Fear Read online

  And now that she was called upon, for the first time, to pay the real price of danger for that adventure, she began to calculate its value in meticulous detail. Spoilt by fate, cosseted by her family, and with almost nothing left to wish for in her financially easy circumstances, she found the very first moment of discomfort too much to bear. She immediately resolved that she was not going to give up any part of her freedom from anxiety, and in fact without further ado she was ready to sacrifice her lover to her peace of mind.

  His answer, a nervously disjointed letter expressing his dismay, was brought by a messenger that same afternoon. The letter, full of distraught pleading, complaints and accusations, shook her determination to end the relationship because his desire flattered her vanity. Indeed, she was delighted by his frenzied desperation. Her lover begged her, pled urgently with her, at least to grant him a brief meeting, an opportunity of explaining his offence if he had unwittingly injured her in any way. Now she was intrigued by this new game of showing that she was in a sulky mood, and making herself even more desirable to him by refusing her favours without giving any reason. She felt that she was in the midst of excitement, and like all naturally cool people she found it pleasant to be surrounded by surging waves of passion while she herself did not burn with true ardour. She arranged to meet him at a café where, she suddenly remembered, she had once had a rendezvous with an actor when she was a young girl—an episode that admittedly now seemed to her childish in its carefree propriety. How strange, she thought, smiling to herself, that romance, stunted by all these years of marriage, was beginning to blossom in her life again. By now she was almost glad of yesterday’s abrupt encounter with that woman—for the first time in a long while, it had made her feel truly strong, stimulating emotions which still left her nervous system secretly tingling, in contrast to its usual state of mild relaxation.

  This time she wore a dark, plain dress and a different hat, which would lead the woman’s memory astray if they did by any chance meet again. She had a veil ready to disguise herself further, but with sudden defiance she left it at home. Was she, a respected, highly regarded woman, to be afraid to venture out into the street for fear of some female whom she didn’t know at all? There was already something curiously tempting mingled with her fear of the danger—an alarmingly pleasurable readiness to do battle, rather like caressing the cold blade of a dagger with her bare fingers, or looking down the black muzzle of a revolver where death in compressed form lurked in waiting. This thrill of adventure was not what her sheltered life was used to, and she toyed with the enticing idea of coming close to it again. The sensation exerted delightful tension on her nerves, sending electrical sparks flying through her bloodstream.

  A momentary sense of fear overwhelmed her only in the first moment when she stepped out into the street. It passed through her like the nervous chill when you dip your toes into the water, before entrusting yourself entirely to the waves. But that chill lasted for only a split second, and then, all of a sudden, she felt a strange delight in life rushing through her veins. She relished the pleasure of walking along with more of a light, strong, springy step than she ever known herself to adopt before. She was almost sorry that the café was so close, for some kind of impulse was now urging her to go rhythmically on, attracted by the mysterious magnetism of adventure. But the time she had set aside for this meeting was short, and she felt in her heart, with a pleasing certainty, that her lover was already there waiting for her. Sure enough, he was sitting in a corner when she came in, and leapt to his feet in a state of agitation that she found both pleasant and painful. Such a whirlwind of heated questions and reproaches poured out of him in his mental turmoil that she had to remind him to keep his voice down. Without giving him any idea of the real reason for her failure to visit him, she played with hints so vaguely phrased that they inflamed his passions even more. She could not and would not comply with his wishes this time, she told him, and she even hesitated to make any promises, sensing how much her sudden withdrawal and refusal to give herself excited him. And when, after half-an-hour of heated conversation, she left without giving him the slightest sign of affection, or even holding out the prospect of any in the future, she was glowing with a very strange feeling that she had known before only as a girl. She felt as if a small, tingling fire were burning deep inside her, just waiting for the wind to fan it into flames that would rise and unite above her head. She was quick to notice, in passing, all the glances cast at her in the street, and her unusual ability to attract so much masculine attention made her so curious to see her own face that she suddenly stopped in front of the mirror in the window of a flower shop, to see her own beauty framed in red roses and violets gleaming with dew. She was looking back at herself with sparkling eyes, young and light at heart. A sensuous mouth, half-open, smiled at her with satisfaction, and when she walked on she felt the rhythmical movement of her limbs as if her feet had wings. A need for some physical release, a need to dance or run wildly, took over from the usual sedate pace of her footsteps, and now she was sorry to hear the clock on St Michael’s Church, as she hurried past, calling her home to her small, neat, tidy world. Not since girlhood had she felt so light at heart, with all her senses so animated. Nothing like it had sent sparks flying through her body, not in the first days of her marriage or in her lover’s embrace, and the idea of wasting this strange lightness, this sweet frenzy of the blood, on well-regulated hours seemed unendurable. Wearily now, she went on. She stopped outside the building where she lived, hesitating once again, wishing to expand her breast and breathe in the fiery air and confusion of the last hour once more, feeling the last, ebbing wave of her adventure deep in her heart.

  Then someone touched on her shoulder. She turned around. “What … what do you want this time?” she stammered, frightened to death at the sudden sight of that hated face, and even more frightened to hear herself speak those fateful words. Hadn’t she made up her mind not to show that she recognised the woman if she ever met her again, to deny everything, to stand up to the blackmailer? And now it was too late.

  “I been waiting here for you this last half-hour, Frau Wagner.”

  Irene started when she heard her name. So the woman knew it, knew where she lived. All was lost now, she was helpless, at this creature’s mercy. She had words on the tip of her tongue, all those carefully prepared and calculated words, but her tongue was paralysed and could not utter a sound.

  “Half-an-hour I been waiting, Frau Wagner.” The woman repeated her words menacingly. It was like an accusation.

  “What do you want … what do you want from me?”

  “Why, don’t you know that already, Frau Wagner?” Her own name made Irene jump with fright again. “You know what I’m here for right enough.”

  “I haven’t seen him again … let me go! I never will see him again … never.”

  The woman waited, composed, until the agitated Irene could say no more. Then she replied harshly, as if speaking to an inferior.

  “Don’t you tell me no lies! I followed you to that caffy, didn’t I?” And seeing Irene flinch, she added in tones of derision, “Me, I got no job, see? They fired me from the shop on account of no work coming in, that’s what they say, and then there’s the hard times and all. Well, we got to spend our time somehow, so us poor girls go walking about a bit, just like you fine, respectable ladies.”

  The woman spoke with a cold ill will that struck Irene to the heart. She felt defenceless against the naked brutality of such malice, and increasingly dizzy in the grip of the fearful idea that the woman might begin shouting, or her husband might happen to come by, and then all would be lost. She quickly felt in her muff, brought out her silver-mesh purse, and took from it all the money that her fingers could hold. With revulsion, she thrust it into the hand now slowly reaching out in certain expectation of its plunder.

  But this time the strange hand did not withdraw humbly as soon as it had the money in its clasp, but stayed outstretched in the air, open lik
e a claw.

  “And let’s have that nice little silver purse too, for to keep my money safe in!” said the scornfully smiling mouth, with a soft chuckle of a laugh.

  Irene looked her in the eye, but only for a second. The creature’s insolent, malicious scorn was past bearing. She felt revulsion run through her whole body like a burning pain. She had to get away, well away from the sight of that woman’s face! Turning aside, she quickly held out the purse, a valuable item in itself, to the woman, and then ran up the steps with horror on her heels.

  Her husband was not home yet, so she was able to fling herself down on the sofa. She lay there as if felled by a hammer-blow, motionless apart from a frantic twitching that ran through her fingers and then up her arm, making it tremble all the way to her shoulder. But nothing in her whole body could put up any defence against the storming violence of the horror that had now been let loose. Only when she heard her husband’s voice outside did she pull herself together, making an enormous effort, and force herself to go into the next room, her movements automatic and her senses numbed.

  The horror had now moved into her home and would not stir from its rooms. In the many empty hours that kept bringing the images of that terrible meeting back to her mind, wave upon wave of them, her hopeless situation became perfectly clear to her. How it could have happened she had no idea, but the woman knew her name, knew where she lived, and now that her first attempts at blackmail had been so conspicuously successful she certainly would not shun any means of making use of her knowledge to continue her campaign of extortion. She would be a burden on her victim’s life year after year, like a nightmare that no effort, however desperate, could dislodge, for although Irene was well-to-do and the wife of a prosperous man, she could not possibly raise a large enough sum to free herself of the woman once and for all without confiding in her husband. In addition, as she knew from hearing occasional stories of his about trials in which he had appeared, all agreements with base, unscrupulous persons, and any promises made to them were entirely null and void. She calculated that she could fend off the moment of doom for a month, maybe two, and then the entire artificial structure of her domestic bliss would collapse. There was little satisfaction in the certain knowledge that the blackmailer would also be brought down in her own fall. What were six months in prison for a woman who undoubtedly led a dissolute life and probably had a criminal record already, by comparison with the life she herself would lose? And she felt, in horror, that it was the only possible life for her. To begin a new one, dishonoured and with a stain on her reputation, seemed unimaginable to Irene, a woman who had received everything in her existence up to now as a gift, who had never been responsible for constructing any part of her own destiny. And then her children were here, her husband, her home, all the things that she realised only now, when she was about to lose them, were so much a part of her life, indeed were the essence of it. Everything that she had merely taken for granted in the past, touching it only with the hem of her garment, she now suddenly felt was dreadfully necessary to her, and the idea that a strange vagrant of a woman lurking somewhere in the streets might have the power to destroy its warm, coherent entity with a single word seemed more than she could grasp, and indeed as improbable as a dream.

  She could not avert the disaster—she felt that now with terrible certainty; she had no way of escape. But what … what exactly would happen? She fretted over that question from morning to night. One day a letter to her husband would arrive. She could see him now, coming into the room, pale, with a sombre expression on his face, taking hold of her arm, asking questions … but then … what would happen then? What would he do? Here the pictures in her mind’s eye were suddenly extinguished in the darkness of a confused and cruel fear. She had no idea what would happen then, and her speculations plunged to dizzy, endless depths. In this brooding frame of mind, however, she saw how little she really knew her husband, how unable she was to work out in advance what his decision would be. She had married him at the urging of her parents, although with no reluctance, indeed with a pleasant sense of liking for him which was not disappointed later. She had spent eight years of comfortable, quiet contentment at his side, she had borne his children, she shared his home and had spent countless hours physically close to him, but only now that she wondered about his possible behaviour did she realise what a stranger he still was to her. Looking back feverishly at her recollections of the last few years, and feeling as if she were turning ghostly floodlights on them, she discovered that she had never wondered what his nature was really like, and now, after all these years, did not even know whether he should be described as harsh or forbearing, stern or affectionate. Stricken disastrously late by a guilty conscience which itself was engendered by her mortal fear, she had to admit to herself that she had known him only superficially, on the social level, never in that deeper part of his nature where his decision would surely be made at this tragic moment. Instinctively she began keeping an eye open for small traits of character in him, for indications, trying to remember what he had said in conversation about such cases, and she was unpleasantly surprised to realise that he had hardly ever expressed any views of his own to her. Then again, she herself had never turned to him with questions that went very deep. Now, at last, she put her mind to his life as a whole, looking for individual features that might tell her more about his character. Her fear began hammering reluctantly away at every little memory, trying to find a way into the secret chambers of his heart.

  She turned her watchful attention to the slightest thing he said, and waited with feverish impatience for the times when he came home. She hardly noticed his greeting, but in his gestures—the way he kissed her hand or stroked her hair—there seemed to be an affection that might indicate a deep love of her, although it avoided any stormy demonstrations. He always spoke to her in measured tones, never impatiently or in any agitation, and his general attitude to her was one of kindly composure, yet as she uneasily began to suspect it was not very different from his manner to the servants, and certainly was less warm than his feeling for the children, which always took lively form—sometimes he joked with them cheerfully, sometimes he was passionately affectionate. Today, as usual, he civilly asked about any domestic matters, as if to give her a chance of expressing her interests to him while he said nothing about his own, and for the first time she discovered herself noticing the care with which he treated her, his reserved approach to their daily conversations—which, as she was suddenly horrified to realise, were flat and banal. He gave nothing of himself away, and her curiosity, longing for something to calm her mind, remained unsatisfied.

  As he said nothing to give her a clue, she searched his face. He was sitting in his armchair now, reading a book, his features clearly illuminated by the electric light. She scanned his face as if it were a stranger’s, trying to deduce from those well-known yet suddenly unfamiliar features the character that eight years of living together had kept hidden from her indifference. His brow was smooth and well shaped, as if formed by strong intellectual effort; his mouth, however, looked stern and unyielding. Everything about his very masculine features was firm, full of energy and power. Surprised to find beauty in it, she considered that restrained gravity with a certain admiration, seeing the evident austerity of his nature which so far, in her simple-minded way, she had merely thought was not very entertaining, wishing it could have been exchanged for a sociable loquacity. His eyes, however, where the real secret must after all lie, were bent on his book, so that she was unable to consider what they told her. She could only look inquiringly at his profile, as if its curving line meant a single word portending mercy or damnation—a profile now unfamiliar, so harsh that it alarmed her, yet making her aware for the first time, in its determined expression, of its remarkable beauty. All at once she felt that she liked looking at him, and did so with pleasure and pride. Something stirred painfully in her breast as that sensation was aroused in her, a vague and sombre feeling, regret for something neglec
ted, an almost sensuous tension that she could not remember ever having experienced so strongly in his physical presence. Then he looked up from his book. She quickly retreated further into the shadows, so that the burning question in her own eyes would not arouse his suspicion.