The Drowned Detective

by Neil Jordan

  A bit of both, perhaps. There’s only two of us now.

  Yes. Two.

  12

  I was walking past a bookshop on the main boulevard when I saw a bowed head I recognised, behind the reflections of the passing traffic. I walked inside and it was her, Sarah, fingering some paperback with her face towards the shelves. I could take time there to see what a picture she made and to comprehend how any random passer-by might admire her, and possibly desire her. She seemed untouched by the heat, wearing the same light summer dress that she had left the house in, and I moved closer, and tried to pretend to myself she was a stranger. Her weight was on her left foot and the canvas sandal with the raised heel was hanging loose on the right. The thin muscular calf and the ankle, swinging lazily back and forwards, with the sandal making the slightest of sounds on the wooden floor. And I was almost behind her, inhaling her scent, when she turned and looked at me without any surprise whatsoever. She grimaced, then smiled.

  Are you checking on me? she asked.

  Yes, I told her. I’m an obsessive-compulsive wife-checker.

  And you’re funny, for once.

  I’m on my way to pick up Jenny, I said. It’s her music time. And what’s your excuse?

  I’m on a break, she said, between lectures.

  She thumbed the book then, and for the first time I noticed her nails. They were varnished, red.

  New nails, I said.

  Yes, she said. There’s a place that does them round the corner.

  She thumbed the book again.

  It’s called Nine Suitcases. About a couple who got stuck in a city like this, during the war. Because the wife wouldn’t travel without her nine suitcases. They ended up in separate camps. But they survived.

  Separately or together?

  I’d have to buy it to find out.

  She turned her head to the book, and I moved my face near to the nape of her neck. I inhaled her hair, and felt how different it was, how real. It almost had a taste, like vanilla. And she said, without turning round, I want to be with you when we’re older, Jonathan. When we get through all of this.

  I let him go, I said.

  Oh God, she said.

  Wasn’t the situation kind of untenable?

  Maybe, she said.

  We both thought so, I lied. And I wondered why I was lying.

  And maybe you’re right. It’s just so . . .

  So what?

  So obvious. So vulgar. Unmanly.

  And there was that word again. I had to do something about it.

  You used to be strong, my dear, she said.

  Isn’t a sacking better than a throttling?

  Are you so sure?

  I’m sure.

  Yes. You’re sure about everything, now. Aren’t you? She turned and looked at me and there were tears in her eyes. And we’re not through it yet.

  No?

  No. We’re in a plane. Over some strange city. In a holding pattern.

  She looked at her watch.

  And doesn’t one of us have to pick up Jenny?

  Me, I said. I have her music in the car.

  Go on then.

  And her hand reached out and squeezed mine, briefly. I turned it and saw again the newly painted nails.

  I envy women, I said.

  Why?

  These strange rituals, all this beauty stuff.

  I brought the red nails to my lips.

  Gives us time to think, she said. I could paint yours sometime.

  Or would that be too unmanly?

  13

  She was waiting for me on the broad steps with her schoolbag between her tiny ankles.

  You’re late, she said, and I told her I was sorry and lifted her and placed her in the passenger seat.

  My violin, she asked, and I told her it was in the boot. So she opened her music as we drove and practised with her fingers on an invisible finger-board. She functioned very well, I thought, among imaginary things, holding her chin down as if on an actual violin, her fingers moving across small, non-existent strings. I crossed the river again as she played and quietly hummed and hit traffic on the other side, so I parked in a side street and began to walk.

  Why this way? she asked.

  Because of the traffic, I told her.

  You’ll get lost, she said.

  No, I told her, I know these backstreets.

  And I was beginning to. The shadowed arches, each of which held a courtyard with the sagging balconies and the curving steps. And I heard it again, dim, but unmistakable, from several roofs across, the sound of a distant cello.

  Someone’s practising, she said.

  Yes, I said, a cellist.

  You can hear it? she asked, and I remember thinking it was odd.

  Yes, I said, why shouldn’t I?

  Because, she said, I’m not sure everyone can.

  And the sound had faded now, or we had walked too far beyond it, and a group of schoolgirls came running down the cobbles, their laughter filling the air.

  They can’t hear it.

  Because it’s stopped.

  No, she said, listen.

  And we both stopped and listened. But I heard nothing.

  Cellist, she said. Sounds like jealous.

  She moved her hand again on the invisible strings, and hummed. And she kept humming till we came to the avenue with the alfresco tables and the bored waiters and the music college beyond, with the sounds of fractured practising coming from every open window.

  I waited while she walked up the steps into the great black hole behind the open door. I could hear flutes echoing from the building above, pianos, double basses, what seemed like a fractured orchestra, but no more sound of cello.

  There was a small graveyard behind it. I had made it my habit to wander there while I waited out her lesson. The angled slabs with their incomprehensible names, the ivy creeping over the stone angel and the broken statue of some forgotten hero of a forgotten resistance.

  I sat on a bench and my telephone rang and I saw Frank’s name come up, so I left it unanswered. Then I saw, beyond two lanes of graves across from me, a couple sitting in the shade of an old yew tree. The woman, plump and broad-hipped, had spread a napkin out between them and was paring a rind of cheese on to slices of bread. The man was pouring coffee from a flask. And I recognised the Pavels, husband and wife. They seemed out of place in the distant hum of traffic that was the city, lonely, yet intimately connected. And I walked towards them, wondering was that what the future held for all of us.

  I have forgotten your name, the husband said, with a country-peasant formality.

  Jonathan, I told him.

  I would offer you coffee, but we have only one cup.

  I’m fine.

  Is this . . . accident . . . or did you search us out?

  My daughter, I said, takes violin lessons in the academy.

  The wife chewed at the rind of cheese, as if anxious to waste none of it.

  So, you have no news?

  My partner’s searching, I told him, a grid of streets around the twelfth district.

  You trust psychic?

  No, I said. It’s borderline unprofessional. But you do.

  So, we should wait?

  Haven’t you waited twelve years?

  I mean in the city. We were wondering whether to return home.

  Where is home?

  He mentioned a village with a kind of blunt contempt.

  Is it far from here?

  Two hours by train.

  You should go home then. Any news and we can contact you.

  We can stare at the same walls. Walk the same streets.

  What is it like, the waiting?

  She prays. Every day. I listen.

  You don’t pray?

  And he almost smiled, showing blackened teeth. He spat in the dust by his leather shoes. As I turned to go, the woman’s voice stopped me.

  Thank you, she said.

  For what? I’ve got no news yet.

  For b
elieving.

  14

  The cufflink came first. Lying in her purse, like some kind of memento. One shouldn’t look into purses, or if one does, one should swallow the consequences. But the purse and the handbag are the burial mounds of the trade, hidden hoards that just beg to be excavated. And surveillance becomes a habit of kinds, the watchful eye, the gaze that once looked with a kind of voluptuous fondness becomes gradually colder, more observant. It was there one morning and the next morning was gone. She had returned it, I supposed, and I tried to think no more of it. But at his desk he had a habit of fixing them before he picked up the phone, took up his pen, and what kind of man was it that wore immaculate shirts in the summer heat, shirts with silver baubles on the cuffs? I couldn’t avoid that glint of silver when he shook my hand, which he did often, in that thumb-grasping half-American kind of way, when he turned the car wheel, when he adjusted his necktie. A fog descended, a jealous fog, and I confused it with the summer heat haze, the mist that emanated from the humidifiers of the street cafés. And I passed that sign one day that read ‘psychic readings’ in both languages and took those most irrational steps, up the stairs by the broken lift, and first made the acquaintance of Gertrude and her Pomeranian. She read my palm and predicted nothing but she knew how to soothe the soul somehow, in that old-fashioned Middle European way. She had a voice that sounded like it emerged from a coal-tar pit with an infinite sense of ennui that knew that everything passes, even jealousy and bile. So I allowed myself to forget it, that little gleaming question mark of silver, until I found the hotel charge on her Visa bill. And then of course I had to visit it, a brutalist concrete pile along the river front, with shabbily dressed businessmen coming and going and well-dressed ladies sitting in the lounges. I questioned the room-service charge and was given a printout of the bill, complete with the costs of cable TV and miniature vodka bottles from the mini-bar, five of them.

  I know you want me to explain, she told me, but I can’t. You were away so much, I was redesigning the office, I was choosing those adjustable swivel-backed chairs that would have helped with your posture. The things a wife thinks about, how her husband stands, what he eats, how he dresses, is he happy, has his eye wandered, do those trips to other cities mean something other than business, is he taking more care of his health, does he drink too much coffee, and more to the point is that feeling we engendered together in the Mesopotamian heat still there, like the oily Euphrates, flowing between us towards the burning Arabian sea. Does he still care for me, am I still attractive, have I put on too much weight since the birth, is there too much room in that space between my legs where I used to love holding you still and tight until the urgency took over. All of those things that I can’t explain, couldn’t talk about, I began to talk through with him and yes, he would adjust his cufflinks as he listened and keep his calm inscrutable face in the listening mode and he was handsome, you know that, but without those eyes that I could sink into for ever, without that mouth that crinkled downwards; he was nothing like you. And yes, I met him for a drink in that drab concrete hotel and did I have some intent? I can’t be sure, but I hired a babysitter for the night and hired a room and paid for it because with him you always paid. And I drank too much, champagne and wine at first then those small vodka bottles, and many many cigarettes – I was eating them that night, out of nervousness, out of need; you were away of course and we began by talking about you and finished by talking about you. And please don’t ask me about what happened in between, I’m shy about those things and eaten up with guilt, the guilt that came down on me like a sudden cloud when I woke on my own in that tousled bed and saw his cufflink glittering on the faux-woollen carpet. It stank, that carpet, of male feet and sour wine and vomit. I washed myself in that plastic coffin they called a shower but couldn’t wash myself clean and maybe I never will. And I picked up that cufflink and put it in my purse to give it back to him and maybe that was the real mistake, because that’s where you found it.

  15

  I was tossing a salad in the kitchen and Jenny was practising her violin in the living room when I heard three sombre notes, followed by six or seven rapid ones. And Sarah turned to me and asked me when she had learned them.

  I took her to music today, remember?

  But that’s Bach, she said, from the cello suites.

  You sure?

  I played them yesterday, from the Casals CD.

  She hears everything, I said.

  And the playing stopped now and Jenny appeared in the doorway.

  Where did you learn that? Sarah asked.

  From the cellist, she said.

  What cellist?

  On the way to music. She was playing.

  You heard a street musician?

  I couldn’t see her. Only heard her.

  And you worked out how to play it?

  I can hear it, she said. So can Jessica.

  Ah. Your imaginary friend.

  Yes, she said. She’s helping me to learn.

  And she moved her fingers over an invisible neck.

  Do you think it’s healthy, she asked, as we lay in the midnight heat on the bed without covers, these imaginary friends?

  Maybe she should see the therapist too, I murmured.

  Stop it, she said, and moved her body towards me. I could feel the perspiration on my stomach meeting hers.

  Can’t we just get back to loving each other?

  We can try, I said.

  I never stopped, she said. During, before or after.

  Enough, I said, and I put my arms around her and the slow thing began.

  Come on, she said, come on, you can do better than that.

  Certainly, I said, and it was like the old times for a while, familiar and easeful, and she gave a long and satisfied sigh.

  I bought the book, she said.

  What book? I asked.

  The book about the nine suitcases. I read about how they made it through. They were in separate camps. They tried to stop loving each other. It would have made it easier. But they didn’t succeed.

  So they failed too.

  Yes. They couldn’t stop. Can we stop, do you think?

  Shall we try?

  I’m not sure, she said, and placed her nose in my armpit.

  You smell different.

  But she didn’t. She smelt just like she always did, in the heat, after the event.

  16

  Taste it, she said.

  She held the decorative glass towards me, full of the green liquid.

  Wheatgrass, she said.

  No alcohol?

  Too early for that. I could make you coffee, but I don’t drink the stuff.

  There was a tiny scraping of heels from the kitchen and in walked the Pomeranian. She had a splint of some kind attached to her back leg. Her white hair flowered over the top of it, like some exotic plant.

  How is the patella?

  He is an excellent vetinarian.

  Veterinarian, I corrected her.

  Whatever, as they say. The joint is back in place.

  And the dog limped towards me and stood staring at my ankles. I didn’t dare pick her up.

  I’ve forgotten her name.

  Jonathan, Jonathan, how could you? Her name is Phoebe.

  Phoebe, I repeated, and bent down and tried to stroke that profusion of hair. But she took several tiny toy-like steps backwards.

  So, to what do I owe the privilege?

  My wife, I told her, still says she loves me.

  I am psyckai, not therapist, Jonathan.

  But you’re a good listener. And you know certain things.

  Yes, I can tell, she said. There’s something dying inside you.

  Dying?

  Or something dead. Something has died. Present or past tense, I do not know.

  You do not deal in tenses?

  No, time is fluid with these things.

  Ah. You deal in multiple timelines. Like a multiverse.

  Don’t be clinical, Jonathan.
>
  You meant to say cynical.

  So I did. But there has been a meeting, and something has died. All I can tell.

  In me?

  Your marriage? Is it dead? Dying?

  I hope not.

  And you have therapist for that. Therapists deal with dead and dying marriages. I deal simply with the dead.

  Can we talk of something else? I asked her.

  Please. Because, we keep talking this way, I must charge.

  I don’t mind paying, I said, but please talk of something else.

  Are you that lonely, Jonathan? Is impossible, with that mouth of yours. It would have been my type of mouth, many years ago. When I had a type.

  And I could well imagine. Gertrude, with some Sven or Alix, beautiful enough then to drive them quite insane. The cigarette dangling from her painted lip. And she took up an electronic version of it now, clouded herself in a puff of pungent smoke.

  The little girl, Petra, she asked, have you found her yet?

  My colleague, I said, and it felt odd saying that. What was Istvan anyway? Associate? Employee? Prevaricator? Anyway, he had plodded the twelfth district and found something.

  Your colleague?

  Istvan. Has found out there is a brothel, on several floors of one of those old apartment complexes.

  So there is a reason for your coming here?

  Yes.

  But I never said brothel.

  You said a small room she cannot leave. Which sounds like a brothel to me.

  I pressed some buttons on my phone and brought a picture up. Of a fifties apartment block in an identikit row. A broken concrete path leading to it, with windows reflecting the evening sun. They gleamed, like so many blind-man’s eyes.

  And how can I help?

  I don’t know. How can you?

  I need things I can touch.

  I took out the Polaroid again from my pocket. Little Petra smiled at us both with all of the innocence of her ten years. Gertrude placed it between her palms and did her strange thing. Which consisted of her half-closing her painted eyelids and gritting her teeth together with an odd half-smile. Not quite a trance, I remember thinking. More of a meditation.

  You are close to her, she said. And she opened those blue eyes.