Travelling Light Page 8

  Even before she taught at the university she’d been in the habit of giving a little party for her pupils once a week. In those days she served hot chocolate and pastries; later they got Martini and olives and were allowed to bring a friend if they liked. There were those who thought it was all a bit over the top, but they gave in to Viktoria’s utter lack of pretension. She wasn’t there to be judged; just observed and accepted.

  When young people came to Viktoria’s parties, they would make bets about what it would be that she’d need their help with. It became a kind of game. Maybe she couldn’t get the cork out of a bottle of vermouth, or maybe the flat was too dark because a fuse had blown and she didn’t know how to fix it, or there would be a window she couldn’t close, or an important paper had slipped down behind the bookcase. It was with a certain tenderness that they would sort things out, then laugh and say, “Dear old Viktoria!” Elisabeth had perhaps not been one of her best students, but she was very sweet and lovable.

  Elisabeth had got Hilda’s room upstairs ready for Viktoria – a dressing gown spread out on the bed, a spray of almond blossom, an ashtray. And, most thoughtful of all, an Erle Stanley Gardner. The dear child had not forgotten Viktoria’s weakness for murder mysteries.

  This window too was very small, but from here she could see the terraces climbing the mountainside higher and higher with long curving pink and white rows of flowering almond trees. Elisabeth had explained to her how the terraces held the soil in place and how they had been maintained for hundreds of years; though nowadays not many people knew how to build walls the old way, every stone fitted into place without mortar like the finest intarsia. Viktoria was particularly interested in walls. Once, out at the seashore at home, she had tried to repair a stone pier, but if you’re not good with your hands then, sadly, you’re just not.

  There was one more little staircase. It led up to a rooftop terrace, from where the wide landscape’s incredible beauty suddenly opened out. Mountain ranges rose all round in massive majesty, so that from here in the deep bowl of the valley, Viktoria felt no larger than a flea. A dramatic landscape, enormous and enclosed. What effect did it have on human beings? It was so utterly solitary. She stood still and listened, gradually becoming aware of how the silence was accentuated by never being absolute: now and then a dog barked, a car passed on the road below the village, church bells rang a long way off. Points of comparison, she thought, like the way the ocean grows larger if there are islands breaking the horizon. We need contrast, she told herself. And now, I think this taxing day has gone on long enough. I won’t unpack or make myself anything to eat. I’ll just go to bed.

  Viktoria slept peacefully, her dreams great images full of mystery. Cocks started crowing before dawn; it sounded like there were a lot of them in the village. Then it was morning. The room was horribly cold, especially the stone floor. She put on all the woollen clothes she had and went downstairs. She opened the window with the oranges, leaned out and took an orange in her hand, but could not bring herself to pick it – somehow it felt wrong. Better to have a cup of tea.

  Thank goodness the gas worked; the canister wasn’t empty. There was another device, maybe something to do with hot water. Viktoria carefully turned a knob and it sprang into action with an alarming hiss, so she switched it off again and made her tea. The refrigerator was full of neat little plastic packages. She opened one but, suspecting it contained deep-frozen squid, she hastily closed it again. The jam jar looked just the way it should. Perhaps it was the ordinariness of the jam jar that disturbed her; she was intruding in someone else’s life, in another woman’s refrigerator, her bed, her distressed departure. I’m being selfish. What do I know about Elisabeth? There was a safety razor in the bathroom: perhaps a man had to move out because of me.

  Viktoria put on her hat and coat, poured a saucer of milk for the cats and went out. The morning was chilly; the sun had barely risen above the crest of the mountain. The village street ended in the square, a pretty little place with a pump in the middle and several trees which had not yet put out leaves; she must find out what they were. Plane trees perhaps? There was the shop, and José’s Café and a big yellow letterbox that seemed a safe and homely object to Viktoria. She needed to buy stamps somewhere and send scenic postcards to some of her old students. All the doors were still closed. An old man crossed the square and they greeted each other. I live here now, thought Viktoria with a little thrill of pleasure, and people say hello to me when they pass… Everything’s going to be all right.

  Back in the shade of the patio she buried herself in her Guide for Tourists: Useful Phrases: “Please. I’m sorry. Excuse me. Where can I find a shoeshine, tailor, souvenir shop, beauty salon?”

  At twelve there was a knock on the door and a young man came in with a toolbox, smiled and explained something Viktoria didn’t understand. Then he began making a large hole in the wall. It’s funny, you think you’ve learned all these fine and useful things to say in Spanish, but when you need them they all just vanish. She gave the young man some of Elisabeth’s wine and a cigarette and fussed around him until the hole was finished. Then he left. A little later he came back, and with another nice smile presented Viktoria with an entire mimosa bush. She was overcome. Mimosa was a thing you bought in tiny sprigs for people’s birthdays. It was as if this foreign land had accepted her. It was unbelievable – she must remember to tell Elisabeth.

  Now the young man filled the hole with plaster. Then he cleared up after himself, looked at her, and laughed.

  “Very good work,” said Viktoria shyly. “Very, very good.”

  When there was a knock on the door the next day, Viktoria thought the young man must have come back, perhaps to do more work on the wall, but it was a red-haired woman who spoke English and was looking for Elisabeth. She had four small dogs.

  “How nice!” exclaimed Viktoria. “Please do come in! What a lot of little dogs. Do sit down. I’m so sorry, Elisabeth isn’t here; the poor child has had to go home because her mother’s been taken ill. I’m her godmother, Viktoria Johansson. May I offer you a cup of tea?”

  “Josephine O’Sullivan,” said the visitor. “Thanks, but maybe not tea, I don’t want to put you to any trouble. But Elisabeth usually has some wine in her kitchen cupboard.”

  Viktoria went and looked in Elisabeth’s cupboard and found half a bottle of whisky.

  The dogs were lying close beside Josephine’s chair, and after a while two of them jumped up on her lap.

  “Cheers,” said Viktoria, who didn’t like whisky. “Have you lived here long, Miss O’Sullivan?”

  “Only a year. But most of the colony have been here much longer.”

  “The colony?”

  “Yes, the English colony. And a few Americans. It’s so cheap here.”

  “And so beautiful,” added Viktoria. “So peaceful; a real paradise!”

  Josephine laughed, screwing up her small face which made her look older. She pushed the dogs off her lap and emptied her glass.

  “They seem very attached to you,” Viktoria said. “Would you like a little more?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “A cigarette?”

  “Thanks, I’ve got my own.” Josephine said nothing for a long time. She lit her cigarette, drew on it several times, then stubbed it out irritably in the ashtray. “Paradise, you say. We’ve our snakes here too, you know! It’s not safe to walk about in the village any more. And no one does anything about it.”

  “But the Spaniards…” Viktoria began.

  Josephine interrupted impatiently. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “But please, don’t you worry about it.”

  One of the dogs jumped up on her lap again, while the others squeezed in under her chair.

  Viktoria said, “I’m so sorry Elisabeth’s not here. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “No. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Several motorcycles passed, then it was quiet again.

  Suddenly Josephine
broke out vehemently, “No one cares! No one!”

  The smallest dog started barking.

  “Sit!” Josephine shouted. “Sit! You and your paradise! If someone had sworn to kill you, how would you feel!?”

  Now all the dogs began yapping.

  Viktoria said, “Don’t you think we ought to let them out?”

  When she had taken the dogs to the patio and come back, her visitor was standing at the window with her back to the room. Viktoria waited.

  “Her name is Smith,” Josephine continued, speaking quietly with her lips pressed together. “Smith, if you please. She goes round the village brandishing a knife and threatening to murder me. And she lives right next door to me with only a single wall between us! She hates dogs and stereos, she sticks threatening letters under my door and makes faces at my cleaning woman, and last week she cut down my mimosa! I went to the police but they said they can’t do anything until something has actually happened, in other words, until I’m lying there with my throat cut!”

  “Was it a large mimosa?” Viktoria asked.

  Josephine gave her an angry look. “A metre high,” she snapped.

  “And what do the dogs have to say about it?”

  “They bark, of course.”

  “My dear Miss O’Sullivan, let’s not be too hasty. Murder is a very big word; it should only be used with care and forethought. It’s quite chilly in here. What about a fire? I think Elisabeth has some firewood out on the patio.”

  The wood turned out to be big chunks of olive and some sort of hairy brushwood. Josephine got the fire lit and it burned with an intense blue flame.

  “It burns so beautifully,” said Viktoria. “Differently. Not like at home.”

  Josephine stood still and gazed into the fire. “No,” she said, “not like at home.”

  Viktoria remembered times when students had come to her to talk about something terrible that had happened to them. It used to help a bit to let them light a fire in her tiled stove.

  “Miss O’Sullivan,” she said, “I want to think seriously about your problem and try and find a way to help you. But you’ll have to let me give it some careful thought.”

  Josephine turned to Viktoria. Her whole bearing changed and relaxed. The tension went out of her face and she whispered, “Will you really help me? Seriously? I can count on it, can’t I?”

  “Of course you can,” said Viktoria. “This has to be dealt with. But right now you go home and think about something else.” She was on the point of adding, “Read a nice murder mystery.” But she caught herself at the last moment.

  When Josephine and her dogs had gone, Viktoria took out paper and a pen, lit a cigarette and settled down in front of the fire. She felt quite revived. First she wrote “The Josephine Case”, then after thinking a bit changed it to “The Woman with the Knife”.

  1. I shall call the woman with the knife X, which is better than Smith. Is it X or J who’s demented? Or both? (NB: police no good, they won’t help).

  2. Find out if it’s legal in Spain to run about threatening people with knives. She could at least be fined for disorderly conduct but that might make her even more belligerent. What sort of knife has she chosen? Stiletto? Kitchen knife? This would seem to be an important detail, at least psychologically. What do I know about X? Nothing.

  3. Motive. Dogs and stereo aren’t enough; there must be something else, something more significant. Discover the motive.

  4. Method. Must make contact with X. Is this urgent? Or is J being melodramatic? Have a word with José, but be diplomatic.

  The fire burned well, and the room was soon hot.

  Viktoria decided since everyone here took a siesta in the middle of the day, she could do the same with a clean conscience. An excellent custom that should be introduced in Scandinavia.

  She paid José a visit at the café. She gave him her card and presented his wife with a box of chocolates originally meant for Elisabeth. While José served her coffee, she talked a little about the weather and the beauty of the landscape and asked him if he had any contact with the foreigners in the village.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “They keep to themselves,” he said. “Pensioners. Mostly women, you understand, they live longer.”

  “What do they do with themselves?”

  “They go to parties at each other’s houses,” said José with a grin.

  Viktoria mentioned that she had the name of one of the women, a Miss Smith, and that maybe she would call on her one day.

  “Really?” said José. “You actually mean it?” He turned to his wife, who was standing behind the counter listening: “Catalina, have you heard the news; the Professor here is going to call on Miss Smith!”

  “God help her,” said Catalina. “She’ll never get into the house.”

  Viktoria had to climb a horribly long flight of steps to reach the building where Josephine lived right next door to X. When she got there, she sat down on a low wall with her Spanish phrasebook and waited. It was a very long time before she saw X come out of her house, lock the door, and stand still as if unsure which way to go. She had a shopping bag with her, so presumably was on her way to the shop. She was very small and didn’t look particularly dangerous, just gloomy. Her hair was grey and she had made no effort whatsoever to do it up. No sign of a knife. Finally she came towards Viktoria.

  “Excuse me,” said Viktoria. “I’m not feeling at all well. Where could I get a little water?”

  “There’s a pump in the square,” X answered, her eyes suspicious and very dark.

  “But I’m not sure I can make it that far. It’s the heat – I’m not used to it.”

  And so Viktoria got into the narrow little house where X lived. Now she really did feel ill, for she wasn’t used to telling lies.

  X placed a glass of water in front of her and went back to the door. After a while she asked if Viktoria was feeling better.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Viktoria truthfully. “I’m so sorry, you’ve been very kind, but couldn’t you sit down with me for a moment? I hope I haven’t got sunstroke…”

  X sat down on a chair near the door.

  “I’m not used to the heat,” Viktoria went on. “Do you know if anyone else in the colony has had sunstroke?”

  “No,” said X scornfully. “But if they had, it wouldn’t surprise me. Half the time they do nothing but sunbathe.”

  “And the other half?”

  “Parties. You’ll find out. They drink cocktails and gossip and jabber away about nothing at all. Another week and you’ll be right at the centre of it, you’re just the sort they like.”

  “Dear me,” said Viktoria. “It sounds dreadful.”

  X put down her shopping bag and spoke with quiet intensity. “Yes, it is dreadful. They invade one deserted house after another and fix them up. All mod cons inside – but the outside has to look primitive and romantic. These people and their easy lives! They swarm like hornets with their cars and their lapdogs. Like a plague of locusts! I’ve been here from the start, twenty years. I’ve seen it all! They undermine everything.”

  “Like fig trees,” said Viktoria.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Fig trees. My goddaughter Elisabeth told me that fig trees have roots that spread a very long way and can destroy walls and roads, whatever. They crowd out everything else.”

  “Exactly,” said X. “They crowd out everything else. You just don’t know where you belong any more.” She got up and stood waiting by the door.

  On her way home Viktoria tried to imagine what it must feel like to be a total outsider. This was not a new problem to her. Students excluded from the lives of their fellow students used to come and ask her what to do. Very disturbing, really complicated. She tore up her notes about The Woman with the Knife. But the case was by no means solved; it had just entered a new phase.

  Next morning Josephine arrived with all her dogs, and before she was even through the door burst out, “Professor, dear Professor Viktoria.
I heard you’ve been to see her. What did she say about me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But she must have said something!”

  Viktoria patted the smallest, most neurotic dog and said, “I think she’s just terribly lonely.”

  “Is that all?” said Josephine, raising her voice. “She’s lonely – is that all you’ve found out? I could have told you that at the start. But why does she hate me in particular, that’s what I want to know!”

  “My dear Miss O’Sullivan,” said Viktoria, “calm down. I’m only just beginning this investigation.” And then she was angry with herself. Investigation, she thought, such a pretentious word. I’ve been reading too many murder mysteries… She went on quickly, “People get hold of the wrong end of the stick, you know, often for some very unimportant reason – say a disappointment – and then the problem just grows and grows till it’s out of control…”

  Josephine grew vehement. “Are you defending her? What are you trying to tell me? All right, she’s lonely! That’s not my fault! You promised…”

  “Yes I know, I promised. Sit down. How about a little whisky?”

  “Maybe a small one,” said Josephine angrily. “But just a very small one. I’m on my way to the Wainwrights.”

  “They’re having a party?”

  “Yes, they’re having a party.”

  “Listen to me,” said Viktoria. “I’ve been looking for a motive and I think I’ve found one. She’s made you into some sort of symbol.”

  But Josephine wasn’t listening. She was talking about Lady Oldfield, who would very much like to invite the Professor to her reception next Thursday, an intellectual gathering, just the inner circle. They were not all averse to enlarging the colony.

  Then invite X, thought Viktoria angrily. I want no part of their colony. They can enlarge it some other way.