The Call-Girls by Arthur Koestler Page A

shown and explained in my last book, man is an animal with a killer-instinct, directed in the first place at his own, his very own species; he is
homo homicidus,
who will kill for territory, kill for sex, kill for greed, kill for the pleasure of killing…’
    â€˜Rot,’ Harriet interrupted. ‘I am only a simple zoologist, but I know enough history to realize that all this talk about the killer-instinct is just fashionable nonsense. Men don’t kill out of hatred, but out of love for their gods.’
    â€˜
Quatsch
,’ said Halder. ‘I have heard all that before.’
    â€˜You have,’ said Harriet. ‘But you did not listen.’
    It was time for lunch.
2
    Between lunch and the beginning of the afternoon session, the Soloviefs went for a walk.
    They followed a lane which climbed gently into the pine-woods, then emerged onto a vast open meadow, with a chain of widely spaced farmhouses strung out until the path vanished into the next forest round the shoulder of the mountain. Though it was July, there were patches of snow higher up on the slopes facing north.
    On farmhouse after farmhouse there were handwritten notices announcing rooms to let with full board. It was the hour of the midday dinner, and Claire watched with fascination the fare being served to the families on the crowded terraces: soup with dumplings; large helpings of pork chops, cabbage and potatoes, followed by chocolate cake, washed down with beer. ‘I can lip-read the sounds of their munching,’ she said.
    â€˜Don’t listen. Look at the mountains. Listen to the cowbells.’
    But the sound of the cowbells was blocked out by the juke-boxes and the motor-bikes without silencers, which echoed like machine-guns from the road lower down. The peasant boys had a craze for motor-bikes – big, shiny, pepped-up brutes. They left school at fifteen, mooched about on the farm for a year or two, then half-learned a trade, to become garage mechanics, electricians, plasterers or waiters, hoarding their wages until, at forty, they were able to realize their life’s dream: to open another
pension
with thirty beds, offering healthy country fare out of plastic packs.
    â€˜The doctor’s wife told me,’ said Claire, ‘that six years ago she ordered the first frigidaire which the village had seen. When it arrived, she explained its purpose to Hilda, the nextdoor farmer’s daughter, who worked for her as a daily. Hilda got very excited and asked if she could borrow two ice-cubes and take them down on a saucer to her husband, to put into his beer, but only for a very short while – then she would bring the cubes back. The next morning she came in with red eyes – in her excitement she had slipped on the path, broken the saucer, lost the ice-cubes and spent a sleepless night. Now Hilda has a huge deep-freeze in her boarding house and all the other gadgets which the doctor’s wife cannot afford. She hardly speaks to her.’
    â€˜Who hardly speaks to whom?’
    â€˜Hilda to the doctor’s wife, of course.’
    They walked on along the blissfully empty lane – the tourists were busy digesting on the terraces of the farms below, spread over flimsy deck-chairs which looked like collapsing from the overload. The summer guests, unlike the winter skiers, nearly all came from those regions of Central Europe where body volume was still considered an index of prosperity. They were not beautiful to behold. The beautiful people used mountains only for skiing. In summer they wore schnorkels, not rucksacks.
    Nikolai and Claire made way for a family which did carry rucksacks and sticks, trudging down the lane. Claire, too, had to stand aside on the verge of the lane, confronted with the sheer bulk of the couple. Two children were gambolling as outriders in front of them. All four stared at the Soloviefs with unfathomable disapproval. When they had gone a few steps past, the woman pronounced