I opened the door. The room was glowing in the red twilight. Someone was sitting in the armchair where Rheya had knelt. For a second or two, I was paralysed with terror, filled with an overwhelming desire to turn and run. Then the seated figure raised its head: it was Snow. His legs crossed, still wearing the acid-stained trousers, he was looking through some papers, a pile of which lay on a small table beside him. He put down those he was holding in his hand, let his glasses slide down his nose, and scowled up at me.
Without saying a word, I went to the basin, took the ointment out of the medicine chest and applied it to my forehead and cheeks. Fortunately my face was not too swollen and my eyes, which I had closed instinctively, did not seem to be inflamed. I lanced some large blisters on my temples and cheekbones with a sterilized needle; they exuded a serous liquid, which I mopped up with an antiseptic pad. Then I applied some gauze dressing.
Snow watched me throughout these first-aid operations, but I paid no attention to him. When at last I had finished (and my burns had become even more painful), I sat myself down in the other chair. I had first to remove Rheya’s dress – that apparently quite normal dress which was nevertheless devoid of fastenings.
Snow, his hands clasped around one bony knee, continued to observe me with a critical air.
“Well, are you ready to have a chat?” he asked.
I did not answer; I was busy replacing a piece of gauze which had slipped down one cheek.
“You’ve had a visitor, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered curtly.
He had begun the conversation on a note which I found displeasing.
“And you’ve rid yourself of it already? Well, well! That was quick!”
He touched his forehead, which was still peeling and mottled with pink patches of new skim. I was thunderstruck. Why had I not realized before the implications of Snow’s and Sartorius’s ‘sunburn’? No one exposed himself to the sun here.
Without noticing my sudden change of expression he went on:
“I imagine you didn’t try extreme methods straight away. What did you use first – drugs, poison, judo?”
“Do you want to discuss the thing seriously or play the fool? If you don’t want to help, you can leave me in peace.”
He half-closed his eyes.
“Sometimes one plays the fool in spite of oneself. Did you try the rope, or the hammer? Or the well-aimed ink-bottle, like Luther? No?” He grimaced, “Aren’t you a fast worker! The basin is still intact, you haven’t banged your head against the walls, you haven’t even turned the room upside down. One, two and into the rocket, just like that!” He looked at his watch. “Consequently, we have two or three hours at our disposal . . . . Am I getting on your nerves?” he added, with a disagreeable smile.
“Yes,” I said curtly.
“Really? Well, if I tell you a little story, will you believe me?”
I said nothing.
Still with that hideous smile, he went on:
“It started with Gibarian. He locked himself in his cabin and refused to talk to us except through the door. And can you guess what we thought?”
I remained silent.
“Naturally, we thought he had gone mad. He let a bit of it out – through the locked door – but not everything. You may wonder why he didn’t tell us that there was someone with him. Oh, _suum cuique!_ But he was a true scientist. He begged us to let him take his chance!”
“What chance?”
“He was obviously doing his damnedest to solve the problem, to get to the bottom of it. He worked day and night. You know what he was doing? You must know.”
“Those calculations, in the drawer of the radio-cabin – were they his?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it go on?”
“This visit? About a week . . . We thought he was suffering from hallucinations, or having a nervous breakdown. I gave him some scopolamine.”
“Gave him?”
“Yes. He took it, but not for himself. He tried it out on someone else.”
“What did you do?”
“On the third day we had decided, if all else failed, to break down the door, maybe injuring his self-esteem, but at least curing him.”
“Ah . . .”
“Yes.”
“So, in that locker . . . .”
“Yes, my friend, quite. But in the meantime, we too had received visitors. We had our hands full, and didn’t have a chance to tell him what was going on. Now it’s . . . it’s become a routine.”
He spoke so softly that I guessed rather than heard the last few words.
“I still don’t understand!” I exclaimed. “If you listened at his door, you must have heard two voices.”
“No, we heard only his voice. There were strange noises, but we thought they came from him too.”
“Only his voice! But how is it that you didn’t hear . . . her?”
“I don’t know. I have the rudiments of a theory about it, but I’ve dropped it for the moment. No point getting bogged down in details. But what about you? You must already have seen something yesterday, otherwise you would have taken us for lunatics.”
“I thought it was I who had gone mad.”
“So you didn’t see anyone?”
“I saw someone.”
“Who?”
I gave him a long look – he no longer wore even the semblance of a smile – and answered:
“That . . . that black woman . . .” He was leaning forward, and as I spoke his body almost imperceptibly relaxed. “You might have warned me.”
“I did warn you.”
“You could have chosen a better way!”
“It was the only way possible. I didn’t know what you would see. No one could know, no one ever knows . . .”
“Listen, Snow, I want to ask you something. You’ve had some experience of this . . . phenomenon. Will she . . . will the person who visited me today . . . ?”
“Will she come back, do you mean?”
I nodded.
“Yes and no,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“She . . . this person will come back as though nothing had happened, just as she was at the beginning of her first visit. More precisely, she will appear not to realize what you did to get rid of her. If you abide by the rules, she won’t be aggressive.”
“What rules?”
“That depends on the circumstances.”
“Snow!”
“What?”
“Don’t let’s waste time talking in riddles.”
“In riddles? Kelvin, I’m afraid you still don’t understand.” His eyes glittered. “All right, then!” he went on, brutally. “Can you tell me who your visitor was?”
I swallowed my saliva and turned away. I did not want to look at him. I would have preferred to be dealing with anyone else but him; but I had no choice. A piece of gauze came unstuck and fell on my hand. I gave a start.
“A woman who . . .” I stopped. “She died. An injection . . .”
“Suicide?”
“Yes.”
“Is that all?”
He waited. Seeing that I remained silent, he murmured:
“No, it’s not all . . .”
I looked up quickly; he was not looking at me.
“How did you guess?” He said nothing. “It’s true, there’s more to it than that.” I moistened my lips. “We quarrelled. Or rather, I lost my temper and said a lot of things I didn’t mean. I packed my bags and cleared out. She had given me to understand . . . not in so many words – when one’s lived together for years it’s not necessary. I was certain she didn’t mean it, that she wouldn’t dare, she’d be too afraid, and I told her so. Next day, I remembered I’d left these . . . these ampoules in a drawer. She knew they were there. I’d brought them back from the laboratory because I needed them, and I had explained to her that the effect of a heavy dose would be lethal. I was a bit worried. I wanted to go back and get them, but I thought that would give the impression that I’d taken her remarks seriously. By the third day I was really worried and made up my mind to go back. When I arrived, she was dead.”
“You poor innocent!”
I looked up with a start. But Snow was not making fun of me. It seemed to me that I was seeing him now for the first time. His face was grey, and the deep lines between cheek and nose were evidence of an unutterable exhaustion: he looked a sick man.
Curiously awed, I asked him:
“Why did you say that?”
“Because it’s a tragic story.” Seeing that I was upset, he added, hastily: “No, no, you still don’t understand. Of course it’s a terrible burden to carry around, and you must feel like a murderer, but . . . there are worse things.”