The Book of Murder Read online

  On one of these identically hot days, as I leaned over to check a sentence on the screen, I rested my hand, again innocently, on the back of the chair. She had shifted forward but now sat back, her shoulder against my hand, gently trapping it. Neither of us moved to break contact—that furtive but lengthy first contact—and, until we took our first break, I continued dictating standing, caught there touching her, feeling through my fingers, like an intense intermittent signal, a secret warm current, the heat of her skin from her neck to her shoulders.

  A couple of days later I started dictating the first truly erotic scene of the novel. When I’d finished I asked her to read it back to me. I replaced a few words with cruder alternatives, and asked her to read it again. She complied, as unselfconscious as ever, and I could detect no agitation in her voice as she read the steamy passages. Even so, there was now a slight sexual tension in the air. I hoped, I said for the sake of saying something, that Kloster didn’t subject her to such writing. She looked at me calmly and a little sardonically: she was used to it, she said, Kloster dictated things that were much worse. By a curious inflection of her voice, ‘worse’ seemed to mean better. A half-smile lingered on her lips, as if she were remembering something in particular, and I took it as a challenge. I went on dictating, waiting patiently for her to bend her neck from side to side. When at last I heard the bones crack I slid my hand under her hair and pressed the joint with my fingers. I think this irrevocable move—from avoiding touching her at all costs to touching her decisively—startled her as much as it did me, even as I tried to make it seem casual. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, her hands away from the keyboard. She was staring straight ahead, and I couldn’t decide whether she was hoping for something more or something less.

  “When I get rid of this cast I’ll give you a massage,” I said and moved my hand to the back of the chair.

  “When you get rid of the cast you won’t need me any more,” she answered, still not turning, smiling nervously, equivocally, as if she could see an opportunity to escape but hadn’t yet decided if she wanted to take it.

  “I could always break something else,” I said, and looked into her eyes. She looked away immediately.

  “That would be no good: you know Kloster’s getting back next week,” she said neutrally, as if she wanted, gently, to make me stop. Or was she simply testing me?

  “Kloster, Kloster,” I said plaintively. “Why should Kloster have everything?”

  “I don’t think he has everything he wants,” she said.

  That was all she said, in the same even tone as before, but there was a quiet hint of pride in her voice. I thought I understood what she wanted me to understand. But if she was trying to cheer me up, she’d only added another source of irritation. So Kloster, who was so serious, had after all also had designs on our little Luciana. From what I’d just heard, he might even have already made a first move. And Luciana, far from slamming the door in his face, was about to go back to him. Kloster, now more enviable than ever even if he hadn’t yet got very far with her, would have an opportunity every day. And as well as being proud that she was rejecting him, Luciana would also no doubt feel proud that he kept trying. Wasn’t she at an age, just out of adolescence, when women want to test their powers of attraction on every man?

  I imagined all of this from that slight inflexion of her voice, but couldn’t make Luciana reveal anything more. As I started to probe, she said, blushing slightly, that she’d simply meant what she’d said: no one, not even Kloster, could have everything. That she wanted to deny it now simply served as confirmation and though I couldn’t follow all its implications, I felt suddenly discouraged. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then she asked, almost imploringly, if we shouldn’t continue working. Somewhat humiliated, I searched for the point in my manuscript where I’d stopped. I was mortified: I realised that in harping on Kloster so insistently I might have lost my chance. Had I ever had one? I’d thought I had with that first touch, despite her sudden stiffness. But now, as I continued dictating, it had all vanished, as if we’d both resumed our previous places, with a civilised distance between us. Nevertheless, as she picked up her bag before leaving, her eyes sought mine, as if she wanted to make sure of something, or, like me, she wanted to recover some of the contact that had been lost. This glance only disconcerted me all over again: it might mean simply that she didn’t bear me a grudge but would rather forget what had just happened, or that the door, in spite of everything, was still open.

  I waited impatiently for the day to end. The month had passed too quickly and I realised that there were only a couple of days left before Luciana disappeared from my life. When I let her in the next morning I looked to see if anything in her face or general appearance had changed since the day before—whether she’d tried a little more make-up, or a bit less clothing—but if anything she seemed to have succeeded in looking the same as always. And yet, nothing was the same. We sat down and I began dictating the last chapter of my novel. I wondered whether the imminent end wouldn’t stir something in her as well, but as if we were applying ourselves with the utmost concentration to playing our parts, Luciana’s hands, her head, her entire attention, seemed fully focused on my voice.

  As the morning progressed, I realised I was waiting for a single movement. Strange dissociation. Though I still noticed the same things as usual—the gap between her T–shirt and the line of her panties, the seductively furrowed brow, the tips of her teeth biting her lip now and then, the movement of her shoulders as she leaned forward—it was strangely distant and all that I could really see before me, with extraordinary clarity, was the nape of her neck. I was waiting, with the pathetic expectancy of Pavlov’s dog, for the moment when she would bend her neck from side to side. But the signal never came, as if she too had become conscious of the power, the danger, of that cracking sound. I waited incredulously, and then almost feeling as if I’d been cheated, till the very last moment, but her neck, her lovely capricious neck, remained stubbornly still, and I had to let that day go.

  The next morning was our last. When Luciana arrived and dropped her tiny bag down beside her, it seemed simply inconceivable that I might no longer have her with me and that all these little routines would disappear. The first two hours passed, exasperatingly. During a break Luciana went to the kitchen to make coffee. This too was happening for the last time. I followed her and remarked, half humorous, half dejected, that next week she would be back to taking dictation of good novels. I told her of Campari’s injunction when giving me her number, that I had to return her intact, and I added that to my regret I was complying. All this managed to draw from her was an uncomfortable smile. We went back to work. I only had a few pages of the epilogue left to dictate. I thought bitterly that we might even finish a little early that day. On one of the final pages there was a German street name and Luciana wanted me to check she’d spelled it correctly. I leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen, as I had done so many times in the past month, and once again I was enveloped in the scent of her hair. Then, just as I was about to move my hand from the back of the chair, like a belated call that I’d ceased to expect, she tilted her head to one side, almost touching me, then the other. I heard the crack and, as if it were a continuation of that first time, slid my hand beneath her hair until I found the gap between the vertebrae. She gave a small faltering sigh and leaned her head back, yielding to my touch. She turned her face towards me, expectantly. I kissed her once. She closed her eyes, and half opened them again. I kissed her more deeply and slid my left hand under her T–shirt. But the cast on my other hand hampered me and she was able to push the chair back slightly and free herself easily.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, taken aback. I held out my hand, but something in her seemed to shrink from me and I froze.

  “What’s the matter?” She smiled nervously as she rearranged her hair. “I’ve got a boyfriend, that’s what’s the matter.”

  “But you had him ten seconds ago to
o,” I said, bewildered.

  “Ten seconds ago…I forgot myself for a moment.”

  “And now?”

  “I remembered.”

  “So what was it? A bout of amnesia?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and she looked up, as if trying to make the whole thing seem trivial. “You seemed to want it so much.”

  “Ah,” I said, offended. “Only I wanted it.”

  “No,” she said, looking confused. “I felt…curious. And you seemed so jealous of Kloster.”

  “What’s Kloster got to do with it?” I asked, exasperated. Competing against two other men seemed a bit much.

  She seemed sorry she’d said it. She looked at me alarmed, I suppose because it was the first time she’d heard me raise my voice. “No, no, nothing,” she said, as if she could take it back. “I think I just wanted something to happen so you’d remember me.”

  So she’d already learned that sort of trick, I thought bitterly. She was staring at me sadly, eyes open very wide, and she seemed to be both lying and telling the truth.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll remember you,” I said, humiliated, but hoping to salvage some of my wounded pride. “That’s the first time anyone’s kissed me out of pity.”

  “Could we finish, please?” she said and cautiously edged the chair back in, as if fearing some kind of reprisal.

  “Yes, of course, let’s finish,” I said.

  I dictated the last two pages. As she picked up her bag before leaving I handed her that week’s pay without a word. For the first time she put it away without looking at it, as if she wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

  That was the last time I saw Luciana, ten years ago, when she was just another very pretty girl, confident, carefree, trying her first games of seduction, far from matters of life and death.

  The entry phone rang—it was five to four. As I went down in the lift, I stared at my now gaunt face in the mirror and couldn’t help wondering what I would see when I opened the door.

  ∨ The Book of Murder ∧

  Two

  Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of her. It was her, still Luciana, I had to admit it, but for a moment I thought there must be some terrible mistake. The terrible mistake of time. The cruellest revenge upon a woman, Kloster wrote, was to let ten years pass before seeing her again.

  I could say that she’d put on weight, but that was the least of it. Perhaps the most appalling thing was the way the face I had once known tried to surface in her eyes, as if seeking me from a distant past, sunk in the black well of the years. She smiled with something like desperation, testing to see if she could count on even a part of the attraction she had once exerted over me. But the equivocal smile lasted only a fraction of a second, as if she knew that in a sequence of cruel amputations she had lost all her charms. My worst predictions for her appearance had come true. Her neck, the smooth neck that had come to obsess me, had thickened, and there was now an unmistakable roll of fat beneath her chin. The eyes that used to sparkle now looked small and puffy. Her mouth was drawn down at the corners in an embittered line, and it looked as if nothing had made her smile in a long time. But the worst thing was what had happened to her hair. An entire section had disappeared from the front, as if she’d suffered from some nervous disease, or she’d torn it out in fits of despair, and over the ear, where it was more sparse than elsewhere, whitish patches of scalp showed through, like terrible scars. My horrified, disbelieving stare must have lingered a little too long on the lank strands because she raised her hand to her ear to hide them, but gave up halfway, as if she knew the damage could not be concealed.

  “Something else I owe Kloster,” she said.

  She sat down in the same old swivel chair and looked around, surprised, I think, that the place had changed so little.

  “Amazing,” she said, as if she found it unfair but was also relieved to have discovered a refuge, a piece of the past unexpectedly intact. “Nothing’s changed here. You’ve even kept that horrible little grey rug. And you…” She looked at me almost accusingly. “You look just the same too. A few grey hairs maybe. You haven’t even put on weight. I bet if I go to the kitchen the cupboards will be empty and all I’ll find is coffee.”

  It was my turn to say something pleasant, I suppose, but, unable to find the words, I let the moment pass and I think my silence pained her more than any lie.

  “So,” she said with an ironic, disagreeable smile, “don’t you want to know how I am? Why don’t you ask me about my boyfriend?” She said it as if this were some kind of guessing game.

  “How’s your boyfriend?” I asked mechanically.

  “He’s dead,” she said, but before I could say anything she fixed her gaze on mine, holding it steadily, as if it were still her turn. “Why don’t you ask me about my parents?” I said nothing and she answered her own question with the same defiant tone: “They’re dead. Why don’t you ask me about my brother? He’s dead.” Her lower lip trembled. “Dead, dead, dead. One after the other. And nobody realises. At first even I didn’t realise.”

  “Do you mean someone killed them?”

  “Kloster,” she said in a terrified whisper, leaning towards me as if someone might hear. “And he hasn’t finished yet. He does it slowly, that’s the secret. He lets years go by.”

  “Kloster is killing all your relatives, without anyone realising,” I said cautiously, as if humouring a mad person.

  She nodded seriously, looking into my eyes, waiting for my reaction, as if she’d said the most important part and had put herself in my hands. Naturally I thought she must be suffering from some kind of mental disorder as a result of all these unfortunate deaths. Over the past few years Kloster had become almost obscenely famous: you couldn’t open the papers without seeing his name. No other writer was as sought after, as ubiquitous, as celebrated. Kloster was a fixture on literary prize panels, heading the list of signatures to open letters, a delegate at international conferences and guest of honour at embassy receptions. Over the past ten years he had been transformed from well-kept secret to public property, almost a brand. His books were sold in all formats, from pocket editions to luxurious hardback volumes for the corporate gift market. And though he now had a frequently photographed face, I had long since ceased to think of him as a man, a person of flesh and bone: he’d vanished, become a name haunting bookshops, posters, headlines. Kloster now lived the hectic, unreachable life of a celebrity: he didn’t seem to rest between book tours and all his other activities. Not to mention the hours he must have spent writing, because his novels continued to appear with calm regularity. The thought that Kloster might have something to do with real-life crimes was as outrageous as if she’d blamed the Pope.

  “But Kloster?” I exclaimed involuntarily, unable to shake off my astonishment. “Surely he doesn’t have time to plan murders?”

  Too late I realised this could have sounded sarcastic and offended her. But Luciana replied as if I’d just provided her with the evidence that proved her theory conclusively.

  “Precisely. That’s part of his strategy—that nobody should think it possible. When I worked for you, you used to say he was a secret writer. In those days he despised anything to do with publicity. I heard him refuse interviews a hundred times. But in the past few years he’s deliberately sought fame, because he needs it now: it’s a perfect smokescreen. Or rather he would need it, if anyone bothered to look into it,” she said bitterly. “If anyone was prepared to believe me.”

  “But what motive could Kloster have for—”

  “I don’t know. That’s the most exasperating part. Actually, he does have a motive: I sued him when I went back to work for him. But in hindsight it was a minor thing—it didn’t even go to court. I can’t believe he’s still taking revenge: it’s out of all proportion. The more I think about it the less I can believe it’s the real reason.”

  “You sued Kloster? But I thought he was the perfect boss. The last time I saw you, you seemed happy t
o be going back to work for him. What happened?”

  The coffee pot on the hob started to hiss. I went to the kitchen, and returned with two cups of coffee. I waited for her to help herself to sugar. She stirred her coffee endlessly, as if she were trying to order her thoughts. Or maybe she was wondering how much to tell me.

  “What happened? I’ve spent years asking myself every day what happened exactly. It’s been a nightmare. I could recount each thing separately and it would just seem like a string of misfortunes. It all began when I went back to work for him, when he got back from his retreat. The first day he was in a good mood. During a break, while I was making coffee, he asked what I’d done during the month he was away. I told him, without a second thought, that I’d worked for you. At first he seemed simply intrigued. He asked who you were, and what the novel you were writing was about. I think he knew a little about you, or he pretended to. I told him you’d broken your wrist. It was just a casual conversation but there was something in his voice and his insistent questions that made me think he was jealous—he seemed to assume something had happened between you and me. A couple of times I think he was on the point of asking. And in the days that followed, every so often he’d somehow bring up my free month. He even read one of your books and made fun of it. I’d say nothing but that seemed to annoy him even more. A week later he changed tack. He became unusually silent. He hardly spoke to me and I thought he was going to fire me.”

  “So I was right,” I said. “He was in love with you.”

  “Those days were the most difficult. He didn’t dictate anything at all, just paced the room, as if he were trying to come to a decision that had nothing to do with his novel. Something about me. And suddenly, one morning, he started dictating again normally, as if nothing had happened. Actually, not quite normally: he seemed to be inspired. Until then he’d dictated at the most one or two paragraphs a day, going over them obsessively, line by line. But that day he dictated a long and rather horrifying scene in one go: a series of murders, throat-slittings by the religious assassins. He seemed transformed. He’d never dictated so fast—I had trouble keeping up. But I thought everything was OK again. I really needed that job so I was terribly worried about him firing me. He continued dictating at that pace for almost two hours and as we went on his mood seemed to get better and better. When I stopped to go and get more coffee, he even made a couple of jokes. I stood up and suddenly realised how stiff my neck was. I had a problem with it in those days,” she said, as if she were trying to prove her innocence with this belated explanation.