The Japanese Girl (15 page)

‘You don't want a rough house?'

‘You know it'll do you no good.'

‘I'll come quiet on one condition.'

‘What's that?'

‘Give me half an hour with the nipper. It's a long way to come – just for nothing at all.'

The plainclothes man hesitated. ‘ You're a slippery customer.'

‘Not all that slippery.'

‘I'll have to sit beside you.'

‘O.K. It's a deal.'

Watched carefully, Gibb went past them and was followed closely into the next room. Just inside he stopped.

‘Well, stone the crows, look at that!'

Sally was asleep. The radio still going, she lay with her bandaged head half off the pillow and with her new doll clutched in one hand.

‘Looks as if you won't need your half hour,' said the plainclothes man.

‘Now give me a break! Think I don't get pleasure just looking at her like that? What d'you think!'

‘O.K. If you feel that way.'

The other two policemen went back into the kitchen and the plainclothes man sat on a chair near the window while Gibb stood by the bed for a bit. Then he pressed up the pillow cautiously so that she was lying straight. He held her plait in his fingers for a minute or so. ‘ Hair like her mother's,' he said. ‘ Not a bit like mine.'

The plainclothes man offered him a cigarette; Gibb nodded his thanks and accepted a light. ‘You got kids?'

‘Yes, two.'

Gibb sat on the chair and looked at his daughter.

‘Hope she don't want it cut off.'

‘What?'

‘Her hair. Kids these days …'

The plainclothes man tapped his cigarette.

‘She's not like me at all really,' said Gibb. ‘I've got coarse hair. Always had – even as a kid.'

‘Yes?'

‘Yes. I expect she'll be like her mother when she grows up.'

Time passed.

The music on the radio faded and the midnight summary began. At that moment there were voices outside in the kitchen and hurried footsteps and the door was flung open by a dark woman of about thirty-five. Her glance took everything

Gibb got up.

‘Well, Maureen.'

‘Les! … I didn't expect
you
! … I been in the train all day!' She came up to the bed. ‘Is she all right?'

‘Seems like it!'

‘God, what a fright! … I nearly
died
!' She scowled at her daughter carefully for a few seconds as if making sure no one was deceiving her. ‘ It's – she's just asleep? That's all? Just asleep?'

‘Yes.'

She turned to Gibb. ‘ Les, you
fool
! You
are
a flaming fool! This'll mean longer for you when you get back …'

‘Maybe.'

They hesitated, and then he kissed her.

The radio voice said: ‘Search is continuing for Leslie Gibb who escaped from Dartmoor at 5 p.m. yesterday. Gibb, an ex-paratrooper wounded at Arnhem, is serving a three-year sentence for robbery with violence …'

I was looking out for a village. Almost any sort of village would have done, because things had been difficult for the last hour.

The snow had started just as I reached the top of the pass. They'd told me in Pontresina that the road was still clear, and I'd found it so: a few piled heaps of white here and there like dirty linen waiting to be collected, but nothing new at all. Right at the summit by the now-empty hospice I stopped the car to let the engine cool in the icy wind and strolled about to ease my stiff leg; but I didn't stay long. The clouds were lowering all around like elephants' bellies, and it was lonely up there, more than a mile high, with nothing human or alive anywhere, the great peaks half hidden and the first fall of winter long overdue.

So I climbed in and the engine fired at the fourth push, and as I turned the car round the first corner the flakes of snow began to drift absent-mindedly about in the wind.

It's a nasty road at the best of times. You go down and down but never seem to get any lower, round dozens of acute hairpin bends and through echoing tunnels with faint relics of daylight at the far end; and every time your tyres slither on the loose surface you look down thousands of feet into the dark pine-wooded valleys wreathed in cloud. It's like some medieval artist's vision of judgment; and of course if you slither too far the vision becomes an immediate fact.

In a mile or two it was snowing hard, and the car had no chains. It was nearly five o'clock – the climb having taken so much longer because of that plug – and very soon it would be quite dark. The snow was fine and soft, and for a bit the strong wind blew it off the centre of the road, piling it in drifts in the unexpected corners. I'd hoped to make Tirano and find a hotel there – it looked no distance on the map – but today it just wasn't going to work out. I couldn't remember whether there was anything at all before Tirano except the frontier post. It might be better to try to spend the night in the car than to skid to the edge of a precipice and then … whoo!

The screenwipers were making heavy going of it, and I had to stop and get out to clean them. The snow was soft in my face, like walking into a flight of cold wet moths, and the wind was howling away in the distance across the valley. Somewhere nearer at hand just for a moment I caught the musical note of a cow-bell, but there was no other traveller, no other human being anywhere. They might all have gone long ago to some more civilized land.

With the dark I had to stop again and again, because the screen was freezing over and it was easy to miss the turns of the road. I could see the paragraphs in the papers: ‘The victim of a sudden storm in the Bernina Alps was Major Frederick Vane, aged 33, a British officer attached to UNESCO, who unwisely attempted to cross from Switzerland into Italy by the Bernina Pass, which is normally closed to vehicular traffic in October. His car …'

And then I turned one more contorted bend and the headlights showed up a few farm huts and the narrow cobbled street of a village.

It was a welcome sight. There was no one about, and the wind whistled through the slit between the houses like an errand boy with bad teeth.

Almost at the end of the street I braked in time to avoid a man with a handcart. After the lonely drive, I felt warmed towards him as towards an old friend. But the feeling wasn't returned because he didn't like standing in the draught and didn't feel warmed at all. However, after a minute or two our conversation attracted attention even on that bleak night. Two other figures appeared, anxious to help. Yes, they said, it was as Angelo Luciano stated: nothing here and doubts about Bagnolo, the next village, fifteen kilometres on. Beyond that was the frontier and then Tirano, but …

Then quite suddenly, as an afterthought, someone mentioned the Chalet Lartrec, and at once they were all agreed it might be worth trying at the Chalet Lartrec, which was off this road and only about a kilometre distant. The season being over, they said, Monsieur Lartrec would have closed down his house, but it was just possible he would make an exception in a case like this.

By now my screen had frozen over completely, so I scraped it into a state of semi-transparency and thanked them and drove on, reflecting how often people forgot the important thing until nearly too late.

At the stone marked 10, I turned as directed down a narrow track barely wide enough for a car. I knew that somewhere not far away the valley fell into further cloudy depths. Two gateposts showed up and beyond that a light. I left the car in the semi-shelter of three waving pines and picked a way across snow-filled frozen ruts towards the light, carrying my smallest suitcase.

The chalet was a three-storeyed place, painted in green, and all the shutters were up except at the window that showed the light.

I knocked on the door and waited.

There was no reply. I knocked again, picturing the unknown Lartrec crouching ill-temperedly over his log fire. Just then there was the screech of bolts and I stood back a step.

Light came out and I saw a woman.

‘Er – Monsieur Lartrec?' I said.

She was staring at me. Perhaps she was surprised at seeing a stranger.

‘You wish to see my husband?' she said in French.

I explained. While I was speaking the wind was shaking the door in her hand, and it blew little infiltrations of snow into the hall. She was quite young, with a lot of dark hair and deep-set black eyes.

When I had finished she said: ‘I regret, monsieur. We cannot put you up. We have no bed, no food. We are closed for the winter.'

I pointed to the snow. ‘It is five or six inches already. All I need is shelter until daybreak.'

‘We are closed, monsieur. It is not possible.'

‘But I have no chains! I don't think I could even get my car to the main road again!'

She hesitated. ‘ I will see my husband.'

She shut the door tight, leaving me on the step, stamping my feet and thinking bitter thoughts. I reflected that French was not her first language any more than it was mine. She was probably Swiss-Italian, or her mother tongue was perhaps that odd Romance dialect that a few Swiss still speak. Then the door came open and this time a tall man stood there. He peered out at me as if I were a typhoid-carrier.

Wearily I explained it all again, and again came the same refusal. But by now I was getting bloody-minded and was not to be moved from his doorstep. Did he, I asked him, expect me to freeze to death in the car?

Suddenly he gave way. ‘Oh, very well. I see that it is bad for you. We must do what we can.'

I followed him in, just holding my tongue; and it was fortunate that I did because, once they'd capitulated, they seemed willing to put a good face on it. I felt stiff and uncomfortable, willing to lie on a board somewhere and no thanks to them; but M. Lartrec showed me into a pleasant enough bedroom in which the central heating pipes were going full blast, and I gratefully thawed out and presently was called down to a meal of pasta, stewed steak, cheese and grapes, with a half litre of new and raw Chianti. So I began to feel a whole lot better towards them and to life in general.

Lartrec was not above thirty-five, distinguished-looking in an angular way, brutally thin, with great bony shoulders that he would shrug nervously as if his shirt were chafing him. Mme Lartrec was probably a bit younger, good-looking in her way, with finely shaped hands that had been roughened and reddened with work. She might, I thought, have been ill, for the fine olive skin that usually goes with such looks was over-sallow. Their only servant was a slow-witted boy with hair of a length that he did not know was fashionable, who followed his mistress – in person or with his gaze – wherever she went. Of Lartrec he seemed afraid.

For a few minutes after supper I sat in the large bare hall with my feet on the only square of carpet and tried to read last week's
Die Weltwoche
. But German has never been my strong point, and for the most part I listened to the lament of the wind and wondered if the roads would be quite blocked in the morning. To spend a night here was one thing, but I was due back in Rome on Monday.

The fingers of the thatched-barn cuckoo clock in the corner climbed up to nine, and when it had hiccupped I rose to go to bed. I wandered round the room staring at the pictures, an impressionistic view of Lake Maggiore, three impossible snow scenes, a photograph of a fat young man with beady eyes; then I went through the dining-room to the kitchen door and tapped.

The door was flung open and Lartrec looked at me.

‘Yes?'

Behind him shining pans, my unwashed dishes, skis in a corner, a big stove, the tear-stained face of his wife.

‘I thought I'd just tell you I'm going to bed.'

‘Certainly, monsieur. Everything is to your liking?'

‘Indeed yes. I'm most grateful for the food and the shelter.'

‘You can find your way to your room? No, no, I'll show you.'

I insisted this wasn't necessary, but he took absolutely no notice and I followed him upstairs. In the bedroom he seemed reluctant to go, and we made a few forced remarks. There was no ease between us, but he still stood by the door, tall and gaunt, like an unfrocked priest.

‘You are Swiss?' I said, feeling sure he was not.

His blue eyes flickered as he shook his head

After a pause I said: ‘If I could have my breakfast at eight …?'

‘But of course.'

‘Anything will do. Anything you have: honey or an egg or even just a pot of coffee.'

‘Of course.'

‘I hope the roads won't be completely blocked.'

‘It seldom happens with the first fall … You must think it strange, monsieur, that my wife – that you should see my wife in tears.'

‘I'm married myself.'

He stiffened. ‘ It is not at all what you think. It is not domestic.'

I said I was pleased to know it, and waited for him to go.

‘You are in part responsible for this tonight.'

I stared at him. ‘Sorry. I assure you I'll not stay here a minute longer than I can help.'

‘No, no. It is not just your coming, it is your coming tonight of all nights that gave her a shock. It is exactly the anniversary of something which happened twelve months ago. The anniversary to the day and to the hour.' He weighed me up. ‘You are from England?'

‘Yes.'

‘I thought so from your accent. I have never been to England but I have often wished to go.'

There was a pause. We didn't seem to be getting very far. ‘Cigarette?' I said.

‘In England you suffered from two wars, but not in the same ways. In Hungary …' He stopped.

Light dawned. The high cheek-bones, the blue eyes, the rather metallic voice. ‘You are Hungarian?'

‘Yes,' he said half reluctantly.

‘I spent a few days in Budapest once. A beautiful city.'

He gave that nervous twitch to his shoulders. ‘My native town is Szeged … that conveys nothing to you?'