The Only Problem

by Muriel Spark

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said. ‘I have come all the way from Toronto to say it. I know it is going to hurt you considerably. After all, you are a Gotham, and must feel things of a personal nature, a question of your honour. But say it I had to. Not on the telephone. Not through the mail. But face to face. Your wife, Effie, is consorting with a young man in a commune, as they call it, in the mountains of California, east of Santa Barbara if I recall rightly. I saw her myself on the television in a documentary news-supplement about communes. They live by Nature and they have a sort of religion. They sleep in bags. They —’

  ‘When did you see this?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘Was it an old film — was it live?’

  ‘I guess it was live. As I say, it was a news item, about a drug-investigation by the police, and they had taken this commune by surprise at dawn. The young people were all scrambling out of their bags and into their clothes. And I am truly sorry to tell you this, Harvey, but I hope you’ll take it like a man: Effie was sleeping in a double bag, a double sleeping-bag, do you understand; there was a young man right in there with her, and they got out of that bag sheer, stark naked.’

  ‘Are you sure it was Effie? Are you sure?’

  ‘I remember her well from the time she came when you were engaged, and then from the wedding, and I have the wedding-photo of you both on my piano, right there in the sitting room where I go every day. I ought to recognise Effie when I see her. She was naked, with her hair hanging down her shoulders, and laughing, and then pulling her consort after her out of the extramarital bag, without shame; I am truly sorry, Harvey, to be the bearer of this news. To a Gotham. Better she killed a policeman. It’s a question of honour. Mind you; I always suspected she was unvirtuous.’

  ‘You always suspected?’

  ‘Yes, I did. All along I feared the worst.’

  ‘Are you sure,’ said Harvey, very carefully, ‘that perhaps your suspicions have not disposed you to imagine that the girl you saw on the television was Effie, when in fact it was someone who resembled her?’

  ‘Effie is not like anybody else,’ said Auntie Pet.

  ‘She resembles her sister,’ said Harvey.

  ‘How could it be Ruth? Ruth is not missing, is she?’

  ‘No. I don’t say it could have been Ruth. I only say that there is one case where Effie looks like somebody else. I know of another.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Job’s wife, in a painting.’

  ‘Job’s wife it could not be. She was a foolish woman but she never committed adultery in a sack. You should read your Bible, Harvey, before you presume to criticise it.’

  Harvey poured himself a drink.

  ‘Don’t get over-excited,’ said Auntie Pet. ‘I know this is a blow.’

  ‘Look, Auntie Pet, I must know the details, every detail. I have to know if you’re absolutely sure, if you’re right. Would you mind describing the man to me?’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to cite him as co-respondent, Harvey. You would have to re-play that news item in court. It would bring ridicule on our heads. You’ve had enough publicity.’

  ‘Just describe the young man she was with, please.’

  ‘Well, this seems like an interrogation. The young man looked like a Latin-Mediterranean type, maybe Spanish, young, thin. I didn’t look closely, I was looking at Effie. She had nothing on.

  Auntie Pet had not improved with the years. Harvey had never known her so awful. He thought, She is mistaken but at least, sincere. He said, ‘I must tell the police.’

  ‘Why?’ said Auntie Pet.

  ‘For many reasons. Not the least of which is that, if Effie and her friend are in California and decide to leave, — they might come here, for instance, here to France, or here to see me; if they do that, they could be shot at sight.’

  ‘That’s out of the question. Effie wouldn’t dare come to your house, now. But if you tell the police how I saw them, the story will go round the world. And the television picture, too. Think of your name.

  Harvey got through to the commissariat. ‘My wife has been seen in California within the last few days.’

  ‘Who saw her?’ ‘My aunt.’

  ‘Ah, the aunt,’ said the police inspector.

  ‘She says she saw her in a youth-documentary on the television.’ ‘We had better come and talk to your aunt.’

  ‘It isn’t necessary.

  ‘Do you believe your aunt?’

  ‘She’s truthful. But she might be mistaken. That’s all I have to say.

  ‘I would like to have a word with her.’

  ‘All right,’ said Harvey. ‘You’ll find her alone because I’m going down to my cottage to work.’

  He then rang Stewart Cowper in London but found he was out of the office. ‘Tell him,’ said Harvey to the secretary, ‘that I might want him to go to the United States for me.’

  He had been in his cottage half-an-hour when he saw the police car going up the drive, with the two security men from Paris. He wished them well of Auntie Pet.

  Harvey had brought his mail with him, including Edward’s letter.

  In his old environment, almost smiling to himself with relief at being alone again, he sat for a while sorting out his thoughts.

  Effie and Nathan in a commune in California: it was quite likely. Effie and Nathan in Paris, part of a band of killers: not unlikely.

  He began to feel uneasy about Auntie Pet, up there at the house, being questioned by the security men. He was just getting ready to go and join them, and give his aunt a show of support, when the police car with the two men inside returned, passed his cottage, and made off. Either they had made short work of Auntie Pet or she of them. Harvey suspected the latter. Auntie Pet had been separated from Uncle Joe for as long as Harvey could remember. They lived in separate houses. There was no question of a divorce, no third parties, no lovers and mistresses. ‘I had to make a separate arrangement, Uncle Joe had once confided to Harvey. ‘She would have made short work of me if I’d stayed.’

  Harvey himself had never felt in danger of being made short work of by his aunt. Probably there was something in his nature, a self-sufficiency, that matched her own.

  He wondered how much to believe of what she had told him. He began to wonder such things as why a news supplement from California should be shown on a main network in Toronto. Auntie Pet wasn’t likely to tune in to anything but a main network. He wondered why she had felt it necessary to come to France to give him these details; and at the same time he knew that it was quite reasonable that she should do so. It would certainly be, for her, a frightful tale to tell a husband and a Gotham.

  And to his own amazement, Harvey found himself half-hoping she was wrong. Only half-hoping; but still, the thought was there: he would rather think of Effie as a terrorist than laughing with Nathan, naked, in a mountain commune in California. But really, thought Harvey, I don’t wish it so. In fact, I wish she wasn’t a terrorist; and in fact, I think she is. Pomfret was right; I saw the terrorist in Effie long ago. Even if she isn’t the killer they’re looking for, but the girl in California, I won’t live with her again.

  He decided to get hold of Stewart Cowper later in the day, when he was expected back at his office. Stewart would go to California and arrange to see a re-play of the programme Auntie Pet had seen. Stewart would find out if Effie was there. Or he would go himself; that would be the decent thing to do. But he knew he wouldn’t go himself. He was waiting here for news of Effie. He was writing his monograph on the Book of Job as he had set himself to do. (‘Live? — Our servants can do it for us.’) He wouldn’t even fight with Ernie Howe himself; if necessary, Stewart would do it for him.

  He opened Edward’s letter.

  Dear Harvey,

  The crocs at the zoo have rather lack-lustre eyes, as can be expected. Perhaps in their native habitat their eyes are ‘like the eyelids of the dawn’ as we find in Job, especially when they’re gleefully devouring their
prey. Yes, their eyes are vertical. Perhaps Leviathan is not the crocodile. The zoo bores me to a degree.

  I wish you could come over and see the play before it closes. My life has changed, of course. I don’t feel that my acting in this play, which has brought me so much success, is really any different from my previous performances in films, plays, tv. I think the psychic forces, the influences around me have changed. Ruth wasn’t good for me. She made me into a sort of desert. And now I’m fertile. (We are the best of friends, still. I saw her the other day. I don’t think she’s happy with Ernie Howe. She’s only sticking to him because of Clara, and as you know she’s pregnant herself at long last. She claims, and of course I believe her, that she’s preg by you. — Congratulations!) Looking back — and it seems a long time to look back although it’s not even a year — I feel my past life had a drabness that I wasn’t fully aware of at the time. It lies like a shabby old pair of trousers that I’ve let fall on the bedroom floor: I’ll never want to wear those again. It isn’t only the success and the money, although I don’t overlook that aspect of things — I don’t want to crow about them, esp to you. It’s simply a new sense of possibility. One thing I do know is when I’m playing a part and when I’m not. I used to ‘play a part’ most of the time. Now I only do it when I’m onstage. You should come over and see the play. But I suspect that possibly you can’t. The police quizzed me and I made a statement. What could I say? Very little. Fortunately the public is sympathetic towards my position — brother-in-law, virtually ex-brother-in-law of a terrorist. (Our divorce is going through.) It isn’t a close tie.

  I’ve almost rung you up on several occasions. But then I supposed your phone was bugged, and felt it better not to get involved. Reading the papers — of course you can’t trust them — it seems you’re standing by Effie, denying that she’s the wanted girl, and so on. Now, comes this ghastly murder of the policeman. I admire your stance, but do you feel it morally necessary to protect her? I must say, I find it odd that having left her as you did, you now refuse to see (or admit?) how she developed. To me (and Ruth agrees with me) she has always had this criminal streak in her. I know she is a beautiful girl, but there are plenty of lovely girls like Effie. You can’t have been so desperately in love with her. Quite honestly, when you were together, I never thought you were really crazy about her. I don’t like giving advice, but you should realise that something tragic has happened to Effie. She is a fanatic — she always had that violent, reckless streak. There is nothing, Harvey, nothing at all that anyone can do for her. You shouldn’t try. Conclude your work on Job, then get away and start a new life. If your new château is as romantic and grand as Ruth says it is, I’d love to see it. I’ll come, if you’re still there, when the play closes. It’ll be good to see you.

  Affectionately,

  Edward

  Harvey’s reply:

  Dear Edward,

  That was good of you to go to the zoo for me. You say the zoo bores you to a degree. What degree?

  I congratulate you on your success. It was always in you, so I’m not surprised. No, I can’t leave here at present. Ruth would be here still if it were not that the place is bristling with the police — no place for Clara whom I miss terribly.

  As to your advice, do you remember how Prometheus says, ‘It’s easy for the one who keeps his foot on the outside of suffering to counsel and preach to the one who’s inside’? I will just say that I’m not taking up Effie’s defence. I hold that there’s no proof that the girl whom the police are looking for is Effie. A few people have ‘identified’ her from a photograph.

  Auntie Pet has arrived from Toronto wearing those remarkable clothes that so curiously bely her puritanical principles. This morning she was wearing what appeared to be the wallpaper. Incidentally, she recognised Effie in a recent television documentary about a police-raid on a mountain commune in California. She was with a man whose description could fit Nathan Fox.

  I’ve been interrogated several times. What they can’t make out is why I’m here in France, isolated, studying Job. The last time it went something like this:

  Interrogator — You say you’re interested in the problem of suffering?

  Myself— Yes.

  Interrogator — Are you interested in violence?

  Myself— Yes, oh, yes. A fascinating subject.

  Interrogator — Fascinating?

  Almost anything you answer is suspect. At the same time, supermarkets have been bombed, banks robbed, people terrorised and a policeman killed. They are naturally on edge.

  There is a warrant of arrest out for my wife. The girl in the gang, whoever she is, could be killed.

  But ‘no-one pities men who cling wilfully to their sufferings.’ (Philoctetes—speech of Neoptolemus). I’m not even sure that I suffer, I only endure distress. But why should I analyse myself? I am analysing the God of Job.

  I hope the mystery of Effie can be cleared up and when your show’s over you can come and see Château Gotham. Ruth will undoubtedly come.

  I’m analysing the God of Job, as I say. We are back to the Inscrutable. If the answers are valid then it is the questions that are all cock-eyed.

  Job 38, 2—3: Who is this that

  darkeneth counsel by words

  without knowledge?

  Gird up now thy loins like

  a man; for I will demand of thee,

  and answer thou me.

  I find that the self-styled friends and comforters in Job are distinguished one from the other only by their names. Otherwise, they are identical in their outlook. I now suspect they are the criminal-investigation team of their time and place. They were sent in, one after the other, it now seems to me, to interrogate Job, always on the same lines, trying to trip him up. He could only insist on his innocence. They acted as the representatives of the God of the Old Testament. They were the establishment of that theocratic society.

  It is therefore first God’s representatives and finally God himself who ask the questions in Job’s book.

  Now I hope you’ll tell Ruth she can come here with Clara when the trouble’s over, and have her baby. I’m quite willing to take on your old trousers, Edward, and you know I wish you well in your new pair, your new life.

  Yours,

  Harvey

  PART THREE

  ELEVEN

  ‘So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.’ It was five days since Stewart Cowper had left for California. He had telephoned once, to say he had difficulty in getting the feature identified which Auntie Pet had seen, but he felt he was on the track of it now. There definitely had been a news item of that nature.

  ‘Ring me as soon as you know,’ said Harvey.

  Meantime, since he was near the end of his monograph on Job, he finished it. The essay had taken him over three years to complete. He was sad to see his duty all ended, his notes in the little room of the cottage now neatly stacked, and his manuscript, all checked and revised, ready to be photocopied and mailed to the typist in London (Stewart Cowper’s pretty secretary).

  The work was finished and the Lord had blessed the latter end of Job with precisely double the number of sheep, camels, oxen and sheasses that he had started out with. Job now had seven sons and three daughters, as before. The daughters were the most beautiful in the land. They were called Jemima, Kezia and Kerenhappuch which means Box of Eye-Paint. Job lived another hundred and forty years. And Harvey wondered again if in real life Job would be satisfied with this plump reward, and doubted it. His tragedy was that of the happy ending.

  He took his manuscript to St Dié, had it photocopied and sent one copy off to London to be typed. He was anxious to get back to the château in case Stewart should ring with news. He hadn’t told Auntie Pet of Stewart’s mission, but somehow she had found out, as was her way, and had mildly lamented that her story should be questioned.

  ‘You’re just like the police,’ she said. ‘They didn’t actually say they didn’t believe me, but I could
see they didn’t.’

  He got back to the château just in time to hear the telephone. It was from the police at Epinal.

  ‘You have no doubt heard the news, M. Gotham.’

  ‘No. What now?’

  ‘The FLE gang were surrounded and surprised an hour ago in an apartment in Paris. They opened fire on our men. I regret to say your wife has been killed. You will come to Paris to identify the body.’

  ‘I think my wife is in California.’

  ‘We take into account your state of mind, Monsieur, but we should be obliged if—’

  Anne-Marie was standing in the doorway with her head buried in her hands.

  L’Institut Médico-Légal in Paris. Her head was bound up, turban-wise, so that she looked more than ever like Job’s wife. Her mouth was drawn slightly to the side.

  ‘You recognise your wife, Effie Gotham?’

  ‘Yes, but this isn’t my wife. Where is she? Bring me my wife’s body.’

  ‘M. Gotham, you are overwrought. It displeases us all very much. You must know that this is your wife.’

  ‘Yes, it’s my wife, Effie.’

  ‘She opened fire. One of our men was wounded.’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘Nathan Fox. We have him. He was caught while trying to escape. Harvey felt suddenly relieved at the thought that Nathan wasn’t in California with Effie.