‘I think we ought to go now,’ Mrs Montgomery said.
‘I am afraid something may be going to happen, though of course in my heart of hearts I am sure Doctor Fischer has only been having a little joke with us.’
‘If you would like to send your car home with the chauffeur, I will drive you back and we can discuss your investments on the way.’
‘Surely you will wait till the end of the party?’ Doctor Fischer asked. ‘It won’t be long delayed now.’
‘Oh, it’s been a wonderful last party, but it’s getting too late for little me.’ She fluttered her hands at us. ‘Good-night, General. Good-night, Mr Jones. Wherever is Mr Deane?’
‘On the kitchen floor, I suspect. I hope Albert doesn’t take his cheque. He would certainly give notice and I should lose a good manservant.’
The Divisionnaire whispered to me, ‘Of course, we might just walk away and leave him? If you would come with me. I don’t want to go alone.’
‘In my case I have nowhere to walk to.’
In spite of the whisper Doctor Fischer had heard him.
‘You knew the rules of the game from the start, Divisionnaire. You could have left with Mr Kips before the game started. Now because the odds are not so good you begin to be afraid. Think of your honour as a soldier as well as the prize. There are still two million francs in that tub.’
But the Divisionnaire did not move. He looked at me with the same appeal. When one is afraid one needs company. Doctor Fischer went mercilessly on: ‘If you act quickly the odds are two to one in your favour.’
The Divisionnaire shut his eyes and found his cracker at the first dip, but he still stood irresolute beside the tub.
‘Come back to the table, Divisionnaire, if you are afraid to pull, and give Mr Jones his chance.’
The Divisionnaire looked at me with the sad expressive eyes of a spaniel who tries to hypnotize his master into uttering the magic word ‘walk ‘. I said, ‘I was the first to take out a cracker. I think you should allow me to pull mine first.’
‘Of course. Of course,’ he said. ‘It is your right.’ I watched him until he had returned to the safe distance of the table, carrying his cracker with him.
With my left hand gone it was not easy for me to pull a cracker. While I hesitated I was aware of the Divisionnaire watching me, watching as I thought, with hope. Perhaps he was praying - after all I had seen him at the midnight Mass, he might well be a believer, perhaps he was saying to God, ‘Please, gentle Jesus, blow him up.’ I would probably have made much the same prayer - ‘Let this be the end’ - if I had believed, and didn’t I have at least a half-belief, or why was it that as long as I held the cracker in my hand I felt the closeness of Anna-Luise? Anna-Luise was dead. She could only continue to exist somewhere if God existed. I put one end of the protruding paper tape between my teeth and I pulled with the other end. There was a feeble crack, and I felt as though Anna-Luise had withdrawn her hand from mine and walked away, between the bonfires, down towards the lake to die a second time.
‘Now, Divisionnaire,, Doctor Fischer said, ‘the odds are even.’ I had never hated Fischer so much as I did then. He was taunting us both. He was taunting my disappointment and he was taunting the Divisionnaire’s fear.
‘At last you are facing the enemy’s fire, Divisionnaire. Isn’t it something you have dreamt about during all those long years of our Swiss neutrality?’
I heard the Divisionnaire’s sad voice, while I stood staring at the dead and useless cracker in my hand.
‘I was young then. I’m old now.’
‘But two million francs. I’ve known you a long time, Divisionnaire, and I know how much you value money. You married money, you certainly didn’t marry beauty, but even when your wife died and left you all she had, it didn’t satisfy you, or you wouldn’t have come to my parties. Here’s your chance. Two million francs for showing a little courage. Military courage. Facing fire, Divisionnaire.’
I looked across the grass at the table and I saw that the old man was near to tears. I put my hand in the bran tub and pulled out the last cracker, the cracker which should have been Kips’s. Again I tugged with my teeth and again there was the same small crack no louder than a match striking.
‘What a fool you are, Jones,’ Doctor Fischer said. ‘Where was the hurry? You’ve irritated me all the evening by your mere presence. You aren’t like the others. You aren’t in the picture. You haven’t helped. You prove nothing. It isn’t money you want. You are just greedy for death. I’m not interested in that sort of greed. ‘
The Divisionnaire said, ‘But there’s only my cracker left.’
‘Yes, Divisionnaire, and it’s your turn now all right. No getting out of it. You must play the game to the end. Get up. Put yourself at a safe distance. Unlike Jones I don’t want to die,’ but the old man didn’t move.
‘I can’t shoot you for cowardice in the face of the enemy, but I can promise you the story will be all round Geneva. ‘
I took the two cheques out of the two cylinders and returned with them to the table. I tossed one of the cheques to Fischer. ‘There’s Mr Kips’s share,’ I said, ‘to divide among the others.’
‘You are keeping the other?’
‘Yes.’
He gave me one of his dangerous smiles. ‘After all, Jones, I have hopes of fitting you in the picture. Sit down and have another glass while the Divisionnaire picks up his courage. You are quite well off now. Relatively. In your own eyes. Draw the money out of the bank tomorrow and tuck it safely away, and I really believe that soon you will begin to feel like all the others. I might even start the parties again if only to watch your greed growing. Mrs Montgomery, Belmont, Kips, Deane, they were much like they are now when I first knew them. But I shall have created you. Just as much as God created Adam. Divisionnaire, your time’s up. Don’t keep us waiting any more. The party’s over, the bonfires are going out, it’s getting cold, and it’s time for Albert to clear the table.’
The Divisionnaire sat silent, his old head bowed towards the cracker on the table. I thought, He is really crying (I couldn’t see his eyes), crying for the lost dream of heroism that i suppose every young soldier goes to bed with.
‘Be a man, Divisionnaire.’
‘How you must despise yourself,’ I said to Doctor Fischer. I don’t know what made me say those words. It was as though they had been whispered in my ear, and I had simply passed them on. I pushed the cheque down the table towards the Divisionnaire. I said, ‘I’ll buy your cracker for two million francs. Give it me.’
‘No. No.’ He was hardly audible, but he didn’t resist when I drew the cracker from his fingers.
‘What do you mean, Jones?’
I couldn’t bother to answer Doctor Fischer - I was on more important business - and anyway I didn’t know the answer. The answer hadn’t been given me by whoever had given me the words.
‘Stop where you are, damn you. Tell me, what in Christ’s name do you mean?’
I was far too happy to reply for I had the Divisionnaire’s cracker in my fingers and I walked away from the table down the slope of the lawn towards the lake, the direction which I had imagined Anna-Luise taking. The Divisionnaire buried his face in his hands as I passed; the gardeners had gone, and the bonfires were dying. ‘Come back,’ Doctor Fischer called after me, ‘come back, Jones. I want to talk to you.’
I thought: When it comes to the point he’s afraid too. I suppose he wants to avoid a scandal. But I wasn’t going to help him over that. This was a death which belonged to me, it was my child, my only child, and it was Anna-Luise’s child too. No skiing accident could rob the two of us of the child I held in my hand. I wasn’t lonely any longer - they were the lonely ones, the Divisionnaire and Doctor Fischer, sitting at opposite ends of the long table, waiting to hear the sound of my death.
I went down to the very edge of the lake, where the slope of the lawn would hide me from both of them, and for the third time, but this time with complete confidence
, I took the tape between my teeth and pulled the cracker with my right hand.
The silly insignificant crack and the silence which followed told me how utterly I had been fooled. Doctor Fischer had stolen my death and humiliated the Divisionnaire; he had proved his point about the greed of his rich friends, and he was sitting at the table laughing at both of us. It had certainly been a good last party as far as he was concerned.
I couldn’t hear his laughter at this distance. What I heard was the pad and the squeak of footsteps in the snow as they came along the edge of the lake. Whoever it was stopped abruptly when he saw me - all I could make out was a black suit against the white snow. I asked, ‘Who are you?’
‘Why, it’s Mr Jones,’ a voice said. ‘Surely it’s Mr Jones. ‘
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve forgotten me. I’m Steiner.’
‘Why on earth are you here?’
‘I couldn’t stand it any more.’
‘Stand what?’
‘What he did to her.’
At that moment my mind was occupied with Anna-Luise and I had no idea what he meant. Then I said, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it now.’
He said, ‘I heard about your wife. I am very sorry. She was so like Anna. When I heard she had died it was just as though Anna had died all over again. You must forgive me. I am talking clumsily.’
‘No. I can understand what you felt.’
‘Where is he?’
‘If you mean Doctor Fischer, he’s been playing his best and final joke and he’s up there laughing to himself, I imagine.’
‘I’ve got to go and see him.’
‘What for?’
‘When I was in that hospital I had a lot of time to think. It was seeing your wife which made me start to think. Seeing her in the shop was like Anna come alive. I had too much accepted things - he was so powerful - he had invented Dentophil Bouquet - he was a bit like God Almighty - he could take away my job - he could even take away Mozart. I never wanted to listen to Mozart after she died. You must understand, please, for her sake. We were never really lovers, but he made innocence dirty. Now I want to get near enough to him to spit in God Almighty’s face.’
‘It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it?’
‘It’s never too late to spit at God Almighty. He lasts for ever and ever, amen. And he made us what we are.’
‘Perhaps he did, but Doctor Fischer didn’t.’
‘He made me what I am now.’
‘Oh,’ I said - I was impatient with the little man who had broken my solitude - ‘go up there then and spit. A lot of good may it do you.’
He looked away from me up the slope of the lawn which we could barely distinguish now in the dying light of the fires, but as it happened Mr Steiner didn’t have to climb up the slope to find Doctor Fischer, for Doctor Fischer came climbing down to us, climbing slowly and laboriously, watching his own feet, which sometimes slid on an icy patch.
‘Here he comes,’ I said, ‘so you had better get your spit ready.’
We stood there waiting and it seemed an interminable time before he reached us. He stopped a few feet away and said to me, ‘I didn’t know you were here. I thought by this time you had probably gone away. They’ve all gone away. The Divisionnaire’s gone.’
‘With his cheque?’
‘Of course. With his cheque.’ He peered through the dark at my companion. He said, ‘You’re not alone. Who is this man? ‘
‘His name is Steiner.’
‘Steiner?’ I had never before seen Doctor Fischer at a loss. It was as though he had left half his mind behind him at the table. He seemed to look towards me for help, but I gave him none.
‘Who’s Steiner? What’s he doing here? He had the air of searching a long time for something which he had mislaid, like a man turning over the objects in a cluttered drawer, seeking a cheque book or a passport.
‘I knew your wife,’ Mr Steiner said. ‘ You made Mr Kips dismiss me. You ruined both our lives.’
After he had spoken the three of us stood there, silent in the darkness and the snow. It was as though we were all waiting for something to happen, but not one of us knew what it would be: a jeer, a blow, a simple turning away. It was the moment for Mr Steiner to act, but he did nothing. Perhaps he knew his spit wouldn’t carry far enough.
At last I said, ‘Your party was a great success.’
‘Yes?’
‘You managed to humiliate us all. What are you going to do next?’
‘I don’t know.’
Again I had the impression that he was looking to me for help. He said, ‘There was something you said just now… ‘It was incredible, the great Doctor Fischer of Geneva, looking to Alfred Jones to help him remember - what?
‘How you must have laughed when I bought the last cracker, and you knew that all I would get was a little fart when I pulled it.’
He said, ‘I didn’t mean to humiliate you.’
‘It was an extra dividend for you, wasn’t it?’
He said, ‘I hadn’t planned it that way. You are not one of them,’ and he muttered their names: a sort of roll call of the Toads. ‘Kips, Deane, Mrs Montgomery, the Divisionnaire, Belmont, and there were those two who died.’
Mr Steiner said, ‘You killed your wife.’
‘I didn’t kill her.’
‘She died because she didn’t want to live. Without love.’
‘Love? I don’t read love stories, Steiner.’
‘But you love your money, don’t you?’
‘No. Jones will tell you tonight how I gave most of it away.’
‘What are you going to live for now, Fischer?’ I asked. ‘I don’t think any of your friends will come back.’
Doctor Fischer said, ‘Are you so sure that I want to live? Do you want to live? You didn’t seem to when you took those crackers. Does what’s-his-name Steiner want to live? Yes, perhaps you both do. Perhaps when it comes to the point I have an inclination to live too. Or what am I doing standing here?’
‘You had your fun tonight anyway,’ I said.
‘Yes. It was better than nothing. Nothing is a bit frightening, Jones.’
‘It was a strange revenge you took,’ I said.
‘What revenge?’
‘All because one woman despised you, you had to despise all the world.’
‘She didn’t despise me. Perhaps she hated me. No one will ever be able to despise me, Jones.’
‘Except yourself.’
‘Yes - I remember now that was what you said.’
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
He said, ‘It was a disease I caught when you came into my life, Steiner. I should have told Kips to double your salary and I could have presented Anna with all the Mozart records she wanted. I could have bought you and her, like I bought all the others - except you, Jones. It’s too late now to buy you. What is the time?’
‘Past midnight,’ I said.
‘Time to sleep.’
He stood a moment in thought and then he set off, but not in the direction of the house. He continued walking slowly along the lawn by the lakeside, until he was out of sight and sound in the silence of the snow. Even the waters of the lake didn’t break the silence: there was no tide to lap on the shore below us.
‘Poor man,’ Steiner said.
‘You are very charitable, Mr Steiner. I’ve never hated a man more.’
‘You hate him and I suppose I hate him too. But hate - it isn’t important. Hate isn’t contagious. It doesn’t spread. One can hate one man and leave it there. But when you begin to despise like Doctor Fischer, you end by despising all the world.’
‘I wish you had done what you planned and spat in his face.’
‘I couldn’t. You see - when it came to the point - I pitied him.’
How I wished Fischer had been there to hear how he was pitied by Mr Steiner.
‘It’s too cold standing around,’ I said, ‘we’ll catch our death…’ But wasn’t that, I thought, what I w
anted to do? If! stayed long enough. A sharp sound tore the thought in two.
‘What was that?’ Steiner said. ‘A car back-firing?’
‘We are too far from the road for that.’
We only had to walk a hundred yards before we came on Doctor Fischer’s body. The revolver which he must have carried in his pocket lay beside his head. The snow was already absorbing the blood. I put out my hand to take the gun - it might, I thought, serve my turn too - but Mr Steiner stopped me. ‘Leave that to the police, ‘ he said. I looked at the body and it had no more significance than a dead dog. This, I thought, was the bit of rubbish I had once compared in my mind with Jehovah and Satan.
17
The fact that I have written this narrative tells well enough that, unlike Doctor Fischer, I never found the courage necessary to kill myself; that night I hadn’t needed courage, for I had a sufficiency of despair, but since the inquest demonstrated that the revolver had contained only one charge, my despair would not have served me even if Mr Steiner had not taken possession of the weapon. Courage is sapped by day-to-day mind-dulling routine, and despair deepens so much every day one lives, that death seems in the end to lose its point. I had felt Anna-Luise close to me when I held the whisky in my hand and again when I pulled the cracker with my teeth, but now I had lost all hope of ever seeing her in any future. Only if I had believed in a God could I have dreamt that the two of us would ever have that jour le plus long. It was as though my small half-belief had somehow shrivelled with the sight of Doctor Fischer’s body. Evil was as dead as a dog and why should goodness have more immortality than evil? There was no longer any reason to follow Anna-Luise if it was only into nothingness. As long as I lived I could at least remember her. I had two snapshots of her and a note in her hand written to make an appointment before we lived together; there was the chair which she used to sit in, and the kitchen where she had jangled the plates before we bought the machine. All these were like the relics of bone they keep in Roman Catholic churches. Once as I boiled myself an egg for my supper, I heard myself repeating a line which I had heard spoken by a priest at the midnight Mass at Saint Maurice: ‘As often as you do these things you shall do them in memory of me.’ Death was no longer an answer - it was an irrelevance.
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