‘I have been trying to locate you all day.’ Crabbin wrote. ‘It is essential that we should get together and work out a proper programme for you. This morning by telephone I have arranged lectures at Innsbruck and Salzburg for next week, but I must have your consent to the subjects, so that proper programmes can be printed. I would suggest two lectures: “The Crisis of Faith in the Western World” (you are very respected here as a Christian writer, but this lecture should be quite unpolitical and no references should be made to Russia or Communism) and “The Technique of the Contemporary Novel”. The same lectures would be given in Vienna. Apart from this, there are a great many people here who would like to meet you, and I want to arrange a cocktail party for early next week. But for all this I must have a few words with you.’ The letter ended on a note of acute anxiety. ‘You will be at the discussion tomorrow night, won’t you? We all expect you at 8.30 and, needless to say, look forward to your coming. I will send transport to the hotel at 8.15 sharp.’

Rollo Martins read the letter and, without bothering any further about Mr Crabbin, went to bed.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

AFTER TWO DRINKS Rollo Martins’ mind would always turn towards women – in a vague, sentimental, romantic way, as a sex, in general. After three drinks, like a pilot who dives to find direction, he would begin to focus on one available girl. If he had not been offered a third drink by Cooler, he would probably not have gone quite so soon to Anna Schmidt’s house, and if – but there are too many ‘ifs’ in my style of writing, for it is my profession to balance possibilities, human possibilities, and the drive of destiny can never find a place in my files.

Martins had spent his lunch-time reading up the reports of the inquest, thus again demonstrating the superiority of the amateur to the professional, and making him more vulnerable to Cooler’s liquor (which the professional in duty bound would have refused). It was nearly five o’clock when he reached Cooler’s flat, which was over an ice-cream parlour in the American zone: the bar below was full of G.I.s with their girls, and the clatter of the long spoons and the curious free unformed laughter followed him up the stairs.