The fact that the body hasn’t been identified is of course the only possible answer.
As for the rest of Martin’s e-mails, the only one I bother to respond to is a brief greeting from Bergman. In accordance with my plan I write that I (Martin) have fallen a bit behind with my writing, but I hope that things will buck up in the new year. ‘A few problems have cropped up and I can’t see a satisfactory way round them just yet,’ I add.
That is all I need to say at this stage. I think my plan is working well.
My own inbox, which I don’t open until I’ve finished dealing with Martin’s, produces something unexpected — totally unexpected. Violetta di Parma writes that her mother back in Argentina has fallen seriously ill, and that her family wants her to come home as soon as possible. They say it can be a matter of months, possibly even weeks, and Violetta writes that she has made up her mind. Her contract with the Opera Ballet runs until the middle of April, but most of the work will be finished in January. The première will be in the middle of February, and she has already been given the okay by the powers that be to leave at the end of January.
And so Violetta writes that she wants to leave our house on the first of February, three months earlier than intended, and that is what she would like to discuss with us. How should we go about it? Would we like her to find a new tenant to look after the house for the remainder of the period? What shall we do about the money she has already paid in rent for the remaining three months? If we can’t find any other solution she realizes that she will have to abide by the contract as originally agreed.
It is a long and emotional message: she apologizes for causing us problems in this way, but she can’t see any other possibility for herself apart from going back home to Córdoba.
My first reaction is also that fate has been most unkind. I really need these months, this spring, in order to pull this off. As so often recently, I have no idea about what I mean by pulling this off: but after sitting and brooding over the e-mail — and being served another cup of tea by Alfred Biggs — I begin to see things in quite a different light.
What is there to stop me speeding things up a bit?
Why shouldn’t I be able to carry out my plan in one month rather than three?
In fact, might that even improve the outcome?
I spend the whole of the afternoon’s walk round Selworthy Combe and Bossington thinking about this new situation, and by the time we shut ourselves into Darne Lodge as dusk falls I am quite clear about what to do next.
We shall leave Morocco a month from now. It will work all right, and even make everything more credible if I handle it correctly. It needs more activity on my part, of course: but if there is one thing I have missed during my stay on the moor, it is active involvement in something.
As if to confirm that this conclusion is absolutely correct, this is what happens late in the evening:
Signe. Wrong.
Vivianne. Wrong.
Ingrid.
The screen flickers twice, and then the document ‘At Dawn’ opens.
Signe is his mother. Vivianne, as I have already explained, is his dead sister. His mother is also dead, incidentally.
Ingrid, on the other hand, is the woman with whom he was unfaithful in the middle of the nineties. She is most probably still alive, and he has evidently not forgotten her.
And I will not forget the password.
47
At Dawn
But I’m on the wrong track already. The distance between darkness and light is short, and there is hardly any dawn as such. The sun is rising over crests of the mountains in the east like a gigantic red balloon, while we are still standing outside the wall, waiting for H and Gusov. I don’t know what we are letting ourselves in for, but there is something I can’t explain driving us on.
Me and Soblewski. Grass and Megal. The Frenchman looks to be near the point of collapse, there is no trace left of his air of superiority. He’s older than the other three of us, considerably older: perhaps he suspects what this theatrical performance is all about. Perhaps he’s been through it before — I have that impression. None of us says anything, I am feeling more and more the after-effects of that drug we smoked. Both Grass’s and Soblewski’s pupils are very dilated. Megal is wearing sunglasses.
When we have been standing there waiting for about five minutes H comes out of the front door. He is on his own, one of us asks about Gusov and H explains that he will join us later.
Before we set off we have something to drink. It is a dark red, strong drink that almost burns your throat, and it seems to contain a mixture of tastes: I can identify anise, mint and bitter almonds. H serves it from a bottle into plastic mugs which we eventually leave in a pile next to the wall. H hands out our revolvers, explains that they are loaded but the safety catches are on, and asks us not to speak during the short walk that lies ahead of us.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he says. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Let me thank you already for taking part.’
And so we set off along a well-trodden path. It slopes gently upwards, and we are heading out into the desert-like countryside, directly towards the sun. Lizards scamper back and forth in front of our feet, and in the far distance an ass is braying. It’s getting warmer by the minute.
We come to a little copse of trees, halfway up the slope, and make a short pause in the shade and relative coolness. I check my watch and see it is still only half past six. H explains that we shall soon reach our destination, and asks us to have our guns ready. We drink some more of the red liquid, this time directly from the bottle. There is no doubt that doing so helps to reinforce our feelings of solidarity. I haven’t had a wink of sleep all night, and feel that most of all I would like to lie down here in the shade and doze off. I can see that the others feel similarly. All we want is to lie down and close our eyes, that would be for the best. When we set off again Grass has to support Megal, who hasn’t the strength to walk unaided.
But the drink is burning in our throats, and in our minds as welclass="underline" and it is speaking a different language. The same language as H, presumably: keep going, keep going!
We follow a path that seems to be leading round the mountain, and after a while we have the sun directly behind us instead of in front of us, which makes matters a bit easier. Then the path suddenly heads downwards, into what looks like a dried-out ravine, and we stop when we come to a little plateau. I check my watch again and see that we have been walking for twenty-five minutes in all. It feels like longer. H serves some more of the red drink, but also produces some water from his rucksack and gives us some to drink. My head is spinning, and I have the feeling that I have no idea what is going on.
Then he points at a clump of bushes not far in front of us on the plateau.
‘The monster,’ he says. ‘That’s where the monster lives. Get ready to kill the monster.’
Soblewski bursts out laughing, he obviously thinks it sounds too absurd. H goes up to him and punches him in the chest. Soblewski stops laughing and apologizes. I look at Grass and see that he has raised his revolver, but is just standing there, trembling. I feel an urge to run away, but another impulse yells at me that if I do so I’ll get ten bullets in my back. I really have no idea about what’s going on.
We stand in a line about ten metres away from the bushes. They are parched and covered in grains of sand which have turned them grey: it’s impossible to see through the branches. I have the impression that I can see something black inside there, but can’t make out what it is.