'Oh, I would love so much to go down there,' says Alexandra. 'Wouldn't it be possible, Ricky?'
'Too dangerous. And I doubt if Princess Poliakoff would be deceived, even if we smeared some burnt cork on your face and lent you a pair of my trousers.' I move in the bed. The touch of the soft linen on my body, the effect of the cocaine, are superb. We are all three so happy that my former fears, my caution, my common-sense seem banal to me. 'But what can anyone say?' she asks. 'Oh, there are ways of saying things. But I'll put my mind to the problem. Let's get dressed while we can.' Slowly I lower my feet to the carpet and stand on trembling legs. Clara brings my clothes to me. We laugh as the material makes us wince. 'We've overdone it. Tomorrow we must definitely rest. I thought I was going to die tonight.'
'Me, too,' says my Alex. 'But what a beautiful death. You have taught me so much, Clara. Thank you.' She is far more enthusiastic about Clara than she was about Therese. I cannot fathom her tastes or her motives. There is a knock. Frau Schmetterling is apologetic. 'I'm glad I haven't interrupted you. I thought you'd be leaving. I wanted to speak to you, Ricky.' Alexandra is alarmed, like a schoolgirl caught smoking. 'Good evening, my dear.' I have never known Frau Schmetterling to visit one of the rooms before. She is stately as ever, in black and white, but seems agitated. 'Would you excuse me while I have a word with your gentleman? Ricky?' We move out into the passage. 'This is not the best time,' she says, 'but I have decided to go to bed early. It has been too busy for a weekday. We were not really prepared. Poor Mister can hardly stand up. Ulric has threatened to leave. It is the War. The threat of death is a great encourager of lust. I thought I'd invite you to stay here, in one of the private suites, if you would feel better. I am keeping it aside for you. Until the business with Holzhammer is over. I have heard rumours. Well, as you'd expect. No truce has been reached and Holzhammer… He means to win, I gather, at any price. The city could suffer. You know how fond I am of you. Your hotel is so near the centre. Here, we are more secluded. Well?' Her dark, maternal eyes are earnest.
I am moved by her concern. 'You have always been so kind,' I say, touching her arm. 'I'm comfortable enough at the Liverpool, at least for the moment. There is also the young lady to consider.'
'If you could promise me there would be no scandal I'd willingly extend the invitation. The Prince intends to defend -Oh, Ricky - Simply reassure me.' She seems doubtful, reluctant to have Alexandra as a guest. Her little fat face is full of worry.
'There would be no scandal, I promise.' But I am lying, of course. If Alexandra's parents were to find out where their daughter was it would be the end of Frau Schmetterling's business in Mirenburg. For that reason I am firm in declining her offer. 'What danger can there be to civilians, even if Holzhammer marches in tomorrow? Mirenburg is not Paris. There is no Commune here!'
'The Prince means to resist,' she says again.
'Then Germany will come to help him and Holzhammer will be trounced once and for all.'
'The guns,' she murmurs. 'They say; Holzhammer will not bombard Mirenburg. He would arouse the hatred of the civilised world.'
Frau Schmetterling is unconvinced.
'I'm a little exhausted,' I tell her gently. 'I desire very much, madame, to get to bed.'
'Of course.' She squeezes my hand. 'But you must remember, Ricky, that I am your friend.' She waddles away down the passage, then pauses. 'I care for your well-being, my dear.' She waves her plump arms as if to dismiss her own sentiments. She lets out a matronly chuckle. 'Good night, Ricky.'
Our carriage is loud in the expectant streets; Alexandra wants to know the substance of my conversation with the madam. I tell her. 'But it would be so convenient,' she says. 'Why didn't you accept?' My instincts are against it. I can hardly explain my feelings to myself and I am already tiring. My nerves are bad, my body no longer sings. I desperately want the comfort of the Liverpool's sheets. Alexandra is still euphoric. She kisses and hugs me. I am her master, she says, her beautiful man, the most wonderful lover in the world. Horses race by with soldiers on their backs. I see lamps moving, hear the occasional voice and I wonder how much of the tension I sense is external, how much comes from within. I am thinking of Princess Poliakoff. Several years before, in Venice, I attended one of her parties at which, she told me, I was to be the guest of honour. She had brought in some peasants from her country estate: young men and women whom, I believe, worked for her. 'Here,' she had said, 'are your pupils. They know all about you and are willing to be educated by you.' Those strange, fresh faces, so wholesome and natural in tone and colour, yet so fundamentally degenerate, looked towards me eagerly as if I were Satan Himself, a Magister of Corruption to whom they could offer their souls as my apprentices. The responsibility was completely beyond me. I told Princess Poliakoff such games bored me. I fled the house. I am aware of my own limitations and, to some degree at least, my own motives. I live as I do because I have no need to work and no great talent for art; therefore my explorations are usually in the realm of human experience, specifically sexual experience, though I understand the dangers of self-involvement in this as in any other activity. Those peasants had been creatures for whom sexuality had become an escape rather than an adventure. They had made no choice at all; they were dependent upon the Princess for their bread. They had no faith in themselves, no belief in their rights as individuals to strengthen and maintain their own wills and to accept any consequences of their own actions. And in this they are dangerous. In this, I would go so far to say, they were evil. And I believe Princess Poliakoff evil, I think. Yet, surely, I am now doing something which I refused to do then, in Venice. Have I no morality left to me, after all? Alexandra clings to me, kisses me with soft, little girl kisses. It is all I can do at this moment not to shudder.
We tug off our clothes as soon as we are in our bedroom. She laughs and kisses my wounds. She looks at herself in the mirror at her bruises and welts, as if she surveys a new gown. 'Oh, Clara is marvellous. Such presence! Don't you think so, Ricky?'
I am already in bed. 'Would you wish to be like Clara?' I ask.
'A whore? Of course not. But to have such power!'
I shake my head. 'She has no power in reality. She pretends it, to serve her clients. She is paid to act that part. The fact that she enjoys it is probably why she is paid so well. But she -'
Alexandra crawls in beside me. 'Ssh, Ricky. You are too serious. Can you see me as a Clara?'
I take her tenderly to me. She is almost immediately asleep, her face in the pillows. It is as if she lies just below the surface of freedom; head down in an unsecured coffin from which, if she merely turns her body once, she can immediately escape. I dim the lamp but do not extinguish it. The sky outside becomes grey. I intend to sleep at least until the evening. I dream of a dark femme fatale whom I cannot identify, mother and priestess, wicked and tender; she laughs at me and pulls thorny roses from her body; her laughter is gutteral and there is a thin, overbred dog at her side which whines, cringes and bares its teeth at me, barking whenever I try to approach her. Panting, I awaken. Dawn is yellow ivory barred with dusty gold. My body aches, my muscles are tense. I have no energy; my skull seems clamped. There are noises from outside. Momentarily I mistake them for the sounds of surf and wind. I hear a distinctive whistling, a boom. I hear voices from the open window. Taking up my dressing gown I walk on stiff legs to the balcony and stand there, supporting myself on the iron railing. The light is painful. There is smoke rising everywhere, as if from large fires. I look across the square where figures are running this way and that. Another terrible whistling, and before my eyes I see a Gothic spire crack and fall. My predictions were meaningless, comforting, without foundation; little tunes hummed to keep dark realities at bay, for Holzhammer is bombarding Mirenburg! I turn into the room. Alexandra continues to sleep. She has pushed away the covers. There is a smile on her face. I check the impulse to wake her and stumble back to bed to light a cigarette and lie looking up at the bed curtains, listening to the sound
s of destruction. Then I am drawn again to the balcony. For most of the morning I remain there, still incredulous, as the enemy shells smash a Romanesque column or erode the delicate masonry of a modern apartment building. It is probable that I am not yet free of the cocaine because I begin to think the bombardment is bringing a new kind of beauty to the city, for the moment at least, perhaps also a dignity it has not previously possessed. Just as a woman in middle or late years will achieve grace and poise through vicissitude and pain making her more attractive than ever she could have been in the prime of her youth and looks, so Mirenburg seems now. I do not grieve for her. It seems relief must soon come in the form of a truce. It is not possible that, in all humanity, the besiegers could place upon their consciences the responsibility for the annihilation of so much nobility and optimism, those centuries of civilisation. And sure enough, at exactly mid-day, the guns become silent. Prince Badehoff-Krasny will not let his city be destroyed. The autumn light is washed with grey; clouds rise from the ruins like baffled souls. I return to bed and sleep, my own wounds forgotten. Old Papadakis brings more boiled fish. I am surprised because I can smell alcohol on his breath. 'You were so proud of all your abstinences,' I say. 'You sought them out as if they were positive virtues; as if they gave you merit. You were so full of yourself. But you know what it is, too, don't you, to be ruined by a woman?' He sighs and puts the tray over my knees, below my writing case. 'Eat if you want to. Haven't you finished your story yet?' We are both exiles. We have no other bond. 'Are you afraid of it?' I ask. 'Look how much I've written!' His dark eyes stare into a corner of the room. I remember when, relaxed, he used to seem like an eager boy. 'Self-denial is not the same as self-discipline,' I tell him. 'You remain an infant. But you have lost your charm. She found out what you were, didn't she? Widow-hunter!' I believe I am making him angry. For the first time he looks me full in the eyes, as an equal. 'All those dead painters! Vulture! Bring me a bottle of decent claret. Or have you drunk it all yourself? Why do you feel you should be rewarded? You have spent your life responding to others and you thought it would always pay. And now you have only me and you cannot bear to respond, can you? I am your nemesis.'
'You are mad,' he says, and leaves. I continue to laugh. I disdain his pieces offish. I continue to write. I am writing now. The ink is the colour of the Mediterranean, flowing from my silver Waterman. What have the Italians become? What does their Duce mean to me? And Germany is destroyed. What dreadful perversity led to this? Was it all prefigured? How could we have known better? Can God be so small-minded that he disapproves of a Lesbian salon? But it is not that which He set out to destroy. Oh, the pain of movement. Alexandra is whispering in my ear. 'Ricky, I'm hungry.' One dream washes into another. I smile at her. 'I love you. I am your brother, your father, your husband.' She kisses my cheek. 'Yes. I'm hungry, Ricky. Do you feel rested? I feel wonderful.'
I begin to sit up. 'Have you looked outside?' It is nearly dark. 'No,' she says. 'Why should I?' I tell her to go to the balcony and tell me what she sees. She thinks it is a game. Frowning and smiling she obeys. 'What's happened? Oh, God! They have pulled down -'
'They have shot down,' I say. 'Holzhammer's seige is beginning in earnest.' First she is frightened, and then she begins to show delight. 'But Ricky, it means I'm completely free. People must have been killed, eh?'
I draw in a deep breath. I have never known any creature so unselfconsciously greedy. 'What a wonderful animal you are. Don't you want to try to get to Vienna? Or Paris?'
'And leave Rosenstrasse? Is there anywhere else like it?'
'Nothing quite like it.'
'Then we'll see what happens.'
That night we visit the brothel and before the new girl (an unremarkable creature called Claudia who submits to Alexandra's rather clumsy imitations of Clara) arrives, Frau Schmetterling pays us a call. 'Remember my offer,' she says. 'They are not interested in this corner of town.'
On our way home we are stopped by soldiers. I tell them who I am. Alexandra invents a name. The soldiers refuse to laugh at my jokes and insist on escorting us back to the hotel. The next morning I receive a visit from a policeman with orders for me to accompany him to his headquarters. He is perfectly polite. It is an examination to which all foreign nationals must submit. I tell Alexandra to wait for me in our rooms and if I do not return by evening to inform Frau Schmetterling. At Nurnbergplatz, however, I find an apologetic police captain who claims to have met my father and to be an admirer of the new Kaiser. 'We have to be cautious of spies and saboteurs. But, of course, you are German.' I ask if it will be possible to have a safe-conduct from the city. He promises to do his best, but is not very helpful. 'My superiors,' he says. 'They cannot risk anyone reporting to the enemy. Have you been told about the curfew?' No private citizens are allowed to be on the streets after nightfall without special permission. This threatens my routine. I hardly know what is happening. While we are talking, more shells begin to land within the city walls and now I am aware that the defenders are firing back. The policeman is despondent. 'We are being attacked with our own guns. Holzhammer seized the train from Berlin. Those are Krupp cannon. Even more powerful than the ones you used against Paris. But I should not tell you this, sir. It is hard to become secretive, eh? We are not very experienced at such things in Mirenburg.' I return, despondent, to The Liverpool. Alexandra is half-dressed, busy with her pots and brushes. 'Oh, thank goodness,' she says, without a great deal of interest. 'I thought they had arrested you.' She returns to her mirror. I find her amusing today, perhaps because I am relieved to be free. 'The guns stopped at twelve,' she says. 'I thought so. Some ultimatum of Holzhammer's. I believe, though the newspapers are vague. They are being censored.' I put them down on the bed and remove my jacket. 'Are you sure you want to go to Rosen-strasse tonight? There's a curfew. We must leave before dusk and return after dawn. We could eat at the hotel and have an early night.'
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