Little Apple (24 page)

He retrieved his jacket. Coco and Weasel were at the counter drinking black coffees paid for by Buster, who had won. The landlord opened the door. From the public gardens came a cool breeze laden with the scent of grass and acacia leaves.

They swiftly shook hands on the corner of Kabristan Street - "So long, see you tonight!" - and went their separate ways.

Vit¬torin was upstairs in the hotel corridor before he discovered the loss of his room key. He rummaged in his pockets. Where could it have gone? Had it fallen out somewhere? Should he go back to the bar and look for it, or hunker down outside the door and wait for Lucette to wake and let him in? He was dog-tired. He wanted to sleep and lose himself in oblivion. He would have to wake Lucette - he hadn't any choice. He knocked, softly at first, then louder.

Not a sound came from inside, but the door of the adjoining room opened. Vit¬torin turned. It was Ethel, the English member of the Toledo Girls. Her face conveyed a mixture of surprise and indignation.

"So it's you, is it? What are you doing here? You're a nice one, you are - a real beauty and no mistake. What do you want?"

"What do I want? I want to go to bed, of course."

"You devil you, living on women! What did you get for that key? How much did he pay you for it?"

"Pay me? Who? What are you talking about?"

"You rotter! How much did that Monsewer Pancrace pay you to hand over the key?"

"Pancrace?" Vit¬torin looked appalled. "Would he be a fair-haired fellow with a face like a girl?"

"It was a low-down thing to do. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"He must have sneaked it out of my pocket."

"And you never noticed, eh? Don't give me that! Hey, what are you doing?"

Vit¬torin was furiously rattling the locked door. Ethel emitted a scornful little laugh.

"What's the idea? Fancy a threesome, do you? He's in there with her - turned up an hour ago. She screamed, called for help. Then they made it up. You'd better go."

Vit¬torin let go of the doorhandle and stared at the floor.

"If they've made it up," he said, "that cuts me out - there's no point in my staying. All right, I'll go, but what about my things?"

Ethel disappeared into her room.  She returned with his papers and the knapsack that had accompanied him to Russia and back.

"All the best," she said. "I'm not worried about you. With your looks and your talent, you'll always find some woman to live off."

He didn't answer. There was something tucked into his passport. Opening it, he found a hundred-franc note and a slip of paper inscribed
"Clear off!"

Rage welled up inside him - rage mingled with a painful sense of loss and a burning desire to call the man out and drive his fist into that smooth-skinned, womanish face, but the thought of Selyukov outweighed all else. The
Aurora
was sailing an hour from now. If he hurried he would get there in time. He pocketed his passport, together with the money and farewell note.

"Give Lucette my regards," he told Ethel. "I didn't do it, but never mind."

He left with the feeling that he really had done it - and he had, now that he'd taken the hundred francs, but he didn't care. There were some things more important than Monsieur Pancrace.

An hour later the
Aurora
sailed slowly out of harbour with Vit¬torin on board. He stared wide-eyed at the city in which he'd been living. He surveyed its terraced gardens and minarets, its green-domed mosques and white marble palaces, its ancient, cypress-shaded cemeteries, its massive walls and gates; all this he saw - saw for the very first time - just as he was leaving it behind.

From Rome Selyukov's trail led to Milan, where it petered out. The ex-captain and his manservant had spent four days at a small
pensione
in the Via Cappelari, but Vit¬torin was unable to trace .their movements thereafter.

Having run out of money, he was compelled to suspend his investigations and look for work. Life's squalls and tempests swept him along from place to place. In Genoa he worked as a waterfront coal-heaver, in Barcelona he addressed envelopes,

in Narbonne he became an assistant house-painter. Time went by. Vit¬torin made all kinds of discoveries: that a man could live on cheese rinds and rotten fruit when work was scarce; that trains existed for travellers other than those with tickets; that in certain humble hostelries a piece of bread and a glass of wine could be purchased with cigarette-ends gleaned from the pavements by day. Sometimes, when your harvest of butts was plentiful, you could even get a morsel of salt meat, but those occasions were few and far between.

At Toulon his knapsack was stolen, at Marseilles he spent two weeks in jail. He became acquainted with the bread soup doled out by charity hostels and the stench of the sulphur fumes they used to disinfect the clothes of the homeless. Selyu-kov seemed infinitely remote. For all Vit¬torin knew, he might be in Algiers, Geneva, or Buenos Aires.

Then came the incident that changed Vit¬torin's fortunes and restored the freedom of movement denied him by his daily fight for survival: he was knocked down by a car on the Boulevard de la Corderie. The driver, an American, not only took him to a hospital but left enough money to cover his treatment and compensate him for his injuries. Several ribs had been fractured and both his arms were badly lacerated. When he left the hospital four weeks later, he was handed six hundred francs.

He set off for Paris the same day.

Wherever Selyukov was, one possible means of ascertaining his address did exist. In Paris, so Vit¬torin had learned from a fellow patient, newspapers were published by Russian émigrés of various political persuasions: ultra-conservatives, liberal monarchists, the Cadet Party, champions of armed intervention in Russia, advocates of reconciliation with the Soviets, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries - even a small group of Russian anarchists styling themselves "non-party". Every Russian refugee sought to keep in touch with his homeland and his scattered circle of friends by subscribing to at least one of these periodicals.

One bleak winter's morning Vit¬torin presented himself at the offices of
Pozledniye Nvosti,
a newspaper edited by Pavel Milyukov. It was his eleventh such attempt, but this time he was in luck. Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov's name appeared on the subscribers' list, and the paper had been mailed to him at the same address for the last eight months. The address in question: Apartment 16, 2nd Floor, 124 Wahringer Gürtel, Vienna.

Vienna . . . He could have stayed put and waited - he could have walked down the street one day, turned a corner, and ... He needn't have lifted a finger.

The clerk in the subscription department looked up in surprise when he heard Vit¬torin's hoarse, mirthless bark of laughter.

"I'm sorry," Vit¬torin said, gritting his teeth, "but it really is hilarious. Typhus, lice, starvation, war, imprisonment. Across Russia, half-way round Europe, through hell on earth in all its forms. I've slept on rotting straw and evaded arrest in Moscow. My comrades were shot in that accursed sugar factory. Marseille! Constantinople! I've rubbed shoulders with criminals from every corner of the earth, when all I really need have done, I see that now, was . . . Can you blame me for laughing?"

He fell silent and stared dully at the flickering gas jet.

"I don't understand," said the clerk. "If you wish to lodge a complaint, this isn't the place. You must apply to your legation - we can't help you. Was there something else?"

Fräulein Fifi had just been to the theatre. It was the third time this week: Châtelet the day before yesterday, the music hall at the Olympia on Tuesday, the Trianon today. They'd left after the second act. There had been a minor altercation in the foyer between Mario and his friends - these Italians were so temperamental - but only over where they should have supper afterwards, the Fantasio or the Chez moi. In the end they'd agreed on Adrienne's for the sake of the
coq en pâte,
its celebrated speciality. Mario knew all the best restaurants. Now they were sitting in the hotel bar, and it was boring. Mario and his friends were talking business, discussing stocks and shares such as Creusot, Hotchkiss, Gaz Torino, Randfontein. If Randfontein or Tanganyika went up in the next few days, Fräulein Fifi would get her platinum bracelet, she knew . . . There was dancing in the ballroom across the way - she could see the couples through the open door. The young Belgian had looked in just to say hello to her. He was sorry he couldn't stay, he said. An urgent appointment, but he'd be back in half an hour. An awfully handsome young man, he was. Polite, charming, good-mannered, well-educated - a real gentleman. Unpunctual, that was his only failing. When he said he'd be back in half an hour, he . . . Still, the half-hour wasn't up yet. He'd invited her to go to Brussels with him. An opera singer, a friend of his, would test her voice. "With a voice like yours, you can't fail to make your fortune, believe me, Fräulein Fifi. The makings are there. All you need is coaching." Brussels was a lovely city, so they said. Practise scales every day? Well, why not? Mind you, there wasn't a lovelier city in the world than Paris, but Mario only intended to stay another week. Poor Mario, he didn't know he'd be travelling back to Milan on his own, not yet, but he was the one who'd always said they would have to split up sooner or later . . .

Fifi had three alternatives: she could go to Brussels, London, or Menton. She had lots of friends. The architect whose name she could never remember wanted to take her to London with him, but London didn't appeal to her overmuch. London at this time of year? Ugh! The baron was the smartest of the lot. He lived in Paris, but he wasn't as rich as all that, according to Mario - his father kept him short. She wouldn't go to Milan, not for anything. Milan was a deadly place. It would be nice if the young Belgian showed up again . . .

Her glass was empty. A waiter appeared like magic and plucked the champagne bottle out of the ice bucket. Mario was still going on about East Rand and Crédit Mobilier. The waiter was supposed to be a genuine count - a Count Volkonsky

whereas the Baron was just a baron. The Baron said
"tu"
to Mario. How did Mario come to know an aristocrat like him? Mario was a footwear manufacturer. He looked really comical in a dinner jacket, with his jet-black moutache and his fat red face.

Fifi drank a little champagne, just to pass the time, and all at once she felt sad. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she yearned to rest her head on Mario's shoulder. She knew precisely why she was feeling so tearful: because it had rained and snowed all day and the sun was nowhere to be seen; because she wouldn't be going to Milan with Mario; because she'd missed the third act; because the poor waiter was a genuine count and had to carry trays around. Life was so awful, so lovely and so sad, and time went by so fast.

But her fit of the blues soon passed. No more tears. She was suddenly in a good mood again - almost in high spirits. It was nice to sit here and watch people. She enjoyed trying to guess where they came from and what they did during the day. They were such a mixed bag: painters and other forms of genius, Parisian socialites, American tourists, bourgeois from the provinces. The pale, clean-shaven gentleman looked like an actor, probably a film actor. The plump man with the cigar came from Holland and was a wholesale butter merchant. Done any good business in Paris, Mynheer Vanderbeek? Really? Delighted to hear it. That fellow over there in the threadbare suit must be a student from the Latin Quarter. He was being reckless today and drinking a coffee here instead of in some cheap cafe. Why was he staring at her? Was he admiring her dress? It came from Madeleine's in rue Rougemont, my lad, if you're interested. What did he want? Why was he staring at her like that?

Fräulein Fifi's face took on a bewildered, helpless expression. She was just about to turn to Mario - "That man over there, what's he playing at?" - when the man in question raised his head and brushed the hair out of his eyes. Without knowing why, Fräulein Fifi got up and went over to his table.

"Georg! What are you doing here?"

"Is it really you, Franzi? I kept looking at you and wondering if it was you or not."

"Have I changed that much? What about you? Where have you sprung from? Tell me!"

They both spoke at once, asked a score of questions, talked at cross purposes. She glanced at Mario, but he was still deep in conversation and hadn't even noticed that she'd left the table.

"Hold on, I'll join you," she said. "And now, tell me all about yourself."

"You first. If you've come from Vienna, what news of my father and my sisters?"

"I don't know. They're fine, I think - I've been away for so long. It was just a holiday trip at first, but then I fell in love with the place."

"Have you got a job here?" Vit¬torin asked.

She tossed her head. "No, I do a lot of travelling. Menton, Brussels ... I may study singing - the next few days will tell. One of my gentlemen friends -"

Vit¬torin scowled at her. "The baron, you mean?"

"You know?" she said, taken aback. "How come you know him?"

Then she remembered. A long-forgotten spectacle took shape in her mind's eye: two dummies ingeniously constructed of old clothes and seated on a sofa. She smiled.

"Yes, the Baron's here too - I see him sometimes - but my friend is that gentleman over there, the one with the black moustache. He's a big industrialist from Milan. I met him in Lugano."

Vit¬torin was still in the dark. He knew only that he had lost her, perhaps for ever. She belonged to someone else.

"Are you fond of him?" he asked. "Do you intend to marry him?"

"Yes - maybe, I mean, but what's the difference? He's a divorced Catholic."

Vit¬torin said nothing.

"Paris is wonderful, isn't it? Fantastically interesting. Do you like it here?"

Vit¬torin still said nothing.

"Don't keep staring at my hands," she went on, "I know they aren't my best feature. My, look at the fur that woman's wearing! Chinchilla!"

Vit¬torin had come to a decision. He looked her full in the face.