Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

Perlmann grew calmer and lay down again. Now his earlier reflections regained their effect, and he drew up a little list in his mind, a crib sheet containing the points that he could always run his eyes over to ease his sensations of anxiety and guilt: (1) it was self-defense; (2) Leskov’s thoughts were also his own; and (3) after some time everything would be just as it had been before. Perlmann repeatedly ran through these points in alternating sequence; at first he thought about the order of priority, but then the inner list became increasingly mechanical, a mere ritual of self-reassurance, and in the end he finally fell asleep over it.

It was a long time before he heard fists on the door and the unpleasant, barking voice of the landlord calling to him that it was time to go. He put his glasses on and looked at his watch. Just after four. His rage was as violent as an exploding flame. He opened the door a chink and yelled in the landlord’s face that he had paid until five o’clock. Later, in the cramped bathroom, which was only lit by a gloomy bulb, and which smelled of chlorine and drains, the hysterical sound in his voice a moment before struck him as unpleasant, and when he saw his hands trembling under the tap he looked away.

Nonetheless, he was glad to have been so furious. Being furious meant experiencing oneself as someone who had the right to take offence at someone, to accuse someone else of something, and that, in turn, meant granting oneself a right to existence, a right that had seemed to him this morning, when he had gone running straight for the cliff, to have been deleted or erased. He showered. Here in this hole, where the shower produced only a few thin streams of water, because most of the holes in the shower-rose were furred up, that was fine, particularly because it gave out only cold water. He rubbed himself for a long time with a tatty, threadbare towel, and then reluctantly pulled his sweat-drenched shirt back on.

The window opposite was closed now. He opened the curtains and aired the smoky room. The narrow strip of sky that could be seen from this alley was dark grey and dominated by a light that recalled an early December twilight. He stood with his back to the window, smoking, and enjoyed insisting on his right to stay in the room until five o’clock. At five on the dot he went down and, without bothering to glance at the landlord, he threw the key on the counter so violently that it fell on the other side.

Perlmann was hungry – for the first time in ages, it seemed to him. The next bus back didn’t leave until half-past six. He didn’t have enough money for a taxi. He didn’t even have enough for the stall where he could eat a pizza standing up. After some searching he managed to buy half a loaf and a piece of cheese. He walked past the unlit, deserted souvenir shops to the harbor and sat down on a cold stone on the jetty. The grey of the water passed uninterrupted into the grey of the sky. That morning’s café was lit, but empty.

He collected all his forces into a single inner point and imagined himself stepping into the dining room over at the hotel in two hours’ time, sitting down and, over dinner, reacting to the first comments on Leskov’s text. For the sake of caution he immediately forced himself to think about the list of exculpating perspectives that he had worked upon in his gloomy hotel room, and to his great relief he found that panic didn’t come. Instead, he was filled with apprehension, the apprehension of someone who had a long and unpleasant journey ahead of him, which would require all his strength and all his alertness. He would get through it, he thought, if he bore this one thing in mind: They didn’t know. They would never find out.

The worst thing was the sessions on the veranda, where his text – Leskov’s text – would be discussed. But those meetings consisted of a limited number of hours and minutes. They would pass, however, and then there would only be another three days before it was all over and the others left.

Most of the bread and the cheese Perlmann threw into a rubbish bin as he walked down the main street, which was like a ghost town, to the bus. It was lucky that he had crossed out the names of Luria’s pupils, he thought as the bus set off. They could have made people suspicious. Luria himself was a different matter. Everyone knew him.

In the middle of the journey, where the coast road was particularly narrow, the other bus came towards them. There was a slight crunching sound. The driver cursed, and then the two buses stood side by side for several minutes, only inches apart. Neither of the drivers seemed to want to accept responsibility for what happened next.

Perlmann was sitting by a window towards the middle of the bus. The people on the other bus gaped across. From the dim interior they all seemed to be staring at him. With every passing moment their faces grew more scornful. He felt as if he were in a pillory: a fraudster being displayed to others as a warning. A little boy pointed at him, his index finger flattened against the window. He laughed, revealing a big gap in his teeth that looked diabolical to Perlmann. But I’m not a criminal. He didn’t know how he would survive the next second, and was afraid he would succumb to a fit of hysteria. He closed his eyes, but he could still feel the eyes of the others all focused on him. He saw the image of people who had been arrested, pulling their jackets over their heads when they had to run the gauntlet of photographers. He thought convulsively of his list, and imagined it as a white sheet of paper on which the three headings stood in printed letters, one above the other: self-defense; own thoughts; annihilation. He didn’t open his eyes again until the driver put his foot down.

On the rest of the journey he sat quite still, quite motionless, as if that was what he had to do to keep from panicking.

He was relieved that no one was standing behind the reception desk when he stepped into the hotel lobby. Sticking from his pigeonhole was Leskov’s text, the fatal stack of papers that he had at this very spot, twenty-one hours ago, handed to a distracted, impatient Giovanni. The others had collected their copies, but there was still one in Silvestri’s box. Perlmann quickly went round the counter and took the sheets from his own pigeonhole. He was tempted to take Silvestri’s copy as well, and had already begun to stretch out his arm out when he heard a noise in the next room and quickly withdrew.

On the stairs, walking ahead of a group of people in evening dress, von Levetzov was coming towards him. Before von Levetzov could say anything, Perlmann raised his rolled-up manuscript a little bit high, said hello and slipped past the people, taking two steps at a time, relieved that the group which was now once again occupying the whole width of the stairs, was between them. It wouldn’t have done any good if I had taken Silvestri’s copy away , he thought as he turned into his corridor. It would probably only have led to confusion. Perhaps even provoked suspicion. You can make copies of copies. And more from those. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands.

In his room he went first to his cupboard and shoved the text in the top laundry drawer among his shirts. Then he looked round. The contrast between the cramped room that afternoon and this great space was overwhelming. He felt as if he had spent days in that gloomy, musty den. He waited anxiously for the luxury of the room to seem once more like something forbidden, something he was no longer permitted. But that feeling didn’t come, and after a while he turned on the gleaming, decorated brass tap and ran a bath.

It was nearly eight o’clock, and he was amazed at how calmly he was approaching the moment in which he would confront his colleagues for the first time as an undiscovered fraudster. It was only when he was sitting in the marble tub that he understood that this peace was the indifference of complete mental exhaustion. After two days of wandering around, of hopelessness and despair, all that remained within him was a dull void.