Ask No Question

by MARY HOCKING

  The English party headed towards the museum, the lantern-jawed man had become morose and one of the women was complaining that her feet hurt. Mitchell looked at his watch. Ten-thirty. Novak’s party would be arriving now; fifteen or twenty minutes later, depending on the speed of their tour, they would reach the Grand Hall of the Count; and half an hour after that they would leave in the coach. Mitchell pushed Alperin to the front of the English group. The doorway to the museum was narrow and Huber, at the rear of the party, was not making any effort to shoulder his way through; he was standing on one side lighting a cigar. Huber had time on his side, he had only to watch and report; Eliot would do the rest, Mitchell hurried Alperin through the museum, past the models of the castle at the various stages of its long existence, towards the treasury. Here, he stopped at the foot of the wooden staircase leading to the keep. He said to Alperin:

  ‘It’s important that we shake off Huber, you understand?’

  Alperin did not understand what was happening, but he was in favour of shaking off Huber.

  ‘There is a courtyard beyond,’ Mitchell spoke quickly, ‘Go out there and wait for ten minutes; then come back and make your own way to the Grand Hall of the Count—straight through from room to room—it’s the large hall with the marble pillars and the big windows, remember?’

  Alperin nodded his head, staring anxiously at the doorway to the museum.

  ‘When you get there you will join up with the German party. Someone will take care of you. You must trust him completely.’

  Alperin nodded, looking pitifully eager. Huber’s intervention might prove useful, after all; Alperin would entrust himself to Novak now. Mitchell waited until Alperin had disappeared through the passage leading to the courtyard before he began to ascend the flight of stairs. He waited at the top of the first flight until Huber came into the room below; then he called upwards, ‘All right? I’m following you.’ He began to ascend the next flight, calling upwards occasionally. A couple on their way down waited for him to pass them on one of the narrow ledges; they gave him an odd look as he went by talking to himself. It was a long climb, and dark, like climbing a chimney; he did not hurry. He did not look round, either, but the smell of cigar smoke wafted up and he knew that somewhere below Huber had begun to follow him. So far, so good. But what happened when they reached the top? It was not going to be easy to keep Huber immobilized for the next half-hour. And even supposing he did succeed, how was he to keep Huber quiet for the next twenty-four hours while the coach was still in Swiss territory? He thought about it while he climbed the last flight of stairs, but no answer presented itself.

  There was no one at the top, he was fortunate in that. Sunlight came in dusty shafts through the eastern windows; but there was no air in the tiny room and the sloping roofs seemed to bear down on his shoulders. He felt trapped, as though it was he and not Huber who was cornered here. He went to one of the windows and looked out. Sunlight glittered sharp and merciless on stone, and, far beyond, the lake and the mountains pulsed with heat. He was weary of this endless assault on his senses. Only above, the unfurrowed blue of the sky looked tranquil and undemanding and he felt that this elemental beauty was the most desirable of all. He wanted to shoulder aside the wall of stone and step out into that blue void. And this, he realized, when Huber at last came into the room, was all that he had left to do. But it was not quite as simple as that, because Huber struggled a lot. Mitchell managed easily enough to force him into the narrow recess of the window—he was a small man, the last of the small men—but he clung to Mitchell with all the strength of his wiry wrists. There were steps on the stairs, a man’s voice, a girl’s nervous laughter. Time had run out. Mitchell forced Huber back and for a moment Huber’s shoulders blotted out the blue sky; then Mitchell thrust forward with all his strength and the glass splintered. Huber at least was free. He swayed on the edge of that desirable void; but still he clung to Mitchell. There was a breeze now; Mitchell felt it soft as a promise against his cheek as he yielded to the pressure of Huber’s encircling arms and let his own body swing forward. The grey walls of the castle came up to meet him; then the world tilted and for a moment it was all sky and sunlight.

  II

  ‘Mitchell landed in a courtyard a long way below,’ Eliot said to the man who had flown hurriedly from London. ‘He was dead when they reached him. Huber was impaled on one of those spikes on the roofs of the towers. Astonishingly, he didn’t die at once.’

  ‘Did he talk?’

  ‘He screamed a lot apparently. Nothing interesting. He wasn’t the kind to gasp out a last message.’ Eliot found this amusing, he coughed and a little saliva ran down on to his chin.

  ‘How did Huber come into this, anyway?’ the other man asked.

  ‘It’s sometimes advisable to have a situation covered from all angles.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have worked in this instance, does it?’

  Eliot clawed the blankets closer round him and edged his chair nearer to the fire. The man from London, sweating in the overheated room, regarded him distastefully.

  ‘And Burke?’

  ‘Burke has disappeared. It doesn’t matter. He wasn’t of much consequence.’

  The man from London shook his head, like a dog with canker in his ear.

  ‘What made Mitchell do it?’

  Eliot took the brandy glass from the table beside him. Brandy was not good for him, but in some obscure way he felt that he had scored a victory over London and victory should be celebrated.

  ‘What made him kill Huber, do you mean?’ he asked innocently. ‘To stop him interfering with their plans, I suppose.’

  ‘But what made him turn traitor, a man like that?’

  ‘Money, I imagine. He was seen with the Kratz woman on several occasions. Perhaps she blackmailed him, or perhaps it was simply that she was expensive. Who knows?’

  ‘I would never have thought it. Of all men, I would never have thought it of him.’

  Eliot smiled. ‘Oh, the weakness was there all right.’ He took another sip of the brandy, it was going to kill him, but he did not much care. ‘You can always tell a real agent by the eyes. There’s something there at the back of the eyes, behind the soft film of civilization, something that he didn’t have.’

  ‘He had a fine record.’

  Eliot shrugged his shoulders. ‘He and Claus Hesselmann came into the service during the war. In those days, they took in a lot of people who weren’t really suitable.’

  Epilogue

  The light was an enemy pressing hot steel against the rims of his eyes. Everything was white, the dusty road, the high mountain wall, the sky from which the sun had scorched colour. The strong air tore at his lungs, strained his heart. The child drew her hand away, probably his coarse fingers had held too tight: he was unused to human contact. He looked at her, the thin body hunched in the corner of the car. She stared back resentfully. To begin again . . . so many beginnings in his life, he was not sure he had strength for another. What was it that Camus had said? One must suppose that Sisyphus was happy? While he had his strength, perhaps.

  The man beside the driver turned and saw that he was exhausted. He said, meaning to be kind:

  ‘Not long now. Your wife is waiting for you at the police post outside Klagenfurt. There will be a lot of formalities to go through, but you will have a little time with her.’

  The man in the back seat closed his eyes. The flesh fell in seamed grey folds over the sunken cheeks, the mouth drew inwards. It had taken all his resolution to bear himself with some sort of dignity for the child’s sake, he had nothing left to give his wife. He longed for the undemanding darkness of his cell. But he had learnt over the years that it was better to accept the future than to reject it; so he sat quietly, trying to accustom himself to the light and to the constant stabs of speech from the two men in front. Perhaps by the time he arrived he would think of something to say to them. If he was to live in the world again, he must learn to trade in words once more. There w
as so much to learn. If only he knew where the strength was to come from.

  The car reached the top of the ridge and the valley lay before them. It was a long, wide view; his heart fluttered and gusts of panic shook his body when the sheltered mountain wall was left behind as the car began the long descent. He closed his eyes again. The child, frightened by the steep drop to one side, edged closer to him and put her hand in his. This time, he let it lie there without any pressure from his fingers. At least that was one thing he had learnt. But his wife? How could he expect her to understand, after these empty years, that she must ask for nothing now? For her, it would have been better if they had not come.

  The car twisted slowly downwards, turn and turn and turn again like a corkscrew boring into the valley below. It grew hotter, dustier. There were fields on either side, green in spite of the sun, a passionate green that hurt more than the dust and the white mountain walls. Where the mountain road at last met the valley road there was a farm; then a long straight stretch ahead, houses in the distance, a church steeple rising above, a compact world, people living close, making demands on one another. The car stopped in front of a low bungalow with neat window boxes and a woman in a black dress waiting in the porch with something in her stance of the mute, endless patience of the peasant. He frowned, not understanding. Then he saw two men in uniform behind the woman, standing back, tactful but watchful. He had not recognized her! She looked so enduring, as though she had put down roots in suffering since he last saw her.

  The car door opened. The driver and the plainclothes officer helped him and the child out. Then they, too, stood back, waiting for some rite that must be performed in the square patch of ground lying between the two parties. He took a few steps forward and then stopped, knowing that he had reached his limit.

  She came to him, unhurried, but as though she knew what must be done. She put her arms around him and held him steady against her; her arms were strong. She used the words he had used often when she had a nightmare.

  ‘It is all right, my dear. I am here.’

  The child held back. The woman called to her by name, but the child made no movement.

  ‘We mustn’t expect too much yet,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There will be time for that.’

  She sounded as though time was her gift. Behind her he saw the green land rolling away into the distance and the road, twisting and turning, hot, dusty and uphill most of the way. The men who had been standing by came closer and the party moved into the police station, the man and the woman holding to each other, the child following behind.

  Mary Hocking

  Born in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth.

  Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.

  The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the `Fairley Family’ trilogy – Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers – books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.

  For many years she was an active member of the `Monday Lit’, a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work, an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, and worshipped at the town’s St Pancras RC Church.

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  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus Ltd 1967

  This edition published 2016 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

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  www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

  ISBN 978-1509-8193-17 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1509-8192-94 HB

  ISBN 978-1509-8193-00 PB

  Copyright © Mary Hocking 1967

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