“I hadn’t seen her for ten years. Actually, I’m not sure yet how much I believe her. But enough to want to write about it. Obviously I wouldn’t want to publish without hearing your side of the story.”
“My side of it…Strange you should say that. I’ve been writing a story myself, with the same characters. But I’m sure it’ll be quite different from yours.”
This seemed like a lucky piece of news that I might be able to use. After all, there’s nothing more worrying for a writer than finding out someone else has got his eye on your subject. I had to play my cards carefully.
“Could we meet?” I said. “Any day you can spare a minute of your time. I could show you what I’ve written so far, based on what she’s told me. If you explain why I shouldn’t believe her, I’ll give up on the whole idea. I wouldn’t want to publish anything that might disparage you unfairly.”
As usual, I’d gone too far.
“Put like that,” said Kloster coldly, “it sounds almost like blackmail. I’ve had to deal with blackmail from that girl once before. Or hasn’t she mentioned it? I don’t have to convince you of anything. I don’t owe anyone an explanation. If you believe a madwoman, you’re the one with a problem, not me.” His voice was growing louder and I thought he might be about to hang up.
“No, no, of course not,” I said placatingly. “Please, I’m not her envoy-I’m not involved with her in any way. She’s come to see me after ten years, and she did appear to be a little disturbed.”
“A little disturbed…You’re being generous. Well, if that’s clear, I don’t have a problem with meeting you. I can tell you a few things myself. And there’s something I’d like to ask you, something I’d like to include in my novel. But we can discuss it when we meet. Do you have my address?”
I said yes.
“Fine. I’ll expect you here tomorrow at six.”
Six
What do I think?” said Kloster, reading the last of my pages. With distaste he pushed aside the small stack that had grown in front of him, as if he couldn’t bear to look at it. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head, palms touching. Despite the cold outside, he was wearing only a short-sleeved T-shirt, and his long bare arms looked like two triangles suspended in the air. I hadn’t slept the previous night and didn’t feel up to the coming confrontation. I’d worked against the clock setting up my little sham. I’d tried to record Luciana’s story just as she had recounted it, from the moment she arrived at my apartment. I had included my own questions, and all her pauses and hesitations, even the sentences she left hanging. But I had omitted my thoughts about her and also-especially-my reaction to her appearance, and my doubts about her mental state. All that appeared on paper was the bald sequence of lines of dialogue, the to and fro of our voices, just as if they’d been transcribed. I’d worked all night with hypnotic intensity induced by endlessly rerunning the same memory: Luciana’s face in the deepening gloom of my living room and her terror as she cried out that she didn’t want to die. I’d revised and corrected, details disappearing and reappearing intermittently and ever more slowly, until at last, at dawn, I printed out about twenty pages. This was the bait with which I arrived, at six o’clock in the evening, at Kloster’s house.
I rang the bell and stood for a moment in awe before an imposing iron gate. The buzzer sounded, admitting me to the entrance hall, and I saw a great marble staircase, bronze statues, antique mirrors, with a stab of admiration close to envy. I couldn’t help wondering how many books you had to sell to pay for such a house in an area like this.
Kloster, waiting for me at the top of the stairs, held out his hand and looked at me for a moment as if making sure we had never met before. He was taller than I had imagined from his photographs, and though he must have been over fifty there was something youthful and vigorous in the upright figure, almost a flaunting of his athleticism, that made one think of the long-distance swimmer first and then the writer. But despite the still powerful body, his face was a ruin, cruelly sunken, as if the flesh had withdrawn, exposing the sharp edges of his bones, and the cold blue eyes, fixing me with uncomfortable intensity, had retreated with it. He shook my hand briskly, simultaneously motioning towards the library. There had been no hint of a smile, nor the standard exchange of trivialities, as if he wanted to make it clear from the start that I wasn’t entirely welcome. But this initial rejection of conventional courtesy actually made things easier: neither of us was under any illusions. Nevertheless, as he indicated an armchair, he offered to get me a coffee and I accepted, though I had been drinking cup after cup since morning to keep myself awake. As soon as he disappeared down one of the corridors I got up and looked around. The library was impressive, with shelves almost to the ceiling. But the effect wasn’t oppressive as two large windows provided a break from the book-lined walls. There was another armchair in a corner with a standard lamp beside it, where Kloster no doubt sat to read. I walked along the bookshelves, running my finger over some of the titles. In a gap between encyclopaedias, neither hidden nor prominently displayed, I saw the Grand Cross of the Legion d’honneur with its tricolour ribbon. I went over to the narrow glass-fronted bookcase between the windows. Here Kloster kept all the different editions of his own books, together with their translations into dozens of languages. Again I felt a dart of envy, sharper this time, the same shameful feeling which I knew, over and above Luciana, was what had made me attack Kloster in that contemptible article that could be summed up in a mute complaint: why him and not me? All I can say in my defence is that it was hard, standing before that bookcase, not to feel like a hazy dispossessed Enoch Soames. Opposite the corridor down which Kloster had disappeared there was another, narrower corridor off the library, leading perhaps to staff quarters or to his study. In the dim early evening light the corridor was in gloom but I could just see that the walls were lined with framed photographs. Irresistibly drawn, I went to look at the nearest of these: it showed a pretty little girl of about three or four with tousled hair, wearing a polka dot dress, standing on a chair and reaching up towards Kloster. The writer looked transformed-or should I say transported?-smiling expectantly, waiting for the little outstretched hand to touch his face. Part of the photo appeared to have been cut off at an angle, as if a figure had been excised from the scene. I heard steps returning from the kitchen and went back to the armchair. Kloster placed two large mugs on the glass coffee table and muttered something about there being no sugar in the house. He sat down opposite me and immediately picked up the transparent plastic folder in which I’d placed the pages. “So this is the story,” he said.
And for about forty minutes that was all. He took the pages from the folder and set them in a little stack on the desk. He picked them up one by one to read them, forming a second pile as he set them face down. I was expecting him to object, become angry, even throw them aside or tear them up, but he read on in silence, looking increasingly gloomy, as if, as he read, he were returning to an unbearable past that was now again clutching at him with long ghostly fingers. Once or twice he shook his head incredulously and when he was finished he stared into space for a long time, still not speaking, as if he’d forgotten I was there. He didn’t even look at me when I asked what he thought, but simply echoed my question, as if it had come not from another person but from inside himself.
“What do I think? An astonishing clinical account. Like those Oliver Sacks records about his patients. The extraction of the stone of madness. I suppose I should be grateful you’ve changed my name in the text. But the one you’ve chosen,” and he pronounced the name contemptuously, “how on earth did you settle on it?”