The aviator sighs. 'My balloon stays where it is.' He signals to Lotte and Hyacinta, both beautiful natural blondes, and with the briefest of acknowledgements to the rest of the company, departs upstairs with them. I take a glass of red Graves from the buffet which tonight has been placed near the window. As always the windows are thickly curtained in red velvet glowing like a fresh rose. I smell patchouli, and woodsmoke from the fire, the cheeses and cold fowl on the table, and I am now completely relaxed, no longer so eager to return to my two girls. Clara comes to eat another peach. 'It's my third. Aren't I greedy? They're all the way from Africa, I believe.' I wonder why she is pursuing me. I have no desire, tonight, to enjoy her special talents. She fixes me with a compulsive eye. Or perhaps it is Alex she desires, having heard about her from Therese. 'I so enjoy Count Stefanik,' she says,'don't you? He is absolutely committed to the idea of powered flight. He calls it heavier than air? What does that mean?'
'Such machines are notional, and probably not possible. It means to fly like a bird, which is heavier than air, not like a dirigible, which contains lighter than air gas.'
'What?' she exclaims with a laugh designed to please and flatter me. 'Are we all to be angels?'
'Some of us are already so blessed,' I say with reluctant and unconvincing gallantry, looking up eagerly as the doors open and a woman enters. It is Princess Poliakoff, but now she no longer has her son with her. I cannot leave, for she has seen me and will be suspicious if I repeat my ploy of the previous evening. I smile at her and go to greet her.
I do not recognise her thin female companion. 'Sent on,' she says of the boy, to Vienna. I couldn't risk an encounter
Holzhammer. He holds such awfully long grudges. Do you know Rickhardt von Bek, Diana? Lady Cromach.' We are introduced. Lady Diana Cromach is a writer, a correspondent for several English and French journals. A Lesbian, she lives in Paris. 'What brings you to Mirenburg, Lady Cromach?' I enquire in English. 'I am a professional vulture,' she says. 'The whiff of blood and gunpowder, you know. The war.' Everyone seems to be babbling tonight. The salon is fuller than usual. Someone has placed a record on the cabinet phonograph in the corner. It plays a sentimental German song. All at once the place has the atmosphere of a provincial wedding-breakfast. Lady Cromach wears her dark curls close to her head, a circlet of pearls. She has an oval face, a rounded chin, grey-green eyes, a strong no^e and a slightly down-turned but full mouth, very flexible for an Englishwoman. Her family estates are in Ireland. She is almost as tall as me and has an excellent, if slight, figure in an ivory gown trimmed with very light brown lace. Her voice is soft. Every statement seems full of implicit irony, no matter how banal it sounds on the surface. Has she learned to modify an otherwise mundane personality by cultivating this mannerism or is she really as clever as the Princess now insists? 'Have you read her articles for the Graphic or La Vie Francaise? So perceptive! She is a seeress. You are a Cassandra, my dear.' The Princess is plainly intoxicated with her friend. In her black costume she contrasts so emphatically that I smile and tell them I feel I am addressing a pair of chess queens. This pleases the Princess who laughs coarsely. 'But we play a game without kings, dear Ricky.' At this, Lady Cromach smiles and looks down at her fan. I find the Englishwoman, with her boyish shoulders and gestures, extremely attractive and give her more of my attention than I Wieve she desires. I am at my most charming, but she is not charrned, though she seems pleased to acknowledge the effort I ain making and so is, I believe, flattered at least. Princess oliakoff notices and almost growls at me. 'Where is your little igger tonight .Ricky?'
Resting,' I reply. Lady Cromach displays more curiosity than before and it is my turn to smile a little. Doubtless she has heard an elaborate story from the Princess but only now believes it. Such apparently unconscious confirmations give substance to the most outrageous lies. I feel satisfied on a number of levels and my spirits lift considerably. I have excited Lady Cromach's imagination; I have become interesting to her. I offer them both my cigarette case but Lady Cromach does not smoke and Princess Poliakoff prefers her little cheroots. She is quick to introduce her Diana to a safer acquaintance and once again I find I am with Clara, whom I now believe is either a little drunk or has made use of the box of cocaine for which she is well-known. She has never shown such interest in me before and I cannot understand why she is attracted to me tonight. She has an eye for vulnerability. Can I seem vulnerable to her, when I am so full of confidence? The phonograph is playing a Strauss waltz. 'It is like a Friday or a Saturday,' remarks Clara. 'Not like a Wednesday at all.' She is pleased, but I am beginning to feel slightly irritated and claustrophobic. All the same Clara's pursuit has its effect. I have no intention, however, of returning to Alexandra with the marks of a birch on my behind; not yet. 'You are looking so beautiful tonight, Ricky,' says Clara. 'You have only to ask Frau Schmetterling and I could join you a little later.' I laugh. 'You are after my - ' I hesitate. She makes a movement of triumphant withdrawal and our eyes meet even as she straightens her back. 'We shall have to see,' I say. 'But I think it could be arranged.' We all seem to be playing the same game tonight. And Clara grins, biting her lower lip, and winks. She is off into the press. I am alone. My first impulse is to leave quietly but before I know it I have crossed the carpet to where Princess Poliakoff and Lady Cromach, arm in arm, are amusing themselves at the expense of a red-faced dodderer who has mistaken them for whores. 'I do hope we shall meet again, I tell them. I kiss their hands. Princess Poliakoff is a little cold, but I am under the impression that Lady Cromach has almost imperceptibly squeezed my fingers. To the strains of the waltz I make a lighthearted departure and spring up the stairs to our room. I find with disappointment that my little girls are asleep. Alexandra has her mouth open and is snoring. She looks, as she often does, like a replete rat, and I turn my attention first to her youthful flesh, then to Therese who, in sleep, seems slightly puzzled, just a trifle worried by something, and yet her lips are innocently curved in a smile. Alexandra opens alarmed, accusatory eyes, then composes her features in a way I have only seen on a much older woman. 'I wish I could join you down there,' she says. 'You've enjoyed yourself, haven't you?' Her voice is low and loving. 'I was missing you.' I lean down to embrace her. Therese grunts and stirs but does not wake up. 'I think we should go,' I say. 'Are you satisfied.'
'With Therese?' She frowns. 'Oh, yes. We'll come again tomorrow, shall we? For a different lady?' I am indulgent. 'You don't think we should rest, be by ourselves, at least until Friday or Saturday?' She is displeased. 'But it is getting so exciting. Are you bored already?' I shake my head. 'Not bored. Merely patient.'
She puts her feet to the floor and looks at herself in the mirror. 'What's wrong?' I reassure her and, of course, within moments am promising her that we shall return tomorrow, that I will speak to Frau Schmetterling before we leave. I would do anything to preserve this dream and will avoid, if I can, any hint of conflict between us. 'You are a wonderful, wonderful friend.' Naked, she raises herself to put her arms around my neck. 'I adore you. I love you so much, Ricky.' I kiss her violently on the mouth and then pull away from her, attempting gaiety. 'Get dressed. We must slip into the night.' Sadness and distress have invaded me so swiftly that I am angry, as if faced with a physical enemy. Much as I control myself she notices. When she is ready for the street she says quietly. 'Have I upset you?' I deny it, of course. 'Not at all. I met an old buffoon downstairs who insisted on boring me about the war. He all but ruined my evening.' She becomes tactful. 'Perhaps you're tired of our adventure? Perhaps we should rest tomorrow, after all.' But I am by now fierce in my insistence that we continue. 'You're certain you want to?' she says. 'Of course,' I reply. The anger fades. She appears to be mollified. I, in turn, become astonished at how easily she can be reassured. But she is a child. It is experience which encourages us to pursue our suspicions; that and the memory of past pain. She has not known pain. Only boredom. In a woman of my own age I should sense an echo, some form of sympathy. But with
Alexandra there is no sympathy. And I continue to conspire in her ignorance because it is the child I love. If she were to become a woman I should lose interest in her in a matter of weeks at the most. We persist in a conspiracy in which I alone am guilty, for I know what I am denying her. I refuse my own reason. I refuse to consider any sense of consequence. She is what I want. I will not have her change. And yet I have no real power in the matter. I can only pray the moments will last as long as possible for it will be Alexandra, in the end, who will make the decision either to stop dreaming or, more likely, substitute one dream for another. I look carefully at Papadakis's sallow, bearded face. At the deep hollows under his morbid eyes whose melancholy is emphasised by the spectacles he affects. Even the grey streaks in his beard have an unhealthy look, as if a saprophytic plant invades it. He turns away from my stare to pick at something with a quiet, fussy movement. I have made him self-conscious. I enjoy my moment. 'You should take more exercise,' I say. He grunts and shifts towards the shadows: a need to hide. His shoulders seem to become more stooped than usual. I am driving him into the darkness where he feels safest. 'Have you been looking for the evidence again?' I ask. 'I have told you, the photographs are not in the house.' He pushes back the heavy green curtain which covers the door of my bedroom. He disappears behind it. I pause to refill my pen. Alexandra is petulant. Her full lips turn downward and she pulls a hand through wet hair. Her skin seems to have lost its lustre this afternoon. Her shoulders and her breasts in particular have a lifeless look: a wax statue. 'You are eating too much custard,' I call after Papadakis. 'Too much bread and jam!' Alexandra pulls herself together, evidently displeased with her own mood.
I hand her a glass of champagne. She accepts it; she is placatory - 'Could we find some opium? My nerves. Or some cocaine?' I shrug. 'Are you afraid? Do you want to go home?' I am still sluggish and am not properly awake. She shakes her head. 'Of course not. But with all this news, not knowing who is doing what or where my parents are and so on - Well, it's not surprising I'm a little agitated. Could you get some opium?' She begins to dry her hair, staring hard at her face in the mirror of the dressing table. 'I'm sure it's possible,' I tell her. 'But is it wise?'
She pouts, glares at me in that gesture I have come to recognise as her substitute for direct anger. 'Is any of this wise?' And then turns as if to say What have you made of me? I am in no mood for accusations. 'Are you suggesting -?' But of course she has suggested nothing in words. 'You are only what you were before we met. I am merely the instrument of your desire. I have told you that from the beginning. You can return to your parents' home if you wish and we'll say goodbye as friends.' I know that she will not go. I have countered her attempt at manipulation. 'I love you, Alexandra,' I say. She begins to cry. 'You have overtaxed yourself. Lie down for half-an-hour. Tonight I'll see if there is any opium to be had. When you've rested we'll go shopping. Some new clothes.' She cheers immediately. She has almost no sense of the future. She lives only for immediate, meaningless victories. She chooses not to rest but to get dressed so we shall not find the shops closed. I put on my dark brown suit with the buff waistcoat and kid boots and gloves, the cream cravat, a pearl pin. I am pleased with the effect. Today I think I look younger than she, but her paintbox and her powder soon adjusts the balance. She wears pale green silk with darker green lace ruffles, a matching hat with pheasant feathers. Her boots and gloves are also of the dark green. I pick up my stick, she her reticule, and we are off on our expedition. Carriages are lined up outside the hotel, eager for business. I am uncomfortable with the situation, for we, almost the only guests left, are more conspicious than usual. I wonder about changing hotels, but once we are in the carriage and she has lowered her veil I dismiss my anxieties. On the way to the fashionable arcades of Falfnersallee we note the increased number of soldiers. Some of the shops have their shutters up. Here and there workers are moving sandbags against walls. I smile. 'They are taking this all very seriously, eh?' She smiles mindlessly at me for she is already thinking of the dress she will buy. The ladies of Falfnersallee are delighted to see us. We have all their attention as we move from shop to shop. She orders dresses, underclothes, a tea-gown, an umbrella, a Japanese kimono, all of which I must approve and pay for. Trade is slow at present, I am told. For my own satisfaction I take her to a jeweller's and there buy a Lalique brooch for her, green and white wisteria which looks perfect on her dress. She kisses it, kisses me and she is my happy schoolgirl again. We return via the quays and stop the carriage to watch two swans bobbing on the choppy waters. The misty light of the evening softens their outlines and they seem to merge with the silver river and vanish. The poplars in the dusk of Falfnersallee are black as Indian ink on a grey wash and rooks are calling from them like bored boys on a Sunday; noisy but unenthusiastic. Otherwise the great avenue is eery, virtually deserted. 'Has everyone abandoned the city?' I say. 'Have we the whole of Mirenburg to ourselves?' We embrace. In our rooms, with the gas lit, we inspect her parcels, her new hats, her brooch, a gold chain, a silver bracelet, her shoes. She spreads them all over the bed. She has the air of a soldier, triumphant from a looting expedition. She bites her lip and grins. She might have stolen all this. Unexpectedly I realise I could be preparing her for someone else, someone for whom she will make every sacrifice she will not make for me. It is not that I frighten her, though she says I do, it is that I do not frighten her enough, for real, committed love must always have a little fear in it or it would hardly be so precious. It is I who am afraid. I hate myself for my mysterious cowardice. I cannot identify its source. I continue to smile like a fool. I am more intelligent, more powerful, more experienced, even more humane than she: yet I am helpless. I grin like a clown as she parades her booty. My cheque-book is almost exhausted. I must go to my bank and get a new one tomorrow. I can always telegraph for more funds if necessary. I have not yet overstepped the mark with my family, I am certain, although of course they would not support me if they received any word of this escapade. I begin to doubt the wisdom of asking for Clara, as I did last night. There is still time to telephone to Frau Schmetterling. Alone, I would enjoy Clara's attentions, would happily give myself up to her, but now I am afraid Alexandra will think less of me. Even as I smile at her I become determined to make a show of strength tonight.
Just before we enter Rosenstrasse I pause in the darkness, certain I can hear distant gunfire. 'They must be fighting quite close,' I say. She shakes her head, impatient with me, eager to reach the house. 'It's just the river. Loading a boat or something.' It is definitely gunfire. We mount the steps. There is a pretty French song coming from the salon. As usual, we go straight to the room to which Trudi directs us. It is a little larger than the other two, with rather less furniture in it: some potted palms and two vases of gladioli which I know Clara favours. 'Beautiful colours,' says Alexandra. Her maroon linen rustles. 'Not one stem is the same.' Although she has accepted my rules for the evening her hand shakes as she reaches for a flower. I take off my jacket and throw myself into the big armchair. I feel exhausted, but I am controlling myself well. She is far too self-involved at present to notice any subleties of mood in me. 'I prefer this room,' she says. 'The other one was vulgar.' I light a cigarette. 'I enjoy vulgarity. And surely these are the premises for discarding good taste occasionally.' Someone taps on the door. 'Our mistress has arrived. Open it for her.' With a deliberate gesture of submission she obeys. Clara stands there, all in grey, with a silver choker about her throat. To this is pinned a small, blood-red rose. 'Thank you Alexandra. You are as lovely as I was told.' She kisses my child on the forehead and closes the door herself. 'Well, another crowded evening downstairs. So hot!' She opens her fan and waves it once or twice under her face.
There is a suggestion of mockery in the composed smile she offers me. 'Sit down, Alexandra.' She indicates a straight-backed chair. Alexandra hesitates. Clara frowns. Alexandra sits. She is beginning to join in the spirit of this game. 'First we shall have some cocaine,' says Clara. 'Do you
know how to take cocaine, Alexandra?' The child shakes her head. 'I will show you how to prepare it for sniffing. For my part, I prefer the syringe.' She touches her own cheek, laughing at herself. 'Like Sherlock Holmes.' From a drawer she takes a square box covered in black velvet. 'Do you know the stories, Alexandra?' She expects no reply and receives none. Alexandra is fascinated. Clara opens the box and takes a bottle of clear liquid from it. Beside this, on the marble of the chest's top, she lays a silver syringe. 'That is for me. But for you two, the crystals.' Out comes a tiny cut-throat razor with a mother-of-pearl handle, a small green-glass jar with a black screw-top, a hand-mirror in a silver frame. Clara works like a surgeon with these instruments. Every placement is precise. Without turning she says: 'I think you can remove your clothes now, Alexandra.' I avoid looking at either of them until Alexandra has actually begun to undress. Clara's rituals are often different and this one, of course, is completely unfamiliar. 'You may keep the necklace and bracelets,' says Clara. 'Fold your clothes neatly. I hate untidiness. Then come over here.' With deep concentration she shows Alexandra how much cocaine to take from the jar on the little spoon, how to chop it this way and that with the razor until it is as fine as it can be, measuring it into four lines of near-identical length and width on the glass of the mirror. 'You will prepare the next one,' she says. She fills her syringe and takes a little piece of cotton-wool which she has saturated in disinfectant, laying the syringe's needle on it. 'Now both of you may undress me,' she says. 'You may behave as you like during this part of the evening.' Therese had worn only a chemise and drawers, but Clara is all buckles and pins and combs. We set upon her, Alexandra and I, like hungry peasants at a chicken, picking and pulling, until our mouths can fasten on breasts, stomach, thighs. And all the while Clara is a statue, hardly moving, maintaining dignity and equilibrium at every tug and pressure, as if she challenges us to move her. Then Alex is kneeling and licking at her sex. 'That is enough,' says Clara. 'Get undressed Ricky.' I do as she commands. Now we are all naked save that Clara keeps her necklet with the rose and Alexandra retains her jewellery. Clara dabs at her upper arm with more cotton-wool, then very slowly applies the syringe. When she has finished she takes two thin silver tubes from her box. 'One measure in each nostril,' she tells us. 'You first, Ricky.' I lean over the mirror and sniff up first one line, then, changing hands, the second. Alexandra imitates me and is surprised, I can tell, that she feels no immediate sensation. Clara gives a little gasp and looks towards her bottle with the affection one normally reserves for a loved one or an especially fine wine. My head is suddenly all delicious tingling sensitivity, a feeling which spreads through every nerve of my body and seems to excite blood and flesh to new, exquisite life. 'Oh!' Alexandra is receiving the same effect. I envy her this first experience, as I am sure does Clara. 'Oh! Oh, Clara!' She looks with gratitude towards the whore who continues to smile that same knowing smile. Then Clara orders me to my chair, Alexandra to the bed. With cold concentration she begins to explore the girl's body, scratching here, stabbing with a nail there, discovering her most sensitive parts. She takes a hatpin from the table and deliberately slides it down Alexandra's left-side, drawing spots of blood, so Alexandra moans and gives vent to a strange, thin wail. She tries to move, to embrace Clara, but Clara will not allow it. She repeats the operation on the girl's right side, from shoulder to waist, over the buttock, down the thigh, the calf, to the foot. She leans to lick the blood, rolling it on her tongue like a connoisseur. I now lie beside Alexandra on the bed and receive two fiery lines to match hers. Then Clara begins to scratch, to slap, to whip with a thin cane until we are both writhing for her, moaning for her and I am certain I shall die if all this delicious agony is prolonged another second. Alexandra's voice is hoarse with those thin sounds she has almost continuously made. Clara is grunting. She turns us on our backs and repeats the process until almost every inch of our flesh is tender with bruises and tiny cuts. Then Alexandra lies with her face pressed to my genitals while Clara produces a china dildo shaped like a penis and, using a minimum of cream, thrusts it into Alexandra's small behind. There is now naked pleasure on Clara's face. With cruel delight she rams the dildo in and out while I hold Alex's head against my groin, glorying in the hot gasping breath on my cock. Alex's nails dig deep into my thighs. The movements of the struggling skull excite me and I begin to roll in unison with Clara's relentless thrusts. I find Alex's lips and try to enter them, but Clara pushes the girl aside and, leaving the dildo where it is, squats astride me to move herself to a banshee's orgasm. She yells. Alex is astonished, but I know Clara of old and begin to shout with her, reproducing all but the act of spending before, with hardly any hesitation, I turn Alexandra onto her front, remove the dildo and replace it with my cock, buggering and buggering while Clara slaps at my arse like a jockey on the winning stretch. My orgasm is monumental, horrifying, draining. Clara takes my place and the dildo is used again, this time in Alex's cunt, brutally, until with arms spread wide, with legs spread wide, she begins to shake like an epileptic, her hoarse screams rising to a shuddering crescendo until it seems to me she is going to vomit. Then it is over. A full five minutes later Alexandra begins to weep. Her sobs are deep-throated and, like her orgasm, move her entire body. Clara leans back on her pillows and smokes a cigarette with an expression of complete satisfaction. I am still unable to move. My vision is blurred, perhaps through the effects of cocaine. I can smell nothing but sex. My skin is still flaming; my groin aches. There is no question of visiting the salon tonight. Lulled by Alexandra's sobs, I fall asleep. When I awake my body feels white hot and my mind is overwhelmed by such appalling desolation I can think only of death. When I eventually turn my head it is to see Alexandra's bruised and bleeding body bending over the chest as she prepares more cocaine. I am ready to weep with hatred and jealously at her ability to recover so rapidly. I retreat into sleep. I am soon awaked by the soft touch of Alexandra's hand; it is a tender gesture, a gesture of love. My mood changes to one of easy happiness almost at once. 'There is more cocaine for us,' she murmurs. 'Come, my darling. See if you can sit up.' Clara wears a white lace negligee. 'You men have no stamina,' she says affectionately. 'The drug will revive you, Ricky. What a beautiful couple you are.' She has the air of a woman proud of her prizewinning dogs. 'I have some ointment for you to put on.' I lift my head to sniff up the cocaine and almost immediately feel improvement. Alexandra begins to rub the ointment into my skin from top to bottom. When she has finished I tend to her. A certain perspective returns. Clara is in no hurry to leave and just now I have no great desire to be alone with Alexandra. We smoke cigarettes and discuss the charms of other lovers we have known. Clara is rather more willing to gossip than Therese. We drink some good claret and eat tiny pieces of cheese. Clara wants to know about Lady Cromach, but I can only repeat what I have heard. 'She seems to like you,' she says. 'Who is this?' asks Alexandra, not really jealous. 'They have a room here,' says Clara. 'She and the Princess. But they do not seem interested, as yet, in any of the girls.'
The Brothel in Rosenstrasse vb-2 Page 9
