Perlmann stubbed out his cigarette and was glad that the nausea subsided when he lay down. Now, he couldn’t present the text as a welcome gift. He had learned of Leskov’s arrival less than three days before. And why hadn’t he given him the present ages ago? He had thought the text was so good that he had planned to send the finished translation to St Petersburg and suggest publication in a relevant journal. Then, when he learned that he was coming, he had prepared the text as a surprise. He planned to hand it to him tonight at dinner. That’s OK. That doesn’t sound incredible. At any rate, they can’t refute it. The thumping in his head subsided. It’s over. One or other of them may be left with a feeling of suspicion. Nothing more can happen. It’s over. He turned onto his stomach and let his face sink deep into the pillow.
But the text was no longer here. I threw it away during the night. Perlmann sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. The big garbage bin under the fan had been empty apart from potato peelings. And the open lid had covered the fan. He conjured up as many details of the situation as possible, to assure himself that these were really memories, and not a trick being played on him by his imagination. He heard once again the dull thud when the stack of paper had landed, and smelled again the kitchen fumes that had passed through the fan. It was an effort to call all that to mind, because it was swathed in fine mist that wouldn’t be dissolved even by the utmost effort of concentration, as if it were not merely a veil of the remembered objects, but belonged to their essence. And the images were erratic and hard to hold on to; it was as if the remembered perceptions last night had not really had the opportunity to bury themselves into his brain. Nonetheless, Perlmann’s certainty grew that they were real memories. The imagination would not provide images that were so dense and coherent, in spite of the mist. Yesterday evening – he remembered that, too, now – getting rid of the text had struck him as the epitome of senselessness. Now he was glad of this attack of unreason. Loads of refuse, huge great loads of it, had fallen on the dangerous text in the meantime, and buried it.
When he came out of the bathroom wearing his pyjamas, his eye fell on his light-colored jacket, which they had hung on the back of a chair. It wasn’t only the two strips of dirt above the chest; both sleeves were dirty on the outside, too, just under the elbow. He had propped himself up on the garbage bin. And the hotel folder was missing. Now it was clear once and for all. There was nothing left – nothing – that could still betray him.
At the back of the desk, with one corner under the foot of the lamp, lay a stack of paper. It was the text that he had written in the night. The trashy text. That was where they had put it. In whose hand had it been carried up? Silvestri’s? Millar’s? His handwriting on the pages was bigger than usual, the lines jauntier, more expansive. On the last few pages much of the writing was unreadable. Perlmann tore each sheet in two several times and let the bits fall into the waste-paper basket.
Then he lay down in bed. He would have liked to sleep for a year. Silvestri hadn’t found his notes outrageous. Perlmann saw Silvestri’s smile in his mind’s eye when he had spoken of the expectation of the others. That mocking detachment, which needed no spite – Perlmann had never envied anyone anything so fiercely. He tried to imagine his way entirely into that smile – to be someone who could smile about the matter like this. As he did so he slipped, for the first time in days, into a deep, dreamless sleep.
42
It was just before three when the phone woke him. As if he had never experienced such a sensation before, he flinched from the ringing as from a physical assault. But I don’t need to hide myself away any more. It’s all over. He picked up the phone and heard Leskov’s voice, far too loud. Could he visit him? Only, of course, if it didn’t disturb him. Perlmann’s head started thumping. His face, still hot with sleep, was filled with a dry, stinging sensation, as if he had been hiking for hours in cold winter air.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Leskov.
Perlmann said he would be glad of a visit. He didn’t know what else he could have said.
The sky was overcast, and a light rain fell from the pale grey. The second version. The rain falling on the yellow pages. The journey via Recco and Uscio would take an hour at the most. If he got rid of Leskov quickly, he could be there in time to pick up the pages in daylight. He took the car key out of the pocket of his blazer, and put on his soiled jacket. That way it would be obvious that he was about to leave.
As soon as Leskov had slumped into the red armchair, he took his pipe from his pocket and asked if he could smoke.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Perlmann. He shouldn’t have needed to say it. I’d rather you didn’t, he could have said instead. From the mouth of someone in need of care that would have been enough. A few short words. He hadn’t said them. He hadn’t managed to. Now he smelled the sickly sweet tobacco. It would linger everywhere. He would have to smell it for days. He hated this Russian.
He had given them a real fright there, Leskov said. Of course, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of his nausea on the journey and the excitement in the tunnel. The others didn’t know anything about it, incidentally. Last night he’d just said something vague about him not being very well, to explain why Perlmann wasn’t there at dinner. The details, he said with a smile, were no one’s business but his, were they?
The intimacy that Leskov was forcing on him with that remark could not be the intimacy of blackmail, Perlmann knew that, even though his certainty still felt very fresh and slightly unsteady. Nonetheless, it was an unbearable intimacy, and it made Perlmann so furious that he suddenly didn’t care that the rain seemed to be getting heavier.
‘By the way,’ Leskov said, ‘I was told about the reception at the town hall.’ He smiled. ‘So that was your medal and your certificate on the back seat. And now I understand the tie that was lying around as if you’d furiously thrown it into the back. The whole thing must have been incredibly awkward and distasteful to you! We were doubled up with laughter at lunchtime when Achim described the whole scene.’
Leskov was enthusiastic about Perlmann’s text. He had stayed up for a long time last night to read it all the way through. He hadn’t understood absolutely everything; there were a number of English words and phrases that he didn’t know. But both the subjects and the way of addressing them – it had all been surprisingly close to his own work. It was really a shame that Perlmann had found the Russian text too hard. Otherwise he would have recognized how close it was straight away. But he must have understood the title?