The Truth and Other Lies

7

There is no silence like another person’s absence. Drained of anything familiar, it is a silence that is hostile and reproachful. The shadowy figures of memory surface noiselessly and begin their picture show. Hallucinations mingle with reality; voices call us, and the past returns.

For a long time after he’d closed the door behind him, Henry stood there in the dark and listened. It was no longer the same house. Martha was gone — and he was pitifully alone, locked up with a demon of guilt that was bound to torture him. He’d killed the wrong woman and stripped himself of everything, destroyed it pointlessly in an act of rashness. His punishment had already begun; each day when he awoke, the memory would wake with him and be renewed. To keep a secret, you should never lose concentration; tell nobody and never forget. That was how Martha had begun the first chapter of Aggravating Circumstances. She must have meant him. Who else could she have meant?

His dramatically staged search on the beach had been convincing. His encounter with the young woman was a gift of serendipity, for what can be more authentic than coincidence? An unsuspecting woman is gathering pebbles on the beach and witnesses a tragedy. She scours the area with the man who is out of his mind with grief; she calls the coast guard and gathers up Martha’s orphaned clothes; she cries with him, suffers with him, sees everything in every detail. That is authentic.

The liars among us will know that every lie must contain a certain amount of truth if it’s to be convincing. A dash of truth is often enough, but it’s indispensable, like the olive in the martini.

The idea of going to look for Martha had come to Henry just as he was about to call the police. Clutching the telephone receiver, he had reflected that anything you want to believe in is best experienced firsthand. Made-up stories are soon forgotten; lies need remembering, which requires effort. Eventually every lie becomes an unexploded bomb lurking beneath the surface, rusting away, ready to detonate. You grow careless, inattentive, you forget. But other people don’t forget, so that anyone who no longer knows where the forgotten lies are buried should avoid the whole area. Henry’s biography was full of these dangerous things; his past was a minefield, which is why he never set foot in it. But anything you’ve experienced is stored in your memory for a long time. Trusting this wisdom, Henry had set out in search of his dead wife, in order to re-create the growing distress that any self-respecting husband would surely have felt. And so it came about that he really was in a bad way when he broke down on the beach. He felt real despair; he wept bitterly and from the bottom of his heart. And the young woman saw it all. So far, so good.

Still very touched by himself, Henry sat down on the marten trap and pulled off his sand-filled boots; his wet socks dripped on the wood. He glanced up the stairs. The bottom stairs were visible in the faint moonlight, but higher up they disappeared into the darkness. No one lived up there anymore, except the marten; that was something he’d have to deal with soon enough. From now on he would live with his memories. There would be no more novels.

Henry leaped up from the box. The novel! He had promised Moreany the finished manuscript in August. Where was the manuscript? Had he overlooked it in all the excitement?

Henry took the stairs two at a time. Outside Martha’s closed door lay the dog, its nose pressed to the wooden floor. The manuscript wasn’t on the little table next to the typewriter as it usually was. The wastepaper basket was as empty as ever. Henry threw himself to the floor and looked under the bed; he rummaged through the cupboard and the bed and the bathroom — the manuscript wasn’t there. He opened the window, unbuttoned his shirt — he was unbearably hot — and sat down on Martha’s bed. Poncho trotted into the room and began to groom himself at Henry’s feet.

Martha had known everything. Before driving to Betty’s yesterday she had burned the novel in the fireplace — or no, worse still, she’d sent it to Moreany. Registered, with a little postcard message in her lovely, curvy, feminine hand. Something like this:

Have fun reading, Claus. Henry didn’t write a line of this. He’s never written anything. He can’t even write a school essay. This isn’t a joke; I’m deadly serious. The only thing my husband has produced in the years of our marriage is a bastard. If you of all people, Betty, should happen to edit my last novel, you can be sure that the child in your belly will turn out like its father — a creature of no significance, worthless from the moment it’s born. By the way, Henry killed his father. And ask him where his mother’s buried when you get the chance. Do me a favor, Claus — if I’m no longer alive tomorrow, be so good as to inform the authorities, would you?

Henry got up from Martha’s bed. No. She wouldn’t do that to him; public denunciation wasn’t her style. Resentment and retribution were as alien to her as the desire for fame. Henry wouldn’t even have dreamed of marrying a woman with such base instincts. Martha’s revenge would be the silence that already covered everything like a poisonous dust. And there it was again, that ugly gnawing. You could hear it through the wall. The marten must be directly above him.

Henry searched the house until dawn. There was no paper ash in the fireplace — only little balls from Martha’s melted swimsuit. In the meticulously sorted kitchen rubbish there was nothing to be found either. In the end he gave up and, tired and at a loss, went into his bedroom to lie down. On his pillow he found the manuscript, held together with a rubber seal from a preserving jar. White Darkness, it said in pencil on the title page. Martha had found a title. Henry tore off the rubber band. The last chapter was missing. Darling, Martha had written in pencil on the last page…. hang on a little while longer. Can you guess how it ends? Kisses, Martha.

——

Betty didn’t come. Claus Moreany put the latest MRI scan in his desk drawer and locked it. The metastases had already spread from his hip to his spine, but there was still time. In August, Henry’s manuscript would be there. That left enough time for a late-summer honeymoon in Venice before the book was published. Betty loved Venice. She loved Renaissance art, the seaweed-green water of the lagoons, and the Italian sun. If she were his wife, she’d inherit his entire fortune — why would she say no? In return, Moreany wouldn’t expect or demand anything of her except the occasional privilege of having her near him. She didn’t even have to touch him. He could still recall the revulsion of the young at the odors of old age. He’d smelled old age again only recently when he had shared his opera box with a classmate from his last year at school. Her bullish, down-covered neck protruded from her evening dress, and the smell of life that’s slipped away ruined the whole of La Traviata for him. He was particularly troubled by the thought that he too might smell like that without being able to do anything about it.

Moreany was now seventy-one, almost forty years older than Betty. Chemotherapy was out of the question; it would cost him his hair and all that remained of his manliness. He might gain a year that way, but at what cost? Happily, the cancer was carrying out its destructive work with slow deliberation, as if it too wanted to see Venice again before the end. Moreany didn’t believe that he would live to see next summer — let alone father a child. But Betty was young; she could marry again after his death, have children with another man, start a family. Her children would live in Moreany’s house, play in his garden, and grow up in the shade of the maple trees that his father had planted in the middle of the last century. Betty would be financially secure for the rest of her life, and she would run the publishing house and watch over it with the same devotion she now brought to her work. Claus Moreany was quite convinced of that.

The door to his wood-paneled office stood open as usual. It was now ten o’clock. Impatiently, Moreany got up from his desk, fished a sheet of paper out of his wooden inbox, and stepped into the outer office, where his secretary worked.

Honor Eisendraht stopped her proofreading and looked at the meaningless piece of paper he was holding out to her. She’d been working in Moreany’s outer office for over twenty years. After the early years, the good years, she had witnessed the creeping decline of the publishing house, Moreany’s battle against old age, and falling sales. When the figures turned red, she began to wear brighter clothes and went to the hairdresser to keep Moreany’s hopes up.

She believed in the power of invisible signs that, like hidden markers, guide to their destinations those who seek. One by one, she had replaced the gloomy illustrated calendars in Moreany’s office and removed the non-sellers from the bookshelves — and for years now she had been making decaffeinated mocha with a pinch of cardamom. The relaxing powers of this member of the ginger family are said to have prevented world wars. Moreany seemed not to notice any positive effects, which strengthened Honor in her conviction that she’d gotten the dose just right. He was clearly improved, since the shadowy semidarkness of his office smelled subtly of Maghrebi mint and sandalwood, and the flowers on his desk were no longer left to wilt.

In spite of her gentle interventions, however, insolvency drew nearer. The energy with which Moreany had run the firm for so long began to wane. Honor now dealt with his private correspondence and took control of that holiest of holies, the bookkeeping. An intuitive understanding of numbers and sums is a gift that cannot be learned. Reading the annual accounts like a musical score, Honor could see the dynamic nature of a business; she found sources of income in foreign rights and film options. It did not escape her attention that Moreany had been incurring losses for years. She also noticed that he was already making arrangements for his will and paying regular visits to a doctor. Potential buyers materialized. They had smelled blood and brought their numbers men along on even their first visit. While these vultures were casting an eye over the inventory, Honor served coffee that she’d made out of old flower water, and passed around biscuits. She sat in the outer office and waited. It wasn’t long before the first of them asked for the bathroom. He did not return.

Even so, as things stood, it was only a matter of time before the company died a death. Honor Eisendraht’s quiet hope, that her time at Moreany’s side was approaching, evaporated when that woman — vain, ignorant, and far too young — entered the outer office with the manuscript of Frank Ellis under her arm.

Honor put the woman at half her age. Betty was smooth and well rounded and beautiful. In an open declaration of war she was wearing a short black-and-white checked skirt. The gun barrels of her thighs were pointed straight at Moreany, who had gotten up from his desk when she entered his office. After a few words, Moreany shut the door, something he never did. It proved to be a horrifically long day. The woman stayed for four hours. Honor heard her boss on the phone. He didn’t have his calls put through from the outer office as he usually did, but dialed direct — another bad sign. In the end he came out, manuscript in hand, in a state of excitement, and asked her to go and get champagne. The smell of cigarettes and lily-of-the-valley perfume emanated from his office. Honor could see the toe seam of Betty’s stockinged foot bobbing up and down in Moreany’s Eames chair, which was usually reserved for guests of state.

Honor went to the supermarket on the corner, bought the champagne, and then got a few glasses from the kitchen. She herself was not invited to have a glass of champagne. After closing hours she aired the outer office and cleared up Moreany’s room. She washed up the glasses, emptied the full ashtrays on Moreany’s desk, and counted the lipstick-stained butts. It was the twenty-third of March. Moreany had forgotten her birthday. Man is his own worst enemy; woman’s worst enemy is other women.

The success of Frank Ellis changed everything. Moreany blossomed. Betty put in a daily appearance to discuss who knows what. After a deliberately patronizing “Good morning, Honor,” as if addressing a servant, she shut Moreany’s door behind her. Only her revolting, cheap-smelling lily-of-the-valley perfume lingered in the outer office.

It is said that dragon trees grant unspoken wishes. Honor bought one and put it in the window of her office. The plant put out sword-shaped leaves like little daggers, and half a year later Betty’s visits did indeed grow less frequent. Honor saw the first sweet-scented flowers on the dragon tree. “Betty’s started to take work home with her,” Moreany explained, and he didn’t look particularly happy about it. Honor had absolutely no desire to know what kind of work. So he’d realized he was too old for her. Or, better still, Betty had found another man, some stupid young lout who’d succumbed to her lure. The door to Moreany’s office was left ajar once more — the dragon tree came into full flower.

“Isn’t Betty here yet?” Moreany asked, paper in hand. Honor Eisendraht got up, went to the window, and looked down at the parking lot.

“Her car’s not there.”

Moreany was annoyed. Why had he betrayed the impatience of his heart instead of looking out the window himself? At that moment, Betty walked through the door. She was wearing a gray-green suit that accentuated her phenomenal waist. She looked a little tired, and paler than usual.

“Sorry, Claus, my car’s broken down. I had to get a rental car.”

Honor Eisendraht observed that Betty’s apology was not directed at her. It was a long time since the women had deigned to look at one another. Moreany withdrew into his office so as not to get wet, for as soon as Betty’s warm front met Honor’s cold front, it started to rain in the outer office.

Betty shut the door behind her as usual and put two editor’s reports on Moreany’s desk. She took the inevitable menthol cigarette out of a packet; Moreany gave her a light.

“I spoke to Henry yesterday,” said Moreany. “His manuscript will be finished in August. Has he called you?”

“Me? No.”

“It sounds as if he’s having trouble with the end.”

Betty inhaled the smoke. “Doesn’t everyone? I mean, isn’t it necessary? Isn’t it normal?”

“He can’t make up his mind.”

“Is that what he said? What did he mean?”

Honor brought in the coffee; the two of them waited in silence until she’d disappeared again. Moreany noticed grains of sand on Betty’s right heel. His gaze lingered on the little veins on her ankle.

“Give him a ring, Betty. Maybe he needs help.”

She shrugged.

“I can try, but who can help Beethoven with the Ninth, eh?”

Moreany laughed. Be my wife this instant! he wanted to shout. Let me kiss your feet, touch your breasts, comb your golden hair! But he didn’t speak. Betty stubbed out her unfinished cigarette in the brass ashtray that Moreany had put on his desk especially for her. He didn’t smoke himself. So far she hadn’t noticed.

“What’s the matter with your car?”

“It wouldn’t start this morning. Maybe I left the lights on.”

“Do you have time to accompany me to Venice?”

She didn’t seem overjoyed by the idea.

“When?”

The telephone on his desk began to buzz. The white light flashed. Honor was trying to put a call through. Moreany ignored it.

“What’s the matter with your car?”

“You just asked me that. It wouldn’t start, that’s all. Don’t you want to take the call?”

Venice then.

Moreany picked up the receiver. “Put him through, Honor.” He signaled to Betty that Henry was on the line, but she already knew.

“Henry, old boy, how are you?”

Moreany listened for a while; Betty saw his expression darken. She could hear Henry’s deep voice; he was speaking slowly.

“I’ll come over at once.”

Moreany hung up slowly, looking at the floor as if searching for a lost answer.

“What’s happened?”

“Henry’s wife has drowned.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“That’s not possible.”

“She’s drowned. He just told me. Just now.”

“In the night? Last night?”

Moreany looked up from the floor. “I must go to him straightaway.”

Betty handed Moreany his coat, wondering whether Henry had already known Martha was dead when she’d returned Martha’s car. Would he have run up to her room to look, if he had?

Honor Eisendraht came into the office and sat down ashen-faced in the Eames chair.

“You must have heard everything, Honor. Please cancel my appointments, for tomorrow too. Betty…”

“Yes?”

“We’ll have to postpone Venice. Would you accompany me, please?”

From the window, Honor saw the two of them in the parking lot, getting into Moreany’s dark green Jaguar. He opened Betty’s door and let her get in first. Honor took her pack of tarot cards out of her handbag and shuffled them thoroughly. It was the Tower. A singularly inauspicious card.

During the hour-long drive neither spoke a word. Moreany drove fast, concentrating. Decades ago he had come second in the Mille Miglia and was still an excellent driver. The car was quiet; only the turn signal ticked when he turned a corner. Betty felt a wave of nausea and wondered whether it was fear or just a symptom of pregnancy. Martha’s unexpected call had not been a goodwill visit. “You ought to know,” she had said even before she was inside, “that I don’t hate you. The man we both love is in a serious crisis. He can’t finish his novel; I see him suffering.” Martha had been so touchingly cheerful as she had sat with her on the sofa. She had spoken of the friendship that comes from love, of good times and of urgently required changes. It is well known that people in despair grow calm once they have decided to take the final step, their spirits soothed at the prospect of the sweet release of death.

Betty lowered the car window. Why hadn’t Martha jumped into the sea before last night if she’d known everything for so long? Maybe it was revenge after all. She wanted to destroy our happiness by committing suicide, Betty thought. It was quite possible that Henry would blame her for Martha’s death. How would Moreany react when he found out about it all? Venice would be just the ticket now. Far enough away to think things over, but near enough to get back to Henry in three hours. Again the violent twinge in her womb. His child. It was inside her, growing, communicating with her. She’d have it all to herself.