Perlmann's Silence

  Giorgio Silvestri, Perlmann was quite sure, would not condemn him, and he trusted him to guess at his distress. Laura Sand: in her ironic, defensive way she liked him. And there had been that afternoon of many colors. If he was correct in his impression that she had very quickly seen through him, she would not be terribly surprised, and would receive the news as something that fitted effortlessly into her gloomy picture of human cohabitation. Far from judging him, she would be annoyed that he had allowed the silly academic world to acquire such power over him.

  Evelyn Mistral would be terrible. He thought back to the times when she had spoken furiously about Spanish colleagues who didn’t take their work seriously, and as he did so he always saw her with her delicate, matte-silver glasses and her hair piled up. She would inevitably be torn between the undaunted, slightly naive earnestness that sustained her in her work, and the friendly, unphysically affectionate feelings that she brought to him. Now she would inevitably see those feelings as something that he had obtained by false pretences. They would disintegrate and assume the color of contempt and revulsion. In his mind’s eye he saw her again, turning sightlessly away after his snub, as she had done before. He couldn’t think of her face when she found out.

  What about Leskov himself? What would you feel about a person who has stolen a text you are proud of? Fury? Contempt? Or would you be capable of some generosity if you learned the price the thief had paid in the end? Perlmann realized how little he knew Leskov the man, how vague a sense he had of his innermost character, as opposed to Leskov the writer. He felt vague relief shading into indifference. Leskov’s judgement was not what mattered in the end.

  He didn’t dare to think of Millar’s reaction, half-averting his inner eye. It was unbearable to imagine the complacency that this self-righteous Yank, with his blue, unchangingly alert gaze, would feel. Somehow I’m not terribly surprised, he might say, tilting his head to the left, all the way to the shoulder, with an emphatically diffident smile. A throbbing wave of hatred washed over Perlmann and seemed to force its way into every cell of his body, and for a while he felt nauseous again. Submerged in that hatred he saw, as clearly as in a hallucination, Millar’s hairy hands in front of him, gliding over the keyboard of the grand piano.

  But worst of all was the thought of Kirsten. It was a relief to feel how much more important his daughter was to him than anything else, and how even his hatred of Millar paled when she appeared before him. That gave him a feeling that he hadn’t lost his sense of proportion entirely. But it was, then, all the more shocking to imagine what would happen when she found out. Dad was a fraud, using someone else’s words because he could no longer come up with anything himself. She might somehow be able to understand that nothing further had occurred to him. She had sensed something on her visit, and she would explain it with reference to Agnes’s death. But that he hadn’t had the honesty or the courage to admit it openly, that she wouldn’t understand. Like her mother, she didn’t know the milieu, and above all she could have no idea that he wasn’t standing there empty-handed because of Agnes’s death, but because of another loss, one that was in a sense much greater, and which was so difficult to describe and, in fact, impossible to explain. But equally, she couldn’t know that he could not have experienced a confession of his present inability as something which was unpleasant, embarrassing, but still something for which one might seek understanding in view of a personal tragedy such as his own; that he would rather have had to experience it as a public admission of a more substantial bankruptcy which applied to him as a whole person, and that for that reason a declaration of failure had been unthinkable. He thought of her standing outside the door early in the morning in her long black coat. He saw her mocking, embarrassed smile and heard her say Hi, Dad. Once again he felt the warm, dry hand with all the rings on it, the hand that she had stretched out of the train window to him. Gli ho detto che ti voglio bene. Giusto?

  He looked over to the window. No. No.

  After an exhausted pause, in which he slumped back on his pillow, he sensed with quivering alertness that the thoughts he was about to have were terrifying, and would change him for ever. It seemed to him that they were coming from far away, from somewhere unknown, and that they were coming towards him like waves, getting bigger and bigger until they finally crashed over. He pressed his ice-cold palms against his forehead, as if by doing so he might drive the thoughts away. But they came inexorably nearer. They were stronger than he was, and in his powerlessness he felt that they were going to break his resistance.

  He switched on the television. There were films on most of the channels, and right now he wanted nothing to do with made-up stories, conflicts and feelings. He immediately flicked on from talk shows as well; never before had the views of strangers been of so little consequence to him. At last he found a news program. That was what he needed now: objective, real events, excerpts from the world in which something important, something of real significance was happening, ideally dramatic events which, because their scope went far beyond individual lives, could help him escape the prison of his own thoughts, which referred entirely to him. He wanted each news item to be like a bridge by which he could reach the real world, in which the nightmare that held him prisoner in this room would be dispelled, revealed as merely a horrendous hallucination. He stared at the images until his eyes were streaming, he wanted to lose himself entirely in the events out there in the world; the further away the scene of a news item, the easier it seemed to him to remove himself in it all by himself. He envied the people in the news stories, they weren’t him, and with a feeling of shame that he didn’t want to examine any further, he noticed that he particularly envied the disaster victims. He envied them their tangible misfortune. He even wished he could swap places with the soldiers who lay wounded on stretchers.

  He turned off the sound and let the images run on mutely. Was it imaginable that Leskov would remain silent – out of gratitude for the invitation, and perhaps also in memory of the Hermitage?

  But even then: it would be unbearable to know he was in Leskov’s debt for all time. Leskov wouldn’t blackmail him, Perlmann was sure of that. But the knowledge that he would henceforth be for ever vulnerable to blackmail would be enough to paralyze him completely. Just imagine: him, Perlmann, sitting at the head of the table in the veranda, elucidating and defending the text, while Leskov sat somewhere at the back in his shabby clothes, drawing on his pipe, roguishly contented, possibly asking questions and raising objections for his own macabre entertainment, all with a deadly serious expression. Perlmann felt the cold sweat on his hands when he rested his burning face on them.

  And then their intimate relationship: Leskov’s paternal tone might not, objectively speaking, change at all. But from now on he, Perlmann, would always hear a menacing undertone, a nuance that stripped him of every possibility of defending himself. He would have to remain silent. He would be like a lackey if so much as a single word on the subject were mentioned.

  Perlmann started to hate this man Vassily Leskov. It was a quite different hatred from his hatred of Millar. His hatred of Millar had to do with what Millar had said and done. It had its origin in things that had happened between them. Millar was actively involved in its genesis and, as a result, Perlmann’s hatred was rooted in the man himself. He hated Leskov, on the other hand, even though this Russian, at that moment innocently packing his suitcase, hadn’t done the slightest thing. So, on closer inspection, the feeling of hatred which seemed to be targeted at Leskov in fact slipped off him and fell back on Perlmann, who was aware of the shabbiness of his feeling, but was unable to resist it.

  He turned the sound back up on the television, annoyed that the report on an earthquake was coming to an end. Sport and fashion – those weren’t images capable of freeing him; rather they seemed to mock him. He could have slapped the bright and cheerful faces of the presenters and gave a start when he became aware of his absurd hysteria. He was relieved when the weather-map appeared; the detac
hed perspective of the satellite image did him good. He had never studied a weather report with such keen attention. He eagerly studied the tip of the pointer as it went from place to place – all places that he contemplated with yearning simply because they were somewhere else.

  When the forecast for the following day began, he found himself in a state of rapidly mounting panic. The broadcast would soon be over, and then he would be overpowered by thoughts that would turn him into a different, ugly person, cold and alien to himself. He clung to the forecast for Italy. When the camera pulled back and the presenters’ desk became smaller and smaller, he stayed there, eyes straining, to the very last picture and the last note of the signature tune.

  The advertisements leapt out shrilly at him, and he immediately turned off the television. But the empty, dark screen, his bedside lamp reflected in it, left him defenseless against himself, and he turned it back on. He hopped desperately from channel to channel, trying frantically to numb himself with erotic images, and even the attempt to slip into the excitement of a car chase with wailing sirens and gunfire was doomed to failure. His flight from his own thoughts was over. They had caught up with him, and forced their way violently into his consciousness. He tapped the keys of the remote control ever more quickly and desperately, the individual channels pursued one another and flashed up only briefly, then at last he turned off the television.

  He went into the bathroom and took the pack of sleeping pills from his sponge bag. Two of those tablets would be enough to erase all thoughts for a while. He already had the pills on his tongue and could taste their bitterness, promising oblivion, when he lowered his glass of water. It was mad, now of all times, when everything was at stake, to yield to anaesthesia, not knowing how long it would be until his head was clear enough again to think in practical terms. He set the damp pills down on the shelf, drank the glass dry and then walked very slowly, head lowered, back to the red armchair, like someone whose time has run out once and for all, and who must at last give himself up. He set the red lighter, which he was already holding, carefully back down on the table and lit the cigarette with a hotel match. He inhaled the smoke more deeply than usual and breathed it very slowly out. He waited until the very last moment before breathing in. Then he began.

  It would have to look like an accident. An accident that had happened somewhere between the airport and the hotel. An accident that happened in Perlmann’s presence, and one to which he could testify. There was basically only a single possibility: it would have to be an accident in a car that he rented at the airport.

  A rental car just for Leskov? Someone might ask if that was necessary, whether a taxi wouldn’t have done. After all, everyone else had arrived by normal means of transport. But there were possible explanations: Perlmann held this man, Leskov, in even greater esteem than they had previously supposed, clearly in a personal sense as well. Or: he wanted to make a special gesture to a Russian who was travelling from St Petersburg and who had never been in the West before. Or: the expenses budget that Angelini had set aside was so generous that it was easily affordable. And besides, after a fatal accident no one would utter such a question. By no means, he could be sure of this, was the rental car on its own a cause for suspicion.

  But how would he do it, from the technical point of view? Stage an accident in such a way that Leskov would be killed while he himself was unharmed – that was practically impossible. Other people must on no account be drawn into sympathy with him, that much was clear. He didn’t need to think about it for a second. And driving into a tree at the roadside, a lamppost or a rock – the outcome could never be calculated with any certainty. Only one thing came into question, in fact, and Perlmann found it very strange how quickly, almost automatically he hit upon the idea: he would have to stop right above a steep cliff – in the mountains or on a rocky bit of coastline – get out and send the car rolling over the edge with Leskov inside. In his mind’s eye he saw the slowly rolling car, inside it Leskov’s massive form, his horrified face, his mouth widening to a scream; the car would tip over and plunge into the depths before going up in flames or sinking into the sea. Perlmann pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes to banish the details of the picture, and it was a while before he could go on thinking.

  It would have to happen in a rest area, a spot where the ground fell away in a rocky plunge. How would he stop? He could change to neutral and put on the handbrake. After getting out he would have to bend and reach inside, press in the button on the handbrake, pull up the lever and let it go. To pull it up, he thought, he would have to hold his arm, or his forearm at least, more or less parallel with the lever, or else it wouldn’t release, and that would mean that he would have to lean very far in towards Leskov, his victim. Perhaps he could do it if he supported himself on the driver’s seat with his left hand; but perhaps he would also have to use his right knee as well. It depended how wide the car was. At any rate, and this was the worst thing about the idea, he would come very close to Leskov’s body again, and if he bent his arm clumsily or lost his balance as he supported himself, he might even touch him. He didn’t need to look at him, he could violently narrow his field of vision and stare hard at the handbrake. Once he had the lever in his hand he could close his eyes. But that moment of unseeing physical closeness, which would be so entirely different from physical closeness on the journey, would be terrible. And absolutely unbearable was the idea that Leskov might see through his intention, and that there would be a fight, in the course of which they might plunge together.

  He had to do it without the handbrake, just with the gears. Leave him in the car when he stopped it, get out and then, in a flash, lean in to knock it out. It would take one or two seconds. And to do that he wouldn’t have to support himself, or only on the steering wheel, in which case he wouldn’t go near the passenger seat. Would Leskov pull up the handbrake when he felt the car rolling? He couldn’t drive: Perlmann now remembered him saying dryly that his income would never stretch to a car. But actually, every passenger knew that there was a handbrake and where it was. On the other hand, Perlmann’s attack would strike like lightning from a clear sky. And even if Leskov wasn’t looking out of the window at that moment, and saw Perlmann’s movement quite clearly, he wouldn’t be able to grasp the situation quickly enough; the truth would be too unexpected and too monstrous. He would be confused by the rapid movement and horrified by the rolling, and probably paralyzed by both. But Perlmann couldn’t rely on it. He would have to prevent Leskov from defending himself in any way by driving close to the cliff edge, so close that the front wheels protruded beyond it as they pulled up, and the car’s center of gravity lay irrevocably beyond the edge in the air. Leskov might say something anxious as they drove so close to the abyss. But Perlmann would no longer need to react to it. He would concentrate entirely on what he needed to do, and a few seconds later it would all be over.

  Police. He would have to call the carabinieri. He hadn’t thought about that for a moment until now. In the world of Perlmann’s thoughts over the past hour only Leskov had existed, and his colleagues in the background, and the dawning awareness that the planned accident also affected the rest of the world to some extent, the public world of laws and courts, and newspapers, bathed everything in a harsh, icy light. Perlmann took off his shoes, sat down at the head of the bed with his knees drawn up, and pulled the blanket up to his chin. That position was something unfamiliar, something alien that made him realize how far removed he was from himself already.

  Whether he hadn’t left the car in gear when he stopped, that would be the first question. Of course he had, he would reply. How else could he have got out? Besides, after thirty years of driving experience, you would do that automatically at such a spot. It would have to sound irritable, cranky. Leskov must accidentally have knocked it into neutral when, wide as he was, he bent over to reach for something. At the very same moment as he, Perlmann, turned round and, with his hand still on the zip of his trousers, noted that the car was
rolling forwards, Leskov’s head had appeared behind the glass. Perlmann, of course, had started running, although with a feeling that it was all in vain, but the car had tipped over before he could reach the spot.

  They wouldn’t be able to prove anything, nothing at all. They could reproach him for not having pulled on the handbrake, because such clumsiness on the part of the passenger was always a possibility. But that was a rebuke for lack of care. It couldn’t be turned into an accusation of murder by negligence. Criminal prosecution would only be a possibility if someone stood up and said: ‘Signor Perlmann, you are a liar. The truth is that you reached into the car again after you got out and took the car out of gear yourself, and that means murder.’ But that would remain an unfounded accusation that no examining magistrate and no state prosecutor could put into effect. Because it mustn’t be forgotten: There wasn’t a single visible motive. If questioned, his colleagues would be able to report nothing but the great regard – reverence, in fact – with which Perlmann had always spoken of Leskov.

  Or would suspicion sprout within the group? Would the telegram and Perlmann’s rather striking reaction to it become connected with the accident? Would Evelyn Mistral remember his corpse-white face?

  But even if one put the two things side by side in one’s mind: even discreetly one couldn’t make anything of them. Because once again it was true that there wasn’t the merest hint of a motive as far as the others were concerned. They couldn’t know anything about the poison of deception that pulsed within him.

  Even so, at the scene of the crime he would have to avoid anything that could give rise to suspicion. Perlmann became aware of his stomach and, shivering, pulled the blanket still further up. First of all, the place in question would have to look like a spot where it would seem natural to stop in order, as he would say, to step outside for a moment. But it couldn’t just be any old lay-by where one didn’t obstruct the traffic. It would have to be a place that invited one to park facing the abyss; ideally a place with a beautiful view. ‘I parked like that quite automatically,’ he would say. ‘It was the best way of viewing the panorama.’