The Night Manager

So it's punishment, not just confession, thought Jonathan, as they bunged up his mouth again. And his sense of kinship with Sophie, if it was possible, grew stronger. I didn't betray Jed, he told her. And I won't, I promise. I shall remain as steadfast as Herr Kaspar with his wig.

Herr Kaspar wore a wig?

But didn't I tell you? Good heavens! Herr Kaspar is a Swiss hero! He gave up twenty thousand tax-free francs a year, just in order to be loyal to himself!

You are right, Mr. Pine, Sophie agreed gravely, when she had listened attentively to everything he had to tell her. You must not betray Jed. You must be strong like Herr Kaspar, and you must not betray yourself either. Now you will put your head on my shoulder, please, the way you do with Jed, and we shall sleep.

* * *

And from then on, as the questions continued without benefit of answer, now singly, now in a hail, Jonathan occasionally saw Roper back in the same chair, though no longer wearing the white buckskin shoes. And always Sophie stood behind him, not in a vengeful way but just to remind Jonathan that they were in the presence of the worst man in the world.

"They'll kill you, Pine," Roper warned, a couple of times. "Corky will go over the top and that'll be that. These queers never know where to draw the line. Quit before it's too late, my advice." After that. Roper would sit back, wearing that look of personal frustration that comes over all of us when we seem unable to help a friend.

Then Corkoran would reappear and, leaning eagerly forward in the same chair, would fire his questions like commands, and count to three while he waited to be obeyed. And on three, Frisky and Tabby went to work again, until Corkoran was tired, or appeased.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, old heart, I'll slip into my sequined sari, pop a ruby in my navel and tuck into a few peacock's tongues," he said as he bowed his way, smirking, to the door. "Sorry you can't be part of the fun. But if you won't sing for your supper, what can one do?"

Nobody, not even Corkoran, stayed long. If a man refuses to speak, and sticks to his resolve, the show acquires a certain sameness. Only Jonathan, roaming his internal world with Sophie, was blessed with any sense of profit. He owned nothing he did not want to own, his life was in order, he was free. He congratulated himself on having discharged his institutional commitments. His father, his mother, his orphanages and singing Aunt Annie, his country, his past and Burr ― all had been paid in full and on the nail. As to his sundry female creditors, they could no longer touch him with their accusations.

And Jed? Well, there was something rather wonderful in paying in advance for sins that he had yet to commit. He had deceived her, of course ― Mama Low's, getting himself smuggled into the castle, offering a faulty version of himself ― but he had a sense that he had also rescued her, which was Sophie's view entirely.

"And you don't think I'm too shallow?" he asked Sophie, in the way young men consult wise women about their loves.

She pretended to be cross with him. "Mr. Pine, I think you are playing a little bit the flirt. You are a lover, not an archaeologist. Your Jed has a nature that has not been touched. She is beautiful, so she is used to being fawned on and adored, and occasionally misused. That is normal."

"I have not misused her," Jonathan replied.

"But you have not fawned on her either. She is not confident of you. She comes to you because she wishes your approval. But you withhold it. Why?"

"But, Madame Sophie, what do you think she does to me?"

"You are joined by a friction that you both resent. That is also normal. It is attraction's dark side. You have both got what you wanted. Now it is time to find out what to do with it."

"I'm just not ready for her. She's banal."

"She is not banal, Mr. Pine. And I am sure you will never be ready for anybody. However, you are in love, and that is that. Now let us get some sleep. You have work to do, and we shall need all the strength we can muster if we are to complete our journey. Was the fizzy-drink treatment as bad as Frisky promised?"

"Worse."

* * *

He nearly died again, and when he woke, Roper was there with his interested smile. But Roper was not a climber and did not understand the fixity of Jonathan's determination: why else do I climb mountains, he explained to Sophie, if not to reach the peak? On the other hand, the hotelier in him had every sympathy for a man who has run away from feeling. Jonathan really wanted to reach out his hand to Roper, and as a gesture of friendship pull him down here into the abyss, just so that the Chief could get an idea of what it was like: you who are so proud of believing in nothing, and me down here with my faith in everything intact.

Then he dozed off for a while, and when he woke, he was in the Lanyon, walking on the cliffs with Jed, not wondering anymore who would be round the corner, waiting for him, but content with himself and with the person at his side.