To Room Nineteen (5 page)

‘Really?’ inquired Captain Forster, listening with nervous attention. Herr Scholtz, however, was speaking very slowly, as if out of consideration for him.

‘Yes,’ said Herr Scholtz. ‘Of course during the war it was out of bounds for both of us, but now …’

The Captain suddenly interrupted: ‘Actually I’m very fond of it myself. I come here every year it is possible.’

Herr Scholtz inclined his head, admitting that Captain Forster’s equal right to it was incontestable, and continued, ‘I associate with it the most charming of my memories – perhaps you would care to …’

‘But certainly,’ agreed Captain Forster hastily. He glanced involuntarily towards Rosa – Herr Scholtz was speaking with his eyes on Rosa’s back. Rosa was no longer humming. Captain Forster took in the situation and immediately coloured. He glanced protestingly towards Herr Scholtz. But it was too late.

‘I was eighteen,’ said Herr Scholtz very loudly. ‘Eighteen.’ He paused, and for a moment it was possible to resurrect, in the light of his rueful reminiscent smile, the delightful, ingenuous bouncing youth he had certainly been at eighteen. ‘My parents allowed me, for the first time, to go alone for a vacation. It was against my mother’s wishes; but my father on the other hand …’

Here Captain Forster necessarily smiled, in acknowledgment of that international phenomenon, the sweet jealousy of mothers.

‘And here I was, for a ten days’ vacation, all by myself – imagine it!’

Captain Forster obligingly imagined it, but almost at once interrupted: ‘Odd, but I had the same experience. Only I was twenty-five.’

Herr Scholtz exclaimed: ‘Twenty-five!’ He cut himself short, covered his surprise, and shrugged as if to say: Well, one must make allowances. He at once continued to Rosa’s listening back. ‘I was in this very hotel. Winter. A winter vacation. There was a woman …’ He paused, smiling, ‘How can I describe her?’

But the Captain, it seemed, was not prepared to assist. He was
frowning uncomfortably towards Rosa. His expression said quite clearly: Really,
must
you?

Herr Scholtz appeared not to notice it. ‘I was, even in those days, not backward – you understand?’ The Captain made a movement of his shoulders which suggested that to be forward at eighteen was not a matter for congratulation, whereas at twenty-five …

‘She was beautiful – beautiful,’ continued Herr Scholtz with enthusiasm. ‘And she was obviously rich, a woman of the world; and her clothes …’

‘Quite,’ said the Captain.

‘She was alone. She told me she was here for her health. Her husband unfortunately could not get away, for reasons of business. And I, too, was alone.’

‘Quite,’ said the Captain.

‘Even at that age I was not too surprised at the turn of events. A woman of thirty … a husband so much older than herself … and she was beautiful … and intelligent … Ah, but she was magnificent!’ He almost shouted this, and drained his glass reminiscently towards Rosa’s back. ‘Ah …’ he breathed gustily. ‘And now I must tell you. All that was good enough, but now there is even better. Listen. A week passed. And what a week! I loved her as I never loved anyone …’

‘Quite,’ said the Captain, fidgeting.

But Herr Scholtz swept on. ‘And then one morning I wake, and I am alone.’ Herr Scholtz shrugged and groaned.

The Captain observed that Herr Scholtz was being carried away by the spirit of his own enjoyment. This tale was by now only half for the benefit of Rosa. That rich dramatic groan – Herr Scholtz might as well be in the theatre, thought the Captain uncomfortably.

‘But there was a letter, and when I read it …’

‘A letter?’ interrupted the Captain suddenly.

‘Yes, a letter. She thanked me so that the tears came into my eyes. I wept.’

One could have sworn that the sentimental German eyes swam with tears, and Captain Forster looked away. With eyes averted he asked nervously, ‘What was in the letter?’

‘She said how much she hated her husband. She had married him against her will – to please her parents. In those days, this thing happened. And she had sworn a vow to herself never to have his child. But she wanted a child …

‘
What
?’ exclaimed the Captain. He was leaning forward over the table now, intent on every syllable.

This emotion seemed unwelcome to Herr Scholtz, who said blandly, ‘Yes, that was how it was. That was my good fortune, my friend.’

‘
When
was that?’ inquired the Captain hungrily.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘When was it? What year?’

‘What year? Does it matter? She told me she had arranged this little holiday on grounds of her bad health, so that she might come by herself to find the man she wanted as the father of her child. She had chosen me. I was her choice. And now she thanked me and was returning to her husband.’ Herr Scholtz stopped, in triumph, and looked at Rosa. Rosa did not move. She could not possibly have failed to hear every word. Then he looked at the Captain. But the Captain’s face was scarlet, and very agitated.

‘What was her name?’ barked the Captain.

‘Her name?’ Herr Scholtz paused. ‘Well, she would clearly have used a false name?’ he inquired. As the Captain did not respond, he said firmly: ‘That is surely obvious, my friend. And I did not know her address.’ Herr Scholtz took a slow sip of his wine, then another. He regarded the Captain for a moment thoughtfully, as if wondering whether he could be trusted to behave according to the rules, and then continued: ‘I ran to the hotel manager – no, there was no information. The lady had left unexpectedly, early that morning. No address. I was frantic. You can imagine. I wanted to rush after her, find her, kill her husband, marry her!’ Herr Scholtz laughed in amused, regretful indulgence at the follies of youth.

‘You
must
remember the year,’ urged the Captain.

‘But my friend …’ began Herr Scholtz after a pause, very annoyed. ‘What can it matter, after all?’

Captain Forster glanced stiffly at Rosa and spoke in English,
‘As it happened, the same thing happened to me.’

‘Here?’ inquired Herr Scholtz politely.

‘Here.’

‘In this valley?’

‘In this hotel.’

‘Well,’ shrugged Herr Scholtz, raising his voice even more, ‘well, women – women you know. At eighteen, of course – and perhaps even at twenty-five –’ Here he nodded indulgently towards his opponent – ‘Even at twenty-five perhaps one takes such things as miracles that happen only to oneself. But at our age …?’

He paused, as if hoping against hope that the Captain might recover his composure.

But the Captain was speechless.

‘I tell you, my friend,’ continued Herr Scholtz, good-humouredly relishing the tale, ‘I tell you, I was crazy; I thought I would go mad. I wanted to shoot myself; I rushed around the streets of every city I happened to be in, looking into every face. I looked at photographs in the papers – actresses, society women; I used to follow a woman I had glimpsed in the street, thinking that perhaps this was she at last. But no,’ said Herr Scholtz dramatically, bringing down his hand on the table, so that his ring clicked again, ‘no, never, never was I successful!’

‘What did she look like?’ asked the Captain agitatedly in English, his anxious eyes searching the by now very irritated eyes of Herr Scholtz.

Herr Scholtz moved his chair back slightly, looked towards Rosa, and said loudly in German: ‘Well, she was beautiful, as I have told you.’ He paused, for thought. ‘And she was an aristocrat.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the Captain impatiently.

‘She was tall, very slim, with a beautiful body – beautiful! She had that black hair, you know, black, black! And black eyes, and beautiful teeth.’ He added loudly and spitefully towards Rosa: ‘She was not the country bumpkin type, not at all. One has some taste.’

With extreme discomfort the Captain glanced towards the plump village Rosa. He said, pointedly using English even at this late stage, ‘Mine was fair. Tall and fair. A lovely girl. Lovely!’ he
insisted with a glare. ‘Might have been an English girl.’

‘Which was entirely to her credit,’ suggested Herr Scholtz, with a smile.

‘That was in 1913,’ said the Captain insistently, and then: ‘You say she had
black
hair?’

‘Certainly, black hair. On that occasion – but that was not the last time it happened to me.’ He laughed. ‘I had three children by my wife, a fine woman – she is now dead, unfortunately.’ Again, there was no doubt tears filled his eyes. At the sight, the Captain’s indignation soared. But Herr Scholtz had recovered and was speaking: ‘But I ask myself, how many children in addition to the three? Sometimes I look at a young man in the streets who has a certain resemblance, and I ask myself: Perhaps he is my son? Yes, yes, my friend, this is a question that every man must ask himself, sometimes, is it not?’ He put back his head and laughed wholeheartedly, though with an undertone of rich regret.

The Captain did not speak for a moment. Then he said in English, ‘It’s all very well, but it did happen to me – it
did
.’ He sounded like a defiant schoolboy, and Herr Scholtz shrugged.

‘It happened to me, here. In this hotel.’

Herr Scholtz controlled his irritation, glanced at Rosa, and, for the first time since the beginning of this regrettable incident, he lowered his voice to a reasonable tone and spoke English. ‘Well,’ he said, in frank irony, smiling gently, with a quiet shrug, ‘well, perhaps if we are honest we must say that this is a thing that has happened to every man? Or rather, if it did not exist, it was necessary to invent it?’

And now – said his look towards the Captain – and now, for heaven’s sake! For the sake of decency, masculine solidarity, for the sake of our dignity in the eyes of that girl over there, who has so wounded us both – pull yourself together, my friend, and consider what you are saying!

But the Captain was oblivious in memories. ‘No,’ he insisted. ‘No. Speak for yourself. It
did
happen. Here.’ He paused, and then brought out, with difficulty, ‘I never married.’

Herr Scholtz shrugged, at last, and was silent. Then he called out,
‘Fräulein, Fräulein – may I pay?’ It was time to put an end to it.

Rosa did not immediately turn around. She patted her hair at the back. She straightened her apron. She took her napkin from one forearm and arranged it prettily on the other. Then she turned and came, smiling, towards them. It could at once be seen that she intended her smile to be noticed.

‘You wish to pay?’ she asked Herr Scholtz. She spoke calmly and deliberately in English, and the Captain started and looked extremely uncomfortable. But Herr Scholtz immediately adjusted himself and said in English, ‘Yes, I am paying.’

She took the note he held out and counted out the change from the small satchel under her apron. Having laid the last necessary coin on the table, she stood squarely in front of them, smiling down equally at both, her hands folded in front of her. At last, when they had had the full benefit of her amused, maternal smile, she suggested in English: ‘Perhaps the lady changed the colour of her hair to suit what you both like best?’ Then she laughed. She put back her head and laughed a full, wholehearted laugh.

Herr Scholtz, accepting the defeat with equanimity, smiled a rueful, appreciative smile.

The Captain sat stiffly in his chair, regarding them both with hot hostility, clinging tight to his own, authentic, memories.

But Rosa laughed at him, until with a final swish of her dress she clicked past them both and away off the terrace.

Going to the shore on the first morning of the holiday, the young English boy stopped at a turning of the path and looked down at a wild and rocky bay, and then over to the crowded beach he knew so well from other years. His mother walked on in front of him, carrying a bright striped bag in one hand. Her other arm, swinging loose, was very white in the sun. The boy watched that white, naked arm, and turned his eyes, which had a frown behind them, towards the bay and back again to his mother. When she felt he was not with her, she swung around. ‘Oh, there you are, Jerry!’ she said. She looked impatient, then smiled. ‘Why, darling, would you rather not come with me? Would you rather –’ She frowned, conscientiously worrying over what amusements he might secretly be longing for, which she had been too busy or too careless to imagine. He was very familiar with that anxious, apologetic smile. Contrition sent him running after her. And yet, as he ran, he looked back over his shoulder at the wild bay; and all morning, as he played on the safe beach, he was thinking of it.

Next morning, when it was time for the routine of swimming and sunbathing, his mother said, ‘Are you tired of the usual beach, Jerry? Would you like to go somewhere else?’

‘Oh, no!’ he said quickly, smiling at her out of that unfailing impulse of contrition – a sort of chivalry. Yet, walking down the path with her, he blurted out, ‘I’d like to go and have a look at those rocks down there.’

She gave the idea her attention. It was a wild-looking place, and there was no one there; but she said, ‘Of course, Jerry. When you’ve had enough, come to the big beach. Or just go straight back to the villa, if you like.’ She walked away, that bare arm, now slightly
reddened from yesterday’s sun, swinging. And he almost ran after her again, feeling it unbearable that she should go by herself, but he did not.

She was thinking, Of course he’s old enough to be safe without me. Have I been keeping him too close? He mustn’t feel he ought to be with me. I must be careful.

He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion. She went worrying off to her beach.

As for Jerry, once he saw that his mother had gained her beach, he began the steep descent to the bay. From where he was, high up among red-brown rocks, it was a scoop of moving bluish green fringed with white. As he went lower, he saw that it spread among small promontories and inlets of rough, sharp rock, and the crisping, lapping surface showed stains of purple and darker blue. Finally, as he ran sliding and scraping down the last few yards, he saw an edge of white surf and the shallow, luminous movement of water over white sand, and, beyond that, a solid heavy blue.

He ran straight into the water and began swimming. He was a good swimmer. He went out fast over the gleaming sand, over a middle region where rocks lay like discoloured monsters under the surface and then he was in the real sea – a warm sea where irregular cold currents from the deep water shocked his limbs.

When he was so far out that he could look back not only on the little bay but past the promontory that was between it and the big beach, he floated on the buoyant surface and looked for his mother. There she was, a speck of yellow under an umbrella that looked like a slice of orange peel. He swam back to shore, relieved at being sure she was there, but all at once very lonely.

On the edge of a small cape that marked the side of the bay away from the promontory was a loose scatter of rocks. Above them, some boys were stripping off their clothes. They came running, naked, down to the rocks. The English boy swam towards them, but kept his distance at a stone’s throw. They were of that coast; all of them were burned smooth dark brown and speaking a language he did not understand. To be with them, of them, was a craving that filled
his whole body. He swam a little closer; they turned and watched him with narrowed, alert dark eyes. Then one smiled and waved. It was enough. In a minute, he had swum in and was on the rocks beside them, smiling with a desperate, nervous supplication. They shouted cheerful greetings at him; and then, as he preserved his nervous, uncomprehending smile, they understood that he was a foreigner strayed from his own beach, and they proceeded to forget him. But he was happy. He was with them.

They began diving again and again from a high point into a well of blue sea between rough, pointed rocks. After they had dived and come up, they swam around, hauled themselves up, and waited their turn to dive again. They were big boys – men, to Jerry. He dived, and they watched him; and when he swam around to take his place, they made way for him. He felt he was accepted and he dived again, carefully, proud of himself.

Soon the biggest of the boys poised himself, shot down into the water, and did not come up. The others stood about, watching. Jerry, after waiting for the sleek brown head to appear, let out a yell of warning; they looked at him idly and turned their eyes back towards the water. After a long time, the boy came up on the other side of a big dark rock, letting the air out of his lungs in a sputtering gasp and a shout of triumph. Immediately the rest of them dived in. One moment, the morning seemed full of chattering boys; the next, the air and the surface of the water were empty. But through the heavy blue, dark shapes could be seen moving and groping.

Jerry dived, shot past the school of underwater swimmers, saw a black wall of rock looming at him, touched it, and bobbed up at once to the surface, where the wall was a low barrier he could see across. There was no one visible; under him, in the water, the dim shapes of the swimmers had disappeared. Then one, and then another of the boys came up on the far side of the barrier of rock, and he understood that they had swum through some gap or hole in it. He plunged down again. He could see nothing through the stinging salt water but the blank rock. When he came up the boys were all on the diving rock, preparing to attempt the feat again. And now, in a panic of failure, he yelled up, in English, ‘Look at
me! Look!’ and he began splashing and kicking in the water like a foolish dog.

They looked down gravely, frowning. He knew the frown. At moments of failure, when he clowned to claim his mother’s attention, it was with just this grave, embarrassed inspection that she rewarded him. Through his hot shame, feeling the pleading grin on his face like a scar that he could never remove, he looked up at the group of big brown boys on the rock and shouted,
‘Bonjour! Merci! Au revoir! Monsieur, monsieur!’
while he hooked his fingers round his ears and waggled them.

Water surged into his mouth; he choked, sank, came up. The rock, lately weighted with boys, seemed to rear up out of the water as their weight was removed. They were flying down past him now, into the water; the air was full of falling bodies. Then the rock was empty in the hot sunlight. He counted one, two, three …

At fifty, he was terrified. They must all be drowning beneath him, in the watery caves of the rock. At a hundred, he stared around him at the empty hillside, wondering if he should yell for help. He counted faster, faster, to hurry them up, to bring them to the surface quickly, to drown them quickly – anything rather than the terror of counting on and on into the blue emptiness of the morning. And then, at a hundred and sixty, the water beyond the rock was full of boys blowing like brown whales. They swam back to the shore without a look at him.

He climbed back to the diving rock and sat down, feeling the hot roughness of it under his thighs. The boys were gathering up their bits of clothing and running off along the shore to another promontory. They were leaving to get away from him. He cried openly, fists in his eyes. There was no one to see him, and he cried himself out.

It seemed to him that a long time had passed, and he swam out to where he could see his mother. Yes, she was still there, a yellow spot under an orange umbrella. He swam back to the big rock, climbed up, and dived into the blue pool among the fanged and angry boulders. Down he went, until he touched the wall of rock again. But the salt was so painful in his eyes that he could not see.

He came to the surface, swam to shore and went back to the villa
to wait for his mother. Soon she walked slowly up the path, swinging her striped bag, the flushed, naked arm dangling beside her. ‘I want some swimming goggles,’ he panted, defiant and beseeching.

She gave him a patient, inquisitive look as she said casually, ‘Well, of course, darling.’

But now, now, now! He must have them this minute, and no other time. He nagged and pestered until she went with him to a shop. As soon as she had bought the goggles, he grabbed them from her hand as if she were going to claim them for herself, and was off, running down the steep path to the bay.

Jerry swam out to the big barrier rock, adjusted the goggles, and dived. The impact of the water broke the rubber-enclosed vacuum, and the goggles came loose. He understood that he must swim down to the base of the rock from the surface of the water. He fixed the goggles tight and firm, filled his lungs, and floated, face down, on the water. Now, he could see. It was as if he had eyes of a different kind – fish eyes that showed everything clear and delicate and wavering in the bright water.

Under him, six or seven feet down, was a floor of perfectly clean, shining white sand, rippled firm and hard by the tides. Two greyish shapes steered there, like long, rounded pieces of wood or slate. They were fish. He saw them nose towards each other, poise motionless, make a dart forward, swerve off, and come around again. It was like a water dance. A few inches above them the water sparkled as if sequins were dropping through it. Fish again – myriads of minute fish, the length of his fingernail, were drifting through the water, and in moment he could feel the innumerable tiny touches of them against his limbs. It was like swimming in flaked silver. The great rock the big boys had swum through rose sheer out of the white sand – black, tufted lightly with greenish weed. He could see no gap in it. He swam down to its base.

Again and again he rose, took a big chestful of air, and went down again. Again and again he groped over the surface of the rock, feeling it, almost hugging it in the desperate need to find the entrance. And then, once, while he was clinging to the black wall,
his knees came up and he shot his feet out forward and they met no obstacle. He had found the hole.

He gained the surface, clambered about the stones that littered the barrier rock until he found a big one, and, with this in his arms, let himself down over the side of the rock. He dropped, with the weight, straight to the sandy floor. Clinging tight to the anchor of stone, he lay on his side and looked in under the dark shelf at the place where his feet had gone. He could see the hole. It was an irregular, dark gap but he could not see deep into it. He let go of his anchor, clung with his hands to the edges of the hole, and tried to push himself in.

He got his head in, found his shoulders jammed, moved them in sideways, and was inside as far as his waist. He could see nothing ahead. Something soft and clammy touched his mouth; he saw a dark frond moving against the greyish rock, and panic filled him. He thought of octupuses, of clinging weed. He pushed himself out backwards and caught a glimpse, as he retreated, of a harmless tentacle of seaweed drifting in the mouth of the tunnel. But it was enough. He reached the sunlight, swam to shore, and lay on the diving rock. He looked down into the blue well of water. He knew he must find his way through that cave, or hole, or tunnel, and out the other side.

First, he thought, he must learn to control his breathing. He let himself down into the water with another big stone in his arms, so that he could lie effortlessly on the bottom of the sea. He counted. One, two, three. He counted steadily. He could hear the movement of blood in his chest. Fifty-one, fifty-two … His chest was hurting. He let go of the rock and went up into the air. He saw the sun was low. He rushed to the villa and found his mother at her supper. She said only, ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’

All night the boy dreamed of the water-filled cave in the rock, and as soon as breakfast was over he went to the bay.

That night, his nose bled badly. For hours he had been underwater, learning to hold his breath, and now he felt weak and dizzy. His mother said, ‘I shouldn’t overdo things, darling, if I were you.’

That day and the next, Jerry exercised his lungs as if everything,
the whole of his life, all that he would become, depended upon it. Again his nose bled at night, and his mother insisted on his coming with her the next day. It was a torment to him to waste a day of his careful self-training, but he stayed with her on that other beach, which now seemed a place for small children, a place where his mother might lie safe in the sun. It was not his beach.

He did not ask for permission, on the following day, to go to his beach. He went, before his mother could consider the complicated rights and wrongs of the matter. A day’s rest, he discovered, had improved his count by ten. The big boys had made the passage while he counted a hundred and sixty. He had been counting fast, in his fright. Probably now, if he tried, he could get through that long tunnel, but he was not going to try yet. A curious, most unchildlike persistence, a controlled impatience, made him wait. In the meantime, he lay under water on the white sand, littered now by stones he had brought down from the upper air, and studied the entrance to the tunnel. He knew every jut and corner of it, as far as it was possible to see. It was as if he already felt its sharpness about his shoulders.

He sat by the clock in the villa, when his mother was not near, and checked his time. He was incredulous and then proud to find he could hold his breath without strain for two minutes. The words, ‘two minutes’, authorized by the clock, brought close the adventure that was so necessary to him.

In another four days, his mother said casually one morning, they must go home. On the day before they left, he would do it. He would do it if it killed him, he said defiantly to himself. But two days before they were to leave – a day of triumph when he increased his count by fifteen – his nose bled so badly that he turned dizzy and had to lie limply over the big rock like a bit of seaweed, watching the thick red blood flow on to the rock and trickle slowly down to the sea. He was frightened. Supposing he turned dizzy in the tunnel? Supposing he died there, trapped? Supposing – his head went around, in the hot sun, and he almost gave up. He thought he would return to the house and lie down, and next summer,
perhaps, when he had another year’s growth in him –
then
he would go through the hole.