Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

As he entered the portico, he noticed that Leskov was no longer following him. He was standing at the top of the steps, looking up at the illuminated facade of the hotel.

‘Fantastic!’ he called breathlessly to Perlmann and, with his arm, his coat hanging over it, made a gesture that encompassed the whole hotel. Then he turned round, supported himself on the balustrade and looked out on the nocturnal view of the bay.

Perlmann set the luggage down. Waiting for Leskov was unbearable. Admittedly, it meant that the moment of his exposure was momentarily deferred. But this waiting was worse than any other waiting, worse even than the waiting at the airport a short time before. There it had been a waiting at the end of which he himself would assume control – bloody, murderous control, admittedly, but at least he could do something; it was down to him what would happen next and when. Now, on the other hand, there was nothing more he could do. He was no longer an active participant in the events that would follow. Now he was only their victim, their plaything. He had to wait impotently until Leskov condescended to emerge from his absorption to take delivery of the text that spelled the end for Perlmann. And Perlmann had to linger in that waiting, regardless of whether it lasted hours, days or years. His humiliation was his own responsibility, and his alone. But that insight was unbearable. He couldn’t stay on his own with it for more than a brief moment. He would explode if he locked himself away in it entirely, in line with the terrible logic of the matter. He needed some exoneration, someone who could bear at least a portion of the guilt, so this feeling of humiliation struck in blind hatred at Leskov, who came now, at last, a dreamy and enthusiastic expression on his spongy face.

He touched Perlmann on the arm. ‘I’ll never forget,’ he said, ‘that you invited me to this divine place.’

The lobby was empty as they walked across the gleaming marble floor to the reception. Perlmann saw the text from a long way off. There was only a single pigeonhole with a pile of papers sticking out of it. And now his anxiety returned to its usual form of expression: he felt his heart thumping all the way to his throat. There was no one behind the counter. I’ll just go and grab the text. The thought overwhelmed him. It allowed no other thoughts, no reflection and no contradiction. He quickly walked around the counter and took the text from the pigeonhole. He was about to roll it up to hide it from Leskov, when Signora Morelli appeared behind him: ‘Sorry, Signor Perlmann, for keeping you waiting.’

Perlmann froze. The force of the thought that had made him take the text had to fade away before he could react.

‘Oh, I must have given you a start,’ said Signora Morelli. ‘I didn’t mean to.’ And now, as Perlmann turned to face her, she saw the blood on his clothes. ‘ Dio mio! ’ she exclaimed and threw her hand to her mouth. ‘What’s happened?’

Perlmann looked down at himself, as if trying to recall something long forgotten. ‘Oh, that,’ he said as if Signora Morelli had grotesquely lost all sense of proportion, ‘that was just a bit of a nosebleed.’ He rolled the text up tightly, as if he were about to stuff it into a pneumatic post system. ‘I… I was just about to give Signor Leskov the text.’ Standing next to her, he made a gesture of introduction. ‘This is Professor Vassily Leskov, the man I told you about,’ he said in English.

‘ Benvenuto! ’ she smiled, blankly shaking the hand that Leskov held out to her across the counter.

As Perlmann, still clutching the text, walked around the counter and back to Leskov, he had the feeling that his alert reaction had used up the very last remnants of his strength. He would never again be capable of an alert reaction, never. And why all that effort at concealment? As soon as he starts reading the text upstairs, it will all be over in a few minutes anyway. And on top of everything, here I am handing him the text myself.

Signora Morelli had pushed a pad of registration forms towards Leskov, and he was now busy filling it in. He became uneasy when she said that she would be keeping his passport for a while, and enquired anxiously when he would get it back, as it still had his travel permit inside it. The signora reassured him that he could have it back after dinner; it was just a matter of routine. When she took his room key down from the board, she paused, fished an envelope out from the back of the drawer and handed it to Leskov. The Olivetti name was printed discreetly in olive green letters in the bottom left-hand corner.

‘Signor Angelini asked me to give you this. You’ll be seeing him later at dinner.’ With the corners of her mouth twitching, she watched Leskov feeling the envelope and then, with the clumsiness that came from embarrassment, putting it in his jacket pocket. She rang the bell for a porter to take his luggage.

The time had come. Perlmann handed the text to Leskov. That movement sealed his fate, and was enfolded in the numbing silence of a nightmare. He didn’t utter a single word and their eyes met only fleetingly.

Leskov received the text rather distractedly, because the porter was loading his luggage on to the cart, which he seemed to consider very strange. He bent down to his suitcase and opened the zip of the outside pocket. The piece of rubber band remained stuck in it. Now he’ll notice. Now.

‘Good evening,’ said Brian Millar, who had joined them along with Adrian von Levetzov. Leskov glanced up and straightened himself, still holding the text in his hand.

‘I assume you’re Vassily Leskov,’ Millar said in his sonorous voice. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He looked at Leskov’s hand. ‘I see you’ve been given the text already.’

‘What in God’s name has happened to you?’ von Levetzov cried, interrupting the greeting, and pointing at Perlmann’s clothes.

‘Philipp had a flow of blood from the nose,’ said Leskov as he saw Perlmann standing there like a sleepwalker. It was the first time Perlmann had heard him speaking English. The ungainliness of the sentence and the tight, nasal pronunciation sounded like mockery. It was as if he had just started running the gauntlet.

They wouldn’t disturb him any longer, von Levetzov said and pointed to the waiting porter. They would be seeing each other over dinner at half-past eight, after all.

By now the suitcase with the open outside pocket was on the cart as well. ‘So, see you very soon,’ said Leskov, waving the text significantly and following the porter to the elevator.

Perlmann watched him go. He had never fainted. Now he wished it would happen, so that he wouldn’t have to experience that sensation any longer, the sensation of endless falling.

‘You’re as white as a sheet,’ said Signora Morelli. ‘Are you not well? Would you like to lie down?’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Perlmann, and looked at her for a long time until she became embarrassed and ran her hand searchingly over her hair. I’ve got to tell someone before the others find out. Why not her? But no, that’s impossible. What would she do with such a confession? And it wouldn’t change anything at all.

She handed him the key and made a maternal face that he had never seen before. ‘It must have been a difficult journey from Genoa to here,’ she said. ‘There’s always a lot of traffic on a Monday, especially trucks.’

‘Yes,’ Perlmann said, barely audibly. He took his key and went to the elevator.

He sat on the bed and slumped back. A few moments before, when he had closed the door behind him and seen the spacious room in front of him, he had had a moment of relief: after four full hours spent in such close proximity with Leskov, he was alone again at last. Leaning on the door, he had stood there for a while and yielded to that feeling of respite, knowing that it was a stolen emotion, a lie that could be washed away by anxiety at any moment. It wouldn’t have been washed away exactly. It was more that the desperate consciousness of his situation had seeped up from below, constant and inexorable, and had colored and replaced all other sensations. He had gone to the wardrobe and pulled a yearned-for cigarette from the hastily torn-open pack. But he had stubbed it out again after two drags.