Burning Secret (6 page)

B
REATHING HARD
, Edgar stepped back from the window. He was shaken by horror. He had never in his life before been so close to anything so mysterious. The exciting world of his books, of adventures and
suspense
, that world of murder and betrayal had always, in his mind, existed on the same plane as fairy tales, close to the world of dreams, an unreal place and out of reach. But now, suddenly, he seemed to be in the middle of that terrifying world, and his whole being was shaken
feverishly
by such an unexpected encounter. Who
was
that man, the mysterious man who had suddenly come into their peaceful life? Was he really a murderer, always
looking
for out-of-the-way places, then dragging his mother off into the dark? Something dreadful seemed about to happen. He didn’t know what to do. In the morning, he decided, he would either write to his father or send him a telegram. But might not the dreadful thing happen now, this very evening? His mother wasn’t in her room yet, she was still with that strange and hateful man.

There was a narrow space between the inner door of his room and the outer door, which was not visible
at first sight and which moved at a mere touch. The space was no larger than the inside of a wardrobe. He squeezed into that hand’s breadth of darkness to listen for her footsteps in the corridor. He had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to leave her alone for a moment. Now, at midnight, the corridor was empty, dimly illuminated only by a single light.

At last—those minutes seemed to him to go on for ever—he heard careful steps coming upstairs. He listened hard. The steps were not fast, like those of someone on the way to her room, but hesitant, dragging, very slow, as if she were climbing an infinitely steep and difficult path. There was whispering from time to time, and then silence. Edgar was trembling with agitation. Was it both of them, after all, was he still with her? The whispering was too far away. But the footsteps, although still hesitant, were coming closer and closer. Now he suddenly heard the hated voice of the Baron saying something in a low, hoarse voice, something he couldn’t make out, and then his mother’s voice, quickly contradicting him. “No, not tonight! No.”

Edgar trembled. They were coming closer, and he heard everything now. Every step towards him, soft as it was, went painfully to his heart. And that voice, how ugly it sounded to him, the avid, insistent, horrible voice of the man he hated.

“Oh, don’t be so cruel. You looked so beautiful this evening.”

Then the other voice again. “No, I mustn’t, I can’t, oh, let me go.”

There’s so much fear in his mother’s voice that the child takes fright. What does he want her to do now? Why is she frightened? They have come closer and closer, they must be right outside his door now. He stands just behind it, trembling and invisible, a hand’s breadth away, protected only by the thin partition of the outer door. The voices were almost breathing in his ear.

“Come on, Mathilde, come on!” He hears his mother groan again, more faintly this time, her resistance waning. But what’s all this? They have gone on in the dark. His mother hasn’t gone into her room, she’s passed it! Where is he taking her? Why doesn’t she say any more? Has he stuffed a gag into her mouth, is he holding her by the throat and choking her? These ideas make him frantic. He pushes the door a tiny way open, his hand trembling. Now he can see them both in the dark corridor. The Baron has put his arm around his mother’s waist and is leading her quietly away. She seems docile now. The Baron stops outside his own door. He’s going to drag her off, thinks the horrified child, he’s going to do something terrible.

With a wild movement he closes the door of his room and rushes out, following them. His mother screams as something suddenly comes racing out of the darkness towards them, she appears to have fainted away, her companion has difficulty in keeping her upright. And
at that moment the Baron feels a small and not very strong fist in his face, driving his lip against his teeth, and something clawing like a cat at his body. He lets go of the alarmed woman, who quickly makes her escape, and strikes back blindly with his own fist before he realizes who it is he’s fending off.

The child knows that he is weaker than his opponent, but he does not give in. At last, at last the moment has come, the moment he has wanted for so long, when he can let off steam, discharging all his betrayed love and pent-up hate. He hammers blindly at the man with his little fists, lips tightly compressed in feverish, mindless fury. The Baron himself has now recognized him, he too feels furious with this secret spy who has been embittering his life for the last few days and spoiling his game; he strikes back hard at anything he can hit. Edgar groans but does not let go or call for help. They wrestle silently and grimly for a minute in the midnight corridor. Gradually the Baron becomes aware of the ridiculous aspect of this scuffle with a boy of twelve, and takes firm hold of Edgar to fling him off. But the child, feeling his muscles lose their force and knowing that next moment he will be defeated, the loser in the fight, snaps furiously at that strong, firm hand trying to grab him by the nape of his neck. He bites. Involuntarily, his opponent utters a muted scream and lets go. The child uses that split second to take refuge in his room and bolt the door.

The midnight conflict has lasted only about a minute. No one to right or left has heard it. All is still, everything seems to be drowned in sleep. The Baron mops his bleeding hand with his handkerchief and peers anxiously into the darkness. No one was listening. Only in the ceiling does a last, restless light flicker—as if, it seems to him, with derision.

W
AS IT A DREAM
, a dangerous nightmare? So Edgar wondered next morning as he woke from a sleep full of anxious confusion with his hair tousled. His head was tormented by a dull thudding, his joints by a stiff, wooden feeling, and now, when he looked down at himself, he was startled to realize that he was still fully dressed. He jumped up, staggered over to the mirror, and shrank back from his own pale, distorted face. A red weal was swelling on his forehead. With difficulty, he pulled his thoughts together and now, in alarm, remembered everything, the fight in the dark out in the corridor, his retreat to his room, and how then, trembling feverishly, he threw himself on his bed in his day clothes, ready for flight. He must have fallen asleep there, plunging into a dark, overcast slumber and bad dreams in which it all came back to him again, only in a different and yet more terrible form, with the wet smell of fresh blood flowing.

Downstairs, footsteps were crunching over the gravel. Voices flew up like invisible birds, and the sun shone, reaching far into the room. It must be late in the
morning, but when he looked at his watch in alarm the hands pointed to midnight. In his agitation yesterday he had forgotten to wind it up. And this uncertainty, the sense that he was left dangling somewhere in time, disturbed him and was reinforced by the fact that he didn’t know what had really happened. He quickly tidied himself and went downstairs, uneasiness and a faintly guilty feeling in his heart.

His Mama was sitting alone at their usual table in the breakfast-room. Edgar breathed a sigh of relief to see that his enemy wasn’t there, that he wouldn’t have to look at the hated face into which he had angrily driven his fist yesterday. And yet he still felt very uncertain as he approached the table.

“Good morning,” he said.

His mother did not reply. She did not even look up, but stared at the landscape in the distance, her eyes curiously fixed. She looked very pale, there were slight rings round her eyes, and that give-away fluttering of her nostrils showed that she was upset. Edgar bit his lip. This silence confused him. He really didn’t know whether he had hurt the Baron badly yesterday, and indeed whether she even knew about their fight in the dark. His uncertainty plagued him. But her face remained so frozen that he didn’t even try to look at her, for fear her eyes, now lowered, might suddenly come to life behind their heavy lids and fix on him. He kept very still, not daring to make a sound, he very carefully picked up his cup and put it down again,
looking surreptitiously at his mother’s fingers as they nervously played with a spoon. They were curved into claws, as if betraying her secret fury. He sat like that for a quarter-of-an-hour with the oppressive feeling of waiting for something that didn’t happen. Not a word, not a single word came to his rescue. And now that his mother rose to her feet, still without taking any notice of his presence, he didn’t know what to do: should he stay sitting here at the table or follow her? Finally he too rose to his feet and meekly followed. She was still industriously ignoring him, and he kept feeling how ridiculous it was to be slinking after her like this. He took smaller and smaller steps, so as to lag further and further behind. Still without noticing him, she went into her room. When Edgar finally arrived, he faced a closed door.

What had happened? He didn’t know what to make of it. Yesterday’s sense of confidence had left him. Had he been in the wrong after all the night before when he mounted his attack? And were they preparing a punishment or some new humiliation for him? Something had to happen, he felt sure of it, something terrible must happen very soon. The sultry atmosphere of a coming thunderstorm stood between them, the electrical tension of two charged poles that must be released in a flash of lightning. And he carried this burden of premonition around with him for four lonely hours, from room to room, until his slender, childish neck was bowed under its invisible weight,
and he approached their table at lunch, his demeanour humble this time.

“Good day,” he tried again. He had to break this silence, this terrible threat hanging over him like a black cloud.

Once again his mother did not reply, once again she just looked past him. And with new fear, Edgar now felt that he was facing such a considered, concentrated anger as he had never yet known in his life. So far their quarrels had been furious outbursts more to do with the nerves than the feelings, quickly passing over and settled with a conciliatory smile. But this time, he felt, he had aroused wild emotions in the uttermost depths of his mother’s nature, and he shrank from the violence he had incautiously conjured up. He could hardly swallow a morsel. Something dry was rising in his throat and threatening to choke him. His mother seemed to notice none of this. Only now, as she got to her feet, did she turn back as if casually, saying, “Come upstairs, Edgar, I have to talk to you.”

It did not sound threatening, only so icily cold that Edgar shuddered at the words. He felt as if an iron chain had suddenly been laid around his neck. His defiance was crushed. In silence, like a beaten dog, he followed her up to her room.

She prolonged the agony by preserving her own silence for several minutes. Minutes during which he heard the clock striking, a child laughing, and his own heart hammering away in his breast. But she must be
feeling very unsure of herself too, because she didn’t look at him now while she spoke to him, turning her back instead.

“I don’t want to say any more about your behaviour yesterday. It was outrageous, and I am ashamed to think of it. You have only yourself to blame for the consequences. All I will say to you now is, that’s the last time you’ll be allowed in adult company on your own. I have just written to your Papa to say that you must either have a tutor or be sent to a boarding-school. I am not going to plague myself with you any more.”

Edgar stood there with his head bent. He sensed that this was only a prelude, a threat, and waited uneasily for the nub of the matter.

“You will now apologize immediately to the Baron.” Edgar flinched, but she was not to be interrupted. “The Baron left today, and you will write him a letter. I will dictate it to you.”

Edgar made another movement, but his mother was firm.

“And no arguing. Here is paper and ink. Sit down.”

Edgar looked up. Her eyes were hard with her inflexible decision. He had never seen his mother like this before, so rigid and composed. Fear came over him. He sat down, picked up the pen, but bent his face low over the table.

“The date at the top. Have you written that? Leave an empty line before the salutation. Yes, like that. Dear Baron, add the surname and a comma. Leave another
line. I have just heard, to my great regret—do you have that down?—to my great regret that you have already left Semmering—Semmering with a double ‘m’—and so I must write you a letter to do what I intended to do in person, that is—write a little faster, you’re not practising calligraphy!—that is to apologize for my behaviour yesterday. As my Mama will have told you, I am still convalescing from a serious illness, and I suffer from my nerves. I often see things in the wrong light, and then next moment I am sorry … ”

The back bent over the table straightened up. Edgar turned, roused to defiance again.

“I’m not writing that, it isn’t true!”

“Edgar!”

There was a threat in her voice.

“It’s not true. I didn’t do anything I ought to feel sorry for. I’ve done nothing wrong. I don’t need to apologize. I only came when you called for help!”

Her lips were bloodless, her nostrils distended.

“I called for help? You’re out of your mind!”

Edgar lost his temper. With a sudden movement, he jumped up.

“Yes, you did call for help! Out in the corridor last night, when he took hold of you. Let me go, that’s what you said, let me go. Loud enough for me to hear it in my room.”

“You’re lying, I was never out in the corridor here with the Baron. He only escorted me as far as the stairs.”

Edgar’s heart missed a beat at this bare-faced lie. His voice failed him. He just looked at her, the pupils of his eyes glazed.

“You … you weren’t in the corridor? And he … he didn’t take hold of you? He wasn’t dragging you along with him?”

She laughed. A cold, dry laugh. “You dreamed it.”

That was too much for the child. By now he knew that grown-ups told lies, made bold excuses, spoke falsehoods that would slip through the finest net, served up cunning double meanings. But this cold, brazen denial, face to face, enraged him.

“And did I dream getting this mark on my forehead?”

“How should I know who you were fighting? But I’m not entering into any arguments with you, you’ll do as you are told, and that’s that!”

She was very pale, and was exerting the last of her strength to preserve her composure.

In Edgar, however, something now collapsed, some last flickering flame of trust. He couldn’t grasp the fact that the truth could simply be trodden underfoot, extinguished like a burning match. Everything in him contracted, became cold and sharp, and he said viciously, wildly, “Oh, so I was dreaming, was I? About all that in the passage, and this mark? And how you two went for a walk in the moonlight last night, and he wanted to take you down that path, did I dream that too? Do you think you can shut me up in my room like
a baby? I’m not as stupid as you think. I know what I know.”

He stared boldly into her face, and that broke her strength: the sight of her own child’s face right in front of her, distorted with hatred. Her anger burst out wildly.

“Go on with it, you’ll go on writing at once. Or else … ”

“Or else …?” His voice was insolent and challenging now.

“Or else I’ll smack you as if you
were
a baby.”

Edgar came a step closer. He only laughed
mockingly
.

Her hand slapped his face. Edgar cried out. And like a drowning man flailing out with his hands, nothing but a hollow roaring in his ears, red flickering light before his eyes, he struck back blindly with his fists. He felt himself hitting something soft, now he was hitting her face, he heard a scream …

That scream brought him back to his senses. Suddenly he saw himself, and was aware of the monstrous thing he had done, hitting his mother. Fear overcame him, shame and horror, a frantic need to get away from here, sink into the ground, be away, gone, not to have her looking at him any more. He rushed to the door and raced downstairs, through the hotel and along the road, he had to get away, right away, as if a slavering pack of hounds were on his heels.