by Craig Nova
“Food,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “That might help.”
“A steak,” she said. “You know, the way they have it in Paris.”
“I’ve never been to Paris,” he said.
“They make it with shallots and wine,” she said.
“What’s a shallot,” he said.
“Sort of like a small onion, which they sauté in butter and then they put in some red wine and cook it down.”
“Then what?” he said as he licked his lips.
“They put in some beef stock and cook that down,” she said. “Then they cook the steak, you know, they sear it, and then put it on a plate and cover it so it cooks in its own juices. And after a while they cover it with the shallots, then serve it with fried potatoes.”
“Well,” he said. “I will have to go to Paris sometime.”
He signed her card, which showed that she had qualified again.
“No wonder you shoot that way if you are thinking about food like that,” he said. “Yes, I really will have to go to Paris.”
On the way home she found a watch in the window of a jewelry store. It was large enough to fill her palm, and it had small Roman numerals on it, hands that looked almost too delicate to be anything but drawn with ink. She bought the watch and took it home, and when Rainer came in she said, “I’ve got something for you,” and held it out.
He smiled at her and took the watch, holding it up and letting it glow there in the dim light of her living room, a sort of spun gold orb there in his palm, and as she reached to open it so he could see the fineness of the hour hand and the second hand, he put his face close to her fingers, and as he kissed them, he said, “I can smell the gunpowder on your hands.”
They sat quietly, and after a while she said, “Tell me about the jungle.”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s what you want? Ferns, the long lines of ants, like black chains, all carrying little bits of leaves, the rain. The sound.”
“You could put your hand on my neck. It’s stiff,” she said. She turned her back to him and bent forward, exposing her neck. “Tell me about the jungle.”
“It rains,” he said. “It comes down in such sheets. You can’t keep anything dry.”
“Is that right?” she said.
“It’s so hot,” he said. “And everything has the odor of the jungle. It’s a smell of orchids and leaves and something else, too, a kind of scent that is mysterious.”
“Here. Let me pull up my shirt. Put your hand on my side. Right there. Can you undo that?”
“The wet makes everything shiny,” he said. “Like silver, like sweat, sort of, like tears.”
“Yes,” she said. “I can imagine.”
“Can you?” he said.
“Not the jungle, but the tears,” she said.
“Everything drips,” he said. “The trunks of the trees, the leaves, the creepers, the flowers, and you can see long silver strings. That is the basic combination, you know, silver and green, with the gray trunks of the trees. And then it comes alive. Everything that was quiet in the rain starts up again, insects, animals.”
“You can take that off,” she said.
“Oh, it gets so hot and so damp suddenly, since everything turns to mist. You can feel it on your skin and when you breathe,” he said. “You’re going to tear the buttons off my shirt if you do that.”
“I like the ripping sound,” she said. “Tell me about the orchids. Do they tremble? Do they become wet in that heat? And do the women in the jungle wear them in their hair? Is that how they bitch up their men?”
“That and some other ideas,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Well.”
She put her fingers to her nose to smell the gunpowder as she recalled the vibrant air in the gun range, that Bang, bang, bang. The bead in the rear sight and the beating of her heart, which had the suggestion of one clear, certain thing she could depend on.
The Studio for Ballroom Dancing was on the third floor of a brownstone in a part of town that was a mixture of the genteelly run-down and the outright poor. The mechanical and almost cheerful sound of a piano came from a window where a sign said BALLROOM DANCING LESSONS, BEGINNER’S CLASS THIS AFTERNOON. PARTNERS FROM FRANCE. Mani stood in the street, hands in his pockets, looking up at the sign, but rather than going in as he wanted to, he went up to the corner where the piano was difficult to hear. Even the utilitarian piano playing had an effect on him, as though he could imagine what inspired music would sound like, and this anticipation of sincerity and beauty left Mani disoriented with forbidden ideas. He had seen one of the dance partners a few days before in her red dress as she had stood at the window, and now he imagined her small black shoes and the hush they made over the floor and how this blended with the rustle of the petticoats and the hiss of satin. How reassuring that sound must be.
The stairs went straight up, each step covered with a rubber tread as shiny as licorice, and as Mani climbed, the sound got louder until at the top of the stairs the music was so loud as to make up in volume what it had lacked in spirit. The main room of the dance studio had white walls, a hardwood floor, and the piano. The piano player wore a black dress that came up to her chin and down to her wrists, where her pale hands, almost blue, really, worked at the keys. Diagrams on the wall, with numbers and arrows and dotted lines, gave the sequence for each dance, and the outlines of the shoes in these posters looked like someone had stepped in black paint.
Three women sat on chairs by the window, all dressed in formal gowns, although the hems were worn and the cloth was musty with old perfume and powder. The one in red was in her middle twenties, trim, although her hair was messy, her lipstick a little too bright, and her petticoats showed. She looked out the window and smoked a cigarette with her nicotine-stained fingers.
Mani paid his fee, took his seat along the wall, and waited for other members of the class to arrive, and as the piano played and the other men came in, none of whom glanced at him, he tried to enjoy the anticipation of doing one small thing he had always wanted. He concentrated on the dance posters, as though learning the steps could give him a few moments of peace. Gaelle, Herr Schmidt, the invitation to Moscow, and what that meant (would they leave him in the river when they were done with him?) all seemed to be manageable in the face of those numbered steps. 1, 2, 3, forward, 1, 2, 3 to the side. A poster showed how a man was supposed to hold a woman as he danced with her, one hand at the side of her lower back, one hand held so that she could rest her fingers in it. Light, delicate, romantic. He closed his eyes when he thought about the touch of those fingers. The most important thing was to take care of himself, to do the right thing, but for a moment he wanted to get away from that.
The dancing master wore a tailcoat and striped pants with a gray waistcoat and dainty shoes. He demonstrated a few steps for the students, his shoulders gliding in a way that kept them at the same height from the floor and parallel to it. Mani wanted to be able to do that. He craved it as though he were hungry.
Ten or so students lined up along with Mani, and as the piano played, they took steps one way and then another, although none of them knew the steps as well as Mani, who had a preternatural ability to remember. The dancing master watched him for a while, nodded, and said to Mani, “Have you ever danced before?”
“No,” said Mani. “Not really.”
“Surprising,” said the dancing master. “You seem to have a gift for it. A knack.”
He gestured to the French woman in the red dress who came across the room, her skin white against the satin, her nicotine-stained fingers extended to Mani. He held out his hand to her, offering it, and she took it as he put his right hand against the side of her waist. The French woman looked over his shoulder at the wall and then out the window, and as they went around the room, with Mani making small mistakes, for which he apologized, he smelled her perfume, her powder, and the scent of her hair.
Mani wanted to dance. He had done other things, too, that were
not correct. He had wanted to write a poem about a woman who lay in the sun, her skin wet with a silver film, and he wanted to show how the heat, the moisture, the wetness all revealed a wild, eternal delight: damp skin, damp underarms, damp underwear, tears of happiness or at least of pleasure so intense as to make everything clear, all silver, somehow related to the stars. Powerful and so innocent, too. He knew a poem like this was a sign of his failure, and he wondered if Herr Schmidt understood such things about him. If you were part of the machine of history did you have such impulses? Of course not.
“Are you from Paris?” said Mani.
“Lyon,” she said.
“Oh,” said Mani. “Is it nice there?”
“There’s not so much to do,” she said. “It’s easy to get bored in a place like that.”
“Have you been in Berlin long?” he said.
She sighed.
“No,” she said.
Mani looked around the room.
“You dance beautifully,” he said. “It’s like … I don’t know how to describe it. Like flying.”
“It’s OK,” she said.
“And it makes it possible to talk, too,” he said. “I’d like to talk.”
“And what do you want to say?” she said. “There are times when I feel a little funny,” he said.
“Like how?” she said, perking up a little, as though she were intrigued by this.
“As though the walls are closing in,” said Mani.
“Well, what do you expect when they have classes in rooms this small,” she said. “I feel it all the time. Especially when I’m sitting there between lessons. We’re not supposed to leave.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mani. “I know. When you can’t get away. When you are waiting.”
“It’s the worst,” said the woman. “Trapped.”
“Yes, trapped,” he said.
They went around the room, the windows sweeping by.
“Remember,” she said, “One, glide, two, glide, three, glide. That’s better.”
She rested her hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eyes for a moment, and then watched the walls and windows.
“You can talk some more if you like,” she said. “It’s OK. They don’t mind if we talk. He,” she said, gesturing to the dancing master, “even likes it.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes,” said Mani.
“You’re not doing so bad,” she said. “Take it from me. There you go. Glide. Glide.”
“It could have been different,” he said.
“It’ll get better,” she said. “Practice.”
The piano seemed to thump along like a machine.
“You don’t dance so badly.”
Mani bit his lip.
“You’re doing just fine. Being scared is the worst part. If you can get over that you’ll be fine.” She looked around. “Don’t worry about that wall feeling. They’re going to get a new place. See? It will be bigger and they will have a real orchestra, not this piano. You can come back then. You’ll feel better.”
She swayed with a tensile resilience, muscular and slender, and he kept his hand on her waist, where he felt the movement of her hips. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the seams of the gown under his fingers and the movement of the partner from France as she responded to his slightest touch with a fluid dip and step that seemed to acquiesce, to accept and to say, Yes, glide, yes, glide, yes.
“I was scared, too, when I started,” she said. “You’ll get over it. You’re doing just fine.”
“I wish I had more time,” he said.
“Well, you can take another lesson. Do you have the money?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good. Come back for another lesson. You really have a talent,” she said. For an instant she looked into his face and smiled genuinely. “Really.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Come back for another lesson, silly,” she said. “That’s all there is to it. How can you dance with that woman whacking the piano?” she said. “You could think if she played it instead of beating it.”
She shrugged.
“Get yourself a little book. Study the steps. We’ll go dancing sometime.”
Mani swallowed and concentrated on the lightness of her hand in his, the texture of the satin, the slight, raised seams along her waist. Her hips made a little dip and sway when she stepped backward and to the side. He guessed that was Chanel powder she was wearing, but he didn’t know for sure, since he had never really smelled it. He thought, Please, please don’t end. Just a little longer. The piano stopped.
“We could go to a bigger place. You won’t feel that way,” she said. “All right?”
“Yes,” said Mani.
She turned and walked back to the bench, and he listened to the rustle of satin, her shoes on the floor, and felt the lingering touch of her hand in his palm. The piano began again and the dancing master gestured to Mani to get back into line, but he just turned and walked away, past the diagrams on the wall and out the door.
Felix came into the party hall and stood at the back in the shadows. He hardly moved in the flecks of dust that spun in the air. A man in plus fours arranged the chairs in front of the stage with a piece of wood that was two inches long so as to set the distance between them. They were all lined up, neat as atoms in a crystal. Felix waited, if only to decide if he would go in and see what Hauptmann wanted.
“Hey,” said Felix.
The man with the chairs looked up with a sullen glance, like a watchmaker who has been distracted from a delicate repair.
“What do you want?”
“Hauptmann,” said Felix. “He sent me a message.”
“He’s back there,” said the man.
Felix walked down the aisle in the middle of the room, and he dragged his leg as he went, although he kept his head up and tried to square his narrow shoulders. He started coughing and took out his large blue handkerchief to blow his nose.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” said the man.
“Nothing,” said Felix.
“Oh,” said the man. “Nothing.” Then he went back to his chairs in their perfect rows.
The hall to the back room smelled of disinfectant, like a hospital ward for surgery patients. Felix stopped here, too, and listened. The squeak of the chairs in the outer room, the ticking of the building as it cooled, a slight rustle in the next room as someone shuffled papers and clicked the lock on a briefcase: that was it, along with Felix’s own, wet breathing. What was he going to have to answer? They’d want something, but what? And could he make a little something out of it? Was it possible to do a little business? He ran his hand down his leg, where he kept his ice pick. Then he looked around the hall. One exit at the back. One at the front. The chairs went on squeaking.
“Come in,” said Hauptmann.
Felix emerged from the hall into the light of the room. Hauptmann’s white fingers held a pen, and his shirt, bright as laundry in the sunshine, seemed fresh and clean. Gold fasteners on his blue suspenders. Dark tie. The scent of his pomade filled the room and his hair was slick.
“Thank you for coming,” said Hauptmann.
“It’s nothing,” said Felix. He dragged himself forward.
“Sit down,” said Hauptmann. “Do you want to smoke?”
“Yes,” said Felix.
Hauptmann pushed a glass box across the desk, the cigarettes piled as neatly as ammunition in a case.
“I’ve got my own,” said Felix.
He lit one and leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked from under his brows, his eyes shadows in the overhead light.
“I wanted to talk to you,” said Hauptmann.
“Sure,” said Felix. “I figured.”
“We’ve been watching you,” said Hauptmann.
“Is that right?” said Felix.
“There’s not much we don’t know about,” said Hauptmann. “We know what you do when you catch one of those young women alone in the park.”
“No one’s seen me,” said Felix. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh,” said Hauptmann. “You misunderstand. We approve. You are taking care of undesirables.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“That’s fine,” said Hauptmann. “You can say that.”
Hauptmann turned down to his ledger and wrote with a scratching sound, then stopped and dipped his pen into the black ink. In the front room there was the distant squeak of chairs as the last adjustments were made. A vase of roses sat on the desk, the flowers dark red, the stems green as a frog.
“That’s it?” said Felix.
“No,” said Hauptmann. “Not quite.”
“So?” said Felix.
“We want to give you a chance,” said Hauptmann. “You can take advantage of it.”
“Yeah?” said Felix. “What would that be?”
“You’ll like it,” said Hauptmann. “I understand. I really do.”
Felix ground out his cigarette and sat in his chair. The smoke hung in the air while Hauptmann sat there, looking down at his ledger, dipping his pen, scratching.
“Pick that up,” said Hauptmann as he wrote.
Felix reached down for the cigarette and put it in his pocket.
“That’s better,” said Hauptmann.
Felix’s chair squeaked. Hauptmann went on staring, eyes steady, skin pale, fingers steady. Why, thought Felix, he’s enjoying himself.
“Don’t do that again,” said Hauptmann. “No cigarettes on the floor. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” said Felix.
“All right,” said Hauptmann. “Are we going to do business?”
“I guess,” said Felix.
“Guess?” said Hauptmann. “I’d like something more definite than guesses. Why, I can guess all kinds of things, but what good does that do?”
“All right,” said Felix. “No guessing.”
“That’s better,” said Hauptmann. He smiled and showed his teeth, which were as white as piano keys. “I knew I could trust you.”
“Sure,” said Felix. “What’s the deal?”
