There were no seats on the flight from Frankfurt to Genoa tomorrow afternoon, and the waiting list was already long. Perlmann still felt the pressure of the crumpled boarding pass in the palm of his hand. What about flights from Frankfurt to Turin? The hostess listlessly consulted the computer, and mistyped several times. All flights were booked, but there was just one name on the waiting list. Perlmann asked her to add his to it.
Ten past twelve. With the check that he had planned to cash in Frankfurt, he went to the bank in the arrivals hall. As he waited in the line, Perlmann couldn’t help going through Leskov’s arrival all over again. I like to have my own money. Then he ran, with all his cash in his hand, out to a taxi and asked the driver to take him to Santa Margherita as quickly as possible.
55
Leskov was standing by the edge of the road, opposite the landing stage for the boats, attentively studying the traffic. He had one leg in the road and the other, strangely bent at the knee, lightly touched the pavement. His torso was leaning forwards expectantly, and he tried to hold his head upright, clutching his big glasses with one hand. When the taxi a little way in front of Perlmann’s came towards him, Leskov bent down to get a better view of the passenger. He maintained this posture when he saw Perlmann’s taxi. He jerked his back, tipped his glasses slightly to check what he had seen, and then walked, with swinging arms that crossed above his head, into the middle of the carriageway, as if to stop the only car on a lonely stretch of road at night.
The driver stopped with a cry of alarm. From the moment when he glimpsed Leskov, Perlmann had been unable to think about anything. He had just gripped the handle of the suitcase even tighter. Now he gave the driver a large bill and got out.
‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ said Leskov, immediately trying to keep the reproachful tone out of his voice. ‘The boat’s here already!’
For the first half hour of the trip it wasn’t especially striking that Perlmann said hardly anything. Leskov enjoyed standing at the front of the almost deserted ship, looking out at the still, dazzling water. After a while he took a map out of his jacket. Signora Morelli had lent it to him. Perlmann recognized the traces of dirt straight away: it was the same map that he had used when planning his crime, and which he had used, when collecting the yellow sheets of paper, as an underlay for the fragile page with the subheading. No, he said, when Leskov pointed to Portofino, he had never been there. And he didn’t know Genoa harbour, either.
Later, when Leskov came back from the toilet, he sat down on the bench next to Perlmann, and as he lit his pipe, he studied the suitcase. Every time he had seen a suitcase over the past few days, he said, he hadn’t been able to keep from thinking of his missing text. And the piece of rubber band in the zip of the outside pocket.
‘Do you think it’s most likely that I left it at home? I mean, after all the things I’ve told you?’
Perlmann nodded and picked up his cigarettes. ‘At any rate, I don’t think the text is simply lost,’ Perlmann said, relieved at the firmness in his voice. ‘Lufthansa is famous for its care with lost objects.’
‘So you really think they’d send my text back?’
Perlmann nodded.
‘But the address is written in Russian, and by hand,’ Leskov said. His eyes were unnaturally large behind their thick glasses, and that made the anxiety behind them seem enlarged as well.
Perlmann glanced quickly away. ‘Lufthansa is one of the biggest international airlines, and they fly to Russia. I’m sure they have people who speak Russian.’
Leskov sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right. If I could only be sure that I really did write the address on it. The night before last I suddenly started having doubts.’
Perlmann closed his eyes. His heart pounded. He braced himself. ‘What address do you usually write at the end of a text like that?’
‘What? Oh, my work address.’ He looked at Perlmann. ‘You mean because I asked you only to use my home address? No, because it’s different in cases like that.’
Perlmann excused himself and went inside, where he leaned against the wall next to the toilet. The pounding in his chest subsided only gradually. No, it was too dangerous to ask him for his address, quite apart from the fact that he had no convincing reason to do so. Perlmann would have to ask him to write it down, and the whole thing would thus become an action that would linger vividly in Leskov’s memory. Perlmann slowly walked back, avoiding a sailor on the way, and stepped out on deck.
His heart stopped. Leskov was holding the suitcase on his knees, and was just snapping both locks shut. Now he set the suitcase back on the floor. Perlmann took a few steps to the side. No, Leskov wasn’t holding the envelope, and he stood up now and filled a pipe by the railing. Perlmann walked slowly up to him and touched the back of each individual bench as if seeking reassurance that he could use them to support himself.
‘You people in the West have lovely things,’ said Leskov, indicating the suitcase with the stem of his pipe. ‘That leather. And those refined and elegant locks. It would really make a person envious.’
Perlmann clutched the railing until his knees started obeying him again.
When they stepped out on land in Genoa, Leskov suddenly stopped. ‘Let’s assume I left it on the plane. Do you know what I’m most afraid of? The cleaning crew. If they found something like that, how would those people know it was precious?’
There was no other option. Perlmann had to find out, and this was his chance.
‘Anyone would hesitate if faced with such a thick stack of papers. If they’re typed, they’re going to be important. And it’s half a book. Isn’t it?’
Leskov nodded. ‘You could be right. It’s eighty-seven pages long.’
That means there are seventeen pages that Leskov will have to rewrite. The length of a whole lecture. But he still has it all in his head. You keep things like that in your head for a long time.
Perlmann avoided the harbor bar from which he had called Maria a week before. But it was hard to find anything else nearby, and in the end they sat down at the only table by a snack bar that smelled of fish and burnt oil. Perlmann was glad of the noise in the street and the children sliding right past them on their skateboards. These things would give a casual sound to the question that he couldn’t hold back for much longer.
‘When do you need to hand the text in? For that job, I mean.’
‘Two weeks’ time.’
Perlmann couldn’t stop himself. ‘That gives you exactly fourteen days.’
Leskov looked at him with distracted surprise. ‘Thirteen,’ he said with a smile. ‘Saturday doesn’t count.’
‘What would happen if you didn’t turn up with the text until the following Monday?’
The puzzlement in Leskov’s face was more alert now than it had been a moment before.
‘I just wondered how fussy they are in your country,’ Perlmann said quickly.
‘They would probably acknowledge me anyway,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But you never know. They’re bureaucrats. It’s better not to give them a formal excuse. And the date isn’t a problem either,’ he added calmly as the waiter set their food down in front of them. ‘I really just need to type up the text, and I’m quick at that. For the notes I would need half a day at the most.’
Perlmann choked down his sheep’s cheese and felt his stomach tightening. He won’t have the text before Friday. Then he has a week. That could be enough. But what if he only gets it the following Monday, or even Tuesday?