The Other Side of Silence

THIRTY-THREE

I walked home, washed and shaved, changed into my working clothes, flung a suitcase into the back of my car, and drove up to the Villa Mauresque. It was still early and little was stirring at Maugham’s beautiful house, certainly not the great man himself, or his nephew, or Alan Searle. Only the butler was up and around, and he seemed not at all surprised to see me again, even with a large bruise on my jaw and the suitcase in my hand.

“How is he?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The master, of course.”

“Oh, him. Much better, sir. It was only a mild stroke, I’m happy to say.”

“Good.” I meant it, too.

“Have you come to stay, sir?” he asked, checking the buttons on his white jacket.

“Not this time,” I said, as if nothing much had happened since the last time we’d seen each other. “Mr. Maugham isn’t expecting me, but he’ll want to see me nonetheless. It’s all to do with the events of the other night. When all the other Englishmen were here.”

“I understand. Would you care for some breakfast?”

“Yes, I would.”

I sat down in the whitewashed dining room where the makings of breakfast had been laid and pretended as if I were prepared to eat it; but as soon as Ernest had left to make some fresh coffee I grabbed the suitcase again and went upstairs to the master bedroom, where I found the master sitting up in bed with a newspaper and a cup of tea in his unsteady hand. He was wearing white silk pajamas and half-moon glasses, and with the Chinese prints on the walls he looked like an older and rather less compassionate version of the goddess Kuan-Yin, whose imposing statue stood on the black floor of the downstairs hall.

“You don’t look like someone who’s had a stroke,” I said.

“I’m not,” he said coolly. “I feigned that in order to be rid of everyone. I’d had enough of the whole business. And now that they’ve all returned to London, I can return to normal.”

“I might have known.”

“Well, this is a surprise. I certainly didn’t expect to see you again, Herr Wolf. Or perhaps I should now say Herr Gunther. Have you come to shoot me?”

“Oddly enough I haven’t.”

“Pity. At my time of life one craves a little excitement. I rather think that being shot might have a very stimulating effect on my book sales, which, lately, have been in decline. Just as long as one didn’t die, of course. That would be too sad. Then I should miss the thrill of seeing myself once again at the top of the New York Times bestsellers list. ‘England’s Greatest Writer Shot by East German Spy.’ As a headline it has a certain newsworthy ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But as it happens I don’t work for East German intelligence. Or for that matter any other intelligence service. I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir, only I’m not a spy. I’m afraid your friends in MI6 were sorely mistaken on that score. And I do mean sorely. I’ve got the bruises to prove it. The fact is, I’m just a citizen with a past.”

“Aren’t we all, dear. Aren’t we all. But you have come to settle a score, have you not? With me.”

“Actually, I’ve come to do you a favor,” I said.

“Really?”

“I was hoping you might do me one in return.”

“This sounds suspiciously like a rather more subtle, slippery kind of blackmail. A squid pro quo, so to speak. Is it? Are you intending to blackmail me, Herr Gunther?”

“I said I was hoping you might do me a favor, sir. I wasn’t even thinking of demanding one with menaces.”

“Good point.” He nodded at a comfortable chair beside the bed. “And I beg your pardon for my presumption. Please. Sit down.”

I sat down a little too gratefully, leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and let out a sigh.

“You sound tired. And you look terrible.”

“I just want to go to bed and sleep for a thousand years.”

“I do hope you’re not planning to do that here,” he said. “At the Villa Mauresque.”

“Why would you think so?”

“That suitcase, of course.”

“That suitcase contains files about you. Lots of them. Compiled by someone called Anne French, who worked for the Stasi—the East German secret service—and who was, she alleged, planning to write a biography of you for some American publisher.”

“Oh, which one?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s true—about the biography, I mean. Actually, there’s very little I do know about this woman that’s true, probably. But the files are real enough. There was a whole drawer full of them in her filing cabinet. And now they’re all in this suitcase.”

“She’s the woman who Sir John said had been working with you and Harold Hebel all along. To blackmail me and, in turn, the British secret service.”

“That’s right. Only with you I was on the level. Which is more than I can say of her. Frankly, the idea that she and I were working together was painful news to me. Exquisitely painful. I thought we were just sleeping together now and then. I found out otherwise. It seems that she had her own clandestine agenda.”

“That’s fish for you.”

“Fish?”

“Sorry. Queer slang for women.”

“Oh. Right. Anyway, a great deal of what’s in those files is quite detailed and for all I know there may be something that you’d prefer never saw the light of day. You being a very secretive, private man.”

“I’m quite sure that’s true. I loathe the idea of a biography as another man might loathe the attention of a Harley Street proctologist. Especially at my time of life. So. What do you want for these files? Money, I suppose? There’s very little else I can give a man like you.”

“No. I’ve got some money.” I was already thinking of the ten thousand francs I planned to take from Hennig’s toilet bag at the Grand; there was no point in letting the French police have it when, eventually, they came to search his room. “No, all I want is something that you of all people should easily understand, Mr. Maugham.”

“What’s that?”

“I just want to be left alone.”

“Ah. Privacy. That’s the most precious commodity there is. You do know that, don’t you?”

“Now that your friends in MI6 have returned to London, there’s only you and Alan and Robin who know who and what I am. Or at least what I was. I want your word that you’ll be silent about me and all that’s transpired involving me, here, on the Riviera.”

“Most assuredly I do understand. You have my sympathy. And you want my silence? Very well. You have it.”

“All that has transpired and all that has yet to transpire.”

“You intrigue me. I had hoped that this whole sorry affair was now concluded. Robin was assured it was. Pray what has yet to transpire?”

“The fact is I murdered Harold Hebel a couple of hours ago.”

“Good God.”

“He was shot and killed at the house of Anne French in Villefranche-sur-Mer. The bitch has gone back to London, I think—I’m not sure. But I’m sort of hoping the police will find the body and think it was Anne who murdered him.”

“Two for the price of one. The revenger’s bargain, as it were. Yes, I do like that symmetry. Very Jacobean.”

“I’ve certainly made sure that all of the evidence points her way.”

“So. You killed Hebel, after all. Fascinating. Might one ask, what changed your mind?”

“He did, actually. The bastard kept talking about how he wanted to get even with Anne and he had so many reasons to do it, I guess he just persuaded me.”

“Well, that’s a first, I must say.”

“You notice I said ‘murdered’ because I won’t try to justify what I’ve done. Not to you. And certainly not to myself. It’s true there were more than nine thousand good reasons to kill him. All those people on the Wilhelm Gustloff. But when it came right down to it there were only two that made me pull the trigger.” I shrugged. “And you know who they were. By the way, there’s nothing at all that connects the dead man with you. So you can relax. Enjoy your house in peace. I doubt the police will come asking questions about him up here at the Villa Mauresque.”

“I’m pleased to hear it. We like to discourage visitors.”

“That’s just one of the secrets I want you to keep for as long as I try to stay working at the Grand Hôtel.”

“It seems to me that your secrets are inextricably bound up with mine.” He sighed. “And I can hardly talk about Harold Hebel without talking about the photograph, and the tape, and the British secret service, can I? The leisure moments of an ill-spent life have made me every bit as vulnerable as you are. But is this course of action wise, my friend? Given what I’ve been told you are. Sir John said he thought there might be some men who would come looking for you. More spies. Guests at the hotel who might turn out to be assassins. He told Robin he thought you and Hennig would probably make yourselves scarce as quickly as possible. I must say, this shrimp pool we call Cap Ferrat has never been so exciting.”

“Perhaps they will come. Perhaps they’ll shoot me. I don’t know. People have tried to kill me before and I didn’t cooperate. I’m still here. Or at least some of me is. But I’m tired of running. This particular Flying Dutchman needs to put into port and make substantial repairs. None of what your friends in MI6 said about me was true anyway—well, perhaps some of it was—so, maybe the Stasi will leave me alone. But down here on the Cap, I’ll leave you alone and perhaps you can do me the same courtesy. On the subject of each other we will be silent.”

Maugham nodded. “I understand. After this rather unwelcome period of tumult in your life you wish to subside, gently into cheerful peace. With a real future as opposed to an imaginary one. Am I correct?”

I nodded. “Something like that, I suppose. I can’t be more particular than that right now.”

“That’s not unusual. And I can certainly be silent regarding you, Herr Wolf. Yes, let us return to using your nom de plume. But I can’t guarantee that my nephew Robin can do the same. He is what is descriptively called a blabbermouth.”

“But I do think you can control him. Especially since his whole financial future is largely dependent on you.”

“Yes. That’s true.” The old man smiled his inscrutable smile. At least I think that’s what it was. There were too many creases and wrinkles on his face to be sure. He gave a great throaty chuckle.

“All right. It’s a deal.”

I got up and walked to the door of his elegant bedroom, helping myself to a cigarette from the box on the sideboard. It was made of amber and rather hateful.

“I like you, Herr Wolf,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I would dislike it very much if some m-men did come from East Germany to try to kill you. But I think you’re a very dangerous man to know. In fact, I’m sure of it. So, please, be kind to an old man, and don’t ever come here again. I don’t think my nerves could stand it. Besides, you’re a terrible bridge player.”

I didn’t stay for breakfast, after all. I went quickly down the staircase of the Villa Mauresque and out to my car, ignoring Ernest and his offer of the silver coffeepot. The clipped lawns and carefully tended hedges of pink and white oleanders contrasted sharply with the wreckage that was inside me, almost as though the gardens had been carefully designed as a poignant reminder of what a hollow man I was and how empty I felt. Brilliant blue dragonflies hovered over the surface of the swimming pool like flying sapphires. The scent of orange and lemon blossom might have originated in an extra heavenly part of paradise itself. Everything in the garden looked and felt precious. Everything except me. I didn’t belong there. But that was all right. In my eyes the absolute perfection of the Villa Mauresque was imperfect. I could never have belonged somewhere like that, among men without women. They were risky creatures, women, but that’s what life was for—to take risks. I got into the car. It didn’t start the first time, or the second, but on the third attempt the engine wheezed into life like old lungs and I steered slowly down the gravel drive. In the rearview mirror I caught sight of Somerset Maugham watching my departure from the wrought-iron balcony in front of his bedroom. He would die soon. He knew that. He looked dead already. His thoughts were always on death now. But whether he would die before me remained to be seen.

I went to the Grand Hôtel, put on my morning coat, straightened my tie and my cuffs, adopted a smile, took up my station behind the desk, and waited.