Rain Girl

by Gabi Kreslehner

  She nodded, unconvinced. “Yes, probably.”

  He helped himself to a cup of cold coffee from that morning’s breakfast. “No one could contact us when we hitchhiked through Europe,” he said. “There were no cell phones. And we were younger than Ben. Our parents didn’t worry themselves sick. I think your job’s causing this.”

  Franza rolled the dough. It was just past midnight. “You’re probably right,” she said. Max took one last cookie and put it in his mouth.

  “Of course I’m right,” he said. “Also, you’re working too much. And so am I. Therefore, I’m going to bed now. It’s past midnight.”

  26

  Ben’s room badly needed airing. Franza tilted the window and picked up the dirty clothes strewn across the floor. Same as always.

  Back in the kitchen, she slowly stacked dirty dishes in the dishwasher, cleaned the countertop, and put the cookies away. It was just before one in the morning.

  She sat down at the window and stared out into the darkness. It was quiet in the house. She thought over what had happened that day, again and again. The nameless girl on Borger’s table. Then Port’s phone call and the name. Then her mother and her story. In that ancient garden full of trees.

  Franza closed her eyes, fighting back her tiredness, and the pictures started to spin. The dress with the strings of pearls. Hazel eyes. Silence.

  She thought of Port and that he’d known her, and that she didn’t know how he’d known her, and also that she didn’t know how far she should take her suspicions.

  She realized Port had probably just gotten home, and she thought of the coffeemaker on the backseat of her car. It should be christened.

  When she pulled out of their driveway, Max was standing at his bedroom window on the second floor, watching as she left. In the morning, he would find a note, hastily scribbled. Have to go back to the office. Will sleep there. Don’t worry. He would shake his head and feel the quiet in the house, its size, its emptiness.

  As she turned onto Port’s street she felt a pressure in her stomach again: too many cookies, way too much coffee, and for the hundredth time she decided to see a doctor. “You’ll end up on Borger’s table,” Felix had teased her, and Franza had forced a halfhearted grin.

  She couldn’t find a place to park in front of Port’s building, so she drove around the block and parked on a side street. Probably better this way. Conceal and deceive was the motto. No one should discover her second life.

  As she slowly walked back to his place, she thought about him, Port.

  Maybe it was a stupid idea to show up in the middle of the night. He was probably asleep, dead tired from the work he did onstage night after night.

  Maybe, though, he wasn’t alone. Franza knew that was what disturbed her most: he could be with someone else, someone he gave more than just a word or a glance. Right now, at this very moment, for instance.

  Maybe he had an actress with him. Or some admirer like Marie, who hated the production, but certainly not him.

  Or maybe the director was with him, the director of the next play—Port wanted so badly to play the lead. Maybe he was earning the lead role right now and she’d be interrupting him.

  What did Franza even know about him? And what rights did she have over him?

  None. None at all, of course!

  She shook her head in disgust, angry at herself for standing in front of his building—obviously in order to spy on him and obviously losing control over herself and her feelings. Shit, she thought. Shit! And she longed for his hands on her skin, in her hair.

  What was hiding behind the actor’s relaxed, handsome face? Behind his mocking eyes? When he raised his eyebrows she never knew what he was thinking. But his hands on her skin were honest, and his body was the most real thing she could imagine at the moment.

  It sucks, she thought. It sucks to be a woman, and not just an inspector-robot, a boss-robot, always in perfect working order.

  She stepped up to the entrance of Port’s apartment house and leaned against the huge door. Shivering with cold, she rubbed her arms and shook her head again.

  What kind of dark places was she carrying around inside her, what doubts? And he, Port? Did he have any dark places?

  What time, for example, had he gotten home the previous night? Before midnight? After midnight? Early morning? And if so, what had he been doing all night long? Hadn’t he looked weary when Franza stopped by, shadows in his eyes? And was it maybe his heart that was black as the night? She simply didn’t see it because she didn’t want to see it.

  She inhaled sharply, longing for a cigarette or a glass of schnapps, something to hold on to. She felt the nippy air. It was still quite cold at night, and she pressed herself against the door, shivering.

  What was she even thinking? Where was her professionalism? Her unfailing sense of judgment she used to be so sure of?

  Maybe she was simply . . . jealous?

  Could it really be the fact that Port had talked about Marie, the way he’d talked about her, that threw her off balance and brought her here now, to his apartment in the middle of town in the middle of the night? Was it just to make sure he was still Port, the Port she thought she knew inside and out?

  She thought with a little melancholy about how it all began. She hadn’t wanted to tell him her name, and he couldn’t settle for that. “You have to see,” he’d said, “that it can’t work like this. I want to think of you by name. I can’t think of you as the nameless one.”

  “Why are you thinking of me at all?” she asked. He rolled his eyes.

  In the end, he simply had made up a name for her, called her Lea.

  At first they met out of town at a motel along the autobahn. Every time she had thought it was the last time. But there was always a next time.

  Once he had brought a picnic basket full of things to eat. She didn’t like it.

  “Why are you bringing food?” she asked. “Are we hungry? No, we’re not. So why are you bringing food?”

  He just laughed at her annoyance. “Do you only eat when you’re hungry? Lea?”

  He had stressed the name strangely, almost a little maliciously. She felt irritated and somewhat embarrassed, but she helped herself anyway.

  Later, he ate strawberries off her belly with obvious enjoyment. She had nuzzled his neck lightly but she didn’t allow herself any real tenderness.

  “You won’t do that again,” she had said later. “I don’t want you to do that.”

  “What?” he asked, surprised. “What?”

  “The food!” she said. “I don’t want this food. I just want to fuck, that’s all—just fuck, screw, bang. Whatever you want to call it.”

  He was pissed off and shook his head. “You talk like a man,” he said, “and you have no idea.”

  “Is that so?” she sneered. “Why not talk like a man? We’re long past women following their men around like dogs.”

  “If you say so,” he said grimly. “You can have your fuckscrewbanging.”

  She could taste the mold on the wall and his anger behind her. It had clung to her until she saw blue shadows. She liked it.

  She hadn’t allowed herself tenderness in a long time. The occasional gentle touch maybe, but nothing more.

  She didn’t allow him any, either. He couldn’t become her shadow. She didn’t want to walk through life fulfilled only by him, surrounded by the glow of his love like a Madonna.

  She just wanted sex, a little action now and then—sex was healthy and saved you from going to the gym. If he started acting like a prima donna, complaining about her callousness, demanding romance, and turning up with strawberries to put on her belly, then he wouldn’t last long.

  That’s what she had thought. For a while. At first. But soon she couldn’t get enough of him.

  When she took a shower he liked to watch her. He sat on the toilet, head in his hands. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t like that, said that washing oneself was as cold and clear as any porn, so she should like
it.

  So they did it. Twice a week, sometimes more. As often as they could. They fucked. It wasn’t anyone’s business, only theirs. When she closed her eyes his back tasted of Portugal. The Atlantic roared in her ears.

  She’d been there once, more than twenty years ago. It had been the pits, nil, nada, niente. She always had sand in her teeth, the wind blew nonstop as she gazed toward Africa, and there weren’t any decent guys around to make the situation better.

  She didn’t have any photos from that trip, hardly remembered how steep the cliffs had been, but Port’s back gave her a vague feeling of having seen it.

  Every time, she had sworn there wouldn’t be a next time. But there always was, and eventually she told him her name. He just grinned and nodded, and she had a strong feeling he’d already known anyway.

  He had given her the address of his apartment on the fifth floor of a house not far from the theater. The building was occupied mostly by artists like him: actors, singers, painters, writers—people from all around the world.

  Once Franza had gone to visit him late at night, after a long day on an exhausting stakeout, and she’d sat with Port’s neighbors in his apartment, talking and laughing in different languages—Russian, English, Spanish, whatever. Although Port had welcomed and introduced her very naturally, Franza couldn’t shake the feeling of being a stranger in a foreign, unreal place. It saddened her because it showed her plainly what she’d suspected all along: namely that they were living in different worlds.

  There were lights in his windows on the fifth floor; she could easily see that from the street. So he wasn’t asleep yet, but was he alone?

  Franza pulled her phone out of her bag and dialed his number. He picked up right away.

  “I bought a coffeemaker,” she said. “Can I set it up in your kitchen?”

  It was quiet on the other end, and she sensed his surprise and a little hesitation.

  “Now?” he asked eventually.

  “Now.” she said.

  Silence again. I’m dying, she thought. Please God, let me die.

  “Yes,” he said. “Come on.”

  He was leaning in the open doorway when she came up the stairs. She didn’t look at him but just walked straight by him into the kitchen and heard him closing the door and following her. She unwrapped the coffeemaker, plugged it in, rinsed it out once, twice, and then she put in a filter and ground coffee. It smelled delicious even before the hot water ran through. She wished he would come closer, but she realized he was waiting, waiting expectantly.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “At this hour of the night?”

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and felt him even before he touched her. Then he was there, behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and she snuggled up to him, to his warmth, turning around to face him. She felt miraculously comforted.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s the matter?” She finally broke down, crying into his hair, into the hollow of his shoulder, which smelled of the night and of losing oneself, of letting go—and when she finally let go, her bad conscience returned, and her fear.

  The coffee was brewed, and she forced herself to let go of Port’s shoulder. She could feel clearly, like never before, that one day she would be broken, her bones would fall to pieces one at a time, her skin a pathetic pile of tenderness, at some beach she loved, lost and gone. Finally they made love, no longer fucked. They hadn’t fucked for a long time now.

  For the first time it was crystal clear to her. It didn’t surprise her, but it hurt, because it pushed Max out once and for all and she didn’t know where he’d land—in a soft meadow or on a concrete floor.

  Later on the dark terrace, they shared a croissant, which had gone stale during the day, and more coffee, this time with vodka, so that even Port liked it.

  Marie had been in the dark, too, but on her own and close to death. Moribund as Borger would call it: “Moribund, as we Latin students say.”

  Her thoughts wandered, and she decided to ask Borger if he’d ever thought he might be gay, because somehow he never got along with women.

  “Do you think Borger is gay?” she asked Port, and remembered in that instant that Port didn’t even know Borger, and she felt a new lightness inside her and had to laugh.

  “Who?” Port asked. “Borger? Who’s that supposed to be?”

  Franza kept laughing, the vodka having gone to her head, and she tried to imagine Borger with a man, tie-Borger in bed with a man—no, that didn’t work, that really didn’t work, the thought was absolutely absurd, but somehow it wasn’t.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, no one, it’s not important.”

  “Then why are you grinning like that?” Port asked. “Come on, tell me!”

  “Your director,” she asked. “Does he wear ties?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “My director!” he said. “My director isn’t my director. And yes, sometimes he does. Why?”

  “Just asking,” she said. “Just asking,” and continued to grin. Maybe they could hook him up with tie-Borger.

  After all, he was crazy about art and artists, as she now knew. Kill two birds with one stone. Borger’s miserable single life would be over, and the director wouldn’t be making eyes at Port anymore.

  “So, little witch,” Port said, throwing a cushion at her, “why this diabolical grin? What do you have up your sleeve?”

  She threw the cushion back at him. “Your director,” she teased, “will forget all about you once he’s seen my tie-Borger.”

  After they tussled a little and landed in a corner of the couch, he said, “But I need my director, as you call him. I have to convince him. I want to be Hamlet!”

  He paused theatrically and struck a dramatic pose. “To get this role,” he said, “to get this role, Frau Inspector, any serious actor would commit murder. Murder! Do you understand?”

  She moved her head from side to side, undecided.

  “Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “I’d only fuck!” He giggled, the vodka having had its effect on him as well. “But I’d do a good job of it. Why not? I’ve made love to men before, onstage. What’s the difference?”

  She pretended she hadn’t heard it, the subtle irony in his voice, the little digs.

  “Are you worried?”

  She ignored it. “Hamlet?” she asked. “Is that the guy in love with his mother?”

  He sighed. “No, dearest. That’s Oedipus. Did you play hooky a lot in school?”

  “Who cares,” she said. “It’s always the same story. They die and murder as much as they can, and in the end they’re all dead. And you’re fighting for a role like that?”

  She sat up and looked at him. It had gotten so late she was dizzy thinking about it.

  “Well,” he said. “That’s your field, too, really. Death.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “True. Can you get the vodka?”

  When he returned he was swaying a little. “You’re jealous!” he said, and she could hear how surprised he was. “You’re actually jealous!”

  Now she was surprised herself, because she knew he was right, and she stared at him, for seconds—an eternity—and she felt her heart beating like a drum. To die, she thought, now. Forever, and not have to deal with anything anymore.

  She grabbed her jacket and her bag, and headed for the door, but he jumped up and blocked her path, holding her tight. “No!” he said. “No. Stay, please.”

  She stayed.

  Back on the terrace, they drank some more and ate the freshly baked cookies she’d brought with her. It had become quiet down on the street, and patches of light were appearing in the darkness. It was muggy; there’d be a thunderstorm, a downpour that would hit the street and bounce back up as little drops of water and evaporate back into the air, back into the wind, a never-ending cycle.

  Marie, Franza thought, was racing the raindrops. That’s how she’d been, a bundle of energy, and she’d probably won the race.

  �
�Once, we almost got very close,” Port said so quietly she could barely hear. She knew immediately he was talking about Marie, and she felt the sting, firm and sharp, a tugging pain.

  This must be telepathy, she thought, what a fragile idyll. Deep down she wanted to laugh, but then fear took hold of her.

  “You did?” she asked, trying to sound interested, like a detective should.

  “Yes,” he said. “For a brief moment. A really brief moment. But then one of us hesitated, and it was over.”

  He fell silent, thinking about it as she waited expectantly, looking into his eyes, unfathomable darkness. Fragile idyll, she thought again, shit, shit! She had the metallic taste of that fragility on her tongue.

  “I don’t even know who,” he said finally. “Her? Me? Both of us? Do you know what I mean? A fraction of a second and you choose life or death, but you don’t know, not in that moment.”

  She had pulled herself back together and tried to laugh. “Aren’t you being a little dramatic? Choosing life or death! Shouldn’t that be onstage?”

  “No,” Port said. “Stage! Life! What’s the difference? Why are you making fun of me?”

  She stroked his face gently, tracing the lines of his cheeks, his nose, his mouth. I love you, she thought. “We didn’t miss the moment, this magical fraction of this magical second.”

  For a long time now they’d been making love, not just fucking anymore.

  27

  A nap, she thought. A nap would be really nice right now.

  Unlike Port, who was still asleep, she had to get up and go to work. She knew she’d be irritable today, and she knew later she’d have to apologize to Felix and Arthur and Robert and everyone else for her foul mood. She decided to knock off punctually that night and get ten hours of sleep.

  Things were already hectic in the office. Her colleagues were examining, organizing, and checking up on the calls coming in.

  “So!” Franza said in a cheerful tone meant only to cheer herself. “What’s up?”

  “Lots,” Felix said. “Really quite a lot. Did you have trouble sleeping? You look awful.”