John Boyne - The Absolutist

“The youngest?”

“Yes. Well, he’s in his early fifties now, so he’s not exactly young.”

I continued to look at her, not saying a word, wondering what she might tell me about him.

“What?” she asked after a moment.

“Well, does he have a name?”

“Of course he has a name,” she said, looking away, and I realized suddenly what it was and felt ashamed for asking. I reached for my drink, my safety ground.

“My son has struggled with life, if I’m honest,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know why exactly. He had the same upbringing as his sisters, almost exactly, but where they’ve excelled he has found himself disappointed at every turn.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Yes, well. I do what I can for him, of course. But it’s never enough. I’m not sure what will happen after I’m gone. His sisters find him terribly difficult.”

“And his father?”

“Oh, Leonard is long gone. He died in the 1950s. Married someone else, emigrated to Australia and was killed in a house fire.”

I stared at her, the name coming back to my mind without any problem. “Leonard?” I asked. “Not Leonard Legg?”

“Why, yes,” she said, frowning as she looked at me. “How would you…? Oh yes, of course. I’d completely forgotten. You met him that day, didn’t you?”

“He punched me in the face.”

“He thought that we were involved in a romantic liaison.”

“You married him?” I asked, appalled.

“Yes, Tristan, I married him. But as I told you, the marriage ended within a decade. We made each other miserable. You look surprised.”

“I am rather,” I said. “Look, I didn’t know him, of course. Only I remember all the things you said that day. How you were set against him. He’d let you down so badly, I mean.”

“We were married quite soon after that,” she said. “I don’t want to say it was the worst decision of my life, because I have three children from the marriage, but it certainly showed very poor judgement on my part. I went back to him the next day, you see. After you left. I needed someone and he was there. I can’t explain it. I know it must seem… stupid.”

“It doesn’t seem anything,” I said. “It’s not for me to judge you.”

She glared at me, looking suddenly offended. “No, it’s not,” she said. “Look, he was there and I wanted someone to take care of me at that moment. I let him back into my life but in the end he left it again and that was the end of that. Let’s stop talking about me. I’m sick of me. What about you, Tristan? You never married? The papers didn’t say.”

“No,” I said, looking away. “But then you knew that I couldn’t. I explained all that to you.”

“I knew that you shouldn’t ,” she replied. “But who knows how dishonest you might have been? I rather expected you would in the end. People did in those days. They still do, I imagine. But you didn’t, anyway.”

“No, Marian,” I said, shaking my head, taking the blow on the chin as it was intended. “No, I didn’t.”

“And was there ever—I don’t know what people call it, I’m not modern, Tristan—a companion? Is that the right word?”

“No,” I said.

“There was never anyone?” she asked, surprised, and I laughed a little, surprised by her surprise.

“No,” I said. “Not a single person. Not once. No liaisons of any description.”

“Well, goodness me. Wasn’t it lonely? Your life, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“You’re alone?”

“Yes.”

“You live alone?”

“I am entirely alone, Marian,” I repeated quietly.

“Yes, well,” she said, looking away for a moment, her expression hardening now.

We sat like that for some time and finally she turned back to me. “You look well, anyway,” she said.

“Do I?”

“No, not really. You look old. And tired. I’m old and tired myself, I don’t mean it unkindly.”

“Well, I am old and tired,” I admitted. “It’s been a long run.”

“Lucky you,” she said bitterly. “But have you been happy?”

I thought about it. This was one of the more difficult questions of life, I felt. “I’ve not been unhappy,” I said. “Although I’m not sure if that’s the same thing. I’ve enjoyed my work very much. It’s brought me a great deal of satisfaction. But of course, like your son, I have struggled at times.”

“With what?”

“Can I say his name?”

“No,” she hissed, leaning forward. “No, you can’t.”

I nodded and sat back. “It might mean something to you, or it might not,” I said, “but I have lived with the shame of my actions for sixty-three years. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about it.”

“I’m surprised you’ve never written about it if you feel that strongly.”

“I have, actually.” An expression of dismay crossed her face and I shook my head quickly. “I should clarify that,” I said. “I’ve written about it, only I’ve never published it. I thought I’d leave it behind. For after I’m dead.”

She leaned forward, intrigued now. “And what have you written, Tristan?”

“The whole story,” I told her. “Our lives at Aldershot, the way I felt about him, the things that happened. Our time in France. A little about my life before that, some things that happened to me as a child. And then the trouble, the decisions your brother made. And what I did to him in the end.”

“Murdering him, you mean?”

“Yes. That.”

“Because you couldn’t have him.”

I swallowed and looked down at the floor, nodding my head. I was as unable to look her in the eye now as I had been her parents all those years ago.

“Anything else?” she asked. “Tell me. I have a right to know.”

“I’ve written about our day together. How I tried to explain things to you. How I failed.”

“You’ve written about me?”

“Yes.”

“So why haven’t you published it, then? Everyone praises you so much. Why not give them this book, too?”

I thought about it, pretending that I was trying to decipher the reason, only I knew it well enough. “I suppose the shame would be too much for me,” I said. “For anyone to know what I had done. I couldn’t live with the way that people would look at me. It won’t matter after I’m gone. They can read it then.”

“You’re a coward, Tristan, aren’t you?” she asked me. “Right to the end. A terrible coward.”

I looked up at her; there wasn’t a lot she could say to hurt me. But she had found something. Something true.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

She sighed and looked away, her expression suggesting that she might scream if she wasn’t careful. “I don’t know why I came here,” she said. “But it’s late now. I have to go. Goodbye, Tristan,” she said, standing up. “We shan’t meet again.”

“No.”

And with that she was gone.

She was right, of course. I have been a coward. I should have delivered this manuscript years ago. Perhaps I was waiting for the story to find a conclusion of sorts, sure that it would come sooner or later. And it has finally come tonight.

I returned to my room shortly after she left. Holding my right hand out before me I noticed that my spasmodic index finger was perfectly still now; the finger that had pulled the trigger that sent the bullet into my lover’s heart, satisfied at last. I removed the manuscript from my briefcase; I take it with me whenever I travel, you see. I like it to be close at hand. And I write now of our conversation, that short, final encounter between Marian and me, and I hope that it has given her some satisfaction, even though I am sure that wherever she is right now she is unable to sleep, and if she does then she will be haunted by nightmares from the past.