Thirteen

For the rest of that night Berg was unable to sleep. He dropped off for a restless hour between four and five o’clock and when he woke he washed himself and dressed. It was pointless going back to bed, and even if he were to fall asleep again there was every chance that he would miss hearing the alarm. He could not afford to be late at the office. Even Lazlow, who held a position of responsibility, arrived promptly each morning at eight.

Dressed, Berg sat down at the table and waited until it was time for breakfast. He tried to think of nothing at all; he tried especially not to think of Miss Selz and the sight through the keyhole, and of Monika and their midnight meeting. Besides, the whole thing was beginning to assume the qualities of a dream and it flashed through his mind that perhaps after all he had imagined everything. Certainly at the time he could have sworn that she had been rapping the adjoining wall but she had denied this so forcefully that he had his doubts. And if indeed he had dreamed about the sound, then there was a strong possibility that the rest had been a dream as well. Perhaps he had never gone to her room; perhaps she had never propositioned him; perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. He liked this idea, if only because it spared him the embarrassment of thinking that the events he remembered had actually taken place. Normally, of course, he was perfectly able to distinguish between dreams and reality, but last night he had been in a disturbed state. It wasn’t just the sight of Miss Selz that had upset him, nor even the thought that she and Lazlow were lovers—people were entitled to do what they wanted, after all—but it was an accumulation of these things. There was also the man behind the paper who had been watching him. It was quite beyond doubt that this man had been detailed to observe Berg. But detailed by whom? And for what? Even if he couldn’t answer these questions, it upset him just the same to think that his movements were being watched. It was an invasion on his privacy and, in a sense, a frontal attack on his rights as a human being. And since he was being watched, where did the watching begin and end? He could no longer cross a street without feeling that invisible eyes were following his movements and that the things he did were somewhere being remembered and recorded. It was a disgusting sensation, like trying to undress on a public beach before a gallery of curious observers.

Berg smoked a cigarette, something he did not normally do until after he had eaten: but his old habits were behind him. His new circumstances called for new behaviour. The smoke irritated his lungs and made him feel acutely sick, but he persevered. When he had finished smoking he looked from the window. Outside it was still dark: over the houses there was a faint streak of grey light, but so small as to be almost invisible.

At seven o’clock he went downstairs for breakfast. Mrs Jacobitz, to his surprise, was already in the kitchen. He could hear her running water and clattering around with dishes. He sat down at the table and looked out on the darkened garden: the clumps of shrubbery, indistinct in those places where the electric light did not strike, looked oblique and threatening.

The widow came in with a plate of food: a fried egg and a thick slice of cold sausage as well as the customary bread fried in lard that Berg did not eat but which the widow continued to serve as if in the faint hope that she might be able to train him to eat whatever she prepared.

‘It’s a bit chilly this morning,’ she said. She sat down at the table and slurped coffee from a cup. Berg found her manners very poor. She ate and drank like a performing chimpanzee in a circus. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night,’ she remarked. ‘Sometimes it’s difficult to drop off, don’t you think?’

‘Sometimes,’ he answered. He had found by experience that the less he said to the widow the better. That way he minimised the chances of yet another misunderstanding.

‘I kept hearing noises. When I was about to drop off I’d hear someone moving about the house. It wasn’t you, was it?’

‘No,’ Berg said.

‘I thought not. You wouldn’t have any reason for moving around at night, would you? I mean, there isn’t anything to do when it’s dark, is there?’

Berg shook his head and ate his breakfast. He pushed the pieces of fried bread to the side of his plate.

‘Unless you wanted to talk to somebody,’ the widow said. ‘But apart from me and Monika there isn’t anybody to talk to, is there?’

Berg looked at her. He had the strong feeling that she was leading up to something and that she was circling round whatever she really wanted to say.

‘So it couldn’t have been you that I heard. Oh well, perhaps I was dreaming. When you get to my age you dream a lot, you know. Only the other night I had the strangest dream. I saw you and Monika out there in the garden.’ She laughed suddenly, throwing herself forward. ‘Neither of you had any clothes on. Isn’t that strange? They say that dreams mean things. I’m only a country woman, not educated like yourself, so I couldn’t possibly know what that dream meant. Have you any idea?’

Berg chewed on the cold sausage. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No idea.’

‘Do you think it means that I’d like to see you and Monika become lovers?’

‘Lovers?’ Berg spluttered a little. ‘I’m quite sure that dreams mean the opposite of what you think them to mean.’

‘Is that so?’ The widow poured him some coffee. ‘Then it means that I don’t want you and Monika to become lovers, doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s just as well. Even if she would have you, which I doubt, we don’t know a single thing about your background. I mean, you say that you came here from the capital. How do we know if that’s true? How do we know that anything you tell us is true? We don’t, do we? You could be spinning a yarn all the time. It strikes me as a bit odd that a man from the capital should come all this way north just to work. Couldn’t you have found a job in the city? Or were you running away from something?’

She began to laugh, shaking her thick body up and down.

‘I’m only thinking aloud,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to look so worried. I don’t know what I want for Monika, that’s the trouble. Except her happiness. That’s all.’

Berg drank his coffee quickly. The prospect of getting involved in a lengthy conversation with the widow was unpleasant. He rose to his feet.

‘I can assure you that I don’t tell lies. Everything you know about me is the truth.’

She went with him to the front door and watched him go on to the street. When for some reason he looked back, she raised her arm and waved. He pretended not to have noticed.