'I make it my business to hear nothing.' He is almost prim. 'It is necessary, I believe, to the rules of my particular trade. Confessors and the proprietors of opium-dens.' He laughs. 'We have something in common with lawyers, too.'
'And doctors,' says Alice.
Captain Mackenzie nods slowly. 'And doctors, aye.'
Rudolph Stefanik moves his body in his clothes as if he is about to burst them and reveal a pair of wings. ' It would make good sense,' he says. 'If they were to dam the river. This whole campaign has been unprofessional. It causes needless suffering, both to troops and to civilians. The Austrians, of course, can be hopeless. I understood Holzhammer was trained in Prussia.'
'Most of the Mirenburg officers received their schooling there,' I tell him. 'But they have had no practical experience. And the conditions are unusual, you will admit. Do you believe that Holzhammer has had as many desertions as they say?'
'I was approached to find out. They wanted me to inflate the balloon and take her up on a fixed mooring. I refused. One shot would destroy my vessel - and me, for that matter. They are now talking of manufacturing their own airships. I said I would willingly give them advice.' Stefanik smiles suddenly down on Alice. 'As soon as this affair is settled I shall be only too pleased to take a pretty passenger into the sky and show her the world an angel sees.' Her eyes are bright as they meet his. 'Oh, I am not innocent enough, Count, to be able to see what an angel sees.'
'But you are able to tempt as the devil tempted,' I tell him, leading her away. He laughs. Voorman and Rakanaspya are deep in drunken conversation. Voorman is entertained by Rakanaspya's seriousness. 'The lure of this putrid sweetness!' he exclaims. 'How can you resist it?'
'It is the lure of disease, of dissolution, of death - the yearning to absolve oneself of all political and moral responsibility,' says the Russian earnestly. 'It is often attractive to those who have had the strictest of upbringings, who display the greatest guilt about themselves and how they should conduct their behaviour in society. They are, indeed, guilty. Guilty of stealing from the poor. Guilty of creating wars and famines. They are responsible for murder and they come here to find a kind of death, a release, a punishment… He is a ttle incoherent. 'They are the fathers of corruption!' he concludes unsteadily.
Voorman giggles and turns to one of the floral displays. Lilies, lilies, lilies! I shall be a father to the lilies. I sh^il tend them as my own children. And when they die I shall bury them with proper ceremony and raise a stone to them and put more lilies upon it so that the scent of the living shall mingle with the smell of the dead. I know where my responsibilities lie. It is to the lilies!'
Rakanaspya appeals to us, but we are laughing too heartily at Voorman. The Russian puts his back against a pillar and pretends to listen to the orchestra as it plays a sort of gypsy dance. The General joins us, with Frau Schmetterling on his arm. His face is red; not wishing to show he is in any way exhausted he controls his breathing. Frau Schmetterling is pleased; she seems to have extracted some sort of promise from him. '1 will put young Captain Mencken in charge of the matter.' He hands her a glass of champagne. He bows to Caroline Vacarescu, who continues to court him. Caroline is talking first to Clara and then, as the two women approach closer, to Alice and myself. She is quite drunk. 'It was the chemistry between us,' she says, 'I could not help myself. I cannot explain. And yet it was failing. I know he felt this loss. The intensity was gone and without it one becomes very easily bored.' She seems to be referring to Mueller. Clara listens patiently. 'We tried to recapture passion which overpowers all constraint, all conscience, but it became hollow. Yet we were linked to each other, by virtue of what we had done to one another and to friends and strangers.' Caroline looks at me suddenly, as if to test my response. 'We were partners in crime. All I could do was watch as he seduced the others who would eventually all become linked to us. That was how we worked, how we affirmed the validity of our habits; and justified them. Was that so wrong? Is one reality any better than another?'
Rakanaspya is the only person with an answer. 'One issan'', he says,'the other reality you describe is not. Such power ^ Romanticism eventually destroys its proponents. It is always the case. And the process of destruction is neither nornaal nor bearable. It is merely sordid. Save yourself, while you have the chance. Never link your star to a m» as Mueller again.'
She becomes uncharacteristically sentimental. 'You can never understand what someone like Mueller has. He radiated authority. He snapped his fingers at convention. He made fools of them all.'
'And now he is dead,' says Clara softly, trying to distract Caroline.
Voorman watches cynically as they move back through the salon. 'I heard Fraulein Vacarescu is only at liberty now because Mueller was caught through information she supplied. Perhaps she found her own way of freeing herself from that chemistry.'
'Somewhat radically.' I do not believe him. Caroline seemed genuinely distressed by Mueller's fate. I catch sight of a man I have often seen here in the evenings and whom I continue to confuse with the current Mayor. He is in fact the ex-Mayor of Mirenburg. He reels about the dance-floor in a kind of vulgar parody of the polka. Herr Kralek's tie is lost. He has spilled food down his shirt-front. Dolly, alone, will dance with him. Almost every night he comes to visit the girls, to drink plum brandy and eat cream-cakes until dawn, when he returns to his wife, to make love to her, we have heard, until he is inevitably sick. His huge red neck ripples. His face is a eatureless mass of purple. He usually displays resentment and elf-pity in all his tiniest gestures: demands respectful attention and receives instead the amiable kindness of the girls, which he mistakes for fear. He describes himself as an honest burgher, or rather he describes his opinions as those of an honest burgher: 'Your honest burgher believes the Jews should all be expelled from the city proper,' he will say. 'Your honest brgher isn't happy with the idea of increased taxation.' I reember one naive visitor asking him why, since he was so dently the voice of the respectable citizens of Mirenburg, they had signed a petition to have him removed from office. He said seriously that most of the signatures had been forgeries, Petition had been a plot of Zionist elements afraid of his power. 'Where I could no longer exercise my ever watchful eye.' He stumbles now and falls to the floor. Dolly attempts to help him up. Dolly's fiance is not here. Voorman tells Alice about another guest, a small, middle-aged journalist on the far side of the room. 'He awoke in the hospital, still convinced he was at Frau Schmetterling's, and immediately ordered one of the sisters to remove her underwear. She had obeyed with alacrity. It was four days before it dawned on him he had somehow been transferred from the brothel. The sister had no wish for him to leave. Being responsible to her superior to report his condition, she continued to insist on his poor rate of recovery. She kept him for another week until one of her colleagues demanded a share of the patient and was refused. The sister was reported and dismissed on the spot. She accompanied him back to the brothel where she stayed for a while as medical advisor to the girls.' Alice is disbelieving. Voorman insists he is telling the absolute truth. The General confides to Frau Schmetterling, also on a medical matter: 'My physician had the nerve to suggest mercury treatment, which means he thinks I have syphilis. But until the fool comes out with it directly and tells me I have the disease I shall carry on as I have always carried on. The responsibility is his, not mine.'
'You have put the question to him?' asks Frau Schmetterling.
'In as many words.'
'But not directly?'
'Has he been direct with me, madam?'
The air is growing warm. It is difficult to breath. We move closer to the door. Wilke, perhaps the most dignified person here, with a look of self-possessed humility, is talking to Clara about Amsterdam, which they both know. He seems untroubled by the noise and laughter which surrounds him. His large hands move in a circle as he describes a certain district of the city and asks her, with his usual gravity, how long it is since she was there. 'Doesn't he look
a marvellous brute,' murmurs Alice as we go by. 'Such a man, compared to the rest of these!' I pretend to be insulted. 'Perhaps I should introduce you?' She gives me a look of mock-irritation: 'Oh, don't be silly. Someone like that has no real interest in women.
He is either friends with them, or takes them quickly and leaves, or is faithful to his wife, if he has one. That's obvious to me, even at my age!' How many of these observations has she received from her mother?
I am again unsure why Alice should find me attractive. Is it a certain weakness which makes me more easily controlled, or less inclined to go my own way when it suits me? I have no idea. I look around at the crowded salon. How could I have thought that this was normality? We are all crazed. We are all in Hell. I stare at every face. There are only two women here I have not fucked. One of them is Frau Schmetterling herself. The other is Lady Cromach. She and Princess Poliakoff also stand near the door. Lady Cromach chews on an olive. 'Frau Schmetterling tells me that you write, Herr von Bek. Do you work for the Berlin journals?' I shake my head. 'I am a dilettante, Lady Cromach. I do not know enough about life to be able to write with any authority, and I am, moreover, horribly lazy.'
'Is that why you prefer to stay in a place like this when you travel?'
Princess Poliakoff snorts, saying something coarse to Alice who begins to giggle. I continue to speak to the English woman. 'There are few houses as elegant as this and few which have such excellent ladies. I'm sure you know that most whores have a dislike of men and a crude sort of self-involvement which makes them very dull. How can one possibly be aroused very often or very satisfactorily by a dull woman?'
'I find men much duller than most women,' she says.
'I am inclined to agree with you. And the dullest of all men are German, eh?'
'They have their points. What they lack in imagination they make up for in cleanliness. I nearly married one, when I was a girl. And at least they are not as boring as Frenchmen, who seem to believe their attractiveness is in direct proportion to their vanity. I blame their mothers. And Germany is so modern! Though, as you suggest, a little on the tame side. When were you last in Berlin?'
'Several years ago. My family is content for rne to travel.'
'An embarrassment of niggers, eh?'
'Quite so.'
Princess Poliakoff, her hands on Alice, tells my girl a story she heard about the de Polignac circle (she had a brief affair with de Polignac which ended with neither woman speaking to the other for over a year) and some female composer in love with the Singer, as she says, not the Salon. She continues on this theme of gossip by suggesting that there are now so many homosexuals of both kinds in Paris the city will be 'quite depopulated in another quarter-of-a-century'. She speaks to Alice as if she, the Princess, has perfectly conventional sexual preferances. Homosexuals are referred to as 'they'. I find her wit without much substance and let her continue to entertain Alice, who is thirsty for scandal.
I chat to Lady Cromach until we are joined by Clara. The women are friendly. This is a relief to me, though I do not know why. The five of us drift towards the dais to listen to the orchestra playing reasonable Chopin. The more athletic dancers have subsided. 'It seemed to me earlier, this evening,' Clara links her arm in mine,'that we were all dead; that Mirenburg was destroyed and that we were ghosts dancing in the ruins. You're looking tired, Ricky. Would you care to borrow my little box. It might revive you.' I thank her, but refuse. 'I am trying to restore my sense of perspective, Rose, dear.' She finds this funny. 'You have improved your relations with the child.'
'We have found a balance, I think. I was restraining her too much. And please don't call her that, Clara. She is more grown-up than she seems.' Clara draws in her lips for a second. I wonder how I have angered her. 'I apologise,' she says. 'However, my offer remains, if you need a restorative.' She begins to talk to Lady Cromach. She is particularly fascinated by the Derby and whether the Prince of Wales's horses are always allowed to win. These girls. Their soft bodies brush against me; they smell so wonderful. They have all been mine, most of them in the space of a few days. And they have been
Alice's. I hesitate in my rapture. My mood alters radically. We are in danger of losing what is individual to us. Alice has the over-animated, slightly guarded look she reserves for people who make her nervous. Princess Poliakoff holds her arm, hugs her shoulders, whispers in her ear and Alice laughs. Lady Cromach and Clara move to one side to continue their conversation. But I am in no mood to rescue Alice yet, so I take Natalia onto the dance-floor for a mazurka. We dance well together. It is strange, however, how trapped I feel here sometimes; I felt more secure in Rosenstrasse when I was not a resident. Natalia laughs and lifts in my arms like a happy gibbon.
When I return to my ladies I discover that Diana Cromach has rescued Alice. They are talking seriously. Alice nods a great deal and smiles at the older woman. Lady Cromach is deliberately setting out to charm her. I relish the notion of an amorous liaison between them. Alice catches my eye. We exchange signals. If it happens I shall not mind at all: it is the best route through to Lady Cromach, who excites my imagination and my lust. I pause beside them for a few moments; then, making my own decision, I leave them to it. I chat to Block, who complains it will be 'months before I can visit Vienna again'. At about two o'clock in the morning I am approached by a furious Princess Poliakoff who wants to know if I have seen Diana Cromach and'that disgusting little cousin of yours'.
They have escaped the salon. I feel a thrill of curious pleasure, deny all knowledge, and pretend to be utterly disconcerted.
The Brothel in Rosenstrasse vb-2 Page 14
