The Empire of the Senses
Page 31
“Why are you awake?” Franz asked. He started to button up the front of his pajama shirt, but his fingers felt numb and thick.
Wolf smiled. “I was waiting up for you. Because I thought maybe … something untoward had happened. Between you and that man. And here you are, late, unsettled, looking as if you’ve had a dalliance in the woods.”
“There was no dalliance!” Franz nearly shouted.
Wolf slid down from the top bunk and stood close to Franz now, only a few inches separating them. Franz admired the downy hair on his upper lip, the way his eyelashes curled upward, his faint thin eyebrows. Wolf took him by the arm, and Franz felt the heat of Wolf’s palm seeping into his skin through the thin nightshirt.
“Tell me. I can see it on your face.” Wolf’s breath smelled peppery.
Franz looked down at the floor. “It was nothing, really. He tried some funny business on me—but I whacked him across the face. That shut him up.”
Wolf nodded for Franz to continue.
“He was bleeding and crying like a little girl.”
Wolf scanned the darkened room. “Where’s he now?”
Franz shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s find him—finish him off.”
“But, I—” He gulped down air, trying to stall. “I think he’s learned his lesson.”
Wolf clenched Franz’s shoulder. “Don’t you want to?”
Franz’s heart started beating violently again, his skin prickling with anticipation. Wolf’s warm hand now rested on the back of Franz’s neck, and his sharp eyes blazed with excitement.
“Yes,” Franz said. “I want to.”
Franz and Wolf tore through the woods. They ran in their sandals, their shirts flying open in the wind.
“Turn here,” Franz called out in the darkness.
“I think I heard something,” Wolf said, coming up behind him.
“He’s blind without his glasses. He’s probably still writhing where I left him.”
Wolf let out an explosive sneeze, shaking his head. “Which way?”
“Here,” Franz yelled, zigzagging through the trees. His body felt light and agile, and his muscles tightened like springs. In front of Wolf, he would not let pity get the best of him, even if the old bastard cried for mercy. But as he ran and circled and cut back, he realized the old man had escaped.
Franz walked back, wondering if at least his glasses were still there, tangled in the underbrush.
Wolf came up behind him. “Looks like he got away.”
Franz put his hands behind his head. “Damn.”
“Hey,” Wolf said, patting his back. “Next time.”
He felt his eyes water with relief. Paul had gotten away. He stared at the white birches gleaming in the darkness.
Wolf swung an arm around Franz. “This place is for the dogs anyway,” he said, kicking at leaves. “For perverts. And all that talk about sun exposure and nudity, Surén’s not actually doing anything except prancing around naked all day, dipping in and out of cold water.”
Franz laughed, grateful that at least Wolf seemed to favor him after what had felt like a long absence. Now it was summer, and they were together again in the woods joking about Surén and his theories, laughing about pole-vaulting in the nude. Dark low-hanging branches skimmed their heads, but every few paces, Franz would glance up at the flickering points of light dotting the sky, and he felt lucky.
23
On the way back from Rindbach, they always stopped in Nuremburg for lunch. The Maybach acted up on the hot dusty roads; the car proved unreliable in warm weather. Lev found it annoyingly opulent for motoring in the country, but Josephine preferred it to the sweltering train, full of workaday weekenders, as she called them. At the moment, she stared at the passing countryside with a mournful look on her face while Vicki, who sat in the backseat, complained of the heat. Lev resisted leaving Berlin, often sending Josephine ahead to set up house. In the past, he’d even managed to spend just four short days in the deafening quiet of the country. But this year, with Franz away, Josephine refused to leave without Lev, arguing that she couldn’t manage Vicki on her own given Vicki’s recent moodiness and general disregard for all things familial. He thought he would appease her by staying the whole week, but everything had vexed her, from the china dish she’d mistakenly shattered, to Vicki’s recalcitrance, to the lackluster concerts at Mendelssohn’s villa; and Franz’s absence endlessly possessed her. “What do you suppose he’s doing now?” she would demand in the middle of dinner, interrupting a perfectly good conversation. Or she would worry that he was overexerting himself, not eating well, and training too much. When Lev tried to reassure her that Franz could look after himself, she grew tearful, arguing that Lev didn’t understand Franz, at which point Lev threw up his hands and remarked, “You’re quite right there.” She complained of fatigue, but when he suggested she rest upstairs, she snapped that she only wanted to be left alone. When he left her alone, reading his newspapers in the garden, she criticized him for burying his face in the papers, occupying himself with stories of distant people and places while ignoring his own family. Perhaps she was right, Lev thought, as his eyes scanned the headlines, searching for any news of those far-off Baltic provinces … for news of Mitau, or even Riga. It had become a kind of habit over the years, to scrutinize the international section of the paper, in hopes of finding some trace, some small thread that might tie him back to Leah. But there was nothing today: Yugoslavia severs diplomatic relations with Albania; Chamberlin takes off from Roosevelt Field to Germany in Miss Columbia. Lev sat up, his interest renewed by the next item: A total eclipse of the sun casts dark shadow over Sweden, Finland, and the northernmost regions of Russia.
Josephine glanced at him from under her wide-brimmed hat. She squatted a few meters away, pruning her white roses.
“Did you know there’s been a total eclipse of the sun in Russia?”
She snipped and snipped. “No.”
“Imagine, the whole country dark.” Leah must have seen it, from wherever she stood, a great huge shadow cast over the earth. Was she surprised? Frightened? What was she doing just before it occurred?
Josephine snipped more vigorously.
“You’re mutilating the poor rose bush,” he said.
“What do I care if the sun disappears for a few minutes in Russia?” She sighed, pulling up her long gardening gloves. “It’s a dark country anyway.”
“Hmmm,” Lev said, knowing when to retreat. It was no use engaging her in any kind of political discussion. In her mind, Russia was bad and Germany was good and that was that.
“And why,” she said, brandishing her sharp scissors through the air, “do you insist on reading about Russia, of all places. Every time I peek over your shoulder you’re reading about that godforsaken place.”
The high afternoon sun beat down on them. Lev wondered where Vicki was. She could dilute this brewing argument. His head itched under the ridiculous Tyrolean hat Josephine liked. He pulled it off. “Where’s Vicki?”
“Upstairs, reading. She’s been rather dreamy lately.” She gathered up the dead black twigs, arranging them into a neat pile. “Your scalp will burn.”
Lev threw the hat onto the grass. “It’s not as wretched as you say. I spent four years in the east.”
She faced him squarely. “Sometimes, it seems as if you never came back.”
“What do you mean?” Lev demanded. What more did she want? He came back to her. He provided generously for the children. He’d played along all these years, acting the happy husband, attending her soirees and hosting dinner parties and accompanying her to the ghastly opera, box seat and all.
Her voice quivered. “I sense sometimes that …”
“Mutti!” Vicki called through the kitchen window. “Mutti—where’s the needle and thread? I’m sewing new ribbons onto my pointe shoes and I placed it here just yesterday, and now it’s vanished!” Nearly half her trunk had been filled with gleaming satin pointe shoes, a f
aint rose color, each pair perfectly packaged within its own rectangular paper box. When Lev had joked that there were no ballet studios in Rindbach and asked if she was planning on pirouetting across the town square, Vicki, in a characteristic outburst, exclaimed how most likely she’d die of boredom here, so she might as well sew.
“It was here, on this windowsill!” she called out again.
Thank God, Lev thought. Thank God for Vicki’s missing needle and thread.
Josephine got up from the dirt and roses and strode into the kitchen.
“I only used it to mend a button,” Josephine said.
“But now it’s gone!” Vicki cried.
Lev closed his eyes, feeling the sun burn his scalp. His arm dangling from the chaise lounge, he stroked the grass. For a moment, a puff of clouds cast a shadow across his face. What does she know? he wondered. Does she know how often I think of Leah? How often I dream of her? Does she know I read the personal ads, wondering if anyone from Mitau is searching for relatives in Berlin? Does she know I once even placed a small personal ad in a few of the Yiddish dailies a year after I returned from the war? Leah from Mitau—if you are in Berlin, meet me at Monbijoupark, next to the Spree River, at 10 a.m., September 14. I’m waiting for you. He went there for a month, standing by the fountain, listening to its pitiful gurgling.
And last night’s dream, still so vivid it burned in Lev’s mind: they were going on holiday—not to Rindbach but some other Alpine retreat. Leah had never been to the mountains and she was giddy. He took her riding in the Maybach with the top down. Her black hair flew around her face. The road stretched endlessly before them. They had two precious days. She held his hand and wedged it between her warm thighs. He drove with his other hand. He wanted to pull over, but she told him to keep driving. “We only have two days,” she kept saying, in a voice that transmitted both joy and sorrow. Zalman, Josephine, the children, his work—their lives were suspended, two days magically granted to them without obstacles. The only promise they had to fulfill was the taking of their mutual pleasure.
Lev turned his head to the side. The sun had emerged from behind the clouds, burning with heat. He breathed slowly, replaying the dream, savoring each image, each sensation. Distantly, he heard Vicki and Josephine arguing in the kitchen.
On the drive back to Berlin, Lev couldn’t muster the energy to speak. His eyes burned as if sand had been rubbed into them, and his throat felt sore from having had circular arguments about which he could remember nothing. One fight in particular he did remember, as it had caused them to return to Berlin today, earlier than intended. The argument had been instigated by a fancy dress ball given by the D’Abernons, where a sprinkling of low-level diplomats and fading aristocracy dressed up in peasant costumes from Austria’s rural past. Lev had gone reluctantly, finding the whole affair retrograde and embarrassing. After eating too much duck terrine and drinking too much sturm, a kind of fermented grape juice, he’d found Josephine deep in conversation with a ridiculous man wearing a red tailcoat and white breeches. Noticing how Lev stared at his costume and mistaking this stare for flattery, the man informed them that he had always worn this to the imperial hunt banquets in Grunewald forest before the war. Josephine had clapped her hands and said quite loudly, “Your ensemble is such a wonderful combination of elegance and simplicity.” The man beamed with delight.
But Lev could no longer restrain himself. “I suppose you’re an enthusiastic supporter of Hindenburg as well?” To which the man replied, “Anything to undermine the republic!”
Josephine then flashed Lev a threatening look, but he ignored her and went on to say that with Hindenburg in power, they could finally return to gorging Germany on heroic dead ideals, on philistinism, just when he thought the darkest chapter in their history had already unfolded.
The man sputtered that at least he wasn’t a Bolshevik, and Lev raised his glass in mock celebration, shouting how they must continue to live as cozily as stuffed geese.
The man looked from Lev to Josephine as if he were a small child watching his parents fight. He swayed on his heels, his half-closed eyelids shimmering with moisture. It’s like arguing with a fish, Lev had thought. Josephine fanned herself and said something about the heat, to which the man heartily agreed, overjoyed to veer off the subject of politics. Although the French doors had been thrown open, the room was exceedingly warm. Lev tore off his dinner jacket. Just then music started, a live performance of the tarantella. The women, in their faded flowered dresses and matching caps, swirled to and fro with their partners in the middle of the ballroom. They beat tambourines against their thighs and laughed with the feigned abandon of farmers’ daughters.
Then the D’Abernons’ grandson marched past in a soldier’s green uniform with a steel helmet and tin drum. With his little eyes flashing under the helmet, he received many admiring smiles, which spurred him on to beat the drum even more forcibly. Josephine bent down and straightened his lapels, asking him where he got such a beautiful uniform. Lev struggled to suppress the bile rising in his throat. The music surged. The dancing women shrieked with pleasure as the men whirled them around faster and faster. “It’s from my granddaddy,” the little boy yelled, puffing out his chest. “You’re quite the little soldier,” Josephine exclaimed.
Lev had to escape this feverish room. Not watching where he was going, he bumped into an elderly woman bedecked in jewels. She dithered before him, confused, her red-painted mouth frowning. Her dyed black hair made her skin appear sickly white, and yet she was well fed, barely fitting into the corseted dress meant to imitate the country style. Multiple rings with various flashing stones graced her fingers, although one in particular caught Lev’s eye: a simple band engraved with Hebrew lettering. There it was, buried in the opulence. She regarded Lev with woeful eyes. “Everyone’s dying. I just heard from the director at the institute that Herr Engel has passed and yesterday my cousin as well. And then it seemed this morning my poor dog might go too, but he has thankfully revived.”
“I’m sorry,” Lev said, his mouth dry, his head pounding. A waft of fresh air floated into the room from the open French doors. “If you’ll excuse me.” He gestured to the balconies. She explained what her dog ate for breakfast. Lev nodded, stepping around her. He had to get away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another ridiculous man, dressed in equestrian clothing, invite Josephine to dance. Moving through the crowd toward the open air, he remembered the urgency with which he had wanted to marry her. They’d shared this urgency, this rush to be locked into a mutual bind, which now, from the outside looking in, felt like a cage he occasionally rattled in an attempt to get free.
And Leah? Would he have eventually felt the same with her, if they had married? He had left when their desire felt boundless. If he had stayed, would her body have become as familiar as an old shoe, instead of the exhilarating newness of her hair, her breasts, her skin? He didn’t know. Perhaps it was unfair to only remember Leah in a blaze of passion. Perhaps he would have grown tired of her touch. And yet part of him thought: maybe not.
Breathing in the night air, relieved to be outside overlooking the vast grounds of the estate, he took out a cigarette, pausing before lighting it. He relished the feeling of an unlit cigarette in his hand, knowing he would smoke it, and yet he prolonged the moment before the smoke filled his lungs, his throat, his mouth. The anticipation is always better, sweeter, he thought.
“Where were you?”
Lev looked up from the balustrade, startled to find Josephine standing before him.
She pursed her lips, anger thinning and elongating her face.
He lit the cigarette. “I had to get some air.”
“And just abandon me?”
“You were enjoying yourself with those idiots.”
“Just because some people still care for the way things are done, you call them idiots.”
“The way things were done.” Lev glanced around at the neighboring balconies. Two men in top hats smoked cigars.
Lev shrugged. “It seems a bit militant, to dress him up like that.”
“And when you came back, where was your uniform? Your gun? Your papers? How did those things just disappear? You think I’m too stupid to know what that means.”
He felt his chest weaken, his mouth go dry. “To know what?”
She glanced away, into the wooded darkness. “I prefer not to humiliate you.”
Of course she couldn’t bring herself to say it: he had deserted, escaped, to preserve his own life over the lives of others. And she hated him for it.
He pushed his cigarette into a stone planter brimming with gladiolus. “I hate this place.”
“Not even a scratch,” she muttered.
He walked away from her and back into the crowded hot room.
Lev rubbed his eyes, glancing over at Josephine, who still gazed out the car window, focusing on the passing wheat fields. Though she’d acted overjoyed to see him in the fall of 1918, over the years, his early and safe return home had aroused the suspicion of her family, suspicion that eventually seeped into her view of him. And now, when she wanted to hurt him, in her most cruel moments, she pulled out this trump card, to which Lev now responded with silence. The first few years after the war, whenever she raised a question about his early return home or about his lack of medals, he defended himself. He described the bitter winters in Mitau, the marauding tribes of Cossacks, the wounds he’d treated and disinfected, the roads he’d cleared, the territory they’d gained for Germany. But he never sounded confident enough, wounded enough, for her to believe him. She would nod, but her eyes clouded over, opaque blue orbs of doubt. And for other reasons too, he stumbled when trying to convince her: between the pauses and sighs and sentences he left unfinished, there was also a love story.