“I wanted a name that evoked something closed, like a monastery,” I attempted to explain. I never would have dreamed that, after all the accusations he’d just read, this was what might bother him.
“Something closed, I see. So who would you be? The open Overt?”
I found this doubly surprising. I would never have imagined that Kloster had read Henry James, much less that he would fling the name of one of his characters at me out of the blue, like a taunt. It could only mean one thing: Kloster had read my series of articles on James. And if he’d read those, he must have seen my attack on him, which had appeared in the same journal, and he was now playing cat and mouse with me. I said only the first part-that I would never have suspected he might be interested in Henry James. He seemed offended by this.
“Why not? Because in my novels there are never fewer than ten deaths and in James’s the most that ever happens is that someone doesn’t get married? As a writer yourself, you shouldn’t be confused by trivia such as murders and marriages. What is it that counts in a crime novel? Definitely not the facts, or the succession of dead bodies. It’s what you should read behind them, the conjectures, the possible explanations. And isn’t James’s central theme precisely that: what each character conjectures? The possible reach of every action, the abyss of consequences and bifurcations. “Man is no more than the series of his actions,” Hegel once wrote. Yet James constructed his entire oeuvre in the interstices between actions, between lines of dialogue, in characters’ second and third intentions, in the agony of hesitations and calculations and strategies that precedes every action.”
“You might also say that in James’s novels marriage is a form of murder,” I ventured.
“Of course: a kidnapping followed by death,” he agreed, as if he’d never thought of it like that and was surprised that I had uttered an entire sentence with which he agreed. “Strange that we should be talking about James,” he said, and his tone, for the first time, was slightly less hostile, “because it was a book of his that began everything: the Notebooks.” He pointed to one of the uppermost shelves. “If you’ve ever had a look at them, you’ll remember the preface by Leon Edel. I’d never read a biography of James. As a rule I’m wary of writers’ biographies, but in that introduction I found something very interesting: at a certain point James stopped writing by hand and started dictating his novels to typists and stenographers. I was having a similar problem at the time. Not exactly tendonitis-that would hardly be likely in my case. But I’ve always found it easier to think on my feet and I could never sit at my desk for long. I’d pace the room, then sit down to write a few lines, but if I wanted to continue I had to get up again almost immediately. It made progress painfully slow. When I read the preface to the Notebooks I suddenly found the solution. That’s how I came to hire Luciana.”
“How did you find her?” I asked. I had always wondered.
“I put an ad in the paper. It was an easy choice: she was the only applicant who could spell. Of course I was struck immediately by how pretty she was, but I didn’t think it would be a problem-she wasn’t my type. To put it bluntly, she had no tits. But I’m sure you know that better than I do,” he shot at me. “Anyway, it seemed ideal: as I said, I wanted to get more work done, not less.”
“So none of what she said about her relationship with you actually happened?” I asked. At this he looked annoyed again.
“It did, but quite differently from the way she describes it. That’s why I wanted to tell you a couple of things. At first everything went well. Incredibly well. Luciana passed my ex-wife’s initial inspection. Mercedes had a practised eye for spotting a potential threat in any woman who came near me. I think she discounted Luciana because she looked so young. Or maybe because she had that thin teenager’s body and the look of a conscientious schoolgirl. At that first interview, I didn’t get any sexual vibe from her either. Anyway, she soon let me know she had a boyfriend and it was all as clear and distinct as in Descartes’s Discourse. My daughter adored her right from the start. She drew her a picture every day. And she rushed to hug her when she arrived in the morning. At least that part is true: Pauli fantasised that they were sisters. Luciana was very good with her. She’d give her one of her hairslides, and stickers from her file. She listened patiently to Pauli’s little stories and let her drag her off to her playroom for a while after she’d finished work. But I was the one who benefited the most: after hiring her I got on with my novel better than ever before. I thought I’d found the perfect system. She was intelligent and alert, I never had to repeat a sentence, and she kept up without making mistakes however fast I dictated. True, I never dictated long chunks in one go-I’m not exactly fluent-but now I could pace up and down my study, almost talking to myself, and not have to worry. I also trusted her to point out if there needed to be a comma somewhere or if I’d repeated a word. I was delighted with her work, and I became truly fond of her. At the time, I was working on a novel about a sect of Cainite assassins, and for the first time in my life as a writer I was completing a page a day. And of course, as an unexpected bonus, she was pleasing to look at. I had paced my study for years, alone, eyes on the floor, but now I could look up every so often and be comforted simply by seeing her there, sitting up straight in my chair, ready for the next sentence. Yes, she was very pleasing to look at, but I was too happy with our arrangement to jeopardise it. I was only concerned with getting on with my work so I made sure I didn’t get too close to her, or touch her even by mistake. The only physical contact was a kiss on the cheek when she arrived and another when she left.”
“So how did it all happen?”
“Yes, I’ve often wondered myself about the progression. As you can imagine, it wasn’t just one thing. At first I simply noticed that she wanted to please me but I didn’t give it much thought. It seemed normal: it was her first job and she wanted to do well. A couple of times I almost told her she was doing fine and didn’t have to try so hard. I thought I conveyed this in various ways, but perhaps I seemed too serious, or distant. Perhaps she was a little afraid of me. Anyway, she took pains over the slightest detail, and it was almost as if she could read my mind. She often guessed what I wanted her to do even before I asked. This did intrigue me-the way she’d got to know me in such a short time. I mentioned it to her once and she said that maybe it was because I was a little like her father. One day I complained that the Bible I was consulting for my novel wasn’t annotated and the following morning she brought that great big Scofield Bible you’ve seen yourself. That’s when I found out that, alongside his day job, her father had a parallel life as a minister in a movement known as dispensationalism. I didn’t even know such a group existed. They’re fundamentalists: they interpret the Bible literally. Her father was quite high up in the hierarchy: Luciana said he officiated at baptisms. She must have had a very strict religious upbringing, though she never talked about it. I can see from your face that you had no idea.”
“No. I never would have guessed she came from a particularly religious family.”
“She was probably trying to get away from it. Maybe that was one of the reasons she got a job. It was the only time she mentioned her father. She joked about it, as if his religion was something she no longer really believed in-a harmless activity that she was slightly ashamed of. She said her mother didn’t really share her father’s views. And she herself definitely tried to make sure it didn’t show. But something remained-the rather earnest, virtuous look, the need to do everything perfectly. Yes, there was still something churchy about her. Parents leave their mark. Though by the time she started working for me I think she’d already discovered she could kneel down to do more than pray.”