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The Dark Frontier

Page 19

by A. B. Decker


  “Let’s go to your room instead,” Silverstone insisted. Frank looked across at reception and saw the man on the desk ostentatiously minding his own business. With an uneasy reluctance, Frank turned and directed the American up the stairs to his room. With a sense of trepidation, he contrived to lead Silverstone from behind.

  Ushering him into his room, he offered him the armchair on the far side near the window. Silverstone seemed surprisingly content with this perfunctory show of hospitality. Frank preferred to stand next to the door, from where he could keep an eye on him. For some time Silverstone said nothing, but simply observed Frank with his cold, analysing stare. His lips betrayed the trace of a smirk. The supercilious manner put Frank in mind of Breitner. He was more elegant than Breitner, more tasteful in his dress, more stylish – an East Coast American version – but he gave the impression there was little to choose between the two.

  “Was it Breitner that fixed your makeup for you?” the American asked with a smile.

  The coincidence of the question with Frank’s own thoughts left him momentarily perplexed. Silverstone ran a finger around the corner of his right eye to underline his question. Frank nodded.

  “Nasty, isn’t he?” Silverstone added.

  “Do you know him?” Frank asked. He was thinking of what Patricia had said earlier.

  The American smiled. He considered the question carefully, seeming to test the options on his thin lips, which moved almost imperceptibly, as if rehearsing a response. It never came.

  “You know what Scott Fitzgerald said about Switzerland?” Silverstone asked in turn. “It doesn’t so much draw people as accept them without inconvenient questions. That’s Breitner.” His smile thickened. “So what does he have against you? He surely didn’t do that just for a souvenir of my ID?”

  “Well, he wasn’t too clear about that. He seemed to think I’d been messing around with his girl.”

  It was Frank’s turn to be evasive. His answer did at least have the virtue of corresponding to a certain version of the truth. And since he was somewhat in the dark anyway as to the full truth behind his meeting with Breitner, it seemed as satisfactory a response as any other. But Silverstone was not satisfied.

  “I didn’t know he had a girl.”

  The distrust in his voice prickled and put Frank on the defensive.

  “As I said, he was not entirely clear about the whys and wherefores. He was more interested in the sport. And, of course, he threw me into the usual fascist spittoon of socialists, communists, Jews and the rest.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “I guess it suited him,” Frank conjectured. “You know how it is with fascists if you don’t fit with their view of the world.”

  “In what way don’t you fit?”

  And so the interrogation continued. One lazy noncommittal remark succeeded another, and was instantly followed up each time by a relentless probing question. Frank’s initial discomfort and mistrust of this enigmatic American rapidly gave way to impatience.

  “So what precisely did you want to talk about?” he eventually asked, “because I’m pretty sure you didn’t come here for a political discussion?”

  Silverstone considered the question with the studious care of a chemist assaying for some obscure substance close to the limit of detection.

  “You,” he said at last.

  “I thought we’d been doing that. What more do you want to know?”

  “I understand you’re planning to visit your mother in Cologne soon.”

  The presumptuous intimacy of this man with Frank’s private life instantly hit a nerve. It heightened his dislike of the man to a pitch of near repugnance. And the fact that his understanding was not entirely accurate didn’t help. It simply added to a sense of betrayal that edged its way into Frank’s mood. It was clear that Achim had been talking to this man about him. And this hurt.

  “What else has Achim been telling you about me?” he asked, feeling instantly irked by his failure to conceal the anger in his voice.

  But Silverstone ignored the question.

  “I’d like you to do me a favour,” he said.

  “Really?” Again he had succeeded in taking Frank completely by surprise. “What sort of favour?”

  “I’d like you to deliver a package for me.”

  “And what would be in the package?”

  “This kind of thing.”

  Silverstone pulled a small booklet out of his coat pocket and threw it on the bed. It was little more than a slim primer on the rudiments of chess. Unimaginative in design and cheap in quality, but it looked harmless enough. Yet it didn’t fit with the image Frank had of Silverstone. Or with the man’s supercilious manner. But, above all, it seemed an odd request.

  “Just supposing for a moment you were correct, and I were going to Cologne, what reason could I have for doing you a favour?”

  “I figure you owe me,” came the self-assured response.

  “And where does Achim come into this?” Frank persisted. “Was this his idea?”

  Again the American ignored his question. He slipped the book back into his overcoat pocket, rose from his chair and turned to gaze pensively out of the window.

  ‘Was this really the stranger I had beaten to the ground and robbed only a few days earlier?’ Frank asked himself.

  He found it difficult to square this whole scene – the expectation of favours, the careful deliberation – with the history of violence and assault. At length, Silverstone turned back from the window, a thin smile on his lips, but worry in his eyes.

  “Perhaps you should come along with me. It might simplify matters.”

  “Where to?”

  “I’d like you to meet someone,” the American insisted, his right hand already reaching out for the door.

  “Who?” Frank asked.

  By now the door was open, and Frank saw Silverstone raise his left arm like the wing of Roc stretched in readiness to carry off its prey. The man’s propensity for ignoring questions irritated Frank intensely. And the invitation reminded him all too vividly of the last occasion when he was abducted from his hotel room. But Silverstone took a more subtle approach, and although Frank was disinclined to have anything to do with the man – let alone accept this invitation – he was sufficiently intrigued by the tight-lipped nature of his coaxing to follow him.

  Out on the street, the air was filled with the tantalising aroma of roasting chestnuts, and Frank was sorely tempted to stop at one of the street vendors to buy a bag. But Silverstone was not for lingering. He gave the impression of not wanting to be seen. And lost no time leading Frank to the market square, where he leapt onto the very first tram that passed, dragging Frank with him as he went. They stood in silence, side by side, watching the anonymous shop facades slip by outside. It was already late in the afternoon, and the trams were beginning to fill with the wage-slaves and factory workers savouring the tired freedom of their journey home. In no time, the tram was opening its doors to the next wave of languid faces. Frank wanted to move further into the carriage to make space for them, but Silverstone placed a vicelike grip on his arm and kept him close to the door. The sudden brachial pain and the seething masses around him set his head spinning; perhaps the beating by Breitner and his friends was taking its toll. As the tram doors were drawing to, and a stabbing pain shot from behind his eyes, he heard Silverstone mutter something and became aware of being tugged through the closing doors back onto the street. He caught the words ‘Just to be on the safe side’, but the significance of this caution escaped him as his head felt ready to split.

  It was as if a curtain had suddenly gone up and lifted the dizzy fog, just momentarily, just long enough to be struck by an acrid smell in the air and the sight of empty fast-food containers littering the pavement. The sound of a distantly familiar glamrock melody wafted from some unseen recess nearby: ‘Ride a White Swan’.

  It conjured images of water. Mud. And a strange Exakta camera. In this muzzy confusion and d
issonance, he sensed the remote memory of his experience on the castle ruins waiting for Achim. A distant sense of otherness. And then he was wrenched up steps he couldn’t see into another tram, the vicelike grip even tighter on his arm.

  “You feeling okay?”

  Frank could hear the words, but was unable to give a remotely coherent reply, not least because he was uncertain of the answer. His head ached from the cleavage of his skull. His mind was clouded with turmoil and battered by a farrago of images and sounds. Like a blind man in helpless innocence, he allowed himself to be led out of the second tram and across the road.

  It was not until the fresh air of the street washed over his face that he began to regain some semblance of meaning and order. Silverstone had loosened his grip on Frank’s arm and directed him now along a forsaken-looking street to a shop that was already known to him from somewhere. As they entered, the American left him hovering by the entrance to engage the shopkeeper behind the counter in a furtive conversation. Throughout the exchange, his fellow conspirator cast suspicious glances in Frank’s direction. It gave him the impression that the shopkeeper was no less distrustful of Silverstone than he was of Frank. But since this appeared to be a national characteristic, he paid it no further thought. And when Silverstone eventually appeared to receive a nod of approval, he beckoned Frank to follow him out into a back corridor.

  They climbed what seemed in his washed-out state to be endless flights of stairs, which were only dimly defined by the fading daylight admitted through occasional modest windows in the stairwell. When they ran out of steps to climb, Silverstone stopped at the door ahead of them and turned briefly as he put his hand on the doorknob.

  “Feeling okay now?” he asked.

  Frank nodded. But he felt oddly discomforted by the concern implicit in the question. His dislike of Silverstone had firmly taken root and was not easily reconciled by intimations of kindness or consideration.

  Silverstone opened the door and stood aside to let him in. The room was even gloomier than the stairwell. And seemed as empty. Silverstone followed him in, closed the door behind him and strode over to the far side of the room, where he knocked with curious deliberation on another door. Frank had the impression this knock constituted some carefully observed code.

  Perhaps he should have anticipated it, but nonetheless the sight of Achim’s familiar face greeting him in this dingy garret made Frank’s heart leap.

  “Frank!” he said. There was a sense of alarm in his voice. “You look terrible. What have you been up to?”

  He stood back, gesturing Frank into the room.

  “He’s been giving me a real hard time,” Silverstone added as he followed him in.

  “Did you do this to him?” Achim asked, flashing a look of concern at the American.

  “Hell no!” Silverstone protested.

  “Here, you could do with some of this, Frank.”

  Achim poured two glasses of his favourite Mirabelle brandy, passed one to his friend and lifted the other to the light.

  “Such sweet golden nectar,” he said. “You can almost see the fruit on the trees, gleaming in the sunshine. But tell me what the hell you’ve been getting up to. How did you get that face?”

  “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  Frank evaded his friend’s questions. He felt it best not to make any mention of Breitner just yet. What interested him more was to know what Achim had been getting up to and what his connection was with Silverstone. Why had he suddenly vanished from the Gotthard, he wanted to know. What was he getting involved in? And why was Frank being dragged into clandestine adventures of hide and seek?

  “But Frank, remember it was you who dragged me down to this part of the world in the first place.”

  “Well, you didn’t take much persuading.”

  “No, but you gave me the tip, and I’m grateful to you for that.”

  “What tip? What are you talking about?” Frank asked. He detected shades of the flippancy he had always so appreciated in Achim. But on this occasion it irritated him, because he sensed that his friend was using it as a kind of subterfuge. “When I suggested you join me here, it was because I thought you could do some real work again. Maybe even join a theatre group. And instead you start playing Bo Peep with foreign thugs.”

  “Look, Zimmermann,” Silverstone complained, “I wasn’t even happy about bringing this guy here. But you said he could be trusted, so I took the risk. I thought maybe you could explain things better than I can – like you said in the first place. But I don’t have to take these insults. And when I think of the trouble he gave me coming here…”

  Although Silverstone appeared to be offended by his choice of words, Frank had the impression he was simply playing some elaborate game. And when the American meekly acceded to Achim’s suggestion that he go down to the basement and give Gertrude a helping hand, he began to wonder whether this whole scene had been carefully rehearsed.

  “How are Gertrude and the kids settling in?” Frank asked.

  He had imagined that, once Silverstone had gone, the conversation with Achim would assume contours he could identify. But he was mistaken. His old friend shook off the question like a dead leaf clinging to his shoe. He preferred to return to less easy pastures.

  “Your innocence and naivety amaze me, Frank. Do you honestly think I came down here in search of artistic freedom and all that crap? How long have you been here now? Six weeks? Eight? Two months of self-indulgent fantasy can be extremely ruinous to your health, you know. And meanwhile there’s a whole world outside falling apart at the seams. There comes a time when you have to grow up, Frank. When you need to put aside the existential poetry of Rilke or the nonsense verse of Morgenstern or whatever poet captures your attention at any given moment. And just leave the pleasures of self-absorption behind.”

  “Did you know that Rilke’s first name was René?” Frank said, ignoring his friend’s diatribe. “It was Lou Salomé who gave him the name Rainer.”

  “Have you even heard what I’ve been saying, Götz?” Achim gasped with exasperation. “Just quit the evasion and listen to me.”

  “But it’s interesting, isn’t it?” Frank said with a smile that made plain he had heard every word – and his friend’s intended irony – despite the persistent evasion. “It’s interesting the way people like to substitute given names. It’s as if they want to blank out the attributes they don’t like in someone and assign a new identity to that person.”

  “Like you, Götz.”

  Frank smiled now with a hint of awkwardness.

  “What’s more interesting about Lou Salomé,” Achim continued with an unaccustomed harshness in his voice, “and more germane, is that when she died a few weeks ago, they confiscated her entire library because it was tainted with ‘Jewish science’ and was full of books by Jewish authors. Did you know that?”

  “Look, I’m not quite the innocent you imagine me to be, Achim. I know what these people are like.” Frank pointed to the injuries on his face. “I didn’t get this walking into a lamp post.”

  And for the second time that day, Frank went into the details of his encounter with Breitner. But for Achim’s ears, the motives behind the storytelling were rather different. The story was very much a service stripe, a badge of honour to impress. And Frank did not spare his friend’s sensibilities, as he had done Patricia’s. Achim was presented with a complete tapestry of the violence committed against him.

  “So that’s why Silverstone was persuaded to bring you here,” said Achim.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I may only have been here a week or so, Frank, but one thing I’ve learned is that anyone Breitner takes a dislike to is a friend of Silverstone’s.”

  “A dubious privilege. I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could throw him. And besides, after nicking his papers off him, I wouldn’t be so sure you’re right about his judgement of me.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong, Frank. But then you don’t know him yet.”
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  “That sounds ominous. You mean I’m going to get to know him better?” The words drew a smile from Achim. “But since you seem to know him so well, tell me about him. Who is he?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know him well. But I know what he stands for, and that’s probably more important these days.” He broke off for a moment to pour himself another brandy, as if this would help concentrate his mind. Frank allowed him to fill his glass, too, as he watched the tension playing on his old friend’s face.

  “Some people in Berlin put me in touch with him.” His voice cracked almost imperceptibly with a hint of self-mockery as he continued painting in the background to his picture. “You know, Frank, you would hardly have recognised me these last few months in Berlin. I’ve been moving in very mixed company.”

  Achim rose from his chair, and Frank’s eyes followed as he poured himself another glass and moved over to the window.

  “You’re hitting it pretty hard these days, Achim. Is that down to the mixed company you keep?”

  “It all goes back to an insignificant landlord of an insignificant bar somewhere in Kreuzberg. And you know, it’s the insignificance of it all that appals and haunts me most of all.”

  “You’re talking in riddles, Achim.”

  “You remember our bar on the Ku’damm?” said Achim.

  “Of course,” Frank nodded, recalling their intoxicated evenings in the garishly decorated blues and golds of the bar room and the ladies of the night entertaining their clients on the dance floor.

  “I dropped in one evening for a beer on my way home,” Achim went on. “The place was quite full, but seemed oddly quiet. The band had stopped playing. I must have been very tired, because it took some time for it to click, before I realised what was happening. There were a few brown uniforms among the clientele, but that was a sight I’d grown used to, so I paid them no special attention. I walked over to the bar. Two of them were standing there and seemed to be in conversation with the barman. It was not until I interrupted them to order a beer that I could see this was not a normal conversation.

 

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