by Craig Nova
“We’ve been getting some rough knocks,” said Karl.
“I’m telling you, this is it,” said Mani.
Karl finished the last of his drink.
“We’ve got to protect ourselves,” said Mani.
“I get tired of just sitting around,” said Karl. “Fights on the train.”
Mani turned to Gaelle, who had sat silently, her face appearing like a white flower on a black bough.
“We’ve got something to do tomorrow,” Mani said to Karl. “In the evening.”
He held out the paper.
“I know where it is,” said Karl.
“Tomorrow,” said Mani.
“All right,” said Karl. “Fights on trains. Kid’s stuff.”
“We’ll wait in the street,” said Mani.
“That’s good,” said Karl. “When he comes out, I’ll take it from there.”
“OK,” said Mani. “Tomorrow.” He looked down at the paper. “You wanted to stop the kid’s stuff. Well, now’s our chance.”
“We don’t have to check with anyone?” said Karl. “With anyone in Moscow. Maybe they’d want to know about this.”
Mani shook his head.
“I’ve made a decision,” said Mani.
“Good,” said Karl. “We’re going to be on our own? Separate from the rest of the party?”
“Yes,” said Mani. “We can’t go on the way we have. We’ve got to make a decision. No waiting. No playing around. I’m tired of worrying about people coming in here and harassing me about accounting….”
“I did it so you could trust me,” Gaelle said to Mani.
“Oh,” he said. “I trust you.”
Then she went through the browns and grays of the restaurant where men sat at the tables under the yellow cone of light. Karl raised his glass to her in a quick, noncommittal toast. His sudden toast, after his usual patient waiting, had the quality of an insect that had been in a chrysalis and had finally broken the transparent case that had so neatly confined it. He seemed to shimmer there, for an instant, where the oily film on his coat caught the light.
Still, Mani hadn’t said that he would stick up for her or that she was forgiven for not fighting on the train. He had left her, as he always did, suspended between what she wanted and what he would give. Why couldn’t she get one man, one group, someone to act in a way that she could trust? She had dismissed the idea of love, but it still tugged on her, and now, with a fury at the hope she shouldn’t have had combined with stark experience, she pushed the notion of love into even deeper recesses, into the outer realm of her thoughts, at the frontier of her mind, which, she guessed, was like the edge of a bowl, a black one that was turned upside down. If nothing else, her sense of being betrayed, of not being loved, left her with the frank notion that someone was going to pay the price. And the desire for revenge was a sort of love turned upside down, and the more disappointed she was, the greater the impulse to strike back.
Surely, there wasn’t anything to be gained in waiting. She showed Hauptmann’s card to Felix.
“You know where this is?” she said.
“You want to go there?” said Felix.
“Yeah,” she said.
Even from a distance the banners were visible: they hung down crimson and dark over the windows that had been painted black. At Gaelle’s side Felix limped along, his head going up and down like the head of a horse on a carousel. He looked straight ahead, his eyes on their destination, his head pitched forward, as though no matter where he was going, it was always downhill. Gaelle had put on a dark coat and worn dark shoes, but somehow, even though she tried, she couldn’t look as respectable as she wanted. She put her hand to her hair, stopped and looked in her pocket mirror, put on some lipstick. Well, maybe it was a shade too bright, but it made her look more crisp, more desirable, and that was the most important thing.
The door to the headquarters of the National Socialist Party was halfway open, and when Gaelle pushed it open, she smelled dust. The room was like a recital hall, one where women, in black dresses that were shiny with age, gave recitals with a piano that needed to be tuned. Gaelle could almost see the yellowed sheet music as it was turned from one page to another. Chairs had been arranged in lines in front of the low stage where there was a lectern and a glass pitcher of water that was filled with small bubbles. A man, in plus fours and a white shirt, swept the floor, going between a row of chairs, where he pushed the pile of dust along, making clouds of sparkling bits, and then stopped and brushed it into a pan. Then he moved the next row of chairs into the clean path, and started back, underneath where the chairs had been. The dust, against the black cloth of curtain behind the stage, flickered in the air, where it hung with a golden sparkle.
Felix tried to walk straight up, without limping, but after a few steps he started again. Gaelle touched her hair and went up to the sweeper.
“I’d like to talk to someone,” she said. She held out the card. “Is he here?”
The sweeper stopped and looked up, from her to Felix.
“About what?” he said.
“It’s sort of private,” she said.
“I don’t think we want your kind in here,” said the sweeper.
“I think someone will be interested in what I have to say,” said Gaelle. She stood up straight, put her shoulders back, the bits of dust floating around her as though her perfume were visible.
“Wait a minute,” the sweeper said.
He leaned his broom against the stage and went to a door at the side of the room where, if this were a musical performance, a singer and a piano player would emerge to take their places onstage. Maybe, at the end, someone would bring them a bouquet of wilted roses wrapped in florist’s paper.
“Did you see the way he looked at me?” said Felix.
“Yes,” said Gaelle.
“He’s just sweeping out,” said Felix. “A big cheese. A great big cheese. I know my place, but who is he?”
“Nobody,” said Gaelle. “I don’t like the waiting.”
“Me neither,” said Felix. “I’m going to count to fifty, and when I get there, we go. What do you say?”
Gaelle shrugged.
“All right,” she said. “Start counting.”
Felix did it by counting chairs, going along and touching one and then another, and after about ten chairs, the sweeper came back and said, “What are you doing there?”
“Nothing,” said Felix. “Counting.”
“He’ll see you now,” said the sweeper. “Back in there. Turn right. First door on your left.”
The hallway was covered with wainscoting that had been stained dark brown, and an overhead bulb left it covered with a sheen of icy light. It was dusty back here, too, mixed with the scent of disinfectant, the sort of thing that is used in a hospital. Gaelle went along, Felix’s head going up and down beside her.
“So,” he whispered. “So? What are you going to do?”
Hauptmann sat at the desk, his long arms in shirtsleeves, his waistcoat trim, tight fitting, his long fingers holding a pen that had the shape of an exclamation mark. A ledger was on the desk in front of him, and he had a bottle of ink and a pen, which he held up now, with a drop of ink trembling from the nib. He tapped it against the jar of ink, tap tap, and then finished writing a number that was at the bottom of a column. Then he took a blotter and rolled it over the ink, looked at the impression on the blotter paper, and put the thing down, the entire operation having the air of a man who is grooming himself in public.
“Gaelle,” he said. “The champagne girl. Well, I wondered how long it would be. Come in.”
Gaelle had her small silver bag with her, and she held it in both hands. Felix looked around the room. More posters, a little yellowed, a coat hung on a hook, a desk lamp that threw a pool of light over the table.
“You asked me for help,” said Gaelle.
“Yes,” Hauptmann said. “That’s right.”
“Well, I’ve come to see you,” she said.
“Yes,” she said.
“We never forget people,” he said. “They go into a sort of file, and it’s as though there’s a list of the things they do. We never forget.”
“It’s not something that I want to get around,” she said.
“Of course,” said the man. “You can trust me. Look. They let me do the books. Why, isn’t that proof of how I can be trusted?”
“I don’t know,” said Gaelle.
“So, you want to tell me something but you don’t want to tell me? Is that the way of it?”
“Yes,” said Gaelle
“Tell him,” said Felix.
“Be quiet,” said Gaelle.
“How did that happen to your face?” said Hauptmann.
“An automobile accident. Gasoline got on my face and caught on fire,” said Gaelle.
“Did it hurt?” said Hauptmann.
“Not like what you’d think,” said Gaelle. “Not then.”
“I guess something like that would make you cautious,” said Hauptmann. “That is, you wouldn’t want it to happen again.”
Gaelle looked around the room, her lips pursed, as though she had tasted something of uncertain quality.
“Now, now,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m on your side.”
“Tell him and let’s get out of here,” said Felix.
“I know something about a man by the name of Breiter. Some people are going to hurt him. From the Red Front.”
“When are they going to do that?” said Hauptmann. “Soon,” she said. “I don’t know when.”
“Not right away?” he said. “Not tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “He’s been telling secrets. He works in the Soviet embassy. He’s been telling your side some things.”
“I know what he’s doing,” said Hauptmann.
He wrote on a slip of paper, first dipping the pen into the ink and then scribbling across a piece of scrap newsprint, where the ink bled away from the letters like blood in a bandage.
“OK,” he said. “Is that it? Or is there something else?”
“No,” said Gaelle. “That’s enough.”
“All right then,” said Hauptmann. “But you’re certain. Not right away?”
“I don’t think so,” said Gaelle. “I don’t know.”
Gaelle pulled her coat together at the neck, looked around at the posters on the wall, at the man with the ink-stained fingers and the ledger before him, and wished that there was something more to say. Felix looked around, too, but there was nothing but the desk, the chair, the light, and that smell of disinfectant.
“OK,” she said. “Remember that I tried to help.”
“Of course,” said Hauptmann.
“Come on,” said Felix. “Let’s go.”
In the hall Gaelle kept pulling her coat together at the neck, and she tried to walk with her head up, as though if she could just find some dignity, all of this would be all right. Felix tried to make loud noises with his shoes, as though he were heavier than he really was. Then they walked into the room where the man was still sweeping, the dust coming up from the head of the broom like clouds behind trucks on a dirt road.
In the evening, when Gaelle came out of her building to go to work, Karl and Mani were waiting for her. She came through the door and onto the street, and then she pulled back, as though she had forgotten something, but Mani said, “Hey, there you are.”
“Hi, Karl,” she said. “Mani. How are you doing?”
“We’re going to need some help,” said Mani. “If I go up to Breiter, he might sense something is wrong. So I was thinking we need you to go along and bump into him. That’s better.”
“I’ll be behind him,” said Karl.
“So, that’s the way we’re going to do it,” said Mani. “Come on.”
“Wait a minute,” said Gaelle.
“Are you going to act like you did on the train?” said Karl.
“No,” said Gaelle.
“Good,” said Karl.
They took the streetcar, and through the windows the buildings slid by, brownstones with flat facades, at the tops of some of which there were neoclassical details, like a Greek temple, although here and there the buildings were marked with bullet holes from an uprising in the early 1920s. The bullet holes looked like gouges in cake. Gaelle thought about what she was supposed to do: walk up the street, bump into a man, this Breiter, and then he would turn toward her before … she wasn’t sure what it would be, although she found that she was staring at the bullet holes. She put her hands together and thought that every time she tried to get control of things, this happened. Someone used her.
A building stood at the corner of Breiter’s street and an avenue. Karl’s head was almost as high as the window of the first floor, his face like a discarded leather suitcase. His eyes, though, were alert, not shiny, almost gray like a slate countertop that has been used for years.
“You don’t look like you want to help us,” said Mani.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Of course, she thought, it is perfect that I am already apologizing.
“You know,” said Mani. “We’re breaking with the official line. You understand how people are going to feel about that? People in the East. The Soviet Party. So it’s important that no one know about this.”
“Sure, sure,” said Gaelle. She licked her lips. Who were they talking about anyway? Who was in the East? She didn’t understand what was going on, aside from the fact that she was trying to make a place for herself, to feel safe.
“Are we ready?” said Karl.
“Are we?” said Mani.
“Sure, Mani,” she said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
He looked at her for a moment, as though considering if this was really true.
“Remember,” he said to Gaelle. “No one is to know about this.”
She swallowed.
“You can trust me, Mani,” she said.
“All right,” he said. “We’ve watched. We know that he comes out of his apartment and walks up this way. He has a little dog. A dachshund.”
“Which apartment house?” she said.
“I’ll show it to you. We’ll walk by it,” said Mani. “Then we’ll wait at the end of the block until he comes out.”
Mani and Gaelle started up the sidewalk. Here and there people strolled along, men in gray or brown suits, women in blue and red dresses, all looking forward to getting home. The building Mani pointed out had steps that went up from the street to the front door.
“This is it,” said Mani.
“All right,” she said.
They turned and started back for the corner. The evening was coming on now, and the sky changed from blue to dark blue, and soon the gray part would come, the stars appearing like light shining through a hole punched in black paper with an ice pick.
“Are you going to be able to do it?” said Mani.
“Sure, Mani,” she said. “Sure.”
“We don’t need you if you are getting windy,” he said.
“I’m not that way,” she said. “Not really. I may look scared, but that’s all it is.”
Karl leaned against the building and stared down the street, his eyes swinging back and forth with the regularity of a lighthouse beacon. It was getting cool now, and Gaelle hugged herself, the touch of her own hands surprising her with their false comfort. Then she looked up the street at the people moving in such an ordered way. She wished that she could stop a man on the street to ask him what he was doing, as though a definite piece of knowledge would be useful in the face of chaos. After all, something was about to happen here, not the frank, vital moment of birth, but the thoroughly mysterious fact of death. She looked around and felt all the more frail, really, controlled by someone else, although this was balanced by an equal and panicky desire to turn and run up the street. She leaned against the building, if only to feel that there was no one behind her and that at
least she had cut down the world around her by half.
“Do you want a cigarette?” said Mani.
“Sure,” she said. “Maybe that will help. It’s hard to wait like this.”
Mani shook one out of his package. She lit it and stood there between the two of them. Then she tried to think of anything else, or at least to believe that this would all be over soon, that time was going to take care of everything here, and if she could just be patient, if she could just let things flow along, she’d be done. Then she tried to think of something pleasant, but she could only recall how she had gone with Aksel to a hotel and brazenly taken off her clothes to shock him, to take control of the circumstances, and how he had sat there on the side of the bed, reaching out for her, and saying, “Oh, you smell so good. It is like something I already know.”
“There he is,” said Mani.
The man they were waiting for came out of his building and stood at the landing at the top of the stairs. He wore a round hat with a brim and a brown overcoat. Then he started going down the stairs, one hand held out as though he were trying to show how tall a child was. About this high. Then Gaelle realized he was holding a leash. He was walking a dog. The man came down to the sidewalk and turned toward Mani, Karl, and Gaelle.
“Wait,” said Mani. “We want to run into him about thirty yards from this corner. All right?”
“Sure,” said Gaelle.
“Maybe you should ask for a light,” said Karl.
“No,” said Mani. “Just bump him. That’s enough.”
Gaelle tried to let time flow, to give in to this, but in the midst of it she felt like someone clawing up a crumbling precipice, and every time she thought she had her hand on something solid, it turned to dust. This panic was an airy feeling in her chest and stomach, as though some feathery thing were moving around inside.
The man was about forty, a little overweight. As he got to the street, the door of the house opened and a woman came out and said, “Don’t forget the bread.” The man looked back and nodded, not saying a word, and came along the street in a steady, thoughtful, and oddly clunky way, as though he were carrying a couple of heavy bricks in his pocket. He lumbered forward, the dog out in front, excited to be outside. It tugged on the leash and then abruptly sniffed at a spot before tugging again, although it didn’t seem to bother the man. He acted as though the dog were part of his own anatomy.
