Ice - Anna Kavan [36]
First thing in the morning the telephone rang in my room: someone wanted to see me. I said the person was to come up, hoping for a message from the official. 'Hullo.' The flower girl entered, smiling and unselfconscious. She saw my surprise. 'Forgotten me already?' I said I had not expected her here. She looked surprised now. 'But you know it's part of my job to bring your flower every morning.' I kept quiet while she fixed the carnation. It was fatally easy to show my ignorance of the organization to which she belonged. I was curious about it, but afraid of giving myself away. It occurred to me that, by spending more time with her, I might pick up information without asking questions. Besides, she was young and attractive, I liked her natural, matter-of-fact behaviour. It would relieve the boredom.
I invited her to dinner that evening. Her manners were charming, she acted in her usual engaging, unaffected way. Later we went to two night clubs, danced. She was a delightful partner, seemed relaxed and talked freely, but told me nothing I did not already know. I took her back to the hotel with me; the porter looked the other way when we came in together. I was rather drunk. Her full skirt fell in a shining ring on the floor of my room. Very early in the morning, while I was still asleep, she left to go to the flower market; was back at breakfast time with a fresh carnation, bright-eyed, cheerful, and full of life, more attractive than she had been in the dark. I wanted to keep her with me, to anchor myself in the present through her. But she said: 'No, I must go now, I have my work to do;' then smiled in the friendliest way and promised to dance with me in the evening. I never saw her again.
The official sent for me while I was reading the papers. I hurried round to his office. He greeted me with a mysterious, conspiratorial air. 'I've been able to arrange that matter for you. It'll be a bit of a rush.' He grinned, pleased with himself, pleased to show me how he could manipulate events. I was surprised and excited. He went on: 'A lorry happens to be leaving today with important replacements for the new transmitter that's going up on our side of the frontier. It's quite near the town you want. I've got you signed on as a foreign consultant. You can do your homework on the way. It's all in here.' He handed me a thick folder full of papers, a travel permit on top, told me to be at the main post office in half an hour.
I thanked him profusely. He patted my arm. 'Think nothing of it. Glad I could be useful.' Withdrawing his hand, he touched the flower in my buttonhole and gave me a fright. Did he suspect something? If I had discovered nothing else about his organization, I at least knew now that it had considerable power. I was relieved when he said with a smile: 'Hurry back and collect your things. You mustn't be late or any account. The driver has orders to leave on the dot, and he won't wait for anyone.'
The room had been getting darker, a sudden storm had blown up. As his hand moved to the light, a livid flash and a crash came together, a splatter of rain hit the windows, and somebody wearing the long overcoat of a uniform entered and signed to him not to touch the switch. I could only just distinguish a big, heavily-built