by Ian Mcewan
He got off with everyone else near the Kurfürstendamm.
She said, Don’t go to the Eisenwarenhandlung, go to a department store where they won’t remember you.
There was a big new one across the road. He waited with a crowd for a policeman to stop the traffic and wave the people on. It was important not to break the law. The department store was new, everything was new. He consulted a list on a board. He had to go to the basement. He stepped on the escalator. In the land of the defeated, no one need walk downstairs. The place was efficient. In minutes he had what he wanted. The girl who served him gave him the change and the Bitte schön without a glance and turned to the man at his side. He took the U-Bahn from Wittenbergplatz and walked to the flat from Kottbusser Tor.
When he knocked on the door she called out, “Wer ist da?”
“It’s me,” he said in English.
When she opened the door, she looked at the cases he was carrying, and then she turned back inside. Their eyes had not met. They did not touch. He followed her in. She had rubber gloves on; all the windows were open. She had cleaned up the bathroom. The place had the atmosphere of a spring clean.
It was still there, under the blanket. He had to step over it. She had cleared the table. A pile of old newspapers was on the floor, and on a chair, folded up, were the six meters of rubberized cloth she had said she would get. It was bright and cold in here. He set the cases down by the bedroom door. He wanted to go in there and lie on the bed.
She said, “I made some coffee.”
They drank it standing up. She did not ask about his morning; he did not ask about hers. They had done their jobs. She finished her coffee quickly and began to spread the newspaper on the table two or three sheets thick. He watched her from the side, but when she turned in his direction, he looked away.
“Well?” she said.
It was bright, and then it was brighter still. The sun had come out, and though it did not shine directly into the room, the reflected light of huge cumulus clouds illuminated every corner, every detail—the cup in his hand, an upside-down headline on the table in Gothic script, the cracked black leather of the shoes protruding from under the blanket.
If all this suddenly disappeared, they would have a hard enough time getting back to where they had once been. But what they were about to do now would block their way forever. Therefore—and this seemed simple—therefore, what they were doing was wrong. But they had been through all that, they had talked the night out. She had her back to him and she was looking out the window. She had removed the gloves. Her fingertips were resting on the table. She was waiting for him to speak. He said her name. He was tired, but he tried to say it in the old way they had used, tilted gently upward like a question, whenever they recalled each other to the essentials—love, sex, friendship, the shared life, whatever.
“Maria,” he said.
She recognized it and turned. Her look was hopeless. She shrugged, and he knew she was right. It would make it harder. He nodded his acknowledgment and turned away and knelt beside one of the cases and opened it. He took out a linoleum cutting knife, a saw and an axe and set them to one side. Then, leaving the blanket and the last in place, and with Leonard at the head, Maria at the feet, they lifted Otto toward the table.
Eighteen
From the very beginning, from the moment they laid hands on him, it went wrong. Now that rigor mortis had set in, it was in fact all the easier to lift him. His legs stayed out straight and he did not sag in the middle. He was face down when they picked him up, and like a plank. The transformation caught them unprepared. Leonard fumbled his grip under the shoulders. The head drooped. The last, pulled by its own weight, slid out of the skull and fell onto Leonard’s foot.
Over his shout of pain Maria cried, “Don’t put him down now. We are almost there.”
Worse than the pain of what he thought might be a broken toe was the fact that there was issuing from under the blanket, from Otto’s brain or mouth, a cold liquid of some sort, which was soaking into the lower part of Leonard’s trousers.
“Oh Christ,” he said, “get him up there now, then. I’m going to be sick.”
There was just room for the body stretched out diagonally on the table. With the lower part of his trousers clinging to his shins, Leonard limped into the bathroom and hunched over the lavatory bowl. Nothing came. He had had nothing to eat since the Rippchen mit Erbsenpüree of the night before. He preferred to think only of its German name. When he looked below his knees, however, and saw a smear of gray matter edged with blood and hair highlighted against the dark wet cloth, he retched. At the same time he struggled to take his trousers off. Maria was watching him from the bathroom door.
“It’s on my shoes as well,” he said. “And my foot is broken, I’m sure of it.” He got his shoes and socks and trousers off and shoved them under the basin. There was nothing to show on his foot but a faint red mark at the base of his big toe.
“I’ll rub it for you,” she offered.
She followed him into the bedroom. He found some socks in the wardrobe, and trousers rumpled from Otto’s occupation. By the bed were his carpet slippers.
Maria said, “Perhaps you should wear one of my aprons.” That seemed all wrong. Women made pies and baked bread in aprons.
He said, “I’ll be all right now.”
They went back into the other room. The blanket was still in place, that was something. On the floor where Otto had been were two big damp patches on the carpet. The windows were wide open and there was nothing to smell. But the light was relentless. It picked out the fluid that had soaked Leonard. It was greenish and was dripping from the table to the floor. They stood around, reluctant to make the next move. Then Maria went to the chair where her purchases were and began to explain them. She took a deep breath at the beginning of each sentence. She was trying to keep things moving.
“This is the cloth, how do you say it, wasserdicht?”
“Waterproof.”
She was holding up a red tin. “This is the glue, rubber glue, which dries quickly. Here is a brush to spread the glue. I use these dressmaking scissors to cut the pieces.” Like a demonstrator in a department store, she cut a large square of cloth as she spoke.
This detailing of her methods helped him. He took his own things over to the table and set them down. There was no need to explain them.
“Right, then,” he said too loudly. “I’ll make a start. I’ll do a leg.”
But he did not move. He stared at the blanket. He could see each separate fiber of the weave, the infinite replication of its simple pattern.
“Take the shoe and sock off first—” was Maria’s advice. She had the lid off the tin and was stirring the glue with a teaspoon.
That was practical. He put his hand on Otto’s ankle and eased the shoe off by its heel. It came easily. There were no laces. The sock was a disgrace, matted with embedded filth. He peeled it off quickly. The foot was blackened. He was glad he was by an open window. He rolled the blanket up until the legs were exposed from just above the knees. He did not want to start alone.
He said to her, “I want you to hold him steady with both hands here.” He indicated the upper leg. She did as he asked. They were together now, side by side. He took up the saw. It was finely toothed, and was sheathed for safety in a fold of cardboard held in place by a rubber band. He got that off and stared into the crook of Otto’s knee. The trousers were black cotton and shiny from wear. He held the saw in his right hand, and with his left he held Otto’s leg just above the ankle. It was colder than room temperature. It drew the heat from his hand.
“Don’t think about it,” Maria said. “Just do it.” She snatched another breath. “Remember I love you.”
It could not be, of course, but it was important that they were together in this. They needed a formal declaration. He would have told her that he loved her too, but his mouth was so dry.
He drew the saw across the crook of Otto’s knee. It snagged immediately.
It was the cloth, and below that, stringy tendons. He lifted the saw out and, without looking at the teeth, put it in position again and tried to pull it toward him. The same thing happened.
“I can’t do this,” he cried. “It won’t go, it doesn’t work!”
“Don’t push down so hard,” she said. “Do it gently. And do the first few strokes toward you. Afterward you can go backward and forward.”
She knew about carpentry. She could have made a better shelf in the bathroom. He did as she suggested. The saw was moving with lubricated ease. Then the teeth snagged again, this time on bone, and then they were engaged. Leonard and Maria had to tighten their grip on the leg to keep it still. The saw made a muffled rasping sound.
“I have to stop!” he shouted, but he did not. He kept going. He should not have been going through bone. The idea was to get into the joint. His idea of it was vague, derived from roast chicken Sunday lunches. He angled the saw this way and that, and went at it hard, knowing that if he stopped he would never resume. Then he was through something, then it was grating bone again. He was trying not to see, but the April light exposed it all. The upper leg was oozing almost black, covering the saw. The handle was slippery. He was through, there was only skin below, and he could not get at it without sawing the table. He took the linoleum knife and tried to scour it with one stroke, but it puckered under the blade. He had to get in there, he had to put his hand into the chasm of the joint, into the cold mess of dark, ragged flesh and saw at the skin with the blade of the knife.
“Oh no!” he shouted. “Oh God!” And he was through. The whole of the lower leg was suddenly an item, a thing in a cylinder of cloth, with a bare foot. Maria was ready for it. She rolled it tight in the square of waterproof cloth she had prepared. Then she glued the ends and sealed them. She tucked the package into one of the cases.
The stump was oozing heavily; the whole table was covered. The newspaper was sodden and disintegrating. Blood was seeping down the table legs and was already all over the paper on the floor. The paper stuck to their feet when they walked over it, exposing the carpet underneath. His arms were a uniform reddish-brown from the fingertips to above the elbow. It was on his face. Where it was drying it itched. There were spots on his glasses. Maria’s hands and arms were covered too, and her dress was smeared. It was a quiet time of day, but they called to one another as though they were in a storm.
She said, “I’m going to wash myself.”
“There’s no point,” he said. “Do it at the end.” He took up the saw. Where it had been slippery, it was now sticky. This would aid his grip. They took hold of the left leg. She was on his right, this time steadying the lower leg with both hands. It should have been quicker, this one, but it was not. He began well enough, but the saw stuck halfway through, wedged tight within the joint. He had to get both hands on the saw. Maria had to stretch over him and steady the upper leg as well. Even so, as Leonard struggled with the saw, the body jerked from side to side in a mad face-down dance. When the blanket dropped away, Leonard kept his eyes off the skull. It was at the edge of vision. Soon it would have to be dealt with. They were sodden now from the waist down, from where they were pushing up against the table. It no longer mattered. He was through the joint. It was the skin again, and he had to put his hand in with the knife. Would it have been easier, he thought, if the flesh had been warm?
The second parcel was in the case. Two rubber boots side by side. Leonard found the gin. He drank from the bottle and handed it to Maria. She shook her head.
“You’re right,” she called. “We must keep going.”
They did not discuss it, but they knew they would do the arms. They started with the right, the one Leonard had tried to wrench. It was crooked and stiff. They could not pull it out straight. It was difficult finding a way in, or a place to stand to get the saw into the shoulder. Now that the table and the floor, their clothes and arms and faces, were bloodied, it was not that bad being near the skull. The whole of the back of it had collapsed inward. There was only a little brain to be seen, pushed up along the line of the fractures. After red, gray was easy. Maria held the forearm. He started in the armpit, straight into the Army jacket and the shirt underneath. It was a good saw, sharp, not too heavy, just supple enough. Where the blade met the handle there was an inch or two not yet obscured by blood. The maker’s crest was there, and the word Solingen. He repeated it as he worked. They were not killing anyone here. Otto was dead. Solingen. They were dismantling him. Solingen. Nobody was missing. Solingen, Solingen. Otto is disarmed. Solingen, Solingen.
Between the arms he drank the gin. It was easy, it was sensible. An hour’s mess, or five years in prison. The gin bottle was sticky too. The blood was everywhere, and he accepted it. This was what they had to do, this was what they were doing. Solingen. It was a job. After he had given Maria the left arm, he did not pause. He got his hands behind Otto’s shirt collar and tugged. The vertebrae at the top of the spine were designed to hold a saw in place. He was through the bone in seconds, through the cord, neatly guiding the flat of the saw against the base of the skull, snagging only briefly on the sinews of the neck, the gristle of the windpipe, and through and through with no need for the linoleum knife. Solingen, Solingen.
Otto’s banged-up head clunked to the floor and settled among the crumpled pages of the Tagesspiegel and Der Abend and offered up his long-nosed profile. He looked much as he had done in the wardrobe—eyes closed, skin unhealthily pale. His lower lip, however, was no longer giving him trouble. What was on the table now was no one at all. It was the field of operations, it was a city far below that Leonard had been ordered to destroy. Solingen. The gin again, the sticky Beefeater, then the big one, the thighs, the big push, and that would be it, home, a hot bath, a debriefing.
Maria was sitting on a wooden chair by the open cases. She took each part of her ex-husband onto her lap and patiently, with an almost maternal care, set about folding it away and sealing it and packing it carefully along with the rest. She was wrapping the head now. She was a good woman, resourceful, kind. If they could do this, they could do anything together. When this job was done, they would start again. They were engaged, they would resume the celebrations.
The saw blade rested snugly along the line of the crease where the buttocks met the leg. He would not aim to find the joint this time. Straight through the bone, a sturdy piece of two-by-two, and a good saw to cut it with. Trouser, skin, fat, flesh, bone, flesh, fat, skin, trouser. The last two he took with the knife. This one was heavy, dripping at both ends when he took it to her. His carpet slippers were black and heavy. The gin, and the other leg. This was the order of things, the order of battle: everything twice, except the head. The big lump that remained on the table to be wrapped, the cleaning up, the washing and scrubbing of skin, their skin, the disposal of things. They had a system, they could do this again if they really had to.
Maria was gluing the cloth around the second thigh. She said, “Take his jacket off.”
That was easy too, what with no arms to mess with. It just lifted off. Everything so far was fitting into one case. The torso would go in the second. She packed the second thigh and closed the lid. She had a dressmaker’s tape measure. He took one end and they laid it along the piece on the table. One hundred and two centimeters from gaping neck to stumps. She took the measure and knelt down by the cases.
“It’s too big,” she said. “It won’t go in. You’ll have to cut it in half.”
Leonard came down, he emerged from a dream. “That can’t be right,” he said. “Let’s measure it again.”
It was right. The cases were ninety-seven centimeters long. He snatched the tape and took the measurements alone. There was surely some means of bringing the figures closer.
“We’ll squeeze it in. Wrap it up and we’ll squeeze it in.”
“It won’t go. It’s a shoulder bone here, and the other end is thick. You have to cut it in half.” It was her husband, and she knew.
Ar
ms and legs, and even the head, were extremities that could be lopped off. But cutting into the rest was not right. He fumbled after a principle, some general notion of decency to support his instinctive certainty. He was so tired. When he closed his eyes he felt himself lifting away. What was needed here were some guidelines, a few basic rules. It simply was not possible, he heard himself telling Glass and a handful of senior officers, to make abstractions and define general principles when you were right in the middle of a job. These things had to be thought through beforehand, leaving the men free to concentrate on the work itself.
Maria had sat down again. Her sodden dress sagged in her lap. “Do it quickly,” she said. “Then we can get cleaned up.” She had found the pack with the three cigarettes inside. She lit one, took a drag and passed it to him. He did not mind the red smudges all over the paper, he honestly did not care. But when he went to pass it back to her, the cigarette stuck to his fingers.
“You keep it,” she said, “and let’s start.”
Soon he had to change his grip to avoid burning his fingers. The paper came away and the tobacco spilled out. He let it all fall to the floor and stamped on it. He took up the saw and untucked Otto’s shirt, exposing the back just above the waistband of the trousers. Right on the spine was a big mole. He felt squeamish about cutting through it and positioned the blade half an inch lower. His saw cut now was the whole width of the back, and again the vertebra kept him on track. He was through the bone easily enough, but an inch or so further in he began to feel that he was not cutting through things so much as pushing them to one side. But he kept on. He was in the cavity that contained all that he did not want to see. He was keeping his head raised so that he did not have to look into the cut. He looked in Maria’s direction. She was still sitting there, gray and tired and not wanting to watch. Her eyes were on the open window and the big cumulus clouds that drifted over the courtyard.
