The Snowman Read online

  “And do you?” asked Blum, rising. A waiter immediately hurried over to him. He paid and mopped his brow.

  “Another fiction,” said the writer, opening his tobacco tin.

  In the corridor, Cora put an arm around his shoulders and whispered, “Do you have two grams? Detlev’s already waiting in the Gents.”

  Blum withdrew from her arm. “I told you it’s too hot for me here. You waved to me in front of everyone – what’s the idea? What do you mean, two grams? I have five pounds of the stuff, and you go on about two grams. I mean, this is ridiculous . . .”

  “Every little helps,” said Cora, turning back to the star diseuse.

  In the Gents two men were standing at the urinal, and of course one of them was the dungaree-clad character. He pointed excitedly to the open door of the WC cubicle. The other man relieved himself, acting as if he hadn’t seen anything. Blum went into the WC and slammed the door. He felt quite ill with anger. Here he was – Blum of the EC butter coup, Blum of the Titian theft – lurking around in dark toilets for customers wanting cocaine, like the last heroin hawker outside the Zoo Station. The lavatory flushed, footsteps, the rattle of the roller towel, the squealing door. Then there was a knock. Blum opened the door and was about to go out, but instead Detlev pushed his way in.

  “This is safer,” he whispered. He stank of garlic. His face was red; drops of sweat glistened in his red beard.

  Blum took the cellophane wrapping off his cigarette packet and pressed it into his customer’s hand.

  “How much do you want? I don’t usually sell small quantities.”

  “Two grams for 300, that’s what I agreed with Cora.”

  “You’re joking, son. One gram costs 250, and that’s almost giving it away.”

  “If it’s good I’ll take more. I know a lot of . . .”

  “Mister, I hear that ten times a day.”

  Someone in hobnailed boots came into the Gents and wanted to use the WC.

  “Take it easy,” growled Blum.

  “Shit faster, can’t you, mate?” said the someone, and hobnailed his way out again.

  “Two grams costs 400,” said Blum. “Got the money?”

  “Yes, but only 300.”

  The smell of garlic was overpowering, but Blum stood his ground. He hadn’t spent a year in the Med for nothing.

  “Hand it over,” he said. The red-bearded man pressed three 100-mark notes into his hand. Blum held them up to the light one by one, while his customer became increasingly nervous.

  “You wouldn’t be the first to try passing duds off on me,” said Blum. He put the money away and brought out the pillbox in which he had put a couple of grams.

  “Hold out the bag.”

  “Don’t you have an envelope?”

  “Where do you think we are, the post office?” said Blum, and began very carefully tipping the cocaine into the bag. The other man’s hand was trembling so much that he spilled a little. He immediately bent and licked it off the lavatory lid. Blum, disgusted, made a face.

  “Right, that’s one and a half grams.”

  “Never! One gram at the most!”

  “You’ll take what you can get,” said Blum, putting the pillbox away. Before going out he impressed it upon the other man, in a threatening tone, that he was not to move from the spot for five minutes. Detlev tried to object, but Blum pushed him down on the lavatory and closed the door behind him. Another one like that and I’ll crack up, he thought, washing his hands. By comparison, even the porn trade was a high-society occasion.

  Cora was standing at the bar, talking to a grey-haired man in an elegantly cut duffel coat. He bore a striking resemblance to Trevor Howard in The Third Man. Blum had last seen the film in Tangiers with Arabic subtitles. He nodded to the man and said to Cora, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “This is James,” said Cora. James’s expression was neutral, and he looked at Blum in silence as if waiting for an explanation. But Blum had nothing to explain.

  “See you later, then,” he told Cora, and made his way past the marble-topped tables and the wasp-waisted waiters and the palm fronds and the women with their raucous voices. The writer was still sitting in the same place, smoking his pipe. A girl who was at the most half his age was talking to him. Him and his fictions, thought Blum, but he wished the writer luck. The star was now standing on the platform with a top hat on her green wig. She announced, imperiously:

  “Night is not the time for sleep,

  Night will chase away ennui.

  A ship leaves harbour for the deep,

  The vessel must put out to sea . . .”

  Outside, Blum was vainly looking for a taxi when Cora appeared beside him. She took his arm. With her boots on she was as tall as him.

  “What’s the matter, Blum? What have I done wrong?”

  “If you bring me another like that Detlev . . .”

  “He’s no worse than anyone else.”

  “Are all these characters really your friends?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, that writer, for instance.”

  “Oh, him. All he can do is talk.”

  “Where did you live together? In Munich?”

  “Who cares? Is that what he said? Talk about boastful!”

  “And this man James . . .”

  “Heavens, you really don’t need to be jealous of him. I know him professionally. He’s a fantastic fashion photographer, but now he’s retired. All he photographs is frogs.”

  “Ah. I understand. So you were a model?”

  “You don’t understand anything. What are you really doing here?”

  “Trying to sell five pounds of cocaine. And you bring me a stinker like that Detlev with his stinking 300 marks in his dungarees. How a grown man can choose to wear dungarees . . .”

  “You think you look more like a grown man with that cravat of yours? I thought you urgently needed money. Aren’t 300 marks money? I’ve been known to work a week for that much.”

  “Yes, well. Just fancy. I tell you, another three days of scraping about like this and I’ll be in jail. And the anti-nuclear demonstrators won’t be getting me out.”

  “Oh, come off it. There’s so much going on here no one will notice you. Don’t take everything so seriously. Anyway, I’ve made a date for twelve-thirty with a character who wants a whole fifteen grams. That’s something, right?”

  “Fifteen grams for how much?”

  “Three thousand, I said.”

  “Good heavens, with fifteen grams you start by asking 4,000. I mean, these guys are rolling in money. You could ask 5,000. When I think of Morocco . . .”

  “Oh, ask what you like. It’s your coke. I wish I knew why I’m helping you.”

  “Because you want a slice of the pie too.”

  “You really think that?”

  They stared at each other.

  “Of course I think so. It may not be the only thing I’m thinking.”

  Her full lips pouted, then she laughed and took his arm again.

  “Come on, let’s earn that 3,000 and then get out. I’m sick and tired of Frankfurt.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Far too long, Blum.”

  “And where do you want to go?”

  “Amsterdam, maybe. Come with me. You’ll get rid of the stuff much more easily there.”

  “I’ll have to put a bit more money into the operation first, or it’ll all fall through.”

  At last a taxi stopped.

  23

  Blum took the notes out of his pocket and smoothed them flat – a good feeling. Three red notes, seventeen blue notes, assorted small change, the kilos, the pounds of cocaine.

  “You should see yourself,” said Cora, lying in the armchair and fiddling with the radio. “You look like you were in church.”

  “Money is life, baby. And life is sacred, right?”

  “Don’t keep calling me baby. I hate it.”

  “What did that pimp say
to you?”

  “What pimp?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know the character who bought those fifteen grams is a pimp.”

  “Toni? You’re crazy. He works in a publishing firm.”

  “Oh yes, in a publishing firm? So why did he tell me he needed the stuff for his chicks?”

  She laughed. She was wearing only her shirt and the dirty silver cowboy boots. She had rolled up her ringlets again and pinned her hair up.

  “That’s just talk, Blum. He probably means his books.”

  “Oh. And that James has a thing about frogs. Does he mean cornflakes?”

  “Cornflakes?”

  “That’s right, cornflakes. Peruvian cornflakes. You know who he reminds me of? Trevor Howard in The Third Man?”

  “Trevor Howard?”

  “Never heard of him? No idea about The Third Man? How you manage to get through life at all is a mystery to me.”

  “You don’t make a very attractive grandpa, Blum.”

  He stowed the money away in his wallet with his visiting cards, snapshots and hotel bills. Three thousand, ridiculous. He’d hoped to finish the day with 100 grand. So good things came in small cans – more like tiny ones. Happiness was playing hard to get.

  “What did you say?” he asked abstractedly. He tidied up his things; it was a ritual. His ankleboots needed cleaning again too, he thought. Why wasn’t there any shoe polish here?

  “I said you needn’t carry on as if you were my grandpa. Hey, are you asleep?”

  She listened to a few bars of Beethoven and then went on fiddling with the radio. Blum frowned. Not the right moment for his ritual. He lit a cigarette and lay down on the bed. Fully clothed.

  “Why do you smoke HB?”

  “HB?”

  “Yes, your cigarette brand.”

  “My dear child, I’ve been smoking them since I was fourteen. HB was the first filter cigarette.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “The first I liked. I never smoke anything else.”

  “You think there’ll be HB in the Bahamas?”

  This did not merit an answer. He blew a smoke ring instead. It worked the second time. Perfect.

  “What’s that? Listen.”

  She had switched over to short-wave and found the female voice broadcasting its code into the night, that mysterious litany of figures:

  “79 576 – 00 253 – 72 187 – 11 334 – 30 362 – 70 679 – 07 387 –”

  Each set of figures was repeated. Tonight the voice had a slight Saxon accent.

  “What’s that?”

  “You can hear.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “It’s for agents.”

  “Agents?”

  “Yup, agents. We live in a world full of agents, Cora. Didn’t you know?”

  “I had an agent when I was modelling.”

  “Not that sort of agent. Real ones.”

  “So what do they do?”

  “What we all do – they collect information and pass it on. Only they’re pros.”

  “You mean spies?”

  “Spies too.”

  “But you’re not a spy.”

  “That depends. I’m on the qui vive as well. How would I have come by the coke if I hadn’t checked things out?”

  “It was coincidence, Blum.”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence in this line of business. Come to bed.”

  “So you think we’re agents? Me too?”

  “No, of course not you too. You’re the kind who breaks all the moulds.”

  “You honestly think they’re passing news on to agents over the radio?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who are they, then?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Them, us, everyone. Everyone’s doing it. Information is power. Take my five pounds of coke, for instance. Anyone who knows about it has information that’s worth a lot to certain people. Understand?”

  “You still don’t trust me.”

  “Oh yes, I trust you. Up to a point. But if the CID pick you up and promise you immunity from prosecution, you’ll give me away.”

  “I wouldn’t give you away, Blum.”

  “Why not? Because I’m such a handsome guy? Don’t kid yourself, girlie. Deception rules the world, and betrayal is its elder brother.”

  “But how can you live with that? How can you live in a world made up entirely of deception and betrayal and agents and fear and cops and money and theft and murder and spies and power?”

  He stubbed his cigarette out and picked up his tooth-glass of whisky.

  “That’s all I’ve ever learned about,” he said.

  “But it can’t be right!” She was savaging the armchair with the heels of her boots. “That’s not the world we live in.”

  “What is, then?”

  She looked at him, shaking her head. Then she said quietly, “You’re beginning to get to me, you and your fears.”

  “There’s no need for you to be afraid. You only have to walk out of the door, and then you just have to shut your eyes tight and act as if—”

  “I’m afraid of something happening to you.”

  “You’re afraid of something happening to me?”

  “Not jail or that. Something much worse.”

  “Something worse than jail?

  “Yes. Why not just throw away the key and forget about the stuff?”

  “You’re telling me to throw away the key? The key to the left-luggage locker? The key to 100 grand? The key to Freeport, Bahamas? To my next two or three years?”

  “You can live on something else. You said so yourself, you always get by. But with this stuff – it doesn’t have to be like that. This fear – it’s not worth wearing yourself down over it.”

  “If I had to make a living selling shoelaces maybe I wouldn’t be so scared. But I can tell you one thing: my fear of having to make a living selling shoelaces is much greater than my fear of a couple of drugs syndicates or a few years in jail.”

  “I thought nothing could be worse than jail?”

  “The worst part is not being able to take any more risks. Everyone has one leg in jail all his life, you might say. But the other leg has to be able to go the full distance. What would I get if they caught me? Six years, maybe. In practice four. The money’s worth it.”

  “Blum, that doesn’t make sense. No kind of money is worth it. Money’s not really worth anything”

  “It’s all very well for you to say so. You haven’t known times when people would queue all day for a half-rotten cabbage.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Nothing, Cora. And everything.”

  She took her boots off, stood up, went over to the bed and lay down with him.

  “Listen, I know two Germans in Amsterdam. They’ve been living there a long time, they know their way around. They’re really clever businessmen, and they deal in dope too. You could sell the coke to them straight off. Let’s just go to Amsterdam.”

  She began unbuttoning his shirt. Her long hair brushed his chest.

  “If you know all that . . . maybe you know someone else here, right? I wouldn’t mind having more than a couple of grand in my pocket before making for Amsterdam.”

  She undid his belt and massaged his stomach.

  “I do know someone. Not right here in town, in the country. He’d be sure to buy 50 or 100 grams.”

  Blum managed to summon up a remnant of distrust.

  “Do I know this person?”

  “No,” she said, pulling his trousers down. Mamma mia, thought Blum later, what a woman, curvaceous and juicy and skilful and loveable, except that she never says a thing about herself. Was this the high point of happiness? But later still, in the night, he realized how much he too was keeping back, and when they lay side by side in the dark, in silence, it seemed to him as if they were further apart from each other than they had been close before.

  24

  Cora had rustled up a car from s
omewhere, a battered Beetle painted all over by a previous owner with flowers, suns and stars and moons and angels that were now being eaten away by rust.

  “You want me to drive a thing like that?” asked Blum incredulously, when she picked him up from the hotel in it.

  “You don’t have to do the driving,” she replied coolly, and nor did he – she steered the car skilfully through the traffic jams of Frankfurt and out into the country. The sun was even shining, a cold and slightly rusty sun that suited this concrete desert.

  “Ghastly, isn’t it?”

  “Depends how you see it. I don’t think the people here would be happy to swap places with Mr Haq, though I bet you can eat better in Pakistan.”

  She laughed.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “Let’s make it a surprise for you.”

  “With 100 grams of cocaine in my pocket I’m not too keen on surprises.”

  “Let’s say it’s a nice surprise.”

  The housing estates were fewer and farther between now; they were driving through open country. Old snow lay everywhere, and flocks of crows flew over the dark forests of fir trees. Blum shivered, although the heating in this old banger actually worked.

  “You seem to know your way around. Have you lived in Frankfurt long?”

  She wasn’t to be drawn out. “What are you really planning to do with the money, Blum? You can’t be serious about investments in the Bahamas.”

  He sensed that the question really mattered to her. Lighting a cigarette, he looked out at the frozen countryside.

  “Some day I’d like to live on a little island with a few friends. It doesn’t have to be in the Bahamas. Maybe I’d run a bar, nothing too smart, a nice cool little place down by the harbour where you could see the boats through the window. Perhaps a few chairs outside under an awning, for tourists. A dish of the day, otherwise just sandwiches and drinks, but the best available. You could go fishing, visit the casino on the neighbouring island now and then. Everyone could do as they liked. Once a week I’d go to the brothel with the vice-consul and the English novelist and the liquor smuggler, to hear all the stories. I know you don’t like stories, but maybe you don’t need them. Memories are crap, but stories hold life together. Sometimes, when you have the horrors, only a good story will help.”