Ask No Question

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘But being thrashed is a part of boyhood, isn’t it? And then you grow into a big, strong man and no one can thrash you again.’

  The back of Mitchell’s neck was red. He said quietly, ‘If you don’t want to come to this bloody fair I can drop you right here.’ He sounded as though at any moment he might jam his foot down on the brake. There was a vineyard to the left and an orchard to the right; Alperin wondered which side the car would land. Burke laughed, a soft, exultant laugh as though he was really enjoying himself.

  ‘But I wouldn’t miss it for anything! The noise and the vulgarity and the freaks. Particularly the freaks.’

  Mitchell did not answer, but it seemed to Alperin that the car went even faster. He closed his eyes and kept them closed until the car reached Rossario, a dusty little town stupefied with heat. All that Alperin remembered of it afterwards was the scorched main street lined with yellowing plane trees.

  ‘No people!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Gone to the fair,’ Burke murmured.

  He was right. When they came to the rough, boulder-strewn ground on which the fair had been set up, Alperin saw something that resembled a gigantic honeycomb encrusted with writhing insects, some of which detached themselves from time to time and crawled away making aimless, exhausted movements.

  ‘No place for the halt and lame,’ Mitchell commented as he stopped the car.

  Burke opened the door and Alperin stepped out on to a broken bottle.

  ‘This is going to be stupendous!’ Burke said. ‘I suppose you do know just where you are meeting your friend?’

  ‘At one of the stalls . . . I don’t remember which one.’

  ‘A treasure hunt. Better and better!’

  They walked one on either side of him into the crowd.

  ‘No place to be alone,’ Mitchell said protectively. ‘We’ll stick with you until you find your friend.’

  It was the thing Alperin had feared, but now he no longer cared; he would never find Huber, anyway.

  Hell, a priest had once told Alperin, is within you, hell is you. He was wrong. Hell was other people: grunting, sweating, belching beer and garlic, hot hands clawing, wheedling voices luring you towards tents to see the two-headed monster, the naked man with the snake writhing round his loins, the fat lady and the dwarf, the fire-eater and the bearded woman; all the world’s grotesques herded together in one brazen square mile. But worse than the freaks was Common Man, black, cavernous mouth blaring, fat thighs bulging in soiled trousers, open shirt revealing curling hair on the flabby pelt; Common Man, reeking, mindless, battering a passage forward with no idea where he was going or why. And flickering in and out of this stinking heap of flesh, the slim, whey-faced pickpockets and the smiling gang boys holding the razor ready in bent palms. An hour of this. Then a pause to watch an incredible rubber-limbed creature performing on a trampoline, twisting and contorting in the air, landing on elbow, chin, stomach; a pause to laugh while men from the crowd tried their skill and something went ludicrously wrong with the trampoline. Then on again to the shooting range, the bowling alley, the wheel of fortune. A drink from a bottle at a stall. Another pause to watch a wrestler with the body of a Michelangelo god and the face of a pig taking on men fools enough, or poor enough, to endure merciless pounding in the hope of winning a few lire as the ‘man who lasted longest against The Great Arturo.’ Then on again; a sickening ride in tiny cars attached to a maypole by inadequate chains, a coconut shy, the wall of death. Then finish.

  Alperin crumpled on a bench near the arena where The Great Arturo was operating on another victim. It was the fag end of the day and The Great Arturo’s performance lacked zest. The clouds were smouldering in the sky, great rods of gold and bronze; the sun had done its work, peeling away the thin layer of goodwill, consuming reason; now it was climbing down the sky, red and heavy, scourging tempers raw as an open wound. The Great Arturo sweated out his time leisurely and the crowd grew more restive, impatience festering in the heat. Burke said:

  ‘They’ll take it out on the promoter soon.’

  Alperin did not care. He did not care if they lynched the man, provided he could sit undisturbed and rest his feet. The promoter, less sanguine, clambered into the ring and proclaimed the latest victim winner of the contest with an endurance time of just under five minutes. The sum due to him was eight thousand lire. The crowd jeered. The promoter, a prim little man with sleek black hair neatly parted in the center, was saddened. He said that his honour was at stake, and that, just to show how honourable he was, he would offer one hundred and seventy thousand lire to anyone who could stay in the ring with The Great Arturo for ten minutes.

  ‘Near enough one hundred pounds!’ Burke murmured. ‘He must be very sure of Goliath!’

  The crowd was sure of him, too. There was a roar of derision and a shower of apple cores, banana peel, tin cans and beer bottles whirled round the promoter’s head. The winner of the contest was being helped out of the ring by his friends. ‘His prize money won’t even meet the hospital expenses!’ Burke commented. The promoter repeated his offer of one hundred and seventy thousand lire; Alperin eased off his shoes and flexed his aching toes and Mitchell got up and walked down to the arena.

  Burke said, ‘Holy Mother of God!’

  While Mitchell stripped, the promoter took his man to one side and Alperin put on his shoes and limped away, stumbling over the laces in his haste. Burke sat still. ‘You stupid, boastful braggart!’ he thought. ‘You deserve a beating.’ The desire to see punishment administered was strong and he stayed to watch. The promoter stepped back from the ring. No doubt he had told his man to give the appearance of a contest for the first five minutes at least; Mitchell must have realized this, because he did not waste energy. Burke waited with mounting impatience for the first five minutes to pass. He was conscious of a growing excitement in his body; the discomfort was so strong that he could not bear to be still, so he got up and pushed his way to the front of the crowd where, surely, the faithful friend belonged and where, incidentally, he had a good view of the contestants. He was well placed when The Great Arturo began to try. The crowd’s mood changed. Now that he was being extended, The Great Arturo showed that he was something of an artist; he knew just where to exert pressure and for how long. The crowd was more appreciative. The promoter, standing near Burke, looked at his watch. Burke said to him, ‘He won’t give up.’ It would not be right for Mitchell to give up; a man can’t make this kind of gesture and then opt out when the screw begins to turn. Burke watched The Great Arturo floor Mitchell and then bring his great weight down on him, kneeling in the small of the back, twisting the arms behind, bending the wrists back, slowly, very slowly. A hot wave of excitement flooded Burke’s body, his limbs throbbed, his mouth was dry. He tried to say, ‘He deserves it,’ but all pretence of moral judgment was swept away on the tide of pleasure. He pushed forward again; he could just see Mitchell’s twisted face but he was too far away to hear him groan. But The Great Arturo could hear and it seemed to inspire him; he treated his victim respectfully, as though he had gained possession of a fine instrument which if played with imagination will produce an interesting range of effects. Time was passing. The promoter was getting worried; he tried to climb into the ring and was hauled back by the rougher elements in the crowd. The Great Arturo turned Mitchell over and brought his knee down in the groin. The crowd bayed exultantly. Agony brought Mitchell to life and reminded him that he knew some tricks of his own; The Great Arturo, unprepared for counterattack at this stage of the game, was flat on his back for the first time during the afternoon. Blood dimmed Burke’s eyes. When he could control his vision again, The Great Arturo was in command and the executioner had taken the place of the artist. Mitchell fell face down and Burke felt the jar in every bone in his body. The Great Arturo was astride Mitchell, levering the shoulders back until it seemed that spine and labouring ribs must crack. Burke found that his lip was bleeding. He turned away, fumbling for a handkerchief. There was a great roar fro
m the crowd. Burke stood shivering as though someone had thrown a bucket of water over him, not daring to raise his head. The Great Arturo must have lost his judgment and exerted that fatal extra ounce of pressure. Beside Burke a man was screaming the same words over and over again; after a while Burke realized what he was saying. ‘Undici minuti!’ Burke looked up quickly. The promoter was standing in the ring, brandishing a wrist watch and shouting ‘Otto minuti!’ The crowd was pressing forward, someone snatched the promoter’s watch and stamped on it. The promoter, much moved by the shattered watch, promised to go and fetch the money if people would only trust him. A man hit him and he fell on his knees, blood streaming from his mouth. The Great Arturo, callously uninterested, was climbing slowly out of the ring; Mitchell, not interested either, was lying face down in a corner. But Burke was interested. He got to his feet; he felt sick and exhausted, but very determined to see that right was done. He scrambled into the arena and pushed his way towards the promoter; he was not strong, but he was quick on his feet and agile as an eel. The promoter, in fear of lynching, had discovered that he had plenty of money and a man in a check suit was offering to look after it for ‘my poor friend.’ Burke pushed between the two men.

  ‘But my friend isn’t going to be poor!’ he said as he snatched at the money.

  The man was twice his size, but Burke did not care; at this moment he was prepared to fight until they tore him apart. The crowd swayed and hesitated, befuddled with sun and violence. Then a voice at the back called out, ‘The little runt was sitting with him up here.’ Burke got the money. He put it away carefully in his pocket. It was a lot of money. When feeling cooled, calculation would oust sympathy; it would not be just the pickpockets and the gang boys he had to fear. He was glad to see a couple of policemen hovering at the back of the crowd; a little law was certainly needed. He went over to Mitchell, who was still lying face down snatching for breath.

  ‘My friend is very ill,’ he said dramatically. ‘Someone will pay for this.’ His Italian was not good, but the message came across and the crowd edged back. One of the policemen was making his way towards the ring. No one tried to stop him, but he lashed about with his cane just to show that it would not be wise to make any false moves. His friend waited a few minutes and then repeated the performance. Burke went over his own performance again. ‘My friend is very, very ill.’ The first policeman bent down and examined Mitchell briefly; he wasn’t a very attractive sight, the face disfigured with bruises, the features blunted and coarsened.

  ‘Has he broken anything?’ the policeman asked.

  ‘No.’

  Burke was not sure that this was true, but he did not want them to fetch an ambulance. He was sorry for Mitchell; nevertheless, he felt that he had suffered so much that a little more pain could scarcely matter. He kept very close as the policemen dragged Mitchell away; it would be a pity if he was attacked while the police had their hands full.

  There was another complication when they reached the comparative calm of the area where the cars were parked. The policemen wanted to take Mitchell and Burke to the police station. Burke could see that they were going to be insistent: fair ground duty was hard work and any excuse to head for home was welcome. Burke took out the prize money. They were realists, no need for wearisome subtleties; twenty thousand lire persuaded them that a visit to the police station would be an unnecessary formality.

  Burke drove carefully across the valley, anxious not to jar Mitchell by a sudden movement of the car; he was solicitous, almost tender.

  ‘Sure an’ it’s a brave, bloody fool that ye are!’ The edge had worn off the mockery; he sounded exasperated but affectionate. ‘Though why you did it, is something I’ll never understand. You’re the most unexpected man I know.’

  It was only when they had crossed the frontier and the car was negotiating the high spiral of Swiss roads that he realized the truth of what he had said. He pondered this unexpected act as darkness came down, easing the strained eyes, cooling the brain. From time to time, when the road straightened for long enough to allow him to relax his attention, he glanced round. The face that he could see was, in spite of everything, civilized and aware; it reminded Burke that Mitchell was no devil-may-care, brawling Paddy. He had proved long ago that he could stand pain better than most men; but he had learnt to respect it and he would never court it needlessly. And so? Burke was very cold now; his body was drained of feeling and his mind of distraction. The answer came quite simply. One hundred and seventy thousand lire. And the only reason that Mitchell could need money so urgently was Miriam Kratz. As one did not spend money on people like Miriam Kratz voluntarily, that meant blackmail. It all fell into place. He would have to think rather carefully about the future.

  But before he could think about the future there was something to be done. He had an account to pay. He could not have explained why this was so to anyone, least of all himself; he simply knew that some payment must be made for the afternoon’s entertainment.

  When they reached Mitchell’s room, Burke did not offer to play the Good Samaritan; he could not have borne to lay his hands on the bruised flesh. He simply put the money down on the dressing table and added to it twenty thousand lire of his own to cover the amount he had paid to the policemen. Twenty thousand lire represented a lot of money to Burke, who was not rich. The debt was paid. He went to his own room and lay down; he did not want to think, but the only book he had with him was The Brothers Karamazov and, most definitely, he was not in the mood for that. He listened to the sounds in the street; usually the noise annoyed him, but now he was glad of the distraction. He heard the music from the pleasure steamer as it came in to the jetty to pick up people for the ‘surprise evening cruise.’ He wondered idly what the surprise involved; then he began to laugh. They had left that poor little bugger Alperin at the fair!

  Alperin had not thought it at all funny. He had meant to get out to the car and wait there until Mitchell and Burke returned. But he had lost his way in the bewildering maze of stalls; and then he had been knocked down and robbed. It had been quite unnecessary to knock him down, he would never have resisted; but the youths concerned had wanted to hit someone and he had been close to hand. They had hit him rather hard and dragged him behind one of the tents. He did not come to until the evening.

  It was dark. The crowd had congregated in the amusement park; he could see the bright, flashing lights of the merry-go-round and he could hear music and the sound of fireworks. But here it was dark and deserted. Alperin sat up. Immediately he felt very sick and dizzy. He let his head hang forward to stop himself fainting. As he crouched there he became aware of sounds inside the tent, odd, inexplicable sounds. It was a relief to know that someone was at hand. His experience of the last few hours had, however, made him cautious and he decided to investigate before asking for help. He tried to lift the bottom of the tent, but it was firmly pegged down; so he crawled round to the front of it and lifted up the flap. It was a very small tent; he did not have any difficulty in seeing its occupants. One was the boy on the trampoline; at close range, and the range was very close, Alperin recognized the boy for whom he had bought the Coca-Cola. He let the flap of the tent down; the boy had not recognized him and Huber had been in no state to recognize anyone. Alperin crawled away until he was out of sight and earshot of the tent, then he lay down, his head pillowed on his arms. He had no idea how he was ever to get back to Tamaro and he did not in the least care.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was good when dawn came; not that it was any easier to breathe, but there was a faint sense of reassurance, a belief that the nightmare would pass now. Mitchell thought that he would look at the clock. Usually this was an automatic action and he was not sure at first why it required thinking out; then he realized that he could not turn his head. He tried to move his arm towards the clock, but this proved impossible too. Panic took away what little breath he had. His mind, which still seemed able to function, fought down the panic. He could feel muscles he had n
ot felt for years, so he was not paralysed. He was just very stiff and it would take a long time to get up and dress; nevertheless, he was going to get up and dress. He looked down at his hands, resting on the crumpled sheet like two bunches of bananas. He moved the little finger of each hand, then the third finger, the middle finger, the index finger, the thumb; he repeated the exercise. It was encouraging, soon he might be able to bend the knuckles. This, however, proved more difficult; he tried bending the wrists, which was agony. He rested for a while and then started again. After a quarter of an hour he had some control over his hands, although he could not do anything difficult, like picking up the clock. He wondered what to do next. It was his back that worried him; the spine was as rigid as steel set in concrete. There didn’t seem much point in moving hands and possibly feet if one could never sit up again. He thought about this and while he thought he raised his head a few inches and lowered it again on the pillow. He did this several times. The neck held under the strain, so he turned his head a few inches to the right and then a few inches to the left. He moved his legs; there wasn’t any serious trouble there. He hunched his legs up and tried to roll to one side; his spine became a red-hot poker pressing against raw nerves. The time to rest had passed; he would never have the courage to make this move a second time. Ignoring the pain and sweat and his own involuntary protests, he managed to roll sideways and lever his weight on to one elbow; he swung his legs over the side of the bed and fumbled for the bedside table with his free hand. He knocked over the clock, but that did not matter; time was never more relative than now. He clung to the table as exhausted as though it was the pinnacle of Everest. What was it that Hillary was reported to have said? ‘We’ve done the bitch!’ He would say that when he reached the wash basin. It was a long journey; halfway there he caught sight of himself in the mirror and laughed. A bad mistake. He hadn’t breath for words when he reached the wash basin. It took him a long time to wash and even longer to shave. When he had finished he wanted to go to bed again, possibly for a month. Instead he ordered breakfast; they would be serving it now, his manoeuvres had taken the better part of two hours. He dragged a chair on to the balcony and sat down. It was probably unwise to sit down if he ever wanted to walk again, but he was too exhausted to bother about that.