Darkness at Noon (23 page)

While they were discussing his identity, Hare-lip had stood with sunken head and trembling upper lip in the white glare. Rubashov thought of his old friend and comrade Kieffer, the great historian of the Revolution. On the famous photograph of the Congress table, where all wore beards and small numbered circles like haloes round their heads, he sat to the old leader’s left. He had been his collaborator in matters of history; also his chess partner, and perhaps his sole personal friend. After the death of the “old man”, Kieffer, who had known him more intimately than anyone else, was commissioned to write his biography. He worked at it for more than ten years, but it was destined never to be published. The official version of the events of the Revolution had gone through a peculiar change in these ten years, the parts played in it by the chief actors had to be rewritten, the scale of values reshuffled; but old Kieffer was stubborn, and understood nothing of the inner dialectics of the new era under No. 1. ...

“My father and I,” Hare-lip went on in his unnaturally musical voice, “on our return from the International Ethnographical Congress, to which I had accompanied him, made a detour by B., as my father wanted to visit his friend, Citizen Rubashov. ...”

Rubashov listened with a queer mixture of curiosity and melancholy. Up till now the story was correct; old Kieffer had come to see him, led by the need to pour out his heart and also to ask counsel of him. The evening that they spent together had probably been the last pleasant moment in old Kieffer’s life.

“We could only stay one day,” Hare-lip went on, his gaze glued to Rubashov’s face, as if he sought there strength and encouragement. “It was just the day of the celebration of the Revolution; that is why I remember the date so exactly. The whole day Citizen Rubashov was busy at the reception, and could only see my father for a few minutes. But in the evening, when the reception in the Legation was over, he invited my father to his own apartment and my father allowed me to accompany him. Citizen Rubashov was rather tired and had put on his dressing-gown, but he welcomed us very warmly. He had set out wine, cognac and cakes on a table and greeted my father, after embracing him, with the words: ‘The farewell party for the last of the Mohicans.’ …”

Behind Rubashov’s back Gletkin’s voice interrupted:

“Did you notice at once Rubashov’s intention to put you into a state of intoxication, in order to make you more amenable to his plans?”

It seemed to Rubashov that a slight smile flitted over Hare-lip’s ravaged face: for the first time he noticed a faint resemblance to the young man he had seen that evening. But the expression vanished immediately; Hare-lip blinked and licked his split lip.

“He seemed to me rather suspect, but I did not yet penetrate his scheme.”

Poor swine, thought Rubashov, what have they made of you? ...

“Go on,” boomed Gletkin’s voice.

It took a few seconds for Hare-lip to pull himself together again after the interruption. In the meantime one heard the thin stenographer sharpening her pencil.

“Rubashov and my father exchanged reminiscences for a long while. They had not seen each other for years. They talked about the time before the Revolution, about persons of the older generation whom I only knew of by hearsay, and about the Civil War. They talked frequently in allusions which I could not follow, and laughed about reminiscences which I did not understand.

“Was much drunk?” asked Gletkin.

Hare-lip blinked helplessly into the light. Rubashov noticed that he swayed slightly while speaking, as though he could only with difficulty remain on his feet.

“I believe, quite a lot,” Hare-lip went on. “In the last few years I had never seen my father in such a good mood.”

“That was,” sounded Gletkin’s voice, “three months before the discovery of your father’s counterrevolutionary activities, which led to his execution in a further three months?”

Hare-lip licked his lips, gazed dully into the light and remained silent. Rubashov had turned to Gletkin on a sudden impulse, but, blinded by the light, he shut his eyes and turned slowly away again, rubbing his spectacles on his sleeve. The secretary’s pencil squeaked on the paper and stopped. Then again Gletkin’s voice was heard:

Were you at that time already initiated into your father’s counter-revolutionary activities?”

Hare-lip licked his lips.

“Yes,” he said.

“And you knew that Rubashov shared your father’s opinions?”

“Yes.”

“Report the principal phrases of the conversation. Leave out everything non-essential.”

Hare-lip had now folded his hands behind his back and leaned his shoulders against the wall.

“After a time, my father and Rubashov changed the conversation over to the present. They spoke in depreciative phrases of the present state of affairs in the Party, and about the methods of the leadership. Rubashov and my father only referred to the leader as ‘No. 1.’ Rubashov said that since No. 1 sat on the Party with his broad posterior, the air underneath was no longer breathable. That was the reason why he preferred missions abroad.”

Gletkin turned to Rubashov:

“That was shortly before your first declaration of loyalty to the leader of the Party?”

Rubashov turned half-way to the light. “That Il be correct,” he said.

“Was Rubashov’s intention to make such a declaration mentioned during the evening?” Gletkin asked Harelip.

“Yes. My father reproached Rubashov because of it and said he was disappointed in him. Rubashov laughed, and called my father an old fool and a Don Quixote. He said the important thing was to hold out the longest and to wait for the hour to strike.”

“What did he mean by this expression: ‘to wait for the hour’?”

Again the young man’s gaze sought Rubashov’s face with a forlorn and almost tender expression. Rubashov had the absurd notion that he was about to come over from the wall and kiss him on the forehead. He smiled at this idea, while he heard the pleasant voice answer:

“The hour in which the leader of the Party would be removed from his post.”

Gletkin, who had not missed Rubashov’s smile, said drily:

“These reminiscences seem to amuse you?”

“Perhaps,” said Rubashov, and shut his eyes again. Gletkin pushed a cuff into place and went on questioning Hare-lip:

“So Rubashov spoke of the hour in which the leader of the Party would be removed from his post. How was this to be brought about?”

“My father considered that one day the cup would overflow and the Party would depose him or force him to resign; and that the opposition must propagate this idea.”

“And Rubashov?”

“Rubashov laughed at my father, and repeated that he was a fool and a Don Quixote. Then he declared that No. 1 was no accidental phenomenon, but the embodiment of a certain human characteristic—namely, of an absolute belief in the infallibility of one’s own conviction, from which he drew the strength for his complete unscrupulousness. Hence he would never resign from power of his own free will, and could only be removed by violence. One could hope for nothing from the Party either, for No. 1 held all the threads in his hand, and had made the Party bureaucracy his accomplice, who would stand and fall with him, and knew it.”

In spite of his sleepiness, it struck Rubashov that the young man had retained his words with much accuracy. He himself no longer remembered the conversation in detail, but did not doubt that Hare-lip had recounted it faithfully. He observed young Kieffer through his pince-nez with a newly-awakened interest.

Gletkin’s voice boomed again:

“So Rubashov emphasized the necessity to use violence against No. 1—that is, against the leader of the Party?” Hare-lip nodded.

“And his arguments, seconded by a liberal consumption of alcoholic drinks, made a strong impression on you?”

Young Kieffer did not answer at once. Then he said, in a slightly lower tone than before:

“I had drunk practically nothing. But everything which he said made a deep impression on me.”

Rubashov bowed his head. A suspicion had risen in him which affected him almost as a physical pain and made him forget everything else. Was it possible that this unfortunate youth had in fact drawn the conclusions from his, Rubashov’s, line of thought—that he stood there before him in the glare of the reflector as the consequence incarnate of his own logic?

Gletkin did not let him finish this thought. His voice rasped:

“... And following upon this preparatory theorizing came the direct instigation to the deed?”

Hare-lip was silent. He blinked into the light.

Gletkin waited a few seconds for the answer. Rubashov, too, unintentionally raised his head. A number of seconds passed, during which one only heard the lamp humming; then came Gletkin’s voice again, even more correct and colourless:

“Would you like your memory to be helped out?”

Gletkin pronounced this sentence with marked casualness, but Hare-lip quivered as though struck by a whip. He licked his lips and in his eyes appeared the flickering of naked animal terror. Then his pleasant musical voice sounded again:

“The instigation did not happen that evening, but next morning, in a
tête-à-tête
between Citizen Rubashov and myself.”

Rubashov smiled. The postponement of the imaginary conversation to next day was obviously a finesse in Gletkin’s
mise en scène
; that old man Kieffer should have listened cheerfully while his son was instructed to murder by poison was too improbable a story even for Neanderthal-psychology. ... Rubashov forgot the shock which he had just received; he turned to Gletkin and asked, blinking at the light:

“I believe the defendant has the right to ask questions during a confrontation?”

“You have the right,” said Gletkin.

Rubashov turned to the young man. “As far as I remember,” he said, looking at him through his pince-nez, “you had just finished your studies at the University when you and your father came to see me?”

Now that for the first time he spoke directly to Harelip, the hopeful, trusting look returned to the latter’s face. He nodded.

“So that’s correct,” said Rubashov. “If I again remember rightly, at that time the intention was that you should start work under your father at the Institute of Historical Research. Did you do that?”

“Yes,” said Hare-lip, and added after a short hesitation: “Up to my father’s arrest”

“I understand,” said Rubashov. “This event made it impossible for you to stay at the Institute, and you had to find some way of earning your living. ...” He paused, turned to Gletkin, and continued:

“... Which proved that at the time of my meeting with this young man neither he nor I could have foreseen his future job; hence the instigation to murder by poison becomes a logical impossibility.”

The secretary’s pencil came to a sudden standstill. Rubashov knew, without looking at her, that she had ceased recording, and had turned her pointed, mouse-like face to Gletkin. Hare-lip also stared at Gletkin and licked his upper lip; his eyes showed no relief, only bewilderment and fear. Rubashov’s momentary feeling of triumph vanished; he had the strange sensation of having disturbed the smooth running of a solemn ceremony. Gletkin’s voice did in fact sound even cooler and more correct than usual:

“Have you any more questions?”

“That is all for the present,” said Rubashov.

“Nobody asserted that your instructions restricted the murderer to the use of poison,” said Gletkin quietly. “You gave the order for assassination; the choice of the means you left to your instrument.” He turned to Hare-lip. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” said Hare-lip, and his voice betrayed a kind of relief.

Rubashov remembered that the accusation had stated in express terms ‘Instigation to murder by poison”, but the whole thing had suddenly become indifferent to him, Whether young Michael had really made the crazy attempt or only planned something of this sort, whether the entire confession had been artificially pumped into him, or only parts of it, now seemed to Rubashov of merely legal interest; it made no difference to his guilt. The essential point was that this figure of misery represented the consequence of his logic made flesh. The roles had been exchanged; it was not Gletkin, but he, Rubashov, who had tried to muddle a clear case by splitting hairs. The accusation, which until now had seemed to him so absurd, in fact merely inserted—though in a clumsy and uncouth manner—the missing links into a perfectly logical chain.

And yet, in one point, it seemed to Rubashov that an injustice was being done him. But he was too exhausted to put it into words.

“Have you any more questions?” asked Gletkin.

Rubashov shook his head

“You may go,” said Gletkin to Hare-lip. He pushed a bell; a uniformed warder entered and put metal handcuffs on young Kieffer. Before he was led away, at the door, Hare-lip turned his head once more to Rubashov, as he used to do at the end of his walk in the yard. Rubashov felt his gaze as a burden; he took off his pince-nez, rubbed it on his sleeve, and averted his eyes.

When Hare-lip was gone, he nearly envied him. Gletkin’s voice grated in his ear, precise and with brutal freshness:

“Do you now admit that Kieffer’s confession accords with the facts in the essential points?”

Rubashov had again to turn to the lamp. There was a humming in his ears and the light flamed hot and red through the thin skin of his lids. Yet the phrase “in the essential points” did not escape him. With this phrase Gletkin bridged over the rent in the accusation and gave himself the possibility of changing “instigation to murder by poison” into “instigation to murder” simply.

“In the essential points—yes,” said Rubashov.

Gletkin’s cuffs creaked, and even the stenographer moved in her chair. Rubashov became aware that he had now spoken the decisive sentence and sealed his confession of guilt. How could these Neanderthalers ever understand what he, Rubashov, regarded as guilt what he, by his own standards, called the truth?

“Does the light disturb you?” asked Gletkin suddenly.

Rubashov smiled. Gletkin paid cash. That was the mentality of the Neanderthaler. And yet, when the blinding light of the lamp became a degree milder, Rubashov felt relief and even something kindred to gratefulness.