Dirty Snow (12 page)

“Make sure you can find your way in the dark. Follow me. The bed's to the right there, just as you come in the door.”

“I see.”

Frank had to make him another drink, otherwise Kromer would lose his nerve. And he mustn't lose his nerve at any cost. Frank had arranged the whole thing like clockwork, with the minute care of a child.

There were things that couldn't be explained, that it was useless to try to ask someone else to understand. It was absolutely necessary for this to happen. Afterward he would be all right.

“Got it?”

“Yes.”

“To the right, as soon as you go in.”

“Yes.”

“I'll turn out the light.”

“What about you? Where will you be?”

“Here.”

“You swear you won't leave?”

And to think that just ten days ago he had regarded Kromer as an older, stronger man, in short, as a man, while he himself was nothing but a child.

“It's really no big deal,” he said contemptuously, to bolster Kromer's flagging courage.

“Of course it isn't, Frank … It's for your sake. I don't know the house. I don't want to …”

“Hush!”

She had come. Like a mouse. And Frank had such keen ears that he heard Minna get up and, barefoot, noiselessly, in her pretty dressing gown, go listen at the door. So from her bed Minna had heard the Holsts' door open and close. What had made her go look, probably, was that this time there hadn't been any footsteps going downstairs.

Who knew? Anything was possible. Maybe Minna had seen another door, one that wasn't quite closed, move a bit, maybe old Wimmer's. Frank was sure old Wimmer was on the lookout.

But Minna didn't know that. On second thought, Frank was sure she didn't, because if she had she would have been so frightened for him that she would have come running to tell him.

Sissy slipped along the hall, her feet hardly touching the uneven floor. She knocked, or rather scratched, at the door of the little bedroom.

He had turned out the light. If they spoke, Kromer could hear from the kitchen.

She said, “I'm here.”

He felt her rigid in his arms.

“You asked me to, Frank.”

“Yes.”

He shut the door behind her, but there was still the one into the kitchen that she couldn't see because of the darkness. It was ajar.

“You still want to?”

They could see nothing except the dull reflection, through the curtains, of the gaslight on the corner lamppost.

“Yes.”

He didn't have to undress her. He began to, and she continued on her own, standing beside the bed, not saying a thing.

Perhaps she hated him without being able to keep from loving him. He didn't know. He didn't want to know. Kromer could hear them. Frank said, and the words he forced out with such difficulty sounded stupid, “Tomorrow it would have been too late. Your father is on the morning shift.”

She must be naked. She was naked. He could feel the soft heap of her clothes under his feet. She was waiting. Now came the hardest part: laying her down on the bed.

She groped for his hand in the dark. She murmured, and it was the first time her voice uttered his name with that intonation. Fortunately, Kromer was waiting behind the door.

“Frank!”

Then he said, very quickly, very softly, “I'll be right back.” He brushed against Kromer as he passed. He almost had to shove him into the room. He closed the door at once with a haste he would have been at pains to explain. He stood there, motionless.

There was no more town, there was no more Lotte, no more Minna, no more anyone, no more streetcars on the corner, no more theaters, and no more universe. There was nothing but an emptiness rising around him, an anxiety that made beads of sweat stand out on his temples and forced him to put his hand to the left side of his chest.

Someone touched him and he almost screamed. It took all his strength not to. He knew it was Minna, who had left the door of the big bedroom ajar, from which a bit of light filtered.

Could she see him? Had she been able to see him when she came in, before waking him with her touch, the way one wakes a sleepwalker?

He kept his mouth shut. He hated her, he loathed her for not having uttered one of the stupid expressions they all knew so well how to use.

But no! She just stood there beside him, as stiff and pale as he was, in a halo of dim light that made it impossible to distinguish any features, and not until much later did he realize she had put her hand on his wrist.

It was as though she were taking his pulse. Did he look ill? He wouldn't allow her to look at him as though he were ill, to look at him at all, to see what no one had the right to see.

“
Frank!
”

Someone shrieked his name. Sissy had shrieked it. Sissy had shrieked his name to him; Sissy was running in her bare feet, shaking the handle of the hall door, crying for help, trying to escape.

It was perhaps because the other girl, whom Frank didn't like, whom he despised, who was nothing but a prostitute, less than nothing—it was perhaps because Minna kept stupidly holding his wrist that he didn't budge.

Now there was an uproar in the room, like the day the military police had searched the violinist's place. The two of them were running around in bare feet, chasing each other, struggling, and Kromer's voice was on the edge of panic.

“At least put something on,” he begged.

“Please, you must! I swear I won't touch you again …”

“The key …”

It would all come back to him later. Now he didn't think. He didn't move. He was going to see it through to the end.

Kromer, in spite of everything, had had enough presence of mind to take the key out of the lock. There was a light on in there, yes. A thin rosy line of it showed under the door. Had Sissy turned it on? Had she, by chance, found the electric switch hanging from its cord at the head of the bed?

What were they doing? They were banging around. It was as though they were fighting. There were inexplicable dull thuds. Kromer kept repeating, like a skipping phonograph record, “Not before you put something on …”

She didn't say Frank's name again. She had spoken his name only once, had shouted it with all her strength.

If any of the tenants were home, they'd hear. It was Minna who thought of that. Frank still hadn't moved. There was just one question he wanted to ask somebody, it didn't matter who, on his knees if necessary, so vital had it suddenly become, “Had Kromer … ?”

Something snapped in him.

She was gone. The door had slammed. They heard footsteps in the hall. Minna let go of his wrist and dashed into the front room, since she thought of everything, even of opening the door to the hall a crack to peer out.

Kromer didn't come out immediately. Frank knew him well enough. He was careful to pull himself together first. At last he opened the door.

“Well, there you are, Frank …”

Frank didn't move a muscle.

“What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

“If you'd only told me there was an electric switch at the head of the bed, everything would have been all right.”

Frank didn't move, wouldn't move.

“I was very careful not to say anything to her. I felt her hand groping in the dark, but I didn't think she was going to turn on the light.”

Frank hadn't asked the question. His eyes were pinpoints, his glance hard, so hard that Kromer was a little frightened, even wondering for a moment if it wasn't some sort of a trap.

It didn't make sense. There was no rhyme or reason to it.

“At any rate, you can boast …”

Minna came back and turned on the light switch in the kitchen, flooding the room with white light that made them blink.

“She ran downstairs like a madwoman. She went right past her own door. One of the neighbors, Monsieur Wimmer, tried to stop her in the hall. I bet she didn't even see him.”

So! It was done!

Kromer could go. But he was in a state. Leaving didn't cross his mind. He was furious.

“When will I see you?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you coming to Timo's tonight?”

“Maybe.”

She had gone, and Monsieur Wimmer had tried to stop her. She had run down the stairs.

“Look here, my little Frank, it seems to me that you …” Kromer hesitated, which was just as well. He was no longer anybody's “little Frank.” He had never been. They might think anything they pleased.

Now he had paid for his seat.

He asked, with the absent look of someone who hadn't been listening, “What?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I asked you: What?”

“And I asked you if you were coming to Timo's tonight.”

“And I answered you: What?”

He couldn't stand much more. The sensation in his chest, on the left side, was getting unbearable, as though he were going to die.

“Well, in that case …”

“Yes, go!”

He had to sit down, lie down, quickly. Why didn't Kromer go? Why didn't he go tell Timo and his friends whatever he pleased?

Frank had done what he wanted to do. He had rounded the cape. He had looked at the other side. He hadn't seen what he expected to see. Who cared?

Why didn't he go? In God's name, why didn't he go?

“What are you waiting for?”

“But …”

Minna, who had gone into the little bedroom, who should never have done so, who was incapable of understanding such things, came back with a black stocking in each hand.

She had left without her stockings, her feet bare in her shoes.

And Kromer didn't understand either. If they continued, the two of them, he would go mad, roll on the floor, start chewing on something, anything.

“Get out, for the love of God! Get out!”

Didn't anyone see that he was on the other side, that he had nothing in common with them anymore?

I
N THE
garden belonging to Madame Porse, his wet-nurse, there was only one tree, a big linden. One day, just as it was beginning to get dark and a low sky seemed to weigh down on the earth, absorbing everything into itself, little by little, like blotting paper, the dog started to bark, and they discovered a stray cat in the tree.

It was winter. The barrel of rainwater under the gutter was frozen. From the back of the house you could see the windows in the village lighting up one after another.

The cat crouched on the first branch, about ten or fifteen feet from the ground, staring fixedly down at the earth. It was black-and-white and didn't belong to anyone in the area. Madame Porse, the wet-nurse, knew all the local cats.

When the dog started to bark, they had just filled a tub with hot water for Frank's bath and placed it on the tile floor of the kitchen. It wasn't a real tub, in fact, but half of a barrel that had been sawed in two. The windows were covered with steam. From the garden came the voice of Monsieur Porse, who was the road repairer, saying with the same conviction he brought to bear upon everything, especially when he had had a glass or two, which was most of the time, “I'll get him with my rifle.”

Frank was struck by the word “rifle.” The shotgun was hanging on the white wall over the hearth. Already half undressed, Frank put on his coat and pants again.

“First try to catch him. He may not be badly hurt.”

It was still light enough to make out flecks of red on the cat's white fur, and one of its eyes was hanging out of its socket.

Frank couldn't recall just how it all happened. Very soon there were five people, ten, their noses in the air, not counting the children. Then someone came with a lantern.

They tried to lure the cat down by putting a saucer of warm milk in plain sight under the tree. Naturally, they had first chained the dog to its kennel. Everybody had shifted a little distance away and tried not to make any sudden movements. But the cat didn't budge. From time to time it would meow plaintively.

“You see! It's calling.”

“It may be calling, but not to us!”

The proof was that as soon as someone stood on a chair and tried to take hold of it, the cat would leap to a higher branch.

This went on for some time, at least an hour. More and more neighbors kept arriving. They could be recognized by their voices. A young man climbed up the tree, but every time he stretched out his hand the cat climbed even higher. At last, nothing could be seen but a dark ball.

“To the left, Helmut … At the tip of the big branch …”

The most surprising thing was that as soon as they gave up the chase, the cat started meowing louder than ever. It seemed to resent being abandoned.

Then they went to get ladders. Everybody helped, and there was a lot of excitement. The road repairer kept talking about getting out his rifle, until they made him stop.

They didn't catch the black-and-white cat that night. Everyone went home. They left some milk and scraps of meat for it on the ground.

“Since he knew how to get up, he'll know how to get down.”

The next day the cat was still in the linden tree, almost at the top, and it meowed all day long. They tried again to catch it. They kept Frank from going to look at it because of the eye hanging out of its head. Even Madame Porse was almost sick.

He never learned how the story turned out. On the third day they told him that the cat had gone away. Was that true? Had they said it so he wouldn't be upset?

It was almost exactly what had happened now, except that this time, instead of a cat, it was Sissy.

Frank at last went into the back room, alone, carefully closing the doors behind him with a kind of solemnity, as though he were going into a room where a dead person had been laid out.

Carefully avoiding glancing at the sheets, he pulled up the cover. Perhaps he intended to lie down on the bed. Then he noticed something on the bedside table.