by Dan Vyleta
“I thought I’d take a nap,” he answered her questioning glance. “Downstairs—the bed is too small.” He held his hands out mere inches apart. “It’s like curling up in shoebox.
“Please,” he added, not without a brazen charm. “For mercy of God, and Comrade Beer.”
She thought of denying him, but it seemed pointless. Karel Neumann was working for her now, looking for her missing husband. Either he would find him—or she would return to Paris. There was something else to it too: his outsized buffoonery might help fill the flat. The previous night she had walked listlessly through its empty rooms, her heart suspended between foreboding and boredom. Her heart, she thought, suspended; pictured it, too, a purplish lump of sodden muscle hanging from a nylon thread, a scrap of butcher’s paper sticking to its side.
“Don’t make a habit of it,” she said, and unlocked the door.
He grunted his thanks and disappeared into the study. She closed the door behind him then went to change into her dressing gown. Cigarettes and a bottle of wine whiled away the evening, the Czech quiet now, catching up on uncramped sleep.
Four
1.
Robert arrived at the stroke of eight. The bell rang, hesitantly, singly, and there he was, the boy from the train, still wearing his dark suit. His face was flushed red, the broken eye drooping in its socket.
The rest of him was beaming at her. “Remember me, Frau Beer? Robert Seidel—we met on the train.” He wiped his feet, smiled, whispered conspiratorially, “I copied your address from your luggage tag.”
She took his coat and led him to the kitchen.
He sat down without taking in the details of the room, started talking without invitation, words spilling out of him, carried away by an enthusiasm that proved hard to resist.
“It’s already the third time I came by today. I tried at three, and then again at five. But you were always out. So I headed back into the city, walked around. The funny thing is, it didn’t hit me until today—and even then not all at once. That this is my home. But then, this afternoon, between your door and the Ringstrasse, with every step it suddenly grew on me, precisely this feeling that this is home, the city I grew up in, and all of a sudden I have tears in my eyes and I am staring at some building, and quite an ordinary one at that, just another building among many, and I want to hug and kiss it or something like that, I’m really moved.” He shook his head, flushed and merry, filled to the brim with his own foolishness. “And then this worker started yelling at me not to stand in the way like a blasted oaf (his words were coarser than that, but that was the gist of it) and I—well I just wanted to go over and hug and kiss him too. Isn’t that funny?” Robert laughed. “Just picture it—if I had kissed him! He’d have broken the other eye! It’s like something you read in a book.”
He looked around himself, suddenly conscious of his surroundings, accepted the glass of water she put down in front of him. Really she should have been serving him milk. Her wineglass was on the windowsill, and she fetched it over, sat down across from him, registered his eyes swooping down the curve of her close-fitting dressing gown. His train of thought was so transparent, she very nearly laughed out loud.
“So where is your husband?” he asked.
“Out,” she said, unwilling at that moment to go over the details of her predicament. “And how are things at home, Robert Seidel?”
“Home?” he grinned. “You just wouldn’t believe—”
And he told her, in great detail, everything that had happened to him since he parted with her outside the train station. He did so not in the order the events occurred, but the way a drunk tells a story, rushing first to whatever was most exciting, then realizing that what he was describing made no sense if he did not explain something else altogether, and thus continuously chasing back upon himself and getting into a tangle. He seemed to know himself that this mode of telling a story was both inefficient and confusing, but rather than changing it and starting over, he simply laughed and redoubled his efforts, speaking fervently with that same hot, urgent flush on his cheeks.
“In a word,” he finished, at long last (he must have been talking for the better part of an hour, dwelling on details, his feelings, the shade of a hat), “Wolfgang’s in jail eating Hungarian goulash. And I—I haven’t had a square meal in days.”
He tucked in cheerfully when she cut him some slices of bread and cold sausage. Anna watched him eat as she had done with Karel Neumann. It was one of the female roles that men enjoyed and she did not resent. There was something heartening about an appetite.
“So,” she summarized, picking through his story and wondering distractedly if she should tell him hers, “your brother is a war criminal, your mother an addict, and there is a man watching the house. It’s like something by Dumas.”
“Yes,” he said, unable to hide his excitement. “Isn’t it marvellous?”
“It’ll be quite a trial. The sins of Austria coming down on your brother’s head. If they choose to revisit them, that is. They may not. Let sleeping dogs lie. It’s the national pastime.” She lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the boy. “What about the other thing? Did he do it? Attack his father?”
Robert hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said at length. “Eva does.” He smiled somehow nervously, grew bashful. “From what you’ve heard,” he asked, “do you think she likes me?”
She laughed, watched the warmth that spread across his skin. “I should think she loves you a little already. You’re very easy to love.” She suppressed the urge to pet his cheek. “And you?” she asked instead. “Do you like this Eva?”
Robert nodded, stopped. “She has a hunchback. Though not really a hunchback.” He swivelled around in his chair, placed his hands on the base of his neck. “Something about the spine.” He turned back to face her, looked shyly at her face. “She’s not as pretty as you.”
She smiled, flattered despite herself, ran a hand through her hair. “Next you’ll tell me you’re in love with me. That I’ve been haunting your dreams.”
“Frau Beer!” he said, embarrassed.
“Call me Anna.”
“Anna? I thought it was Gudrun.”
“I prefer Anna. Though my husband calls me Gudrun. Anton and Anna, he says. Too silly. I dare say he’s right.”
At the mention of her husband Robert flinched, looked about himself. “Is he really out?” he asked furtively. “I thought I heard something.”
She shook her head, charmed by this boy. “Is this why you kept coming here today? To declare yourself?”
He rose, almost knocking over his chair. “No,” he protested. “You’re married. And besides—” He gestured wildly, ran out of words and reasons, jumped a little when she got up too.
“Well, it’s late,” she said vaguely, adjusted the belt that shaped her dressing gown. She made no motion for the door.
He rounded the table to shake her hand goodbye, stepped too close, and nearly trod on her toe, then stood distracted, holding on to her palm as though he had lost his bearings and was at a loss to say what might come next. His pale face had grown paler yet, no trace now of its earlier flush.
“What now?” she asked. “You want to kiss me?”
Robert frowned and nodded, lifted his head (he was a good inch shorter than her) and searched with his mouth for a patch of proffered cheek.
She smiled, evaded him. “Not like that,” she chided. “Like this.”
She took him by the scruff of his neck, swooped down on him, taking his lips in hers, slipped a tongue into his open mouth, and ran it between lips and gums. Anna felt the boy’s excitement grow against her hip and his immediate attempt to shift his weight away from her; followed the motion, backing him into the wall. From habit—a long history of kisses—she dropped one hand and put it on the tender portion of his inner thigh; the other hand still pressed to his neck and hair, her lips exploring his, the scent of his skin sweet in her nose.
And just like that he came, not ten heartbeats into the
ir kiss. She felt the jerk under her fingertips, heard him moan into her mouth. It surprised her, happened without warning, went on for longer than she was accustomed (she had never had a lover quite so young). The moisture seeped through the thin wool of his trousers onto the tips of her long fingers; she raised her hand and stared at it, then wiped it dry against the downy curve of his pale cheek. All this she did firmly yet tenderly, not from play or calculation, nor yet from love, simply to give him pleasure, something maternal rising in her and mixing uneasily with the heat of her blood. Her caress was too old for him—she understood this. It had had many lessons and came burdened with technique: the echo of other couplings, other lovers written into every touch. And yet she smiled quite tenderly and held on to him a moment longer. He allowed himself to be held.
When they stepped away from one another, Karel Neumann was in the room.
2.
He walked in without hurry, his shirt unbuttoned over his cotton vest, stinky despite his morning bath; turned to the larder and fetched a beer.
“Neumann, Karel,” he nodded calmly to young Robert, pushed out the stopper with a flick of his thumb.
Anna looked at him. “You’ve been listening,” she said. She did not say watching. But then, what did it matter to her what Karel Neumann might have heard or seen? “It’s time for you to leave.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Sophiĉka will be waiting. She gets frisky after dinner.” He smiled, stayed where he was, drinking his beer.
Robert, flushed and panting, kept staring at him and adjusting his clothes, the trousers sticking to his thigh. “It’s time to leave,” he repeated mechanically. His eyes fell on the kitchen clock, which showed the time as ten past nine (it was a little fast). A great haste overcame Robert; he ran out into the hallway, paced up and down searching for his coat. He had avoided looking at Anna since their kiss; kept muttering to himself in great excitement.
It was impossible to make out his words.
He headed for the door. His fingers were shaking and proved unable to work the lock. It was left to Karel to open it for him. He too had fetched his coat, and he slipped into his unlaced boots. The two men stepped out onto the landing and started on the stairs together. Halfway down the first flight the boy detached himself, made a racket tearing down the stairs.
Anna closed and locked the door behind them.
He’s running to his crooked maid, it flashed in her. The next moment the thought was greeted by another. It sent her to her husband’s study and the torn letter sitting on the desk. It was addressed to an orphanage and described the undulations of a twisted spine.
She read and reread the letter, then upended all his drawers, determined to make a thorough search of her husband’s correspondence.
3.
Karel followed the boy. He did so openly and without haste, taking not the least precaution, simply dogged him with his steady step. The boy made it easy for him. He ran some thirty, forty yards then slowed down and continued instead at a slow, distracted, shambling pace, heading to Hernals, the working-class district to the west. After some three or four blocks he stopped beneath a street lamp (dusk was falling and the lamp had only just been turned on), staring at a smudge of blood that ran from the bottom of a shuttered door across the width of the pavement to the grate of the gutter. One look at the sign above the door would have informed him it was a butcher’s shop, but he never raised his head; stood still instead, his brow furrowed, as though puzzling over the shape of the stain. And in general the boy seemed to get stuck on details—first the stain, then a broken bottle standing in a windowsill, where it contrived to catch the failing light of the sun; a bare-chested man standing in his open window high above, breathing smoke into the night. Each of these observations would stop him dead in his tracks and root him to the ground; a moment later he would catch himself, start, and carry on down the street. It did not take long for Neumann to tire of the chase and cut into a bar.
It was a workers’ tavern, quite empty at this hour; commanded an intersection, dirty windows blind to the boy’s retreat. Karel sat, ordered a brandy; invited the barkeep to stay and talk.
“Ever seen a spider eat a fly, friend?”
The man shrugged and said nothing, wiped the table with a sodden rag.
“Well, it ain’t pretty. Like eating an olive. You suck it dry and spit out the pit.” He pursed his lips, spat into his hand. “And all the while he is in love. With a girl called Anneliese.
“The husband, then. Comrade Beer. Say the Russians took him. Hypothetically, I mean. For rooting around in some general’s soul. It’s not impossible, after all.
“What I need, my friend, is an informant. Someone who sells secrets, on the quiet, from out the back room of some dive.” (Here Neumann looked up and scrutinized the little barroom.)
“Do you know what a double agent is, friend? No? A man on the make. Empty pockets and a story to tell.”
The barman finally broke his silence. “Sounds like half the city.”
“You know, friend, I like you. Why don’t you get me another.”
And he finished his glass and pushed it over to the barkeep, dug in his pockets for Anna Beer’s change.
4.
Robert walked. He soon found himself in unfamiliar surroundings. There weren’t many people in the streets, though some of the windows stood open, the sound of voices carrying into the night. There were arguments and laughter; an old man shouting, yelping, behind a curtain, cursing his rotten teeth. Robert listened without hearing, circled rubble, horse dung, piles of refuse, as so often lost in thought.
What he was thinking about was sex: “physical love” as he liked to call it, somewhat pedantically, using a phrase he had picked from a book. About this physical love Robert had formed two rather contradictory opinions to which he subscribed in quick rotation, and at times quite simultaneously. The first of these opinions was that sex—physical love—was a tender, joyful, healthy, even holy thing; that it befitted a young man to be in love “fully, passionately and above all with his body” (to talk about the soul in this connection would have been retrograde and gauche); the other that sex, on the contrary, was a vile and somehow sinful thing, degrading to the man but above all to the woman; that it did not and could not do otherwise than estrange two people from one another who were bound to regard each other henceforth with shame; and that, anyway, he wanted to become a priest. All this—with the exception of his planned priesthood, which was secret—he had expounded many times to his boarding school friends, who had alternately teased him for his prudishness and shrugged at his fiery vision of passion (most of them were absorbed by no more abstract a question than whether they’d dare approach the village whore).
For all his many speeches Robert had, until that night, never held a girl or kissed one in earnest, and had been in love only once, from afar, with a baker’s daughter whose stockings had a fetching habit of sliding down towards her ankles. The attachment had withered when a schoolmate reported he had paid her chocolate to reach down his pants.
Despite his attempts to keep his mind focused on this more general and, as it were, philosophical plane, Robert’s thoughts kept leaping quite naturally and inadvertently to Gudrun—Anna!—Beer and the moment of intimacy they had shared. But here the “problem of sex” that he had settled so clearly (if inconsistently) in the abstract seemed infinitely more confused. Every time he went over the scene in his head, a strange sort of tremor took hold of him and he marched on as though breathless, waiting for it to subside. The thing was, he could decidedly make no sense of the scene. Had he really gone to visit Anna in order to secure some token of her affection? But how did things get to the point they had?
Anna’s behaviour, too, struck him as extraordinary, and it was not long before he found himself looking for excuses for her shamelessness. Robert found them in her long estrangement from her husband. It’s changed her somehow, he mused. She must have been chaste before. But ever since, she’s been in turmoil.
But no matter how often he repeated the phrases, clinging most especially to those two words, chaste and turmoil, which seemed to him singularly fitting and endowed with a strange poetic power that attested to their truth, Anna Beer seemed less beautiful to him now than she had on the train. He knew he would never think of her again without the memory of her hand upon his lap.
Just as he came to this somewhat mournful conclusion, a new thought fell on him with sudden force. “And who was the man who walked into the kitchen? He wasn’t her husband, that’s for sure. How he winked at me! Like a proper cad. Only he was charming, too, and part of me wanted to wink right back.”
This last bit, incidentally, he muttered quite audibly, even loudly, so that a passerby, a worker in a greasy waistcoat, who was carrying beer, or perhaps milk, in an opaque flask, stopped and looked after him in consternation. Robert did not notice him. His outburst had nudged his thoughts right back to where they had started, and as he finally entered the familiar surroundings of his stepfather’s neighbourhood, he found himself reliving once again not only his meeting with Anna Beer but also his conversation with Eva, who had taunted him precisely by saying that he’d failed to kiss her when he’d had the opportunity.
“It’s Anna who should have the crooked back,” it suddenly came to him. “But what nonsense, stupid nonsense!
“All the same,” he carried on, “I wonder if she’s still awake.”
Again he had spoken out loud, and again he frightened a lone pedestrian, who started and quickly moved out of his way. It was a vagrant draped in a scarf and heavy coat. There was little chance Robert would have recognized him as the watcher had the man not started running no sooner had they passed.
Robert heard it and gave chase at once.
5.
He caught him, not on the street that rose to the hillside park, nor on the wall separating the one from the other, but, having scrambled over, in the cabbage leaf–scented darkness of the far side, amongst vegetable patches and tree stumps whittled to their roots by a population starved for firewood: two bodies colliding shoulder to hip and tumbling to the ground. One, the older, came to rest in the dirt, mud-smeared, winded, clawing at the earth and the weight that sat astride him. A dirty fist rose into the moon, rained down upon the vagrant. Robert was not so much hitting the man as knocking on his rib cage, one time, two times, three, heat in his mouth along with a question—“Who are you? Who are you?”—sown carelessly, with no hope of an answer. Indeed there was none. After some minutes the stranger ceased in his struggle and lay still in the calf-high weeds, his scarf dislodged and trailing past him like a noose. His breath came heavy, in irregular shivers; he coughed and seemed to breathe no more.
