Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

He wanted to drive down that stretch of road very slowly to etch it in his memory as sharply and in as detailed a way as possible. But a car with a bridal couple and a tail of rattling tins was hooting behind him like crazy, so that afterwards he had the impression that he couldn’t rely on his memory. He drove back, turned in the factory yard and repeated the whole thing. But it felt as if his memory was simply refusing to absorb the images. It was as if he was jinxed: every time he read the words pian dei ratti again, it was as if what he had just seen had been erased.

He needed more advance warning time and more pointers. Sweating, he drove two villages back, staring at the signs until his eyes hurt: tomorrow he would pass first monleone and then pianezza, which turned directly into piana. Then the pines and the poster, and finally pian dei ratti.

He stopped at the spot in question, exhausted, and lit a cigarette. When he looked forwards to gauge the distance again, he saw that a shutter had been pulled up at the house on the bend. Again he began to sweat. Had he ignored that before? Or had someone come home in the meantime? He put his glasses on his head, but still couldn’t make out whether someone was standing at the window. Perhaps the people were just away today, and tomorrow, when he came round the bend with Leskov, they would be leaning in the window. They would see the Lancia stopping at this unnatural spot, for who knows how long, and dashing off exactly as a truck came from down below. And they would see the car suddenly being pulled off the road. In his mind, Perlmann took up position there at the window: to any observer it would look intentional. There was no doubt about it.

It was hard to keep in check his annoyance with the futility of the last half hour. But he made an effort and went on driving with calm control. Twenty minutes later the elegant villas of Chiávari came into view, and he hadn’t seen a single suitable spot: either the road had too many twists and turns or you couldn’t stop; or there were houses, time and again there were houses. Perlmann drove to the first parking lot on the edge of Chiávari and got out. Half-past three. His stomach was cramped with hunger and tension. He took the few steps to the nearest bar, ate a sandwich and asked the surprised waitress for a large glass of lukewarm water.

The tunnel. I’ve got to do it in the tunnel . The thought came to him after he had stood there for a while with his head completely empty, and had plainly even ignored the request for a light that had been uttered right next to him. He hastily laid some money on the counter, ran to the car and drove off. I didn’t notice, but the tunnel must have passing places where you can stop; all tunnels have them, it’s the law, he thought again and again as he drove back at breakneck speed. pian dei ratti. He slowed down, turned round and looked up at the house: everything unchanged, a single shutter pulled up. At the last ascent, where the road widened, he drove at over seventy and only stopped at the entrance to the tunnel. Yes, there were several passing places on both sides, he saw that straight away.

Back outside, he drove on another stretch, and only turned then. Here, too, he wanted to memorize the things that announced the spot. But it was actually quite easy: first of all there was a sign showing that the road climbed towards Piacenza on the left, and on the right on to Chiávari and then, just before the tunnel, came the crossing with the individual arrows. Perlmann drove on to the patch of gravel to the right before the tunnel entrance and turned off the engine.

At the touch of a button the tinted window slid down with a quiet hum. He rested his elbow on the frame and lit a cigarette. When he had quite recovered after a brief pause for exhaustion, he stubbed out the cigarette and took his arm off the window frame. Here, outside the tunnel of death, his comfortable, sloppy attitude struck him as obscene. It was a feeling like the one yesterday morning on the handrail behind the rocky spur. Except now everything’s worse, much worse . Now all of a sudden he no longer knew what to do with his hands. Finally, he pressed them between his knees and, crouching there, stared for a moment beyond the steering wheel, into the tunnel.

It was long enough, perhaps two kilometers. Of course, he couldn’t begin his approach out there. If you stood on this patch of gravel, you couldn’t see far enough in, and if you wanted to improve your view, you had to adopt an unnatural and conspicuous position, halfway into the road. It could take quite a long time tomorrow, and hereabouts there were also houses where people would lean out their windows and watch the expensive limousine. Perlmann felt generally drawn to the tunnel because it meant that everything – the waiting as well as the collision – could happen in secret.

He drove in and stopped on the bright mud with which the first passing place was covered. Now he could see to the end of the tunnel, and in the side-view mirror, without conspicuously having to turn his head, establish whether the road was clear behind him. There was comfortable room here for a second car. Tomorrow he would have to stop in such a way that no one would think of stopping and offering him help. The best thing to do would be to park at an angle to the mud-pile with the shovel sticking in it. He could only hope that the police didn’t come by. At that thought he gave a start and went on driving. He didn’t dare turn into the tunnel, but drove out and then back to the patch of gravel. As before, he crouched down and rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

The first thing he would see of the truck would be its lights, bigger than those of a passenger vehicle, and fixed higher up. He wouldn’t set off until the driver’s cab was clearly visible, so that he could be sure that it was a big, stable vehicle. Ideally, it would one of those American trucks that were proper great fortresses. What he would have to do, down to the individual movements, was much less clear than he had previously assumed. In order to ensure that they were both killed, he would have to hit the truck head-on. In order to do that, he would have to switch to the opposite lane early and completely, as if he were trying to overtake. But that would make it clear to anyone who saw it – at least to the truck driver – that it was intentional. And, of course, during those horrifying seconds in which the front of the truck came hurtling towards them, Leskov would recognize that he had a murderer beside him, a murderer and a suicide. He might grab the wheel, and there would be a struggle, a struggle with an uncertain outcome. Again, as if in a dream .

On the other hand, if he pulled the wheel round just before the collision, if he did it a moment too late the truck’s bumper would only hit the left-hand side of the Lancia. He might be killed, but Leskov would stay alive, and perhaps be able to testify to attempted murder. If, on the other hand, Perlmann did it a bit sooner, so that the whole length of the Lancia ended up in the opposite lane, diagonally in front of the truck, the right fender and then the right door would be crushed. Leskov would be killed and pressed against him. His fat body would be the protective shield that saved his life and so, buried under Leskov’s corpse, he would feel the truck shoving the crumpled Lancia in front of it for a while, before coming to a standstill with a snort of its hydraulic brakes.

Perlmann was shocked by the macabre precision of his fantasy. He tried to resist the pull of the imagined details and turned on the radio to break the power of his visions. When that didn’t help, he got out and walked mechanically up and down on the gravel, sometimes stopping at the edge, staring blankly at the rubble and blowing his cold hands.