It was the experience of an unexpected inner disengagement. He had to concentrate on one of those feared people, on that person’s face, but even more on their atmospheric outlines, on the kind of situation that they created through their presence. The important thing was not to avoid the threatening and almost unbearable feelings which arose when he thought of the judgment that that person up there in their illuminated hotel room had by now formed about him, and to which tomorrow they might, once he had been found, add the thought of cowardice. The important thing was to let these feelings get near him without resisting them, and to stand up to them with disciplined calm. After a while, the person in question lost their threatening, oppressive proximity and began to retreat. His dented soul was able to bulge outwards, the tormenting feelings slowly died away, and he was free. It was an ethereal and fragile freedom that was coming into being, a floating present in which one seemed to be balanced on the point of a needle. He was on a narrow strip of no-man’s-land between the life behind him, a life interwoven with the lives of others, and the darkness in front of him, in which life would be no more. Being free like this could have been a form of happiness, had it not been for the black water, which would rise higher with each step he took. And without the water, he sensed with great clarity, that freedom would not exist. If he turned round and returned to the land, it would have fled in a moment, and the others would have buried him beneath their stares.
The one face that refused to go away was Kirsten’s. On the contrary, the longer he saw it in his mind’s eye, the harder it was to let go of it. He had had no opportunity to explain it to her. The news of his suicide, followed by the news of his deception, would fall on her as if from a clear sky. For her they would stand together dry and mute, those two pieces of information: he had perpetrated a deception, and when the matter came to light, he had walked into the water. He would sound like the little clerk who had taken money from the cash register.
It was so shabby, so shockingly shabby, that familiar story, its short version untrue, even for the little clerk. Somehow Kirsten might sense that it wasn’t true for him, either. But she had no way of getting to the true story all by herself, or even getting close to it. He had never talked to her about his profession slipping away. Or about his unsuccessful delimitation from others. Or about the fact that a preoccupation with languages was his attempt to regain a tiny shadow of the fleeting present. Those weren’t things that one could explain to a person of her age. Or at least he had always assumed as much.
But perhaps that was wrong, Perlmann thought, and he started talking to his daughter under his breath. At first the words came out only haltingly. He spoke them into the quiet, dark water, and only occasionally raised his eyes to look into Kirsten’s face for signs of understanding. Later the things he had to say came fluently. He began to sound more convincing, even to himself, and Kirsten started nodding. Admittedly, his tongue remained heavy, his lips didn’t always obey, and some words were blurred. But Kirsten wasn’t repelled. She understood, so he didn’t need to be embarrassed and was able to go on talking, more and more, until everything was completely clear, its every impulse comprehensible. So that he could be forgiven.
He put the pills in his pocket, got up stiffly and uncertainly and went back to the street. He couldn’t drive himself in this state. But he could persuade a taxi driver to fetch his passport and drive him to Konstanz. If he paid a princely sum, one would certainly be found. He could sleep on the back seat, and by the time they arrived tomorrow morning he would have a clear head again, and clear speech. Then he could tell Kirsten everything, explain everything, just as he had just done a moment ago, only much more thoroughly and much better.
40
In the lobby of the Regina Elena, inebriated wedding guests were rowdily forcing a glass of champagne on the night porter, who was trying to conceal his annoyance behind a sour smile. Under these circumstances Perlmann couldn’t possibly ask him to call a cab. He wasn’t even a hotel guest. He had no gettoni, so phone boxes were of no use to him. He went over to the Miramare and leaned against the wall at the foot of the steps. Dart in quickly, say the few words to Giovanni and then immediately come back here to wait, unseen, for the taxi. He wouldn’t be in there for ten seconds. That he would, during that time, meet one of the others, was unlikely. It was already half-past twelve. But it wasn’t impossible. Laura Sand, for example, sometimes took another walk at this time.
Perlmann climbed the first few steps until he could see the entrance beyond the edge of the terrace. His heart was thumping, and his breathing, involuntarily, was quite shallow. Giovanni was propped with one elbow on the counter, reading the paper. Rethink. Again he leaned against the wall. Otherwise he would have to look for a taxi stand in town. He could drag himself as far as the station. But hardly any trains stopped there in the middle of the night. What would taxis be doing there? And he couldn’t remember another rank. He would wander, lead-limbed, through the quiet alleys, each step a form of torture. Again he glanced across to the reception. Giovanni was now leaning against the counter on outstretched arms, reading the page under him. Shadows stirred in the bar, and a moment later a grey-haired man walked through the hall to the elevator. It was too dangerous. Perlmann would have to wait for another hour or two. He closed his eyes. A paralysing irresolution took hold of him.
‘Buona sera, Dottore,’ said Signora Morelli, coming energetically downstairs, her coat flapping behind her. ‘Is… is something wrong? Are you waiting for someone?’
‘No, no… nothing,’ Perlmann replied, startled, and making a special effort with his pronunciation. And because it seemed impossible not to say anything else, he added: ‘You’re still here?’
‘Yes, sadly,’ she said and pulled a face. ‘Taxes, we have nothing but problems with taxes. It gets worse by the year. I was working on it until a moment ago.’ She smiled. ‘Well, yes, and it’s mad to run such a hotel without more managerial staff, almost like a family business.’
It was the first time he had heard anything so personal from her, and if he had still belonged to her world, and the world in general, rather than mutely nodding he would have loved to show an interest.
‘Oh, by the way,’ she said, already turning to go, ‘I put the original of your text in your pigeonhole. In my haste on Saturday I left it by the photocopier. I hope you didn’t miss it.’
Perlmann didn’t understand. And he didn’t want to understand. Never again did he want to have to understand a sentence with words in it like text, original and copy. Never again.
‘Venga,’ the signora said when she saw his blank face, and went back upstairs. It was impossible not to follow her. She shoved aside Giovanni, who looked up in surprise from the newspaper and was saying hello, and took a text out of Perlmann’s pigeonhole. ‘Eccolo,’ she said. ‘But now I really have to go. Buona notte!’