Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

That void, which bordered on insensitivity, persisted as he slowly went down the stairs, and he carried it before him like a protective shield as he stepped into the full dining room with the Saturday evening guests, and sat down at the table next to Evelyn Mistral, grateful that the other chair next to him was free because of Silvestri’s absence.

The others were already at work on their starters. The conversation in which Millar, Ruge and Laura Sand had plainly been involved broke off, and the subsequent silence, broken by the sounds of cutlery and laughter from the next table, sounded to Perlmann’s ears like amazed startled observation: he’s come to dinner again for the first time in four days, and even then he’s late. Without looking at anyone Perlmann started to eat his avocado. It tasted of nothing; the white, floury flesh was just like any random substance in his mouth. He prepared himself to look at them, and each time he dug his spoon into the pale-green flesh with a twist of his hand, it was as if that moment were being delayed for ever.

At last he raised his head and looked at the others, one after the other, trying not to make the sequence seem too mechanical. Their eyes, which must have been resting on him for quite some time, seemed to reach him only now, and the important thing was to resist their gaze, protected by the certainty that they couldn’t read his thoughts. They don’t know. They will never find out. He felt his pulse quickening when he looked at Millar, who raised his eyebrows in ironic resignation; he had to meet his gaze for a moment, lest he avert his eyes too early, like an admission of guilt.

But overall it was easier than he had expected, and after a jokey remark from Laura Sand about his long absence, conversation resumed. The everyday nature of the topics gave Perlmann the sense of being safe with his dangerous secret; but it also clearly showed him how alone he was with the drama of his experiences over the past few days, and the degree of isolation he would have to maintain if his deception was to remain undiscovered.

No one said a word about the text they had received from him. He didn’t need to invoke a single one of the reactions that he had assembled on the jetty at Portofino and later on the bus. He must be mad after all, but there was no denying that even though he was pleased about it, he was somehow hurt as well. They can’t have been painfully touched by Leskov’s text either. What hurt him most – and again he was aware of the absurdity of the sensation – was that even Evelyn Mistral, sitting next to him, didn’t make a single remark about the text, even though it had many points in common with her own subject. When their eyes met he could discern no disapproval, but her smile was fainter than usual, as if she were afraid of hurting him.

During the main course, which he shovelled mechanically into himself with his eye focused on his plate, he defended Leskov’s text in his mind. He tried himself out as a particularly strict reader and as a mocking critic. But even then, he thought, one could not ignore the substance and originality of this outline, and by the time dessert arrived he was so absorbed in the defense of the text that he almost regretted having to wait until Monday morning to defend it publicly. A faint feeling of dizziness and a heat in his face warned him not to be driven any further in that direction. But then his furious doggedness passed. He lit a cigarette and turned to Evelyn Mistral to talk to her about the text.

At that moment the waiter’s black arm appeared with the silver tray, on which there lay a telegram.

‘For you, Dottore ,’ said the waiter when Perlmann turned his head towards him. ‘It just arrived.’

Kirsten , he thought suddenly, Kirsten has had an accident , and that thought suddenly filled him so completely that all the things that had preoccupied and tormented him over the last few days and hours seemed to have been erased. With trembling fingers he tore open the telegram and unfolded the sheet. He took in the text with a single glance: Arriving Monday Genoa 15.05 Alitalia 00432. Grateful to be picked up. Vassily Leskov.

For one or two seconds he didn’t understand. The message was too unexpected and too far away from the thought about Kirsten that had wiped everything out for a moment. Then, when the meaning of the words on the glued white strip seeped into his consciousness, the world around him became colorless and quiet, and time froze. All his strength fled, and he felt the weight of his body as never before. So that’s what it feels like when everything’s over , he thought, and after a while a further thought formed in the hollow, dull interior of his mind: I’ve been waiting for this for years.

He must have sat there motionless for a long time, because when Evelyn Mistral pushed an ashtray under his hand and he looked up, he saw a long piece of white ash fall from the cigarette. She was looking at him with an expression of uncertain concern, when she pointed at the telegram and asked, ‘Bad news?’

For a moment Perlmann was tempted to tell that open face, that bright, warm voice everything, regardless of the consequences. And if, when she pushed the ashtray at him, she had touched him with her hand, he thought later, that was actually what would have happened. So unbearable was the feeling of isolation that spread within him like an ice-cold poison.

But then, for the first time since the waiter had held out the silver tray in front of him, he saw the expressions on the faces of the others. They weren’t mistrustful expressions, faces that displayed suspicious feelings. Rather they were mild expressions, with a hint of curiosity. Not unfriendly faces, on the contrary, even Millar’s eyes seemed to hold a willingness to be sympathetic. And yet they were eyes that were all directed at him, as they had been before on that bus. Perlmann felt nausea welling up within him, he got to his feet, stuffed the telegram into his jacket pocket and ran out across the lobby to the toilet, where he closed himself in and threw up in quick, violent spasms.

When his retching ebbed and only trickles of burning gastric acid ran from his mouth and nose, he went out to the wash basin, rinsed his mouth and wiped his face with his handkerchief. The expensive wash basins of gleaming marble, the fashionable faux-antique taps of flashing brass and the huge mirrored wall were at that point unbearable. He avoided catching his own eye, and locked himself in a stall again to have a think.

Going back to the table was unimaginable. Admittedly, it would look very peculiar to the others, and border on impertinence if he didn’t come back after his abrupt departure. The most varied conjectures would be made about the apparently dramatic content of the telegram. But now that complete social ostracism lay ahead this was no longer of any importance. The only unpleasant thing was – and on the edge of his consciousness Perlmann was amazed that such a thing could preoccupy him at such a moment – that his cigarettes and the red lighter that Kirsten had given him in the train were still over there on the table.

His thoughts went no further than these banal reflections. There was an impenetrable grey wall there, and a curious feeling of inanition. Never in his whole life had it been more important to think and plan clearly. But he faced this task like someone who had never come into contact with such intellectual activities; like someone who hadn’t even mastered the ABC of any sort of planning that extended beyond the next moment. Body and emotion had reacted immediately; thought, on the other hand, was sluggish and wouldn’t move from the spot. He felt how hard it was. Sitting on the toilet seat, he stared at the white door in front of his nose and registered that there was no graffiti on it. He felt the burning aftertaste of vomit on his gums and crumpled up the wet handkerchief in his fist. When two men came in and went on talking in Italian at the urinal, he involuntarily made his breathing very shallow and didn’t move. He could only grasp a single thought, and it repeated itself at increasingly short intervals, like an accelerating echo: A day and a half. I have a day and a half left.