He had resisted the temptation to talk about Agnes while he was in this mood. What business was it of this Russian’s? It was only when they looked down at the Winter Place from the Peter and Paul Fortress that he began now, of all times, when their earlier intimacy had fled in the bitterly cold air. It happened against his will, and he was furious when he heard himself, to crown it all, talking about how hard he had found it since then to continue with his academic work. Luckily, Leskov did not understand the full meaning of his words. He replied only that it was quite natural after such a loss, and added almost paternally that it would all come back to him. And then, from their newly revived intimacy, he told him that he had been jailed as a dissident. He didn’t say for how long and gave no further details. Perlmann didn’t know how to react to this information, and for a moment there was an uncomfortable pause that Leskov finally ended by taking him by the upper arm and suggesting with unfitting, artificial cheerfulness that they should start addressing one another informally. Perlmann was glad that Leskov had to go home soon afterwards, to look after his old mother with whom he lived, and that he didn’t invite him along. He had replied to the invitation to Santa Margherita that Perlmann sent him a few weeks later with an exuberant letter: he would apply for an exit permit straight away. And then, three months ago, the depressed missive in which Leskov had declined Perlmann’s invitation had arrived attached to this text.
Perlmann understood the first sentence immediately. The second contained two words that he had never encountered before, although, in fact, it was clear what they must mean. The third sentence was opaque to him because of its construction, but he read on, through a series of unfamiliar words and phrases, to the end of the first paragraph. From one sentence to the next he grew more excited, and by now it was like a fever. Without taking his eyes off the page, he looked in his pocket for a sweet. As he did so he touched the pack of cigarettes that he had bought the previous day when he arrived at the airport. He hesitantly set them down on the bistro table beside the dictionary and then picked them up again. He had bought them yesterday as if under a compulsion, and at precisely the moment that he had begun to feel that he had arrived here irrevocably – that there was no longer a gap, either in space or in time, separating him from the start of this stay, and that there was consequently no longer the slenderest possibility that it might not happen. It had felt like a defeat when he had bought the cigarettes, and he had, as he put them in his pocket, had a dull sensation of menacing and inexorable disaster.
It was his old brand, which he had smoked until five years before. The joyful excitement he had felt at his unexpected success in reading Leskov’s text faded away and melted with the thrilling fear of the forbidden, when he now, with trembling fingers, put a cigarette between his lips. The dry paper felt ominously familiar. He took his time. He could still stop, he said to himself, heart thumping. But his self-confidence, he felt with alarming clarity, seemed to be leaking away.
He realized that he hadn’t got a light, and was relieved by this setback. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and thought of that day on the cliff, in the wind, when they had been on holiday. He and Agnes had looked at each other and then simultaneously thrown their burning cigarettes into the sea, the full packs after them, and laughed at their melodramatic gesture. A common victory, a happy day.
Suddenly, the waiter was standing next to him on the terrace, holding out a burning match. A feeling of defenselessness took hold of him. Things slipped away. He took his first puff in five years and immediately had a coughing fit. The waiter glanced at him with surprise and concern and walked away. The second puff was easier. It still scratched, but it was already a complete puff. Now he smoked in slow, deep puffs, his eyes half-closed. The nicotine began to flow through his body. He sensed a slight dizziness, but at the same time he felt light and a little bit euphoric. Of course, it was a euphoria that went hand in hand with the impression of artificiality, the feeling that this state arose in him without actually belonging to him, without really being his own. And then, all of a sudden, everything collapsed within him, and he felt wretchedly unwell.
He quickly stubbed out the cigarette and walked unsteadily to the pool, where he lay down on a lounger and closed his eyes. He felt exhausted even before anything had begun. After a while he grew calmer. He was relieved that nothing was pulsing and spinning any more, and gradually drifted into half-sleep. He didn’t wake up until a very bright voice above him, speaking English with a Spanish accent, said, ‘Forgive me for disturbing you, but the waiter told me you were Philipp Perlmann.’
2
She had a radiant smile, the like of which he had never seen, a smile in which her whole personality opened up, a smile that would have broken down anyone’s resistance. He sat up and looked into the oval face with its prominent cheekbones, wide-set eyes and broad nose, almost an oriental face. Her blonde hair fell straight down on to a white, crookedly fitting T-shirt; it was uncombed, living hair, a bit like straw.
Perlmann’s mouth was dry and he still felt a bit unsteady when he got to his feet and held out his hand.
‘You must be Evelyn Mistral,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I must have dozed off for a moment.’ Starting with an apology.
‘Not to worry,’ she laughed. ‘It’s really like being on holiday here.’ She pointed to the high facade of the hotel with the painted gables over the windows, the turquoise shutters and the coats of arms in the colors of various nations. ‘It’s all so terribly smart. I hope they’ll let me in with my suitcase!’
It was an ancient, battered black leather case, with light brown edges that were torn in places, and she had stuck a bright red elephant on the middle of the lid. Kirsten could drag a case like that around with her, too. It would suit her. And generally speaking she somehow reminds me of my daughter, although they don’t look at all alike.
She had come by train, first class, and was impressed in the way a little girl might have been. You feel so important, she said. She had never been treated so well by a conductor. Then she had allowed herself a sumptuous lunch in the dining car. There had been no first-class carriage on the local train from Genoa to Santa Margherita, and it had struck her as quite odd to be suddenly sitting in a shabby, second-class compartment again. How quickly one was corrupted!
Perlmann took the case and accompanied her to reception. She walked lightly in her faded khaki skirt, almost dancing slightly in her flat, bright red patent shoes, and yet there was something hesitant and gawky in her gait. She was greeted by Signora Morelli, who was, as she had been the day before, wearing a dark blue, sporty-looking dress and a burgundy neckerchief, which gave her the appearance of a chief stewardess, an impression reinforced by the fact that she had put her hair up in a rather severe style. When Evelyn Mistral spoke Italian she pronounced the vowels in the Spanish way, short and harsh, in sharp contrast to Signora Morelli’s leisurely sing-song. As she checked in, leaning on the desk, her feet played with her red shoes. Sometimes she laughed out loud, and then her voice again had the brightness that Perlmann remembered from their phone call. ‘See you later,’ she said to him when the porter took the case and walked ahead of her to the elevator.