by Craig Nova
“So what are we going to do when we get there?” she said.
“Look at the water,” he said. “Walk on the piers. You know.”
He turned around to glance at the people behind him.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“I’m just cautious,” he said. “It’s a habit.”
“It’s been a long time since I went to the beach,” she said. “Since, you know …”
She touched her face.
“Well,” he said. “I bet you look good in a bathing suit.”
“Oh,” she said. “I used to.” She took his hand. “When you asked me out here I bought a new bathing suit.”
Men and women in their late teens and early twenties laughed and shoved one another and grabbed each other’s towels. Karl didn’t have to worry about them. He was looking for a solitary man who didn’t quite fit.
He sat with his hands in his lap, not knowing how to tell her that he was different from the way he used to be. He felt a little sick when he wasn’t with her. Gaelle looked out the window and watched the suburban houses slide by, the buildings with the white plaster and timbered fronts constantly moving into the distance behind them. Up ahead a little white vapor hung in the air over Wannsee.
At night, in her apartment, she had touched her face against his and made caressing, gasping movements against him. It had been like floating. Now, if he held her hand, or kept his leg against hers, or if he could smell her hair or her lavender perfume, or even her sweat, he was able to feel the delicious airiness and lightness, cloudlike and mystifying.
In the distance, the lake seemed to be cut into a million blue and silver facets. People already began to reach up for the things they had brought along and had left in the overhead rack.
“What are we going to do after looking at the water and walking on the piers?” said Gaelle.
“We’re going to have a good time, just like other people. See?” he said. He put his large face against her hair, close to her ear, and said, “I just like being with you, that’s all.”
He saw that her eyes were watering a little. She blushed, too, although the scar looked paler, more white when she did that. She slipped her hand under his arm.
The young people got up and started getting their things together, shoving one another, making jokes about one man. They called him String Bean and the Invisible Boy because he was too thin. The young man said he was just “wiry,” and then he stood with his arms crooked, making muscles. One of the young women felt them and laughed. Then they all laughed, even the young man who was supposed to be too thin. When the train was empty, Karl and Gaelle got up and walked through the red seats and went out the door into the smell of the lake.
Then they went down the steps of the platform, crossed under the tracks, and climbed up on the other side to the concrete path that went along the lake. It was like a boardwalk, and couples strolled as they looked for places to eat, or for a tour boat to take. Karl heard that moan of a boat’s horn. She took his arm.
“Do you hear that?” she said. “It makes me feel like when I’m waiting for you and I’m afraid you won’t come.”
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Then he looked around and thought, There he is.
The man was in his middle thirties, of average height, pale. His beard showed as a bluish tint, and his lips were very red. He wore gray pants, in the English style, a blue jacket, and fancy shoes, black ones with a gray weave over the toes. A member of a Ring, Karl thought. Someone who was just doing it for the money. Freierbund. Bruderbund. One of those.
“We’ve got some trouble,” said Karl.
“I know. But let’s not spoil today with things like that,” said Gaelle.
“Look,” said Karl. “You went to party headquarters, right? So they know you had something to do with Breiter. He was one of theirs.”
“All that’s above my head,” said Gaelle. “I’m just trying to make a little money, have a good time. Now that I’ve met you.”
“Yeah,” said Karl. “But we’ve got the other side to worry about. The Soviets are interested, too. In Breiter.”
“So, we’re in the middle,” said Gaelle. “Like you said.”
“Alone is more like it,” said Karl.
“But you’ll be able to take care of them, won’t you?” said Gaelle.
“Sure,” said Karl. “Don’t worry.”
“I never should have gone to the party headquarters,” said Gaelle.
“It’s a little late for that,” said Karl.
“It looked like easy money,” said Gaelle. “You know, I tell them a little something. They pay me. Everything is fine. They gave me some money to listen to things.”
The man was smoking a cigarette, which he finished and then flipped into the water, watching as the thing traced a smoking arc in the air and then hit the water with a fitz! The butt floated until a duck picked it up in its orange bill and swallowed it. The man leaned his elbows against the metal railing, made of pipe, that went along the cement walk above the lake. About a hundred yards ahead there were the piers where people bought tickets on boats to take them to more secluded beaches.
“So what do you want to do?” said Gaelle.
“I don’t know, what about you?” said Karl.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Karl glanced at the man, who leaned against the railing. “Do you want a sausage?” Karl said.
The man who had been leaning against the railing pushed off, with a sort of nonchalance and began to follow them.
“Two. Mustard,” Karl said. The sausage vendor wore a clean white paper hat, a white shirt, and a white apron. The sign on his stand said, in red, yellow, and black letters, SAUSAGES. DRINKS. He gave them two sausages in fresh buns, wrapped in a napkin.
Gaelle took a bite of her sausage and mustard fell on her dress. She looked down at it and wiped at it with her paper napkin, but that made a yellow stain over the swell of one of her breasts. She bit her lip. Karl looked back and saw the man light another cigarette and toss the match into the water, the small piece of wood describing a smoking path, like something that was expelled by an explosion.
Karl and Gaelle came up to the Strandbad. The pool was on one side of a cement walkway, and the beach was on another, although the people were packed so closely on the beach the sand was invisible. Even the edge of the water was obscured by the number of people who were wading, splashing one another, or standing alone, staring out at the blue horizon. The shouts of bathers were indistinguishable from the cries of birds, and the line where the lake met the sky appeared like a taught wire.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said.
“Don’t worry. We can fix it,” he said.
“How?” she said. “I could just die.”
“Up there,” he said. “We can rent a changing bungalow. You can get into your bathing suit.”
“You know how to rent one?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
She held the basket she had brought high up, to cover the stain. “You don’t have to do that,” he said.
The man with the English pants followed, a cigarette hanging from his lips, his hands in his pocket, his locomotion like someone in an American gangster movie. Karl approached the manager of the changing huts, which were arranged in a long line on the beach.
“We’re all full,” said the manager.
Karl stepped closer and took the man by the shirt.
“You really want to say that to me?” he said.
“I’m going to call the police,” said the manager.
“Please,” said Gaelle. “Please.”
“What’s wrong with her?” said the manager.
“We want a changing bungalow,” said Karl.
“You’ll have to pay something extra, since we have a lot of reservations.” Karl gave him the money, and Gaelle went into one of the bungalows. The man in the English pants waited on the other side of the cement walk, and behind him the
slight hillside was covered with the deep green leaves of late summer.
Karl walked across the concrete to the man, and some birds revolved in the air, squawking and diving for scraps that people threw in the water. Farther down the walk men fished from the rail with a somnolent patience.
“You,” said Karl. “You want something?”
“Me?” he said. “I’m just having a little holiday.”
Karl looked around. He couldn’t do it here, not right out in the open.
“You’re lucky,” said Karl. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
“It’s funny about luck,” the man said. “It’s a two-way street. You could just walk out of here, just go have an ice cream. See? That would make some luck for me.”
“You heard me,” said Karl.
“Understand?” the man said. “Just leave her alone. Give me a chance. We’re not interested in you. That’s what I’m saying. Just the quim.”
They’re trying to separate us, thought Karl. That’s how they plan on doing it. Karl put his hand around the man’s arm, and for an instant it appeared like a stick in a bunch of bananas.
“I’m not a big talker,” said Karl.
“Take it easy,” said the man.
Karl glanced around. The boardwalk was filled with people who appeared as though they were on a conveyor belt, all moving along, women in light dresses, men in ties. Maybe Karl could just drop the man in the water, below the rail, and make it look as though he had fallen in. Then, with a little shove of dismissal, he let the man go.
The man smiled.
“I’ve got plenty of time,” the man said. “And there’s something else. There’s more than one of us here today. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself? Just walk off for a while and leave her alone.”
Then he turned and went down the cement walk that curved between the green hillside and the lake.
Gaelle came out in her bathing suit, which made her look fresh and young. She carried her basket and her towel, and then walked toward the beach, although when they went by a restroom, she took a moment to go inside. When she came out, the dress was wet where she had scrubbed it in the sink.
“It’ll dry soon,” she said.
She looked up and smiled at him. The dress wasn’t going to be ruined after all. The tour boat’s horn sounded.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go out on the lake.”
“Are you sure?” she said. “Is it going to be safe there? That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
“How can you tell I’m worried?” he said.
“Oh, I can tell,” she said.
“Maybe a little,” he said. “The lake is the best place.”
He paid for tickets and they found a small table on the boat, sheltered from the wind and covered with a white linen tablecloth. Gaelle put her dress over the back of an extra chair to dry and held it down with her basket. They drank white wine and watched as the boat went through the blue water, and as the ship’s horn sounded, she took his hand.
“Are you glad you came?” he said.
“I’ve never been so happy,” she said.
He felt the sweet moisture of her suntan lotion in the breeze that came over her shoulder. He wanted to explain how he had changed, but all he could do was to sit there, trying to smile, but not really knowing what to say. So, they were quiet, feeling the breeze, seeing the beaches slide by. She turned the scar toward him.
“It’s been a long time since I trusted anyone,” she said.
He nodded. He didn’t know how to say it, not really, but he didn’t think he had ever trusted anyone. He bobbed his head more intensely, up and down, hoping she understood.
The ship’s horn sounded. Karl looked out at the long, receding wake.
“The scar doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I wish I could say more. I mean more than that….”
The horn sounded again.
“Like that,” he said, gesturing to the horn. “That’s what it’s like.”
“I know,” she said.
He looked around the boat. He guessed the man had told the truth: they were probably working in teams, and that meant the worst time would be at the end of the day, in a tunnel someplace, or after they had gotten back to the city. Maybe that’s the way it would be. Toward the stern there were more tables, under a canopy, and beyond it people stood at the rail and watched the wake as it unreeled from the stern.
“I’m worried about being cut,” she said. “When I think of people coming after me, I’m sure that’s what they’re going to do.”
“Nothing like that is going to happen,” he said.
He had a sip of wine and went on looking at her.
“I’d forgotten what it’s like to feel young,” she said.
“But you’re not even twenty-five,” he said.
“It’s not the years,” she said.
She leaned across the table and rubbed his face with her scar, as a caress of the most piercing intimacy, and said, “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
The horn throbbed.
“Why,” she said. “You’re getting teary.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Why is that?” she said.
“I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “The afternoon goes so fast when you are having a good time.”
He sipped his wine.
“See,” she said. “The shadows are already coming out over the water. Sort of blue.”
They had a little soup and salmon sandwiches, small ones that made Karl ashamed of the size of his fingers. The air on the lake was cool, but after a while she reached over and touched her dress and found that it was dry.
“Good,” she said. “I’m going to go into the bathroom and change.”
Then she stood up and went down the deck of the ship, along the bars of the rail, and as she stopped at the door to go inside, she turned and looked over her shoulder, the glint of light behind her, her hair blowing around her face, her smile genuine and inviting. She went inside and he sat there, looking over the faces in the crowd.
She came back and he said, “We’re going to have to be careful going home.”
“What are you worried about?” she said.
“I’m just uneasy,” he said. “Maybe because I’m happy.”
“We’ll go with the mob of people,” she said. “That’s the safest thing.”
“No,” he said. “Let’s get off at a stop before the one where we got on. We’ll wait in the woods. Then we’ll take a late train.”
He took her hand.
“We’ll hide for a while. Will that help?” she said.
“Maybe,” he said. “We can hope.”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s a nice thought, isn’t it?”
Armina held the pistol in her bag on her lap as the train went to the shooting range in Wannsee, and on the way, it passed the Tudor houses in the suburbs, the beams of them dark like the wood of an old gallows. Then she considered the details of the boathouse, and the odor of dirt, the torn stockings, and the cigarette butts overwhelmed any attempt she made to excuse herself.
The brick building had stains around the window where the sooty rain had been running for years. The range officer sat in his office, although he kept the door open so he could see who came in. He ate blood sausage and bread, cabbage and potatoes, and he moved his bulk of more than three hundred pounds to reach across his desk for the tongue depressor that stuck out of a pot of mustard. Then he used his knife to plow the food toward his fork, which he gripped overhand, like a wrench, with a piece of sausage skewered on the tines. Armina watched him eat, her pistol in her handbag.
The range office gave her a box of ammunition and two targets, the first to practice on and the second to qualify. She walked out to the rear of the range where the frame for targets stood in front of a wall made of sandbags, hung the target up, walked back, and signaled to the range officer. He lift
ed his fork with a piece of sausage, yellow with mustard, as a sign to begin. She put two pieces of soft rubber in her ears, loaded the pistol, which was a revolver, and looked at the target. She listened to the wild throb of her heart and thought, Yes, clarity.
The target had a round, black center, arranged in concentric circles, each one numbered and separated by a small line. She had to get a score of at least seventy, which was difficult at this distance, although if she hit the line between two rings she was given the higher score. The trick was to feel her heartbeat: to hold her breath and to wait until the pistol dropped that small amount, the bead flat with the rear sight, absolutely level with it, just below that black circle.
She concentrated on those evenings when she and Rainer had been in Austria in the hotel there when she had let go, both of them looking into the other’s eyes. The thrill of letting go had come over her in a rush of points along her hips and legs and even down into her heels, and the surprise of it reminded her of the cascading lights of the fireflies in the pine grove in Austria. They were related in some way: those lights in the dark grove and the tickling, lovely thrill.
The pistol went off, Bang! Bang! Bang! She listened to her heart, which came out of an interior darkness. Her sense of responsibility and the turmoil it caused reminded her of a place she had heard about in America where tar bubbled up from the depths and carried the remains of enormous creatures to the surface, toward the light, and the bones, the muck, the stink, and the atmosphere of the depths haunted her, as though they were her own terrors, her own guilt, which rose like the bubbles of gas from the depths. The monsters had been concealed, but now, with their upward movement they were coming to the surface.
She took the target over to the range officer, who looked at it and said, “Ninety-one. You don’t need the practice sheet. Here. Give it back.”
She handed over the second, blank target.
“What were you thinking about to shoot that way?”
His blood sausage and cabbage and potatoes with bacon and vinegar were almost gone. He had a glass of beer, too, which was the color of lemon custard.
