Arch of Triumph (44 page)

“Not in the least.”

“Donnerwetter, that wouldn’t be bad. Is she French?”

“Italian, I think. And a few other races mixed in.”

Haake grinned. “Not bad. Naturally at home we can’t have that. But here one is incognito, to some extent.”

“Are you?” Ravic asked.

Haake was taken aback for a second. Then he grinned. “I understand!
Of course not for those in the know—but otherwise, strictly incognito. Besides, it just occurs to me—have you any contact with refugees?”

“Very little,” Ravic said carefully.

“That’s a pity! We would like to have certain—you understand, information—we even pay for it—” Haake raised his hand “—naturally that’s out of the question in your case! Nevertheless, the smallest item of news …”

Ravic noticed that Haake went on looking at him. “It’s possible,” he said. “You can never tell—it may happen sometime.”

Haake moved his chair closer. “One of my tasks, you know. Connections from the inside to the outside. Sometimes it is difficult to get at them. We have good people working here.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “With us it is something else, of course. It’s a matter of honor. It’s the fatherland, isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

Haake looked up. “My acquaintances are arriving.” He put a few notes on the china plate after he had added up the amount. “It’s convenient that the prices are always on the saucers. We might initiate that at home.” He stood up and extended his hand. “
Auf Wiedersehen, Herr von Horn
. I am very pleased to have met you. I’ll call you in two weeks.” He smiled. “Discretion, of course.”

“Of course. Don’t forget.”

“I never forget anything. Not a face or an appointment. I can’t afford to. That’s my profession.”

Ravic stood before him. He felt as if he would have to push his arm through a wall of cement. Then he felt Haake’s hand in his. It was small and surprisingly soft.

He stood there undecided for another moment and followed Haake with his eyes. Then he sat down again. Suddenly he felt himself trembling. After a while he paid and left. He went in the direction in which Haake had gone. Then he recalled that he had
seen him and the other two step into a taxi. There would have been no point in driving after them. Haake had already checked out of his hotel. If he had happened to see him again somewhere he would only become suspicious. He turned around and went to the International.

“You were being sensible,” Morosow said. They were sitting in front of a café on the Rond Point.

Ravic looked at his right hand. He had washed it with alcohol a number of times. He had felt foolish for doing it, but he could not help it. Now his skin was dry as parchment.

“You would have been crazy if you had tried anything,” Morosow said. “Good thing you were unarmed.”

“Yes,” Ravic replied without conviction.

Morosow looked at him. “You aren’t such an idiot that you want to be tried for murder or for attempted murder?”

Ravic did not answer.

“Ravic—” Morosow put the bottle down hard on the table. “Don’t be a fantast!”

“I am not. But can’t you understand that it sickens me to have missed this opportunity? Two hours earlier and I could have dragged him off somewhere—or could have done something else—”

Morosow filled the two glasses. “Drink this! Vodka. You’ll get him later.”

“Or not.”

“You’ll get him. He’ll come back. That sort of fellow comes back. You’ve hooked him thoroughly.
Prost!
”

Ravic emptied his glass.

“I could still go to the Gare du Nord. To see whether he leaves.”

“Of course. You could also try to shoot him there. Twenty years in the penitentiary at least. Have you any more ideas like that?”

“Yes. I could watch to see whether he really leaves.”

“And be seen by him and ruin everything.”

“I should have asked him at which hotel he was staying.”

“And make him suspicious.” Morosow refilled their glasses. “Listen, Ravic. I know you’re sitting here now and thinking you’ve done everything wrong. Get rid of it! Smash something to bits if you feel like it. Something big and not too expensive. The palm garden at the International, for all I care.”

“No point in that.”

“Then talk. Talk about it until you get sick of it. Talk it out of your system. Talk yourself calm. You aren’t a Russian, otherwise you would understand that.”

Ravic straightened up. “Boris,” he said. “I know rats must be exterminated and one should not get into a biting match with them. But I can’t talk about it. Instead of that I’ll think about it. I’ll think how I can do it. I’ll prepare for it like an operation. As far as one can prepare for anything. I’ll get used to it. I have two weeks’ time. That’s good. That’s damned good. I can get used to being calm. You are right. One can talk things to death and so become calm and deliberate. But one can also think things to death and attain the same end. Hatred. Think it to death coldly, purposefully. I’ll kill so often in my thoughts that it will be like a habit when he returns. One acts more deliberately and calmly the thousandth time than the first time. And now let us talk. But about something else. About those roses there if you like! Look at them! They are like snow in this sultry night. Like white foam on the restless surf of the night. Are you satisfied now?”

“No,” Morosow said.

Ravic remained silent.

“I’ll be satisfied when we’ve talked about it a hundred times,” Morosow said.

“All right. Take a good look at this summer. The Summer of 1939. It smells of sulphur. The roses look like snow on a mass grave in the coming winter. We are a gay people in spite of it,
aren’t we? Long live the century of nonintervention! Of the petrifaction of moral instincts! There is much killing going on tonight, Boris. Every night! Much killing! Cities are burning, dying Jews are wailing somewhere, Czechs are perishing miserably in the woods, Chinese are burning in Japanese gasoline, the whip-death is creeping through concentration camps—are we going to be sentimental women when it comes to eliminating a murderer? We’ll find and exterminate him, that’s all, as we have had to do often enough with innocent people who only differed from us in the uniforms they wore—”

“All right,” Morosow said. “Or rather better. Have you ever learned what can be done with a knife? A knife makes no sound.”

“Don’t bother me with that tonight. I must sleep somehow. The devil knows whether I’ll be able to, in spite of my faking of being so calm. Can you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Tonight I’ll kill and kill. In two weeks I’ll be an automaton. The problem is how I can get through that time. Through the time until I can first sleep. Getting drunk won’t help. Neither would an injection. I must fall asleep exhausted. Then it will be all right next day. You understand?”

Morosow sat in silence for a while. “Get yourself a woman,” he said then.

“How could that help?”

“It can. It’s always good to sleep with a woman. Call up Joan. She’ll come.”

Joan. Yes, she had been with him before. She had been talking about something. He had forgotten it. “I am not a Russian,” Ravic said. “Any other proposals?”

“Simple ones. Only the most simple ones.”

“That was no simple one.”

“Good God! Don’t be complicated! The simplest way to tear
oneself away from a woman is to sleep with her again occasionally. Not to let your fantasy run wild with you. Who wants to dramatize a natural act?”

“Yes,” Ravic said. “Who wants to?”

“Then let me telephone,” Morosow interrupted him. “I’ll get you something. I’m not a doorman for nothing.”

“Stay here. It’s all right this way. Let us drink and look at the roses. Dead faces in the full moonlight after machine-gun fire can look just as white as that. Once I saw that in Spain. Heaven is an invention of the Fascists, the metal-worker Pablo Nonas said at that time. He had only one leg. He became somewhat embittered against me because I had not preserved his other leg in alcohol. He felt as though one-fourth of him had been buried. He did not know that the dogs had stolen and eaten it—”

VEBER CAME INTO
the dressing-supply room. He motioned to Ravic. They went out. “Durant is on the telephone. He wants you to drive over immediately. Something about a special case and particular circumstances.”

Ravic looked at him. “That means he’s bungled an operation and wants to pin the responsibility on me, eh?”

“I don’t think so. He’s very excited. Apparently he doesn’t know what to do.”

Ravic shook his head. Veber remained silent. “How does he happen to know that I am back?” Ravic asked.

Veber shugged his shoulders. “I’ve no idea. Very likely through one of the nurses.”

“Why doesn’t he call up Binot? Binot is very capable.”

“I told him that. He explained to me that this is a particularly complicated case. In your special field.”

“Nonsense. There are very efficient doctors in Paris for every special field. Why doesn’t he call up Marteau? He’s one of the best surgeons in the world.”

“Can’t you imagine why?”

“Naturally. He doesn’t want to disgrace himself in front of his colleagues. It is different with an illegal refugee doctor. He must keep his mouth shut.”

Veber looked at him. “It is urgent. Will you go?”

Ravic tore open the strings of his gown. “Of course,” he said. “What else can I do? But only if you come with me.”

“All right. We can take my car.”

They went downstairs. Veber’s car stood glittering in the sun in front of the hospital. They got in. “I’ll work only if you are present,” Ravic said. “God knows otherwise this fellow might try to trap me.”

“I don’t believe he’s thinking of anything like that just now.”

The car started. “I’ve seen all kinds of things happen,” Ravic said. “I knew a young assistant doctor in Berlin who had everything to make him a good surgeon. His professor was operating; half drunk; made a wrong incision; said nothing; let the assistant doctor take over; he did not notice anything; half a minute later the professor made a scene; held the young doctor responsible for the wrong incision. The patient died during the operation. The young doctor a day later. Suicide. The professor went on operating and drinking.”

They were stopped at the Avenue Marceau; a line of trucks was rattling along the Rue Galilée. The hot sun shone through the window. Veber pushed a button on the dashboard. The top of the car moved slowly backward. He looked proudly at Ravic. “I had it put in recently. Automatic. It’s magnificent what people can think of, isn’t it?”

The wind blew through the open top. Ravic nodded. “Yes, magnificent. The latest thing is magnetic mines and torpedoes. I read about them somewhere yesterday. When they miss their target they turn back in a curve until they find it. We are a fabulously constructive race.”

Veber turned his red face toward him. He beamed good nature. “You, with your war, Ravic! We are as far away from that as from the moon. All this talk about it is nothing but pressure politics, nothing else, believe me—”

The skin was bluish mother-of-pearl. The face was ashen. Around it, flaming in the white glare of the operating lights, a wealth of golden-red hair. It flamed around the ash-colored face with such intensity that it seemed almost indecent. It was the only thing alive, sparklingly alive, noisily alive—as if life had already left the body and was now clinging only to the hair.

The young woman lying there was very beautiful. Slim, tall, with a face that even the shadows of deep unconsciousness could not mar—a woman made for luxury and love.

The woman was bleeding only a little. Too little. “You opened the uterus?” Ravic said to Durant.

“Yes.”

“And?”

Durant did not answer. Ravic looked up. Durant stared at him.

“All right,” Ravic said. “We don’t need the nurses just now. We are three doctors, that’s sufficient.”

Durant motioned and nodded. The nurses and the assistant doctor retired.

“And?” Ravic asked after they had gone.

“That you can see for yourself,” Durant replied.

“No.”

Ravic saw; but he wanted Durant to say it in front of Veber. It was safer.

“Pregnancy in the third month. Hemorrhages. Necessity to curette. A curettage. Apparent injury to the inner wall.”

“Apparent?”

“You can see it yourself. All right then, injury to the inner wall.”

“And?” Ravic continued to ask.

He looked at Durant’s face. It was full of impotent hatred. He will always hate me for this, he thought. Particularly because Veber is listening.

“Perforation,” Durant said.

“With the curette?”

“Naturally,” Durant said after a while. “With what else?”

The hemorrhage had ceased completely. Ravic continued his examination in silence. Then he straightened up. “You perforated. You did not notice it. In doing so you dragged a coil of the intestine through the opening. You did not recognize what it was. Apparently you took it for a piece of fetal membrane. You scraped it. You injured it. Is that correct?”

Suddenly Durant’s forehead was covered with sweat. The beard behind the mask worked as if he were chewing too big a mouthful.