Sascha Arango - The Truth and Other Lies

The belief in human goodness is a prejudice hard to refute. Wouldn’t it be more sensible, Henry wondered, as he drove angrily along the avenue of poplars to his property, to believe in the self-evident badness of human beings? In his case, for instance, sporadic acts of goodness, such as rescuing the man from the wrecked car or strangling the deer in the field, were nothing but brief interruptions to his innate wickedness. He was a murderer, a liar, and a fraud. Not to be asked who you really are — that is the ne plus ultra of imposture. Millions of readers devoured his books, he was desirable to a lot of women, and Martha, who knew better than all the others that he was no good, had never stopped loving him. Is it possible, Henry sometimes wondered, to love a monster? Is it permissible? It is in fact obligatory, if you believe in human goodness. That belief, Henry concluded, bringing his train of thought to a close, leads inescapably to punishment. For the very belief in human goodness makes punishment necessary.

That morning he had driven to forensics in the certainty that he would spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of his wife. On the way there, quite by the by, he had saved someone he didn’t know from Adam, helping him without a thought for the potential disadvantages. He was nearly late for his own arrest. But did that make up for the murder of his wife? No, it most certainly did not. No good deed can offset a bad one — but that’s not why you do good deeds. Is it?

He’d been gone a few hours, and yet it seemed to Henry as if he were returning from a long journey. Something was different. Poncho didn’t come barking and running to meet him as he usually did. Then he saw Sonja Reens, the mayor’s daughter, standing on the old millstone in the garden, the dog at her feet looking up at her, riveted as if hypnotized. Even when Henry called him, he didn’t turn his head, but kept his eyes fixed on the woman. She was wearing blue jeans, flip-flops, and a white tight-fitting T-shirt. The brown skin of her upper arms shone; her T-shirt left a narrow strip of skin exposed at her waist. She raised a hand and the dog lay on its belly. She lowered it, turning her palms outward, and the dog sat up again as if pulled by strings.

Henry snapped the car door locks open and shut. Usually Poncho came running at this sound, because it activated his going-for-a-drive reflex, but he didn’t so much as prick up an ear. For years Henry hadn’t managed to teach his dog anything except to do exactly as it pleased.

She clapped her hands. Poncho awoke from his catalepsy and, wagging his tail, chewed the biscuit she’d given him in reward. Henry raised his index finger in reproach. “Poncho, we’d agreed that you only do that for me.” He looked at her admiringly. “How did you get him to do that?”

Her expression betrayed an expert’s pride. “It’s so easy. Dogs love to learn. They’re grateful for the challenge. Poncho’s a nice name. It suits him. He’s a clever dog.”

“I’m glad. Up until now I could have sworn he was stupid.”

Henry noticed a wicker basket next to the millstone. There was a checked cloth covering it. She saw his glance.

“I thought maybe you could do with some company, Mr. Hayden. My mother has baked rhubarb cake for you.”

“For me?”

Henry would have preferred waterboarding. For him, rhubarb belonged to those bitter varieties of vegetable that are made into a revolting-tasting jelly to torment defenseless children in institutional dining halls. During his odyssey through various homes and disciplinary establishments, his experience had always been the same: there’s a punishment to fit every crime, and as a reward there’s stewed rhubarb. But now was not the time for resentment.

Sonja jumped down from the millstone — she almost seemed to glide — bent over the basket, picked it up, and swung it to and fro. Henry watched, captivated, as his shadow walked toward hers.

“Or do you seriously mean better always alone than never ?” she asked, smiling. Henry immediately recalled the scrap of paper Jenssen had shown him outside the Institute of Forensic Medicine. There are days when everything comes back to haunt me, he thought.

“No, I didn’t write that. My wife did.”

Her laughter rang out, irreverently. She didn’t believe him. How could she? He was telling the truth. Henry noticed that their shadows were already embracing.

“You must excuse me, Mr. Hayden…”

“Henry.”

She blushed slightly. “Henry. I’m sorry about the page from your book, but I wanted to write you a message and didn’t have anything with me except your novel. The book belongs to my mother, by the way. She’s a big fan of yours.”

Blessed be anyone with a mother, he thought.

“Do you have any crème fraîche, Mr. Hayden?” She had forgotten to call him Henry.

“Yes, why?”

“ Everything tastes better with crème fraîche.”

“I can quite imagine,” Henry replied, and heaven be his witness that he meant it.

The last thing he needed now was any kind of complication. The novel wasn’t finished, and the question of who was to finish writing it was nowhere near being answered. The baby in Betty’s belly was already growing little fingers; there was a demon of conscience living in the roof in the form of a marten, and an unknown snooper was secretly gathering clues to his past in the hope of uncovering his biggest secret. It wouldn’t be easy to find solutions to all these problems and to restore order; now was not the time for amorous experiments. There are phases in life when it’s best to act on principle, not on impulse.

But Sonja was magnetic. Everything about the young woman attracted him. While he was making tea their eyes met in the reflection in the open kitchen window. Afterward they sat in his studio. She talked about her veterinary studies and how much she’d like to open a practice in the country, while he sucked on his cold pipe in silence, wishing it was her clitoris. Nothing would have been easier than to set her up in a practice; his lustful thoughts rose to heights too elevated for words. Every time she leaned forward to spread crème fraîche on the rhubarb cake with her teaspoon, previously inactive glands released hormones into his bloodstream. No doubt about it, everything tastes better with crème fraîche, and danger is more erotic than reason.

A quarter of an hour later he would have eaten rhubarb cake with rusty nails if it had amused her. They discussed the pleasant isolation of country life; he talked about inspiration; she told him of her weakness for rural machinery. Just as he was about to confide in her that he’d bought a John Deere tractor to dig out the old well behind the chapel, the telephone rang. The damn telephone. The most insidious invention since the hand grenade.

It was Betty. Sonja understood his silent glance and left the room at once. Her flip-flops were left next to the sofa in the shape of a V–If that isn’t a sign, Henry thought. Her spontaneous response suggested that their brief acquaintanceship was already becoming conspiratorial. An emotionally detached person would simply have remained sitting there. All that was needed now was to overcome small-town conventions, get through the process of grieving, remove any inconvenient people, and, last but not least, wait for Martha’s official death statement. Henry counted to five in his head and picked up the receiver.

Betty’s voice on the phone was tense and deeper than usual. “I’m here for you,” she said. As if scorched by a hot iron, Henry spun round on his axis and looked out the picture window.

“ Where are you?”

“I’m right here for you, Henry. I’d just like you to know that I love you, I want to be with you, our baby…”