Read Online Mrs Midnight and Other Stories by Reggie Oliver - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Reggie Oliver
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school.
II
A smiling, bald man met me at Geneva airport and drove me to St Germain. His driving was excellent despite the fact that he wore a black patch over one eye, which lent an oddly piratical look to his otherwise neat and undistinguished appearance. He introduced himself as Hans and spoke excellent English with a German accent. Almost immediately he began to ask me questions about myself, absorbing the information I gave him without expressing the least interest in it, as if he were filling in a form in his head. Very soon I got tired of this game so I began to ask him about what he did.
‘I work full time for I.P.H.,’ he said.
I asked him what this entailed.
‘Working for I.P.H. is a full time job. I.P.H. is an international organisation with centres throughout the world. We work all the time for the betterment of humanity.’
‘In what way?’
‘By everywhere striving to improve the Psychic Health of individuals and communities.’
Further questions met with equally bland and evasive responses. I scrutinised Hans’s smooth, smiling face to see if I could tell whether he was naturally obtuse, or being deliberately vague. I even thought of asking him, but I didn’t.
We travelled for a while in silence along clean Swiss roads in clean Swiss sunshine. The lake of Geneva was nearly always in sight, indigo mountains towering over it. As we approached Montreux Hans asked me if I knew King Kyril well. I said evasively that I knew his daughter better.
‘You work as his secretary?’ Hans asked.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Kyril is a great guy,’ said Hans. ‘We all love him. Mike has a very special place in his heart for Kyril.’
‘Who is Mike?’ I asked. Hans’s hitherto impassive face registered surprise, but only for a moment.
‘Mike heads up our work in the I.P.H. He is just an amazing guy. You will get to meet with Mike, I’m sure. Your mind will be just blown by him, I promise you.’
It may well have been at this point that a determination, if at all possible, not to ‘meet with Mike’ became fixed in my mind.
Once we had left Montreux we took a road which wound slowly up the mountainside, the lake below sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. Hans pointed out to me the Castle of Chillon, in the far distance, its toy towers brooding over the water which surrounded them.
Lake Leman lies by Chillon’s walls:
A thousand feet in depth below
Its massy waters ebb and flow;
Thus much the fathom-line was sent
From Chillon’s snow-white battlement.
I quoted the lines to Hans, not because I thought he might recognise and appreciate them, but to test his reaction. The look he gave me was not, as I had expected, one of blank incomprehension but of something like hostility.
‘This is from a poem?’ he asked abruptly.
‘ The Prisoner of Chillon by Lord Byron’
‘In I.P.H. there is true freedom. We release from the Prison of the Self.’
‘That sounds splendid.’
‘It is very splendid. We are working always for true Psychic Health. There is no time with us for poems by old guys.’
I felt no urge to argue: philistinism is to be hated, not argued with. The car raced along the slopes above Lake Geneva, past pine woods, chalets and pastures where cowbells clanked gently in the milky light. Then we were in the entrance drive to the St Germain Palace Hotel between a mountainside and the great shadow of the hotel’s bulk.
Hans leapt out of the car and insisted on carrying my bags into the entrance hall of the hotel. I saw him talking rapidly in German to the receptionist. I caught only a few words, one of which, I think, was ‘stranger’ and the other ‘ignorant’. Hans turned to me.
‘We have assigned to you a small suite as desired next to King Kyril whom you will meet at dinner. We have made for you a place. Table number thirty-six. If you require anything please do not hesitate. Trude here will show you your room.’
Trude, a lumpy young woman in a dirndl skirt, did so. She too
II
A smiling, bald man met me at Geneva airport and drove me to St Germain. His driving was excellent despite the fact that he wore a black patch over one eye, which lent an oddly piratical look to his otherwise neat and undistinguished appearance. He introduced himself as Hans and spoke excellent English with a German accent. Almost immediately he began to ask me questions about myself, absorbing the information I gave him without expressing the least interest in it, as if he were filling in a form in his head. Very soon I got tired of this game so I began to ask him about what he did.
‘I work full time for I.P.H.,’ he said.
I asked him what this entailed.
‘Working for I.P.H. is a full time job. I.P.H. is an international organisation with centres throughout the world. We work all the time for the betterment of humanity.’
‘In what way?’
‘By everywhere striving to improve the Psychic Health of individuals and communities.’
Further questions met with equally bland and evasive responses. I scrutinised Hans’s smooth, smiling face to see if I could tell whether he was naturally obtuse, or being deliberately vague. I even thought of asking him, but I didn’t.
We travelled for a while in silence along clean Swiss roads in clean Swiss sunshine. The lake of Geneva was nearly always in sight, indigo mountains towering over it. As we approached Montreux Hans asked me if I knew King Kyril well. I said evasively that I knew his daughter better.
‘You work as his secretary?’ Hans asked.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Kyril is a great guy,’ said Hans. ‘We all love him. Mike has a very special place in his heart for Kyril.’
‘Who is Mike?’ I asked. Hans’s hitherto impassive face registered surprise, but only for a moment.
‘Mike heads up our work in the I.P.H. He is just an amazing guy. You will get to meet with Mike, I’m sure. Your mind will be just blown by him, I promise you.’
It may well have been at this point that a determination, if at all possible, not to ‘meet with Mike’ became fixed in my mind.
Once we had left Montreux we took a road which wound slowly up the mountainside, the lake below sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. Hans pointed out to me the Castle of Chillon, in the far distance, its toy towers brooding over the water which surrounded them.
Lake Leman lies by Chillon’s walls:
A thousand feet in depth below
Its massy waters ebb and flow;
Thus much the fathom-line was sent
From Chillon’s snow-white battlement.
I quoted the lines to Hans, not because I thought he might recognise and appreciate them, but to test his reaction. The look he gave me was not, as I had expected, one of blank incomprehension but of something like hostility.
‘This is from a poem?’ he asked abruptly.
‘ The Prisoner of Chillon by Lord Byron’
‘In I.P.H. there is true freedom. We release from the Prison of the Self.’
‘That sounds splendid.’
‘It is very splendid. We are working always for true Psychic Health. There is no time with us for poems by old guys.’
I felt no urge to argue: philistinism is to be hated, not argued with. The car raced along the slopes above Lake Geneva, past pine woods, chalets and pastures where cowbells clanked gently in the milky light. Then we were in the entrance drive to the St Germain Palace Hotel between a mountainside and the great shadow of the hotel’s bulk.
Hans leapt out of the car and insisted on carrying my bags into the entrance hall of the hotel. I saw him talking rapidly in German to the receptionist. I caught only a few words, one of which, I think, was ‘stranger’ and the other ‘ignorant’. Hans turned to me.
‘We have assigned to you a small suite as desired next to King Kyril whom you will meet at dinner. We have made for you a place. Table number thirty-six. If you require anything please do not hesitate. Trude here will show you your room.’
Trude, a lumpy young woman in a dirndl skirt, did so. She too
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