The German Numbers Woman

by Alan Sillitoe

  Even so, he was learning to see more and more with his own unseeing eyes, and went as fast as was safe back to the radio for fear of missing Judy. Some singing’s going on that I can’t hear; I only know it’s singing but the meaning won’t come clear. He sang to himself. A flick of the wheel, and it stopped on gobbledegook. Radio roulette was a favourite game. A fervent whistling bled away, a tormented soul free-falling into the inferno. He could imagine himself a turtle that the Indian government had let loose into the Ganges to clean up corpses from the ghats of Benares. Wasn’t he a turtle who did that voraciously to whatever was heard on the radio? His spirit ate all the material with such greed that he consumed himself as well, never knowing when to stop.

  His position in life was cocked up by three bearings closing on nothingness. The captain of the spaceship told them calmly they were lost. You could only find out where you were by going in a straight line. Avoid circles or any deviation, no matter what. But there were no straight lines, and even less in space. If you didn’t want to lose yourself you must never let the ever-diminishing circles pull you into a maelstrom. Doubting that either earth or space existed, he wondered how he had got where he was. Nothing could be worse than being drawn into a fatal whirlpool without a bottle to put your last message in. Whatever happened, or wouldn’t, he must get away, make distance, find a new space for himself and his body to inhabit.

  An unknown station on the upper reaches of eight megacycles sent only numbers, perhaps the morse equivalent of the German Numbers Woman. Her employers had sent her on a course to learn the trade of dots and dashes, and she was happier now that she had a lover, and more money to spend on her children. He was chasing phantoms, as if he might be blessed with ordinary sight should he meet one of them. Being on the Flying Dutchman might bring him close to what he was looking for, whatever that was, but the vessel never landed to let him climb aboard.

  How can what you think have any effect unless you act? He wanted to go on a boat, a small boat, smell the raw sea, hear the hull bump against wave after wave, feel water splashing his face, be terrified at the awesomeness of the ocean, be the first blind man ever to solo around the world. Such an adventure would quell his inner turbulence. He yearned to head for a point of no return, and come back as someone he would recognise as more of himself than before he set off. It had happened in the Lancaster bomber, and he hadn’t returned as the person who had gone, had come back no longer young, because whoever lost the use of his eyes was suddenly turned into an old man, or quickly grew into one so as to go on living.

  You couldn’t break out of yourself, become someone you were not. Fantasies were all the better for staying in the mind. A blind man couldn’t hoist sails, or shoot the midday sun with a sextant, or plot the position on a chart. Even with eyes you had to learn, and yet – the yearning was unremitting. He wouldn’t be useless, would hear beacons on the radio, steer by them, guide and navigate. In the midnight of the ocean all men were equal. He imagined countless feats to be performed, his imagination playing with possibilities till the Black Dog leapt disappointed from his back – though leaving the marks of its claws.

  And then he heard, the voice more remote, less confident: ‘Hello, Pontifex, can you hear me? Carla, are you there?’

  Carla:‘Yes, no problem. Don’t use names anymore.’

  Judy:‘I know. Can’t talk long, in any case. I’ll be in big trouble if I do. Did you have a good day?’

  Carla:‘Boring. On small island. Seven on board. I try to get new job, big yacht in Malaga.’

  Judy:‘Better not leave me.’

  Carla:‘You crazy? In September. He need Spanish crew.’

  Judy:‘I’ll come with you.’

  Carla:‘Maybe. Give me a kiss. Dream me this night.’

  Judy:‘Love you too. Had a dream about you and me in Boston.’

  Carla:(laughing) ‘What I do?’

  Judy:‘Everything.’

  Carla:‘You dream again, then.’

  Judy:‘I will. I want more than dreams. But I must go now. Somebody’s coming. Maybe we got shopped. In fact I’m sure we did. The skipper was livid. I denied it black and blue but he only half believed me. So I can’t talk anymore today. Same time tomorrow, though. Just a one-minute burst, all right?’

  Carla:‘I understand. Adios, carina.’

  He saw them going to work about their boats, Carla the competent deckhand and stewardess, and Judy the cook, provider of food and comfort. Someone who had been listening, apart from himself, had betrayed them. Yet it was hard to believe in unsolicited malice, for betrayal always had its reasons. If the usual shortwave enthusiast heard the lovers how would he be able to inform the skipper of Judy’s yacht? He wouldn’t. Such eavesdroppers, as he well knew, culled secrets only out of a dispassionate sense of curiosity and perhaps power, but wouldn’t do anything for fear of revealing their illicit pastime. Satisfaction, as they sat in the entrancing half dark of a desk lamp, came from knowing they could while being aware that they wouldn’t. The ordinary shortwave scourer, with its effective decoding equipment – the sort that Howard could neither use nor afford – locked onto newsagency, embassy or weather and shipping traffic, and would pass the gabble of telephony voices with contempt.

  Anyone who found such unregulated traffic morally distasteful could inform the Post Office Telephony Authority, and get the lovers stopped, but Howard thought it unlikely that such trouble would be taken. In any case what listener would have the know-how to guess the real importance of Judy and Carla’s talk, as he had done? If someone had given their game away they should be dropped out of a plane minus a parachute, except that such a fate would be too good for them.

  Judy would converse for a precious minute with her lover tomorrow, against all common sense, and Howard was only sorry that longer chats were no longer possible. Caution had come too late. The two boats were heading for the Pillars of Hercules bumping through a grumbling sea (according to the latest forecast) from one landfall to another, across to Sicily, by the rugged coasts of Algeria and Morocco, and along to Spain. They might pass within fifty miles of each other yet not be able to meet or even talk.

  He could easily believe he had been the only one to hear them, so who could the informer be? The droning of the German Numbers Woman led him to wonder whether Laura had done it out of pique. She hadn’t liked his infatuation – and who could blame her? – therefore you could say she had a motive. On the other hand you could say she was aware that the women were too involved with each other for her to feel jealousy, so would hardly think it worthwhile to betray them.

  An account of his interceptions had almost filled a morse letter to Richard, who was the only person able to stop their shortwave trysts. By sending extended telegrams on tape, the medium of morse had put an ebullience into Howard’s revelations, which excluded all caution. Richard must have known this would be the case, and like a fool he had fallen into his trap.

  He recalled solving his first simple jigsaw as a child: thick wood, bright colours, not too many pieces, and all too obvious joinings, an easy and satisfying picture to put together, of the Big Bad Wolf chasing three little piggies from their burning straw-roofed house. He felt angry at not having thought of the explanation before. The time scheme fitted. Two women chatting, and giving hints of their future shifts, could be threatening to someone, possibly fatal, and Richard wanted them stopped because such talk pointed to criminal activity he also was involved in, or people he knew were involved in, matters to do with small boats going around Greece and the Middle East which, as Howard already knew, signified smuggling.

  The forlorn inexorable tone of the German Numbers Woman mocked his obtuseness, but she had put the edge back into his thinking, and was no longer needed. He wanted to hear Vanya’s erratic and slapdash morse on the Moscow frequency, an operator who would find Howard’s mistake easy to say never mind about, but who was doubtless in some downtown bistro knocking back the vodka with his radio cronies. All Howard heard were hideous crackl
es of static, no help to a mind in turmoil.

  When evil creeps up on you, ignorance of its power is no excuse. Stupidity is alarming, unknowingness worse. The damage had been done, but the lesson could be learned, provided it wasn’t too late and no one paid for your lapse.

  All the same it remained to be seen whether or not he had made a mistake. Perhaps the subconscious which had led him to act foolishly would yet take care of him, since he had fitted together the puzzle connecting Judy and Carla to the skippers of their yachts, and now with Richard, who also went on small boat trips for a living.

  The fatal tape letter had revealed most of what he had assumed or concocted, and if Richard read it carefully – he certainly would – Howard expected him to telephone and say that they had to meet. When they did Howard would appear certain about his solution of the puzzle, but play the amateur who did not know the importance of what had come into his ken. The theme to choose was that which would not put Judy into more peril than she was in already. Other than that the conversation would have to follow its own rules.

  He had sent the tapes, and awaited the response. Perhaps it was no more than his unworldliness and isolation that had led him to fabricate such an outlandish plot, but if that was so, he reasoned, it was because a blind man must try in every way to enrich and extend his life.

  NINETEEN

  A call came during breakfast, the old post-office bird chirping MMM between cornflakes and the cooked part. ‘Thought you might like to come for a drink,’ Richard said. ‘About lunchtime. We can have a bite in Rye or some place. That is, if Laura can spare you an hour or two.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ The thongs of the web were firm, its spider working sufficiently to draw Richard in. ‘I don’t have anything on.’

  ‘Pick you up at twelve-hundred hours?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  ‘Who was that, dear?’

  He sat at the table, cut into his food. ‘Richard’s coming to take me out to lunch. Says he knows a nice place, though I think he mainly wants to talk.’

  ‘About that woman you heard on the wireless?’

  Judy must be on her mind all the time. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘He knows about it, then?’

  ‘I mentioned her in a letter some time ago, but I can’t see how it can be of any interest to him.’

  He was still on the woman’s track, unwilling or unable to leave his plaything alone, but Laura was consoled by knowing that his pursuit couldn’t go on forever, though it was hard to know why she hoped for the demise of something which kept him so enthralled. It was touching, when he had little else. ‘That’s as maybe,’ was all she could say.

  ‘She’s hardly on the wavelength anymore,’ he went on. ‘Only for a minute or so, and not always every day.’

  ‘I expect you’ll be sorry when it’s finished.’

  ‘There’s always something else. Anyway,’ he sensed her disapproving mood as she stood to collect the dishes, ‘it’s only a pastime. You’re my rock and my staff. Nobody else but you, my love.’

  She kissed him on the back of the neck, which he liked, looked at him enjoying his sausage, egg and tomato. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we have a pact, and it’s a wonderful one as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘When we went over Germany in the war we got a fried egg for our breakfast afterwards. That’s why they always taste so good to me. Every time I have one, even now, it’s as if I’m eating the one I didn’t get when I came back wounded. Even better, because you know exactly how I like them cooked.’

  He ate well, always enjoying his food, and ever hungry for meals, as if wanting to show that while such an appetite prevailed there could be nothing wrong or devious about him. Even so, the unease that had lately come between them proved that something unusual was happening, and to separate the warp from the weft and make sense of it was impossible for her.

  Richard was on time, to the minute. He half apologised for the inconvenience of being punctual: ‘Naval habit, I suppose.’

  ‘A good one,’ she said, stepping aside. ‘Howard’s in the bathroom. He won’t be long.’

  He felt the same shock at being half in love with a robust haughtiness he would relish breaking down. Her staunch beauty, concealing a passion she seemed afraid of, turned more ordinary at her smile of welcome. ‘It’s terrifically good of you to take him out. He has so few opportunities.’

  He laughed. ‘I’ll bring him back in one piece, never fear. I’ll be driving, so shan’t drink much. Never do, in any case.’

  ‘Oh, I know you’ll take care of him.’

  ‘Why don’t you come as well? You’re certainly welcome to.’

  The offer was tempting. ‘I have things to do.’ The response was a little too sharp, so she added: ‘Reading, mostly. I like to keep up.’

  Show an interest. ‘Oh, on what?’

  ‘It’s a funny Kingsley Amis novel. I’ll read it to Howard when I’ve done. He’ll like that. I read him books from time to time because he prefers my voice to an actor on tape. I suppose I’ve become quite good at it.’

  He had no doubt that she could act tragedy to good effect, wanted her to go on talking, would rather listen to her than hear what Howard had to say. But here he was, a kiss for Laura, and they were on their way down the hill.

  Driving towards the coast, Richard was too preoccupied to describe the scenery, as he had heard was Laura’s custom, while Howard was happy to interpret winds and smells drifting through the open window, enjoying the rush of air as the road turned inland. Richard seemed anxious in his silence, in a hurry either to eat or talk.

  The unseeing figure beside Richard seemed more like an exhibit meant for an art museum than a person of flesh and blood. At the most he might be a wise Buddha too all-knowing to speak. The phenomenon made him feel more alone in the car than if he’d been on his own, and he said when approaching Rye: ‘Be there in a few minutes.’

  ‘Going northeast, I think.’ He moved from arms folded to hands on knees. ‘It’s a long time since I was in Rye. Another of the Cinque Ports. Crossing the Rother, are we?’

  ‘That’s right. We’ll soon be at the trough.’

  ‘Makes me hungry, this sea air.’

  Small talk was necessary to start with, though there was no saying how small it could ever be with Howard.

  ‘Up the cobbles, and onto the High Street,’ he said.

  ‘You know it, then?’

  ‘Laura’s brought me here a time or two, though not lately. The place pullulates on market day, and in the summer holidays.’

  ‘Here we are.’ A few steps to the door, and Richard cleared a path to the bar, feeling strange being a blind man’s minder. ‘A pint first, and then to eat. Will that suit you?’

  Howard gave a little laugh, almost feminine. ‘More than all right. You get thirsty, living in the dark.’

  They sat by the window, light gleaming in. ‘I must say, you’re a skilful listener at that wireless of yours, the wonderful things you pull in.’

  Howard drank, wiped his mouth, an unnecessary motion but it kept his tone neutral, surprised the subject had come up so soon. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  ‘I do. It’s been a real treat, getting your morse letters. I always look forward to ’em.’ It was like talking to someone dumb as well as blind. Must be living with him that makes Laura so noble and enigmatic, though a woman of few words would seem that way.

  Howard said something at last. ‘I think you know Rye much better than I do.’ The voice was unfamiliar, almost caressive, as if not certain of being heard, putting the onus on whoever he was talking to. ‘I expect you’ve made a few trips, in and out.’

  ‘One or two.’

  Silence again, until sitting at the table over their pâté and toast, when Howard said: ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to be taken out and treated so handsomely. I’m certainly enjoying it.’

  ‘No special reason. But I did think it was about time we talked at our leisure, without the inevitable morse code b
etween us.’

  A touch of mischief wouldn’t come amiss. ‘You mean with no one else to listen?’

  He seemed uneasy. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I’m not very good at conversation,’ Howard put in. ‘I sometimes wonder whether it’s because I’m a wireless operator, or because I’m blind. It could be both. A wireless operator listens all the time, so doesn’t have time to talk, or feel the inclination to. A blind man can’t see, and so has less to talk about what he’s heard, which often isn’t much, and he’s not supposed to reveal most of it, in any case. A blind man has only what’s inside himself to draw on, and he sometimes finds great difficulty in doing so because it’s too complicated to disentangle.’ He pushed his plate aside with a laugh. ‘You seem to have got me talking, and maybe that’s what a friend’s most valuable for.’

  You’re not saying much, all the same, Richard said to himself.

  A little more than you, so far. Howard went on: ‘I could ask you, of course, what it is you want me to talk about.’

  ‘Anything that comes to mind. What else?’

  Richard was a man who always lit a cigarette between courses. Or was it only now, with Howard, who wasn’t surprised that so much was on his mind. ‘And if nothing does?’

  ‘I know, it takes two to talk. The only thing that’s happened to me recently is that my wife’s left me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’