Perlmann pushed his way through the group of waiting people, and then walked stiffly towards Leskov, his hands in his trouser pockets. When Leskov saw him, his whole face lit up. He set down his luggage and spread his arms. Earlier than necessary, Perlmann took his right hand out of his pocket and took his last steps with his arm outstretched. His face was devoid of feeling, and refused to obey him. The only thing he was able to muster was a gaze aimed rigidly at the open collar of Leskov’s red-and-blue checked shirt. Leskov ignored the outstretched hand, grabbed him by the shoulders with both hands and wrapped him silently in his arms, burying Perlmann’s formal ‘Hello’ beneath him.
He smelled of sickly sweet tobacco and sweat. Perlmann stiffened when Leskov pressed him firmly to him, and wished he could shrink away quite quickly. But Leskov mustn’t notice that he was disgusted by him, so Perlmann hesitantly put his arms around him and hugged him briefly and lightly. When he tried to break away from the embrace, Leskov went on holding him tight, and Perlmann felt like shoving him away with all his strength. At last Leskov let go, too, and now, with a guilty conscience, Perlmann gripped him by the upper arms and moved his hands up and down, as if stroking him. It was a mechanical gesture, hollow and empty, and yet it was a mockery, Perlmann felt, and wanted to sink into the ground.
‘Philipp,’ said Leskov, pausing dramatically, ‘it’s wonderful to see you again! Fantastic! You can’t imagine how glad I am!’
‘Yes,’ was all that Perlmann could force out. He could only endure Leskov’s gaze for one or two seconds, then he bent industriously for the suitcase and, in his nameless trepidation, it all seemed entirely unreal to him, as if it were not really happening; as if it were just a possibility, a scene in his imagination.
‘Wait, please,’ said Leskov when Perlmann hurried ahead with the suitcase as if they had to catch a waiting train. ‘I would like to change some money.’ He awkwardly took his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a fifty dollar note. ‘I haven’t got much,’ he said with an embarrassed smile, ‘but I quickly managed to rustle this together and would like to change it straight away.’
In his obsessively detailed fantasy, Perlmann had imagined everything in the tiniest detail. He had tried to calculate every individual step, to master every factor so as to leave as little as possible to chance. There was only one thing he hadn’t thought about: that Leskov was a flesh-and-blood human being with his own will and pride. In Perlmann’s fantasy, Leskov had been a figure with a particular appearance, with a past and, of course, with a scholarly voice; also a figure which, in quite general and abstract terms, behaved like a human being in such a way that it could broadly be predicted – but again, merely a figure that could be shoved back and forth by the imagination, a creature without the particular, surprising and stubborn desires and preferences that constituted the resistance, independence and autonomy of a human being.
Very slowly Perlmann set the suitcase down, breathed out and stayed bent for longer than usual, his eyes closed. It was a good thing that he was facing the door and Leskov couldn’t see his face. By the time he stood up and turned round, Perlmann had regained his composure. Over by the bureau de change the fourth traveller was about to join the line. But it wasn’t just a waste of time. Much worse was the fact that the changing of money was preparation for an open, expectant future, which, for Leskov, who had followed Perlmann’s eye and was already taking his first step, would last no more than a single hour.
‘That isn’t necessary,’ said Perlmann, and he was relieved that only the first word had sounded hoarse. ‘There are expenses waiting at the hotel.’
Leskov hesitated and looked down at the bill. ‘I like to have my own money,’ he said with an apologetic smile that also contained a hint of firmness. ‘And it won’t take long,’ he added, pointing to the first of the four travellers, who was just leaving the counter.
‘But it really isn’t necessary,’ Perlmann repeated with uncontrolled sharpness. ‘And anyway, they can change money at exactly the same rate in the hotel,’ he added in a conciliatory voice and made a gesture that dismissed everything as barely worth mentioning. Then, without waiting for any further reaction from Leskov, he took the case and went through the door, which, without turning round, he held open for Leskov until he had no option but to follow him.
Only now, when he saw the kiosk with the cash desk, did Perlmann remember his parking fee. What an idiot I am. Then at least he would have had some money. He walked to the counter and pushed the parking ticket under the sliding window. Inside, deafening rock music came from a transistor radio. A man with a red peaked cap looked at him vacantly and waited.
‘How much?’ yelled Perlmann and bent down to the opening.
Without turning his head, the man pointed to the display: 1000 L. Perlmann pretended to look for his wallet, reached into both sides of his blazer, then tapped his pockets and finally pulled out the 600 lire note, which he pushed at the man.
‘That’s all I have on me,’ he shouted, his lips right next to the glass. ‘I’ve forgotten my wallet.
The man with the red cap had now half-closed his eyes, and pointed again at the display, no longer moving his whole arm, just making an infuriatingly abrupt, jerky motion from the wrist.
When Perlmann felt his face turning red with annoyance, and he sat up without having the faintest idea what to do now, Leskov touched his arm and held out, with a grin that revealed a small triumph, a 2,000 lire note in front of his nose, mended in the middle with Sellotape. ‘A souvenir that my brother-in-law gave me.’
Without a word, Perlmann took the note and waited, bobbing impatiently up and down, until the man with the cap, who was now whistling along with the tune, pushed his change towards him. He held the 1,600 lire out to Leskov. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said stiffly, ‘the rest later.’ He had been late this afternoon, and in his haste he had left his wallet in the hotel.
But Leskov waved the money away. Plainly it was hardly worth anything, he laughed.
As Perlmann put the bags in the trunk and straightened the panel that covered the spare wheel, which had slipped a little from where the books had been taken out, Leskov took off his coat and looked round. The light, he said, holding his hand as a screen over his eyes, he had never seen such a light before. ‘Kakoi svet!’ As a student he had once been in the south, in Gruzia, but that was a long time ago, and he didn’t think the light had been as intense there.
‘Not as siyayushcy. It hadn’t illuminated itself so powerfully as it does here. But at the same time this light here isn’t . . . what do you say, harsh?’
‘Yes,’ said Perlmann, turning the two cases round again for no reason.
Now Leskov stared across to the purple mountains and the brown haze, which looked like a sandstorm.
‘As it lies there in this light,’ he said dreamily, ‘Genuya has something about it of an oriental city, a city in the desert.’
Perlmann had known that the coming hour would be difficult. Terribly difficult. More difficult than anything ever before. And that it would seem endless to him. He had told himself that repeatedly yesterday, and had tried to arm himself. And yet, he now thought as he got in, he had had no idea how great the pain would be. First the macabre irony that he was dependent on Leskov’s money to be able to embark on the fatal, murderous journey. Then Leskov’s precise perception of the southern light and his joy. And now this statement about the city, which was exactly what he had thought himself when he had seen Genoa from the ship on Friday. The harmony of their perceptions abolished the distance that Leskov’s repellent appearance had helped to create, and when he stuck the key in the ignition Perlmann had to tell himself inwardly to be able to continue: He alone would unmask me. Through him I would become an ostracized man, an outcast. There is no other solution. I’ve thought about it long enough.
As he turned on the ignition the clock lit up: twenty to four. Puffing, Leskov sank into his seat and rested his hands in his lap. He showed no intention of fasteni
ng his seatbelt, but sat on the elegant, light-grey leather upholstery as if in an armchair in a club. Perlmann felt himself looking at him, and couldn’t help turning his head as well. It would have been the moment to say how lovely it was that he had been able to come after all, before adding, ‘Tell me!’ Instead, Perlmann turned his eyes away again. For a fraction of a second he felt an impulse to reach for the seatbelt, but stayed his hand, which had been moving to the left instead of forwards to the ignition, just in time. Don’t do that now, or he’ll try it as well. Relieved that he had noticed in time, Perlmann gripped the ignition key and turned it. Immediately a high, penetrating sound rang out, which acted on Perlmann like an electric shock and for a moment disconcerted him completely. The unfastened belt signal. Of course, they have that in cars like this. Oh my God, I’ll have to do it with this terrible noise going on. His sleeve caught on the light-switch before he finally turned off the ignition again. Moving as economically as he could muster, he pulled the belt across his body and very carefully snapped it shut. He did so with the gentleness of someone who doesn’t want to wake a child. For one terrified moment he waited.
‘Incredible, this light,’ said Leskov.
Perlmann set off as if they were sitting in a porcelain box. After a while he really put his foot down.
Yes, said Leskov, it had all come as quite a surprise. His mother had died ten days before, not entirely unexpectedly after her illness, but much more quickly than might have been supposed. Larissa, his sister, who had come from Moscow, had urged him, when he had mentioned Perlmann’s invitation, to reapply for his exit permit. That urging, he added, probably had something to do with Larissa’s bad conscience: since she had moved to Moscow after her marriage, he had had to look after his mother all by himself.
In Perlmann’s imagination, the man next to him had been someone who looked after his mother, but who otherwise stood all on his own and had no one else who would miss him. Everything that Leskov said about his sister now, awkwardly and in a loving voice, tightened Perlmann’s throat. With each new character trait that became visible in Larissa, the invisible rope tightened further. Slowly and inconspicuously, he took a deep breath and tried to free himself by directing his attention at objects by the side of the road which had no significance for his driving.
The traffic grew denser, and two motorcycles that overtook him dangerously, and which he had to avoid, helped him to ignore the words beside him. Leskov had no sense whatsoever that someone behind a steering wheel had to pay attention to the traffic, and talked nineteen to the dozen. And then the rusty shutters of the first ironmonger’s shop had come into view. Perlmann felt his back and neck tensing up. Absolutely not the first one. With cold hands he strengthened his grip on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead with great concentration so as not to miss the second.
Something was wrong. He didn’t remember the long red building ahead of him. He broke into a sweat. He looked over to the shutters, then turned round and looked back. For one breathless moment he didn’t know what was going on. Then he understood: he’d been waiting for lowered shutters. The image of the rusty surfaces was fixed in his expectation, and had been uninfluenced by the fact that the other shops were open today. But the first ironmonger’s was also open; there were no shutters; the whole street corner looked completely different as a result, so, without noticing anything, he had driven to the second shop, whose shutters were still lowered.
He thrust his foot down on the brake, pulled the wheel round and turned off before the shutters. Tires screeched behind him and in the opposite lane, and the driver of the car he had narrowly missed tapped his forehead. Perlmann stopped and reached for a cigarette. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and closed his eyes as he filled his lungs.
Now Leskov moved with a groan and looked for the seatbelt. Perlmann froze.
‘That belt is broken,’ he said blankly, and then, when Leskov started tugging on the strap, he repeated more loudly than necessary, ‘The belt on your side is broken.’
Leskov turned heavily back towards him and looked at him calmly. ‘You’re pale,’ he said in a paternal voice. ‘I noticed that before. Is something wrong?’
‘No, no,’ Perlmann said hastily and turned the engine back on. ‘I just don’t feel that great today. But let’s change the subject: what was the story with your exit permit?’
In spite of the political upheavals at the very top of the country, everything was pretty much as it had always been in large parts of the administration, Leskov reported, falling back into his seat as Perlmann went on driving slowly and felt his pulse calming down.
‘You’ve still got the same people sitting at the same desks. And there are still blacklists,’ he said with a sobriety that expressed both experience and suffering. It would be a while before the new laws guaranteeing the freedom to travel came into force. So he had reapplied with no illusions. This time he had done so via the dean of the university, and that seemed to have worked, even though he had not previously thought of him as a powerful man. At any rate, a phone call had come early on Friday morning: he could collect his passport along with the permit. Leskov took out an army-grey oilcloth wallet, pulled his passport from it and looked at the permit stamp.
‘They’ve given me exactly a week,’ he said bitterly. ‘Not a day longer. I have to be back in Moscow on Sunday evening.’ He took out a pipe and tamped it laboriously.
By now they had passed the spot where the car had to leave the tram rails. Perlmann had done it right. Things had only got awkward when a tram coming in the opposite direction, obstructed by a turning car, had meant that he had had to stop all the traffic behind him for a few moments.
Now came the first diversion sign. Perlmann was relieved that the traffic was flowing here, too. He thought about the bakery in the yellow building, followed the column of cars around the bend by the big hotel, and suddenly found himself in the middle of a traffic jam; there was lots of hooting, and some drivers had already got out and were drumming impatiently on the roofs of their cars. According to Perlmann’s watch it was one minute after four. She didn’t say there weren’t any trucks at all after half-past four, just that there weren’t as many: c’è meno. There could still be a few.
Leskov had discovered the electric window winder, and was as delighted as a child. All in all, he said, this was a dream of a car. Perlmann abruptly changed the subject and asked him about his flight.
Organizing it had been a bit of a drama, Leskov said with a laugh, and while Perlmann stared ahead at the dashboard, where the minutes were ticking away, Leskov told him how he had to borrow money from friends, how it had taken hours, and how he had flown to Moscow yesterday, where he had spent the night with Larissa’s family.
‘I’ve hardly slept,’ he said, ‘I was so excited. It’s my first trip to the West.’ And after a pause. ‘I can’t actually remember what happened on Saturday. Oh yes, of course, Yuri came by. You know, with the fifty dollars. Years ago he was allowed to visit his dying father in America. He was the one who welcomed me outside the prison gate that time. And now . . . how can I put it? You know, he just wholeheartedly granted me this trip. Really granted it to me. People just say that kind of thing. But with Yuri it’s something else. He’s the only person who really knows what it means to me to be able to come here. Here, to the Mediterranean. The Riviera.’
A policeman with a radio came around the corner and walked along the queue of cars that was moving at a walking pace. Perlmann gave a start, and when the policeman, a giant with long sideburns, suddenly stopped, looked at the Lancia and then walked straight over to him, his heart pounded and his mouth turned dry. The giant gestured to him to lower his window. Twice Perlmann pressed the wrong button with his damp fingers, and he felt that as long as he had lived, no face had ever come as close to him as this big, dark face behind the glass.
‘Your lights are on,’ the giant said in a friendly voice.
‘Oh, yes, mille grazie,’ Perlmann stammered solicitously.
A moment later the traffic started flowing again. The turn-off by the bakery wasn’t a problem, because another policeman was pointing the way to the line of traffic, and, of course, the third turn-off was at the big square with the column.
Perlmann relaxed. For a few moments he enjoyed the feeling, and leaned back in his seat. Then he started. It was a sensation like twitching awake from half-sleep from no outward cause: how could he relax, when he was driving to his death?
While Leskov was talking about the delays and the chaos at Moscow Airport and blowing clouds of his sickly sweet tobacco towards the windscreen, the underpass came into view. Perlmann was about to get into the left-hand lane, when a Jaguar came hurtling up from behind and forced him back. He came very close to losing his nerve. Suddenly, all his anxiety and despair discharged themselves, flowing into a boiling-hot, overwhelming desire to pull the steering wheel round and crash with all his might into that dark-red, gleaming bodywork. For God’s sake, let’s not have an accident now. The warning came from a long way away, and its power seemed to be hampered by that distance, but Perlmann clung firmly to it with what remained of his will and braked hard, so that Leskov tipped forward again, and when the Jaguar was past, just before the concrete plinth that marked the start of the underpass, Perlmann slipped across on to the cobblestones. He immediately put his foot on the accelerator again and asked Leskov, whose hand was now on the door handle, what changing at Frankfurt had been like.
Difficult, he said. And he’d got lost. ‘There are these endless corridors. You have the feeling you’re never going to arrive.’
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