Jasmine Nights

by Julia Gregson

  The camera clicked, the bulb flashed. ‘Danke,’ said the pilot. He gave a proper wink now and she patted his arm. And watching him make his leisurely way through the partygoers, and leave through the side door with Engel, she felt relief surge through her like new blood. Why had she felt so nervous about this? It had been nothing in the end. The job was done, she could go home, the strangest period of her life was now officially over.

  When the pilot disappeared into the fug of the crowd, Felipe turned to her and said softly, ‘I need a smoke. You stay here. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. I think your boy would like a dance.’

  Marlene Dietrich was singing ‘Falling in Love Again’ on the gramophone when Severin stepped out of the shadows and gave a short bow. ‘Möchten Sie Tanzen?’ he said. He clicked his heels, smiled his gentle smile and pulled her out of her chair.

  It was too hot, and he was too close; she felt hemmed in by his intense gaze.

  When the song ended, she pretended to be overcome by the heat, and excused herself with a fanning gesture. When he frowned, she pointed at her watch and held up five fingers, forcing herself to smile.

  She had meant to go outside and sit in the cool for a while, but the door was blocked by shouting men, so she ran quickly up the short flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs to the bathroom on the right of the first landing.

  Her face in the mirror looked pinched and tired. It was ten past twelve; she longed for home now, not the hotel room in Istanbul, but somewhere with Dom if he’d have her. She flushed the chain, stepped out on the landing, and looked up. There was a light on in the bedroom, and she saw with relief Felipe’s patent-leather shoes gleaming, his trousered legs half visible in the door frame.

  ‘Felipe,’ she walked towards him, ‘any chance we could leave soon? I’m fagged out.’

  The door opened. Inside was a double bed covered with greatcoats. The bedside light, partly concealed by a silk scarf, cast a sludgy red glow over the room. One of Felipe’s cigarillos was smouldering in an ashtray.

  ‘Has our friend gone?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You did well.’

  ‘You’re a good boy to tidy up here,’ she joshed him, he was about to reply when she saw the imperceptible shake of his head.

  She saw it too now – a smudged face in the wardrobe mirror behind him. When it came into focus, she saw Severin at the door; he was holding a gun.

  ‘So, you are here,’ he said softly. ‘My little Valentine. Your English has improved.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said to Felipe, who was breathing rapidly. ‘Kneel down, and then empty your pockets. Put everything on the bed.’

  ‘Don’t hurt her.’ Felipe’s eyes had shrunk into his head. ‘She knows nothing about this.’

  ‘Empty your pockets, please.’ Severin’s voice was polite, even regretful.

  A silk handkerchief was placed on the eiderdown, three tortoiseshell plectrums, a packet of cigarillos, a photograph of a woman holding a child’s hand.

  ‘And now the inside pocket. Danke. I don’t enjoy this, you know,’ he said in the same quiet voice. ‘My wife is a musician also.’

  A piece of paper with a diagram fluttered down; some numbers, figures, what looked like a list of names.

  Severin groaned; Saba felt the gun prod her side.

  ‘We’re going to have to do something, you know,’ he said to Felipe. ‘I shall call the others up in a minute. I have no choice.’

  ‘Don’t hurt her.’

  ‘I shall do what I have to do.’

  The rumbling surge of boots sounded like rock falling off a cliff. She could not bear to look at Felipe, who was shaking and moaning. From downstairs, shouting, and Marlene still singing on the gramophone. For a few seconds the lights in the house were switched off and she heard the high-pitched scream of one of the girls, and then more shouting before several cars drove away in a wash of lights that swept over the room, and illuminated Felipe’s mask-like face in the mirror. He must have known he was done for.

  When the lights came on, two men were holding him, and there appeared to be an intense debate going on about what to do with Saba. In the end Severin stepped forward; he was calmer than Engel, who was practically gibbering with fear and panic.

  Felipe, still immaculate in his dinner jacket, managed to smile at her before a man who she did not recognise came into the room. He put a gun to Felipe’s temple and pulled the trigger. There was a look of mild surprise in Felipe’s eyes before they went blank, and blood and bits of his brain began to splatter the floor.

  She heard herself scream; in the moment of panic that followed, she stumbled into Severin’s arms and shouted senselessly at him.

  When she pushed him away, he fumbled through the coats and found a silk scarf, which he tied around her mouth, and then the world went black as a blindfold went on and a gun was pressed into her ribs.

  The coppery smell of blood, and then the dull thump of boots going into Felipe’s sides, and the swish of his coat as they dragged him out of the room. Downstairs she heard shouting, as if a furious argument was going on, what sounded like a tray of glasses breaking, and all the while Marlene, stuck in the groove of a record, singing and singing; obscenely and endlessly singing, as if she was trying to deliberately drive them mad.

  She waited for them to come upstairs and get her, but the next thing she heard was the crunch of gravel, and the receding sounds of their footsteps, a car engine starting up with a roar and driving off fast.

  She felt Severin’s mouth against her ear. A hot jet of air into the darkness.

  ‘You’re with me,’ he said, ‘until they come back.’

  Chapter 37

  I’m blind, was her first thought when she woke up. There was a mattress under her, but she was hemmed in by total darkness. When she tried to touch herself to see what hurt, the bed she’d been tied to made a hollow rattling sound and she felt a stinging, burning sensation in her ankles and wrists, as if she’d been stung by a giant wasp.

  Her numbed brain remembered running feet, doors slamming, the wash of car headlights leaping through the trees. She wiggled her feet as violently as she could without making any sound, but it was no good, they were tied tightly, and more awake now, she could feel her scalp, tight with terror. They’d be back soon; all she could do was lie and wait like a bound animal.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she mumbled into her gag. It was deathly quiet in the rooms underneath with the partygoers gone. Her blindfold – a stocking? – smelled musty and faintly of cheese, and all she could hear was her own jagged breathing and the wind, and what sounded like the faint peepings of a far-off bird. She expected to die; it would now be obvious to all of them that she was Felipe’s accomplice, and they would shoot her as they had shot him – the warm, meaty smell of his blood still filled her nostrils, the memory of that look of mild surprise in his eyes before they’d gone blank made her feel sick with disgust and sorrow for him. And if they shot her too, none of the people she had known and loved would have the slightest idea she was here.

  If she squeezed her eyes very tight, the darkness whirled and the faint pinpricks of light that appeared made her think of Dom’s description of night flying: how you could feel on the rim of the world up there. Dom would think she hadn’t cared, or, maybe, gone to meet someone else. I’m sorry, Dom, she said to him, I’m so sorry.

  She slept for maybe an hour or so – time felt slippery in the dark – and waking and feeling tears leaking down the side of her face, she gave herself a fierce talking-to. The blindfold would make her hysterical – it was happening already. Something must be done. She tried, for a while, to turn it into a cinema screen on which she could project any kind of film she liked. She was sitting with Dom having lunch in a restaurant with checked tablecloths overlooking the sea. After lunch, they walked down to a pebbly beach; they sat there talking and eating ice creams. They took a bicycle ride down an avenue of poplar trees leading to a country pub; they walked into her parents’ house
at Pomeroy Street. Tan was there cooking lunch, she could smell it, roast lamb and rice and spices, every one hugging and kissing her, even her father.

  She was playing this game when she heard, from the room below, the high-pitched screech of what sounded like a singing kettle coming to the boil, the scuff of a chair, the faint chink of china being moved. Someone was there – she wasn’t alone. She lay listening to her own heart pumping; a few moments later a man’s footsteps ascended the stairs slowly step by step, and then the lift and release of the door opening.

  ‘Who is it?’ Her voice muffled by the gag.

  No sound, just the door closing, and the creak of floorboards, and then the soft exhalation of a cushion as a body sat down on a chair, maybe two feet from the bed, the sound of a deep sigh.

  ‘Please tell me.’ She felt someone’s breath rustling her face, her blindfold being adjusted by fingers that were neither rough nor gentle, and then the ropes that tied her to the bed being tightened too.

  She smelled coffee being poured, then heard the clink of a cup and a gentle, well-bred slurp, a discreet swallow, a man’s cough.

  Whoever it was began to chew slowly on what smelled like rye bread, and something sharp and sweet like jam. His chewing was not noisy. He swallowed more coffee, and she felt herself intensely stared at. She heard the cup being put carefully back on the tray, and a shuffling towards the door where the tray was set down, and then footsteps coming back towards her. The darkness was shrilling behind her blindfold now; the footsteps were more decisive.

  She gasped, feeling his bulk sit down on the bed beside her.

  ‘Who are you?’ she mumbled into the gag.

  Some hair tickled her ear; the heat of coffee on his lips and its smell.

  ‘Severin.’ His voice was low and uncertain. ‘Don’t be frightened.’

  One night when she was young, a family of bats had flown through an open window and into the house. She’d seen a tiny webbed hand around the attic door, and felt the same kind of crawling dread now as his hand stroked her hair.

  ‘I will take this off,’ he loosened the gag, ‘but not if you scream.’

  ‘I won’t . . . but please . . .’ she heard his stifled moan as his free hand gently kneaded the crown of her head, his fingers moving in circles, ‘please don’t, and take this off too.’ She twitched her face around the blindfold. ‘I can’t see.’

  Calm down, calm down, else you’re a dead duck: an almost jocular voice inside her. His hand moved towards the nape of her neck, probing the muscles there.

  ‘Please, talk to me.’ No reply, nothing but a small shivery jet of air coming from his nostrils, as his hand moved down towards her belly. When the hand stopped, it seemed he was weighing up several possibilities at once, like a boy who has captured a bird and who is not sure whether he will hurt it or not.

  ‘Severin,’ she said. ‘Please don’t do this. I don’t think you want to.’

  He loosened the blindfold, and pushed it back into her hair. In the ruddy glow of the lamp, his chest looked hairless and smooth like a girl’s. She heard the soft clink of his belt as it hit the floor. The smell of charred cloth from the scarf draped over the lamp gave her the mad thought that maybe the house would burn down first.

  A line of fine blond hair went down from his navel to the top of the trousers he was now unzipping. His neck, too long for a man, gave him a startled giraffe look.

  ‘They’ve gone now,’ he said. ‘I will look after you until they come back.’ He bent down towards her. His eyes were red-rimmed – had he been crying? – and there was the strangest expression on his face, somewhere between compassion and menace.

  ‘Sorry about all the mess in here and all the noise before,’ he said mildly.

  To stop herself screaming, she bit the inside of her lip.

  His voice was soft. ‘He was a good musician, your friend,’ he said.

  She squeezed her eyes tight shut to block out the sound of Felipe’s dying before they’d dragged him downstairs. The drip and slurp of his head emptying on the floor.

  ‘Why have they left me here?’

  ‘I told you, I will look after you until they come back.’ He stopped suddenly and wrinkled his nose, as if smelling the blood for the first time.

  He untied her roughly and pulled her to her feet, then snatched the blindfold off. She saw the brass bed, a sagging sofa with a rug over it, all soaked in the rust-coloured glow of the lamp. On the wall, above a chest of drawers, there were a couple of badly framed reproductions. Severin led her over to one in which a man in the foreground stood against a sea of mist with trees poking out of it. ‘I like this one,’ he said softly. ‘I studied art history, you know, before I was in the army. It’s called A Wanderer in a Sea of Fog, the artist is Friedrich,’ he added in a mechanical lecturer’s voice.

  ‘A wanderer in a sea of fog.’ His voice broke suddenly. ‘I feel this at the moment, because I liked your friend, I admired him even, I didn’t want it to happen like this.’

  He was holding his belt in his hands, lip stuck out, his eyes innocent-looking and sad; for one confused moment she thought he would burst into tears.

  When he kissed her, his breath stank of sausage and cigarettes.

  ‘No, no, please, no.’

  ‘This is pretty,’ he said woodenly. His hand squeezed her breast. ‘Your dress. It’s pretty, I like it.’ They both stared at the green silk, Felipe’s blood splattered on its hem. She began to thrash and push him off.

  ‘Don’t, don’t.’ She crossed her hands over her breasts.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said, his Adam’s apple leaping in his throat. ‘Just take your dress off, please, there is too much blood. Lie face down on the bed, and rest, all I want to do is to look at you.’

  The zipper of her dress was on the right side. She pretended to struggle with it, her mind racing furiously.

  ‘So you studied art history?’ She forced herself to look directly at him. He was adjusting the silk scarf over the light, all fuss and long white fingers. ‘Where, may I ask?’

  ‘In Berlin – my college is a heap of bricks now.’ He inhaled noisily. ‘Take that off – I know the game you play.’ His voice was rough and would take no more nonsense. He jerked the dress over her head. She was wearing silk stockings and a suspender belt.

  ‘Lie down on the bed, take off your underclothes and brassiere.’

  Her mind went a complete blank.

  ‘I’m not surprised to hear you were an art student,’ she said. She unhooked her suspender belt, still looking at him. ‘You have a very sensitive face.’ She could hear her heart thumping.

  He looked surprised.

  ‘All I want to do is look at you,’ he said unsteadily.

  ‘Like a model in a life class,’ she said. ‘One who would like to stay alive.’

  ‘One who would like to stay alive,’ he repeated. She could hear him thinking.

  ‘So, if you are a model, let’s say in a sculpture class, I must measure you to get the proportions right.’

  She felt something hard go down her spine – a belt buckle? A gun? – and suppressed a scream.

  ‘First, north and south.’ The cold scratch of steel moving down her buttocks. ‘You have a beautiful back,’ he said. ‘Then west and east’ – his voice slurred and he pronounced it wessa and eassa. ‘Whoops!’ He stumbled against her. He was drunker than she’d thought. The smell of vodka combined with sausage as he belched. ‘Begging your pardon.’

  ‘Accepted. The others,’ she said. ‘When will they get back?’

  ‘Not for a long time, shut up your mouth.’ His voice was petulant, she had spoiled his game.

  There was nothing playful now about his hand shovelling between her legs. She could feel her hysteria rising; soon she would spit or scream or strike him.

  ‘Severin,’ she forced her voice low, ‘you’re too good for this. For your own sake, don’t do it.’

  He was muttering in German, and then, ‘Shut up. You don’t kno
w me.’

  He turned her over abruptly, put the blindfold on again, and stuffed a pillow under her. ‘Keep quiet.’

  Her jaw went into a kind of rigor mortis as he climbed on top of her. For a few seconds he flung himself blindly against her, groaning and swearing, but then she felt the flop of him against her stomach like a rag doll.

  ‘You can’t do this because you’re a good man,’ she told him, unclenching her jaw. She felt her head bang against the brass bedstead. ‘Your wife is a good person, you’re a good person.’

  ‘Don’t talk about her!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t say anything.’

  His fingers jabbed inside her.

  ‘That is me,’ he shouted, ‘and that is me, and that is me.’

  It hurt, it felt horrible, and when it was over, even though she could feel his full weight on her, his fluid leaking down the back of her legs, she thought quickly: It hasn’t happened, it didn’t. He didn’t rape me. Wishing she had her gun on her, so she could hurt him and hammer him, could shoot him dead.

  His weight shifted; he grunted, an animal grunt of dismay, exasperation.

  ‘I should have told the others about you,’ he said, as if this was her fault and she disgusted him. ‘They only know about Felipe. I should have told them.’ He stood up abruptly and left the room, slamming the door behind him. She waited, her heart jumping out of her chest, listening for his footsteps on the stairs, but there was only silence. He was standing on the landing, or so she imagined, waiting to pounce again.

  A second or so later, the door opened. He came over to the bed and jerked her roughly to her feet.

  ‘Get up, put your clothes on and do your hair.’

  Her legs buckled as her feet touched the bare boards. She dressed herself in a daze and patted her hair, bewildered by the sight of her face in the mirror. He led her barefoot around the patch of dark blood where Felipe’s head had spilled, down the stairs into the hall near the kitchen.