Perlmann's Silence (65 page)

Now and again he dozed off . . .
Not a trace of plagiarism
, he heard Millar saying. In reply he slung unfamiliar English words at him, until he noticed at last that it was always one and the same word:
spisyvat’
.
It’s all coming out!
laughed Leskov, and in his mouth there was just a single tooth stump, because he was the old woman by the tunnel.
Like in a film!
She said. ‘
As if!
’ And then she threw the chronicle at the others, who were doubled up with laughter.

At one point Perlmann turned on the light and looked in the suitcase to see if the envelope with Leskov’s text was still inside.

The moon had disappeared. A fog bank blurred the silent lights of Sestri Levante. Luckily, he had resisted the temptation to play the Nocturne in D flat minor.
Why in the world don’t you want to play that piece?
Szabo had asked.
Because
, Perlmann had replied, staring at the keys. Now he could hear it, bar for bar. Her golden hair with the dark strand.

54

When the two taxi drivers stepped into the lobby, everything suddenly went so fast that Perlmann, who had been counting the hours, felt quite unprepared.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Ruge, after thanking him for everything. ‘Worse things happen!’

Perlmann felt these words tearing open a wound. They assumed something had happened that someone could take amiss – a failure, a disgrace, even a transgression. And he had merely given a weaker presentation than usual. One time in his glittering career. Accompanied by a fainting fit, certainly. But who can do anything about their body? Otherwise, from the vantage point of the others, nothing had happened. So why this sentence that cut and burned, made even more unbearable by the terribly respectable, Swabian cadence?
What
, he called inaudibly after Ruge,
what am I not supposed to worry about?
Von Levetzov was already shaking his hand and saying something about a conference at which they would certainly see one another again, while Perlmann still wrestled with Ruge’s words. Was he referring to his fainting? Or the notes? Or that dreadful text? Why did he have to say that? And why at that precise moment, which gave what was said – whatever it might be – a particular weight? He tried to call to mind Ruge’s face and the tone of his voice when talking about the death of his sister. But the more he struggled to remember those things, the more they eluded him. Had they really existed?

Laura Sand didn’t know where to put her cigarette and finally jammed it between her fingers, which were holding her travel bag. ‘I’ll send you a few pictures,’ she said, tapping her camera bag. ‘Pictures that Chopin would have liked,’ she added with her mocking smile. In the doorway she tripped over her long black coat. For a moment Perlmann closed his eyes to make sure that the inner picture of her mocking face would always be available to him.

What came next was something that he had tried several times to imagine during the night, but his fantasies had got him nowhere.

‘Thanks for everything,’ said Millar, shaking his hand firmly. He said it in a workmanlike manner. That was how he would always say goodbye. And yet he wasn’t just acting in line with convention. There had been a twitch in his face, leaving yesterday evening behind. ‘And about your book: I’ll talk to my publisher next week. I’ll entrust it to him quite specifically.’

Perlmann nodded mutely, and felt as if for those whole five weeks he had given the same response to everything anyone had said to him: a silent nod of the head.

Millar pulled up the zip of his windbreaker and picked up his case. Two steps later he set it down again and turned round. ‘By the way: your Chopin – it sounded pretty good. And Liszt isn’t all that better. No comparison with Bach,’ he grinned.

Perlmann thought about Sheila and the balloon. ‘I’ve never heard Bach like yours,’ he said. ‘A very distinct style.’

Millar blushed. ‘Oh, thanks. Many thanks. No one’s ever said that to me before. We should have . . .’

Perlmann nodded mutely. Before Millar got into the taxi, he looked back up at Perlmann and raised his hand. When the taxi disappeared, Perlmann was filled with a feeling of emptiness and loss.

Leskov was sitting on the terrace in the sun when Perlmann and Evelyn Mistral came outside half an hour later. Her train left Genoa at eleven, she said in reply to Leskov’s question.

‘Then you’ll easily be back here by one,’ said Leskov to Perlmann. ‘Because that’s when our ship sails,’ he added, seeing Perlmann’s incomprehension. On such a beautiful day Leskov wanted to invite him on a boat trip to Genoa, harbor tour included. Especially when the coast road had just been closed. ‘I’ll pay with this!’ he said with a laugh, and pulled his crumpled winnings from his trouser pocket.

Perlmann felt the handle of the suitcase getting damp. Motionless, he looked down at Evelyn Mistral’s red shoes.

‘You can’t possibly refuse him that,’ she said to him in Spanish, lowering her voice.

Two more days of despair for him. Unless he scrubbed the idea of Ivrea. Then it’s just one.

‘Don’t you want to?’ Leskov asked. The disappointment in his voice and his anxious face were unbearable.

‘No, of course I do,’ Perlmann said hoarsely, ‘and I’ll be back by one whatever happens.’ He was glad when the taxi hooted down below.

It was a silent train journey. Perlmann fought unsuccessfully against the trepidation that was choking him. He had to extract each individual word from himself, and didn’t know how to make it clear to Evelyn Mistral that his silence had nothing to do with her. As she began, out of embarrassment, to talk about the book she was just reading, he wondered again and again whether he should give her Leskov’s text, so that she could hand it to him in Geneva.
Two days. One, at any rate.
No suspicion could fall on her. She had never been anywhere near Leskov’s suitcase. Perhaps Leskov would assume that his plane had flown on from Frankfurt to Geneva, where the text had been found at last. But how in the world was he to explain to her that the envelope had to reach St Petersburg as quickly as possible, when they had both stood facing its recipient half an hour before?

‘You’d rather have had the afternoon to yourself, wouldn’t you?’ she asked as the train arrived at Genoa Station.

Perlmann nodded.

‘But he seemed to be looking forward to the boat trip as excitedly as a child.’

Again he nodded mutely.

The big suitcase with the red elephant on the middle of the lid bumped against the steps of the carriage as she got in. Perlmann took the case from her, and let her hold his suitcase. When they stood facing one another in the empty, musty-smelling compartment, he ran his hand over her freshly washed, straw-like hair. After a brief hesitation, during which she tried to read his face, she put her arms around his neck and leaned playfully back.

‘
¡No te pierdas!
’

He nodded, picked up the valise and a few steps later he was outside. When he turned round she was standing at the open carriage door.

‘That earlier text of Vassily’s: you read it didn’t you?’

Perlmann took a deep breath and looked at her. ‘Yes. But it would be too long a story.’ He looked at the floor for a moment, and then raised his head again. ‘Our secret?’

Her radiant smile crossed her face.

‘I like secrets like that. And I’m the soul of discretion.’

The conductor walked along the train and closed the doors. She stood at the compartment window. She was plainly thinking away. Her curiosity got the better of her.

‘Was it the text you had with you on the terrace when I arrived?’

Perlmann nodded.

‘And that’s why you didn’t want the others . . .’

‘Yes,’ he said.

The train set off.

‘You could make up various stories about that,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll try that on my journey. As a way of passing the time!’

Perlmann was glad that instead of talking he was able to wave. He went on mechanically doing so until her carriage was out of sight. Only when he lowered his arm did he notice that he was clutching the handle of the valise so tightly that it cut into his hand.

He ordered a coffee in the station bar. According to the hands of the clock on the wall, behind its cracked glass, it was just after eleven. The plane he had planned to take left at a quarter past twelve. Now Leskov was keeping him from atoning for his action as quickly as possible. It was only with difficulty that Perlmann managed to keep his impotent rage within bounds, and the young woman next to him looked with alarm at his fist with its white knuckles holding the long sugar spoon, rather than putting it back in the bowl.
You can’t refuse him that.
But she couldn’t have known.
Disappointment over a boat trip, as against two more days of despair, that was the calculation. And it wasn’t just despair. Perhaps those were precisely the two days that would cost Leskov his job, because they were the two that would have let him copy out and rephrase the missing pages in time.

Perlmann took the bus to the airport. He closed his mind’s eye to those memories and, without looking round, he immediately went to the check-in counter and on to security control. On the x-ray screen Leskov’s text was only a vague shadow. He sat impatiently in the waiting room and looked out at the plane that was just taking the food container on board. The water beyond the runway lay in gleaming light. What had Leskov called the southern light?
Siyayushchy
.
I’ve hardly seen anything of this area. When the coast road was closed, on top of everything
. Perlmann started pacing back and forth. Then he would have to fly tomorrow, as originally planned. His reservation was still valid. Just one more day that Leskov would have to wait for the text. That would mean scrubbing Ivrea. Or at least postponing it. He imagined the bright office. Or else he could fly back here tomorrow afternoon and take a later train to Ivrea. He studied his boarding pass.
Yes
. He crumpled up the green piece of cardboard, threw it in the bin and pushed his way, amidst cries of protest from the security officials, past the queuing people and out into the hall.

There were no seats on the flight from Frankfurt to Genoa tomorrow afternoon, and the waiting list was already long. Perlmann still felt the pressure of the crumpled boarding pass in the palm of his hand. What about flights from Frankfurt to Turin? The hostess listlessly consulted the computer, and mistyped several times. All flights were booked, but there was just one name on the waiting list. Perlmann asked her to add his to it.

Ten past twelve. With the check that he had planned to cash in Frankfurt, he went to the bank in the arrivals hall. As he waited in the line, Perlmann couldn’t help going through Leskov’s arrival all over again.
I like to have my own money.
Then he ran, with all his cash in his hand, out to a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Santa Margherita as quickly as possible.

55

Leskov was standing by the edge of the road, opposite the landing stage for the boats, attentively studying the traffic. He had one leg in the road and the other, strangely bent at the knee, lightly touched the pavement. His torso was leaning forwards expectantly, and he tried to hold his head upright, clutching his big glasses with one hand. When the taxi a little way in front of Perlmann’s came towards him, Leskov bent down to get a better view of the passenger. He maintained this posture when he saw Perlmann’s taxi. He jerked his back, tipped his glasses slightly to check what he had seen, and then walked, with swinging arms that crossed above his head, into the middle of the carriageway, as if to stop the only car on a lonely stretch of road at night.

The driver stopped with a cry of alarm. From the moment when he glimpsed Leskov, Perlmann had been unable to think about anything. He had just gripped the handle of the suitcase even tighter. Now he gave the driver a large bill and got out.

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ said Leskov, immediately trying to keep the reproachful tone out of his voice. ‘The boat’s here already!’

For the first half hour of the trip it wasn’t especially striking that Perlmann said hardly anything. Leskov enjoyed standing at the front of the almost deserted ship, looking out at the still, dazzling water. After a while he took a map out of his jacket. Signora Morelli had lent it to him. Perlmann recognized the traces of dirt straight away: it was the same map that he had used when planning his crime, and which he had used, when collecting the yellow sheets of paper, as an underlay for the fragile page with the subheading. No, he said, when Leskov pointed to Portofino, he had never been there. And he didn’t know Genoa harbour, either.

Later, when Leskov came back from the toilet, he sat down on the bench next to Perlmann, and as he lit his pipe, he studied the suitcase. Every time he had seen a suitcase over the past few days, he said, he hadn’t been able to keep from thinking of his missing text. And the piece of rubber band in the zip of the outside pocket.

‘Do you think it’s most likely that I left it at home? I mean, after all the things I’ve told you?’

Perlmann nodded and picked up his cigarettes. ‘At any rate, I don’t think the text is simply lost,’ Perlmann said, relieved at the firmness in his voice. ‘Lufthansa is famous for its care with lost objects.’

‘So you really think they’d send my text back?’

Perlmann nodded.

‘But the address is written in Russian, and by hand,’ Leskov said. His eyes were unnaturally large behind their thick glasses, and that made the anxiety behind them seem enlarged as well.

Perlmann glanced quickly away. ‘Lufthansa is one of the biggest international airlines, and they fly to Russia. I’m sure they have people who speak Russian.’

Leskov sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right. If I could only be sure that I really did write the address on it. The night before last I suddenly started having doubts.’

Perlmann closed his eyes. His heart pounded. He braced himself. ‘What address do you usually write at the end of a text like that?’

‘What? Oh, my work address.’ He looked at Perlmann. ‘You mean because I asked you only to use my home address? No, because it’s different in cases like that.’

Perlmann excused himself and went inside, where he leaned against the wall next to the toilet. The pounding in his chest subsided only gradually. No, it was too dangerous to ask him for his address, quite apart from the fact that he had no convincing reason to do so. Perlmann would have to ask him to write it down, and the whole thing would thus become an action that would linger vividly in Leskov’s memory. Perlmann slowly walked back, avoiding a sailor on the way, and stepped out on deck.

His heart stopped. Leskov was holding the suitcase on his knees, and was just snapping both locks shut. Now he set the suitcase back on the floor. Perlmann took a few steps to the side. No, Leskov wasn’t holding the envelope, and he stood up now and filled a pipe by the railing. Perlmann walked slowly up to him and touched the back of each individual bench as if seeking reassurance that he could use them to support himself.

‘You people in the West have lovely things,’ said Leskov, indicating the suitcase with the stem of his pipe. ‘That leather. And those refined and elegant locks. It would really make a person envious.’

Perlmann clutched the railing until his knees started obeying him again.

When they stepped out on land in Genoa, Leskov suddenly stopped. ‘Let’s assume I left it on the plane. Do you know what I’m most afraid of? The cleaning crew. If they found something like that, how would those people know it was precious?’

There was no other option. Perlmann had to find out, and this was his chance.

‘Anyone would hesitate if faced with such a thick stack of papers. If they’re typed, they’re going to be important. And it’s half a book. Isn’t it?’

Leskov nodded. ‘You could be right. It’s eighty-seven pages long.’

That means there are seventeen pages that Leskov will have to rewrite. The length of a whole lecture. But he still has it all in his head. You keep things like that in your head for a long time.

Perlmann avoided the harbor bar from which he had called Maria a week before. But it was hard to find anything else nearby, and in the end they sat down at the only table by a snack bar that smelled of fish and burnt oil. Perlmann was glad of the noise in the street and the children sliding right past them on their skateboards. These things would give a casual sound to the question that he couldn’t hold back for much longer.

‘When do you need to hand the text in? For that job, I mean.’

‘Two weeks’ time.’

Perlmann couldn’t stop himself. ‘That gives you exactly fourteen days.’

Leskov looked at him with distracted surprise. ‘Thirteen,’ he said with a smile. ‘Saturday doesn’t count.’

‘What would happen if you didn’t turn up with the text until the following Monday?’

The puzzlement in Leskov’s face was more alert now than it had been a moment before.

‘I just wondered how fussy they are in your country,’ Perlmann said quickly.

‘They would probably acknowledge me anyway,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But you never know. They’re bureaucrats. It’s better not to give them a formal excuse. And the date isn’t a problem either,’ he added calmly as the waiter set their food down in front of them. ‘I really just need to type up the text, and I’m quick at that. For the notes I would need half a day at the most.’

Perlmann choked down his sheep’s cheese and felt his stomach tightening.
He won’t have the text before Friday. Then he has a week. That could be enough. But what if he only gets it the following Monday, or even Tuesday?

‘Incidentally, how long did it take my letter to get there?’ Perlmann asked.

Leskov doesn’t understand at first. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘You’re thinking about what will happen if Lufthansa send it. I can’t remember exactly; about a week, I think.’ He poked around absently at his salad. ‘Good that you ask. That means, in fact, that the text might still be on its way if I don’t find it tomorrow evening. It could even take one or two days before the business about the Russian address is sorted out. So I can’t give up hope straight away. Particularly as the post doesn’t usually come on Monday. But if there’s still nothing there by Wednesday or even Thursday . . . Oh, it’s all nonsense,’ he said with a forced smile, filling his fork. ‘The text is there on my desk, in the middle of all that chaos, I can see the yellow sheets right in front of me.’

That year’s harbor tours had stopped the previous day. They wouldn’t start again until the beginning of March. Leskov read the English text of the notice three times under his breath. Suddenly, his enthusiasm for his surroundings and the southern light seemed to collapse in on itself, and all his confidence vanished.

‘Now I myself have destroyed my only hope of a secure post and a bit of calm,’ he said as a taxi took them to the upper edge of the city, to get as good a view as possible. And then, on a terrace with a heavenly vista, Leskov talked about the power struggles and intrigues at the institute, and about his insecure position. It wasn’t true to say that the others didn’t think much of him. Quite the reverse, in fact: they feared and envied his independent mind. And then there was his time in prison, he said with bitter mockery. It gave him a degree of moral authority that he didn’t like because it created a circle of grudging and uneasy respect around him, so that certain conversations regularly stopped when he entered the room.

And then this new post had recently become available.

‘I’m the logical candidate. But you can imagine that for all these reasons they don’t want me.’ And there was an argument: he hadn’t published very much. Leskov rested one leg against the edge of the railing, gripped his knee with both hands and looked down at the sea, where the light had already lost some of its glow. His face twitched and trembled. ‘First you’re thrown in prison, then you’re accused of not having published enough. You see, that’s why the text is so important. Would have been so important. The argument they advanced against me would have lost validity. “If only we had a longer, more recent text!”
I’ve heard that often. And now the text is on a garbage dump somewhere. Gone. If only I had been able to make a copy of it! But after waiting around in the travel agent’s and at the telegram office it was too late: having photocopies made in Russia is still terribly difficult.’

Perlmann turned sideways, and touched the suitcase with his foot. He covered his face with his hand.
I just need to take it out. But no, it’s impossible. There simply isn’t an innocent explanation. At some point he would bump into the truth. Inevitably.

Leskov touched him on the arm. ‘Let’s walk down a little way. And now let’s stop talking about me!’

The sea was the color of copper when they stood side by side by the railing on the way back. They hadn’t spoken for a while, and it seemed to Perlmann that every further moment of silence, as in the tunnel, would produce an undesirable intimacy. Soon Leskov would start talking about Agnes.

‘At the end of the session,’ Perlmann said, when Leskov turned towards him, ‘you made the surprising assertion that there is no true story about our experienced past.’

Leskov grinned. ‘The assertion that cost Achim a pencil.’

‘And then you added two words – Russian, I think – that I didn’t understand. What was that about?’

‘So someone noticed,’ Leskov laughed. ‘I thought everyone would have thought it was simply Russian babbling. But you, of course, noticed.’

Perlmann felt as if he were being presented as a prize pupil in a school class.

‘The two words were
Klim Samgin
. It’s the name of the central character in Maxim Gorky’s last novel, a four-volume work, over two thousand pages long, with the title:
Zhizn’ Klima Samgina
:
The Life of Klim Samgin
. With this character Gorky creates a narrative perspective for the description of forty years of Russian history. One important motif is that Samgin has a self-conscious, one might say a broken relationship with reality, into which radical doubts about the narratives of others, as well as his own perceptions, often creep. In this way Gorky allowed the little boy Klim to discover that the invention of things is an important component of life, something without which we cannot exist. There are wonderful sentences like . . . wait . . . yes:
I vsegda nuzhno chto-nibut’ vydumyvat’, inache nikto iz vzroslych ne budet zamechat’ tebya i budesh zhit’ tak, kak budto tebya net ili kak budto ty ne Klim
. Did you understand?

‘One moment,’ said Leskov. He closed his eyes and murmured the Russian sentence to himself again. ‘In English it would be something like:
You must always be inventing something, otherwise the adults won’t pay attention to you, and you will live as if you aren’t there, or as if you aren’t Klim.
Or another sentence . . .’ As he said the words to himself, Leskov mutely moved his lips. ‘Something like this:
Klim couldn’t remember when he had actually noticed that he was invented, and he himself had begun to invent himself.
Gorky always uses the same word:
vydumyvat’
: to invent or fabricate. And in the subheading of my new text, which I mentioned in the session, I use this word in the special sense that it has in Gorky.’