Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

At last he packed them all away again, leaving out only Leskov’s text. No, the engraved initials on the case couldn’t give him away. Suddenly, he was repelled by the dark sweat-stains on the handle. On the way to the restroom he carried the case in his arms like a shapeless package. He hid it behind the garbage bin under the washbasin and then walked quickly to security control, where the envelope containing Leskov’s text was suspiciously examined.

Sven Berghoff was sitting with his back to him when Perlmann stepped into the waiting room. Perlmann recognized Berghoff immediately by his unkempt red hair, the raised collar of his jacket and his long ivory cigarette holder, which protruded from the side of his mouth. Berghoff was the only one who had caused Perlmann any difficulties over his leave. It had been his revenge for the fact that Perlmann, whose lectures were always full to capacity, had recently burst in to one of Berghoff’s lectures in search of chalk and had found only six people listening. Berghoff had turned red, claimed there was no chalk there, when there was a great mountain of the stuff beside the sponge and, even though Perlmann, to keep from embarrassing him, had left without any chalk, Berghoff had cut him ever since.

The sight of Berghoff put Perlmann in a complete panic. All of a sudden there was no Leskov any more, and no text that had to get to the mail. There was only the dark corridor of the institute, the lecture halls and seminar rooms, the grouchy and unctuous remarks of colleagues. He turned round, swung over a barrier and ran – with Leskov’s text pressed firmly to his chest – out to a taxi in which he asked to be driven to the station. Perlmann only calmed down when the train set off for Ivrea.

It was cold when Perlmann stepped out on to the station forecourt. An icy wind drove sand from an abandoned building site into his eyes. Even though it was just before four, lots of cars were already driving with their lights on. There didn’t seem to be a taxi stand. Holding the hand with Leskov’s text under his coat, Perlmann walked towards the center.

In the hotel they asked him, perplexed, if he had any luggage. The room he had booked – more expensive than the price originally agreed – seemed shabby after the luxury of the Miramare. When he had showered, he put his clothes back on and went to the window. There was snow on the mountaintops of the Valle d’Aosta. The remaining light in the west was cold and forbidding.

There were lockers at reception, but they were too small for Leskov’s text. They would keep the envelope somewhere else. ‘Nothing’ll happen to it,’ the man behind the counter said with a smile when Perlmann turned round again at the door.

The way to Olivetti headquarters led down a long, straight road leading out of the town. The massive building was dark, and the black glass facade, broken at an obtuse angle, looked menacing. There was a single car in the parking lot. Perlmann walked a little way around the star-shaped complex and tried to make out something inside. Behind a side door, a uniformed watchman sat at a faintly lit desk. When he saw Perlmann, he got up and shone his inspection lamp outside. Perlmann turned round and went back to the hotel. On the way the toast that he had eaten on the train kept repeating on him.

As soon as he had lain down on the bed and covered himself with a blanket from the wardrobe, he fell into a dull sleep, haunted by the priest with the pointed, malevolent face who had sat opposite him on the journey and looked at him disapprovingly every time he smoked a cigarette.

It was half-past eleven when Perlmann woke up, his limbs stiff. It had been half-past eight when Leskov had spoken of the fifteen hours. So now, when it must have been half-past one in Russia, he was entering his apartment in St Petersburg. He would be dashing to the desk and rummaging among the chaos: nothing. He would be looking in every possible and impossible place, still in his loden coat. In the end he would give up, fall silent and stare into the distance. Gradually, Leskov would start hoping that the text would come by post, perhaps even tomorrow, but certainly on Tuesday. By Wednesday at the latest. He would go into the institute every morning at mail delivery time to receive the dispatch. And every morning he would experience the same disappointment.

Perlmann went down to reception and asked the grumpy night porter to fetch him the envelope with Leskov’s text. He put it beside his pillow when he crept into bed afterwards, and also laid his coat on the blankets.

Now Kirsten would be phoning Frankfurt to ask if he had got home all right. He was glad he didn’t have to talk to her. He thought about Giovanni sitting in front of the television. And about Signora Morelli. He didn’t even know what street she lived on. Once again he saw himself standing in the train compartment with Evelyn Mistral, and felt her hands on the back of his neck. She hadn’t said a single word about his notes. Perhaps that was the reason why his thoughts didn’t stay with her any longer than they did. Instead he now kept seeing Brian Millar, just before he got into the taxi, turning towards him once more and raising his hand. No one told me. We should have… Perlmann buried his head in the pillow.

The morning light here was quite different from the light by the sea, harsher and more featureless, without magic and promise. Perlmann showered for a long time and brushed his teeth with the wet corner of his towel. His stubble reminded him of the morning when he had fainted. Before he went to breakfast he checked that Leskov’s text was still in the envelope.

Afterwards, when he sat on the edge of his bed with the receiver in his hand, the number of Frau Hartwig’s office refused to come to him. A strange weakness, like that caused by a rising fever, kept him from remembering. In the end it was his motor memory when dialling that helped.

‘There’s an important meeting at four o’clock today,’ said Frau Hartwig. ‘I just wanted to make sure I’d mentioned it.’

It was as if her irritability continued straight on from the end of their last conversation – an irritability that had not existed in the last seven years.

Perlmann held the receiver away from him and exhaled slowly and with great concentration. ‘As I said,’ he said calmly, ‘I’ll be in the office tomorrow morning. At about ten, I would say. And send out those notices as we discussed.’

He handed in Leskov’s text at reception again, for safe keeping. Yes, he had needed it during the night, he said in reply to their puzzled question. Outside the streets were beginning to fill with commuter traffic. In the future he, too, would go to work in the morning in a stream of others. Or stand in a crowded bus and read the paper. A sandwich in a bar at lunchtime, followed by coffee. In the bar he would see the same people every day, and those wonderfully light, floating acquaintanceships would come into being. Home in the evening to a simple, probably noisy apartment. It would be a while before he got used to the noise, the shouting of children through the thin walls. But on the other hand he would be free, and like everyone else he could lean out of the window in the evening or sit in front of the television. Books – he would allow himself some time for those. And then only Italian books, fiction. After a while he might risk translating a novel. If he wasn’t too tired in the evening. Because he would now – for the first time in his life – be a person who had evenings. A person with a proper job. Honest toil. A person with a present.

Perlmann stopped outside a shop selling toiletries and waited for it to open at nine. He imagined Kirsten stepping into his apartment, still inadequately furnished, after walking down a shabby corridor with damp walls. She was already slightly embarrassed, he thought, but also impressed, and eventually she would say she thought it was great to have a father who did something so unusual.