by Shlomo Kalo
I felt as if my heart was beating with redoubled force, and it seemed to be trying to climb up my throat and moisten my mouth which had dried. The heavy door swung open again, closely followed by the matching door. A new Audi, skilfully driven by a young woman (Erika, was the logical supposition) left the house, in no particular haste. I began following it on foot, an act of desperation, and then the taxi I was hoping for hooted behind me. I stopped, got in and asked the driver to follow the receding Audi. He did so, looking less than absolutely enthusiastic. The Audi stopped in a huge parking lot outside a pub, brightly lit in the middle of the day, a gesture of cheap extravagance. I asked the driver to pull up, got down and paid. The tip brought a smile to his face, scored with deep wrinkles, which did not betray his age.
The driver wished me “Good hunting!”
I went into the pub and soon located the “subject”, or what in Bulgaria we used to call the “object”. This was a pleasantly shaped young woman, somewhat reminiscent of the lady who left the house before her, the pregnant one. This resemblance encouraged me. I sat down some distance from her and watched every move she made. She ordered calvados, a French drink distilled from the juice of apples, not powerful enough to cast you into the void of oblivion or even to induce mild intoxication.
So, she had no intention of getting drunk. This was my first assumption, and I knew it wasn’t to be trusted. I ordered myself a small calvados, doing everything possible to avoid drawing attention, on the part of those seated at the bar, the few sitting at tables, those entering and leaving or the barman, who in obedience to his rules of professional etiquette, immediately expressed curiosity and asked where I was from and all the rest of it. The German that I learned in high school and improved more or less on holidays in Switzerland proved its worth and I succeeded in cooling his curiosity, sending a message that I wasn’t interested in any conversation. The barman was experienced, he understood, served the calvados without further ado and moved away from me.
The “object” ordered beer – meaning, she was thirsty, as simple as that. This was followed by a small brandy. The calvados had just been the camouflaged opening gambit. Camouflaged from whom? I reassured myself and decided with uncharacteristic optimism, from herself. It was a long time since I last drank beer and I didn’t want to drink it now, but the barman was approaching and if I wanted not to attract attention, I had to order something.
“Beer!” I saw the barman’s curiosity soaring to new heights. His brown eyes clouded over. He put the glass down in front of me with a slam that said a great deal. As far as I was concerned the meaning was: Stop pissing about! If you’re going to do something, get on with it! I answered myself: Yes, I am going to do something, really! And I meant it, grasping my almost desperate situation, my time that was running out, and my determination to complete the assignment in the best way possible and as quickly as possible and go home satisfied. On assessing the situation, it seemed all these objectives were remote and yet, as somebody told me, things that are remote are not necessarily unattainable, and there was no doubt that when the moment came, I would dive in at the deep end, whatever the outcome. On the other hand, I consoled myself – don’t exaggerate, what outcome are you talking about? Here there’s a woman who’s bored if not more than that and any man who dares will get everything he wants from her. Including information. All the information she’s capable of supplying. The lady ordered tequila and this struck me as dangerous; it seemed she was after all intent on getting drunk and “forgetting it all”, rendering herself incapable of distinguishing between reality and unreality, and entangling herself and me in stories, just as likely to be fiction as fact.
Without giving much thought to what I was doing, I picked up the half-empty glass with the contents that only made me feel nauseous, sat down beside her and muttered a few words of apology, which I meant sincerely, for staring at her these last few minutes, an attractive young woman, trying to forget something – as indeed I was. I just had this fantastic idea that maybe I could help her somehow, and with a little goodwill, maybe she could help me too.
The response came more quickly than I expected, and all of it was a surprise.
“Sir, there’s no need to sniff around me… it’s true that I’m young and attractive and in bed I’m a thousand times younger and a thousand times more attractive, and you think a good fuck will do both of us good… maybe you’re right, maybe not… I’ve had my share of bitter disappointments. Come on, let’s take a closer look at you.” She moved her bar-stool slightly and our eyes met. Her eyes were like the eyes of a hungry leopard, or leopardess I should say, on heat and ready to explode. I didn’t know how I looked to her, but she didn’t hesitate to tell me – “You look small to me, too small to jump into bed with me, although quite often the little ones can be a surprise… You aren’t local, Asiatic I’d say,” she added, showing astonishing intuition. “I’m guessing, though I rather wish I wasn’t,” she went on effusively, “that you’re from Israel and you haven’t come here just to chat me up and offer me a fuck, you want to milk me for information…”
“My brother-in-law is an Arab, and he’s done something very nasty to you people, and being the kind of guy he is, he’s very proud of it. And you want to know all about it. Listen carefully, little Israeli that you are. I’m the granddaughter of a Nazi general. What this means is, I’m as full as a pomegranate with guilt-feelings of all shapes and colours, and I’m prepared to do anything to atone a little, to ease the burden on me and on my conscience. Come on, let’s go to my apartment.” She left a note on the counter and slid off her stool with its round seat upholstered in black leather, and I did likewise and followed her out of the pub, like a horny tomcat that’s had a bucket of icy water thrown over it. I joined her in the Audi, and no more than five minutes later we arrived at Number 19 Humboldt Strasse. I got out to help her, opening and closing the gates, and all this without a word exchanged between us. She led the way, running up the creaking wooden spiral staircase, like the staircases of watchtowers since time immemorial. Admittedly, her apartment wasn’t built like a fortress, but was like any other apartment anywhere in the world – modestly proportioned, with three medium-sized rooms.
When we reached the apartment, still panting after the climb up three storeys and three flights of spiral staircase, she apologised profusely for the lack of a lift, but added that she preferred things the way they were, the air of down-at-heel antiquity and the memories that the thick wall had absorbed. She offered me a glass of brandy, took one for herself and without any ceremony, emptied the glass at one gulp and put it down on the old, round, mahogany table, laden with heavy boxes in polished walnut wood, and sensing my embarrassment she surprised me with a toast in pure Ashkenazi: “Lehaim!” and invited me to taste the amber liquid. Seeing no other way out of my awkward predicament, I did as she suggested.
“You may be surprised to hear that my surname, like the name of the street I’m living in, isn’t accidental,” she assured me. “You must have learnt in your geography lessons at school about the brothers Alexander and Wilhelm Humboldt, who made a very significant contribution to the science of geography – what do they call it? – physical geography and bio-geography – and about their ‘murderous’ grandmother who brought them up, who used to drag them out of bed on frozen winter nights and force them to wrestle half-naked in the yard at the back of our house, and that way she toughened them up for their adventures around the world in the service of science. The two brothers explored the North Pole.”
“It wasn’t the North Pole, or the South,” I corrected her – “but the lower Amazon and the estuary of the Orinoco”
“As you see,” she responded, “my soul is the soul of an artist. Humble details mean nothing to me. Besides my German body, and my sexual proclivities – I don’t even have half of a German gene!” she stressed proudly, in a tone brooking no disagreement. “And there was a Frenchman with them too,” she added off-handedly, “I’ve forgotten his name.�
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“Bonpland,” I reminded her.
“What a memory you have!” – she was genuinely impressed. “With the limited technical means available to them at that time,” she continued, reverting to the main topic, “they achieved so much and returned to their homeland garlanded with worldwide renown, just as their grandmother wanted. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the municipality of Berlin decided to call the street where the Humboldt brothers lived by their name.
“The brothers were in love, both of them, with their charming and succulent neighbour, Erika,” she went on to say. “Despite the meticulous, vulpine you could almost call it, supervision on the part of their grandmother, they nearly fought a duel over her. Erika was pregnant by one of them, to this day no one knows which, and she gave birth to my grandfather, who had the same kind of Spartan upbringing, according to the rules laid down by his great grandmother. He was drafted into the army, and he was a colonel during the First World War. Hitler impressed him and he soon became one of his most loyal generals, utterly loyal and a talented tactician as well, the bitter rival of Guderian, the tank supremo. Anyway, he was one of Hitler’s closest adherents and most committed acolytes. He killed himself the moment he heard the Fuhrer had done the same in his bunker.
“As his granddaughter, I fervently hope he has found some peace, at least in the other world. My grandfather was a man with a conscience and he suffered torments over everything that he was obliged to do in the Second World War, on the orders of the Fuhrer whom he admired, but he went ahead and did it anyway, and he knew what others were doing and was a witness to their actions. A thoroughly tragic figure. Again, I express the hope that his tragic, tormented soul finds eternal rest!”
“Amen to that!” I chimed in – on an obsequious impulse, lacking full conviction.
“I thank you for that endorsement,” she responded. She executed a dancer’s twirl in the narrow space of the room, and to my surprise stopped in front of me and proceeded to say: “Obviously you want to fuck me – and I’m no less keen on the idea. As I’m sure you know, the Nordic race is drawn by a fatal attraction towards the inferior races, the Asiatics, the degenerate Semitic race of the Middle East. You can do this in whatever way appeals to you.” And so saying, she began to strip.
She had an athletic, well-developed body: solid thighs, a typically Teutonic arse, that managed to be broad and pert at the same time – utterly irresistible (the way a Panzer tank is irresistible), and a bust that scythed the air with every movement.
“Come on, let’s not pretend,” she cajoled me in a perky tone. “What I really like is when people call me filthy names and shout obscenities at me. I’m sure you know those kinds of words, in any language you like. Amin used to call me a name, in Arabic, that he refused to translate – sharmuta – and he combined it with German words, saying I was Die grosste schmutzigste Sharmuta in der ganze Welt. You’d be doing me a real favour if you could enlighten me. Do you know any Arabic?”
“The basics,” I replied.
“And this word?”
“Yes, my knowledge extends that far.”
“So what does it mean?”
“Whore. So the whole of that phrase means, The biggest and filthiest whore in all the world,” I explained.
She moved closer to me and started undressing me the way you undress a baby.
“What I don’t get,” she commented, “is why you’re being so resistant. I’m not a cannibal or anything like that, so why are you opposed to this? Don’t you fancy me? And if Amin’s right and I’m a whore, you can have the best sex ever, as the English call it – and all free of charge. You still haven’t answered my question, why you’re resisting. You’re not a virgin, I can tell the difference between virgins and non-virgins, and it doesn’t look like you’ve got syphilis, clap or Aids…”
“I’m married,” I retorted.
“And you’re afraid of your wife?” she laughed.
“I respect her,” I amended.
“After you’ve been with me, you’ll respect her all the more, and she’ll respect me too. The way my sister Hilde has respected me, ever since I did it with her husband. Incidentally, it made him feel great and he cursed me with all the English curses he knows, and there’s plenty of them, plus some German ones he’d picked up, and Arabic of course. And that’s a sure sign that he got full satisfaction, better than anything he’s known in the past or is likely to know in the future. And now, you can curse me in your language, in classical Hebrew, the language of the Scriptures.”
“There aren’t many curses there,” I replied.
“What a dismal language!” she declared categorically. “Go on, make a start!” she demanded, the kind of demand that’s not easily evaded.
“Stinking bitch!” – I offered, and was immediately asked to translate it. The translation merited some textual analysis:
“Bitch yes, stinking – no! Surely you know the Germans are the cleanest race on earth. Three showers a day with special soaps, as you’ll see soon enough… I love the pungent smell of a real man. It sets my whole being in a spin, floods me with hormones, an unstoppable flow. Got any more?”
“Stupid bloody Nazi!”
“That’s a good one,” she declared, “you’re getting the idea.”
Underwear fell. I was led with unreasonable force to the bed. “Let’s go!” she urged me. I found myself spread-eagled on the double bed with her gigantic body entwining around mine in every conceivable and inconceivable posture, all positions without exception, some of them surprising and some of them ominous.
“I haven’t had enough of your curses yet.”
“Arse-licker!” I gasped.
“Outstanding!” she moaned.
After the first round, came the second. And then – the warriors’ rest, or I should say, the woman-warrior’s rest.
“You’re better than him!” – she pointed downstairs with her thumb.
“You’re not!” I retorted.
“Who am I not better than?”
“My wife!”
“You look like someone who’s stepped out of a long and mind-numbingly boring romantic poem from the eighteenth century! At least you’ve made me experience something I wouldn’t have believed existed.”
“You and me both,” I responded illogically.
“I’m glad to hear it! And what have you experienced?” she demanded to know, in typical style.
“The Teutonic Kriemhilde or Brunnhilde, not the Wagnerian ones – but the real thing.”
“And I’ve experienced King Solomon, not the Biblical one, but the real thing,” she responded appropriately, and added: “The time has come to replenish our unromantic systems with the million calories we have burnt up!”
And so we did. We showered, dressed, ate sandwiches, drank vermouth and stood steadily on our feet. It was then that she surprised me with a sudden outburst:
“You,” she jabbed a menacing finger at me, “are nothing other than the rusty relic of total misunderstanding of the times we are living in!”
“Could you elucidate that?” I demanded.
“Open your ears wide and listen. Our age is the inverted age. The age that came before was the age of the way to eternal life and the blueprint was simple and clear: don’t lie, don’t fornicate, don’t pursue gain, don’t complain. And it didn’t work – because human beings are designed to lie, to fornicate, to pursue gain and pity themselves, and it doesn’t matter what anyone says. In the inverted age, man lies, fornicates, pursues gain and finds legitimate satisfaction in self-pity, and has two claims to make: one, he can’t abide by the above-mentioned rules, and the other, he doesn’t believe in eternal life and doesn’t want it anyway. He is addicted and dependent, utterly and willingly dependent, on his anatomical body, and he’s not prepared under any circumstances to forgo its transient delights.”
“The former age is over and gone and it left a lot of scars. Mankind is fed up with scars. Our age lives the moment, the only thing
that it’s left with after the bitter disappointments it has absorbed. People are killed suddenly, innocent people. You and your compatriots should know this better than most. Come on, let’s live the fleeting moment, and leave eternity to the self-righteous. In our age we know how to squeeze out the last atom of sensual pleasure. The inverted age is the cannibal age, and humanity enjoys being cannibal, it wants to be cannibal. It’s capable of this and knows it. It has shaken off the dumb Freudianism of Jewish guilt.”
“What guilt are you talking about, and for what?” I interjected.
“For the Crucifixion!”
I had no answer to this.
“To make your job easier you can do whatever you like with me, even kill me and rip out my guts or sacrifice them to the idols. I’m making you an offer of incomparable generosity and magnitude: be a cannibal, true saint of our age, the inverted age that is.”
“You’re saying the weirdest things and they are nothing more than the snapshot of a situation, without any hope, without inspiration, without truth.”
“I heard of a Turk, who claimed that the world is wallowing in blood because of women who aren’t getting sexual satisfaction, and this loads the air with hostility and poison and bitterness – a convenient, logical and reliable springboard for disputes, quarrels, wars and cruelty for its own sake… there’s more than a grain of truth in this… so please do me a favour, kind Sir,” – turning to me – “and give satisfaction to this volcano of hormones, and you’ll be making your modest contribution to the salvation of the world! You are most cordially invited,” she saw fit to stress.
“Thankyou. I have some questions to ask you.”
“Ask, and I shall answer to the best of my ability and beyond.”
“How can you answer beyond your ability?” I asked, not inclined to allow any evasion.
“If you discover what’s hidden behind the question and go further and deeper. I’m sure all your questions have to do with Amin.”
“So that’s an example of going further and deeper!” I declared.
