by Craig Nova
Rainer took her hand and said that, no matter what, he wanted her to know that he loved her. No one had ever understood him the way she had. And when he was with her he became someone he always wanted to be—that was why he really loved her—and this was far more than the fun they had, or his disappearing into a kind of golden haze when they got into bed. She made him think that he could live up to his own most secret hopes for what he could be. She forgave him, too, for his flaws in the way he wanted to be forgiven, and this wasn’t generic, but specific, in that her understanding was precise, never condescending (or better, almost conspiratorial) and always dependable. Anyway, no matter what happened he wanted her to know that.
His hand pressed against hers, and the warmth of being loved reminded her of the swans in Austria, one welded to its reflection in the mirror of the water, or the fireflies in that stand of enormous pines. This warm pleasure imbued the details of ordinary life, the touch of his hand, the restaurants they had passed, the aroma of the food, the pheasants and morels, the scents of cinnamon and apples, the appearance of the salads of baby lettuce leaves, green and silvery as they were dressed, all of it, in his presence, became evidence of the pleasures of being alive and the possibility of enjoying it, too. She walked along, not trusting herself to speak and realizing with a thrill that she didn’t have to.
The shadows in a side street hung like a black sheet. Armina and Rainer walked over the cobbles of the sidewalk and passed the darkened windows of houses where the glass seemed like ice. A sound seemed to emerge from the shades and dark planes, a steady pat, pat, pat. The blandness of it and the lack of light made it difficult for Armina to tell where the sound came from, and for an instant she thought it surrounded them, as though it were in the air. The street was almost empty and silent, too, aside from that sound. Perhaps a roof of one of these building didn’t drain properly and the sound was a steady dripping of water from a pool after the last rain. She even imagined the drips as they fell, the drops like silver lines through the shadows, like wire against a black cloth.
She turned, but the street was empty, just the sheen on the cobbles and the darkened windows of the apartments—up ahead, at the next avenue, which wasn’t so busy as the one they had passed, the headlights floated away, as delicate as a dandelion in the breeze.
“Do you hear that?” she said.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“How can you be so sure?”
Overhead the street was covered by an impenetrable fog, part clouds, part smoke, although it was filled with a muted, reddish glow. The sound came again, that steady pat, pat, pat. Leather, she guessed, on the small cobbles of the sidewalk. She stopped and turned, but the street was so dark, and there were so many openings under the stoops of the buildings, all opaque as the clouds overhead, that it was impossible to see. Was someone there or not? The silence was like that in the park when she had faced Felix and he had gotten behind her. Listen, he had said. It’s what you don’t know.
She tried to remember the times she and Rainer had danced, his chest against hers, and the heat that rose between them, like a soft weld. And the absence of it, too, when she had sat alone in her kitchen, brooding with a glass of brandy.
“There’s someone back there,” she said.
“Well,” he said. “The worst place to have an argument is in a place like this. Let’s just keep going.”
She swallowed and looked around and faced the impenetrable shapes, the geometry of darkness, those planes that were at once black and oddly filled with menace. Was it possible that ill will actually changed the dark so that the shadows had an almost imperceptible turmoil, like the surface of a river at night? She thought she detected the essence, at once delicate and so obvious, that surrounded a creature who lay in wait.
So, she thought, who is it? One of Ritter’s friends? Had someone really come from Moscow? And what would he be like, this man from Moscow? Something else was in the shadows, too, a perfume of malice, as though all those mornings when she had stood at the bottom of a gully and looked at those torn stockings and marked skin had somehow been concentrated here.
A creature moved at the top of a building and then flew from the roof. She guessed that there were owls in the city that hunted rats after dark. Then she thought about the man from Moscow, who was just a sort of potential, but a pretty likely one. Then she thought about Ritter.
Would they come for me? she thought. As they had for Gaelle? What was to stop them? And then there was the darker layer, the one she didn’t want to consider but that the geometry of shadows seemed to insist on: Ritter had let Felix go because Felix had an interest in making her disappear. And to whom could she go for help? The police?
She concentrated on the tapping and tried to think clearly about two things. Was there someone there, and if so who was it? On the avenue, which was close now, a car honked with a sad yearning. Rainer said, “Here we are.”
The cabaret was on a corner of a side street at the edge of the park, and through the windows men and women, all of them hatchet-faced, pale, elegantly dressed, turned their faces toward a small stage.
“Come on,” said Rainer. “We’re going to miss it.”
The maître d’, in his evening clothes, took them to some seats at the rear of the room that had a table covered with a cloth made from a piece of the flag from the Republic. The red and yellow seemed oddly diminished here, not festive, but somehow like a dress that had been abandoned in a hotel room. They sat down and quickly ordered a salad, a lamb chop, roast potatoes, champagne. Armina fingered the tablecloth, her hands touching the edge. How long can a government last when its flag is used as a tablecloth? And what then?
On the other side of the room Ritter sat with another man. Their evening clothes made their skin seem white, as though powdered, and the other man’s fingers were nested together on the tablecloth, as though he was demonstrating infinite patience. Ritter spoke and the man nodded, Yes, yes. Of course. Then he looked across the room at Armina. He nodded again.
The needling of the bubbles of champagne on Armina’s tongue were keen, and yet the touch of them seemed to her like vulnerability itself, sharp, small, evanescent. They left a lingering sharpness, which she tried to make last, but soon it was gone, too.
A man stood on the stage, his hair glistening in the lights, his vest under his tuxedo made from a flowery material. The faces around Armina were at once restrained and oddly expectant: what next? The faces were pale if young, powdered if old, all distinguished by a fatigue that was kept going by a sad humor.
Armina stood up and walked across the room, and as she went Ritter and the other man followed her with their eyes, their expression blank as a stone: that was part of what made this difficult, since they gave no hint, nothing she could depend upon, nothing clear, nothing that she could use against them.
“Armina,” said Ritter. “How nice to see you.”
“You think so?” said Armina.
“Of course,” said Ritter.
“You let Felix go,” she said.
“Let’s not talk shop,” said Ritter. “Let’s have some fun. Let’s relax. Do you know my friend, Bruno Hauptmann?”
“Oh,” said Armina.
Hauptmann raised an eyebrow, stood up, and extended his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He turned to Ritter. “Haven’t I?”
“Yes,” said Ritter. “We were just talking about you.”
The pale fingers were extended in her direction, the nails manicured, the hand absolutely steady, marblelike, as though it were from a statute, and as she stood there, his hand had the attraction of the abyss at the edge of a cliff, somehow compelling if only for its horror: Armina reached out and took it, the fingers cool and dry. She looked him in the eye and then dropped his hand.
“You let Felix go,” she said to Ritter.
“He’s more useful this way,” he said. “We’ll pick him up later when we’ve gotten what we want.”
“How much later?” she said
.
“Oh,” said Ritter. He hesitated and his eyes went over her face, as though considering something he saw for the first time, as though looking at her when she was dead. “Soon. Soon.”
“Maybe I’ll find him first,” said Armina.
“Maybe,” said Hauptmann. “A very dangerous young man, don’t you think?”
“The songs are about to begin,” said Ritter. “Let’s forget all this for now.”
Hauptmann sat down. Armina still felt the buzzing in her hand where he had touched her, and as she stared at Ritter, she picked up his champagne class. Ritter stared back, raised a brow. The members of the audience shifted in expectation, murmured, turned toward the stage, and everywhere the room was filled with the glitter of glass and diamonds, of the glint of silver and the crème-colored china on the tablecloths. Armina moved the glass, as though to throw the wine in Ritter’s face. He flinched. She went right on staring at him and then slowly put the glass back on the table.
“So,” he said. “Cheap tricks. I wouldn’t expect it of you. But listen.” He looked up at her. “Listen.”
He beckoned with his fingers, the gesture quick and insistent, as though he were pulling a trigger and didn’t care who he hit. He beckoned again, his eyes on hers, his expression so angry that he seemed almost vibrant, like the string of an instrument.
“Come closer,” he said. “Here.”
She put her head next to his lips, and for a moment she almost expected that he would bite her. His breath was tinted with the sour odor of champagne.
“Listen. Are you listening?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding,” he said.
“I’m listening,” she said.
He put his lips closer yet and said, “Breiter was helping the Soviets and the Germans make arms in Russia. To get around the Treaty of Versailles. Now, no one, not the Russians, not us, wants that known. So it isn’t just the fact that he got killed. We don’t care about that. We care about silence. Silence.”
She pulled back, her hand touching her ear, as though she could wipe away the touch of his breath.
“And after that,” she said. “What do you want?”
Ritter turned to Hauptmann and said, “What do we want?”
Hauptmann began to crack his knuckles, the snapping coming from one finger and then the other. He went about it slowly, as though using the cracks, the splitting sound to count something. Then he laced his fingers together to see if there was anything more, another sound, another crack. Then he started again, going through his fingers to find one that would make a snap, his eyes on Armina, as though that sound were the answer he wanted to make.
“Do you hear that?” said Hauptmann.
“Yes,” she said.
“Don’t forget it,” he said.
Hauptmann turned to a woman who sat near the stage, her legs bouncing up and down with a sultry impatience in the opening where her skirt was only partially buttoned together. Then Hauptmann’s eyes swung toward Armina. His eyes were dull and seemingly without interest, but nevertheless, he still seemed mesmerized by possibilities of malice. Then he went back to looking at the woman on the other side of the room.
“And now that you’ve been warned you can do what you want and see what it gets you,” he said. “Go on. I invite you. Look into this some more. Be my guest.”
He looked toward the stage.
Armina went back across the room, trying to walk straight up, shoulders square, dignified and unintimidated. Then she sat down, slumping into her chair.
“Is there something wrong?” said Rainer.
She tried to speak, but then bit her lip. The light in the room made the women’s jewelry bright, sidereal in its glitter, and the silver chains, the diamonds seemed like points of light, like the tips of swords for dueling. The gold appeared almost liquid in its sheen. Rainer went on looking at her, but she shook her head, not No, I won’t tell you, but No, I can’t speak.
Rainer took her hand, and she pressed his fingers against it.
The singer said, “Oh, I understand what fun you’ve had. Oh, I know….” He sang a song about Berlin where he had had too much of everything, too much to drink, too much to eat, too many lovers, too many escapes, and between each verse, he blew into a small tube connected to a gimmick, an inflatable bladder, under his flowery vest. He appeared to swell, as though the excesses were visible, right then. His chest and stomach became enormous, and the singer patted himself, as though this bloat was a matter of pride. It wasn’t easy to get this way. Oh, no. But with each passing verse he swelled that much more, and as he did, he became alarmed. Why, he seemed to say, he had lost control after all, but what could he do? This is the way he lived. The audience laughed and applauded: yes, it had been wonderful. They’d never forget it. The singer laughed, his enormous belly and chest bouncing in the light.
The singer finished his song to more applause and then let the air out of the gimmick under his clothes. Yes, he seemed to say, what a relief. The air rushed out, his belly collapsed, and he stepped offstage. The audience applauded.
Ritter and Hauptmann sat on the other side of the room, where they clapped before they turned to Armina. Ritter dipped his head, as though to say, Good night, good night. Hauptmann just stared.
Armina’s fingers touched the flag, and as she felt the glance from across the room, she took Rainer’s hand and said, “Let’s go home. I’ve had enough.”
AT THIS HOUR the traffic had thinned out in the street, but bicycles still went along with the motorcars and carts drawn by horses. Armina took Rainer’s arm as they went down the avenue.
A cart filled with watermelons, lettuce, tomatoes, and potatoes for the morning market came along, its horse driven by a man who sat on a small seat. Automobiles passed it. A car honked. The driver of the cart turned to see what was wrong, and his horse screamed and reared in the traces. The horse looked like a figure made out of black metal. In the headlights of the cars everything could be seen, each spoke of the wheels, the mountain of vegetables like a pile of cannonballs, and the driver holding the reins. The horse stood on two legs and twisted in the traces. The cart driver jumped up from his seat and swore, but his voice was lost in the screams of the animal and the impact of the car that hit it squarely in the ribs. The cart driver hung in the air, suspended in the posture of holding the reins. A second car crashed into the one that had collided with the animal, the hood collapsing like a black accordion while the headlights made an almost bell-like sound as they shattered.
The horse hit the pavement with a smack, and the water from the broken radiator made a pissing sound. The driver of the cart now fell, straight down, like a man dropped from the second story of a building into the black mess, which was part animal, part machine, hysterical where it was alive, dark and losing oil where it was inanimate. Armina and Rainer stopped at the side of the mess, which leaked steam, blood, and oil.
The horse lay on its side, its eyes rolled back. The watermelons broke on the pavement, and the sanguine pulp mixed with the horse’s blood, its froth, and the ooze of oil from the car. A mist from the radiator hung over everything, machinelike in its stink but having the fragrance of the shattered fruit and the odor of manure. The horse kicked as it tried to get up, one leg waving with a floppy uselessness. The glass on the ground, so bright with spectral colors and filled with a sidereal glitter, made the street look like the heavens where a new constellation, part machine, part animal, had just appeared.
“Do you have your pistol?” said Rainer.
“Yes,” said Armina.
“Do you want me to do it?” said Rainer.
“No,” said Armina. “I guess not.”
Armina came forward, reached into her bag, and as she stepped down from the curb, trying to get around the panting animal, she slipped in the bloody oil. Rainer took her arm and helped her up, and while she looked at the slime, the oil and blood and water on her coat, he took the p
istol. The warm slime seeped down to her skin, and the touch of it, the oily caress, seemed to be everything that scared and trapped her, that confined her and left her hands shaking. That warm touch was everything she wanted to get away from, as though fear had become this liquid combination of blood, oil, and dirty water.
“Oh, no,” said Armina.
“It’s a mess,” said Rainer.
“A mess,” said Armina. She pulled the warm, sticky clothes away from her skin.
“You can get cleaned up,” said Rainer.
“Oh, no,” said Armina. “No.”
“I’ll get you some new clothes,” he said.
She shook her head. The animal screamed.
“The Soviets have been helping the Germans make arms,” she said. “Now what good can come of that? They want to hush it up.”
“And?” he said. “What else?”
She put one hand against another, as though she were going to crack one of her knuckles to remind herself of the sound: that snap and breaking, that crack, like finality itself.
He stood with the pistol in his hand, his eyes on the lunging horse.
“What else?” he said.
“That sound,” she said. “That sound. Of a cracking knuckle …” She made a gesture, as though to include everything around them. “We’re not safe. You know that, don’t you?”
Rainer moved back and forth in front of the combination of harness and engine, of tires and wooden cart, glass and leather. He put the revolver against the horse’s head. Then, in the bang of the shot the horse dropped its head in an infinitely gentle way, just lying down in the street as though taking the most delicate nap, and as it rested on the pavement with a touch as soft as a sigh, Rainer kept his eyes on Armina.
“We’ve got to go,” said Rainer.
“I can’t hear,” she said. “My ears are ringing.”
“I said we’ve got to go,” said Rainer.
“Gaelle knew something about Breiter, the man in the street. So, if I look into her, I will have to look into the Soviets and making arms.” She cracked one of her knuckles. “Like that,” she said. “Just like that.”
