The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  That sounded very reassuring.

  You’ll need credit cards as well, of course. And two cell phones, so you can keep in touch. And you shouldn’t go on staying at hotels, it’s too risky. You could stay at my place. I’ve got plenty of room.

  No, Susannah, that’s out – far too dangerous for you. There mustn’t be any obvious connection between you and us. I don’t want to involve you in our troubles. We’ll go on staying at hotels for another few weeks, moving on every four or five days. Then we’ll see. We can’t take much more of the way we’re living now.

  * * *

  When I got back to the hotel Sonia was lying on the bed reading a book. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Couldn’t you find anything more cheerful? I asked.

  It’s very funny as well, she said, but we can’t shut our eyes to things. We mustn’t avoid life.

  You mean death, I said.

  Or death. Well, how did it go, this reunion with your old girlfriend?

  I told her. In two days’ time, I said, we’ll meet up and transfer the money to Susannah’s car. She’s going to get us some credit cards and mobiles.

  You’re crazy, Harry, said Sonia. You want to trust some woman with four million dollars, just because you slept with her when you were sixteen? You really are an incurable romantic.

  We don’t have any choice, Sonia. Susannah’s a wealthy woman, she doesn’t need our money. Many years ago she made some interesting discoveries in Silicon Valley. Software. She knows Robert Noyce and all that bunch. Anyway, she was wealthy already. She comes from a very well-to-do family. She has everything a person could want. Being born into California’s upper-middle class was the best thing that could happen to anyone in the second half of the twentieth century.

  Then she probably hates all Russians, said Sonia. Or all communists. That was another American speciality in the second half of the twentieth century. They even used their art as an argument against us.

  Susannah is far too intelligent for that, I said.

  Let’s hand over the money in two instalments, all right? I’m an intelligent woman too.

  Have it your way.

  Saturday

  It wasn’t such a bad idea, handing over the money in two batches. It was much less conspicuous, so two days ago I took a taxi to the Fairmont Hotel. A page relieved me of the suitcase and escorted me up to the room, which had been booked in Susannah’s name. They all know me at the Fairmont, she’d told me. It would have been pointless to check in under a different name. Besides, some IT executives are holding an informal meeting here. I’m still a kind of consultant. A very well-paid consultant.

  The money she earns as a consultant goes to an old folks’ home in San Francisco. Not a home for the rich, Fritz, if that’s what you’re thinking. I work there two days a week. I feed the old people, change their diapers, turn them over so they don’t get bed sores, deal with their financial problems, talk with them, go to their funerals. That’s my life in broad outline: a big house on El Camino del Mar, my job as a consultant, the Fairmont Hotel, and the old folks’ home. I’m a woman in her prime, a woman of the world, but the boundaries of that world are already in sight.

  We had a coffee in her room and she handed me the cell phones and two credit cards. The cell phones, she said, are registered in the name of someone who died last month in Mexico but still has an apartment here. You see? I’m beginning to think like a criminal. The credit cards were more of a problem. This is one of mine. Your girlfriend will have to practise my signature a bit, but that should come easy to someone from the Mafia. Your card belongs to Carey, my son. He’s a wonderful boy. He’s spending three months in Asia, and the bills are sent to me. He left this card behind by mistake. It’s the best idea I could come up with. So go easy on the credit cards and pay cash whenever you can.

  We stowed the money in a suitcase Susannah had brought with her, put the suitcase in her car, and drove down into town. Susannah dropped me off somewhere. Same procedure tomorrow, Fritz, she said. She smiled at me when we said goodbye. Don’t look so depressed, everything will turn out all right. I’m already working on it.

  I sat down on a bench in Jefferson Square with the empty suitcase beside me. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Eleven p.m. in Europe. I dialled Ellen’s number. Then it occurred to me that this was a mistake. I hung up before she could answer. Ellen’s number might crop up in connection with that dead man in Mexico.

  I went to a Walgren supermarket and bought myself a phone card. Then I looked for a phone booth and dialled Ellen’s number again.

  Where are you, Harry? What are you doing?

  I’m still alive. I only called because I want you to have my mobile number.

  But where are you still alive?

  In the States.

  Good, she said. There was a brief report in the paper a few days ago. Just a few lines. They’ve extended the manhunt to Eastern Europe.

  I gave her my number.

  What are you going to do now?

  We may buy a house. Look for work of some kind. But both will be difficult.

  A new life?

  A kind of life, Ellen. I don’t have a real life any more. I haven’t had for years.

  Harry?

  I didn’t speak, just listened to her voice saying my name. Harry?

  Then I said something I never meant to say again. I said: What did you say, Jessie?

  I sensed that she was smiling, saw her face in my mind’s eye.

  Harry, I’m with you. I’m with you all the time. Day and night.

  The airbags inflated. They slowly, softly inflated.

  That’s good, I said. Very good. Now hang up. I don’t want to.

  * * *

  Yesterday afternoon I took the second batch of money to the Fairmont. Everything went the way it had the first time. Without a hitch. As I was leaving Susannah said: We ought to have dinner together tonight. There are a few restaurants in the Bay area where nobody knows me. We definitely ought to celebrate the homecoming of four million genuine American dollars. Besides, I’d like to meet your Russian girlfriend.

  That evening Susannah drove us across Bay Bridge to a Thai restaurant in Berkeley. Sonia was very subdued, almost hostile, not only in the car but during the meal as well. She stiffened slightly whenever Susannah called me Fritz, as if the name symbolized a world from which she was excluded. Which was true. Even before we’d reached dessert she said she wanted to call a cab and go back to the hotel.

  No, Susannah told her, we’ll all go together. I’ll drive you back to the hotel. Then, if Fritz feels like it, the two of us can go and have a drink somewhere.

  For the past three days we’ve been staying at a small, old-fashioned hotel on Bush Street. They’ve got one of those ancient, openwork elevators. You have to close two latticework gates before it consents to embark on its juddering ascent in a slow, noisy, uncertain, experimental manner, like the first lift in the history of the world. Susannah and I stood outside the hotel, looking through the glass door, until I saw Sonia get into the elevator, close the gates, and start to ascend. It was a mistake. I would have felt easier in my mind if I’d gone up with her.

  Susannah and I drove to the new Marriott and sat in the bar on the top floor. It was surrounded by glass and had a panoramic view of San Francisco. We drank margaritas.

  I’m glad you’re back in San Francisco, said Susannah. I should never have let you return to Europe.

  I laughed, and she laughed too. But you were a minor, she went on. You had to go back to your mummy and daddy – or rather, to your mummy. I seem to recall there wasn’t a daddy, was there?

  No, no daddy.

  My God, Fritz, thirty-five years and I’m still fond of you. That’s pretty unusual, if you know what I mean. Women have this genetic quirk that compels them to build a nest, and old love affairs can be very obstructive from that point of view. When a woman’s through with a man she’s really through, because these things get in the way of nest-building. I’m not ex
empt from the quirk myself, but I also possess a memory. Besides, my nest-building days ended long ago.

  Jeff and I had some good times together at first. Tempestuous times. And we had Carey, who needed a nest. Jeff slept with a lot of women because he thought a psychologist should have plenty of experience. But he’d have slept with a lot of women if he’d been a motor mechanic. He was a pretty good mechanic too, incidentally. In every respect. I didn’t like it, but we stayed together until Carey didn’t need a nest any more. Jeff has been working as an adviser in Washington for the past few years. I reckon they can use some of his experience there.

  We did the right thing, I think. In our lifetime there have been all kinds of stupid theories about love, and one of the silliest is the theory that another person – one other person – can never satisfy all one’s requirements. That’s what everyone thought in the sixties and seventies. In Europe too, probably. As if we needed a different lover for each of our personal requirements. The problem lies elsewhere, in fact. Most couples aren’t all that fond of each other, so they soon get bored and start looking for someone else. By soon I mean after the first really violent row. And now, for the past few years, people have been citing life expectancy: now that we’re living so long, they say, you can’t expect us to spend a whole lifetime together. It’s not as if they divorce and embark on a new life at seventy-five. They get divorced far earlier, usually several times from several people. Half of all American children born in the sixties saw their parents get divorced before they were sixteen. Greater life expectancy doesn’t come into it.

  Susannah paused. Then she said: The truth is quite simple and quite brutal. Most people aren’t made for love. They have a few violent attacks of infatuation in their salad days, and then it’s over. No, most people don’t have the stamina. They’re much better at doing other things: building homes, paying off mortgages, saving money, planning vacations, bringing up children. They can even pull off really great divorce settlements, absolutely fair and equitable separations. And so they should. Most people are extremely competent in these matters, if you discount the way they bring up their children. It didn’t take Jeff and me long to see we were going down the same road, but we didn’t divorce until our son had started his second year in college. We earned a lot of money during those years. We dabbled a bit in politics and refrained from making any excessive contribution to the over-population of the Western World. And we didn’t divorce until our son was eighteen, not sixteen. Carey really is a wonderful boy. He had a good … well … nest.

  She surveyed the panoramic view of San Francisco with a smile. We often said that Carey learned more about the world during meals at home than in school or elsewhere. And he ate much better, too.

  A few centuries ago, she went on, someone in Europe invented the concept of romantic love, which is beyond most people’s powers of endurance. Then along came all these novels and movies, and now everyone hankers after a wonderful, exciting, crazy romance for which they’re completely ill-equipped. And they come to grief.

  Still looking down at San Francisco, she said: My God, now I’m talking like an American courtesan! But then, I am an American courtesan.

  We both laughed. I didn’t want her to stop laughing – ever. I felt as if her laughter could save me. Her mouth shimmered in the gloom of the bar. She threw back her head, and a flock of blackbirds flew out into the night.

  What are you thinking of? she asked.

  I’m thinking of a Californian girl I used to know. She was very beautiful and very … well, on the temperamental side. She made me feel that she was the whole world – that no one could ever wield the same fascination over me.

  And?

  That was long ago. Looking at you here and now, I’d find it very hard to decide between that girl and the woman sitting across the table from me, who’s over fifty.

  Which would you choose?

  I’ve run out of choices, Susannah. I’m finished, and not just since this business with the Mafia. I’ve been finished for a long time.

  Is that why no one will miss you back home?

  Yes.

  Tell me why no one will miss you.

  I told her. I told her everything, the whole terrible story that was my life.

  We didn’t speak for a long time after that, just gazed out into the darkness and across San Francisco.

  You did a terrible thing, Fritz. I would have left you in Ellen’s place. I couldn’t have gone on living with you either. You must have known it would end your life together. Some things ought never to happen, but if they do, they must only happen once. There isn’t a second chance. There mustn’t be a second chance. It may sound strange, but I’ve a feeling that all this has something to do with me.

  It probably has, Susannah. What happened between us, between you and me, was a promise. Something absolute. Everything that came after it had to mean as much. And I broke that promise, destroyed it. It didn’t affect Ellen alone. Or Jessie. It affects you too. It affects all women.

  Susannah looked at me sadly. I’d like to turn the clock back, she said. I’m not talking about a romantic time warp. I don’t mean a romantic foray into the past, nice as that might be. I mean I’d like to restore your innocence. I’d like to turn the clock back to the moment before that thing happened between you and Ellen. And I’d like you to be as innocent as you were when you first arrived here. I remember it well. You had a slight German accent. No, it wasn’t bad, not guttural or anything, just slight. Do you remember?

  No, I don’t.

  At school they called you Fritz the very first week, but they’d have done that even if you hadn’t had an accent. And I soon fell in love with you, very soon, and we became inseparable. We were together as often as possible, which was very often. So often that nothing else mattered. Your basketball steadily deteriorated. You were soon relegated to the reserves, I seem to remember. And you soon spoke my language more and more. No, I don’t mean English, I mean my English. My intonation and certain phrases I still use today. You can say “hell and damnation” like no one in the States but me. And “holy cow”. And my address, “El Camino del Mar”. It’s quite wonderful. You speak like me. You’ve adopted my rhythms. I’m your mother tongue. I’ve been with you all these years. Whenever you spoke English I was there.

  Not only then, I said. And Jessie was there – suddenly Jessie was there speaking English in London. She used to say “fiddlesticks” and “holy cow” and “hell and damnation” and “I bet you a dollar to a doughnut”, just the way Susannah said them. And in England she’d say “I bet you a pound to a doughnut”. She always giggled after that. In some funny way, there was something of Susannah in Jessie.

  It was very strange. I’d said that there was something absolute between me and Susannah. I’d said it because it was true. It had started with the Drifters and Save the Last Dance for Me and Saturday Night at the Movies and Under the Boardwalk, and all at once it was something absolute. As it was with Ellen.

  A promise for all time. Without end. Even when you break that promise, it still exists. And Jessie was a part of it. There’s an old saying that men always want sons. It’s only dinned into them by the mother-animals, perhaps because they need someone who can defend their nest in the future. I think men want daughters. It was so with me, at least. Men like me want daughters. Why? To prevent the image of love from disappearing. The image that love holds for them. Ellen’s image. Susannah’s image.

  * * *

  Susannah drove me back to the hotel. I got out two blocks away, and I didn’t know what I was doing there. It surprised me that she’d driven me back because I couldn’t think why I should ever go back to the hotel at all. It was as though I had no business there.

  I wanted to smoke a cigarette before returning to the hotel, but the wind was so strong my matches kept going out. I went round the nearest corner and managed to light up there. A moment later a young man came up to me and asked for a light. We went back round the corner. He was a Mexican w
ho had moved from LA to San Francisco a few years ago after some trouble with a street gang. He complained of having to smoke outdoors so often in the States, but he knew of a bar nearby where everyone smoked. He asked if I wanted to go there with him. His name, he said, was Pancho.

  Come and have a drink, he said.

  No thanks, I said.

  Come on, he repeated.

  No, I’ve got to get home.

  Oh, come on, he said again, gripping my shoulder.

  Sonia! My whole body exploded. Something seemed to detonate in my brain. They’ve got Sonia! They’ve got Sonia, and they want to lure me away from the hotel!

  Come on, he said, tightening his grip. I drove my knee into his gut, and he doubled up. I hauled him upright and repeated the process. Then I ran off down the street to the hotel. We each had keys of our own. I unlocked the glass entrance door and raced up the narrow stairs to the third floor.

  As soon as I’d unlocked the door to our room I dashed inside with my fists raised.

  Sonia was sitting up in bed, painting one of those pictures that disappear so quickly.

  Harry! What’s the matter? Are they after you?

  No, I said, taking her in my arms. I blew a fuse again, that’s all.

  And I thought you’d forgotten all about me.

  We lay awake for a long time, I don’t know how long. Two or three hours, maybe. When I thought Sonia was already asleep, she said: I’m not jealous. We aren’t in love, you and I – we don’t even think we’re in love. No, it isn’t that. It’s just that I’ve lost the little bit of future I had left. I suddenly felt so awfully alone in that restaurant. I just couldn’t bear it any more.