Still shaking slightly, he stood up and walked over to the bedroom as if to recommence his tour, interrupted by the fall, but halted at the door. The room was done out in wine-red velvet, and over the bed hung a gold-coloured silk baldachin. On the bedcover a gold-embroidered pomegranate pattern shimmered in the dim light of two pendant lamps which, like at a catafalque, shone either side of the bed — Mortimer’s bed. He could easily imagine the outstretched form of the murdered man in the shadow of the baldachin.
The anxiety, which to some extent had abated with the fall, now surged back; it rose, as it were, from the floor up to his knees, gobbling up his whole body, and began, in a probing and insidious manner, to go for his throat, choking him. Mortimer’s life confronted him in a more ghostly, weird and threatening manner than Mortimer’s death.
Till now he hadn’t had a single spare moment to think about who this Mortimer in fact was; these rooms, which Mortimer had never entered, seemed to know, and were trying to impart to him who Mortimer was. In vain did he keep reminding himself that this no longer concerned him, that come the morning he would be out of the hotel, that he would forget Mortimer like a bad dream. But the air was saturated with the presence of the dead man who had no wish to stay dead; it was as if he were already here, lying in wait for Sponer. Now that he had latched onto him, he didn’t want to lose this last chance to carry on living; he was assailing Sponer, clinging onto him, sapping his lifeblood; he was not to be shaken off.
A dead man is simply that; he decays and disappears; soon it is as if he had never existed. The dead man who had lain in his car was being swept along by the river, attacked by fish, ground to pulp by rocks and boulders; he was floating downstream towards Hungary; soon he would be less than a stain in the water or a rustle in the reeds. He was gone, had vanished, the corpse was by now miles away — so far so good. However, it was ridiculous to suppose that as a result anything had been accomplished. The real Mortimer was not dead at all. He continued to live.
He was very much alive, and there was no need for him to look anything like the former Mortimer — a young man of about thirty, medium height, bland features, hair slicked back, eyes grey. He might as well look like Sponer now, though it was immaterial what he looked like; all he yearned for was to live, irrespective of whether he looked like this or like that, had fair hair or brown hair, grey or dark-blue eyes. It was no longer a question of hair or eyes, face, hands or body, he had settled in Sponer’s skull. Like a bird of prey he had sunk his claws into this, his new nest, and had implanted himself there; he could no longer be shooed away; he ruled and gave the orders: lift up your hand, do this, do that, bestir yourself, stop, take me there, follow my commands, do as I wish! For are you not me now?
For a man is not just a thing of flesh and blood that walks, eats, drinks, sleeps and dies; rather a man is that what is in the minds of others, whom he loves or hates, commands, insults, seduces, confuses, destroys, preoccupies and torments. Mortimer was no longer the dead man in the river, he was the demon in Sponer’s head. It had taken only a few hours to shove Mortimer’s corpse out of the way; the living Mortimer was a far trickier customer to deal with.
Sponer, who somehow had to survive, was now floundering in the dark, beset from all quarters by dangers as if by wild beasts, ready to attack him at any moment. He simply no longer believed that when he left the hotel in the morning, it would be the end of the matter. There was more to come. There always was.
It would persist — he could no longer get away from it — yet he didn’t have the faintest idea what it was. He was hooked. Perhaps the suitcases contained something that would give him a clue? He tore them open, pulled out the articles one by one, and scattered them over the chairs. Underwear, suits, toiletries, shoes; some items were still quite new or hardly used. It seemed as if the dead man had recently kitted himself out, everything seemed quite impersonal, just like any other man’s wardrobe, as if the dead man didn’t want to betray himself. Sponer searched through all the pockets, looking for letters, but found nothing, and then he remembered the mail they’d given him when he arrived at the hotel, and he had already forgotten what he’d done with it, but finally he found it in the entrance hall on the sofa where he’d thrown it. He first tore open the telegrams, read two incomprehensible and obviously coded messages in English, chucked them aside, opened one of the letters and, while searching with his free hand in his jacket pocket for cigarettes, lowered himself onto the edge of the sofa and began to study the letter, all the while continuing to fumble unsuccessfully for his cigarettes. However, he didn’t understand the letter as he didn’t know much English. He tore open the second, which, like the two in Mortimer’s wallet, was again signed with a W, and deduced it was another love letter. He returned to the salon, looked to see whether perhaps he’d thrown the cigarette packet away somewhere, and in the meantime removed the dead man’s wallet and compared the handwriting of the old letters with the new one; it was the same. However, he didn’t continue reading, because not being able to find his cigarettes infuriated him suddenly. He hadn’t been in need of a smoke at all so far; now, however, he was all of a sudden dying for one and, unable to find his cigarettes, he blew his top. Swearing furiously, he rushed to the door and rang for the waiter.
Scarcely had he done this than the danger of the situation dawned upon him. The waiter might of course know him, for he might already have met the man, God knows where, but it was a distinct possibility, or alternatively the waiter might know Mortimer. That the staff in the entrance hall didn’t was beside the point, for the staff might have changed, or there might be another shift on duty, especially at night. So, if a room bell was rung, the waiter was not to know, even if he had met Mortimer previously, that the person now in the room should be Mortimer; the bell had simply rung for room number such-and-such, and when the waiter entered and encountered someone other than Mortimer, why should he suspect that he, Sponer, was impersonating anyone! In the morning, however, at checkout, staff who knew Mortimer might well be on duty. He, Sponer, would of course just hurry past them and get in the car, but all the same, someone could notice that the person getting in was not the Mortimer he knew. The car would of course immediately drive off, but the busybody trying to match Sponer’s appearance with that of Mortimer’s would be puzzled, questions might be asked, and if it later turned out that Mortimer had disappeared, everyone would say, “Yes, we, too, found he looked quite different,” and they’d follow this lead and enquire what time he had arrived, why only after midnight if the train was in before seven p.m., and then they’d enquire further and ask who had driven him from the Westbahnhof, and the drivers would come up for questioning again. Damn! However, so much time would have elapsed, days and weeks probably, before they’d discover Mortimer’s disappearance that they’d no longer be able to establish who had been at the station that time… What, however, if they found out sooner that he had disappeared? Perhaps people were already expecting him, he might have acquaintances in the city, perhaps he’d actually been here before, of course, otherwise the porter wouldn’t have…
His thoughts, which were again in a welter of confusion, were interrupted by a knock at the door. Who was it? The waiter? Why didn’t he just enter? Sponer stood there in silence. The knocking was repeated.