The Japanese Girl & Other Stories

  I knocked on the door and waited.

  There was no reply. I knocked again, picturing the unknown Lartrec crouching ill-temperedly over his log fire. Just then there was the screech of bolts and I stood back a step.

  Light came out and I saw a woman.

  ‘Er – Monsieur Lartrec?’ I said.

  She was staring at me. Perhaps she was surprised at seeing a stranger.

  ‘You wish to see my husband?’ she said in French.

  I explained. While I was speaking the wind was shaking the door in her hand, and it blew little infiltrations of snow into the hall. She was quite young, with a lot of dark hair and deep-set black eyes.

  When I had finished she said: ‘I regret, monsieur. We cannot put you up. We have no bed, no food. We are closed for the winter.’

  I pointed to the snow. ‘It is five or six inches already. All I need is shelter until daybreak.’

  ‘We are closed, monsieur. It is not possible.’

  ‘But I have no chains! I don’t think I could even get my car to the main road again!’

  She hesitated. ‘ I will see my husband.’

  She shut the door tight, leaving me on the step, stamping my feet and thinking bitter thoughts. I reflected that French was not her first language any more than it was mine. She was probably Swiss-Italian, or her mother tongue was perhaps that odd Romance dialect that a few Swiss still speak. Then the door came open and this time a tall man stood there. He peered out at me as if I were a typhoid-carrier.

  Wearily I explained it all again, and again came the same refusal. But by now I was getting bloody-minded and was not to be moved from his doorstep. Did he, I asked him, expect me to freeze to death in the car?

  Suddenly he gave way. ‘Oh, very well. I see that it is bad for you. We must do what we can.’

  I followed him in, just holding my tongue; and it was fortunate that I did because, once they’d capitulated, they seemed willing to put a good face on it. I felt stiff and uncomfortable, willing to lie on a board somewhere and no thanks to them; but M. Lartrec showed me into a pleasant enough bedroom in which the central heating pipes were going full blast, and I gratefully thawed out and presently was called down to a meal of pasta, stewed steak, cheese and grapes, with a half litre of new and raw Chianti. So I began to feel a whole lot better towards them and to life in general.

  Lartrec was not above thirty-five, distinguished-looking in an angular way, brutally thin, with great bony shoulders that he would shrug nervously as if his shirt were chafing him. Mme Lartrec was probably a bit younger, good-looking in her way, with finely shaped hands that had been roughened and reddened with work. She might, I thought, have been ill, for the fine olive skin that usually goes with such looks was over-sallow. Their only servant was a slow-witted boy with hair of a length that he did not know was fashionable, who followed his mistress – in person or with his gaze – wherever she went. Of Lartrec he seemed afraid.

  For a few minutes after supper I sat in the large bare hall with my feet on the only square of carpet and tried to read last week’s Die Weltwoche. But German has never been my strong point, and for the most part I listened to the lament of the wind and wondered if the roads would be quite blocked in the morning. To spend a night here was one thing, but I was due back in Rome on Monday.

  The fingers of the thatched-barn cuckoo clock in the corner climbed up to nine, and when it had hiccupped I rose to go to bed. I wandered round the room staring at the pictures, an impressionistic view of Lake Maggiore, three impossible snow scenes, a photograph of a fat young man with beady eyes; then I went through the dining-room to the kitchen door and tapped.

  The door was flung open and Lartrec looked at me.

  ‘Yes?’

  Behind him shining pans, my unwashed dishes, skis in a corner, a big stove, the tear-stained face of his wife.

  ‘I thought I’d just tell you I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Certainly, monsieur. Everything is to your liking?’

  ‘Indeed yes. I’m most grateful for the food and the shelter.’

  ‘You can find your way to your room? No, no, I’ll show you.’

  I insisted this wasn’t necessary, but he took absolutely no notice and I followed him upstairs. In the bedroom he seemed reluctant to go, and we made a few forced remarks. There was no ease between us, but he still stood by the door, tall and gaunt, like an unfrocked priest.

  ‘You are Swiss?’ I said, feeling sure he was not.

  His blue eyes flickered as he shook his head

  After a pause I said: ‘If I could have my breakfast at eight …?’

  ‘But of course.’

  ‘Anything will do. Anything you have: honey or an egg or even just a pot of coffee.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I hope the roads won’t be completely blocked.’

  ‘It seldom happens with the first fall … You must think it strange, monsieur, that my wife – that you should see my wife in tears.’

  ‘I’m married myself.’

  He stiffened. ‘ It is not at all what you think. It is not domestic.’

  I said I was pleased to know it, and waited for him to go.

  ‘You are in part responsible for this tonight.’

  I stared at him. ‘Sorry. I assure you I’ll not stay here a minute longer than I can help.’

  ‘No, no. It is not just your coming, it is your coming tonight of all nights that gave her a shock. It is exactly the anniversary of something which happened twelve months ago. The anniversary to the day and to the hour.’ He weighed me up. ‘You are from England?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so from your accent. I have never been to England but I have often wished to go.’

  There was a pause. We didn’t seem to be getting very far. ‘Cigarette?’ I said.

  ‘In England you suffered from two wars, but not in the same ways. In Hungary …’ He stopped.

  Light dawned. The high cheek-bones, the blue eyes, the rather metallic voice. ‘You are Hungarian?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said half reluctantly.

  ‘I spent a few days in Budapest once. A beautiful city.’

  He gave that nervous twitch to his shoulders. ‘My native town is Szeged … that conveys nothing to you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Where is it?’

  ‘A hundred and ninety kilometres south of Budapest. The second city of the republic. It is where the revolution of 1956 began.’

  ‘The rev …’ I stopped. ‘Oh … that one. Were you there?’

  ‘I was one of the leaders of the student movement.’

  Neither of us spoke for a bit. ‘Cigarette?’ I said again, interested now.

  He came back into the room and took one. I lit it for him, and his face, nodding his thanks, came out of the smoke, rapt and painful.

  ‘Did you get away?’ I asked sympathetically.

  ‘No …’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was transported to Russia. I was there – in Siberia – eight years.’

  I studied his face. I have seen these men before. They are of all nationalities, but once you have seen the signs in one man you recognize them in others.

  ‘You revolted against the Communists?’

  He drew on his cigarette with hollowed cheeks. ‘I think you have to clear your mind, monsieur, of some misconceptions, like most westerners. When the war ended in Europe I was eleven. After that everyone in Hungary was Communist. There was no alternative. What we were revolting against in 1956 was not Communism as such, but the iron hand of Soviet Communism as exercised through Rakosi, the secretary of the Party. We did not want everything at once, but just the beginnings of freedom, such as Yugoslavia enjoyed; and Mr Nagy, our prime minister, had undertaken to set on foot some of those liberal forms, including free elections. All this was set at nought by the sudden arrival of Russian forces in Budapest and the deposing of Nagy. It was against this, and against the pressure of a foreign power occupying our territory, that we orga
nized the first demonstrations.’

  He stopped and frowned at his cigarette, moved to tap the ash into the plastic ashtray on the dressing-table.

  ‘Is your wife Hungarian?’ I asked.

  ‘My wife? Yes. Why?’

  ‘It was a natural inference. Did she escape, then?’

  ‘In 1956 Maria was not my wife. In 1956 I was twenty-two. In our childhood she and I had been sweethearts; but while I was at the university we drifted apart and she had just at this time married Julius Zigani. She was nineteen then and he was twenty-five, the oldest of our group. He came of an old Magyar family and had a little money of his own … She was not happy with him.’

  The room was warm and I loosened my tie. Outside the wind howled like a bereaved dog.

  ‘She was not happy with him, monsieur. I knew later that all the time she had loved me.’

  ‘The demonstrations? …’ I prompted after a minute.

  ‘We students were an idealistic lot, dreaming of new freedoms, and reasonable freedoms … But we were also practical. Each week secret pamphlets were written and distributed. Much preparatory work was done. Of course our group was only one of many. In our group there was Maurus Kozma, who was our leader, and Emeric Erdy – and Julius Zigani, Maria’s husband. Those first demonstrations … I cannot tell you how full they were of high spirits and of hope. After the first day in Szeged we drove in trucks to Budapest to join the students and the factory workers there. Then of course the trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Well, it led, as I suppose one could have expected, to clashes with the A. V.H., our own abominable secret police, whom we hated even more than the Russians. Next morning Russian tanks moved in to support them and opened fire on us. But by now we had ample small weapons, for much of our army had joined us. It was a noble struggle …’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘An exhilarating struggle. Half Budapest was laid waste; but we got our way – or thought we had got our way – and the revolt died down. Mr Nagy was brought back. Our efforts and sacrifices, it seemed, were not to be in vain. But you know how the Russians always work. You know the rest.’ He sighed. ‘Three days later armoured divisions of Soviet troops moved into the city. Thousands were bloodily murdered, the legal government was overthrown and a puppet government was set up in its place. Mr Nagy could only take refuge in a foreign embassy. From there he was decoyed out by a lying promise of safe conduct. As soon as he was out he was seized by the Russians and sent to imprisonment and execution. This was perhaps the shabbiest thing of all. Then mass executions and deportations of the other leaders of the revolt took place. I went into hiding with Kozma and Erdy. Julius Zigani and Maria were somewhere in the city but we lost touch with them. Many tried to leave the country, some with success, but at that time we had not given up. To leave one’s country is to leave one’s hope …’

  He stopped then and moved slowly to the window to peer out. There was something furtive in his movements, as if years of exile had left their mark.

  ‘But in the end?’ I said.

  ‘In the end we were caught. Someone had informed on us. Kozma was shot. Erdy and I were deported. Erdy died in exile. I lived to come back.’

  ‘To Hungary?’

  ‘Not to Hungary. But to look for Julius Zigani.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was he who betrayed us. The Russians told us. They told us he had bought his freedom by selling his friends. Not only did he betray us but six others also. Maria did not know, though she tells me now she once suspected and then dismissed the suspicion as too evil to be true. They left Hungary and settled in Switzerland. Zigani had been able to bring out a little money and he bought this chalet and opened it to summer guests.’

  ‘You – found them?’

  His shadow gave a jerk on the wall as he twitched his shoulders. ‘It was twelve months ago. You understand. The tracing does not matter. He had changed his name but that does not matter either. In the afternoon I came to this chalet just as it was going dark. I was not sure even then, not at all sure. I came up to it but I did not knock on the door as you knocked on the door. Instead I crept round to the kitchen and looked in at the window. They were there, in the newly lit lamplight, Maria putting food on his plate, and Zigani bending greedily to eat it. She seemed scarcely changed, but he had put on some more weight. He was always as fat as a pig, with small eyes, old eyes, and short lashless lids.’

  I was suddenly reminded of the photograph of the fat man in the hall. Lartrec had paused. Until now I had been too interested to care, but at this moment it occurred to me that I did not want to hear any more.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve told me enough?’

  He said: ‘I went round to the front then and knocked. The boy came, the rather simple boy. I pushed past him and went into the kitchen, shutting the boy out. They looked at me as if frozen where they sat. Something had been spilled on the stove and was hissing. I said to Zigani: ‘‘ There are nine of us here, Julius, not just one. Nine of us, all of that one group. Maurus and Stephen, who were shot, and Erdy and Victor who died in captivity, and Leo who was killed by the hounds …” I went on to the end, and all the time he sat there with a stain of egg on the corner of his mouth. When I’d finished I looked at Maria and said: ‘‘ Did you know that this man –’’ And then I heard him move. He’d jumped – so quick for a fat man – to a drawer and I went after him to the oven. As he turned with a revolver I hit him across the head with the iron poker.’

  Lartrec dropped his smouldering cigarette in the ashtray. Whatever I said now, he was going on to the end.

  ‘He was dead within five minutes. I felt no sorrow and no sense of guilt. It was what I had come for, what I had intended to do for so long. But we had to face the outcome. We were no longer in a country at war where such things pass unheeded. It seemed that the only possible way would be to flee while there was still time. Italy, or more probably France, might give us asylum. France has accepted and absorbed so many refugees in trouble, and Maria and I could begin a new life there. But it was Maria, yes Maria, who suggested another way. No one knew of my presence in the neighbourhood. If I were to carry the body to the bottom of the cellar steps and leave it in the appropriate position, it might well appear that he had fallen and caught his head on the iron stairs. The boy was devoted to Maria and would say anything she told him. Suppose I went away again as I had come, there was no one in the house strong enough to inflict such a blow. And he was a heavy man and the fall down the steps would be great. There was danger, of course, but the other way there was also danger – to admit the crime, as it were, and to run away. Maria had Swiss citizenship. The Swiss police are persistent. It could be that they would trace Maria and apply for her extradition. The way she suggested – if it worked – neither she nor I would be hunted. In a few months, after it had all blown over, I could come to the district and meet Maria and marry her with no fear of suspicion. Those were the alternatives, monsieur. What would you have done?’

  Lartrec’s cigarette was still sending up a spiral of smoke as straight as a smoke signal. I found I was sweating. It wasn’t just the heat of the room.

  ‘You really want my opinion?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, it won’t help much, will it, at this stage; you made your choice: but I think on the whole you were lucky to get away with it. And you won’t get away with it much longer if you start telling the story to perfect strangers.’

  ‘You are the first and the last. It was something … it came out. I can rely on your discretion?’

  ‘Yes.’ Travelling over Europe today in spite of its new prosperity, one comes constantly upon the old sickly scars. ‘Is your boy – the slow one – is he a Catholic?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I think I should have been afraid of your wife’s scheme for two reasons. I should have been afraid of the boy telling what he knew in confession. And I should have been afraid that the Swiss police, who as you say are persiste
nt, might have found something in Zigani’s injuries inconsistent with the theory of a fall. On the whole I should have preferred the risk of an escape to France where I imagine you would find others from your country who would give you shelter. But I wish you hadn’t told me this.’

  ‘And the killing,’ persisted Lartrec, leaning forward. ‘As an Englishman, would you have done different?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so … No. Probably not.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was silence for a while.

  ‘I too am a Catholic,’ he said. ‘The instinct of confession dies hard. But in one way, in the right way, this can never come out. Perhaps it is my excuse for troubling you. That and your arriving so unexpectedly – on the anniversary. Your coming tonight – we could not get over that.’

  I thought of some men I had seen in a hospital in Austria. ‘ I shouldn’t let your conscience get too active,’ I said. ‘Traitors – traitors only deserve what they get. But I think you have made a mistake in continuing to live here. In this house you’ll never be quite free.’

  Faintly from downstairs came the sound of the cuckoo clock announcing ten. It seemed to bring him back to his duties as a host. He smiled a little, coldly, courteously.

  ‘What time would monsieur wish to be knocked in the morning?’

  I was a long time dropping off. My leg was aching, and whichever way I moved it it wouldn’t stop. And I thought all the time of Lartrec’s story. Presently I got up and bolted the door …

  I woke at seven and the wind had dropped. I was almost afraid to open the shutters, but relief, the storm was over. There had been a fair fall of snow but not enough. The roads would be passable. I wondered if Mark would still be in Milan. I thought again of Latrec’s story and wondered if he would refer to it again. Probably he would be bitterly repenting the confidences of the night. I should be glad to be on my way. It is not pleasant to be guest to a murderer whose safety now rests on your silence.

  I’d not ordered breakfast until eight, but I washed and shaved in lukewarm water and stuffed my things into my bag. It was now getting on for eight, and I thought I’d go out and inspect the car. I could hear someone chopping wood, but that was the only movement so far.