The worst thing was the sessions on the veranda, where his text – Leskov’s text – would be discussed. But those meetings consisted of a limited number of hours and minutes. They would pass, however, and then there would only be another three days before it was all over and the others left.
Most of the bread and the cheese Perlmann threw into a rubbish bin as he walked down the main street, which was like a ghost town, to the bus. It was lucky that he had crossed out the names of Luria’s pupils, he thought as the bus set off. They could have made people suspicious. Luria himself was a different matter. Everyone knew him.
In the middle of the journey, where the coast road was particularly narrow, the other bus came towards them. There was a slight crunching sound. The driver cursed, and then the two buses stood side by side for several minutes, only inches apart. Neither of the drivers seemed to want to accept responsibility for what happened next.
Perlmann was sitting by a window towards the middle of the bus. The people on the other bus gaped across. From the dim interior they all seemed to be staring at him. With every passing moment their faces grew more scornful. He felt as if he were in a pillory: a fraudster being displayed to others as a warning. A little boy pointed at him, his index finger flattened against the window. He laughed, revealing a big gap in his teeth that looked diabolical to Perlmann. But I’m not a criminal. He didn’t know how he would survive the next second, and was afraid he would succumb to a fit of hysteria. He closed his eyes, but he could still feel the eyes of the others all focused on him. He saw the image of people who had been arrested, pulling their jackets over their heads when they had to run the gauntlet of photographers. He thought convulsively of his list, and imagined it as a white sheet of paper on which the three headings stood in printed letters, one above the other: self-defense; own thoughts; annihilation. He didn’t open his eyes again until the driver put his foot down.
On the rest of the journey he sat quite still, quite motionless, as if that was what he had to do to keep from panicking.
27
He was relieved that no one was standing behind the reception desk when he stepped into the hotel lobby. Sticking from his pigeonhole was Leskov’s text, the fatal stack of papers that he had at this very spot, twenty-one hours ago, handed to a distracted, impatient Giovanni. The others had collected their copies, but there was still one in Silvestri’s box. Perlmann quickly went round the counter and took the sheets from his own pigeonhole. He was tempted to take Silvestri’s copy as well, and had already begun to stretch out his arm out when he heard a noise in the next room and quickly withdrew.
On the stairs, walking ahead of a group of people in evening dress, von Levetzov was coming towards him. Before von Levetzov could say anything, Perlmann raised his rolled-up manuscript a little bit high, said hello and slipped past the people, taking two steps at a time, relieved that the group which was now once again occupying the whole width of the stairs, was between them. It wouldn’t have done any good if I had taken Silvestri’s copy away, he thought as he turned into his corridor. It would probably only have led to confusion. Perhaps even provoked suspicion. You can make copies of copies. And more from those. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands.
In his room he went first to his cupboard and shoved the text in the top laundry drawer among his shirts. Then he looked round. The contrast between the cramped room that afternoon and this great space was overwhelming. He felt as if he had spent days in that gloomy, musty den. He waited anxiously for the luxury of the room to seem once more like something forbidden, something he was no longer permitted. But that feeling didn’t come, and after a while he turned on the gleaming, decorated brass tap and ran a bath.
It was nearly eight o’clock, and he was amazed at how calmly he was approaching the moment in which he would confront his colleagues for the first time as an undiscovered fraudster. It was only when he was sitting in the marble tub that he understood that this peace was the indifference of complete mental exhaustion. After two days of wandering around, of hopelessness and despair, all that remained within him was a dull void.
That void, which bordered on insensitivity, persisted as he slowly went down the stairs, and he carried it before him like a protective shield as he stepped into the full dining room with the Saturday evening guests, and sat down at the table next to Evelyn Mistral, grateful that the other chair next to him was free because of Silvestri’s absence.
The others were already at work on their starters. The conversation in which Millar, Ruge and Laura Sand had plainly been involved broke off, and the subsequent silence, broken by the sounds of cutlery and laughter from the next table, sounded to Perlmann’s ears like amazed startled observation: he’s come to dinner again for the first time in four days, and even then he’s late. Without looking at anyone Perlmann started to eat his avocado. It tasted of nothing; the white, floury flesh was just like any random substance in his mouth. He prepared himself to look at them, and each time he dug his spoon into the pale-green flesh with a twist of his hand, it was as if that moment were being delayed for ever.
At last he raised his head and looked at the others, one after the other, trying not to make the sequence seem too mechanical. Their eyes, which must have been resting on him for quite some time, seemed to reach him only now, and the important thing was to resist their gaze, protected by the certainty that they couldn’t read his thoughts. They don’t know. They will never find out. He felt his pulse quickening when he looked at Millar, who raised his eyebrows in ironic resignation; he had to meet his gaze for a moment, lest he avert his eyes too early, like an admission of guilt.
But overall it was easier than he had expected, and after a jokey remark from Laura Sand about his long absence, conversation resumed. The everyday nature of the topics gave Perlmann the sense of being safe with his dangerous secret; but it also clearly showed him how alone he was with the drama of his experiences over the past few days, and the degree of isolation he would have to maintain if his deception was to remain undiscovered.
No one said a word about the text they had received from him. He didn’t need to invoke a single one of the reactions that he had assembled on the jetty at Portofino and later on the bus. He must be mad after all, but there was no denying that even though he was pleased about it, he was somehow hurt as well. They can’t have been painfully touched by Leskov’s text either. What hurt him most – and again he was aware of the absurdity of the sensation – was that even Evelyn Mistral, sitting next to him, didn’t make a single remark about the text, even though it had many points in common with her own subject. When their eyes met he could discern no disapproval, but her smile was fainter than usual, as if she were afraid of hurting him.
During the main course, which he shovelled mechanically into himself with his eye focused on his plate, he defended Leskov’s text in his mind. He tried himself out as a particularly strict reader and as a mocking critic. But even then, he thought, one could not ignore the substance and originality of this outline, and by the time dessert arrived he was so absorbed in the defense of the text that he almost regretted having to wait until Monday morning to defend it publicly. A faint feeling of dizziness and a heat in his face warned him not to be driven any further in that direction. But then his furious doggedness passed. He lit a cigarette and turned to Evelyn Mistral to talk to her about the text.