A Perfect Waiter (14 page)

He felt almost grateful to those thugs for confining him to his apartment. He would never have come to a definite decision at work, so now he could work things out at home. He had the time now. He must make the most of it, not fritter it away.

Last night, which seemed an eternity ago, Erneste had showered for minutes on end and then spent hours lying in a hot tub. To maintain the temperature as the water
cooled, he let it run out and topped it up again and again because he had to erect a barrier against the chill that menaced him from within, which seemed to cool the water more quickly than usual.

And now he was lying open-eyed on his bed, trying to think. He wanted to straighten things out in his mind, but he still couldn't get to grips with them. He only dimly remembered getting home. He didn't recall how long it took or which way he had come. His vision was obscured by his swollen, blood-encrusted eyelids, so he might well have taken an hour to reach his apartment.

Regardless of the tenant who lived beneath him, he'd stretched out in the bath. To deaden the sound a little he put a washcloth under the spout, then filled the tub to the brim. No one had complained. He hadn't disturbed anyone, it seemed. The other occupants of the building slept on as he bathed, trying to wash off and forget what had happened. He knew he wouldn't succeed unless he did the right thing later. One bath wasn't enough, nor was a second.

After telephoning he went home again, undressed and got back into bed. Staring at the ceiling, he suddenly felt cold. He got up, shivering, and fetched a woolen blanket from the wardrobe, the only wardrobe he possessed, the one in which he kept his clothes, his underclothes and shirts, his bedsheets, his socks, his handkerchiefs, a few dog-eared magazines, a few letters, some writing materials, and a far too heavy suitcase. He'd spotted the wardrobe in the window of a junk shop and bought it only because the
dealer had agreed to deliver it free of charge. That was ten years ago, and the wardrobe had cost him less than 50 francs. For ten years it had steadfastly remained in its place. Once the dealer had delivered and reassembled it, and once Erneste had filled it with all the objects that had lain scattered around his little apartment, he'd felt convinced that this innovation would change his life as well: no wardrobe, old life; new wardrobe, new life. Nonsensical though it was, that idea had haunted him for days until he finally had to acknowledge the obvious truth: nothing in his life would change for as long as he remained in this town and this apartment, with or without a new wardrobe and with or without the unaccustomed neatness that reigned in his home by virtue of this new piece of furniture. Nothing would change for as long as he didn't do something, but what? Now he
could
do something, and that would doubtless bring about a lot of changes.

The wardrobe was sheathed in white plastic. It was cheap and unsightly, and although it belonged to Erneste he hated looking at it, but he couldn't help doing so when he lay in bed because the bed was directly opposite. He disliked the wardrobe's pale, smooth expanse, so he always left one of the two doors open. This meant that he looked, not at the wardrobe itself, but at his clothes and the shelves and the darkness beyond them. The back wall of the wardrobe could not be seen. No one apart from him had ever seen the wardrobe in daylight because no one apart from him ever entered his bedroom during the day.
He lay down again, pulled up the bedclothes, and reviewed what had happened in the last few weeks. Nothing had happened, really, except that he had received first one letter and then another, and that each of those letters had stripped off a few more layers of scar tissue. Outwardly he was calm, but an explosion had taken place inside him, and the things it had dislodged were forcing their way to the surface. He was as conscious of this as he was of the cuts and bruises on his face. He knew what had happened, but he still didn't know what its sequel would be.

The next day his cuts began to heal and he felt better. At ten that morning he called the restaurant manager and informed him that he would be able to return to work on Tuesday next, possibly even on Monday. The manager no longer sounded concerned, in fact he seemed almost to have forgotten their conversation of the previous day. Erneste had to suppress a sneaking but quite unfounded fear that he might be fired because of his absence.

Then he called Julie at her small hotel. She was horrified when she heard what had happened, but he didn't spare her. He gave her a detailed account of what had occurred two nights before, shortly after they'd parted. She suggested coming to see him, but he declined the offer. He had to think things over, he said. “What things?” she asked, and wanted to know why he hadn't
gone to the police and reported the incident. He merely said, “Enjoy your last day with Steve. I'll be all right. I'll write you if I've anything to write about, that's a promise. Write to me too.”

She would be going back to Paris the next day. There was no good reason to repeat the farewells they'd already said two days ago. Julie never invited Erneste to visit her at home in France. When her happy days in Switzerland were over, she resumed her family life in Paris, which was only a little less happy than her secret life, just as Steve did in London.

“We'll see each other again next year,” Erneste said. “Take good care of yourself,” Julie replied after a brief pause. Those words brought uninvited tears to his eyes so suddenly, he couldn't restrain them. Fortunately, however, their conversation was at an end and he quickly pulled himself together. After a last goodbye he hung up, but he didn't leave the phone booth yet.

He was out of reach. No one knew where he was and no one could call him, but he could call anyone he chose. If someone had been waiting outside the booth he might have had second thoughts, but no one was, so he had no reason to change his mind. It all seemed quite straightforward. He couldn't put it off any longer.

Klinger lived in a small village farther along the lake. What had become of his children? Why should he care? They'd probably remained behind in the States. The magazines Erneste read at the hairdresser's had never mentioned them, only Klinger's wife, and only because
she'd died a few weeks before the article was published. As luck would have it, the name of the village where Julius Klinger lived had lodged in his memory.

It didn't take him long to find Klinger's number in the phone book, which looked as if it had never been used. He inserted twenty centimes and proceeded to dial it. Miraculously, his hands had been spared. Five rings, then a woman's voice, possibly the daughter. No, a domestic servant. “Klinger residence,” she said. “How may I help you?”

Erneste said his name, but it meant nothing to her. She inquired his reason for wanting to speak with Klinger. “A personal matter,” Erneste replied. “It's urgent.”

“Urgent?”

“Yes, it's most important I speak with him right away.”

“Impossible, I'm afraid. He never takes calls in the mornings, not from anyone. What's it about?”

“I can't explain over the phone.”

“I'm sorry, then I can't put you through. If I'm to put you through I'll have to know what it's about. Are you a journalist? A writer?”

“It's to do with a mutual acquaintance.”

“Who, exactly?”

“If he hears who it is he may not want to speak with me at all.”

“In that case, I'm sure he'll have his reasons.”

“But I have to speak with him.”

“Then tell me what it's about.”

Belatedly, Erneste searched around for some pretext. But he couldn't think of a pretext or a lie, so he told the truth: “Tell him it's about Jakob. He knows him.”

“Jakob? Jakob Meier?” the woman said after a pause. There was another silence before she asked, “What's happened?”

“I can't tell you that, I need to speak with Herr Klinger personally. Jakob Meier has written to me—he's written to me twice. Have a word with Herr Klinger, tell him I must speak with him. Tell him I've had some news from Jakob. It isn't good.”

There was evidently no need for her to consult with Klinger. “Come this afternoon,” she said. “Herr Klinger will be able to spare you some time then. Come after two. Are you a friend of Jakob's?”

“I knew him well. As well as Klinger. Even better, perhaps.”

“Really?” Her wry tone of voice conveyed that she had also made Jakob's acquaintance.

The old intimacy between Erneste and Jakob seemed to be returning little by little, and Erneste wondered if this might have something to do with the exceptionally hot weather. Giessbach, where lower temperatures were usually recorded than in Thun or Interlaken, had been swelteringly hot since the middle of July. In the Grand Hotel's guests, this heat engendered a state of torpid indifference to themselves, other people and world events. No matter what happened, the heat held sway. During the day, at least, it blurred and obliterated everything that was normally well defined and firmly established.

People didn't start to bestir themselves until dusk, when the sun had gone down at last and the air was somewhat cooler, and when they bestirred themselves they experienced a vague revulsion for the inactivity to which they had so utterly surrendered throughout the day. But Mother Nature proved irresistible. For all their good intentions, they found themselves constrained to further inactivity between dusk and the following morning. “It's like the Tropics,” said those who could be assumed to
know what they were talking about, having traveled widely. “Far too hot to think,” said others.

Since most of the guests retired to their darkened bedrooms after lunch or took the cable car down to the lake for a swim, the work of the staff was also affected by the unaccustomed temperatures. Their services were in less demand than usual, especially in the afternoons, so they were granted some additional hours off. This gave Erneste more time to devote to Julie, whereas Jakob caught up on his sleep or read.

Certain of the guests had taken to dressing lightly in the mornings and strolling to the Giessbach Falls, there to be bedewed with spray by the mighty cascades. Having succeeded in shaking off their almost insuperable torpor, at least for a few minutes, these walkers could look forward to a little refreshment after their exertions. Although they set off back to the hotel feeling reinvigorated, their respite from the heat was short-lived. Many divested themselves of unwelcome articles of clothing in the course of their brief perambulations, but none was immodest enough to transgress the bounds of decorum. Any liberties they took remained within acceptable limits.

But a steadily dwindling minority, to which Julius Klinger belonged, rigidly observed the dress code. Despite the inordinate heat, men like him never appeared in public other than in a white shirt and a dark, three-piece suit with all the buttons done up. Moist-browed and smelling faintly of cologne, Klinger thereby advertised his affinity with the celebrated Mayor of New York who never left
his house unaccompanied by a manservant bearing a flatiron with which, if need arose, to rid his master's jacket of undesirable creases. Unlike his wife, and certainly in contrast to his children, Klinger considered slovenliness in matters of dress to be an inexcusable breach of propriety, though he never tried to impose his views on his family.

Although no more lax than usual, morals were rather more liberally interpreted because of the heat. Thoroughgoing immorality of the kind practiced by Julie and her lover persisted in secret. The Grand's walls had no ears and its staff were models of discretion. The more people complained of the heat, the more thoroughly they could enjoy it. They surrendered to it by lolling or lying in sunbleached loungers shaded by the tremulous foliage of ancient trees, drowsing or reading. Now and then their arms would sag and their books and newspapers fall to the grass as they dozed off, only to awake feeling bemused after lying too long in the full glare of the sun, which had moved in the interim.