My counsel made notes.
'Paricutin?' he asked. 'How do you spell that?'
'As it's pronounced.'
We chatted about this, that, and the other. The cigar was new to me, but very good of its kind. Once more we never got down to business (as he calls his heap of papers).
'Herr Doktor,' I shouted after him down the corridor, 'you needn't bother to inquire about my working on that plantation, Herr Doktor, you can save yourself the trouble. Even your Swiss Embassy won't be able to find anything.'
'Why not?'
'Because of the lava.'
He'll telegraph just the same.
***
I'm not their Stiller. What do they want with me? I'm an unfortunate, insignificant, unimportant person with no life behind him, none at all. Why am I lying to them? Just so that they should leave me my emptiness, my insignificance, my reality; it's no good running away, and what they are offering me is flight, not freedom, flight means acting a part. Why don't they stop it?
***
Herr Dr Bohnenblust (that's my counsel's name) has fetched the lady from Paris, who thinks she is my wife, from the airport and seems to be very charmed with her.
'I just wanted to let you know,' said my counsel, 'that the lady has landed safely. Of course she sends her love—'
'Thank you.'
'She's now at the hotel.'
My counsel was incapable of sitting down, he could only rub his hands triumphantly, as though the lady from Paris were the big gun that was going to force me to surrender.
'Herr Doktor,' I said, 'I have no objection to visits from ladies, I merely repeat the warning I gave you before: I'm a hot-blooded man, unrestrained, as I told you, especially at this time of the year.'
'So I told her.'
'Well?'
'The lady insists,' he said, 'on seeing you tête à tête. She'll be here on Monday at ten o'clock. She is convinced that she knows her husband better than he knows himself, and there's no question of his being unrestrained, she says, that was always a wish-dream of her husband, says the lady, and she's quite sure she can manage him on her own.'
Then he offered me another cigar.
'Monday at ten o'clock?' I said. 'All right.'
***
Knobel, my warder, is beginning to get annoyed with my questions about the lady from Paris who claims to be married to me.
'I told you,' he grumbled, 'she looks smart. And her scent fills the whole corridor.'
'What about her hair?'
'Red,' he said, 'like rose-hip jam.'
He is incapable of giving a real description, even when he answers my questions one by one; the more I hear the less I am able to visualize her.
'Now cat your dinner,' he said. 'You'll see her for yourself. Perhaps the lady isn't your type at all, although she swears she's your wife.'
'My type,' I laughed. 'Did I ever tell you the story about the little mulatto girl?'
'No.'
'She was my type,' I said.
'A mulatto girl?'
'It was on the Rio Grande,' I began in a tone of voice that made Knobel sit down. 'Suddenly—haven't you got any bread?' I interrupted myself, whereupon Knobel jumped to his feet and placed half a loaf on the table; I cut a thick slice and took a bite, while Knobel sat down again and waited till my mouth was a little less full. Then I went on. 'Suddenly—we were just crouching round our fire, for evenings in the desert are bitterly cold, naturally there was no wood anywhere around, we were burning cotton waste, which gives out more stench than heat, discussing with the smugglers how they could smuggle us over the frontier during the night, because there was another warrant out for my arrest—suddenly, he came round the red rocks.'
'Who?'
Of course you can't talk with a mouth full of bread, not to mention the minestra I had to get down while it was still hot.
'Who?' asked Knobel. 'Who came round the rocks?'
'A limousine,' I said at last and could not restrain myself from taking another bite of the magnificent bread, 'stolen of course. A splendid sight, by the way, like a banner of gold dust. Because of the last rays of the setting sun. A limousine streaking across the desert, pitching like a yawl, naturally, up and down over the waves of sand.' 'Naturally.'
'Of course he had seen our little fire.'
'What happened?'
'Bang!' I said. 'But the fellow drove straight on, and of course we thought it was the American police. So bang! bang! and again bang!—and who do you think was inside?'
'Who?'
'Joe.'
I took a spoonful of my minestra.
'Who's Joe?'
'Her husband.'
'The mulatto's?'
'Of course.'
'Well I'm blowed!'
'A Negro,' I added, 'a thoroughly nice chap, but not when you'd abducted his wife. So in the dark, when you could see the dazzling whiteness of his teeth—cheers!' I said, breaking off to take a drink.
'Go on.'
'We were in love.'
'You and the mulatto?'
'I asked her: "Do you love me or him?" She knew exactly what I meant. And nodded. And bang. And not another sound from Joe.'
'Dead?' he asked.
'On the spot.'
'Well I'm blowed!'
'She kissed me,' I said. 'That's my type.'
Thereupon Knobel ladled me out another plateful of minestra; he's as attentive as a waiter serving wealthy customers.
'I like Negroes,' I said, 'but I can't stand married men, even if they're Negroes. They expect you to lay off their wives, and that doesn't suit me. Of course we drove straight across the frontier—'
'To Mexico?'
'Without lights. To the left, the Rio Grande. To the right, the full moon.'
'That was your third murder?'
'I believe so...'
It really wasn't right for Knobel to spend so long in my cell; the others always got cold food. My warder had already picked up the pail; I don't know what he was waiting for.
'Man is a beast of prey,' I said in a general sort of way. 'That's the truth, Knobel, and all the rest is humbug.'
But he still waited.
'When I think how I first met Florence,' I said, '—in the burning sawmill.'
'Who's Florence?'
'My mulatto.'
'1 see.'
'That was up north in Oregon,' I said. 'When I was fishing on the coast. I had no money for any other sort of food, and I hadn't yet sunk to stealing. I still thought I was an honest man, even when I didn't catch anything for days, not a thing; it's no easy matter fishing in the ocean, from the rocky shore, with the breakers splashing. It's a tricky business. You stand for hours on your reef, in the dry; the spray from the surf flies up and falls, but it never rises beyond a certain point, it never comes up over your reef; you feel as safe as a solid citizen, and suddenly a wave comes along that is higher than the rest, God knows why, fifteen feet higher; if you don't spot it in time, that wave, as it foams over the reef full of seals, then you're drowned, honest man or no, smashed against the rocks, a drifting corpse that is never identified...
'There was a cloudless moon as I stood there, deafened by the breakers, when suddenly I saw smoke billowing up over the shore behind me, so much smoke that it looked like an eclipse of the sun. That can only be the big sawmill, I thought at once, in this lonely neighbourhood. You must imagine what it was like: not a single house within a radius of twenty miles, nothing but rocks and sheep and a wire-rope with which they lowered the logs from the wild forest, and when I looked up at the hill the sky was full of flying sparks; I've never seen such a fire and you should have heard it crackle; and not a trace of a fire-engine, naturally, only the women standing round sobbing and biting their fingers, and praying to God to stop blowing with his wind; no water to put it out with and it was Sunday, so the men were off somewhere playing bowls, and here there was a flapping and slapping in the air like crimson banners—a glorious sight—flames flickered out of every
window, there was nothing to be done; outside lay a whole ocean full of wind, and as it blew into the huge stack of dry timber the heat was so terrific it was unbearable at a hundred paces; and right in the middle stood a tank full of petrol.'
'Well I'm blowed!'
'I asked her if she was crazy. The tank might go up at any moment. But just the same she rushed into her hut—'
'Who?'
'Right in the middle of all the clouds of smoke,' I said. 'The mulatto girl.'
'Well I'm blowed.'
'And I—ran after her.'
'Naturally.'
'What do you mean, naturally?' I said. 'It was absolutely crazy, but I suddenly thought, perhaps she wants to save a child—I shall never forget how I stood there in the hut, a few roof shingles were already on fire, an old Negro was running up and down on the roof like a monkey trying to put out the burning shingles with a ridiculous garden hose, one at a time, for his jet of water wasn't enough for any more, it was a joke, and inside the smoke was so thick I thought I should suffocate. "Hallo," I yelled, "hallo." And there she stood, motionless and weeping, her hands on her hips, helpless, a young mulatto, a lovely creature, my dear Knobel, as beautiful as an animal, eighteen years old, a lovely creature—! Everything else was sheer rubbish, not worth saving, nothing but crockery and mattresses. I was so furious I just grabbed hold of her and shook her.'
'Why?' asked Knobel.
'She wanted me to save the refrigerator. "Like hell," I shouted. And outside the old Negro was still squirting with his thin garden hose so that drops fell on us. "What do you want then?" she asked. "You," I yelled. And when I took hold of her she laughed so that all her white teeth showed. "I've got a husband," she said. "Come on," I told her. "Have you a car?" she asked. There are plenty of cars about, I thought, and as she put her arms round me so that I could carry her better, the roof began to crack and set the sparks dancing. I carried her out like a casualty, dumped her in the first car I came on standing in the street, and off we went. It was a Plymouth. The owner, probably a commercial traveller, never noticed as I drove past him, everyone was staring at the petrol tank that was going to explode at any moment.'
'So you were off and away, Mr White.'
It's wonderful how delighted Knobel is by other people's successes; he positively beams.
'Four hours later,' I went on, 'we were sitting in a quiet bay which is already inside California, fishing, where not a soul could see us. "By the way, what's your name?" I asked her. "Florence," she said, and her eyes were like deadly nightshade berries, her skin like coffee. "Joe will kill you," she said, "if he catches us." I just laughed. "We've got a car," I said, and showed her how to open shellfish to get bait for fishing.'
In the end Knobel was called from outside and had to leave me. With his bunch of keys in his hand he asked me; 'Did you catch anything?'
'And how!' I said, showing him the size with outstretched arms. 'This big.'
***
My public prosecutor, at the moment the only person to whom I can disclose my real wretchedness almost undisguised, has said good-bye; he is going to Pontresina for ten days' holiday with his wife (who again sent her regards). We wish one another 'All the best'.
***
Her hair is red, very red in fact, in keeping with the new fashion, not like rose-hip jam, however, but like dry minium powder. Very curious. And with it a very fine complexion—alabaster with freckles. Also very curious, but beautiful. And her eyes? I should say they are glittering, somehow watery, even when she is not crying, bluish-green like the edges of colourless window-glass, and at the same time, of course, full of soul and therefore opaque. Unfortunately her eyebrows have been plucked to a thin line, which gives her face a graceful hardness, but also a slightly masklike appearance, as though perpetually miming surprise. Her nose looks very aristocratic, especially from the side; there is a great deal of involuntary expression in her nostrils. Her lips are rather thin for my taste, not without sensuality, but they must first be roused; and her figure (in a black tailor-made costume) has something spare and also boyish about it; it's easy to see she's a dancer; perhaps it would be more accurate to say there is something of the ephebe about her, which is unexpectedly attractive in a woman of her age. She smokes a great deal. Her very slender hand, when she stubs out the half-smoked cigarette, is by no means lacking in strength and a considerable measure of forcefulness, although she seems to see herself as completely fragile. She speaks very softly, to prevent her interlocutor from shouting. She banks on being protected. I believe this little ruse, too, is unconscious. And she smells intoxicating, just as Knobel said; it must be a very high-class make, one immediately thinks of Paris, of the perfumeries in the Place Vendome.
'How are you?' she inquired.
Her habit of always answering one question with another is something you find in many women, in fact in all women, and I'm quite familiar with it. This made it all the more necessary for me to guard against the insidious feeling of having met her before.
'Don't you recognize me?' she asked.
Her fixed idea that I am her missing husband was by no means assumed; it came out in even her most trivial remarks.
'Don't you smoke any more?' she asked.
Later—because you can't keep a conversation going indefinitely with nothing but questions, especially when they are not even genuine questions, since she would only accept one answer and simply ignored all others as being prevarication—I told her the little tale of Isidore, adapting it to the case of my beautiful visitor by omitting the five children and making free use of a dream I had recently: when Isidore turned up at home he did not fire at the birthday cake, but merely showed his two hands covered with scars ... A crazy dream.
'Oh,' sighed my lady, 'you're still the same, one can't get a word of sense out of you, nothing but freaks of fancy.'
First it was comical, then annoying, but somehow also touching. This lady from Paris sitting on my bed in her black costume, smoking one cigarette after another, was anything but a stupid person, and I could imagine spending a delightful afternoon with her, more than an afternoon in fact. Above all, her rather tired and for some reason bitter laugh was enchanting, making one curious about the experience that lay behind it, time and again I couldn't help looking at her lips and being conscious of my own. But it seemed she couldn't get away from her fixed idea that she knew me. She simply refused to believe I could be anyone else than her missing Stiller. She kept on talking about her marriage, which, I gathered, had not been all that a marriage should be. Several times I indicated my regret. When I finally got a chance to speak—she didn't talk incessantly, far from it, she interspersed her conversation with frequent pauses during which she puffed hastily at her cigarette, long minutes of bitter silence it would have required more courage to interrupt than a spate of words—when I finally got a chance to speak, I said:
'I suppose you've been told, Madame, that you are talking to a murderer?'
She ignored my remark as though it were a joke that had fallen flat.
'I'm a murderer,' I repeated at the next opportunity, 'even if the Swiss police can't establish the fact. I murdered my wife.'
It was no use.
'You're funny,' she said. 'You're really funny, I must say. At a time like this, when we haven't seen one another for half a lifetime, you start with your freaks of fancy again, your childish freaks of fancy.'
Again and again, I admit, her gravity made me momentarily uncertain, not uncertain about the fact that I had murdered my wife, but uncertain whether I should succeed in freeing this unhappy lady from her fixed idea. What did she want of me? I also tried gravity as a means of convincing her that there had never been a marriage between us, remaining grave even when she jumped up from my bed, walked up and down shaking her red hair, stood in front of my barred window smoking, her slender hands in the scanty pockets of her tight-fitting tailor-made, not saying a word but staring out at the autumnal chestnut tree, so that I could not see her face.
>
'Madame,' I said, taking one of her cigarettes, 'you flew down here to forgive your lost husband; you have waited years for this grave, indeed solemn hour, and I can understand that it's a blow for you to find that I'm not the man you have waited for with all your desire to forgive everything. I'm not the man, Madame.'
Her only answer was to puff out smoke.
'I think,' I said, now smoking myself, 'that is obvious, there is no need to discuss it.'
'What's obvious?'
'That I'm not your lost husband.'
'Why not?' she asked without looking at me.
At least I could see the back of her shapely head.
'Madame,' I said with undiminished gravity,. 'I'm deeply moved to hear you speak of your unhappy marriage, but, if you will forgive my saying so, the more I listen to you the less I understand what you want of me, in fact I don't understand at all. What can a lady like you, who, thank God, have so brilliantly recovered from the effects of your unhappy marriage, want with me—a man who murdered his wife. To be quite frank, I don't understand what it is you want to forgive me?'
Silence.
'You live in Paris?' I asked.
Then the figure turned. Her face, partially unmasked by quiet dismay and more beautiful than before, making one think that contact must be possible, contact in the realm of truth—her face had for a short space of time a look that made me want to kiss her on the brow, and perhaps I ought to have done so, regardless of whether she misinterpreted it or not; for a short space of time, then her face seemed to close again and back she came with her fixed idea:
'Anatol, what's the matter with you?'
Again I told her:
'My name is White.'
She simply turned the tables, acting as though I were the one with the fixed idea. She threw her lighted cigarette out of the barred window (which is strictly forbidden, like so much here) and stood in front of me without taking hold of me of course, but knowing quite well that I should take hold of her and suddenly overcome by remorse beg her forgiveness. And in fact for a few moments we were quite defenceless, we smiled, although it wasn't funny at all. I might have looked like a gnome, a minotaur, anything you like, and it would have made no difference whatever; she was simply incapable of perceiving any other being than her vanished Stiller.