Malcolm Bradbury - Doctor Criminale

‘Let me get this straight,’ I said, ‘First there was Pia, yes, who knew too much about him. Then Gertla who slept with the security chief . . .’ ‘No, you forgot the one in the middle, Irini,’ said Ildiko. ‘Oh yes, Irini who nearly got him into very bad trouble,’ I said, ‘And next?’ ‘Next Sepulchra, who was only able to possess him by what she knew about him,’ said Ildiko, ‘I like a squash.’ ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, ‘What did she know about him?’ ‘About all the others,’ she said, ‘Then about those things under the table I told you about. Maybe some other things too.’ ‘What other things?’ ‘You know she helped him write his books,’ said Ildiko, ‘Some people say that more than half his work is really Sepulchra.’ ‘I thought she just took notes,’ I said. ‘Some say Homeless is really her story,’ said Ildiko. ‘Then why is he leaving her now?’ I asked. ‘Because he thinks the world has changed, you can leave everything behind,’ Ildiko said, ‘He is wrong. The past does not go away. You cannot escape what you have been. There is always someone who remembers. There, now you know everything.’

‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘There’s someone missing in all this.’ ‘Many, I think,’ said Ildiko, ‘Criminale loved many women. He is Hungarian.’ ‘I mean you,’ I said. ‘Don’t let us talk about me,’ said Ildiko. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I want to know when you met him, when you had your affair.’ ‘It is over, that is enough,’ she said, ‘A few years ago. He needed help with his books in the West. I told you this already.’ ‘So why did he leave you?’ I asked, ‘Did you know too much about him too?’ ‘What I know is what I told you, on the train,’ said Ildiko, ‘We all knew too much about him. But now with these changes he thinks he is free, he believes none of these things exist any more, nothing has to be corrected.’ ‘Why did you follow him here?’ I asked. ‘I came with you,’ said Ildiko, ‘I liked to be with you. And now what do you do, bring me here, find me a bad hotel, leave me all the time alone.’ ‘I thought you came to see him,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t like now to see him at all,’ said Ildiko.

I stared at her. ‘I must say for a thinking man he seems to have led a very complicated sex-life,’ I said. ‘You think just because he is a clever philosopher he can’t make a mess of love just like everyone else?’ asked Ildiko. ‘His complicated sex-life also seems to be a complicated political life,’ I said. ‘Yes, why not?’ asked Ildiko, ‘He comes from Eastern Europe.’ ‘ And a complicated money life,’ I said. ‘I told you, money, he likes it, but it is not so important to him at all,’ said Ildiko. ‘And every single one of these women he was in love with had something on him,’ I said. ‘Of course, this is called marriage,’ said Ildiko, ‘Now he likes to run away from all of it. He does not know that at last you can never run away.’ ‘Can’t run away from what?’ I asked, ‘What are these things you all know about him?’ ‘Please, I don’t like to talk any more about it,’ said Ildiko, getting up, ‘Tomorrow perhaps, another time.’ She turned and walked away through the jovial crowd.

A little later I caught a glimpse of her, dancing with young Hans de Graef. As soon as the boat docked back at Ouchy, she was off before me, running ahead for the Hotel Zwingli. By the time I reached the desk, she had collected her key from the grim receptionist and gone up to her room. Passing her door, I knocked; there was no reply. I went up two floors to my own room, and sat down on the bed. Everything had changed. Ildiko had become distant, and with dismay I felt I was losing her. But Criminale, who had been a blank, was now an excess of signs – signs of thought and sex, politics and money, fame and shame. Before I had had too little; now I felt I had almost too much. What I needed now was to find the heart of Criminale, if he really had one. Over the course of the evening my suspicions had gone, and now returned. I tried joining facts to facts, names to dates. I wanted it all to make sense, but somehow I couldn’t make it make the sense I wanted it to make.

I thought about Ildiko, and then all the women in his life. I tried to get them in order, understand where Ildiko came in. Pia and Irini, Gertla and Sepulchra, Ildiko and Belli – Criminale said he liked women with a certain grip on power, but he had found a good many who had quite a grip on him. One knew too much about him and the Ulbricht regime. Another, still obscure to me, had brought some very deep trouble to his life. Another shared a pillow with the security police, another helped write his books and possessed him with all she knew. Another was his new bid for freedom from something, his chance of a new start. Another, the one I thought I knew best, had helped him publish his books and secure his bank balance, so that he needn’t worry about money at all. Two of them were here, one not far away in Barolo. I began to understand his sexual dismay on the boat. I felt something of the same myself, but I was a journalist, and I also felt a journalist’s excitement. Lavinia had been right: the life and loves of Criminale made a strange story after all. I pulled on my jacket, slipped downstairs, tiptoeing past Ildiko’s door, and went to the lobby, wanting to call Vienna with the news.

The church bells of Lausanne were chiming. The lobby of the Hotel Zwingli had, I saw, strangely changed. The grim daughter of the house had departed her post at the desk. In her place stood a large, big-biceped man in an unsleeved black sweatshirt, who evidently ran a different kind of regime. He was freely handing out keys-to two very oddly sorted couples – two darkskinned middle-aged men, accompanied by two much younger girls – who hurried upstairs with some speed. Calvinism, it seemed, stopped sharply at midnight. I got some jetons from the muscleman at the desk, and went over to the booth in the corner. But the nightlife of Vienna was evidently just as hectic. At the Hotel de France they told me that Lavinia had left early in the morning, and had still not returned to her room.

I was just about to go upstairs again when I remembered a promise I’d made. It was not one I wanted to keep, but a promise is a promise. I put more jetons into the machine, and called Barolo. I had no real hope of getting through; the Villa Barolo was, after all, famous for protecting its distinguished guests from any outside interference. I was quite wrong: the call connected almost immediately. ‘Ja, Bruckner?’ said a voice on the other end. ‘This is Francis Jay in Lausanne,’ I said. ‘Please, you do not know who is listening,’ said Bruckner, ‘“It is your contact at your destination.” Now, is the subject at the designated location?’ ‘Well yes, he is,’ I said. ‘The female subject also?’ asked Bruckner. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Have their actions been in any way unusual?’ ‘No, very usual,’ I said, ‘They’re just attending another congress. The designated location’s very smart, by the way. I don’t know how the man affords it. Unless it’s his Western royalties.’ ‘Please?’ asked Bruckner, ‘His what did you say?’ ‘The profits from his books in the West,’ I said, ‘He keeps them here in Swiss banks.’ ‘You know this definitely?’ asked Bruckner. ‘Yes,’ I said. There was a long pause at the other end.

‘The name of your hotel?’ asked Bruckner suddenly. ‘The Zwingli at Ouchy,’ I said, ‘I don’t recommend it at all. It’s a cross between a monastery and a brothel.’ I saw the muscleman look­ing at me. ‘Good, stay there all day tomorrow,’ said Bruckner, ‘Do not leave, I will join you as soon as possible.’ ‘You will?’ I asked. ‘You have done your work well. I congratulate you,’ said Bruckner, ‘He has not spotted you?’ ‘Yes, I had a long talk with him,’ I said. ‘That was careless, but no-matter,’ said Bruckner, ‘Arouse his suspicions no further. You have been a mine of information.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘What about?’ ‘Now I have something for you,’ said Bruckner, ‘Your quarry, you understand me, has fled hurriedly to Vienna. You were right there also, he is undoubtedly a part of it.’ ‘A part of what?’ I asked. ‘We have said far too much already,’ said Cosima, ‘Do not speak to anyone. Now good-night, my friend, and expect me sometime in the morning.’ I slowly put down the phone. I had the uneasy feeling it had been a big mistake to call Cosima Bruckner.