ‘I was thinkin
g of going to the lido,’ Mitchell mused. ‘A fair is so much better at night . . .’
Burke said: ‘There’s a gala at the lido.’
‘So there is! That’s settled it.’ Mitchell turned to Alperin. ‘Come along with us by all means. You’ll need your passport—Rossario is over the Italian border.’
They reached the Italian border in less time than Alperin would have thought possible. He held tight to the sides of the seat; he dared not hold the strap in case Burke, who was sitting beside him in the back, mocked his temerity. As the car sped along the road across the valley towards Rossario, Burke mocked him about other things.
‘Now I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind to like a fair so much.’
‘I never went as a child.’
It was an omission for which he was thankful, but he had got used to blaming everything on childhood deprivations.
‘I didn’t either. Isn’t it dreadfully sad not to have done the right things at the right time?’ Burke looked at Mitchell, who had been silent for a long while. To Alperin’s surprise the mockery had a sharper edge when he spoke to his friend. ‘I expect you went to countless fairs when you were a child.’
Mitchell said, ‘Yes.’ Alperin hoped that Burke would leave it at that. The car was travelling as though bound for the point where parallel lines meet and it hardly seemed the time to distract the attention of the driver. But Burke went on:
‘How wonderful to have enjoyed the fruits of each season!’
‘Forbidden fruits in my case. The local fairs were out of bounds and I always got a good thrashing afterwards.’
