The frigidity with which she spoke this terrified me.
'Fine,' I said. 'Perhaps you'll come and have lunch with me
at the hotel?'
She shook her head. She was bitter, so bitter. Then she
said: 'We'll just take a walk ...'
'Yes?'
'We could go over the hills ... to Ravello.'
Ravello was a name I recognised. It was in the old
house high up in Ravello that Wagner had composed
Parsifal. It was just before his death; Parsifal was Wagner's
last opus.
I didn't try to draw her out further, it was too painful for
her. I had no strength left either. I'd been unable to say a
word at my mother's funeral, that was disgraceful. Since
then I'd been caught up in a maze, a maze of my own
making, my own prison. I had built that labyrinth myself,
but now I no longer knew how to find my way out of it.
I said: 'I've lived a miserable, empty life. You're the only
person I've really cared for, you're the only person I really
like.'
She went into another flood of tears. People had begun to
throw glances in our direction.
A thought streaked through my brain, it was a straw to
clutch at. 'You said yesterday that you'd tell me about your
father,' I said. 'Do you remember?'
She shivered. Then she thought for a few moments, but
her only reply was: 'I've said enough.'
For one brief second she leant up against me, resting her
head beneath my chin in the way a puppy sometimes lies
close into its mother because the world is just too large.
After all the tears and emotions I was again filled with
tenderness towards her. I put my arms around her and kissed
her brow, but she pulled away in one powerful movement
and gave me a sharp slap, and then another. I couldn't tell if
she was angry, I couldn't tell if she was smiling. She simply
disengaged herself and was gone.
*
I had no dinner, I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in the
dining-room, but luckily I had some biscuits and a packet of
peanuts in my room. I seated myself at the desk and went on
with my life-story. It was a way of collecting my thoughts,
of calming down. I wrote of my meeting with Beate in
Amalfi and of our trips to Pontone and Pogerola.
I have been sitting here for hours, the time is two a.m.
I've stood for a while in front of the window looking down
at the sea beating in towards the Torre Saracena. The little
man is still wandering about the room. As he walks he waves
his bamboo cane and cries 'Swish, swish!' Though I try not
to let it, Metre Man's restlessness is naturally taking its toll on
me.
It's two-thirty. Again, I've thought through all that's hap-
pened during these past few days, and especially what
happened with Beate this evening. I feel cold.
It's three a.m. Something terrible is dawning on me. It's
as if I've committed a murder, it's like waking up after
running down and killing a child while drunk at the wheel.
I'm cold, I feel nauseous.
I can't tell if my imagination is playing a trick on me
again. I try to put down what I'm thinking, but my hands
are trembling. She said her mother just dropped dead on her
birthday, and only a few weeks later I met Beate in Amalfi.
It can't be true, my imagination must be playing another
trick on me.
My heart is hammering in my chest. I've been out to the
bathroom and had some water from the tap, but I still feel
nauseated.
What did she mean when she called me a monster? It was
because of Writers' Aid, wasn't it? Or was she referring to
something else? I don't even dare to follow the thought
through. I could never have brought myself to end one of
my own synopses with anything so vile. It would have
surpassed even my imagination.
Why aren't we supposed to meet again? She couldn't
speak it, but she hinted that one of us had to die. I thought
she was being hysterical. I asked her to talk about her father.
It was just to gain time, but she was startled and claimed
she'd said enough.
I feel sick, and it's not the thought of Beate, or even the
thought of our intimacy up in the Valley of the Mills that has
made me feel wretched. I am the object of my own disgust, I
feel sick at the mere thought of myself.
I've been out to the bathroom again and drunk more
water. I stood there a long while looking at my own
reflection. I had to struggle not to retch into the sink. I,
too, have high cheekbones. And I've also got something of
my mother's eyes.
It's four o'clock. I've started a cold sweat. Life has shrivelled
and shrunk, all that's left of it is skin and bone.
I'd pinned every hope for the future on Beate and now
it's all gone.
It was when I told the story of the ringmaster's daughter
that she really tensed up. She said that I shouldn't have told
the story, that it was stupid, terribly stupid. She didn't say
that she'd heard the story before, but perhaps that was what
she meant. She hinted that I should never have told the tale
of the ringmaster's daughter all those years ago. If she hadn't
managed to remember the story herself, her mother would
certainly have jogged her memory about the funny man
who'd helped her into her dress and told her about the
little girl who'd got separated from her daddy deep in the
Swedish forests.
Poor Maria has passed away now. She died on 19
February on her fifty-eighth birthday. She wasn't ill, but
her life just wasn't meant to continue. She was twenty-nine
when Beate was born, and now Beate's twenty-nine. It
couldn't be mere coincidence.
Maria was only meant to survive until her daughter was
precisely the same age as she'd been when she'd so rashly
allowed herself to be seduced by The Spider. Then, both she
and her daughter would meet their nemesis, a sentence of
shame that was as logical as it was inevitable. At the same
time, I would suffer humiliation, too. And thus we'd all be
reunited in ignominy and disgrace. I knew from previous
experience that ogres and demons were only too adept at
working in unison.
I may hear more about Wilhelmine Wittmann tomorrow.
But even now I realise that it must be Beate who's been
hiding behind that strange pseudonym. That was her secret.
There were enough stories to share during the long years
Maria and her daughter lived together. Perhaps some of
them had been bedtime stories, for I'd told Maria some nice
fairy tales, too. So, the stories I'd conjured up for Maria had
assumed a life of their own, and now Beate had begun to
take them one by one, first Das Schachgeheimnis and then
Dreifach Mord post-mortem. Maria sent no token until her
daughter had grown into an adult, literate woman.
She'd been a bit bashful when she told me she wrote, and
I should be the world's number one expert in that sort of
difference. I suppose you feel a trifle awkward publishing a
story as your own, when the truth is that it's been snatched
from the lips of another person.
Triple Murder Post-mortem. I start, I'm scared by own title.
In a way all three of us have already felt the swish of death's
scythe. But there are two of us left, three including Metre
Man.
I'll have to beg to be allowed to raise up the poor circus girl
who's collapsed in the ring. She sank into the sawdust and
the ringmaster violated her there. After all those years in
exile she'd found her way back to her father, but he'd shown
so little understanding of the ways of destiny that he'd
desecrated her. He had already run away from the great
book circus in Bologna. There would be no more perform-
ances.
Maybe in a few hours' time I'll hear the story of a mother
and a little girl of almost three who lived for a while in
Sweden, but who soon left and moved to Germany. Or
perhaps they never lived in Sweden, perhaps the ring-
master's daughter was born in Germany; Maria's parents
were living there at the time, that was another thing I'd
forgotten.
The mistake was that I wasn't kept informed. It was
Maria's fateful attempt to get far enough away from the
monstrous silk mill, to prevent The Spider ever sinking his
fangs into her again. I wasn't even allowed to know the girl's
name, that was a dreadful mistake. Every father should know
the name of his own daughter.
Another mistake was of more recent origin, and it had
been mine. I'd completely fallen for Luigi's prattle about
a conspiracy of downtrodden writers. As a result I hadn't
introduced myself to Beate properly. The thought that I
should ever meet 'Poppet' again hadn't even crossed my
mind. I'd hardly even considered how old the little girl must
be now, let alone visualised her as a grown-up woman.
It is night, but still I occasionally hear the sound of a scooter
down on the coast road. I've been standing for a while
watching the light from a boat moving far out. Now and
then the lantern disappears in the trough between waves and
then appears again. There's a crescent moon, but even
though it's on the wane, it sheds a broad stripe of silver
across the sea.
I have seated myself at the desk once more. I sit staring
at a ridiculous coat-stand in the bedroom. It looks like a
scarecrow and makes me feel like a small bird.
All I want is to be a human being. I just want to look at
the birds and the trees and hear the children laugh. I want to
be part of the world, put all fantasy behind me and just be
part of it. First I must ask permission to be something as
commonplace as a father to my own daughter. Perhaps she'll
see no alternative but to break off all contact with me. I
wouldn't find that hard to understand. I'm guilty, but isn't
there a slight difference between subjective and objective
guilt? What I did to 'Poppet' was careless, but it wasn't
wilful.
It's turned five. I've no strength left. That doesn't matter,
because I've nothing left to defend.
The ice has begun to crack and the cold, dark depths
beneath are opening up. There'll be no more pirouettes.
From now on I must learn to swim in deep water.
Metre Man is wearing an almost solemn expression and has
taken up position in front of the fireplace. It's the first time
I've ever seen him rest his cane on his shoulder as if it were a
heavy burden. He looks up at me and says: 'And now? Are we
going to remember now?'
But I think it's impossible to have a clear recollection of
something that happened when I was just three years old. I
look down at the diminutive figure and say: 'I can't say it
with words. I've forgotten the language I spoke then. A
small boy is calling to me in a language I no longer under-
stand.'
'But you remember something?' the little man asks.
'It's like a film,' I say. 'It's like a few frames of cine-film.'
'We must write the synopsis of that little clip, then,' Metre
Man says.
I swallow. But this will be the very last synopsis, I think,
as my fingers begin to tap:
Oslo in the mid-1950s, autumn. Three-year-old Petter lives in a
modern block of flats with his mother and father. His father has a
job in the central tram depot, and his mother works part-time at the
City Hall.
Stills of family idyll, ten or twelve seconds from a picnic at Lake
Sognsvann, Sunday outing to Ullev�lseter etc. Stills of mother and
father greeting the new neighbour on the ground floor. He's got a
Labrador.
Early morning: father and Petter are in the hall with their coats
on. Mother (in her dressing-gown) emerges from the kitchen with
packed lunches for both of them. She puts Petter's inside the little
blue kiddie's satchel that hangs on his shoulder and does it up. She
fondles Petter, kneels down and kisses his cheek. Mother gets up
again, gives father a light kiss on the lips and hopes he'll have a
good day.
Father and Petter on the bus. Petter asks why he has to go to
nursery school. Father says that he has to go to work to make sure
all the trams are working properly, and mum must go to the
launderette to wash clothes and visit the hairdresser's too. Petter says
that he could accompany his mother to the launderette and
hairdresser, but father says that Petter has got to go to work as
well. Petter's job is to be at the nursery school and play with the
other children. Father thinks a bit and then assures his son that
children's play is just as important as adults' work.
When they get to the nursery school, they find a notice pinned to
the door saying that the nursery school is closed because both the
nursery assistants are ill. Father reads the note out loud to Petter.
He takes his hand and says that he'll bring him back to Mum.
They go into a delicatessen and buy fresh rolls, slices of saveloy
sausage, some pickled gherkins and a hundred grams of vegetable
mayonnaise. Father says that he hasn't time to eat this lovely lunch
himself, but it's for Petter and Mum.
Father and Petter on the bus again. Both are in high spirits,
Petter presses his face to the window and looks out at all the people,
cars (at least one taxi), bicycles and a steam-roller (i.e. the big, wide
world outside the nuclear family).
On the way from the bus stop father begins to whistle the tune
'Smile' from the Chaplin film Modern Times.
They walk up the stairs of the block, Petter is looking forward to
getting home to mother. Father unlocks the flat door. Mother comes
rushing out of the living-room hugging her dressing-gown. She's
horrified and almost stark naked. Pandemonium.
Petter's POV, from three feet above ground level: father and
mother scream and yell and say horrible things to each other. Petter
screams too, trying to drown out the grown-up
s. He flees into the
living-room where he finds their new neighbour getting up off the
large rug. He's got no clothes on either, they're lying in a heap on a
Persian pouffe in front of a teak shelf on which is an old radio set
(Radionette), but he covers himself with a musical score (i.e. the
anthology Opera Without Words).
Scene like something from the silent films, with much shouting
and cursing (Petter's PO V), but without discernible words. Mother
and father have entered the living-room. Father hits mother, causing
her to fall and bang her head against an old white piano. Blood
begins to trickle from her mouth. The neighbour tries to intervene,
but father rips the phone out of its socket and hurls it in his face.
Neighbour clutches his nose. Everyone is crying and screaming, even
Petter. The only thing that can be heard is bad language, some of it
very bad. Petter tries to outdo the adults by using the rudest words
he knows.
Petter starts crying. He rushes out on to the landing and down
to the ground floor. He goes out into the courtyard and rings
all the bells, the whole time screaming: 'POLICE CAR,
FIRE ENGINE, AMBULANCE! POLICE CAR,
FIRE ENGINE, AMBULANCE!'
He runs back into the lobby and down the steps to the cellar.
BOMB SHELTER is printed in green, luminous letters above
the cellar door. Petter opens it and creeps behind some bicycles. He
cowers there without making a sound.
Petter is still crouching behind the bikes. A long time has elapsed.
Mother comes into the cellar and finds him behind the bicycles.
Both are in floods of tears.
The boy can't remember any more, and I can't force him. I
can't even be sure if what the boy remembers is true.
Metre Man has dropped his cane on the floor, or perhaps
he has laid down his wayfarer's staff for good, because he
doesn't pick it up again. He just stands there staring up at me
with a wistful, almost dismal air. Then he says: 'We'll say no
more about it now!'
The next second he's gone, and I know I'll never see him
again.
I'm looking down at a floor covered with tiles. They're
alternately red and olive green. I've begun to count them.
I've picked out a square of four tiles in the middle of the
floor. They lie there glowing so richly on their own that
they seem to outdo the rest of the floor, but they are too
tedious to concentrate on for long. I isolate nine tiles, three
by three is nine. This too is dull. How could nine ceramic
tiles have anything to tell me? I've marked out a square of
sixteen tiles, each individual tile is part of a greater whole.
They don't know it themselves, but I do. It's irrelevant
anyway, because I've already picked out a square of twenty-
five tiles. I write B, E, A, T and E on the five topmost tiles. I
try to make a magic square out of the five letters. I try it with
M, A, R, I and A too, but both are so complicated that I
decide to postpone it until I've got more time.
The floor is so big that I have no difficulty in forming a
square of thirty-six tiles � I only need to kick a pair of shoes
out of the way. These thirty-six tiles belong to the hotel, but
their deeper significance is mine. It's unlikely that any hotel
guest has noticed this harmonious square before me. It is I
who have elevated it to a higher plane, to the realms of
thought and contemplation. This deeper perspective is not
on the floor but safely stored within my own head. The
thirty-six tiles on the floor can draw an imaginary enclosure
from my soul. It's generous of me, I think, to keep track
of them. I move my eyes across the thirty-six tiles, hori-
zontally, vertically and diagonally. The tiles can't feel me
running over them with my eyes. I have begun to con-
centrate on tile thirteen, it's the first tile in the third row. It
has a small chip in the bottom right-hand corner, but it
needn't worry about that, I think. There's barely a tile on
the floor that doesn't have a blemish of some kind. The tiles
are lying on their backs with their faces in the air, and
The Ringmaster's Daughter Page 22