The train had by now emerged from the mountain passes, and we were moving along beside the spread of Lake Geneva: the waters of Léman, by which some have sat down and wept, and many, many others have sat down and written. There was the castle-prison of Chillon, standing in the lake; then the esplanades of Montreux, where Vladimir Nabokov – God bless him – had written and had died. Very soon there was Vevey, where Charlie Chaplin had died, been buried, and, if I remembered rightly, also been exhumed again, for profit. Then there was a lattice of vineyards, stretching up and down the slopes on either side of the train, not a scrap of space wasted, in the good Swiss way. ‘Lausanne, City of Banking and Culture,’ said the advertisements on the station platform, as we drew in. ‘You see, it is the right place,’ said Ildiko, pointing them out to me as we lifted our luggage down from the train: looking once more for honest, if flexible, Bazlo Criminale.
11
Lausanne was a quite different kind of world . . .
From the moment Ildiko and I stepped down from the Milan express in the station at Lausanne, the good grey city set midway along the great banana that is Lake Geneva, it was clear we had entered a different kind of world. Here everything seemed so sober and Protestant after Vienna, so solid and lasting after Budapest, so very neat and honest after northern Italy. Fine, let the Austrians, with their taste for baroque abandon, celebrate two hundred years of Amadeus in their own Alpine wonderland next door. The Swiss had seven hundred years of mountain democracy, of alphorns and liberty, watches and banks, to celebrate that same year, but they did it without any excess. When I went into the tourist information office in the station concourse, leaving Ildiko to keep guard over our luggage, the girl behind the desk was solemn, dour, and reserved. So were all the maps and guidebooks she handed me. ‘Here it is the quality of life that counts,’ said the first guide I opened, ‘Each district, street, park and shop attempts to outshine the others, but always in the best of good taste and with due moderation.’ No doubt about it; we had definitely arrived in Switzerland
I went back to the station concourse with my tourist trophies, and looked round for Ildiko. Our luggage still stood there, an untidy pile of my rucksack and Ildiko’s plastic-bagged Western purchases, tumbled among the cautious feet of passengers. Of Ildiko herself there was no sign at all. Then I saw her at last, coming towards me through the quiet crowds. I had been away for only a few minutes, but she’d used the time very well. She had already effortlessly acquired several boxes of chocolates, a cheeseknife, two cowbells, a designer watch, and a sweater that said ‘I ♥ Lausanne.’ I asked you to guard the luggage,’ I said. ‘It’s all right, everything is safe here, the Swiss do not steal,’ said Ildiko, ‘Everyone knows that.’ ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere,’ I said. ‘It was all right,’ said Ildiko, ‘I just saw this very little shop, over there. I bought you a sweater, see, so you can remember where you have been. Did you find out where is the hotel of Criminale Bazlo?’
‘It’s at Ouchy,’ I said, ‘down by the lake. The girl said there’s a little cogwheel railway that goes straight down there, right from under the station.’ ‘Do we go there?’ asked Ildiko, gathering up her ever-growing pile of luggage, ‘I think so.’ ‘We might as well take a look,’ I said. ‘I expect it is very good hotel,’ said Ildiko. ‘One of the ten best in Europe,’ I said, ‘Even the gardener’s shed has five stars. Criminale must have been round at the bank already.’ ‘Oh, I think so,’ said Ildiko, as we went down the stairs toward the funicular railway, ‘That is why people come to Switzerland, to come to the bank.’ ‘Even Bazlo Criminale?’ I asked. ‘I know you imagine that Criminale is a great philosopher who does not think about money,’ said Ildiko, ‘But even a wise man needs some, yes, especially when he has found a new girl.’ ‘He could have got it without coming to Lausanne,’ I pointed out. ‘I expect he has some good reasons,’ said Ildiko, ‘Oh, is this the train? Very nice.’
So we boarded one of those jolly Swiss funicular railways, which ran on ropes down the steep hillside from the centre of the grey city to the side of the grey lake. It was called la ficelle, the girl in the travel bureau had explained to me; and as we rode down it occurred to me that this was not the first time in my pursuit of Criminale that I’d been towed across Europe at a curious angle on the end of a string. We rode down between expensive, tidy apartments, with wonderfully kept window-boxes, set in streets of – and how I should have worried – very elegant shops. When the doors of the little train clanged open at the Ouchy terminus, we walked out to find ourselves in full view of the lake. There was the usual steamer pier, with moored at it the usual white Swiss paddle steamer, with its flapping red and white flag. Across the waters we could see, through the fading wintry day, the lights of the French spa of Evian, friend to smart dinner-tables everywhere, and behind it the Savoyard mountains, already dusted white with early snow and awaiting the coming of the skiing season, now not so far away.
I stopped, checked my guidebook, and then led the way across the square, with its statue of General Guisan, who had rallied the Swiss to fight for their neutrality during the Second World War. We passed the façade of the Hotel d’Angleterre, where, a plaque told us, Lord Byron had sat on the terrace in 1816 and written his long sad poem of liberty lost, The Prisoner of Chillon. But that was not what we were looking for. The hotel where Bazlo Criminale was staying, if Cosima Bruckner was right, was a grand affair indeed. There was nothing secretive or inconspicuous about the Hotel Beau Rivage Palace. Its vast, great-balconied façade shone white even in the dusk. The flags of all major nations fluttered on its high flagpoles. Capped chauffeurs buffed every splash and dustmark off the gleaming Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs that stood in its drives. Arabs in white robes swept in and out of its entrance; the Western suits that passed through its portico were clearly handmade. It was a place where peace conferences were held and treaties were signed. I was impressed, and so, plainly, was Ildiko.
This is really quite nice,’ she said, ‘And we are staying here?’ ‘No, Ildiko, we’re not staying here,’ I said, ‘Bazlo Criminale is staying here. To stay here you have to be very rich, very old, and on a diplomatic mission. In fact you probably have to be of royal blood as well.’ ‘Criminale Bazlo is not of royal blood,’ said Ildiko. ‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘He’s into royalties of another kind. But you’re right, his sales have to be doing very nicely. You’d have to sell one hell of a lot of books before you could afford a suite at the Beau Rivage Palace.’ ‘But I like it here,’ said Ildiko. ‘Maybe you do,’ I said, ‘But we’ve come here to investigate Criminale, not share the highlife with him. Anyway, remember the television budget. I’m sorry, Ildiko, but I just don’t happen to be one of the world’s bestselling novelists.’ ‘And if I could find some money myself?’ asked Ildiko. ‘I doubt if they even take forints,’ I said, ‘You saw that plaque back there? Lord Byron wasn’t a man to stint on his comforts, and even he couldn’t afford a room at the Beau Rivage Palace. So let’s go and find somewhere nearby we can actually pay the bill for.’ ‘I hate you,’ said Ildiko, picking up her luggage, ‘I don’t know why you are always so mean.’
Now to be absolutely frank (and you know I can be, when I feel like it), I’ve no doubt I got the next bit badly wrong. But then I got quite a lot of things wrong over the course of my confusing quest for Bazlo Criminale. I’d already had my eye on the Hotel d’Angleterre. It was handily right next door to the place where Criminale was staying, always assuming that Cosima Bruckner had the right information, which I was starting to doubt, and its very name somehow satisfied my feeble but not totally exhausted sense of patriotism. Unluckily, thanks to the fact that Lausanne seemed to be hosting a conference or two at the time, its rooms were already fully booked. So, turned away, we walked on and, somewhere around the corner, almost in view of the lake – if you sat on its pavement, or rather gutter, terrace and leaned forward a little, you got a very decent sight of it – we found another hostelry, the small Hotel Zwingli. There is no doubt it was
not exactly a Grand Hotel, but I felt Lavinia’s breath at my shoulder, and I knew she would wear nothing better. In fact the Zwingli had earned itself no stars in the guidebook at all, and, as things eventually turned out, for very good reason.
Still, it seemed a nice family place: neat, clean, and orderly, in the good Swiss way. The Swiss had, after all, won the world with their tradition of hotelkeeping and hospitality, and one could scarcely go wrong. I went over to the stern young daughter of the house who presided over the cubbyhole of a reception desk; she acknowledged they had vacant rooms and quoted what sounded a reasonable rate. With Ildiko standing crossly beside me, I signed the book (Mr and Mrs Francis Jay), changed some money, lira to Swiss francs, handed over our passports, and asked for a double room. That was when I found out that the Hotel Zwingli did have one or two disadvantages that the better class of guest over at the Beau Rivage Palace, just round the corner, was very probably spared. The girl handed me two keys. ‘No, a double room,’ I said. ‘With nice big double bed,’ said Ildiko. ‘Ah, non, m’sieu,’ said the girl.
‘Non?’ I asked. The girl held up our two passports, one British and one Hungarian, with two unmatching names, and tapped them. ‘Voilà, m’sieu!’ she said triumphantly. ‘But we’re together,’ I said. ‘Ce n’est pas possible, en Suisse,’ said the girl. Now of course I should at that moment have cancelled the contract, and gone looking for something elsewhere along the Ouchy shore, or maybe just handed over a small tip. But I was young then, the hotel was cheap, cheap enough for even Lavinia not to complain, and Bazlo Criminale was just round the corner. ‘Oh, very well, two single rooms then,’ I said, taking the keys. ‘C’est mieux, m’sieu,’ said the girl. ‘Two single rooms, why?’ asked Ildiko, looking at me mystified. ‘Switzerland is a Calvinist country,’ I said. ‘You mean they don’t have sex here?’ asked Ildiko. ‘I’m sure they do,’ I said, ‘There are plenty of them about. But maybe only on Protestant feast days.’ ‘But you don’t like this, do you?’ asked Ildiko, ‘Why don’t you protest? Maybe she likes a little something.’ ‘It’s no use,’ I said, ‘This is a very strict country. They like you to mind your manners. They don’t even let you do your washing on Sundays.’ ‘I did not come to Lake Geneva to do washing,’ said Ildiko, ‘And I did not come here to sleep alone in a single bed either.
I saw the girl at the desk staring at us with deep disapproval; I pulled Ildiko away. ‘It’s very unfortunate,’ I said, ‘but at least they’ve got room for us.’ ‘You think they make Bazlo Criminale and Miss Blasted Belli have two single rooms there at Beau Rivage Palace?’ asked Ildiko. ‘I can’t afford the Beau Rivage Palace,’ I said, ‘And it’s just for a couple of days.’ ‘A couple of days?’ asked Ildiko, ‘You don’t mind to be without me in your bed for a whole couple of days?’ ‘Of course I mind,’ I said. ‘Are you so tired at making love with me?’ asked Ildiko, rather loudly, ‘Don’t you like my body so much any more?’ ‘I love your body,’ I said, glancing at the girl at the desk, who was tapping her pencil furiously, ‘It’s a terrific body, really. But we can meet from time to time . . .’ ‘Where, in the corridor?’ asked Ildiko, ‘What fun.’ ‘Let’s go and unpack,’ I said, turning to the girl at the desk, ‘Where’s the elevator?’ ‘II n’y en a pas,’ said the girl, ‘Par 1’escalier.’ ‘Oh, no lift also?’ asked Ildiko, ‘Wonderful. How lucky the Swiss have at last invented stairs.’
So our visit to Lausanne got off to a less than perfect start, and things remained that way for some little time afterwards. We climbed the stairs, went along one of those dim, ill-lit corridors where the lights go out just at the time when you need them most, and found Ildiko’s room. ‘Just look at it,’ said Ildiko, throwing her bags down furiously on the bed, ‘You call this a nice chamber? I have seen much better in prison. And been treated nicer by the secret police.’ True, the room could have been improved on: it had one small single bed, a tiny bedside table with a bible on it, and on the wall a large stained lithograph of John Knox. The view through the grimy window was of an enclosed, cemented courtyard; the highlight at its centre was a big skip for the collection of dead bottles. ‘It’s not perfect,’ I said. ‘Wonderful, he admits it,’ said Ildiko. ‘But we can put up with it just for a night or two,’ I said, ‘Just while we do what we came for. I have to find out what Bazlo Criminale is up to in Lausanne.’
‘I will tell you what Criminale Bazlo is up to in Lausanne,’ said Ildiko, ‘He is lying in a very big bed with nice covers with his mistress. He is stroking her body and drinking champagne and counting his royalties and thinking about his bankings and enjoying himself very very nicely. And me, I am here, over where they throw the bottles. And I am with you, who doesn’t want to sleep me any more. Where is your room?’ I glanced at the number on my key. ‘It looks as though it’s a couple of floors higher up,’ I said. ‘Go there then, now,’ said Ildiko, ‘I like to take a shower.’ I’ll go and call the Beau Rivage Palace,’ I said. ‘We will move there?’ asked Ildiko. ‘No, Ildiko, we won’t,’ I said, ‘I want to find out if Bruckner is right and he’s really staying there.’ ‘Of course he is there,’ said Ildiko, ‘That is where he would stay, of course. He is a rich Western celebrity, that is how he lives these days.’ ‘You take your shower, and I’ll check,’ I said, ‘And then why don’t we meet on the terrace for a drink before dinner?’ ‘Maybe,’ said Ildiko, ‘I do not know if I will still be here by dinner.’ ‘Ildiko, look, I’m sorry, but it’s just for . . .’ ‘Out, out, go!’ cried Ildiko, pushing me out into the corridor and slamming the door.
I had scarcely reached the foot of the next staircase when her door was flung open again. ‘There is no shower!’ she shouted after me. ‘Try along the corridor,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t want to try along the corridor!’ she cried. A door along the corridor opened and a maid peered out. ‘M’sieu, madame, taisez-vous!’ she said. I had just reached the next landing when I heard her voice shouting up the stairwell again. ‘Francis! No toilet either! Nowhere to take a pee! Pig! Pig! Pig!’ My own room was no more comfortable, and it had, of course, no telephone. I had to go back down to the lobby again and speak to the disapproving girl at the desk, who handed me some jetons and pointed me to a telephone booth in the corner. Under her stern gaze I called the desk at the Beau Rivage Palace. After a complicated conversation I really found out only one thing. Bruckner was right; a Doctor Bazlo Criminale had taken a suite for a few days and was indeed in residence.
I went back to my room, lay on the lumpy bed, and thought for a while. What was honest, if flexible, Bazlo Criminale doing here? He had fled from Barolo and come to Lausanne. With him, I presumed, was Miss Belli. And this time, as I understood it, his trip could hardly be one of his familiar pieces of absent-minded wandering. He must have broken with his past, thrown up his marriage, begun gathering up his Western royalties, and was heading for a new life. This meant he must imagine that no one knew where he was, and wanted to preserve his sweet sexual secret. I needed to move carefully. On the other hand, I wanted to know more. Far from having too little on Criminale, I now seemed to be acquiring almost too much: not just the stuff for a single TV programme, but a whole dramatic series. In fact Criminale now seemed to me a great porridge of confusing stories, an excess of signs, financial and political and historical and sexual, a bulging bundle of obscurities and secrets. I’d now come to see that his past was strange and tricky, in the Eastern European way; but his life in the present didn’t seem to be any clearer either. Why then was he in Lausanne? Fraud appeared to have little to do with it; cash, comfort, Miss Belli and a whole new life seemed answer enough. And if Lavinia wanted life and loves, she would surely get them. I made some notes in my notebook, then went downstairs to look for Ildiko.
She was already sitting on the tiny glazed terrace that lay outside the hotel, wearing the ‘I ♥ Lausanne’ sweater and drinking coffee. I saw when I sat down beside her that her fine Hungarian temper had most definitely not cooled. Early evening darkness was just beginning to settle on the lake
, and though the air was chilly the view was pleasant. The lamps were beginning to sparkle all along the smart promenade, and the lights of Evian twinkled on the further shore, elegantly reflected in the waters of the lake. Skateboarders were skating in the park that lay in front of the steamer pier, and a more exotic nightlife was just beginning to emerge. This was evidently the smart area, the place where the jeunesse dorée of Lausanne chose to gather at this time of day. Bronzed youths and very well-dressed maidens were already out, performing the local version of the Italian corso. Driving round at speed in their Porsches, Audi Quattros and customized Range Rovers, or on their BMW speedbikes, they were calling from car to car at each other and the more attractive samples of the passers-by.
Trying to delight Ildiko a little, though it was plainly going to be a formidable job, I opened up the guidebook and read to her about the delights of Ouchy. ‘“Famous people sit on the terraces to watch the students and pretty girls go by and meet with other locals, or travellers from afar, perhaps experts at an international congress taking time off to savour life,”’ I read. I looked up; Ildiko was already watching some traveller from afar, probably an expert from an international congress, stop a girl in a tight-rumped skirt, give her money, and go off with her up the street. ‘You see that!’ she cried, ‘There is sex in Switzerland. They do it just like everyone else!’ ‘I’m sure,’ I said, ‘They just do it differently.’ ‘So why must I be the only one in a room alone?’ asked Ildiko. This should only take a couple of days,’ I said, ‘I’ve already tracked down Bazlo Criminale.’ ‘So where is he?’ she asked. ‘Cosima was right, he is staying at the Beau Rivage Palace,’ I said. ‘He is, and I am not,’ said Ildiko, ‘You went there? You saw him?’
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