Walking Into the Night Read online

  It was then that she finally stopped weeping and whispered, rather than spoke:

  “I’m two months late.”

  43

  She didn’t believe Kristjan had gone to see him until they received the necklace the following day.

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? He must have said something. Why do you say he said nothing?”

  “He behaved better towards me than I deserved.”

  “That’s no answer. He must have said something.”

  “He said he’d try to find your necklace.”

  “My necklace? You must have talked about more than that.”

  It was hot in the office. Jones was standing by the open window. On the table there were piles of papers and documents. Everything seemed in order. He brushed some dust from the windowsill and blew it off his fingers out the window. He was wearing a light suit and yellow tie, his hair slicked back, his face ruddy from the sun. Kristjan took a chair in front of the desk.

  “I’m surprised that you’re here. You must know you disgust me. But I’m perfectly calm. Look—”

  He held out his hands, backs facing up.

  “They’re perfectly steady . . . No sign of trembling or shaking. I just wanted you to see that there’s nothing wrong with me before I tell you that certain people have been in touch with me. So you wouldn’t think this was a momentary rage or some fit that’ll pass. Fred O’Connor—you’re familiar with the name— and William Green. Or was it Grey? Don’t remember, doesn’t matter anyway. They said you’d spoken to them. Needed an agent because you were thinking of doing business in Sweden. Sweden! Christian, you must have a screw loose. Didn’t it occur to you that they would consult me? Didn’t you realize they knew I used to be your agent? I warned them against you. I told them you didn’t pay your debts—don’t say anything, I know that part isn’t true—that you’re dishonest and underhanded. Which you most certainly are.

  “I want you to hear this from my lips, because I have no intention of going behind your back. I want you to know that I’m going to use every opportunity to make your life miserable.”

  Kristjan sat motionless in his chair but his eyes followed Jones, who was pacing back and forth before the window. Finally he stopped and tried to smile.

  “I can’t help it, even though I know you’ve done me a favor when all’s said and done. Imagine if I’d actually married her. I’d be married to a whore. You rescued me, in fact. Yes, maybe I should be grateful to you, Christian Benediktsson—the Icelandic Baron. You’re good together.”

  Kristjan rose to his feet.

  “There’s a necklace missing that means a lot to her.”

  “A necklace?”

  Kristjan raised his finger automatically to his own chest.

  “Oh . . . from her uncle . . . the Count.”

  “Yes, apparently he gave her this necklace as a confirmation present.”

  “I bet they were at the country house when he gave it to her?”

  “What?”

  “I bet her sister Inga had died by then? Gone to float among the lilies?”

  “Her name was Lena.”

  “Really, changed her name, has she?”

  Silence.

  “Do you still have it? The necklace?”

  Jones turned away from the window, walked over to his desk and looked Kristjan up and down for a moment.

  “Are you telling me you don’t know?”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “Come on. You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t know it’s all lies. Make-believe. Her uncle the Count, the country house, the servants, Inga or Lena or whatever she says her name was, the estate owner who courted her— didn’t she tell you about him? It’s a pack of lies from beginning to end. My God, you had no idea!”

  The breeze stirred the papers on the desk before him. He laid a paperweight on top of them, but left the window open.

  “It’s been a while since I got in touch with a fellow I know at the Swedish Embassy. She’s the daughter of a laborer. Her mother died young. The old man died a few years ago. It’s all lies. She can keep her dreams as far as I’m concerned—that’s what I told myself when I found out. Doesn’t cost me anything . . .”

  His secretary knocked at the door and poked her head round.

  “They’re here,” she said. “They’re waiting.”

  “Christian’s leaving. He’s on his way out.”

  The following day a courier arrived with the necklace. It came in a small box with a ribbon round it. The box was white, as was the ribbon. The package was addressed to Kristjan. “Send my regards to the Count,” said the accompanying note.

  44

  In the summer I move slowly at midday, when it’s hottest. I try to organize my chores so that I’m indoors when the sun is at its highest and stick to the shade if I’m outside. I generally wear a dark suit because the Chief doesn’t like to see me in shirtsleeves during the day. Still, my face is tanned and I won’t deny that sometimes I long to take off my shirt to let the sun get at my body. But that’s not appropriate, unless I pick up a hammer or spade and join the workmen. I sometimes do that, for a change of pace, during the Chief’s absences, when I have more time on my hands; I enjoy sweating in the heat from the physical exertion. And the smell of earth and timber and stone never fails to cheer me up.

  I feel best during the late afternoons and early evenings. In fact it’s strange how much I’ve begun to look forward to twilight, when the gardener finishes washing down the terrace around the houses. If neither the Chief nor Miss Davies is home, I’ll grab the chance to sit on a stool out on my balcony and watch the pavement dry. During the last few days the head gardener has given the task to a young man. I’ve not seen him before, but he is nimble and thorough. He’s so absorbed in his duties that he still hasn’t noticed me up here on the balcony. I try not to make a noise, putting my coffee cup carefully down on its saucer, puffing on a cigarette to while away the time in the twilight and watching the smoke curl into the still air like the remnants of a dream. I think about nothing, empty my mind, and never feel better than during these minutes out on the balcony when light and darkness meet and the flowers bow their heads before the coming night.

  He keeps his eyes on the ground: short, swarthy, probably from Mexico. Wields the hose with dexterity, keeping up a steady pressure so it’s a pleasure to listen to the splashing of water on stone. I must find out who he is, I tell myself, and make a mental note, because I instinctively like this painstaking boy.

  The smell of stone rises up to me as the water evaporates from the terrace. The boy has gone and dusk climbs the tree on the other side of the path, before setting off up the mountainside. I can’t see the ocean from my balcony but I know it’s there. I’m alone. All is calm. And I let my eyelids droop, imagining that the footprints of everyone who has walked on the terrace that day are steaming up to me in the warm evening. I feel as if I can sense what passed through their minds and hearts as they strode past, the girls from the kitchen, the workmen, the delivery boy who brought supplies up the hill in his truck. I can’t see their faces but I can hear their voices; they’re always cheerful and say nothing that might upset my thoughts.

  I amuse myself like this as it grows dark, the water dries on the terrace and the earth prepares for sleep. My thoughts are like a mirror-smooth lake, even when I feel that Klara has walked by. I am used to it and no longer react with shock as I did when I first sensed her presence. Nowadays I always whisper something first—tell her stories from when she was little, as I did when she was dying. She listens; yes, I’m sure she’s there, listening. Then she vanishes and I stand up and the night comes to me like an absolution.

  45

  I drifted out of control. The days, nights, weeks merged into one; I did my best to waste time, as if I knew that bad luck awaited us, no matter what I did. The money I had brou
ght with me from Iceland was running out, but I didn’t care. It never occurred to me that I should make provision for the future; I let the debts pile up and the money run through my hands. Could I have meant for it to end the way it did, I sometimes ask myself. The question horrifies me.

  Why am I telling you this, Elisabet? Why don’t I write to you about something else, the birds in the trees outside my window, the sea, the sun, something amusing or entertaining that you could even read to the children? I know this is what I should do, but I can’t.

  It was a long summer. I couldn’t make the time pass quickly enough. My body was damp with sweat in the August heat and my thoughts ambushed me when I jerked awake after the partying and drinking. The fan on the ceiling turned ring after ring, whirling its shadow over us as we lay in bed. The clock struck and the pendulum swung but time stood still. I slept through the dawn chorus. She shifted restlessly. The window was open. And a bump, a tiny bump, was beginning to form on her stomach.

  I’ve never been a heavy drinker but that summer not a day passed when I didn’t indulge. We woke late, usually in bad shape after the night’s debauch, she no less than I. It was difficult to swallow the first mouthful of food, the egg and bacon, which I washed down with a cold beer. She drank coffee. Lit a cigarette. We sat in silence at the café, waiting for our hangovers to subside.

  We never spoke of Jones and stopped visiting restaurants and other places where there was any danger of running into him. He kept his promise to destroy my reputation, and I didn’t blame him. The people I used to mix with avoided me; now it was mainly girls from the variety show and their lovers who joined us on our journey through the night.

  She took a nap in the afternoons, while most days I would go to the library on Forty-second Street to kill time. At five I’d come home and take a bath. Pour myself a glass of whiskey—the first sip was like medicine for the soul. At seven we’d go out to a bar either further down the street or on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twentieth Street. I’d drink a glass of water to quench my thirst before ordering a dry martini, very cold, with olives on a stick. Then night would fall.

  Another morning. Another day.

  46

  They returned to the hotel in the middle of the night. She bumped into a table by the door, he grabbed her, kept her from falling. She laughed, sang. He laid his finger on her lips: “Shhh,” he whispered. “People are sleeping.” She wouldn’t let him go, moved to the bed, lay on her back.

  “Come here,” she said. “Take me.”

  He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. She laughed, holding his eyes with hers as she dragged her dress up to her hips. He sank down on top of her. When he lifted her dress higher to get at her breasts, the bump came into view. It was as if he noticed it for the first time.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why have you stopped?”

  “I’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong. Nothing.”

  Yet he couldn’t stop staring at the bump, which had touched his belly when he lay on top of her, a little mound like the curve of the new moon in the spring sky.

  “You don’t want me.”

  “Don’t start that.”

  “Because I’m pregnant. You stopped as soon as you touched it.”

  He rose to his feet.

  “Don’t start this again,” he said. “We’re both tired. Let’s go to sleep.”

  She pushed him away from her.

  “Please, don’t be like this,” he said.

  “I don’t want this child,” she said.

  “Please, not again.”

  “I know you’ll leave us, as well. Like you left your wife and your four children.”

  He lay awake during the night. He knew she wasn’t asleep either. Yet he said nothing and lay with his eyes closed.

  For breakfast he had bacon and eggs. She drank coffee. It was hot and muggy outside and had begun to rain. The café was open onto the sidewalk and they sat under the awning; it was green, and the white table top turned green, too, when the sun shone through it. But now it began to rain and a gust tore at the tablecloth and the leaves started to murmur. They were the only ones there; everyone else had finished breakfast and left. At first the awning kept them dry, then the canvas gave way and they were soaked. But they remained where they sat, without moving. She stared at nothing; the coffee was cold and he noticed her absentmindedly putting her hands over her stomach, trying to press it in. She had begun to do this more often, laying both hands over the swelling and pressing it gently inwards. Turning away from him as she did so.

  He felt bad luck settling on them. It was as if he were standing to one side, detached from his body, watching it fly toward them on a gust of wind. He tried to banish it but didn’t have the power.

  Eventually he reached out for her hand. It was cold and limp. He said something to comfort her. Something about the weather. But it didn’t work, nothing worked anymore, it was all over.

  47

  The day we went to the doctor it brightened up in the afternoon. It had rained during the morning, but then cleared up and a gentle breeze stroked her cheek when we emerged into the open air. Her hair was pinned in a bun on her neck but a strand loosened and blew into her face. She let go my hand while she paused to fasten it behind her ear, but it loosened again afterwards. She smiled as if to get up courage. I smiled back. She was pale and tired about the eyes; around her neck she had tied a blue scarf that I’d given her for her birthday. The doctor had told her not to eat anything in the morning, which was easy for her as she had no appetite. The white wine she drank before we set off worked fast on her empty stomach, and she said she already felt much better.

  She was about four months gone. Two of her friends from the theater had recommended the doctor and accompanied her the first time she visited him. He was expensive but worth it. No quack, he had a diploma from a medical school in Boston on the wall and pictures of himself in a white coat from when he worked at the New York Hospital. He was retired now.

  A middle-aged woman received us at the doctor’s house. Small and thin, beginning to go gray. She was kind and put a hand under Klara’s arm, helping her out of her coat. I paid. Klara still had the scarf around her neck. In the front room there was a picture of a vase of flowers with apples beside it, a Persian rug on the floor. Somewhere in the house a radio was playing, and the low notes carried to us in the quietness. Mozart, I thought, and flinched.

  The floorboards creaked as we descended to the basement. They went ahead of me. Klara glanced back twice on her way down the stairs as if to ensure that I hadn’t vanished into thin air. It was then that it dawned on me how young she was. It was the first time I had noticed. I was startled. Fear had wiped her face clean of all the masks she had assumed and her eyes stared at me, huge and brown in her white face. I smiled at her but doubted, as I did so, whether the smile would be anything but a grimace.

  Could I have persuaded her to change her mind?

  “I don’t want this child,” she had said. “I can’t go through with it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. Or perhaps I said: “You mustn’t do this on my account.” Did I say that? Did I tell her that she should have the child and that we would make a good home for it and cosset it like the apple of our eye? What did I say? What exactly did I say to her?

  However hard I try, I can’t remember. Yet I feel it matters. As if my words could give me a clue. My words and my tone of voice. What I said and what I left unsaid.

  Am I trying to buy peace when I start up in the middle of the night, trying to recall our conversations? Am I looking for an escape route? I’m none the wiser. Yet still I lie awake, listening for the nuances of a voice from long ago, trying to conjure up a picture in the mirror of my mind.

  The woman led her into the surgery and gestured to me to take a seat outside. Klara had packed a change of clothes in a bag bef
ore we set off and I put it down on the floor beside me. It occurred to me that perhaps they would need the clothes in the surgery, and I stood up and was about to knock on the door when the woman poked out her head and asked for them.

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  “Not long.”

  “Is she . . .?”

  “She’s all right. Take a seat.”

  She went back in. I sat down, then stood up again and began to pace. I noticed that the radio upstairs had been turned off.

  During the last few weeks she had asked me the same question every morning on waking. I began to wonder what lay behind it. “Kristjan,” she would say, “did I walk in my sleep last night?” And when I answered no, she’d say: “Good, good. Then Lena hasn’t been calling me.”

  Light flooded down the stairs from the floor above and I remember longing to be out in the sunshine again. I could hear nothing from the surgery, all was quiet.

  Finally the woman came out.

  “She’s recovering.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Well. She’s recovering.”

  She fell silent, then added:

  “This is the second in a short time. You should think about what you’re doing.”

  “Should I go in to her?”

  “She wants you to wait here. She’ll be along in a minute.”

  “And it went well?”

  “It went fine.”

  The doctor must have left by another door. At least, I guessed it was he who had switched on the radio again somewhere upstairs. The tune was lost on the way down, so all I could hear was a faint echo. I was relieved.

  I meant to say something comforting to her when she appeared, but couldn’t bring myself to. The woman was supporting her. She was unsteady on her feet and her hands shook. I was about to put my arms around her, then hesitated because I was afraid of hurting her. Instead I touched her shoulder lightly and let my hand rest there for a moment, then followed them upstairs.

  The street was empty. We got into a taxi and drove to the hotel and did not speak.