Ingalls The Pearlkillers

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-29858-7
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 206 Seiten

The Pearlkillers, first published in 1986, is a collection of four novellas: 'Third Time Lucky', 'People to People', 'Captain Hendrik's Story', and 'Inheritance', the action of which gives the volume its title. '[Rachel Ingalls'] characters all bear the mark of Cain: They are innocents (no matter that some may be killers) who are swept along through tepid, flat circumstances until suddenly all hell breaks loose, and the Furies erupt to claim their prey... In her best work, Ingalls is as monochromatic as Edgar Allan Poe, going straight to her target with the same ease and surety as an arrow skims to its bull's-eye... And just as Poe's craft was exactly suited to the conventions of the short story form, so Ingalls' vision is exactly suited to the length and scope of the novella... Like Poe, Rachel Ingalls is more than a master storyteller: She is also a superb artist.' Los Angeles Times

Rachel Ingalls was born in Boston in 1940. She spent time in Germany before studying at Radcliffe College, and moved to England in 1965, where she lived for the rest of her life. Her debut novel, Theft (1970), won the Authors' Club First Novel Award, and her novella Mrs Caliban (1982) was named one of the 20 best American novels since World War Two by the British Book Marketing Council. Over half a century, Ingalls wrote 11 story collections and novellas - all published by Faber - to great acclaim, but remains relatively unknown. She died in 2019 after a revival of interest in her work.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ingalls, Rachel

Leseproben

People to People

Herb, Dave, Sherman and Joe sat around the table in Herb’s hotel room. He was the only one who lived out of town. At first, after college, they’d all left. Then the three had returned. Herb had worked in Ohio for a while, and in Wisconsin, before settling in Illinois.

They had had wives and families, divorces, remarriages. Sherman was the only one whose marriage – so far – remained stable.

‘I wish it was just to say hi,’ Herb said. ‘Have a couple of drinks, see a show, play a game of poker, talk about old times. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news. I’ve heard from Bill.’

‘So?’ Dave said. ‘Last time I heard from Bill, he was campaigning to save the Indians or the jungles, or something like that. It’s always bad news in his book.’

‘I’ve got the letter here.’ Herb pulled an envelope from his breast pocket, put on his reading glasses and took the letter out. ‘Dear Herb‚’ he announced, ‘I’ve written this in my mind many times and I’ve wanted to, even more times. All those years I was in South America, the business about Carmen was preying on my mind.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Joe said. ‘That son of a bitch.’

‘He spells it with an A‚’ Herb said: ‘“Praying on my mind.”’

‘Let’s see that.’ Dave held out his hand.

‘Wait … on my mind. I never felt right about it, as you know.’

‘That dumb bastard‚’ Joe said.

‘It was like a cloud hanging over my life. I think it was the reason why I never got married.’

‘Good excuse, anyway‚’ Dave said.

‘But now I’ve found a wonderful girl. We were married last month. I hope you’ll believe me when I say my life is completely changed. I thank God that I have lived long enough to experience this great happiness and at last to know the peace and wisdom of the Church of The Redeemer, which we both belong to.’

‘Holy shit‚’ Joe said. ‘One of those California cults.’

‘Wait for the punchline, kids. You want me to go on? ’

‘Oh God‚’ Sherman said. ‘Not at this late date. He can’t do it.’

‘I am sure in my heart that this is the right thing to do. But I wanted to talk to you first, because I think we should all give ourselves up together. Please let me know as soon as possible what your thoughts about this are, since I am not going to feel right till we get it straight. OK. That’s it.’

‘That dumb fink‚’ Dave said. ‘He gets religion and they slam us in the can for the rest of our lives. After twenty years.’

‘He can’t do it‚’ Sherman said. ‘There’s a statute of limitations.’

‘For murder?’ Joe asked.

‘It wasn’t murder. It was an accident.’

Herb said, ‘Right. Now, listen. I figure old Bill hasn’t stood up and told the multitude yet, only Nancy. So, I wrote straight back and said: yes, I understood because it was preying on me too, but I hadn’t even worked out how to tell my wife and I thought it would be a good thing for all of us to talk about it in private before doing anything. I asked him to set a date and to bring Nancy – she’d be able to give us the woman’s point of view. And he wrote back to say fine: they’re coming about a month after Easter. Here, a hotel right down the street. I’ve got them a room and everything. And now I want to ask you all: what do we do when they get here?’

There was a long pause while Sherman put his hands over his eyes and Dave lit a cigarette. Joe jumped up from his seat; he stamped his feet and shook his shoulders angrily. He made punching motions with his fists.

Herb put the letter back inside its envelope and into his pocket. ‘Well?’ he asked.

‘We kill them‚’ Joe said.

‘Don’t be funny‚’ Sherman told him.

‘You got a better idea? What else can we do? They’re religious nuts. There isn’t any way you can deal with that. They’re going to go to the cops and send us up the river to make everything jake with the Lord and save their consciences. We’ve got to.’

‘This is why I thought we’d better get together‚’ Herb said. ‘The first thing to establish is whether the guy’s serious, and the second is – if he is, how we stop him. I’m telling you: I don’t intend to have all that brought up again.’

‘Me neither,’ Dave said. ‘Sherm?’

‘No,’ Sherman said. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary to start talking about killing anyone, though.’

‘You wait,’ Joe said. ‘You’ll come to it. You all will.’

‘I have a feeling,’ Herb said, ‘that a lot is going to depend on the girl. Nancy.’

Dave said, ‘She sounds like a creep.’

‘How do you get that?’

‘Some religious female.’

‘People can be religious for all sorts of reasons, and from a lot of different motives. This new-fangled church they belong to – the Church of The Redeemer: that should tell us something.’

‘He’s a dope,’ Joe said flatly. ‘He always was.’

‘This isn’t a traditional church. It’s some kind of offshoot. On the perimeter.’

‘Ecclesiastically off-Broadway,’ Sherman said. ‘Back to hellfire and cleanliness. Come back, Darwin, and say it again, louder. Christ Almighty, they’re taking over the country. Now they want to teach it in the schools.’

‘That’s just an election gimmick,’ Dave said.

‘We get a President who knows his way around the Hollywood back lot and he didn’t even bother to see that movie about the monkey trial.’

‘What would you say he was like before?’ Herb asked.

‘Before getting to be President?’

‘What was Bill like before this girl converted him? At least, I’ve been assuming she was the one.’

‘A worrier,’ Dave said. ‘Nervous and worried, and couldn’t ever pull himself together when he had to, or couldn’t relax and enjoy himself. Had this thing about his parents and his childhood. No good with girls, either. Always worried everything would go wrong. Unless he was drunk. Then he was fine.’

‘Kind to animals,’ Sherman said. ‘Good with old people. Not so good with children. He froze up when people were rude to him. He ran on rails.’

‘He was scared,’ Joe said. ‘He was scared shitless all the time. He was the one that panicked.’

‘That was only once,’ Herb said.

‘But it showed what he was like.’

‘Well, I sort of got the same impression about him: that he was somebody who was afraid of a lot of things. Stepping over his own feet half the time, afraid of living his life, of finding out what his possibilities were, letting rip. Which means, maybe he’d be easy to frighten.’

‘No good,’ Joe said. ‘You ease up for a minute on that kind and all of a sudden they’re more afraid of somebody else instead and they’re talking all about whatever it was you wanted to keep quiet. It’s got to be permanent.’

‘What was he most scared of?’

‘Carmen,’ Sherman said. ‘That’s why it was so bad when it happened.’

‘OK. We wait till they get here. Or do we map something out? Like I said, it looks to me like it’s serious. I wouldn’t have gotten you all together otherwise.’

‘I could do it easy,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve still got my guns. But—’

‘I don’t like this kind of talk,’ Sherman said.

‘But I’d want all of you to be in on it some way. I mean, I’m not going to go in there alone and come out with the scalps and have the cops saying, “Where were you when the lights went out?”’

‘You’d kill a woman?’ Dave asked.

‘If it’s me or them, I’d kill anybody,’ Joe said. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘Bill is one thing. I wouldn’t like it, but if he’s really going to put us behind bars, so be it. But a girl – that doesn’t seem right.’

‘She could go to the cops just like him. She’s the one pushing him to clear his conscience. She’s got it coming to her.’

‘I don’t want to listen to this,’ Sherman said. He stood up.

Herb said, ‘Take it easy. We’ve got to decide something today. And we’ve all got to be together on it. We’re all affected...