The Truth and Other Lies (20 page)

Eisendraht’s head jerked, like a chicken that has just spotted a grain of corn. “He asked me about Mr. Hayden!”

“Yes. A lot of people do. And we protect the privacy of our authors, do we not?”

This “do we not” left Honor no alternative. “I’ve been working here for many years,
Betty
,” she said, “and if there’s anything that’s sacred to me it’s the privacy of our authors. You ought to know that.”

“All I know is that it was
you
.”

Betty was already out the door, leaving Honor Eisendraht in a state of turbulence.

———

“She did
what
?”

Henry leaped up and began to pace in front of the picture window in his studio. The hovawart immediately got up from its place under the coffee table and slunk out of the room with its tail between its legs. It wouldn’t come back until its finely tuned ability to pick up on bad vibes had given it the all clear.

On the table in front of Betty was the envelope with the ultrasound images of the fetus. She followed Henry from the sofa with her eyes. Against the light she could see his silhouette flitting back and forth, a restless shadow.

“The envelope went straight to Moreany,” she went on. “She rang up the practice and asked them to send the pictures to him at the company.”

“Eisendraht?”

“It must be her. It was a woman. She pretended to be me. She knows how old I am, where I live, and that I’m pregnant.”

Henry turned his back on Betty for a moment and looked out at the fields. It wasn’t yet ten in the morning and the sun was already blazing down. Not a cloud was in the sky. There was just a stork circling high, high up. It was going to be a hot day.

“How can she know that?” he asked, without turning around.

“Not from me.” Betty took off a shoe and pulled her leg up onto the sofa. “And no,” she added, “I haven’t told Moreany anything. No one except the doctor knew about it. By the way, the insurance man dropped by yesterday and wanted the car key for the Subaru. I didn’t have a key to give him.”

Although she couldn’t see Henry’s eyes against the light, she thought she could feel his penetrating gaze.

“No key? You don’t have a key at all?”

“No.” Betty leaned forward and took the envelope from the coffee table. “It was your idea to report it stolen. Why are we behaving like criminals, Henry? Why are we doing this to ourselves instead of simply grieving for your wife and being pleased about our baby?”

She shaded her eyes, so she could see Henry.

“Can you come out of the light, please? I can’t see you.”

Henry let down the electric blinds; it was at once cooler and pleasantly dim in the large room. He was visible once again.

“I’m going to the police, Henry. It doesn’t make sense any longer.”

“Ah,” he said quietly—and then, after a long pause—“You know what will happen then?”

Betty took the CD out of the envelope. The light was refracted into the colors of the spectrum. She spun it in her hand. She’s already gone into defensive mother mode, thought Henry all of a sudden. She’s not scared of me anymore. She just wants to keep the baby safe.

“What happens then I quite frankly don’t care,” Betty replied. “I think truth is the best policy for us. I don’t want our baby to be born in prison. Wouldn’t you like to have a look?”

Henry stared at the silver disc in her hand. It had all begun with that image. A little photo of a living piece of tissue, no bigger than a matchbox. At the sight of the fetus, the demon in him had been aroused, his old mate and protector from difficult times.
Follow me
, it had whispered, and Henry had once again followed. It had driven with him to the cliffs to kill his wife and crept in after him among the rafters of his house where the marten lurked. The demon had told him the correct bend in which to lie in wait for his enemy, and was even now whispering its dark plan in his ear.

“The novel’s finished.”

Betty looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes. I suddenly saw the end. Then I sat down and wrote. I’ve been working through the night.”

She put the CD back on the table. “I can’t believe it. Can I read it?”

“By all means. Read it, tell me what you think, and then we’ll celebrate.” Henry went over to his desk and took the manuscript. He weighed it in his hand and passed it to her. “I haven’t had time to type it up on the computer yet. That’s the only version. There’s still no copy.” He saw that Betty was about to object, and raised his hand.

“I’d like you to read it before Moreany. And afterward we’ll go to the police together and clear up this whole business. And now”—Henry joined her on the sofa and reached for the CD—“show me our baby.”

The
Drina
pitched and rolled in the light swell that was blown into the harbor by the west wind. Obradin pushed a can with the top sliced off under the oil drain outlet of the diesel engine and opened the valve. A change of oil might do the engine good—or it might be the extreme unction. He pursed his lips to whistle his usual little tune, but no sound came out—only air. He could chew much better with his nice new incisors, and cold things didn’t hurt anymore, but he could no longer whistle.

Black with powdered metal, the oil flowed into the can, shimmering in the sunlight that fell through the hatch into the engine room. Obradin dipped in an index finger and rubbed the black grease experimentally between finger and thumb. A shadow fell into the engine room. Obradin turned his massive skull. Glancing up he saw Henry standing over him, his arms folded. He’d pulled his hat low over his forehead. If the expression on his face was anything to go by, it must be something serious.

Henry inhaled tobacco smoke and let his gaze wander along the quayside wall.

“I have to get away from here, my friend.”

Obradin saw the smoke stream out of Henry’s nostrils like cold winter breath. It curled and dispersed over the seaweed-green nets. There just couldn’t be a better place for a man-to-man talk than his pitching, rolling, wonderfully hideous
Drina
.

“I’m in deep shit and don’t know any other way out, so I’m going to make myself scarce. But first”—Henry laid his hand holding the cigarette on Obradin’s oil-stained trousers—“I wanted to see you again. You don’t know what my life’s been like; you’ve never asked. You’ve never wanted to know where I come from, or what I’ve done, or what I get up to during the day.” He pushed the brim of his hat a little higher up his forehead and smiled sadly at Obradin. “You don’t know how much good that does me.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“Away from here. I’ll lie low until everyone’s given up searching for me.”

Henry looked dreamily at the leather tips of his shoes. “I’ve gone underground a few times in my life. Once I did it for years. I lived by myself in a house with bricked-up windows and no one noticed. The house belonged to my parents; they had been dead for many years. I only went to school until sixth grade, just imagine. I can’t even do mental arithmetic. Can you believe it?”

Obradin spat a flake of tobacco into the water. “Just goes to show how little is actually enough.”

Henry took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He spun the hat between his fingers.

“My wife didn’t drown on the beach.”

Obradin jumped up and raised both arms imploringly. The
Drina
started to rock.

“Don’t tell me, Henry. I don’t want to know. You’re my friend—I don’t care. It’s better you keep it to yourself.”

Henry stood up too and stretched out his hands to him.

“Calm down, Obradin, you have to know. The night Martha disappeared I drove to the bay.”

Obradin put his hands over his ears. “Don’t tell me any more. Please.”

“I’m not leaving until you know what happened that night. I saw Martha’s bike and her swimming things on the beach, but she wasn’t there.”

Troubled, Obradin sat down again, kneading his hairy hands together. Henry saw tears in his dark eyes.

“I know. I saw you, Henry. You drove to the bay at night with your lights off and I saw you drive back again.”

“And what did you think?” asked Henry, taken aback. “Come on, tell me, what did you think?”

“I didn’t think anything. You can do whatever you like.” Obradin shook his bull’s neck. A tremor racked his huge body. His shirt straining over his belly, he squirmed like a recalcitrant child. “I don’t know what I thought. It’s your business, nobody’s business but yours.”

“There’s a woman,” Henry said softly, and sat down next to his friend again. “Another woman. A wicked woman. She’s called Betty and works at the publisher’s. She’s been pursuing me for years—claims she’s going to have a baby by me. She’s using it to blackmail me. She wants my money, but most of all she wants me.”

And then Henry told his friend, the fishmonger Obradin, what had really gone on at the cliffs that night. The
Drina
pitched and rolled, wavelets sloshed against the seaweed-covered side of the boat, miniature fish passed by in little schools. Obradin listened with closed eyes; he didn’t interrupt Henry once. Only his hirsute index finger moved, playing over the seam of his trousers, as if he were taking notes.

“She told me Martha went to visit her in order to confront her,” Henry concluded, “but Martha’s car’s still in the barn. Martha didn’t come back from the meeting. I looked for her everywhere. Betty’s car has disappeared. She’s reported it stolen. This woman’s even started using my credit cards. She’s spreading it around that she’s pregnant by me. In court she’ll say I did it. I’ll be locked up for murder and she’ll get the lot—the house, the rights to the novels, the whole lot.”

Obradin opened his eyes and blinked into the sun. “Why don’t you just send her away?”

Henry peered into Obradin’s face. “Send her where?”

“Send her to a place from which no one returns.”

“And where might that be?”

“It’s quite simple,” Obradin replied quietly. “Believe me.”

Henry shook his head violently. “I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I’ve often thought about it, I admit, but I’m too soft.”

“Not in your novels.”

“That’s different. That’s imagination, pure invention. In real life I can’t even kill a marten. You were in the war, Obradin. You lost your daughter. You know how to hate. I don’t know how to hate.”

“You don’t have to hate a fish to kill it. It’s quite simple.”

“A person’s not a fish, Obradin.” Henry slapped his thighs and got up. “Martha was the love of my life. I miss her. The house is too empty without her. I can’t write anymore. My friend, in a year or two you might get a postcard. From a stranger. That’ll be me. Until then . . .”

Henry reached into his pocket and took out a key.

“This opens my safe. If you ever fall on hard times, if you’re ever at your wits’ end, then use it. You’ll find the bank on page 363 of
Frank Ellis
. Farewell, my friend.”

The Old Harbor was the only restaurant in the region with a Michelin star. The sweeping terrace made of revamped ship decking rose up above the sea on tarred struts. From here—afloat, as it were—you could enjoy the sunset. Initiates could enjoy one of the house’s signature cocktails at the same time.

Henry parked his Maserati next to an open-topped Bentley in Tudor Grey and walked across the meticulously raked white gravel of the parking lot, past other landmarks in automobile history. He had his sleeves rolled up and his jacket flung casually over his shoulder. He’d just had a shower, he was hungry, and he could smell his own aftershave. With a spring in his heel he took the steps two at a time and entered the sandalwood-lined lobby of the Old Harbor. Anyone who, like Henry, can reach this lobby after passing the gleaming chrome of those status symbols, without any feelings of envy or inferiority, can be said to have made it, to be one of the club.

Although Henry was wearing dark glasses, he was recognized by the headwaiter and led to the
table pour deux
at the side of the terrace. It was the corner table right up against the balustrade, which offered the best view of the sun disappearing into the sea and of new guests appearing in the restaurant. There was enough room to stretch out your legs or to make an easy getaway. Henry had a quick look around him. The concept of informal dining requires only a casual dress code. Most of the male guests were wearing canvas shoes like him, sunglasses like him, and expensive watches like him. Here one could mingle with a like-minded crowd—the young-at-heart fifty-plus, as they say nowadays. The balustrade tables were in high demand and booked months in advance. On his table was a white cloth, two long-stemmed water glasses, two sets of cutlery, two little hors d’oeuvre dishes, and two discreetly patterned, laundered napkins. He glanced at his watch: 6:46 p.m. He’d come a quarter of an hour early.

———

Betty had been reading all day. The blinds of her office were drawn. She had only made one brief sortie into the staff kitchen to make herself some peppermint tea. When she turned the last page, she paused, baffled. “That’s not possible,” she said out loud to herself. “That’s just not possible.” The end of the novel was missing. It didn’t say “The end” underneath either; it simply wasn’t there.

White Darkness
was an unbearably gripping novel. Betty had turned the pages with clammy fingers—now it had to happen!—and then the book just stopped. Betty stared at the large blank space on the last page as if there were a microdot hidden there that contained the secret of the ending. But there was only a speck of brown fly dirt.

Chekhov was famous for reducing his stories to the bare minimum. He would lop the beginning and the end off each one because he thought they weren’t necessary to the plot. There is an unconfirmed rumor that his friends wanted to break into his study to rescue these endings. Countless readers of ‘The Lady with the Dog” have realized with horror . . . just as the tormented love of two lonely people is about to overcome convention, undo their endless Russian hesitancy, send them into raptures, and finally set them free . . . that suddenly it’s over, and they’ve turned the last page. The fiercely longed-for ending is no longer part of the story. It’s ghastly, but you have to accept it.