Pascal Mercier - Perlmann's Silence

Laura Sand seemed to have been watching him for quite a long time when he caught her thoughtful eye. He turned round, waved to the waiter and asked for some more bread. No, she can’t possibly have seen through me. She might find me a bit strange this evening, and perhaps tomorrow evening when it all comes out she’ll think about it. But even she doesn’t know anything that could establish a connection between the two things. Absolutely nothing at all.

‘It’s very gratifying that Signor Leskov can come for a few days after all,’ Angelini said beside him, adding, after an expressive pause, ‘I found out from the others.’

Under normal circumstances Perlmann would have fallen into the trap, and would have solicitously produced an explanation for his omission. Now nothing meant less to him than the fact that he had forgotten to leave Angelini a message.

‘Didn’t you get my message?’ he asked in a cool, almost indifferent tone, and took a sip of wine.

‘No,’ said Angelini, now very obliging again, ‘but now I know, and I’ll see to it that he gets some cash when he arrives. Things are a bit different for people in his situation. By the way,’ he continued quietly in Italian, resting his hand on Perlmann’s arm, ‘at the reception I was given Giorgio’s copy of your paper, and I had a read of it in my room. I’m very excited to hear what your colleagues will have to say about this unusual work. But, of course, you’ll be able to defend yourself.’

‘Of course,’ said Perlmann, turning his head towards the waiter who brought him his coffee. While he thanked him extravagantly, as if he had just received an enormous present, all the ghostly serenity vanished from him, and he no longer knew how he would bear to stay at this table for even a minute longer.

The questions about Leskov, which came as expected, he answered curtly, hoping no one would notice how often he was drawing on his cigarette and reaching for his empty coffee cup because he feared his voice would fail him.

As he left he turned round again. So this was where his last supper had taken place. He must have stood there for a long time, because Evelyn Mistral, who held the door open for him, leaned, waiting, against it with arms folded and legs crossed, looking at him as one looks at someone whose thoughts one doesn’t want to disturb.

‘ Gracias ,’ he said hoarsely and walked quickly past.

The room was spinning as Perlmann slumped fully dressed on to the bed. Against his better judgment, he was seized with fear that the effect of the alcohol might not have faded by tomorrow, when it mattered. And that fear was mixed with a sensation that he didn’t recognize straight away: a guilty conscience. Not because of his planned deed, but because he had got drunk on the last evening of his life. It was a struggle to think about it, because at the same time he had to battle against a lurking feeling of nausea. And when he finally knew what it was, the discovery intensified his despair still further. Because it meant that a perverse shift of values had taken place within him: he found it reprehensible that while awaiting death he hadn’t shown the required sobriety and alertness; he reproached himself like someone awaiting death, who has to remain entirely alert. But he had already separated the monstrous, criminal aspect of his plan so completely from himself – or else he had got so used to it in the course of a day – that it was no longer the object of a suicide attempt, and, even now, as he internally brought it up, it made no waves in his conscience, not even when he reproached himself for this cold and repellent fact and watched with a shudder as the rebuke for his insensitivity slipped silently away.

When this spiral of self-observation merged with the renewed circling of the room, he could bear it no longer and showered in cold water until his teeth chattered. Then, under the covers, he felt better. He got up again, mechanically put a bandage on his stinging, bloodstained finger and took a fresh handkerchief to bed to staunch the renewed running of his nose once and for all. The room was no longer spinning, and nausea gave way to weariness, which came as a relief. Only his blood pulsed loudly. He listened to it pounding and slipped into half-sleep, from which the ceiling light finally woke him.

It was half-past eleven. His head was clear again. He sat down at his desk and wrote Kirsten’s phone number in big, emphatic letters on a piece of paper, and beneath it her full name and Konstanz address.

There was no point in calling her. He didn’t know what he could have said. He couldn’t even think of the usual things they said to one another.

He sat on the bed and dialled her number. She answered only with the word ‘Kirsten’. There was still a chuckle in her voice; she clearly had visitors, and had just been enjoying a jocular conversation.

Perlmann put the phone down. He tried to remember the last thing she had said when she had called three days before. It had been something cheerful and boisterous; that was it, to send her greetings to Silvestri. But don’t be too friendly!

Her studies were paid for, and the money would last some time afterwards. He knew that without thinking. Nonetheless, Perlmann went through the sums again: the savings books, the few shares, the life insurance on which Agnes had insisted.

Agnes . He turned out the light. She, whose thinking had always been rather sharper than his, would have advised him to just come clean that he had nothing to say right now. Recently, on the ship, Perlmann had been profoundly convinced that such advice could only come from someone who didn’t know the world of the university, which is why it had struck him as worthless. Now, just before the end, it struck him as the best advice.

The deception would have stood between them for ever, he thought. But it wasn’t impossible that she might somehow have been able to understand him. She, too, might have been able to see it as a kind of self-defense. And she would have found it idiotic that he had had suicidal thoughts after Leskov’s telegram. She would have seen it as a typically pig-headed male overreaction; but she wouldn’t have condemned him for it. On the other hand, that he was capable of hatching this villainous murder plot – that would have prompted only horror and revulsion in her; she would have flinched from him, and looked at him in disbelief, as if he were a monster.

He turned on the light. Suddenly, he was far from certain that he knew what Agnes’s response would really be. He took her picture out of his wallet. In his misery, would he have confided in her? Would she have been able to protect him from disaster? How had she actually reacted when he had repeatedly hinted to her that his profession was slipping away from him? Had it ever been clear to her how much he had had to fight to assert himself internally against the expectations of others? He increasingly had the impression of not having known her very well, above all where her perception of him was concerned. At last, when he held the picture out at arm’s length, he had a feeling of complete strangeness, and he thought he was sure that she couldn’t have helped him. He was saying goodbye to her for the second time. It was much worse than it had been by the graveside.

In the dark room, lit only by a faint glow of cold moonlight, Perlmann leaned upright against the wall at the head of the bed. Really lying down, snuggling up and pulling the covers over his ears – with a plan like the one he had in his head, that was impossible. Sleep well, to be fit for your journey into death. He shuddered when those words formed within him, and reached for a cigarette to chase them away. If he wanted to avoid any kind of tastelessness, it was, strictly speaking, impossible, he reflected, to do anything except what the implementation of his terrible plan urgently demanded. Everything else was scorn, cynicism, even if it wasn’t intended that way and he alone could see it.