The Empire of the Senses

by Alexis Landau

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Alexis Landau

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.

  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Landau, Alexis.

  The empire of the senses : a novel / Alexis Landau.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-87007-5 (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-101-87008-2 (eBook).

  1. Jews—Germany—Fiction. 2. Interfaith marriage—Fiction.

  3. World War, 1914–1918—Campaigns—Eastern Front. 4. Germany—

  Social conditions—1918–1933—Fiction. 5. Life change events—Fiction.

  6. Identity (Psychology)—Fiction. 7. Jewish fiction. I. Title.

  PS3612.A547495E47 2015 813’.6—dc23 2014023895

  www.pantheonbooks.com

  Jacket images: (left) John Chillingworth/Picture Post/Getty Images; (right) George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images

  Jacket design by Janet Hansen

  v3.1

  For Philip

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Two

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Part One

  1

  The Eastern Front, August 1914

  At first, the men were drunk off the euphoria of leaving Berlin, dreaming of virgin battlefields, singing and sharing flasks of whiskey when night fell. But Lev could not join in, blocked by a numb indifference that had settled over him as he observed the others with a clinical eye, picking apart their features, imagining how grotesque some of these men would appear if he sketched them asleep, their open mouths inviting flies. Yes, he’d volunteered when war was announced—but that day, only two days ago, already appeared fantastical, full of heated parades and brass bands, too much drink, his oxford shirt sticking to his chest in the humid air, and Josephine, waiting for him at home in the shaded courtyard, clutching her hat in her hands. She’d nearly ruined it, the one with the velvet flowers. He gently took it away from her and explained how he’d volunteered, to ensure he’d be called up first, to ensure no one would accuse him of shirking. He had said no one darkly because they both knew whom he meant—her mother and father, her brother, her whole Christian family, who despised him because he was a Jew. Even after seven years of marriage, seven biblical years, they hated him.

  Josephine had blinked back tears, mumbling something about how perhaps a shortage of equipment would delay his leave.

  No, no, he said. It wouldn’t. “And where did you hear that, about lack of equipment?”

  “Marthe.”

  He suppressed a laugh. “Still consulting your housemaid on such matters?”

  She shrugged.

  Lev nodded, trying to sympathize, but really, procuring information from Marthe? Large bumbling Marthe, who, although she expertly ironed the bedsheets and brought in afternoon tea at three o’clock sharp, never forgetting the lemon wedges, knew nothing of military matters.

  Josephine brushed a hair out of her eyes. “But why must you go directly?” Here she was, acting like a girl of eighteen when at twenty-five she had already suffered the agonies of childbirth, twice, giving him Franz and then Vicki. The children were asleep, napping in the nursery. Soon Marthe would wake them. He pushed away the thought of their warm sleepy bodies, of how they clung to him when they woke, as if he might slip away, as if they had already dreamed this. Tonight, Lev would explain his departure to Franz, who, at six, would understand, and Vicki, only four, who might not. After he went, Josephine would weave a grand story they could all believe, a story repeated over dinner and again at bedtime. A story that would lessen the blow of his absence. Was she capable? Or would she become so wrapped in her own sorrow, the tale would not hold? He must tell her what to say, exactly how to phrase it, so the children would understand why he had evaporated, like the receding condensation on the bathroom mirror Franz traced his finger through after Lev’s daily shave, drawing a gun with his pinky.

  He looked at her face. Admiral-blue eyes, as if spun from colored glass. The delicate bridge of her nose framed by high cheekbones. Her arched eyebrows the color of wheat, which now drew together in worry. Please tell them a good story, he thought.

  “But we still have some time?”

  He inhaled sharply. “I’m leaving tomorrow. On the three o’clock transport train.” Saying tomorrow made his heart pound, for her and for him. Too soon. So little time. He wondered if she would let him inside her tonight, their last night. On special occasions, she proved more compliant. Tonight, he thought, was a special occasion. The thought of her turning away, saying her head hurt, flashing that half-apologetic smile, infuriated him.

  He stared down at his lace-up oxfords. Scuffed tips. Should take them in, he thought. No point—tomorrow he’d be gone. He pictured his empty shoes standing in his dark closet, perfectly in line with the other pairs.

  Josephine touched his arm. “What are you thinking?”

  The courtyard’s uneven stones made their chairs lean slightly off kilter, and for a moment, it looked as if she might slide off.

  “My shoes are scuffed.”

  “What?” she said.

  How afraid should he feel of war? The question burned. But it didn’t matter how much fear he felt or didn’t feel—he was already in it, signed up and registered. And desertion promised death. They made sure everyone understood that.

  “How can you think of shoes, of all things? You’ll be gone by nightfall tomorrow and you don’t even know how to hold a gun.” He detected a hint of malice in her voice, as if he should know how to hold a gun properly, like her brother did, from shooting pheasant in Grunewald forest. But Lev had grown up in the city. Never touched a gun in his life. Never killed, not even a deer or a bird. Jews don’t hunt, he remembered his mother saying. Nor do they ride horses, sail, swim, fight in duels, or drink. And he remembered thinking:
What do Jews do then? All the valiant heroic activities were reserved for gentiles. For men like Josephine’s brother, Karl von Stressing, who taunted Lev with his gray-and-white dappled steed as he trotted through the Tiergarten, with his saber and his hunting rifle and his tall black boots. But now they were both privates enlisted in the German army, both fighting for Germany, both shooting and killing and then afterward, drinking in the trenches. Lev already tasted the vodka, clear and pure and burning in his throat.

  “How will you learn in time?” Josephine asked, more gently.

  “Training’s in the barracks close to the front, for four weeks, and then we’ll be sent off into the jaws of Hell,” he said, realizing how flat it sounded.

  “Please don’t say that.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked into her watery light eyes. “Back by Christmas. I promise.” When his mouth closed in on that word, promise, Lev knew it was a lie.

  As each night passed, the men grew listless and stared out the train windows. A pale student from the university sat beside Lev, frowning. He was studying to be an engineer. He flipped his brass lighter open and closed, methodically. The farther away they were from Berlin, the denser and darker the forests grew. The endless pines caught most of the light in their branches, creating a tunneling effect.

  Lev placed his palm against the cool glass of the windowpane. It was almost dawn. A hot rain had fallen, flooding the earth on either side of the tracks. Passing through Prussia, they clung to traces of home in an otherwise alien landscape: romantic ruined castles of the Teutonic Order with names like Creuzburg and Dünaburg. We are reclaiming what is truthfully ours, the men murmured. Lev nodded along, handing out wilted cigarettes. He felt an unexpected burst of goodwill for these strangers, shop assistants and students and businessmen and doctors and cobblers—they were all mixed together in the sweaty boxcar, and Lev marveled at the oneness war produces, a body of men breathing communal breaths, eating and sleeping and shitting together, who, when severed from their petty lives, from the realm of money and women, felt as free as in the fabled days of their boyhood summers.

  Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. The verse sprung to mind, as if the overwhelming foliage sprinting past him padded the insides of a monstrous whale that would spit them out at the end of the journey. But as far as he could see, there was no end. Only a cyclical green and brown interrupted by flashes of white birches. As he glanced upward, his eyes watered from the sharp blueness of the sky that had shed off the mistiness of dawn. Man is always trying to get away from nature, for nature is wind, rain, sleet, scorching sun, and she cares nothing if we suffer, Lev thought. We’re traveling deeper into her inhospitable womb. He blinked, trying to decipher this shade of blue. He had not seen it before; it was harsher, lacking the softness and civility of a Berlin sky.

  The arches of his feet itched inside the hot boots and his feet had swelled, along with his hands. His wedding band dug into his flesh. He realized he might easily die with it on and wondered if a Russian would cut it off for the gold. Melt it down into a lump. The train stalled. The man across from him, a portly bar owner, woke up alarmed. Thick heat pressed down on them, and the lack of movement roused the other men, intuitively fearing stillness. Gnats and flies buzzed, attracted to the sweat and salt of their ripe bodies. Another man greedily drank from his mud-colored canteen, draining the last bits of water. His Adam’s apple worked up and down, the odd bump accentuated by his thin red neck.

  The bar owner stood up unsteadily and barked, “Why are we stopped?” His eyes bulged. Someone grunted. The engineer sniffed and glanced away. Last night, Lev had shared a bottle of whiskey with this bar owner, who was now pacing the small length of the train car. Between sips they had reminisced of home. It had been a comfort to say the name of his street out loud—Charlottenstrasse—and to picture the front door of his house, recently painted midnight blue, with its brass handle, and to learn that this man lived on the other side of the park, a mere ten-minute stroll away. But watching him strut back and forth in his sweat-stained fatigues, his eyes jumping at the slightest snap in the woods, Lev realized he disliked him intensely, that he was a hysteric and a troublemaker. He decided to stay clear of him. He had to protect himself from this kind of man because this kind of man, Lev thought, often took the first bullet, as if a metal spitzer could sense calamity and direct its pointed tip toward it.

  The train lurched forward and back, sending the man into a defensive crouch. His stubby fingers searched for something to grip.

  Lev closed his eyes, moving his tongue over his teeth, the metallic coating a result of little water and too much tobacco. The blueness of the sky vibrated behind his closed lids. He had not slept well last night, occupied with rereading the letter that Josephine had slipped into his satchel, along with the blood sausages and an orange. Using the flame of his lighter to decipher her neat and tiny scrawl, he had thought the letter would contain a necessary revelation, an outpouring of emotion that had been concealed by the hum of their quiet domesticity. His hands had trembled as he opened the letter, the cream paper appearing so white in contrast to his ashen fingertips. He read greedily, without pause.

  Dear Lev,

  My only hope is that you will return by Christmas. The children will miss you terribly, even though as I am writing this you are still here, in the next room, packing your things. Especially Vicki; it will be very hard on her while you’re away. Try to come home safely even though I know you want to prove yourself. But you mustn’t think of impressing my mother or getting the Blue Max. To me, you are a true German, regardless. I have such faith in this. Write regularly and protect yourself.

  With love,

  Josephine

  The letter was dull. He had hoped she would return to the language of her girlhood, eight years ago when they had strolled through Schiller Park, protected by the velvety shade of the oak trees, and she had rested her head on his shoulder, her white neck outstretched, a sheen of sweat upon it, and she had whispered urgently about the physical need for him, how she felt a resolute tightness that must be this need and gestured to her pelvis shielded by white lace and starched cotton, her mouth finding his; the pressure of her palm against the back of his neck could still be felt if Lev concentrated hard enough to retrieve the moment. The letters then had been such grand explosions of feeling, of unearthed confessions, and yes, shame too. But the shame was rich and dark and full of the possibility for redemption. He folded her letter away.

  Lev stretched his legs and drank some tepid water. Yes, she had let him inside her on that last night. But granting permission was very different from wanting him. He’d encountered her unyielding body and remembered the way she turned her head to the side when he entered her, the way she breathed a sigh of relief when he’d finished, how much happier she appeared after it was done, rosy-cheeked and safely encased in her silk robe, pulling the sash tighter around her narrow waist while he lay there naked, legs spread apart, an affront to her.

  Feeling the resentment swell in his breast, Lev felt guilty. He might not ever see her again, and here he was enumerating her flaws, forgetting her attributes. And she had many attributes. She managed the household with searing practicality: she purchased the finest linens and employed the most competent housemaid and cook; she knew which flowers would bloom in the garden depending on the season and arranged the bouquets, expertly cut, into long glass vases so that every room contained fresh flowers straining toward the light. She kept the children clean and well looked after, clipping their nails and starching their shirt collars bright white—his own mother had failed at this.

  Most important, she gave shape to his life, providing Lev with a foothold in the mossy overgrowth of his work and social position, which otherwise would have felt slippery. Effortlessly, she put twenty overweight men from Stuttgart—potential buyers of the tricots and canvas Lev’s firm Bremer Woll-Kammerei produced—at ease as th
ey sat at her dining table and ate from her impeccable china. The men, their eyes trained on her, laughed heartily when she joked about the ineffectiveness of lace garters or how her father had known Peter Ulff, founder of the Berlin ribbon factory that supplied the royal regiments of the Austro-Hungarian empire. “When I saw those silky blue ribbons fluttering on the breast of every soldier during flag day or some such parade, all I could think of was little Herr Ulff asking me which shade of violet did I prefer at one of the many family gatherings he attended at our home.” Her eyes shone in the candlelight as she spoke, and her forceful command of the table allowed Lev to sink into the wine-infused darkness and admire how she animated the room with a charged energy that enlivened even the dullest of men, bringing color to their cheeks. Lev too would grow entranced with her performance, marveling at her ability to keep up the light, happy mood, stirring the blood of these stolid men, who by the end of the night agreed to purchase meters and meters of canvas from Bremer Woll-Kammerei for the production of their signature rucksacks.

  After these business dinners, her performance continued in the bedroom. The exaltation she felt at being useful to him, at being admired and gazed upon for so many hours by a tableful of men, fueled Josephine to reveal more of herself than she normally would. Cupping her breasts with both hands, she requested that Lev undress her, bit by bit, until only her plain naked body lay before him on the silk duvet cover. The silk of her skin against the silk of the fabric, the silkiness of their bodies twining together once they were both undressed felt natural and unimpeded. She did not wince or tense her legs when he slipped into her. Her body: angular, lean, taut tendons that quivered under his touch, sensitive to the slightest movement of his fingertips grazing her hip bone, the curve of her torso, the indented nape of her neck. It always seemed to Lev as if she barely had enough skin to cover her knees, her elbows, her cheekbones, creating an economy in her form, which became even more visible when she slid off her Oriental robe and slipped into bed beside him, her long cool body nestled against his stockier, rougher build.