The Insult

by Rupert Thomson

  At last I reached the river. It wasn’t frozen; it slid below me, almost motionless. There wasn’t much to look at. A narrow footpath wound its way along the bank. Up ahead, a bend to the right, the river’s elbow silver where the moonlight landed on it. In the distance I could see a bridge of wooden trestles. Was that the bridge Jan Salenko had spoken of? The place where he first saw his future wife, then only eight years old?

  To liberate myself.

  I sat down on the river bank. I took out a pen and a blank page which I’d torn out of the back of the hotel bible. I wrote, Kill Visser. The words looked good together, sounded good. They had some kind of natural affinity. I would move back into my old room at the Kosminsky. Arnold would be his usual miserable self (maybe he would even remind me not to loiter on the second floor!). Would the lift be working? I doubted it. The first priority was to get hold of a gun. Loots would know someone who knew someone. Or Gregory. Someone would know. Then I’d simply wait for Visser to appear …

  One night, I hear him walking up the corridor in his highly polished shoes. I know it’s him: I recognise his footsteps from the clinic. I’m not sure how many shots I’m going to fire. That stranger in the supermarket car-park only fired once and look at me. I’m not dead. So two, then. Maybe even three. Do I want him to confess before I kill him? Does that really matter any more? The door opens cautiously. Some light spills in around him, but it’s not enough to make any difference.

  ‘Stop right there,’ I say.

  He stops. ‘Martin?’ He always uses my Christian name. It’s a technique. It’s supposed to make me treat him as a friend, and trust him. Or treat him as a parent, and obey him. I’m not sure which. ‘Is that a gun?’

  ‘I wouldn’t try anything,’ I say.

  ‘I wouldn’t dare,’ he says. ‘A blind man with a gun?’ It’s his own joke, but he laughs at it anyway. Well, someone’s got to.

  I quieten my voice right down and give it metal edges. ‘That’s right, I’m blind,’ I say, ‘but I can hear the outlines of your body. I can hear where your body ends and the air begins …’

  He hesitates. I tell him that it’s true what people say about enhancement of the senses. Your eyes go, and the efficiency of your nose and ears and all the rest instantly increases by hundreds of per cent.

  ‘For instance,’ I say, ‘I can hear your heart beating. It’s a bit faster than usual, and no wonder. It’s a tense situation.’ I pause. ‘I can hear your liver purifying what you drank last night. I can hear your bowels. There’s turbulence down there …’

  He takes a step backwards, into the corridor. He’s about to make a run for it. I fire. He cries out, crumples in the doorway.

  ‘Oh, don’t go,’ I say.

  He’s on the floor. ‘You shot me.’

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘It’s my leg.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘I did warn you.’ I shift in my chair. The moulded plastic one. ‘I could shoot you again,’ I say. ‘I might get you in the balls this time. It wouldn’t be deliberate. I mean, how could it be? I’m blind.’ I raise the gun.

  ‘No. No, it’s all right. I’ll tell you everything.’

  I stand over him. I’m smiling.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ I say.

  ‘Am I?’ he whispers. He’s not so sure.

  ‘Yes. No one’s ever seen my room before.’ I bend over him. ‘So,’ I say, ‘how do you like it?’

  The wind plucked at my piece of paper. I smoothed it down. Slowly I drew a line through what I’d written. I couldn’t even kill Visser in my head. What chance would I have in real life?

  I stood up and walked on, along the river bank. Wednesday. There was no avoiding it. But surely there was something I could do. Here, in the mountains, I was free of Visser’s signals. No housewives, no game-show hosts, no pornography – nothing. Wasn’t there some man-made way of reproducing that effect? There had to be. I thought of a friend of mine, who worked in broadcasting. We’d never been particularly close, but I knew him well enough to call him. His name was Klaus – Klaus Wilbrand. He’d be able to advise me. It was crossing the line drawn by the bullet, it was stepping back into the past, but I could see no alternative.

  I looked up. The bridge didn’t seem to be any nearer. Suddenly I wearied and a chill went through me. I didn’t think I could make it to the bridge. Maybe some other night. I should go back. I left the footpath, climbing a slope into what I took to be the field I’d crossed not long before. But I walked for several minutes and still I couldn’t see the lights of the hotel. An owl startled me, swooping through the air just overhead. I saw its flattened face, the smudges around its eyes. I heard the beat of its wings, stirring the heavy air, the same speed as my breathing. I stood there in the middle of the field. I couldn’t see any lights at all. I couldn’t see where the road might be either. Was I lost?

  I felt I should go back the way I’d come, but the thought exhausted me. Instead, I cut diagonally across the field. At the end of it, there was no grass bank, no road, only a barbed-wire fence and another field beyond. I stood still. I could hear a dog barking in the distance. Away to my right I could see lights, small yellow squares in the great mass of darkness that surrounded me. They looked like windows. A farm, perhaps. They appeared, disappeared. Appeared again. As if someone was signalling. I thought it had to be the trees between us, shifting in the wind. I didn’t believe they were the lights of the hotel, but I decided to make my way towards them.

  I crossed the field, climbed through another fence, and found myself in a kind of pasture. The ground was rougher here, more uneven. Though I tried to watch where I was putting my feet, I stumbled several times.

  After a while I looked up and noticed that the lights were gone. I waited for them to appear again, but they didn’t. The darkness was absolute and unrelenting. I could only think of one explanation: the people must have gone to bed. I was tired now, and my trousers were cold and slippery with mud. I was in country I didn’t know. No landmarks, and nobody to ask for guidance. It had been foolish of me to think I could just go out for a walk. I wasn’t in the city.

  I wondered how much time had passed. An hour at least, maybe two. People would be going to sleep soon, if they weren’t asleep already. There was nothing for it but to try and get some sleep myself. When dawn came, I could begin again. With luck I’d find somebody who could tell me where I was.

  I was standing at the entrance to a wood. I followed one edge of it, hoping to find a hut, a lean-to, some kind of shelter. I quickly gave that up. Instead, I walked in among the tall trunks and the undergrowth. Here, at least, I might be able to escape the wind. I found a tree that I thought would give me some protection. Its roots were raised above the level of the forest floor; they reached out like fingers from the base. I gathered sprays of bracken and a few dead branches, then I stacked leaves in one of the gaps between the roots. I arranged some bracken over me and weighed it down with the branches I’d collected. I lay there with my eyes shut and my knees drawn up against my chest. Sleep wouldn’t come, though. The cold had already found its way into my bones, and there were sounds all around me – the sound of the woodland shifting, straining, groaning; I could have been lying on the deck of some huge old-fashioned sailing ship. I opened my eyes, looked up into the intricate bare branches of the tree. If only Visser knew what lengths I’d gone to, just to avoid his TV programmes! I smiled, but it was a smile that stayed inside me. I pulled the collar of my coat up around my ears and closed my eyes again.

  I must have slept, if only in snatches, because I remember having a conversation with my sister, Gabriela. We were standing in the garden at home. We were both excited, talking as though we knew each other, as though we were friends. I had no memory of what we said. I only remember watching her run down the garden to where my mother and my father were. Their three faces turned towards me, small and round and blank, like plates. I stayed where I was – the house in the distance, the warm summer air, the almost golden grass.


  I sat up. There were leaves in my mouth, my hair. My body was stiff with cold. It surprised me that I’d slept at all. I slowly pushed the bracken and dead branches away from me and stood up. One of my knees had stiffened during the night, but I thought I could walk on it. It would be best to try and return the way I’d come, though in daylight, of course, that wouldn’t be easy. I was a blind man in a strange country. I might just get lost in a different kind of way.

  I’d been walking for half an hour or so, a light drizzle falling, when I heard a noise I hadn’t heard before. I stood still, listened. Grating, clinking, grinding. The sound of wheels. No engine, though. It had to be a horse and cart. I started shouting and waving. There was no reply, but I noticed that all the noise had stopped; a new silence had descended. I hurried towards it. Suddenly the ground disappeared in front of me and I fell forwards. A hand reached down and hauled me to my feet.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thanks very much.’

  I must have been an odd sight, with my dark glasses and my white stick, and standing in a field with mud all over me, at dawn.

  ‘I’m lost,’ I said.

  ‘I thought so.’ It was a man’s voice, and there wasn’t a trace of irony in it.

  I told him the name of the village where I was staying, the name of the hotel.

  ‘You’re a long way from there,’ he said.

  ‘Am I?’

  His thoughts came one at a time, and they were scarce, like cars on a motorway at night. There was a gap between everything he said, a time-delay, which made it feel as if nothing was happening. But I was already grateful to him, grateful just for the sound of his voice.

  ‘Which way do I go?’ I asked him.

  ‘You’re in luck. Just so happens, I’m going there myself.’

  He helped me up on to the cart and told me to sit on the side of it, as he was, with my legs dangling over the edge, then he clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook the reins and we moved off. The drizzle had slackened; the air was still damp and I could hear the trees and bushes dripping. The man had a strong smell to him, a smell that was like old butter, but peppery as well.

  ‘That’s Mrs Hekmann’s place,’ he said, after a few minutes.

  ‘That’s right. You know her?’

  ‘I thought of marrying her once.’

  I looked in his direction. ‘Really? What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He paused. ‘I never asked.’

  Though I was curious, I didn’t speak just yet; I brushed at the mud on my coat instead. It seemed natural to slow down, talk at his pace.

  ‘How come you never asked her?’ I said eventually.

  ‘I just never did.’ He shook the reins again and muttered something at the horse. ‘The most I ever asked her was to dance. She wouldn’t.’ There was a long silence. Then he cleared his throat and spat. ‘Most people, they steer clear of her now.’

  ‘She seems friendly enough,’ I said.

  He didn’t talk much after that.

  At last I heard the boards of a bridge rattle as we passed over it, and I thought it had to be the same bridge that Loots and I had crossed on Saturday evening. On the far side, the man climbed down on to the road and began to walk. All of a sudden, he let out a cry. Haunting, it was – more animal than human; I almost jumped out of my skin. A few moments later he cried out again, only this time I realised what it was: he was a rag-and-bone man. The cry was repeated every few paces, and it had no effect whatsoever on our surroundings. He didn’t seem unduly troubled. Probably he was used to the indifference; it was part of his trade.

  When we stopped outside the hotel, I thanked him again.

  ‘I was coming through here anyway,’ he said.

  ‘Still,’ I said, ‘I appreciate it.’

  I crossed the patch of grass and climbed the steps to the hotel. Behind me, his cry grew fainter as he moved on down the street. I felt for the front door.

  ‘Siding with the enemy now, are we?’

  I turned round. ‘Mrs Hekmann?’ She must have been standing on the porch the whole time, watching me.

  ‘That man you got a lift with,’ she said, ‘you know who he was?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me his name.’

  ‘That was Jonas Poppel. One of the Poppel family.’

  I didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘If it hadn’t been for him,’ I said irritably, ‘I’d still be wandering the fields.’

  ‘You missed dinner.’

  ‘I know. I went for a walk. I got lost.’

  ‘Have you been out all night?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you sleep at all?’

  ‘I tried to. Under a tree.’

  ‘We used to sleep outside,’ she said, almost dreamily, ‘my brother and I. But we were young then and it was in the summer.’ She was sitting in her rocking-chair. I could hear the creak of it now, like breathing. ‘You should see yourself.’

  I smiled faintly.

  ‘You know what would do you good?’ she said. ‘One of our special baths.’ There was a pump-room in the basement, she explained. Nobody had used it in a while, but she was sure that Mr Kanter could get it working. Mr Kanter was a part-time masseur. He’d learned some interesting techniques when he was abroad. It was just what I needed, in her opinion.

  ‘Maybe later,’ I said. ‘When I’ve slept a little.’

  Upstairs in my room I drew the curtains. I took off my trousers and left them soaking in the basin, then climbed into bed. I was too tired to call Klaus; it would have to wait a few hours. The sheets were cold and the mattress sagged, but I could feel myself falling, sinking down – that long, parabolic drop into unconsciousness. Somewhere far away I heard the sound of spoons in cups and knives and forks on plates, as delicate and mysterious as an oriental language. The old people would be eating breakfast in the dining-room below.

  Since there was no phone in my room, I used the one in the corridor. I called Directory Enquiries and they gave me a number. I sat there, with the receiver in my hand. It was Monday, a few minutes after six. Klaus Wilbrand always worked late. It was a good time to try him. When I dialled the broadcasting company, a woman answered. I asked for Klaus and she put me through.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Klaus, is that you?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Martin Blom.’

  There was a shocked sound on the other end. It must’ve been at least two years since we’d spoken to each other.

  ‘Martin. Jesus. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. Listen, I want to –’

  ‘You were shot, weren’t you?’ His voice had incredulity in it, regret as well, and a kind of awe. It’s a special voice. People use it when they’re speaking to someone something bad has happened to.

  ‘That’s right. I was.’

  ‘Someone said you –’

  ‘Yes, yes. But listen, Klaus. I want to ask you something. It’s about television.’

  ‘OK …’ He sounded doubtful. Or perhaps it was just that I’d interrupted him. Well, I didn’t have all day, and this was important.

  ‘Say I was in a room,’ I said, ‘and I wanted to stop TV signals from coming in. How would I do it?’

  ‘Well, you’d have to insulate the room somehow.’

  This was better. He was alert suddenly. Excited. It was his work we were talking about. I thought he was probably relieved, too, not to have to discuss the shooting, all that awkwardness.

  ‘How would I insulate it?’ I said.

  He told me there were several ways. I would have to use a conductive material. Wire-mesh would do – though not just any wire-mesh, since the holes had to relate to the frequency of the signals.

  ‘And I attach it to the walls or what?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘The ceiling and the floor as well.’

  There was also something called metallic foil plaster-board, he went on. You could buy it at any do-it-yourself shop. Or I could even us
e plain old aluminium foil. If I covered the room in foil and then earthed it, that would work just fine.

  ‘How do you mean, earth it?’

  He explained that all the panels of silver foil would have to be taped together, so they overlapped. Then I’d have to fix a screw into each panel and run a wire from the screws down to a plug in the wall. Or, better still, into a metal pipe embedded in the ground. I could use a meter to check that the flow of electrical current was continuous.

  ‘It wouldn’t be very sightly, of course,’ he said. ‘That’s why I suggested a metal cage of some kind. But the silver-foil method would be cheaper.’

  ‘And that would block the signals?’

  ‘Nothing would get through. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Klaus,’ I said, ‘you’re brilliant.’

  He laughed. ‘When am I going to see you?’

  ‘Well, I’m up north at the moment …’ I promised to call when I got back, though I didn’t think I would. I thanked him for the information (that, at least, was perfectly sincere) and said goodbye.

  I put the phone down and then I held my cane in both hands, parallel to the ground, and did a little dance in the corridor, just like they used to in the old musicals. I hummed a tune to go along with it. I could already imagine the scene in Walter Sprankel’s shop – the jangle of the bell, his eyes fidgeting above the till …

  I would build myself a room out of aluminium foil and bits of wire and screws. It would be a silver room, and I’d live in it, insulated and at peace, spared all forms of interference. I’d see what I wanted to see. My thoughts would be my own.