Ask No Question

by MARY HOCKING

  He thought about Mitchell. It was time Mitchell paid him another visit. Perhaps he was up in the bedroom, waiting. The thought did not displease Alperin. It had cost him a tremendous effort to confess to Mitchell; but now that his reticence had been breached he felt a strong desire to pour out his innermost secrets. And Mitchell had a duty to listen since he was, in a sense, Alperin’s guardian. A light went on in the lounge and a few people strolled on to the balcony. He felt that they were standing staring at the back of his head. He went into the hotel and took the lift up to his room. He would tell Mitchell about his disappointments and humiliations, his hopes and fears . . . particularly his fears. Mitchell was strong and the strong can cast out fear.

  The room was empty except for a mosquito droning somewhere near the bathroom door. He felt lonely as the last man on earth. He sat down on the bed and switched on the lamp. His feet ached, so he took off his shoes and socks. The socks were wet and bits of wool stuck to his fingers; he noticed that there were big holes in the heels of the socks. There was also a very unpleasant smell. He wondered whether the other men had noticed it; probably not, they had been too interested in Sir Harry. Alperin rolled the socks into a ball, folding one inside the other as he had been made to do when he was a child, and dropped them on to the floor.

  He looked around him. Everything seemed to be a long way away. Yet earlier in the evening it had seemed important to get out of the room because everything was closing in on him. His outing didn’t seem to have done him much good one way and another. His eyes came back to the socks.

  Dorothy usually mended his socks, pricking her finger tips so that the skin was hard and rough. It annoyed him so much that she would not use a thimble. He could not bear to see the living flesh pressed against the steel so hard that it seemed that at any minute blood would spurt out. ‘You were always a squeamish little boy,’ she would say and press harder, just as she had picked at thorns in her fingers when they were children because she knew that it upset him. He thought about Dorothy as he sat on the edge of the bed. He had left it rather late to think about her, but neglect seemed to have intensified feeling. The gnawing in his stomach intensified, too. It was as though some demon surgeon was trying to wrench a vital organ from the center of his being. He suddenly realized, sitting there staring down at the socks, that when he was finally free of Dorothy it would be not a release but a death.

  This was odd. They lived in an atmosphere of nagging conflict interspersed with brief, weary truces; they were irritated by each other’s mannerisms and were too alike in some ways to tolerate each other’s weaknesses. It was odd, therefore, that it should be this one link that so obstinately held when all the other links had been severed. His meal tonight with those eminent Western scientists should have been the final test. It had not worried him, sitting there with them, that he was about to betray his colleagues, his country, to risk his reputation, even his life; indeed, he had felt a certain pride. He had passed the test. He prodded the socks with one toe. He could always buy more socks.

  But how did you ask for socks in Russian? He put his head in his hands and pressed his fingers against his temples. He must put an end to these inane questions. And he must certainly put an end to the series of images which followed, absurd images, but informed with the terrible authenticity of nightmare. On this occasion he was standing in a dark, cavern-like room lit with dim Chinese lanterns; there was a man behind a counter, very old, with impassive almond eyes that gradually closed as Alperin asked for the socks until only two slits remained. Someone was laughing, but it wasn’t the man. Alperin turned round and shadows moved quickly from the doorway; the street was full of people laughing at him. He was afraid to go into the street and he was afraid of the man behind the counter . . . there was nowhere to go. Alperin bit his lip until the pain forced his mind back to reality. Of course he was nervous! It was ridiculous to imagine that he could take such a step without being nervous. These absurd scenes were simply a projection of his fear of the unknown; once he was in Russia, his problems would become real, they would still be difficult but they would be capable of a rational solution. What did it matter how he would arrange his laundry, do his housework, buy the food! He would live in a hotel for a while until he had learnt to manage on his own. On his own . . . He was walking up stairs, dark, narrow stairs which seemed to lead straight through the roof; but at the last turn of the stairs there was a corridor no wider than a shelf leading to a dim, recessed door. He took the key from his pocket and opened the door on emptiness. No, he shook his head, no, no, no! But the hollow footsteps resounded in his mind. This was no nightmare. He could not live alone, now or at any time. He could not live alone with only the incomprehensible babble of a radio between him and the ticking clock, the creaking stair. Perhaps they would find him a housekeeper. He forced himself not to think of the housekeeper, a massive woman with a beard with whom he had already become acquainted in nightmare. Bearded or not, she would be no comfort to him. It would take a lifetime to reach the state of irritated acceptance he had achieved with Dorothy. He needed Dorothy; without the friction of her personality against his, he would scarcely know whether he existed or not. There! He had admitted it at last.

  Everything seemed to be moving further and further away, he felt himself gradually losing his hold. He slumped sideways and belched, the wine bitter in his mouth. He put one hand down and picked up the socks. He crouched there for a while, holding the socks tightly in his hand; then, when he felt better, he went across to the chest of drawers and put the socks away with the rest of his used underwear. Dorothy will mend them when I get home, he thought.

  There was a knock on the door. Alperin remained quiet, he had no intention of opening any more doors. Then a voice which he did not immediately recognize said, ‘I wonder if you have your keys on you? I can’t get into this room and I’m a bit worried about my friend. He hasn’t been well.’ There was a jangling of keys. Alperin watched the door handle turn. His expression when the door opened convinced the porter that he was not well. Burke stepped lightly into the room and shut the door.

  Alperin said, ‘What is it?’ The wine was making him feel very sleepy and he wanted to go to bed.

  ‘As I told the porter, I’ve been worried about you.’

  He did not look worried; worried was a mundane word that belonged to the day, it had no place in nightmare. Alperin, frightened, asked, ‘Why should you worry about me?’

  Burke sat down. He spoke quietly and without emphasis. Alperin was fascinated by the white, chapped lips from which all blood seemed to have drained away; he was too conscious of the lips to bother about the words.

  ‘You must excuse my speaking so bluntly, but there isn’t much time. You probably feel that you have done something irrevocable. This isn’t so, I assure you. Whatever happens you must not allow yourself to panic. You have been unwell. Everyone will understand.’ The long white face was taut as a mask and the eyes smouldered beneath red lids; there was no understanding in the face. ‘Some of the things we do assume an importance out of all significance when we are ill. A little manoeuvring can often put them right and no harm done.’ There was a pause and then the bloodless lips moved again. ‘You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alperin nodded his head; it took a great effort to do this because his head was so heavy. ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘All you have to do is to tell me everything that has happened recently and then forget about it. I will put matters right. You can go back to England after you have read your paper, or whatever it is you have to do. The incident will be forgotten.’

  Alperin, who intended to go back to England anyway, said, ‘All right.’

  ‘First, you must tell me what has happened in the last few days. You have reached some kind of understanding with Stephen Mitchell, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I must have details.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Was there an
y question of your going to Russia?’

  ‘No! There was no question of that.’

  ‘Did he tell you that he had possession of the films?’

  ‘What films?’

  ‘Don’t waste time. I’ve seen them. Have they been returned to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It will be difficult for you if they are not returned, won’t it?’

  ‘They are copies, not originals.’

  ‘But when it becomes known that Russia has this information, what then?’

  ‘They won’t find the source of the leak.’

  ‘No? I think they may, unless you tell me what has happened to those films.’

  ‘But I don’t know!’ The eyes did not believe him, they were not eyes one could reason with. Alperin shouted, ‘I don’t know!’ His shrill voice made no impact. The voice went on quietly, the lips moved but not the teeth.

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Did he give them to someone else?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alperin dived eagerly down this new alley. ‘Yes, he gave them to someone else.’

  ‘To whom did he give them?’

  God, it was starting again! ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I swear I . . .’

  ‘To a woman?’

  Light at the end of the alley; Alperin stumbled towards it gratefully. ‘Yes, yes, that’s right. He gave them to a woman.’

  The eyes seemed satisfied. There were a few more questions. Alperin answered them truthfully or made up the answers as best he could, saying what he thought was required of him. He was exhausted when Burke finally got up.

  ‘You must not tell Mitchell that I have been here.’

  ‘No, I won’t tell him. I promise that.’

  Burke came across the room towards him and Alperin noticed how crooked the man was, one shoulder higher than the other as though the frail body had given way beneath the weight of the fine, shapely head. The face that loomed over Alperin’s was like a clown’s dead mask from which eyes stared, all laughter burnt out. Alperin put his hands over his face.

  ‘It will be all right now.’ The voice, with its faint Irish lilt, was quite beautiful; it seemed to come from a spirit which had nothing to do with that ill conceived body. ‘But you must do as I tell you in future. I shall come to see you again tomorrow. In the meantime, pretend that you are too ill to see anyone.’

  Alperin agreed to this readily and Burke left him still sitting with his head in his hands.

  Burke went down the stairs slowly and as he moved a dark shadow hunched up the wall. The shadow was bigger than ever he had been. It was one thing to subdue Alperin; Mitchell was a different proposition. His hand, damp with sweat, slid on the banister rail. ‘I will put matters right,’ he had said to Alperin and the fool had behoved him. He went across the lobby and out into the breathless courtyard. He sat down in one of the wicker chairs; it was still warm from the heat of the sun. The dust rose up from the paving stones. He could see the lights of cars on the main road; the road was only a few hundred yards away, but he was not sure that he could make it. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to. If only he could wash his hands of the whole thing, stand aside and let the others play out their bitter little charade! But afterwards there would be questions, and even if he could answer them satisfactorily he would, in the process, have demonstrated his incompetence. There was no room in the service for incompetents. How would he live? He had very little money saved. His tastes were expensive and it was important that they should be gratified since he was denied the more simple satisfactions. He was forty; he could live a long time. Something must be done.

  He got up and crossed the courtyard. There was a car parked just inside the entrance. He looked at it, covered in a thin, greyish pall of dust, and he thought of Eliot whom he could reach in under an hour in the Fiat. He turned away and walked down to the main road, crossed it, and took the first turning. It might be a little cooler down by the lake.

  It was odd that Mitchell should have got him into this mess. Of all the men he had worked with Mitchell had seemed the most reliable, his reactions tiresomely orthodox. Perhaps one should not blame him for that; to one so well-endowed, no doubt the orthodox reactions served well enough in nine situations out of ten. Burke reached the lake and turned in the direction of Montreux. The air was hot here, too, and the shrubs smelt strongly; the water was very still and black. Burke walked on, thinking about Mitchell. The idea that Mitchell might take a fall had pleased him until he realized that he himself would go down with him. He hated Mitchell. He hated him so much at this moment that he felt he could conceivably kill him. But he could not betray him; the thought of himself sitting in Eliot’s reeking room blurting out accusations revolted him. If he could make Mitchell betray himself, that would be a different matter.

  He quickened his step. He had made sure before he left the hotel that Mitchell was in his bedroom, but that did not mean that he would stay there all night. In spite of the heat Burke reached the large hotel where Miriam Kratz was staying in ten minutes. It was just after one o’clock. He stood on the lawn, glad of the grass beneath his feet after the unyielding tarmac; light streamed from the main ballroom and he could hear dance music. There were people sitting in the chairs on the terrace and white-coated waiters moved from table to table. Burke walked softly across the lawn and sat at a table just beneath the terrace. After a time one of the waiters came down to serve him.

  ‘I have a friend staying here,’ Burke said. ‘I wonder if you could find the number of her room for me?’

  The waiter said that he was new here. Burke described Miriam and put several notes down on the tray. The waiter went away and soon returned with the drink and the number of the room. Burke sat at the table a long time, waiting for the first night breeze to temper the air.

  *

  Miriam, too, waited for the breeze. She had stood at the window for a long while as evening came. For the first time, perhaps because Mitchell had been so insistent about the beauty of the mountains, she had noticed the view. She was not conscious of the lake, which was in shadow, but she saw the mountain opposite very clearly. There was a small path threading its way upwards towards the summit. It reminded her of another path. She did not know the place, but she knew that she had looked at the mountain through a tangle of barbed wire and that someone had pointed to the dark ridge of trees into which the path finally disappeared and had said that the frontier was there. From the way that the person had spoken, it had seemed that the promised land must lie beyond the frontier. She had crossed a lot of frontiers since then. Usually she had been driven, but once she had crossed of her own will. A tremendous decision it had seemed, that decision to leave her child in East Berlin while she fled to the West after Mikail’s arrest. The grandparents would look after Naomi, she had told herself; it was vitally important, if they were ever to be reunited as a family, that she should run away in order to work for Mikail’s release. Now, she wondered whether she had not simply run away. Whatever the answer, one thing was certain, she did not want to go back. It would be like climbing that mountain without believing that there was anything on the other side except another mountain. That afternoon, as she walked away from Mitchell, she had been prepared to accept this. But now . . . She took the sheet of paper from the dressing table and looked down at the laboured writing, trying to catch a glimpse of Mikail bending forward, holding the pen in cramped fingers. His face eluded her. And her child? Naomi was no longer a child, the girl on the rocks had taught her that. So the longed-for reunion was a fantasy, was that the answer? This one hope had kept her going for a long time; now that she questioned it, everything seemed to fall apart.

  It was so hot. The heat was like a tight band round her head. The mountain, the trees, the path all blurred; there was only the reality of the barbed wire. She took off her clothes and lay down on the divan, holding the paper with Mikail’s writing on it close against her body as though this was the one thing which stood
between her and the darkness. She could feel her pulse beating faster, faster, faster. . . . Her mind blacked out and immediately the smell came, a smell of urine and rotting flesh which blocked her nostrils, choked her throat. Her hands began to twitch against the bedclothes and in spite of the heat she drew the blanket up to her chin.

  When at last the first breeze came it was as though the world had turned to ice again. The moon was shining in the room and outside she could see a great tower like an iceberg and beyond it the land was broken into waves of ice. She was cold, cold, cold because her blood was thin and her strength was ebbing. She knew that there was a woman in the bunk above waiting, but whether it was the blanket or the sheet of paper that the woman wanted, she could not remember.

  When the door opened and someone slipped into the room she was not surprised, there was often someone moving about the hut at night. The figure moved stealthily, examining the wardrobe, opening drawers in the dressing table; the drawer in the desk did not open easily but responded to the skilled probing of a long, sharp knife. Miriam was aware of these movements, they flickered uneasily through her dreams. After a time, the figure came silently towards the bed, placing the knife on the bedside table, and a shadow passed over Miriam’s face as the figure bent over her. Miriam twisted her head from side to side. She was disturbed not so much by the intruder as by the moonlight which flooded the room; she tried to shield herself from it, but it was everywhere; she closed her eyes tight, but it lay like burning ice on her lids. As she twisted and turned the intruder caught a glimpse of the sheet of paper before the blanket covered it up again.