Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [49]
‘Doctor Nielson.’
Everybody, Hilary reflected, in this place was a doctor of something.
‘Who exactly is Doctor Nielson?’ she asked. ‘Medical, scientific, what?’
‘Oh, he’s not medical, Mrs Betterton. He’s in charge of Administration. All complaints have to go to him. He’s the administrative head of the Unit. He always has an interview with everyone when they arrive. After that I don’t suppose you’ll ever see him again unless something very important should arise.’
‘I see,’ said Hilary, meekly. She had an amused feeling of having been put severely in her place.
Admission to Dr Nielson was through two antechambers where stenographers were working. She and her guide were finally admitted into the inner sanctum where Dr Nielson rose from behind a large executive’s desk. He was a big, florid man with an urbane manner. Of transatlantic origin, Hilary thought, though he had very little American accent.
‘Ah!’ he said, rising and coming forward to shake Hilary by the hand. ‘This is–yes–let me see–yes, Mrs Betterton. Delighted to welcome you here, Mrs Betterton. We hope you’ll be very happy with us. Sorry to hear of the unfortunate accident during the course of your journey, but I’m glad it was no worse. Yes, you were lucky there. Very lucky indeed. Well, your husband’s been awaiting you impatiently and I hope now you’ve got here you will settle down and be very happy amongst us.’
‘Thank you, Dr Nielson.’ Hilary sat down in the chair he drew forward for her.
‘Any questions you want to ask me?’ Dr Nielson leant forward over his desk in an encouraging manner. Hilary laughed a little.
‘That’s a most difficult thing to answer,’ she said. ‘The real answer is, of course, that I’ve got so many questions to ask that I don’t know where to begin.’
‘Quite, quite. I understand that. If you’ll take my advice–this is just advice, you know, nothing more–I shouldn’t ask anything. Just adapt yourself and see what comes. That’s the best way, believe me.’
‘I feel I know so little,’ said Hilary. ‘It’s all so–so very unexpected.’
‘Yes. Most people think that. The general idea seems to have been that one was going to arrive in Moscow.’ He laughed cheerfully. ‘Our desert home is quite a surprise to most people.’
‘It was certainly a surprise to me.’
‘Well, we don’t tell people too much beforehand. They mightn’t be discreet, you know, and discretion’s rather important. But you’ll be comfortable here, you’ll find. Anything you don’t like–or particularly would like to have…just put in a request for it and we’ll see what can be managed! Any artistic requirement, for instance. Painting, sculpture, music, we have a department for all that sort of thing.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not talented that way.’
‘Well, there’s plenty of social life too, of a kind. Games, you know. We have tennis courts, squash courts. It takes a week or two, we often find, for people to find their feet, especially the wives, if I may say so. Your husband’s got his job and he’s busy with it and it takes a little time, sometimes, for the wives to find–well–other wives who are congenial. All that sort of thing. You understand me.’
‘But does one–does one–stay here?’
‘Stay here? I don’t quite understand you, Mrs Betterton.’
‘I mean, does one stay here or go on somewhere else?’
Dr Nielson became rather vague.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That depends on your husband. Ah, yes, yes, that depends very much on him. There are possibilities. Various possibilities. But it’s better not to go into all that just now. I’d suggest, you know, that you–well–come and see me again perhaps in three weeks’ time. Tell me how you’ve settled down. All that kind of thing.’
‘Does one–go out at all?’
‘Go out, Mrs Betterton?’
‘I mean outside the walls. The gates.’
‘A very natural question,’ said Dr Nielson. His manner was now rather heavily beneficent. ‘Yes, very natural. Most people ask it when they come here. But the point of our Unit is that it’s a world in itself. There is nothing, if I may so express myself, to go out to. Outside us there is only desert. Now I’m not blaming you, Mrs Betterton.