Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler [77]
gaze wandered from Rubashov to Gletkin and back. The secretary had stopped writing; one heard only the even buzzing of the lamp and the crackling of Gletkin's cuffs; he had leaned forward and propped his elbows on the arms of the chair to put his next question. "So you refuse to answer?" "I do not remember," said Rubashov. "Good," said Gletkin. He leaned further forward, turning towards Hare-lip with the whole weight of his body, as it were: "Will you help Citizen Rubashov's memory a little? Where did you last meet him?" Hare-lip's face became, if possible, even whiter. His eyes lingered for a few seconds on the secretary, whose presence he had apparently only just discovered, but wandered on immediately, as though fleeing and seeking a place of rest. He again passed his tongue over his lips and said hurriedly, in one breath: "I was instigated by Citizen Rubashov to destroy the leader of the Party by poison." In the first moment Rubashov was only surprised by the deep, melodious voice which sounded unexpectedly from this human wreck. His voice seemed to be the only thing in him which had remained whole; it stood in uncanny contrast to his appearance. What he actually said, Rubashov seized only a few seconds later. Since Hare-lip's arrival he had expected something of the sort and scented the danger; but now he was conscious above all of the grotesqueness of the charge. A moment later he heard Gletkin again--this time behind his back, as Rubashov had turned towards Hare-lip. Gletkin's voice sounded irritated: "I have not yet asked you that. I asked you, where you had met Citizen Rubashov last." Wrong, thought Rubashov. He should not have emphasized that it was the wrong answer. I would not have noticed it. It seemed to him that his head was now quite clear, with a feverish wakefulness. He sought for a comparison. This witness is an automatic barrel-organ, he thought; and just now it played the wrong tune. Harelip's next answer came even more melodiously: "I met Citizen Rubashov after a reception at the Trade Delegation in B. There he incited me to my terroristic plot against the life of the leader of the Party." While he was speaking, his haunted gaze touched on Rubashov and rested there. Rubashov put on his pince-nez and answered his gaze with sharp curiosity. But in the eyes of the young man he read no prayer for forgiveness, rather fraternal trust and the dumb reproach of the helplessly tormented. It was Rubashov who first averted his gaze. Behind his back sounded Gletkin's voice, again self-confident and brutal: "Can you remember the date of the meeting?" "I remember it distinctly," said Hare-lip in his unnaturally pleasant voice. "It was after the reception given on the twentieth anniversary of the Revolution." His gaze still rested nakedly on Rubashov's eyes, as though there lay a last desperate hope of rescue. A memory rose in Rubashov's mind, hazily at first, then more clearly. Now at last he knew who Hare-lip was. But this discovery caused him almost no other sensation than an aching wonder. He turned his head to Gletkin and said quietly, blinking in the light of the lamp: "The date is correct. I did not at first recognize Professor Kieffer's son, as I had only seen him once--before he had passed through your hands. You may be congratulated on the result of your work." "So you admit that you knowhim, and that you met him on the day and occasion aforementioned?" "I have just told you that," said Rubashov tiredly. The feverish wakefulness had vanished, and the dull hammering in his head started again. "If you had told me at once that he was the son of my unfortunate friend Kieffer, I would have identified him sooner." "In the accusation his full name is stated," said Gletkin. "I knew Professor Kieffer, like everybody did, only by hisnom de plume ." "That is an unimportant detail," said Gletkin. He again bent his whole body towards Hare-lip, as though he wanted to crush him with his weight across the space between them. "Continue your report. Tell us how this meeting came about." Again wrong, thought Rubashov, in spite