Ripley's Game (8 page)

‘This is Gaby.’ said Wister to Jonathan. ‘My part-time housekeeper. She works for another family in the house and sleeps with them, but I told her we might want some food tonight. Gaby, Herr Trevanny aus Frankreich.’

The woman greeted Jonathan pleasantly, and took his coat. She had a round, pudding-like face, and looked the soul of goodwill.

‘Wash in here, if you like.’ said Wister, gesturing to a bathroom whose light was already on. ‘I’ll get you a scotch. Are you hungry?’

When Jonathan came out of the bathroom, the lights – four lamps – were on in the big square living-room. Wister was sitting on a green sofa, smoking a cigar. Two scotches stood on the coffee-table in front of Wister. Gaby came in at once with a tray of sandwiches and a round, pale-yellow cheese.

‘Ah, thank you, Gaby.’ Wister said to Jonathan, ‘Late for Gaby, but when I told her I had a guest coming, she insisted on staying on to serve the sandwiches.’ Wister, though making a cheerful remark, still didn’t smile. In fact his straight eyebrows drew together anxiously as Gaby arranged the plates and the silverware. When she departed, he said, ‘You’re feeling all right? Now the main thing is – the visit to the specialist. I have a good man in mind, Dr Heinrich Wentzel, a haematologist at the Eppendorfer Krankenhaus, which is the main hospital here. World famous. I’ve made an appointment for you for tomorrow at two, if that’s agreeable.’

Certainly. Thank you,’ Jonathan said.

‘That gives you a chance to catch up on your sleep. Your wife didn’t mind too much, I hope, your taking off on such short notice? … After all it’s only intelligent to consult more than one doctor about a serious ailment…’

Jonathan was only half listening. He felt dazed, and he was also a bit distracted by the décor, by the fact it was all supposed to be
German,
and that it was the first time he’d been in Germany. The furnishings were quite conventional and more modern than antique, though there was a handsome Biedermeier desk against the wall opposite Jonathan. There were low bookshelves along all the walls, long green curtains at the windows, and the lamps in corners spread the light pleasantly. A purple wooden box lay open on the glass coffee-table, presenting a variety of cigars and cigarettes in compartments. The white fireplace had brass accessories, but there was no fire now. A rather interesting painting which looked like a Derwatt hung over the fireplace. And where was Reeves Minot? Wister was Minot, Jonathan supposed. Was Wister going to announce this or assume that Jonathan realized it? It occurred to Jonathan that he and Simone ought to paint or paper their whole house white. He should discourage the idea of the art nouveau wallpaper in the bedroom. If they wanted to achieve more light, white was the logical —

‘… You might’ve given some thought to the other proposition,’ Wister was saying in his soft voice. “The idea I was talking about in Fontainebleau.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t changed my mind about that,’ Jonathan said. ‘And so this leads to – obviously I owe you six hundred francs.’ Jonathan forced a smile. Already he felt the scotch, and as soon as he realized this, he nervously drank a little more from his glass. ‘I can repay you within three months. The specialist is the essential thing for me now. – First things first.’

‘Of course,’ said Wister. ‘And you mustn’t think about any repayment. That’s absurd.’

Jonathan didn’t want to argue, but he felt vaguely ashamed. More than anything, Jonathan felt odd, as if he were dreaming, or somehow not himself. It’s only the foreignness of everything, he thought.

‘This
Italian we want eliminated,’ Wister said, folding his hands behind his head and looking up at the ceiling, ‘has a routine job. – Ha! That’s funny! He only pretends it’s a job with regular hours. He’s hanging around die clubs off the Reeperbahn, pretending he has a taste for gambling, and he’s pretending he has a job as a oenologist, and I’m sure he has a chum at the – whatever they call the wine factory here. He goes to the wine factory every afternoon, but he spends his evenings in one or another of the private clubs, playing the tables a little and seeing who he can meet. Mornings he sleeps, because he’s up all night. Now the point is,’ Wister said, sitting up, ‘he takes the U-bahn every afternoon to get home, home being a rented flat. He’s got a six-months lease and a real six-month job with the wine place to make it look legitimate, – Have a sandwich!’

Wister extended the plate, as if he had just realized the sandwiches were there.

Jonathan took a tongue sandwich. There were also coleslaw and dill pickle.

The important point is he gets off the U-bahn at the Steinstrasse station every day around six-fifteen by himself, looking like any other businessman coming back from the office. That’s the time we want to get him.’ Wister spread his bony hands palm downward. The assassin fires once if you can get the middle of his back, twice for sure maybe, drops the gun and – Bob’s your uncle as the English say, isn’t that right?’

The phrase was indeed familiar, out of the long ago past. ‘If it’s so easy, why do you need me?’ Jonathan managed a polite smile. ‘I’m an amateur to say the least. I’d botch it.’

Wister might not have heard. The crowd in the U-bahn
may
be rounded up. Some of them. Who can tell? Thirty, forty people maybe, if the cops get there fast enough. It’s a huge station, the station for the main railway terminus. They might look people over. But suppose they look you over?’ Wister shrugged. ‘You’ll have dropped the gun. You’ll have used a thin stocking over your hand, and you’ll drop the stocking a few seconds after you fire. No powder marks on you, no fingerprints on the gun. You have no connection with the man who’s dead. Oh, it really won’t come to all that. But one look at your French identity card, the fact of your appointment with Dr Wentzel, you’re in the clear. My point is,
our
point, we don’t want anyone connected with us or the clubs …’

Jonathan listened and made no comment. On the day of the shooting, he was thinking, he would have to be in a hotel, he could hardly be a house-guest of Wister, in case a policeman asked him where he was staying. And what about Karl and the housekeeper? Did they know anything about this? Were they trustworthy?
It’s all a lot of nonsense,
Jonathan thought, and wanted to smile, but he wasn’t smiling.

‘You’re tired.’ Wister informed him. ‘Want to see your room? Gaby already took your suitcase in.’

Fifteen minutes later, Jonathan was in pyjamas after a hot shower. His room had a window at the front of the house, like the living-room which had two windows on the front, and Jonathan looked out on a surface of water where there were lights along the near shore, and some red and green lights of tied-up boats. It looked dark, peaceful and spacious. A searchlight’s beam swept protectively across the sky. His bed was a three-quarter width, neatly turned down. There was a glass of what looked like water on his bed-table and a package of Gitane
maïs,
his brand, and an ashtray and matches. Jonathan took a sip from the glass and found that it was indeed water.

6

J
ONATHAN
sat on the edge of his bed, sipping coffee which Gaby had just brought. It was coffee the way he liked it, strong with a dash of thick cream. Jonathan had awakened at 7 a.m., then gone back to sleep until Wister had knocked on the door at 10.30 a.m.

‘Don’t apologize, I’m glad you slept.’ said Wister. ‘Gaby is ready to bring you some coffee. Or do you prefer tea?’

Wister had also added that he had made a reservation for Jonathan at the Hotel – Victoria was its name in English, anyway, where they would go before lunch. Jonathan thanked him. No further conversation about the hotel. But that was the beginning, Jonathan thought, as he had thought last night. If he were to carry out Wister’s plan, he mustn’t be a house-guest here. Jonathan, however, felt glad he was going to be out from under Wister’s roof in a couple of hours.

A friend or acquaintance of Wister’s named Rudolf something arrived at noon. Rudolf was young and slender with straight black hair, nervous and polite. Wister said he was a medical student. Evidently he did not speak English. He reminded Jonathan of photographs of Franz Kafka. They all got into the car, driven by Karl, and set off for Jonathan’s hotel. Everything looked so new compared to France, Jonathan thought, and then recalled that Hamburg had been flattened by bombs. The car stopped in a commercial-looking street. It was the Hotel Victoria.

They all speak English.’ Wister said. ‘We’ll wait for you.’

Jonathan went in. A bellhop had taken his suitcase at the door. He registered, looking at his English passport to get the number right. He asked for his suitcase to be sent up to his room, as Wister had told him to do. The hotel was of middle category. Jonathan saw.

Then they throve to a restaurant for lunch, where Karl did not join them. They had a bottle of wine at their table before the meal, and Rudolf became more merry. Rudolf spoke in German and Wister translated a few of his pleasantries. Jonathan was thinking of the hour 2 p.m., when he was due at the hospital.

‘Reeves —’ said Rudolf to Wister.

Jonathan thought Rudolf had said it once before, and this time there was no mistake. Wister – Reeves Minot – took it calmly. And so did Jonathan.

‘Anaemic,’ said Rudolf to Jonathan.

‘Worse.’ Jonathan smiled.

‘Schlimmer,’ said Reeves Minot, and continued to Rudolf in German, which seemed to Jonathan as clumsy as his French, but was probably equally adequate.

The food was excellent, the portions enormous. Reeves had brought his cigars. But before they could finish the cigars, they had to leave for the hospital.

The hospital was a vast assembly of buildings set among trees and pathways lined with flowers. Karl had again driven them. The wing of the hospital where Jonathan had to go looked like a laboratory of the future – rooms on either side of a corridor as in a hotel, except that these rooms held chromium chairs or beds and were illuminated by fluorescent or variously coloured lamps. There was a smell not of disinfectant but as of some unearthly gas, somewhat resembling the smell Jonathan had known under the X-ray machine which five years ago had done him no good with the leukemia. It was the kind of place where laymen surrendered utterly to the omniscient specialists, Jonathan thought, and at once he felt weak enough to faint. Jonathan was walking at that moment down a seemingly endless corridor of soundproofed floor surface with Rudolf, who was to interpret if Jonathan needed it. Reeves had remained in the car with Karl, but Jonathan was not sure if they were going to wait, or of how long the examination would take.

Dr Wentzel, a heavy man with grey hair and walrus moustaches, knew a little English, but he did not try to construct long sentences. ‘How long?’ Six years. Jonathan was weighed, asked if he had had any weight loss recently, stripped to the waist, his spleen palpated. All the while, the doctor murmured in German to a nurse who was taking notes. His blood pressure was taken, his eyelids looked at, urine and blood samples taken, finally the sternum marrow sample taken with a punch-like instrument that operated faster and with less discomfort than Dr Perrier’s. Jonathan was told he could have the results tomorrow morning. The examination had taken only about forty-five minutes.

Jonathan and Rudolf walked out. The car was several yards away among some other cars in a parking area.

‘How was it? … When will you know?’ Reeves asked. ‘Would you like to come back to my place or go to your hotel?’

‘I think to my hotel, thanks.’ Jonathan sank with relief into a corner seat of the car.

Rudolf seemed to be singing Wentzel’s praises to Reeves. They arrived at the hotel.

‘We’ll pick you up for dinner,’ said Reeves cheerfully. ‘At seven.’

Jonathan got his key and went to his room. He took off his jacket and fell on to the bed face down. After two or three minutes, he pushed himself up and went to the writing desk. There was notepaper in a drawer. He sat down and wrote:

April 4, 19—

My dear Simone,

I have just had an examination and will know the results tomorrow morning. Very efficient hospital, doctor looking like Emp. Franz Josef, said to be the best haematologist in the world! Whatever the result tomorrow I shall feel more at ease knowing it. With luck I may be home tomorrow before you get this, unless Dr Wentzel wants to do some other tests.

Will telegraph now, just to say I am all right. I miss you, I think of you and Cailloux.

A bientôt with all my love,
Jon

Jonathan hung up his best suit, which was a dark blue, left the rest of his things in his suitcase, and went downstairs to post his letter. He had changed a ten-pound traveller’s cheque, from an ancient book of three or four, last evening at the airport. He wrote a short telegram to Simone saying he was all right and that a letter was arriving. Then he went out, took note of the street’s name and of the look of the neighbourhood – a huge beer advertisement struck him most forcibly – then went out for a walk.

The pavements bustled with shoppers and pedestrians, with dachshunds on leads, with hawkers of fruit and newspapers at the corners. Jonathan gazed into a window full of beautiful sweaters. There was also a handsome blue-silk dressing-gown set off against a background of creamy white sheep pelts. He started to figure out its price in francs and gave it up, not being really interested. He crossed a busy avenue where there were both tramways and buses, came to a canal with a footbridge, and decided not to cross it. A coffee, perhaps. Jonathan approached a pleasant-looking coffee bar which had pastry in the window, a counter as well as small tables inside, and then could not bring himself to go in. He realized that he was terrified of what the report tomorrow morning would say. He had suddenly a hollow feeling with which he was familiar, a feeling of thinness as if he had become tissue paper, a coolness on his forehead as if his life itself were evaporating.

What Jonathan knew also, or at least suspected, was that tomorrow morning he would receive a phoney report. Jonathan mistrusted Rudolf’s presence. A medical student. Rudolf had been no help, because he hadn’t been needed. The doctor’s nurse had spoken English. Mightn’t Rudolf write up a phoney report tonight? Substitute it somehow? Jonathan even imagined Rudolf pinching hospital stationery that afternoon. Or maybe he was losing his mind, Jonathan warned himself.