Horn’s eyes were fixed right on the convict’s face. Unsteady on his feet, in a rattling, leisurely voice, Lanphier issued phrase after phrase, and they, correctly divided by invisible punctuation marks, evaporated into the air, like clouds of smoke released methodically by an inveterate smoker. His gaze, directed off to one side, wandered and jumped, restlessly groping for objects, while his other, internal gaze held Horn with invisible pincers, in a state of impatient irritation the whole time. Horn asked:
“Why didn’t you come in at once?”
The old man looked directly at his host.
“I was afraid I might wake you,” he said impressively, “and the door is devilishly stiff. Had I found you asleep, I should have gone off to sweat in the surrounding countryside till you’d had your fill of sleep.”
His face took on an unexpectedly maudlin expression.
“My God!” he groaned, blinking his dry eyelids intensely. “Life has become an ordeal. No respect, none of the local simpletons cares to remember that I, outcast and despised, laid the foundations of all this laborious life. Who knows, maybe a city will one day grow here, while my bones, gnawed by dogs, will rest in the mud, and no one will say: here lie the bones of old man Lanphier, who was innocently condemned by the court of man.”
“I should be ashamed,” said Horn dryly, “to recall that thanks to your accidental visit to these parts, the peninsula has been infested with humans. I dislike talking to you now. I should prefer it if you, these roofs, and these plantations had never been here. As for the good people with their wretched upbringing, tell them that any unexpected courtesy on their part will meet with the proper reception.”
“Wolf’s talk,” said the convict. “Not bad for a first meeting. Despise me all you like, but I need all the people I can get here. I keep accounts with the lot of them. With some, you see, I have a very good memory—it’s a profitable string to my bow. Others, how shall I put it, are stupid and graze peacefully in their own fields. I pinch from these ones without any trouble—well, it’s easy—bread, tobacco, small change for something to drink every now and then. Then there are some very cocky louts—the sort who can bleed and then lick it up, like a child eating a spoonful of jam. They all talk soberly and in hushed tones, walk slowly, and their nostrils are always flared …”
Lanphier lowered his voice and, hunching over, as if he had a pain in his stomach, smiled broadly, while his eyes fell completely still and narrowed.
“A boat!” he cried. “Where did that boat come from?”
Horn looked out the window. The radiant, limpid lake, full of drowned clouds, was so obviously deserted that at that very moment he turned all the more quickly, with pounding heart, to the convict who had jumped up. A false slash of a knife tore his smock. Horn thrust his hand into his pocket and in a flash was holding out the muzzle of a revolver to Lanphier’s bloodless, twitching face.
The old man pressed himself to the wall, cradling his head in his wizened hands; then, after a flurry of movement, he ended up by the window ledge, jumped out, and ducked into a thicket. Three of Horn’s bullets cracked among the foliage. With a nervous laugh, he listened intently to the rustle of reeds and fired once more. All of a sudden the silence that had set in was filled with the sound of blood pounding in his temples. His legs lost their agility, his thoughts started spinning and were borne away like wood chippings cast into a stream. The morning that had seduced Horn now suddenly seemed like a hideous, cheap oleograph.
Lost in thought and without lowering his revolver, he sat down on a poorly fashioned bench, feeling, as never before, the total darkness of the future and the fragility of the peace that had lasted fourteen days. His life was drawing closer to the grueling existence of the wary four-legged creatures that are turned into hearing and sight by the suspicious silence of the wilds, and he himself had to become some kind of thinking wolf. He was aware of this necessity: this consciousness concealed a heavy weight and, in a way, the sorrowful joy of a man bereft of choice.
It was now his ardent desire that the woman with the gentle face, the one who had fashioned his soul according to her will, like making a dress that became her, would pass by these hills, and this forest, and his gaze, sink her expensive boots into the soft silt of the shore, lose her way, and knock on the door of his house. Vaguely, in flashes, Horn glimpsed her morning routine among the clay anthills, and this absurd combination of images seemed quite feasible to him. His vision of life allowed for everything, bar miracles, for which he felt an instinctive aversion, holding the desire for some supernatural sign a weakness.
Lanphier’s thin raised arm flashed before Horn’s eyes, sending a shudder through his body. The colony, which for some unknown reason had been named after the man who had just tried to hunt him, appeared to him now in the form of the patchwork wretch who had peeped out from behind the hedgerow. As he left, he carefully locked the door.
V.
As he walked toward the open plain at the very edge of the forest, Horn was overtaken by the quick pace of a little gray horse. Esther was riding it; her concentrated face, which exuded a quiet joy, glanced down at Horn from under the shady brim of her hat. The sight cheered Horn, and with a satisfied smile he waited while the girl jumped off and fixed the saddle, turning to him without a word. The loneliness did not oppress him but gave free rein to the most frantic explosion of yearning, and now that a lightning rod had appeared in the image of another person, Horn was only too glad to seize this opportunity to talk. They walked side by side, and as they did so the little gray horse, slowly moving its ears as though it were eavesdropping on their conversation, craned its neck behind the girl’s back.
“I’m pleased to see you,” said Horn. “It was so funny, the way we parted last time, that I laugh even now whenever I remember that shot.”
Esther raised her eyebrows.
“Why funny?” she asked suspiciously. “People often shoot at targets here, and so do I.”
Horn did not venture a reply.
“My father sent me to you,” said the girl, peering at the horizon. “He said: ‘Take the horse and go to him. The man hasn’t been seen for some time. There are fevers, and swarms of snakes.’”
“Thank you,” said Horn, astonished. “He saw me once, at night. How strange that he should think to look out for me. I’m touched.”
“Look out for you!” said the girl scornfully. “Him? Look out! He looks out for no one. You just don’t give him any peace. Wherever you go, everyone is talking about you. Just last week someone claimed that you were a fugitive from the mainland, pure and simple. But no one will ask you that, rest assured. That’s just how they are here.”
Horn shrugged indignantly.
“That’s the way of it,” he said coldly. “When a man asks nothing of others and doesn’t wish to see them, he’s a criminal. That’s half the trouble: if he’s hated, they can beat and abuse him.”
Esther turned and carefully surveyed Horn’s figure—as though contemplating whether or not to let this man beat himself.
“No, not you,” she said resolutely. “You seem strong, even if you are a little pale. Soon you’ll be swarthy, like everyone here.”
“I hope so!” said Horn.
He fell silent and narrowed his eyes, recalling Lanphier’s attack. He did not relish telling the story, for he had a vague suspicion that this episode could stoke rumors of the gold that he had supposedly hidden away. Something occurred to Esther; stopping the horse, she went over to the saddle and extracted from a leather bag something prickly and round, like an apple studded with nails.
“Eat this,” she said. “It’s a local durian. They’ve begun to rot, but this only makes them taste better.”
They both stood on the low plateau, surrounded by uneven terraces. Embarrassed by the repugnant smell of rotten garlic, Horn hesitantly turned the fruit over in his hands.
“You’ll get used to it,” she said blithely. “Hold your nose. Really, it isn’t so bad.”
Horn picked away the durian’s tough skin and saw a gelatinous white flesh. Having tried it, he paused for a second and then proceeded to eat this astonishing fruit until it was gone. Its creamy, indescribably complex taste made him want to go on eating without end. Esther watched Horn anxiously, unconsciously moving her lips, imitating his chewing mouth.
“Well?” she asked.
“Marvelous,” Horn said.
“I’ll give you some more.” She turned to the horse and deftly placed several pieces into Horn’s pocket. “They’re plentiful here, you can pick them yourself.”
She paused, her mouth agape, about to say something, but she stopped herself and, with a frown, childishly cast her eyes over Horn’s face, as if asking an unspoken question.
“Is there something you wanted to ask?” he said. “Well, then? Ask away.”
“It’s nothing,” Esther quickly replied. “I did want to ask you something, it’s true, but how could you know that? I wanted to ask whether my company bored you. I don’t know how to hold a conversation. We’re all a little uncultured here. Life must have been better for you there.”
“There?”
“Well, yes—there, where you’re from. They say they have all sorts of things there.”
She moved her hand as if trying to envisage more vividly the city’s glittering mass.
“That’s neither here nor there,” Horn reflected calmly. “It’s only good if you like those sorts of things.”
“So you didn’t like them?” she cried triumphantly. “Tell me.”
“Tell you?” Horn drawled in surprise.
Only now did he fully appreciate and feel the excruciating, if pent-up, curiosity that he must have aroused in her. The indelible stamp of culture, effaced, disfigured by a half-savage existence, the profile of a complex spiritual world filtered through him and, like a coin corroded by acid, spoke, albeit in approximate terms, of his worth. He reflected. Her demand was so legitimate and, in its frankness, constituted the simple desire to know with whom she was dealing. Yet he was ready to fill himself with indignation at the very thought of turning himself inside out before this simple girl. It did not occur to him to lie; feeling abashed and not knowing how to change the topic of conversation, he cast his gaze up into the blue depths of the air.
And the emptiness of the sky settled in his soul as a cold yearning for freedom, to which every roadside leaf would henceforth attest. The harsh face of the past beamed with a sardonic grimace, and Horn’s jealous tact in regard to her seemed strange and even like a distant importunity devoid of self-respect. The past had graciously freed him of all obligations.
And he longed to look at himself from without, eavesdropping on the words of his own story, to check, thousands of times over, a verified account of his life. The girl may well interpret it differently, but then all she wanted to know was the general outline, while the rest would slip past her ears, like the indistinct voices of the forest.
“My life,” said Horn, “is very simple. I was a student; some ill-fated speculations ruined my father. He shot himself and made a cemetery his home. My cousin found me a position; I worked there for three years. Let’s sit down, Esther. Getting lost in the ravines doesn’t seem so very enjoyable.”
Without letting go of the bridle, the girl quickly sat down where Horn’s words had stayed her. His momentum took him a step farther, whereupon he turned around and sat down beside her, chewing on a stalk of grass that he had plucked.
“Three years,” she repeated.
“After that,” Horn continued, trying to speak as plainly as possible, “I became a tramp because I was fed up sitting in the same place; what’s more, my luck had run out: the owners of the company where I worked died of the plague. So there you have it … I went from city to city, and at last I was happy. Quite recently a friend of mine died; I loved him more than anything in the world.”
“I have no friends,” Esther slowly enounced. “A friend—that’s good.”
Horn smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “He was a great friend, and dying on his part was a swinish thing to do. This is how he lived: he loved a woman who very likely reciprocated his love, though to this day I’ve never been certain of it. He chose her from among all the people in the world and he put his faith in her—that is, he considered her to be the finest human being in existence. In his eyes, this woman was God’s most perfect creation.
“The time came when she was faced with a choice—either to go hand in hand with my friend, whose worldly possessions consisted in the four walls of his small room, or to live like a river during the spring flood, beautifully and freely, satisfying her most fanciful whims. At the time she was quite sad and pensive, and her eyes flashed with a special brilliance. Finally they had it out with one another.
“It then became apparent to my friend that the covetous soul of this woman was insatiable and lusted after everything. And for her, he was merely a part of this, and not even the biggest one.
“But he, too, came from that same breed of predators with velvet claws, who thrill at the sounds of life, at the sight of its glittering pedestals. The difference between them consisted in the fact that one of them wanted everything for herself, while the other wanted everything for her.
“He had thought he was entering into a covenant with her for the rest of his life, but he was mistaken. This woman had set her sights on something ready-made, something being dangled in front of her by another man. This something was money.
“He understood her and himself, but he burned himself out in a matter of days and became an old man before his time. The blow was too much; not every man can bear such things. Everything continued on its course, and after a month, as he planned to leave, he wrote this woman, now the wife of another, a letter. In it he asked her to tell him for the last agonizing time that she still loved him.
“He did not wait for her reply. Yearning drove him into the street, and, unconsciously, unable to restrain his desire, he arrived at her door. He was announced under a fictitious name.
“He passed through a series of rooms, moving as though in a dream. Seized by excruciating tenderness, the weeping anguish of the past, his countenance was moist and submissive.
“Their meeting took place in the boudoir. She seemed alarmed. Her face was that of a stranger, a poor simulacrum of what had once been his.
“‘If you love me,’ this woman said, ‘you won’t stay here a moment longer. Please, leave!’”
“‘Your husband?’ he asked.
“‘Yes,’ she said, ‘my husband. He’s expected here any minute.’
“My friend walked over to the lamp and extinguished it. Darkness fell. She cried out in alarm, fearing death.
“‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered. ‘Your husband won’t see me if he comes in. The carpet has a deep pile; I can slip out under cover of darkness without posing any danger to you. Now give me the answer to what I asked in the letter.’
“‘I do,’ the darkness whispered. And he, without hearing how these words were uttered, shrank like a child, kissed her legs, and beat the carpet at her feet with his fists, before she pushed him away.
“‘Leave,’ she said, alarmed and annoyed. ‘Leave me!’
“But he didn’t leave. The woman got to her feet, lit a candle, and, having extracted my friend’s letter from her escritoire, she burned it. He watched as though turned to stone, unable to understand what he saw—was this an insult or a caprice? She said:
“‘For me, the past is no different than this ash. It is not for me to revive it. Farewell.’
“Her last word was accompanied by a loud knock at the door. The candle was extinguished. The door opened, and a dark silhouette obscured its bright oblong. My friend and this woman’s husband came face to face. An inviolable silence descended—the sort when a single word would be enough to ruin a life. My friend left, and on the following day he found himself on the deck of a ship. A month later he shot himself.
“As for me, I came
here on board a Dutch trading ship. I decided to make a life for myself here, far away from people—people among whom my friend died. His death came as great shock to me. I’ll stay here a year—maybe more.”
While Horn was telling his story, the girl’s face maintained an expression of unswerving seriousness and concentration. Several turns of phrase had been incomprehensible to her, but Horn’s restrained emotion touched her woman’s intuition.
“It was you who loved her!” she cried, leaping to her feet while Horn fell silent. “You’re trying to trick me. Yes, and I don’t think you did have a friend. But that’s all the same to me.”
Her eyes began to sparkle ever so slightly. Until now it had been impossible to judge whether his tale had left any impression on her unyielding mind. Horn was slow to reply.
“No, it was my friend,” he said.
“There’s no point in trying to trick me,” Esther protested angrily. “Why did you tell me that story?”
“Whether it was or wasn’t me,” said Horn with a shrug of the shoulders, “let’s forget about it. Today I’ve met an exceptional number of people and animals. Look, here comes someone else.”
“Young Dribb,” said Esther. “Dribb, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter!” the giant shouted, reining in the bay mare before Horn’s very face. “I’ve been practicing following tracks, and I must have stumbled upon yours. It means I’ve succeeded, in any case. And who’s this?”
He seemed not to have noticed Horn, though the latter was standing no more than a meter from his stirrups. Horn curiously examined the enormous lumbering mass—a great torso, crowned by a little head, with a round face that looked as though it had been forged from brown iron; an open white smock with pink stripes revealed a hairy chest covered in perspiration. Taken together, all this bespoke a peasant and a bandit; the broad, amiable grin disposed Horn if not agreeably, then at least indifferently.
Fandango and Other Stories Page 11