Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  That would do. Even though, in her befuddled state, she had understood only about a quarter of what Himmelfahrt had said, 43 years after his death, this was the first time Thomas Hardy had pulled.

  Gisella Herrold took Himmelfahrt’s arm, reaching up to kiss his neck. ‘There are rooms free,’ she whispered.

  Himmelfahrt panicked. He looked for Margarethe, as salvation this time. His mind flashed vividly back to Petra Weiss, the latest disaster. He sensed Petra would keep schtum, mainly because she was married. But if he failed with a chatterbox like Gisella, it would be all round the afternoon class, then all over Ludwigsburg. He should have done it more gently, afterwards he realised that. But the white mist came down over his mind.

  He pushed her away. ‘Sorry. I don’t really … Sorry, I’m busting for a leak.’

  ‘Bitte? You are what? What means leak?’ And as he fled, ‘Are you coming back?’

  *

  Serious, bespectacled Sabina Göller was in hell, or in a state pretty close to it. She held onto the stair rail as Hermann Schaffner and Margarethe Heer pushed past her in their hurry to get upstairs. That was typical! She was of course, invisible. She had been invisible all her life.

  By now aged 28, no man had as much as asked her out, let alone kissed her, let alone made love to her. Men did not regard her as a woman at all. It had reached a peak of torment with her colleague at the City Bank, Norbert Sibulsky. She loved him totally, utterly, insanely, passionately. Even now she was looking out for him, but he did not seem to be here. Perhaps that was just as well. Seeing him every day, working right next to him. How many invitations to coffee do you issue? How much of his well-meaning kindness could she take? And he knew, oh he knew alright. She had no pride left.

  And her life aside from Norbert? Looking after her pretty kid-sister’s half-American bastard child while popular Christl went out on dates, in her bloody red dress. Boring, plain aunt Sabina with her greasy hair and specs brought little Jimi up, leaving Christl free to go out with every boy she met at a telephone dance, where the boys regularly stampeded for her as soon as Christl phoned. That was the deal. That was her life.

  Was she a lesbian? That is what Sabina asked herself. Perhaps the men knew more than she did. She tried to analyse her feelings but could not. If she loved Norbert, she couldn’t be a lesbian. Could she? But perhaps she didn’t really love Norbert. Perhaps she was just fighting her own body. Sabina tried to look at women, feel things for women, just to see what happened. Nothing happened. She didn’t know what she felt. She kept getting images of Christl breastfeeding Jimi. Was there no end to her shame? Everybody else found Christl attractive, so why shouldn’t she?

  Sabina Göller furiously knocked back her fifth glass of champagne and took another flute from a passing waiter who, of course, totally ignored her. She was close to breaking, close to a screaming breakdown. She had decided a few months back to lose her virginity, even if she had to use force. She would find out once and for all if she was a lesbian.

  This was the first time she had been out this year, since New Year’s Eve, eleven months ago. The invitation here had naturally been for Christl. She had seen it in Christl’s room and when Christl accepted a date for this evening she had asked if she could use it instead. Christl had laughingly told her what to expect from a party at Hermann Schaffner’s. Ho-ho-ho. Plain, boring Sabina at an orgy. Ho-ho-ho. Very funny. Right, tonight was going to be the night. Another waiter passed. Sabina Göller took another champagne flute even though she had not finished the one she had got. She pulled the waiter by the arm, but he broke free. The next time a waiter came past she said ‘Do you want to go upstairs?’ in a throaty voice but he ignored her. Perhaps he hadn’t heard.

  Sabina Göller stood by the stair rail, drinking steadily, grimly determined to lose her virginity. She said ‘Do you want to come upstairs with me?’ every time an unaccompanied man went past. No takers so far.

  *

  The Louis XIV room, on the second floor, was in near total darkness, slow music played. Doris Röder sat in a corner, conservatively dressed in a blue silk blouse and white skirt. She hoped nobody would notice her. She was trying to control her breathing. In the opposite corner of the room, a couple were heavy-petting and Doris could not take her eyes off them.

  In the Chinese Room next door, John de Launay and Dieter Sinjen were having a very slow conversation in Esperanto, interrupting themselves occasionally for grammatical analysis and silly giggling. John was asking questions with grammatical traps in them.

  They were interrupted by Anna Schweinle, wearing a black, V-neck, one-piece cat suit and no bra. She had been looking forward to seeing John at this gathering ever since the invitations went out. He had so far not followed up on their initial petting, which was sufficiently unusual to be intriguing. And anyway she liked tall men. And with John it would be like seducing a choirboy, or a vicar.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ she said. ‘Would you like to dance?’

  As he was drawing breath to reply, she seized him by the hand and took him off to a dance room, his sentence in Esperanto still hanging in the air. They went into the Louis XIV Room, where Doris Röder was. And there, right in front of Doris, John kissed her with a violence she found astonishing. And quite pleasant. Not that much of a choirboy, then …

  Doris Röder stood up. Pushing her back against the wall in a dark corner, she made sure she missed absolutely nothing. Her head was swimming and she felt deliciously faint.

  *

  Jens Körner, drummer of the group Die Junggesellen, was not in the pit of hell, like Sabina Göller, but he was deeply, deeply distressed. Everyone knew Hermann Schaffner; nobody expected fidelity. Jens realised he was a fool falling for Hermann; anyone who fell for Hermann was a fool. But what really hurt, he thought to himself in the tiny Morning Room on the second floor, was the suspicion that Hermann had gone off with a woman.

  Schaffner had been diabolically clever, as usual. Norbert Sibulsky had found out about his meetings with that married Heer woman, the whore. Norbert found out about everything. It got on Hermann’s nerves, that knowingness — ‘Knowing Norbert’, Hermann called him. Hermann had dropped Norbert for it. That was why Norbert wasn’t here. He was sulking.

  Jens grinned at the thought of Norbert sulking, until he remembered the meetings with the Heer woman again. Hermann had disappeared. He had taken the Heer woman up to his bedroom probably. Having her in semi-public like that would be very Hermann. Oh yes! With a follow-up downstairs, in front of everybody, if he could. Women! Some queers, thought Jens, liked them but not him. Oh no, not him. The thought of them with their wet … Ugh! Jens drowned the thought in more drink.

  *

  Himmelfahrt was about as drunk as Jens, though a lot happier. He was still looking for Margarethe. She had disappeared. He went down to the basement. Some revellers had located the cheaper end of the wine cellar (the more expensive end was in a vault at the City Bank, at the branch where Norbert Sibulsky and Sabina Göller worked). A couple of girls were playing table-tennis. No Margarethe.

  Himmelfahrt made his way back up to the second floor, taking another white wine on the way from a passing waitress. By now everything was bleary but he looked in rooms on the second floor, some of them twice.

  In the slow dancing room, after smiling at Anna and John passionately entwined, he asked Doris Röder if she had seen Margarethe. Doris had: Margarethe had gone upstairs with Hermann. Third floor. Doris was unexpectedly well-informed.

  Himmelfahrt felt a rush of drunken anger. His pastoral authority had been undermined. Nobody, after all, had asked him. He set off for the third floor at what he imagined was a run but was actually a drunken lollop. Doris Röder, scenting action, followed him.

  At the bottom of the stairs to the third floor they passed Sabina Göller, trying to kiss any lone man who went up or down. Two men had so far stopped to reciprocate, but not for long. This left Sabina, by now blind drunk, convinced she must be a lesbian, but no less determ
ined to force the next man who went upstairs to deflower her.

  Himmelfahrt did not notice Sabina Göller and was saved from her attentions by having Doris with him. On the third floor, he knocked on then pushed every door, shouting ‘Margarethe’, each time.

  ‘His bedroom’s along there,’ Doris informed him.

  Himmelfahrt managed a surprised look, despite being very drunk. Doris giggled and said Hermann had shown her, Anna and Margarethe over the house. Himmelfahrt felt a rush of angry jealousy and wondered when.

  He hurried to the master-bedroom and turned the handle. It was locked. He shouted ‘Margarethe!’ through the door.

  Margarethe, from inside, said ‘Hi, Mark!’

  Himmelfahrt thought she sounded distressed. It was enough. He took three steps back, ran at the door and gave the lock a flying scissors kick, remembered from early days at White Hart Lane watching Alan Gilzean, the balding Scottish number nine. To his amazement, the turn-lock burst and the door swung open.

  Himmelfahrt stumbled in, followed by Doris. Margarethe was naked on the counterpane, laughing uncontrollably and holding one hand up to her mouth. Hermann Schaffner, penis in hand, had been about to penetrate her but turned as the door banged open. For a second, Hermann’s penis faced Himmelfahrt like a surprised cyclops.

  Himmelfahrt’s stumbling run took him as far as the bed.

  ‘My hero!’ shrieked Margarethe, giggling herself breathless and making no attempt to cover herself up.

  ‘What do you want here?’ roared Hermann Schafner, standing to face Himmelfahrt and covering his rapidly detumescing penis with both hands. Doris stepped to the side, her enormous eyes peering past Hermann’s hands to his penis.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Himmelfahrt said to Margarethe.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ said Margarethe through screams of laughter, still not covering herself up. ‘How are you?’

  For a second there was total silence as Himmelfahrt looked at Margarethe and Doris stared at Hermann’s penis.

  Hermann Schaffner then yelled again. ‘Get out! Am I selling tickets for a fucking circus here, or what? If you want a go, get to the back of the queue.’

  ‘Margarethe …’ appealed Himmelfahrt. He had a pain in his leg from kicking the door. He feared a hamstring strain. They were buggers, hamstring strains, took ages to heal.

  Margarethe rolled off the bed, her laughter subsiding a little but not much. ‘It’s alright, Mark. I’m still a virgin.’ And that set her off screaming with laughter again.

  *

  At that moment, Jens Körner, on the second floor, decided that he could stand no more. He would find that son-of-a-whore Hermann Schaffner and … and … He made his way at a run to the stairs leading to the third floor, knowing very well where the master bedroom was. This took him past Sabina Göller.

  Sabina Göller was by now getting quite practised at intercepting and kissing men. She spun Jens by his right shoulder, turning his momentum into her. She kissed him hard on the mouth, forcing his mouth into hers with surprising strength, with both hands gripping his ears. Jens struggled in vain for a while but finally broke free and let out a mighty screaming roar. He jumped up and down, gibbering, screaming abuse at the top of his voice, holding his bruised ears.

  That pushed Sabina Göller completely over the edge. Convinced she must be a lesbian who all men found repugnant, she let out huge whooping screams of her own and ran amok. She ran into rooms at random smashing everything in her way. She threw a vase at a wall and an occasional table clean through a window in the Chinese Room, where Dieter Sinjen was slowly but determinedly writing a dialogue in Esperanto.

  The smashed table landed at the feet of Siegfried Gruber, who had been waiting outside, having followed Himmelfahrt to this place. Gruber’s instructions included protecting Hill-Himmelfahrt from East German intelligence, when necessary, as he was presumed to be the agent of a friendly country. Gruber ran to the front door and as he ran he radio’d the local police for assistance.

  Among the first officers to respond were those conscientious policemen, Gerhard Söderle and Andreas Lübke.

  *

  A by now clinically insane Sabina Göller, going totally berserk, had cleared the second floor of terrified and screaming party guests. Anna Schweinle refused John de Launay’s gentlemanly offer to see her home and slipped out by a side door on her own. She was surprised by how strongly she had responded to John’s forceful caresses and wanted time to think what that could mean.

  Upstairs, Hermann Schaffner, now looking strained, had got dressed in white trousers and unbuttoned white dress shirt. Margarethe, after considerable coaxing from Himmelfahrt, was reluctantly putting her knickers back on. Doris Röder rushed to follow Hermann, not taking her eyes off his retreating bottom as he ran down the corridor to see who was wrecking his house.

  Siegfried Gruber’s hammering on the door had resulted in someone letting him in, just as Sabina Göller threw another table through another window, this time in the Louis XIV Room. Gruber could not see agent Hill, but he drew his gun and followed the sound of the smashing.

  As he came into the Louis XIV room, the deranged Sabina Göller launched herself at him in a vertical dive, her mouth feverishly searching for his, her hands grabbing between his legs in a madly forceful attempt to encompass her defloration. Gruber’s gun went off as she smashed into him, bringing him down, though the bullet went harmlessly into the wall.

  Margarethe Heer, calmer and finally clothed, led Himmelfahrt by the hand out of the same side door that Anna had used. Hermann Schaffner dragged Sabina Göller off Gruber, whose mouth was bleeding from her ferocious kisses. Also, his testicles were bruised and swollen. Doris Röder watched Hermann’s bottom wiggling as he pulled at Sabina Göller.

  Jens Körner burst in and started screaming insults at the bending Hermann, calling him a perverted, queer son of a whore and asking just what obscene sex act he was performing now. But nobody understood him as his mouth was cut and bruised from Sabina Göller’s earlier efforts at defloration.

  *

  In a bedroom on the third floor, Gisella Herrold emerged naked from the shower she had taken in an attempt to sober up after failing to seduce Himmelfahrt. She screamed when a policeman burst in with a drawn gun.

  ‘Gisella!’

  ‘Gerhard,’ said Gisella Herrold, with no great enthusiasm at the sight of her fiancé, Gerhard Söderle.

  ‘Gisella! You’re …’ He looked at her, naked except for her blue-rimmed glasses. ‘… naked.’

  ‘Oh, well done! Sherlock bloody Holmes. They should make you a detective. It’s over, Gerhard. I can’t stand you. You’re stupid.’

  ‘Stupid am I? Not like that damned arsehole English teacher, I suppose?’

  Gisella Herrold’s praise of cute Mr Hill and his entertaining lessons had long reached torture level for the policeman.

  ‘He’s here, isn’t he?’ Gerhard Söderle snarled. ‘The English teacher, Hill. He’s here somewhere.’

  Still with his gun drawn, Gerhard Söderle searched the bathroom for concealed English teachers.

  Gisella Herrold knotted a fluffy white towel round her, then applauded ironically. ‘You’ve come a bit late, Sherlock Holmes. Mr Hill was here, but he’s gone now. I think he had everything he wanted.’

  *

  No crime had been committed at Hermann Schaffner’s party. Hermann refused to press charges against Sabina Göller for causing criminal damage. He immediately offered to pay to have the street cleaned of glass and told Andreas Lübke how well he knew the Kommissar of police. (Yes, in the biblical sense …)

  Nobody had been badly hurt. Jens Körner’s mouth needed two stitches. Gruber’s mouth was bleeding copiously and he was walking with his legs wide apart, but he avoided doctors and the police, fearing his reputation for taking a punch would be compromised by his obvious inability to stop a near rape by a madwoman. Sabina Göller, in a straitjacket, was sent for psychiatric treatment.

  There was one more consequence �
� an unforeseen one — of the events at Hermann Schaffner’s party: The next time Doris Röder saw her fiancé, Klaus Dürr, she gave him to understand, quite graphically, that she no longer wished to wait until after the wedding before consummating their love. A surprised but by no means displeased Klaus was given to understand that as soon he got his coat off would be fine with her. Doris started to visit Klaus in Heidelberg far more often than she had before. And after a few months, she even stopped imagining it was Hermann Schaffner doing all those things to her.

  27

  There was a draught coming in under the back door. Himmelfahrt’s mother, Minnie, stared at the offending portal, the vertical line between her eyebrows deepening to a furrow. Over the next few days she considered the problem. She fretted, she gnawed at various solutions, she announced the issue to Gershon, who as usual didn’t listen. Finally, she had an idea — an idea which confirmed her view of herself as a person who had ideas. An idea she described to herself and to Gershon — who again didn’t listen — as a brainwave. She would buy a draught excluder.

  After the very first night of the draught excluder’s use, Minnie Himmelfahrt came down to the kitchen to find a mysterious and unpleasant development. The draught excluder was not in position. It was on the kitchen floor by the fridge.

  Who could be responsible? Only Gershon, whose lack of enthusiasm marked a secret antipathy to the draught excluder. He had been against it, she accused, from the beginning. He was the draught excluder’s enemy. He had sabotaged it.

  She upbraided Gershon, staring him in the face, but he swore he knew nothing about it. He must do! She pulled Gershon into the kitchen to see the evidence. She had left it there. And now it was here. She frowned, vertical line, at the draught excluder and worried at the problem for the rest of the day.

  The next night, would you believe it, the same thing happened again. The draught excluder was in front of the cooker this time: not in its correct position, not where Minnie had left it.