by Joël Dicker
The waitresses applauded each other in the wake of this ringing endorsement.
“Now let’s do a test!” Tamara said, making no attempt to hide her excitement. “I’m going to sit at the table. Pretend I’m him.”
Tamara sat at Table 17 and nonchalantly snapped her fingers. Mindy rushed to the table in such a panic that she almost tripped over her feet.
“Yes, Mr Kew-burrrt?” she called.
“Mindy, for God’s sake! He’s a famous writer, not a farmer! It’s pronounced Kuh-bear. Like in French. You know why? Because he is a refined gentleman! Kuh-bear. Repeat after me: Kuh-bear. It should be pronounced with grace and delicacy. Kuh-bear. As if he were the King of France. Alright girls, go ahead …”
The chorus of waitresses croaked like frogs: “Kuh-bear. Kuh-bear. Kuh-bear.”
Tamara, nodding, congratulated her obedient employees:
“Very good, girls. You see—you can do it when you put your minds to it.”
Tamara Quinn was not the only one thrown into a state of excitement by the presence of Harry Quebert in Somerset; the whole town was abuzz. Some people said he was famous in New York, and others agreed with this so as not to seem uncultivated. Ernie Pinkas, who had made several copies of Harry’s first novel available in the library, said he had never heard of him, but nobody paid heed to a factory worker who knew nothing about New York high society. And, above all, everyone agreed that not just anybody could have moved into the magnificent house at Goose Cove, which had not been rented for years.
Harry Quebert also aroused great excitement among young women of marriageable age, and sometimes even their parents. Because Harry Quebert was single. He was a man in search of love, and his reputation, his intellectual capacities, his wealth, and his physical attributes made him a catch. At Clark’s, the entire staff quickly understood that Jenny Quinn—a pretty, sexy blonde, and a former cheerleader and prom queen at Somerset High School—had a crush on Harry. Jenny, who worked at Clark’s every weekday, was the only waitress to disobey the memo brazenly; she flirted with Harry, talked to him constantly, interrupted his work, and never brought all his condiments to him at one time. Jenny didn’t work weekends; on Saturdays Nola filled in.
The chef rang the service bell, tearing Nola from her thoughts. Harry’s toast was ready. She put the plate on her tray; before going back out, she fiddled with the yellow clip that held her hair in place, then proudly pushed the door open. She had been in love for two weeks.
She took Harry’s order to him. Clark’s was slowly filling up.
“Enjoy your meal, Mr Quebert,” she said.
“Call me Harry …”
“Not here,” she whispered. “Mrs Quinn doesn’t want us to.”
“She’s not here. No-one will know …”
She indicated the other customers with her eyes, then went on with her work.
Harry took a bite of his toast and scribbled a few lines in his notebook. He wrote the date: Saturday, June 14, 1975. He filled up the pages without really being aware of what he was writing. During the three and a half weeks he’d been here, he had not managed to begin his novel. The ideas that had come to him had not led anywhere, and the harder he tried, the less he succeeded. He felt as if he were slowly sinking, suffering from the worst affliction imaginable for people of his kind: He had contracted the writers’ disease. Each day, his fear of the blank page grew stronger, to the point where he doubted the merits of having moved here. He was sacrificing all his savings to rent that impressive beach house until September—the writer’s house he had always dreamed of—but what good was that if he didn’t know how to write? When he had signed the rental contract, his plan had seemed infallible to him: write a damn good novel, enough of which he would have completed by September to submit to major New York publishing houses, who would all be so dazzled by it that they would enter into a bidding war. They would pay him a significant advance to finish the book, his financial future would be guaranteed, and he would become the famous author he had always imagined himself to be. But already his dream was turning to ashes: He had not yet written a single line. At this rate, he would have to return to New York in the fall, penniless and bookless, and beg the principal of the high school where he had taught to take him back, and forget his hopes of glory forever. He might also have to work as a night watchman so he could put a little money aside.
He watched Nola chatting with the other customers. She was radiant. He heard her laugh, and he wrote:
Nola. Nola. Nola. Nola. Nola.
N-O-L-A. N-O-L-A.
N-O-L-A. Four letters that had turned his world upside down. Nola, the sweet girl who had made his head spin from the moment he first saw her. N-O-L-A. Two days after he had met her on the beach, he had seen her again in front of the general store; together, they had walked down the main street to the marina.
“Everyone says you’ve come to Somerset to write a book,” she said.
“That’s true.”
“Oh, that’s so exciting! You’re the first author I’ve ever met! There are so many questions I’d like to ask you.”
“Like what?”
“How do writers write?”
“It’s something that just happens. Ideas swirl around your head until they become sentences that gush out onto paper.”
“It must be wonderful to be a writer!”
He had looked at her, and he had fallen head over heels in love.
N-O-L-A. She had told him she worked at Clark’s on Saturdays, and the following Saturday, at first light, he was there. He had spent the day there, watching her, admiring her every gesture. Then he remembered that she was only fifteen years old, and he felt ashamed. If anyone in the town came to suspect what he felt for the little waitress at Clark’s, he would be in serious trouble. He might even end up in prison. So, to soothe their suspicions, he started eating lunch at Clark’s every day. It was now a week that he had been a Clark’s regular, coming in every day to work, feigning indifference, pretending that there was nothing to his being there. Nobody must know that on Saturdays his heart beat faster. And every day, wherever he worked—on the deck at Goose Cove, at Clark’s—all he was ever able to write was her name. Whole pages that he tore out and burned in his metal trash can. If anyone ever saw what he was writing, he would be finished.
*
Around noon, Nola was relieved by Mindy in the middle of the lunchtime rush, which was unusual. She approached Harry’s table, accompanied by a man who had arrived late in the morning and had ordered an iced tea at the counter.
“Goodbye, Mr Quebert,” Nola said. “I’m finished for today. I just wanted to introduce you to my father, Reverend David Kellergan.”
Harry stood up and the two men exchanged a friendly handshake.
“So you’re the famous writer,” Kellergan smiled.
“And you must be the pastor I’ve heard so much about,” Harry said.
David Kellergan looked amused. “Don’t pay any attention to what folks say. They always exaggerate.”
Nola took a leaflet from her pocket and handed it to Harry.
“It’s the end-of-year high school show today, Mr Quebert. That’s why I have to leave early. It’s at five o’clock. Would you like to come?”
“Nola, leave poor Mr Quebert in peace,” her father gently chided her. “Why would he want to see the high school show?”
Harry thanked Nola for her invitation and said goodbye. Through the window, he watched her disappear around the corner, then he went back to Goose Cove to lose himself once more in his mess of papers.
*
It was 2 p.m. He had been sitting at his desk for two hours, and had written nothing. His eyes were riveted to his watch. He should absolutely not go to the high school. But no walls or fears of prison could stop his wanting to be with her; Harry’s body was enclosed in Goose Cove, but his mind danced on the beach with Nola. Three o’clock came. And then four. He clung to his pen to prevent himself from leaving his office. She was fifteen year
s old.
At 4.50 p.m., Harry, elegant in a dark suit, entered the high school auditorium. The room was packed; the whole town was there. As he moved past the rows of seats, he had the feeling that everybody was whispering about him, that the parents whose eyes he met were saying: I know why you’re here. Randomly choosing a row, he sank deep down into a seat so that nobody could see him.
The show began. There was a god-awful choir, and then a jazz ensemble that had no swing. There were dancers with no rhythm, a soulless duet, and soloists who couldn’t sing. Then the lights went out, and the only thing that could be seen in the darkness was the halo of a spotlight on the stage. And she walked into it, dressed in a blue sequined dress that made her sparkle and shine. There was a hushed silence; she sat on a stool, checked her hair clip, and adjusted the microphone that had been placed in front of her. She then smiled dazzlingly at the audience, picked up a guitar, and burst into a rendition of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in a version she had arranged.
The audience watched and listened, openmouthed, and in that moment Harry realized that by sending him to Somerset, fate had propelled him toward Nola Kellergan. Perhaps his destiny was not to be a writer, but to be loved by this amazing young woman? He couldn’t imagine a more wonderful fate. He was so overcome that, when the show ended, he stood up amid the applauding spectators and fled. He went straight back to Goose Cove, sat on the deck, and—swallowing large shots of whiskey—began frenetically writing her name. He no longer knew what he should do. Leave Somerset? But to go where? Back to the noise and chaos of New York? He had made a commitment to rent this house for four months, and had already paid half of the money. He had come here to write a book; he could not just give up. He had to get a grip on himself and behave like a writer.
When he had written so much that his wrist hurt and drunk so much whiskey that his head spun, he went miserably down to the beach and slumped against a large rock to contemplate the horizon. Suddenly he heard sounds behind him.
“Harry? Harry, what’s happened to you?”
It was Nola, in her blue dress. She ran toward him and knelt on the sand.
“What is it? Are you in pain?”
“What … what are you doing here?” was all the response he could muster.
“I waited for you after the show. I saw you get up during the ovation, and I couldn’t find you afterward. Why did you leave so suddenly?”
“You can’t stay here, Nola.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been drinking. I mean, I’m a bit drunk. I regret it now. If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve stayed sober.”
“Why were you drinking? You look sad …”
She nestled against him, and her bright eyes penetrated his.
“The solitude is killing me, Nola.”
“I’m going to keep you company, then.”
“You can’t …”
“I want to. Unless I’m bothering you.”
“You could never bother me.”
“Harry, why are writers such lonely people? Hemingway, Melville … they’re the loneliest men in the world!”
“I don’t know whether it’s that writers are lonely or whether it’s loneliness that makes them write …”
“And why do all writers commit suicide?”
“Not all writers commit suicide. Only writers whose books aren’t read.”
“I read your book. I borrowed it from the library, and I read it in a single night! I loved it! You are a truly great writer, Harry! Harry … this afternoon, I sang for you. That song, it was for you.”
He smiled and looked at her. She stroked his hair tenderly and repeated: “You are a truly great writer, Harry. Don’t feel lonely. I’m here.”
25
About Nola
“How does one become a writer, Harry?”
“By never giving up. You know, Marcus, that freedom—the desire for freedom—is a war in itself. We live in a society of defeated office workers, and to get ourselves out of this fix, we must fight—against ourselves and against the whole world. Freedom is a constant battle of which we are barely even aware. I will never give up.”
The drawback to small, isolated towns is that all they have are volunteer fire departments, which are slower to react than professional ones. On the evening of June 20, while I watched the flames roar from the Corvette and spread to the detached garage, quite a long time passed between the moment when I called 911 and the arrival of the fire trucks. So it was something of a miracle that the house itself was not touched, although for the fire chief, the miracle came down to the fact that the garage was a separate building, enabling the firefighters to quickly contain the fire.
Travis Dawn arrived just as they were finishing up.
“You’re not hurt, are you, Marcus?” he asked as he ran toward me.
“No, I’m fine, except that the entire house almost burned down.”
“What happened?”
“I came back from Grand Beach and as I turned in to the driveway, I saw someone running away into the forest. Then I saw the flames.”
“Would you be able to identify the person you saw?”
“No. It all happened too fast.”
At that moment we were called over by a policeman who had arrived at the same time as the firefighters, and who was searching the house’s exterior. He had found a message, stuck in the doorway, which read:
Go home, Goldman.
“Jesus! I got another one of those yesterday,” I said.
“Another?” Travis asked. “Where?”
“On my car. I stopped for ten minutes at the general store on my way home, and found that same message under a windshield wiper.”
“Seems like somebody isn’t happy about your presence in Somerset. Everyone knows you’ve been asking lots of questions.”
“So you think it’s someone who’s afraid of what I might discover about Nola?”
“Maybe. I don’t like it, in any case. This whole case is explosive. I’m going to leave a patrol car here for the night, just in case.”
“There’s no need for that. If this guy is after me, let him come. He’ll find me.”
“Calm down, Marcus. There’ll be a patrol car here tonight, whether you like it or not. If this is a warning, as I think it is, it means there’ll be more to come.”
*
I went to the state prison early the next day to report this incident to Harry.
“‘Go home, Goldman’?” he repeated, after I told him about the message.
“Yup. Typed on a computer.”
“What are the police doing?”
“Travis Dawn came. He took the letter and said he’d have it analyzed. He thinks it’s a warning. Maybe someone who doesn’t want me digging into this thing. Someone who sees you as the perfect guilty party and who doesn’t want me interfering.”
“The person who murdered Nola and Deborah Cooper?”
“Maybe.”
Harry looked serious.
“Roth told me I’m going in front of the grand jury next Tuesday. A handful of good citizens who are going to study my case and decide if the accusations have any merit. Apparently the grand jury always does what the prosecutor wants. It’s a nightmare, Marcus. With each passing day, I feel as if I’m sinking ever deeper, as if I’m losing control. First they arrest me, and I think it’s just a mistake, that I’ll be free in a few hours, and then I find myself locked up here until the trial, which will take place God knows when, and facing the death penalty. Capital punishment, Marcus! I think about it all the time.”
I could clearly see that Harry was wasting away. He had been in prison barely a week, and it was obvious that he would not last a month.
“We’re going to get you out of here, Harry. We’ll find out the truth. Roth is a very good lawyer—don’t lose faith in him. And you should keep telling me your story. Tell me about Nola. Take up where you left off. What happened afterward?”
“After what?”
�
�After the episode on the beach. When Nola came to see you that Saturday, after the high school show, and she told you that you shouldn’t feel lonely.”
As I was speaking, I put my minidisc player on the table and pressed RECORD. Harry smiled faintly.
“You’re a good guy, Marcus. Because you’re right—this is what matters: Nola coming to the beach and telling me not to feel lonely, that she was there for me … Deep down, I’ve always been a bit of a loner, and suddenly that changed. With Nola, I felt part of a whole, an entity that the two of us formed together. Whenever she wasn’t with me, there was an emptiness inside me, a feeling that something was missing, which I had never experienced before—as if, once she had entered my life, the world could no longer turn properly without her. But I also knew that the relationship between us was going to be complicated. That Saturday, we stayed together for a moment on the beach, then I told her it was late, that she ought to go home before her parents started worrying. I watched her walk along the beach and disappear into the distance, hoping she would turn around, just once, to wave at me. I absolutely had to get her out of my head. So during the entire next week, I forced myself to become closer to Jenny in order to forget Nola—that same Jenny who is now the manager of Clark’s.”
“Hang on … Are you telling me that the Jenny you’re talking about, the waitress at Clark’s in 1975, is Jenny Dawn, Travis’s wife, who now runs Clark’s?”
“The very same. Only thirty-three years older. Back then, she was a very pretty woman. She still is a beautiful woman, in fact. You know, she could have tried her luck as an actress in Hollywood. She often talked about it. Leaving Somerset and going off to live the dream in California. But she never did anything about it. She stayed here, she took over the restaurant from her mother, and now she is going to spend the rest of her life selling hamburgers. That’s her fault. We live the life we choose, Marcus. And I know what I’m talking about.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It doesn’t matter … I’m rambling, and now I’ve lost my place. Oh, yes, about Jenny. So, at twenty-four years old, she was a very beautiful woman: a high school prom queen, the kind of voluptuous blonde who would turn any man’s head. Everyone had his eye on Jenny back then. I spent my days at Clark’s in her company. I had a tab there and I put everything on it. I hardly took any notice of what I was spending, even though I’d blown my savings on renting the house and my budget was very tight.”