The Informer

by Craig Nova

  Armina sat there, too, in her gray skirt and jacket, her crème-colored blouse, sensible shoes. Her red hair was short, cut along the line of her chin. No scent, although she probably used a little powder.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” said Gaelle.

  “No,” said Armina.

  “Why not?” said Gaelle.

  “I’ve got my work,” said Armina.

  “Me, too,” said Gaelle. Her laugh was shallow, and then she went back to blinking and accusing herself of being sentimental. She was beyond all that.

  “But you could have one?” said Gaelle. “Couldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Armina.

  “I want one,” said Gaelle. “Isn’t that the funniest thing you have ever heard? Why, I could die laughing.” She looked down at her hands. “I really want one,” she said. “I understand,” said Armina.

  “You?” said Gaelle. “What can you know about it? Why, you come to the park with me some night, and then we’ll talk again.”

  The department store was four floors, lit in the front with a red neon sign the color of strawberry sherbet. They got off the streetcar and faced the building. Animated mannequins, a woman in a wool dress and a man in a dark suit, beckoned and waved, as though to say, “Hello, friend. Come on in!” The animated man then checked his watch.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” said Gaelle.

  “About being here? Are you scared about going in here? Because of the scar?” said Armina.

  “Yeah, I’m scared,” said Gaelle. “You can say that.”

  “There’s someone here who might help,” said Armina. “That’s why I wanted to come. Don’t you want some help?”

  Gaelle swallowed, but she didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded, yes, yes, yes.

  They went to the lingerie section and held up stockings, lacy garters, sheer underwear, and as they picked the things up and talked about how they would wear and if the elastic was any good, how the stockings would run and what was comfortable, everything seemed natural. Just friends talking. Looking over some clothes. Then Gaelle starting blinking, and as much as she wanted to resist it, she thought of an American song, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine….” Stop it, she thought. What’s wrong with you?

  “Come on,” said Armina. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  The woman at the cosmetics counter was in her fifties, and her face was perfectly made up, but the appearance was theatrical rather than beautiful, more a disguise than something enhanced. Her hair was dyed, but it was such a perfect job that the highlights in it suggested youth.

  She sat behind a counter in a cloud of perfume, and her samples of lipstick, powder, pancake, pencil, and mascara were arranged like implements in an artists’ supply store.

  “Well, Armina,” said the woman. “What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Beatrice,” said Armina. “This is my friend. Gaelle.”

  Friend, thought Gaelle. That word again. We’re on different sides of that river. And yet, as she stood there, she wanted to take Armina’s hand, to be embraced, to feel that it was all right, if only for this instant. What wouldn’t she give for that warmth, that touch, for the moment when she could relax.

  Beatrice’s gray eyes moved across Gaelle’s face, and the examination of her glance was so intense that Gaelle felt it as a physical sensation, like a touch of a feather.

  “Sit down,” said Beatrice.

  She turned the magnifying mirror on Gaelle, and in the curved glass the scar was enlarged, its sheen more metallic than ever. In the instant, Gaelle felt the mark as an alien presence, a parasite that did its work by causing trouble, that left her waiting for a man to come after her, whom she didn’t know but whom she would recognize when she saw him. She’d know him by a tingling rush, like a million ants, that ran over her skin. Maybe the hair on the back of her neck would actually stand up.

  “You don’t want to look at it?” said Armina.

  “I don’t know,” said Gaelle. “It’s difficult to face up to things.”

  “Maybe they aren’t so bad,” said Armina.

  “No,” said Gaelle. “No, they’re as bad as they can get. Or almost.”

  “Beatrice,” said Armina. “Do you think that’s right?”

  “No,” said Beatrice. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “See?” said Armina.

  “The trick is going to be to work on her eyes,” said Beatrice. “The eyes are the key.”

  “The eyes,” said Gaelle. The lights. Make them more obvious, an easier target. Gaelle pulled away.

  “Wait,” said Armina. She put her hand on Gaelle’s arm. “Wait. Give it a chance.”

  “Yes,” said Beatrice. “That way people will look at them more than anything else.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Gaelle to Armina.

  “It won’t take a minute,” said Armina. “Let Beatrice try.”

  “It’s the eyes that will do it,” said Beatrice. “That’s where we’ll end up.”

  Beatrice took her mascara and started to apply it, darkening the lashes, tugging on them with the brush. It made Gaelle’s eyes, which were brown and flecked with gold, seem more prominent. Gaelle felt the small brush, as though she were playing a childhood game in which a friend tugged on her lashes.

  “It’s the waiting that’s hard,” said Gaelle.

  “Well, I know,” said Beatrice. “When you look better, it won’t be so bad.”

  “Maybe I’ll get made up, too,” said Armina.

  “You don’t need it,” said Gaelle.

  “Oh,” said Armina. “I don’t know.”

  “It will look better,” said Beatrice. “Just wait a minute.”

  “I haven’t got long,” said Gaelle.

  “You’ve got to get back to work?” said Beatrice.

  “You could say that,” said Gaelle.

  Beatrice put on a layer of pancake makeup and then powdered both cheeks and put on some rouge, a pinkish blush that made the cheeks seem more symmetrical. Gaelle held her head so that only her eyes showed in the mirror, and for a moment it was better, but then she thought, Where am I going to go? What now? What can I do? Get on a train and leave? But where?

  “What do you think I should do?” said Gaelle.

  “Stick with the pancake, the powder, the blush, and the eyeliner. That’s the best way, I think,” said Beatrice.

  Gaelle opened her handbag and took out a bill, a wrinkled one that she had taken in earlier in the evening, but Armina already reached over with some new, fresh money. It looked like it had just been ironed. Gaelle stared at it and thought, Yes, that’s the difference right there. She never has ugly money, not like mine.

  “My treat,” said Armina.

  They went upstairs, away from the scent and clouds of power, and out to the street. The crowds went by in a long stream, men and women, young people looking in the windows or going into cafés, all so ordinary and romantic.

  “Call me,” said Armina.

  “Sure,” said Gaelle.

  “I can help,” said Armina. “Give me a chance.”

  “I haven’t got a chance to give,” said Gaelle. “I know you’re in a tight spot,” said Armina.

  “Tight spot? Is that what you said?”

  “I’d be afraid, too,” said Armina.

  “Why, you think I’m worried about what is happening to the women in the park. Why, that’s not half, not a quarter….” Then she stopped. Her fingers trembled.

  “What else is there?” said Armina.

  “Look,” said Gaelle. “I didn’t want to quarrel. We’re just different. You’re on one side, and I’m on the other. Just look how clean your money is. Just look.”

  “It’s all right,” said Armina. “Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry?” said Gaelle. She swallowed. “I’ve got to get back. Felix is waiting.”

  “Call me,” said Armina. “Please.” She took a card from her bag and held it out. “If you hear something about the wome
n in the park.”

  “Sure,” said Gaelle. “Thanks.”

  “Will you call?” said Armina. “I need help.”

  “Well, that’s two of us,” said Gaelle.

  Gaelle turned and went up the avenue, her figure disappearing into the clutter of the street, the signs, the people out for a stroll, the lovers holding hands, the young people who went along in groups of ten or so, pushing and shoving, laughing, singing a popular song. There’s nothing left to do but wait, thought Armina. The scar didn’t look much better, either.

  Armina hung up the phone and put her feet on the floor and lay back in bed, the sheets caressing her with a seductive warmth. How nice it would be to roll over and to go back to sleep again. What had she been dreaming? Climbing in the Alps, that was it, and even now she could smell the arctic scent of the ice sheets, the air tainted with a chill from higher up, and her fingers still felt the roughness of the climbing ropes and the weight of the ice axe. How nice it had been, even though a dream, to get away from her sense of failure. Why hadn’t she been able to be more convincing with Gaelle? And what a bad idea to have her face made up, since it only made the scar look worse, as it was disguised. Gaelle had wanted something, and yet Armina hadn’t been able to give it: a failure of spirit, of generosity, maybe even of humor. The floor was cool against her bare feet and the shadows of the room lay across the floor like a piece of gray cloth as the water dripped in the bathroom with a steady tick, tick, tick. She stood up as though she were lifting a weight.

  The Inspectorate wanted her to come down to the river, to the boathouse of one of the Berlin rowing clubs where the caretaker had found something just inside the doors this morning. Right by the oar rack, is what he said when he had called the Inspectorate. By the oar rack.

  There wasn’t time for a bath, and so Armina washed her face, put on her clothes, and went downstairs to the street. It was just dawn, and the sky was yellow in the east. The river wasn’t that far, really, and she’d probably feel better for a little fresh air. She told herself again that she was going to drink less, and that tonight she would have nothing. This couldn’t go on night after night.

  Up ahead schoolchildren walked in two lines, their brown and blond heads bright in the early sunshine. They were a little disorderly, not jumpy, but staggering like a line of diminutive drunks. They came two by two, their eyes a little vacuous, and some of them let their lips get wet. A girl made a soft, constant mooing. Another child rubbed his eye over and over again. The teachers with them, one in front and one at the back, seemed to be herding them. Then Armina realized they were from the special school. They came along, blinking and stumbling, not quite drooling but sniffling and breathing through their mouths, and when she was even with them, a boy with a satchel looked right at her, his glance piercing in its mystification. Then, behind her, a pigeon flew up into the first rays of sunlight, where it suddenly appeared as a bird that was covered with gilt. The boy looked at the bird, almost shaking as he saw the transformation, and then he said to Armina, his mouth wet, his eyes still insistent in their mystification, “Ein Vogel, ein Vogel,” a bird, a bird.

  “Yes,” said Armina.

  “So, so pretty,” said the boy.

  Armina nodded. Yes. It was pretty.

  The Spree was about sixty feet wide, confined by stone banks and crossed by many bridges. At this hour, when there was no wind, the river was placid and showed the pink and yellow sky.

  The boathouse looked like a barn with two large doors on the side facing the river, and from the doors a ramp went down to the constant, indifferent hush of the water. The doors were open. The building was made of wood, and its upright planks had been painted a light blue, so that the side of the building appeared like the back of a theater where a play was set on a pleasant, clear day. Men in plainclothes and in uniform stood around a shape that was covered with a rubberized sheet just beyond the threshold of the open doors of the boathouse.

  Armina’s boss, a man by the name of Weiss, was there, too. He was heavyset, had rimless glasses, and his face was round and brooding. He wore a suit with a vest, a green tie, and dark shoes. The Nazi papers had been attacking him, and Armina new that when Weiss was gone, she’d have to go with him. Linz was there, too.

  Uniformed police made all this seem ceremonial as they stood around that covered shape on the boathouse floor. It was like a formal occasion, a wedding or police reception. Linz’s beard was blue and his eyes were bloodshot, as though he were in that odd zone of no longer being drunk but not yet hungover. A woman’s leg stuck out from the rubberized tarp at his feet.

  Weiss moved his eyes from the river to Armina. Even though he was in his neat clothes and his round glasses and his Homburg hat, he still conveyed a fatigue that was mixed with a sadness at the endless repetition of this moment. His eyes were old, like those of a man dug out of a glacier.

  “So,” Linz said to Armina. “Hard night?”

  “I’ve found the best thing for a hangover is a little brandy,” Weiss said.

  She put the back of her hand to her mouth.

  “Maybe,” she said. Then she reached down and pulled back the rubberized sheet. The young woman was splayed out under the boats, her skin pale verging on blue, her face against the dirt floor and her hair covered by her coat. Her presence seemed infinitely tawdry to Armina and part of an ugliness so large and originating in a stupidity so ridiculous as to defy understanding. The young woman was almost nude, aside from the coat over her head, her stockings pulled below her knees. The line on her neck was familiar, as were the red marks on her legs and buttocks and the small holes, too. For a minute, Armina was reassured by her disgust, as though, at least, she had nothing to do with this, and this distance was something she could depend on. The air, the light, the scent of the river seemed so heavy that it took effort just to stand there.

  “She was here just behind the door,” said Weiss. “The caretaker found her.”

  “Was she raped?” said Armina.

  “I thought I’d let the doctor do that,” said Weiss.

  “I’ll do it,” said Armina.

  She pulled back the rubberized sheet again, reached down to her buttocks, lifted one, and glanced at the wounds. At the touch of the cool skin, the sense of being separate from this vanished, and Armina was left with the conviction that this young woman was here because of Armina’s failure. Her desire to stop this left her trembling, that cool touch of the woman’s skin lingering on the tips of her fingers. She noticed, in the soft dirt next to the young woman, that there was a curved mark, as though someone had scored the ground with a stick, or the tip of a toe.

  Then she covered the woman up again and turned to Weiss.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Weiss shrugged.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and held it out, and she took it, wiping her hands slowly as she looked around.

  “It’s too bad she’s missing so much clothing,” Armina said. “It would be nice to know if someone took a souvenir. They do that, of course.”

  “We found her handbag, up there,” said Linz. “Here’s her address. She looks pretty young, doesn’t she?”

  Armina stepped next to the boats where the young woman’s head lay, and pulled back the coat. The blond hair still smelled of shampoo, and the side of the face was oddly numb, slack, and the absence of expression was worse than horror, since the blankness suggested a thorough obliteration. Armina leaned over to look more closely, her face not that far from the young woman, and as she stood in the dimness of the boathouse, under the lines of light on the shells, she was left with the impulse to shake her head.

  “Something wrong?” said Linz.

  Armina stepped back from the shape under the rubberized material and down the boathouse ramp to the river. Now, as the sun rose, the river was covered with a million flecks of light, each one a sharp silver, all suggesting an enormous piece of glass that had shattered into an infinite num
ber of bits. Armina wanted to sit down, to lean against the boathouse door, to find some way to stand here without her constant nausea, as though she were here and at the same time swinging back and forth at the end of a long piece of rope. The river went around the bend into the industrial clutter of Berlin. Her sense of responsibility, she realized, was something she had been trying to cover up, like makeup over a scar. The shock came not as a surprise, but with the sense of something being leeched out of her, as though she had been bleeding for a long time and was now getting weak. She put a hand to her face and stared at the facets of water. The points of light appeared artificial, remote as stars, and yet at the same time they conveyed the claustrophobia of the ordinary details that attended any hateful moment.

  “This one’s yours,” said Linz.

  Armina put her hand to her hair.

  “Yes,” she said. “I guess it is.”

  “Cases like this are a dime a dozen,” said Linz. “Same old stuff. Someone imitating the Fisherman.” He pulled his coat a little tighter. He looked around. “Who’s going to tell her parents?” he said, gesturing to the body.

  The others stood around, shifting from one foot to another, looking at the river. A barge went by and made a wave that washed up against the stones lining the river.

  “It’s the investigating officer’s job,” said Linz to Armina.

  Armina tuned again to the luminescent chop of the river, the silver crosses of light at the top of the small waves, and as she stared a barge went by, the bow wave of it rolling toward her in a gray, green, and silver rush.