He had promised to run the text past de Winther prior to publication. The occasion to send it never arose. Oscar had stuffed the sheets into an envelope and had never looked at them again. He had informed his editor that, unfortunately, he had no text to submit, as the appointment with de Winther had been to look him up in Rome. It was at that time that he had embarked on the course that became his expertise over time: concealment and secrecy.
When Oscar stopped talking, when his account came to an abrupt end – the train had yet to crash, but what sense was there in going on? – a great weariness descended on him.
Kate sat stunned, as if she had just heard that her house had been burgled. Which it had, in a way. But she regained her composure, and once more stroked the back of his hand, which was now clenched into a fist.
She refrained from asking the obvious questions: why didn’t you tell me when we first met, why tell me now, why wait so long, why leave something so fundamentally important to me lying somewhere in an envelope? Oscar gave the extended fingers a light squeeze. It was the most intimate gesture he was capable of.
All the tables had been cleared by now, and the waiters were giving Oscar and Kate impatient looks.
The night in Kate’s flat was spent waiting for morning to arrive. No longer used to sharing a bedroom, they lay staring wide-eyed into the dark, now and then dozing off, now and then whispering “Are you asleep?” Their beds were like two small islands adrift in an uncharted ocean.
So much had been discussed and so much left unsaid that they rose exhausted. Over breakfast they sat with expressionless faces drinking their tea, each sunk in their private thoughts of the restive night. The sounds of Barkston Gardens coming awake could be heard through the balcony doors, which were open to the early sunshine.
Hardly a word was said as they made ready for Oscar’s departure to Berne. He would not be seeing Matteous, whose lesson was not until late afternoon. Oscar said how sorry he was to miss him, and hoped they would meet some time later in the year.
“Stick with him, Kate, that letter of his must get written.” She glared: he didn’t know what he was talking about. Later that year? Would the world still exist, would their lives still fit together, would Emma and Carl be free, and the Russians, God, the Russians, what would become of them?
The morning seemed without end, just as the night before. At two o’clock it was time to go; he had a daylight flight, for a change.
Kate made one final mention of Emma and Barbarossa, and one final appeal to him. He gave her a look as if to say that she had missed the point entirely. They waved at one another from their separate islands. He waved again from the pavement outside, and went on his way. She stood on her balcony.
Like a sleepwalker, he boarded the bus, the train, the plane. Like a sleepwalker, he arrived in Lisbon, and at long last found himself in Berne. A tool in nobody’s hands. Every movement he made was automatic and slow. He trailed after the people ahead of him, joined queues when required, submitted to customs checks, showed his passport to whomever it concerned. Papers, documents, where to, where from – he complied dutifully with every demand during the interminable journey home. Home to the stark vacuity of the house on Ensingerstrasse, where the postman whistled as he made his deliveries, where children played games on the pavement and the occasional motor car drove by at a snail’s pace. Where there was not the faintest intimation of the war that was all over the newspapers: Crete fallen, tank battles in Africa, planes shot down, vessels destroyed. A paper reality, abstract. It was a normal day in June.
Oscar arrived at three in the afternoon, the sleepiest, haziest hour of the day. The emptiness overwhelmed him. It was strange how the absence of anything could have such an effect. As if nothing was familiar, as if he had stepped into someone else’s life, had penetrated, thief-like, into a domain that was his but stripped of value or memory. The doors and windows were closed, the table had not been cleared, the sofa was strewn with old newspapers, the clock stood still. The occupant had clearly left in great haste, whether intending to return was impossible to say.
He stood in the middle of the room still holding his travel bag, because there was no-one to take it from him or say “You can leave your luggage over there”.
He who tries to forget remains a prisoner, he who cares to remember feels free.
Oscar wished in particular to free himself of the memories of the past few days.
“Do you still have that envelope, Oscar?” Kate had looked away when she asked him during breakfast the next morning – couldn’t resist asking, of course. Two days ago already.
“I kept it along with the notes for my thesis. In an envelope from Hotel Vita in Milan.”
