“I will pack it.” She spoke quietly. “So it will be no nuisance. But first, how is your back?”
“No worse, I hope, though I slept badly. But I seem to have developed a queer sort of limp.”
“A limp?”
“In my right leg, when I walk.”
“Then you must see to it at once.”
“No.” He shook away the suggestion. “It can’t be serious. At least I’ll give it another day.”
Turning from the cabinet he found her gaze bent upon him in a fashion so oddly concerned it gave him quite a start.
“Is anything wrong, Frida?”
“No, no,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. “I was thinking only of your injury. I hope you will be able to go to the party this afternoon.”
“What party?”
“Why, naturally, Leonora’s.”
“I know nothing of it.”
“But surely you are invited. We are all going, all our circle. It must be a mistake that you are overlooked. So you will come with me, yes?”
He bit his lip, vexed that he should have been left out, at this last hour, already regarded by the others as a dead letter.
“I’m much too busy to go. Anyhow, the lecture party was my swan song. I’m no longer interested in Leonora’s frivolous nonsense.”
“I am sorry, my friend. I know that all is finished for you here and that you must seek society where you are going, if indeed it is possible to find it among these—these uncivilised people.”
“I shall have Willie and my dear wife,” he said sharply. “And my work will be to civilise the people.”
“But of course, you will be very happy,” she agreed in a conciliatory tone. “Still, three together is a limited group after the interesting society to which you have been accustomed. But now, no more, you have enough to worry you. I must go to finish the books. Another time, perhaps tomorrow, I will see to the porcelain.”
What’s the matter with her, he asked himself, when she had departed for the library. Yesterday she had been bright and brisk, today a subdued melancholy clouded her yellow eyes. He found the change in her mood and manner quite inexplicable.
As the forenoon wore on, he took time off from his desk, where he was busy with the settlement of ail outstanding accounts, to look in at the library—ostensibly to inspect her progress but actually to determine if her mood had changed. It had not, was indeed keyed to a lower pitch.
“Something is on your mind, Frida,” he said, on his second visit.
On one knee beside the bottom shelf, she straightened, but without looking at him.
“There is nothing, nothing.”
The evasion in her tone was only too apparent. At lunch—she had consented solely as an economy of time to remain for a light meal—he made an effort to dispel the gloom.
“You’re eating nothing. May I give you some of this salad?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Another slice of galantine.”
“Nothing more, please. I have little appetite today.”
“Then if you’ve finished, let’s take a rest on the terrace. The sun is quite strong now.”
Outside it was distinctly warm, and Wilhelm had swept away the snow and put out garden chairs. They sat down facing the marvellous skyline of the Alps.
“You have the finest view in Switzerland,” she murmured. “At least for a few more days.”
A silence followed, then thinking to please, perhaps to placate her, he said: “I hope you understand, Frida, that I will always have the highest regard for you.”
“Will you?”
“Always. Moreover, Frida, I don’t take your help for granted. I’d like you to choose something for yourself from my collection as a souvenir.”
“You are generous, my friend, but I do not care for souvenirs. Always they invoke sadness.”
“But you must. I insist.”
“Then if I am to be sad, I shall be deeply so. You shall give me the small photograph standing on the right side of your desk.”
“You mean the little snapshot of you and me on the Riesenberg.”
“Exactly. That I will keep for remembrance.”
“My dear Frida.” He smiled chidingly. “You sound like an obituary notice.”
She gave him a long sombre look.
“That is not surprising.” Then, her reserve breaking down: “Mein Gott, how I am sad for you. I meant not to show you this, but soon enough you must know.”
She opened her handbag, took out a newspaper clipping, handed it to him. He saw that it had been cut from that morning’s Daily Echo, a paper she did not usually take, and was headed:
Five Hundred Die in Congo Massacre.
Quickly, he read the dispatch:
Last night in Kasai Province, where for the past few weeks there have been signs of trouble brewing beneath the surface, tribal war at last broke loose. A savage and unprovoked attack was made on the village of Tochilenge by dissident Balubas. The village, which changed hands in fierce fighting twice, was set on fire and is now a shell. An estimated five hundred lie dead beneath the scorched palm and banana trees.
“Now,” she said, “you know where you are going.”
He looked up, meeting her gaze which had remained fixed upon him. He was not in the least discomposed, confirmed rather, hardened and fortified.
“Frida,” he said coldly, “I’m perfectly aware that for the past two days you have been trying to dissuade me from going—no doubt with the best intentions. But I don’t think you quite understand how deeply I’m in love. I fully realise that conditions are bad out there. But I am going. I would follow Kathy to the ends of the earth.”
She compressed her lips.
“Yes, my friend,” she sighed. “Is it not always like that when an elderly man is possessed by a young girl? And always the end is so tragic. How well I remember that great German film, The Blue Angel.”
He coloured with indignation.
“The circumstances are in no way comparable.”
“No,” she agreed, in an extinguished voice. “The old professor went only to the circus. You are going . . .”. She turned her head, shielding her face with one hand to hide emotion. “Yes, I feel it in my heart . . . you are going to . . .”. Even then she could not say it, merely adding in a low voice: “To something much worse.”
An angry retort had risen to his lips but, respecting her distress, he stifled it. She had always been one to conceal her feelings, tears were not her medium of expression, yet she was clearly upset. Upright in his chair, he stared straight ahead at the distant snowcapped peaks. A prolonged silence descended upon them. Finally, in a subdued manner, but still with averted head, she rose.
“My friend, I can do no more for you today. Tomorrow I will come.”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, put out by this unexpected departure. “Must you really go?”
“Yes, until tomorrow. If I am to visit with Madame Schutz and our friends, first I must compose myself.”
He did not protest further, saw her to her car, waited till the beat of the Dauphine died away. Then he closed the gate and limped back to the house. Deliberately, word for word, he read the newspaper clipping again, then decisively tore it up.
During that afternoon he continued his preparations, but always with an eye on the clock. At five he was to telephone Kathy at Markinch, where she was staying at the manse: the arrangement had been made before she left. After the trials and problems of the last two days, how he looked forward to it!