The party was in its final throes; a few people remained, passed out on the chaise lounges while housemaids cleared glasses and plates, moving through the rooms as if their limbs were encased in velvet. Alfred and his wife had retired. Max Beckmann sat alone in a corner, surly and depressed. His benefactor, Käthe, smiled at Lev and shrugged her birdlike shoulders, as if to say, He’s difficult, but I love him all the more for it.
On their way out the door, Lev muttered to Otto, “God, she suffers for him,” and Otto said, “Suffering is an art unto itself and one I’m not very interested in.”
They ended up wandering the streets of St. Pauli, drinking from Otto’s flask, recalling various details about Mitau, details they’d chosen to forget until now.
“Remember when it snowed and you took me to that cabal with the wonder-rabbi?”
Lev shook his head. “It wasn’t a cabal. Just a group of old men and a rabbi.”
“Well, it worked! My gout healed.”
Three women passed, and under the harsh light of the streetlamps, their heavily painted faces betrayed their true sex. They catcalled to Lev and Otto once the cover of night enveloped them again.
Lev and Otto kept walking.
“Your gout healed because you stopped drinking.”
“And then it came back,” Otto admitted, “when I started drinking.”
“Did you ever hear from Antonina again?” Lev asked, wanting to steer the conversation back to the women they’d left behind so that he could talk about Leah. Seeing Otto made him feel as if Leah was nearby, watching him. If he could only talk about her out loud, to someone who also knew her, she would feel more real to him, as if invoking her name would magically summon her.
Otto paused, examining the street signs. “I haven’t thought of her in years. Jesus—Antonina. Who knows?”
The streetlamps shone down on them, a spectral glow.
“I never heard from Leah,” Lev said.
Otto glanced around the empty streets. “I could have sworn the club was here.” Then he smiled at Lev, his face loose with drink. “It’s better not to harp on the past.”
“Yes,” Lev said softly.
“Look at me! I take each moment as it comes. The future, the past—blah—who cares?” Then Otto stuck out his tongue.
Lev tried to act amused, but he thought Otto had barbarically severed himself from the past, as if it were a dead thing. Lev tried again. “What did you do after the war? Did you end up going to your brother’s in the south?”
Otto yawned. “For a bit. Then I got bored. You know, I wanted to become a famous artist. So I moved back to Berlin. And here I am!” He walked a few paces ahead and threw his hands in the air. “I must be really drunk. Can’t find this damn place.”
Just then a Chinese man appeared, and spotting Otto, he scurried over and whispered into his ear.
Otto nodded, and they followed him for a few blocks until they arrived at a nondescript building with a red awning.
“Wait here,” the man said, and then he disappeared behind a black lacquered door.
Otto turned to Lev. “They’re suspicious of Europeans. Generally, only Chinese and Malays come here.”
Before Lev could ask more about this place, they were ushered into a dimly lit antechamber. Otto paid the admission, and the Chinese man gestured for them to check their coats and umbrellas. Otto then pulled out a revolver from the inside of his jacket and checked that too. Lev glanced at him, and Otto just shrugged.
The Chinese man performed a little bow, and then led them to a cellar with red carpets and vaulted ceilings. In the dim amber light, Lev noticed a few elegantly dressed Chinese men dreaming, tossing to and fro, their slim bodies splayed out on the low velvet couches. The air, sweet and moist, hung heavily. The host, a portly Chinese man, made an extravagant bow and showed them the opium pipe, dropping a small pebble of opium in its porcelain bowl, and gestured to a nearby couch. Once they were seated, he slipped away.
The calming sound of water flowing from a fountain combined with the occasional Chinese man speaking in his foreign tongue gave Lev an artificial sense of ease, while he vaguely wondered what time it was, and where they were, and why Otto carried a gun.
Otto took a tentative puff of the pipe and then paused, waiting for the effect. He passed it to Lev, who did the same. They continued to smoke. Behind them, Chinese men chatted. Lev saw a European man clutching a pillow with tassels, moaning, “Please, please don’t—I don’t want it.”
Otto tilted his head back, gazing up at the ceiling from which drapery hung in great silk folds. “The best inspiration comes from the pipe; when I wake, the most amazing revelations come to me.” A string of drool hung from Otto’s lower lip. Lev felt his eyelids grow heavy. He blinked. Holding the bamboo pipe suddenly felt like a strain. He twisted the little knob in the middle of the pipe because it looked similar to a doorknob, and he imagined that another door would open, and it did.
He walked into a forest of birches. The long white trees shielded him from the hot eastern sun, and the smell of wheat and dirt instantly confirmed what he already knew: he was in Mitau again. He clutched at his belt, but he didn’t have his gun. The forest was suspiciously quiet. He could only hear the crunch of his shoes treading through dry mounds of leaves. He wore civilian clothes—a three-piece suit, leather lace-ups coated in mud. I should take off my shoes, he thought, bending down to remove them. The sun beat on his neck. He glanced up at the trees, a dizzying maze of whiteness. A feral cat crossed his path, paused, and kept moving. Then he was holding his shoes, and the earth felt cool beneath his feet. He made his way to a clearing and saw a little straw hut with a thatched roof. Shelter, he thought.
Leah poked her head out of the hut. “Lev!” she shouted. “What took so long?” She looked exactly as he had left her—the same blue-black hair dazzling in the sun, the same open face, high cheekbones, delicate mouth. He wanted to run to her, touch her mouth, her hair, her skin.
She waved to him again. “Come. We’ve been waiting.”
The hut was just there, twenty meters ahead, but with each step he took, the hut receded into the forest. He reached out his hand. “I’m coming.”
She held an embroidered handkerchief into the wind. It fluttered and dipped with grace.
He paused, catching his breath.
“Why are you wearing that suit? It’s broiling out. I have a clean set of clothes for you. The shirt from yesterday? I already washed it.” She smiled triumphantly.
“That’s good,” Lev managed, afraid to take a step lest the hut, and Leah, drift farther from him.
She folded the handkerchief into a triangle and tied it under her thick mane. Then she marched toward him. “I have to come fetch you myself.”
Lev nodded gratefully, feeling her cool hands on his face, inhaling the familiar scent of her: bark, mint leaves, wheat.
“There,” she said, pressing her thumb into his forehead. “Better?”
“Yes,” he whispered, his head lighter, his face cooler.
She took his arm. “Come.”
Fruit dangled from the ceiling of the hut. He grabbed a curved yellow squash. His mother sat on a dusty cushion drinking mint tea. She shot him an accusatory look. “We thought you’d never come, but here you are.”
Leah looked at the squash he held in his hand. “We’re waiting until sundown to eat. But sit. Here’s tea.”
She served him strong black tea, and his mother told Leah not to fuss over him too much because he didn’t appreciate it anyway.
Leah ruffled his hair and sighed.
Then his mother stated that Josephine was suffering from heatstroke. “Such a delicate thing,” she added.
Leah sat down next to Lev and wrapped her cool white arms around him.
“Where’s Josephine?” he asked.
Leah yawned. “She’s convalescing with her mother.”
The light outside faded. It was nearly sundown.
“Her mother’s dead.”
Leah patted Lev’s hand. “Such a shame.”
Lev’s mother shook her head. “That woman would never have withstood the revolution. In the end, it’s for the better.”
Leah turned to Lev. “Will you get us some wood? We need some wood to make a fire.”
Lev agreed. His mother and Leah smiled secretly to each other, thinking he did not notice this exchange. He left the hut, convinced he was married to Leah now, and somehow, Josephine understood this arrangement.
He wandered into the forest. Pink streaks ran across the Prussian blue sky. The sun, an angry ball of red, descended behind the foothills. He searched for firewood. Leah had described its whereabouts, but her description bore no resemblance to his surroundings.
Halfway behind the foothills, the sun dropped out of view, and then it was night. Lev stumbled on the low-lying bushes and uneven ground. He steadied himself against a tree, struggling to adjust his eyes to the sudden darkness. The moon rose up, full and luminescent. Lev tried to ascertain how far he had gone and from which direction. The goal of getting the firewood faded, and now he only wanted to return to Leah and the hut.
He heard a low guttural moan, and peeking around the tree, he saw his son howling at the moon. His son’s head was a lion’s head and his arms were wings. The bottom half of his son’s body was human; he still wore his military slacks and black boots.
Franz swiftly turned toward Lev, his leonine eyes glowing in the darkness.
“Franz?”
Franz blinked back at him.
Lev tried to speak. No words came.
Franz threw back his head and howled, this time louder, as if in pain.
Lev spoke Yiddish, the only language he could summon. Franz, are you hurt? Can I help you?
Franz shook his head back and forth. He didn’t understand Yiddish. He flapped his wings in frustration and emitted a series of high plaintive yelps. Lev remembered holding Franz to his chest when he was newly born—his eyes barely open, his mouth down-turned, he cried incessantly, red-faced and angry at his arrival in the world. If he could only tell us what’s wrong, Lev had said to Josephine, feeling a sinking helplessness as he held the screaming creature, who tapped his balled-up fists into Lev’s chest.
Franz let out another low moan that sounded akin to Father.
“I’m coming for you,” Lev said, but when he moved, his legs felt heavy and sluggish.
Despondently, Franz wandered off into the woods, shaking his head, flaring his wings.
Soft velvet rubbed against Lev’s cheek. He pulled away, inhaling the sweet thick air. Opening his eyes, he was startled to find the moon-shaped face of the portly Chinese host hovering over him. Lev checked his watch: five a.m.
The host bowed and offered Lev a cup of hot bitter tea.
After taking a sip, Lev slowly sat up with a pounding headache. Otto was rubbing his eyes. The other men were standing up, their legs shaky, except for two Chinese men who had taken even more opium and were still asleep.
Lev glanced around with distaste, for the other customers and for his unsettling, opium-induced dreams. His eyes burned and sweat had dampened his shirt.
Otto grinned. “Well?”
“Is it common to have hallucinations?”
“I was just fucking twenty women, including Marlene Dietrich.”
Lev nodded soberly. “Sounds nice.”
They stumbled into the antechamber. The host drew the heavy curtain, closing off the main room, and then went to retrieve their coats.
When Otto shoved open the door to the street, the gray morning light stung Lev’s eyes.
The host, handing Lev his coat, smiled graciously. “Come again soon,” he whispered. “It was a pleasure, watching you dream.”
30
Since they had returned from Rindbach, Lev had begun leaving the house at night on a regular basis. After dinner, he casually folded up his napkin and told Josephine he would return later. In an attempt to soften the blow of his nocturnal outings, before leaving he would caress her cheek, and say, “I won’t be as late as last time,” as if this offered some sort of consolation. He never said where he was going, and she didn’t dare ask, in part because she feared what he might say, and in part because she knew he would resent such interrogations. And few things were more distasteful to her than pushing a man into a corner, forcing him to behave properly or say something he didn’t mean. Her friend Sophie, who had lost her husband in the war, used to scream after him when he left the house, as if he were a hunted animal. Afterward, she knocked on Josephine’s door in a panic, her eyes wet and searching, muttering how he had gone off somewhere but didn’t say where, and Josephine had tried to explain that this demand to know his whereabouts only drove him farther afield.
Josephine sat alone in the living room, staring out at the spacious garden, its few dark corners filled with rhododendrons, the patchy ground sprinkled with lilies of the valley. The rest was a properly ordered garden, intricate paths lined with blooming roses and fuchsias, so from where she sat, the view, which extended over the wide lawn, made her feel a perfect sense of equilibrium. But her eyes kept traveling back to the dark undergrowth, and although it amounted to such a small portion of the garden, those unruly spots seemed to undermine its overall beauty and shape.
If Lev didn’t want to tell her where he’d gone off to, then she would certainly not stoop so low as to inquire. She sighed, leaning back into the chair, uninterested in the magazine article she was skimming about how bias-cut dresses were all the rage. She glanced around, aware of every sound. The rustle of her skirt against the chair seemed overly loud, but then again, the rooms were so still and silent, she imagined sheets draped over the furniture, as if they’d left for summer holidays. Vicki was not at home either, now that young women went out freely at night without chaperones, something Josephine still found hard to accept. Every now and then, she heard Franz rumbling around in his room, but the other night when she had knocked on his door, he opened it with such an affronted look on his face, she slunk away, mumbling an apology.
Fingering the biscuits on the silver tray, the same shortbread biscuits her mother used to eat, she turned her gaze back to the garden and was reminded of how her grandfather on her mother’s side used to sit on the terrace in a brown velvet jacket with a rug over his rheumatic knees, even in summer. And the two surly greyhounds lying next to him, his loyal companions; he loved those dogs so much—oh, what were their names again? She racked her brain but couldn’t think of them. When the weather was fair, he’d take a ride after the midday meal. The carriage waited at the entrance of the estate with the manservant poised to open the front door the moment her grandfather emerged from the dining room, his cheeks flushed with satiation. Her mother would dress her in a stiff navy frock and place her in the carriage next to her grandfather, and they would ride around and admire the summer residences of the Hohenzollern kings.
As she bit into the biscuit, the lightbulbs in the chandelier flickered on and off with a strange spark. She carefully put the half-eaten biscuit down on the tray. The lights flickered back on. Yes, it was certain: Mother must be sending her a signal through the lights. Whenever Josephine thought about her with a strong intent, aided by the biscuits, the lights flickered in this odd way, a sure sign her mother was still here, but just in another form. Josephine took another bite of the biscuit. What did she want to say? Why was she not at peace?
Mitzi wandered into the living room, beckoned by the scent of the biscuits. The dog glanced around dolefully and then took her time settling down, circling three times before curling up next to Josephine’s feet. Well, she thought, if I went to Balthazar’s church, Lev would strongly disapprove, even though Dr. Dührkoop had recommended him. Lev relied on science, insinuating that faith was medieval, a device to uplift and control the peasants when, after a day in the fields, they stood in awe before soaring buttresses and rose windows saturated with color. She could hear his voice now: Of course under those circumstances anyone would
believe in God! A callous, cavalier argument, she thought, finishing off the last of the biscuits.
Sleepily, Mitzi raised her head, hoping some shortbread crumbs might have fallen from above.
The trip to Balthazar’s church, located in southwestern Berlin, required her to take two trams followed by a rushed fifteen-minute walk, after which she finally reached the middle-class neighborhood where the minister had converted his small apartment into a makeshift church and meeting place for like-minded spiritualists. The afternoon traffic had made her dreadfully late, and climbing up the steep carpeted staircase, she feared they wouldn’t admit her. It would be much more convenient, she thought, if he conducted his sessions at a more reasonable hour, but as the pamphlet explained, the spirits were most voluble during the “in-between hours,” when the sun was either rising or setting.
An older woman at the door, wearing a simple navy dress with a high white collar, introduced herself as Sister Grete Muller. She pressed another pamphlet into Josephine’s hand and then ushered her into a dim living room filled with an overwhelming number of books, hanging portraits, and an odd assortment of miniature cat figurines, their eyes inlaid with colored glass. In the middle of the room, ten chairs were arranged around a wooden table. Behind the table hung a large cloudy mirror, and Josephine caught a glimpse of herself in it. Sitting next to two elderly women, she looked slightly out of place in her molded felt hat, given the modest surroundings. She touched the rhinestone pin fastened to the side of the hat, which caught the late-afternoon light, and debated whether or not to remove it. Besides the two women, who were whispering rather loudly, a girl, probably about eighteen, sat at the edge of the circle, nervously fingering the buttons on her blouse. Her uneven complexion and the way she fixated on the empty chair behind the table, presumably where Balthazar sat, made her appear disturbed. But isn’t everyone here somewhat anxious and disturbed? Josephine thought, pulling off her ivory kid gloves. The loud whispering of the two women interrupted her thoughts. Hearing Balthazar’s name, she strained to listen.
The Empire of the Senses Page 36
