by Ian Mcewan
There was a glutinous sound that brought him the memory of a jelly dessert eased from its mold. It was moving about in there; something had collapsed and rolled onto something else. He was through to the bottom, and now he faced the old problem. He could not cut through the belly skin without sawing into the wood. It was a good table, too, sturdily constructed of elm. And this time he was not reaching his hand in. Instead he turned the carcass through ninety degrees and pulled it forward by the front half, so that the saw cut was in line with the table’s edge. He should have asked for Maria’s help. She should have foreseen the difficulty and come to his rescue. He was supporting the top half with both hands. The lower half still rested on the table. How then was he supposed to use the knife to cut through the belly skin? He was too tired to stop, even though he knew he was attempting the impossible. He brought his left knee up to bear the weight and stretched forward for the knife, which was on the table. It might have worked. He could have held the upper body with his knee and his hand, and with his free hand he could have reached under and cut through the skin. But he was too tired to be balancing on one leg. He almost had the knife in his hand when he felt himself toppling. He had to put his left foot down. He tried to get the free hand back in time, but the whole thing fell from his grasp. The top half swung on its hinge of skin toward the floor, exposing the vivid mess of Otto’s digestive tract and pulling the bottom half with it. Both tipped to the floor and disgorged onto the carpet.
There was a moment before he left the room when Leonard suddenly had the measure of the distance they had traveled, the trajectory that had delivered them from their successful little engagement party to this, and how all along the way each successive step had seemed logical enough, consistent with the one before, and how no one was to blame. Before he made his run for the bathroom he had an impression of liverish reds, glistening irregular tubing of a boiled-egg bluish-white, and something purple and black, all of it shining and livid at the outrage of violated privacy, of secrets exposed. Despite the open windows, the room filled with the close stench of musty air, which itself was a medium for other smells: of sweet earth, sulfurous crap, and sauerkraut. The insult was, Leonard had time to think as he stepped hurriedly round the upended halves of the torso that were still joined, that all this stuff was also in himself.
As if to prove it, he gripped the edges of the toilet bowl and brought up a mouthful of green bile. He rinsed his mouth at the basin. The contact with clean water was a reminder of another life. No matter that he had not yet finished; he had to be clean—now. He kicked off his slippers, removed his shirt and trousers and added them to the pile under the basin and got into the bath. He crouched down and washed himself under the running taps. Dried blood was not easily removed in icy water. The pumice stone was the most effective, and he scrubbed his skin with no other thought for a long time—half an hour, perhaps twice that. By the time he had finished, his hands, arms and face were rubbed raw and he was shaking from the cold.
His clean clothes were in the bedroom. He had forgotten everything, it had left him for the period of his ablution, and now he would have to walk back through there in his clean bare feet, past his uncompleted work.
But when he arrived in the living room with a towel around his waist, still dripping, Maria was lifting the largest of the sealed parcels into one of the cases.
She spoke as though he had been there all the time and had just asked a question. “It goes like this now. Lower body, arm, top and bottom leg, and head in this one. And in this one, upper body, arm and top and bottom leg.”
By the table was a dustpan and a bucket. The rest was in there. He helped her close the cases up, and then, while she sat on them, he secured the canvas straps as tight as they would go. He lugged the cases over to the wall. Now there was only luggage and a certain degree of residual mess, which could easily be cleaned up. He noticed she had a kettle and saucepans heating on the stove for her wash. He went into the bedroom, planning to dress and then snatch ten minutes’ sleep while she was in the bathroom. He wasted time looking for his shoes before he remembered where they were. He lay down and closed his eyes.
Immediately she was there, cleaned up and in her dressing gown, searching the wardrobe for the right clothes.
“Don’t go to sleep now,” she said. “You’ll never wake up in time.” She was right, of course.
He sat up, found his glasses and watched her. She always turned her back on him while she was getting dressed, an aspect of her modesty that usually touched him, excited him even. Now it was irritating, when he considered what they had been through together, and how they were engaged. He got off the bed, edged past without touching her and went into the bathroom. He picked his shoes up from under the pile of bloody clothes. It really was not difficult at all to wipe them clean with a washcloth. He put them on and threw the cloth down with the rest of the stuff. Then he began to clean up the living room. Maria had collected several large paper bags. He was stuffing the newspaper pages into them when she came in from the bedroom and joined him. They rolled the carpet up and put it by the door. It would have to be thrown out later. To scrub the table and floor they needed the bucket. Maria emptied it into the largest of her saucepans, turning her head away as she did so.
Leonard fetched a scrub brush and was sprinkling scouring powder on the table when she said, “It’s stupid, both doing this. Why don’t you take the cases now. I’ll finish here.”
It was not only that she knew she would make a better job of the table and the floor than he would. She wanted him out, she wanted to be alone. And to him the prospect of leaving this place, setting off by himself, even with heavy luggage, was attractive. It felt like freedom. He wanted to be away from her just as much as she wanted him to go. It was as bleak and simple as that. For now they could not touch each other, they could not even exchange glances. Even the most conventional gestures—taking her hand, for example—repelled him. Everything between them, every detail, every transaction, chafed and irritated, like grit in the eye. He saw the tools. The axe was there, unused. He tried to recall why he had thought he would need it. The imagination was even more brutal than life.
He said, “Don’t forget to do the knife and the saw and all the teeth.”
“I won’t.”
He put his coat on while she opened the front door. He stood between the cases, braced himself, lifted, then made a quick straight run with them out onto the landing. He put them down and turned. She stood in the doorway, one hand on the door, ready to close it. If he had felt the fraction of an impulse, he would have gone over to her, kissed her cheek, touched her arm or hand. But what hung in the air between them was disgust, and it was not possible to pretend.
“I’ll be back” was all he could manage, and that seemed an extravagant promise.
“Yes,” she said, and closed the door.
Nineteen
For two minutes he stood between the cases at the head of the communal stairs. Once he began on the next stage, there would be no time for reflection. But he had few thoughts now. Beyond the spinning tiredness, he was aware of his pleasure in going. If he was disposing of Otto, in a sense he was disposing of Maria too. And she of him. There was bound to be sorrow in all this, but it could not reach him now. He was leaving. He picked up his bags and started down. By bumping the cases on the steps, he was able to manage both at once. He paused for breath on each landing. A man just in from work nodded as he passed on his way up. Two boys pushed past him while he was resting. There was nothing strange about him. Berlin was full of people with heavy luggage.
As he descended and the distance from Maria’s flat increased and he was more completely alone, all his pains returned. The pain in his shoulder was settling to a deep muscular throb. His ear no longer required him to touch it for it to hurt. The act of walking downstairs carrying perhaps more than 150 pounds was causing further damage in his groin. And now, Otto’s parting blow: an electric pain flashing outward from the base of his big toe t
o his ankle. Down he went, and they all hurt more. At the bottom he took the cases one at a time through the door into the courtyard, and then he took a longer rest. He felt raw, as though he had just been boiled, or a layer of skin had been peeled from him. The solidity of things oppressed him. The rasp of a small stone underfoot made his stomach swoop. Grime on the wall round the stairwell light switch, and then the mass of the wall itself, the pointlessness of all those bricks, afflicted him, bore down on him like an illness. Was he hungry? The thought of taking selected parts of the solid world and passing them through a hole in his head and squeezing them through his guts was an abomination. He was pink and raw and dry. He was leaning against the courtyard wall, watching kids playing football. Wherever the ball bounced and wherever shoes skidded in tight turns was a friction that pained him, rubbed his unlubricated senses sore. His lids chafed his eyes when he closed them.
On level ground, and in the open air, the courtyard was where he could rehearse the carrying of the cases. No one ever really had cases as heavy as these. He picked them up and lurched forward. He went ten yards before he had to set them down. He could not afford to stagger. He had to move like any other traveler. He could not permit himself to wince or examine his hands too frequently. He had to go further than ten yards. He set himself a minimum of twenty-five steps.
He was across the courtyard in three stages, and now he was on the pavement. There were only a few passersby. If anyone offered help he would have to refuse, he would have to be prepared to be rude. He would have to look as though he did not need help, then no one would offer it. He started on his twenty-five paces. Counting was a way of coping with the agony of the weight. It was an effort not to count out loud. He set the cases down and made a show of looking at his watch. A quarter to six. There was no rush-hour traffic on Adalbertstrasse. He had to make it to the next corner. He waited long enough for there to have been a complete change of people around him, then he took the weight and rushed forward. He had made it to twenty-five on all the previous occasions, but this time he was not going to reach twenty. His steps were shorter and quicker. There was a softening in his wrists. His fingers straightened helplessly, and the cases dropped to the pavement. One fell on its side.
He was righting it, blocking the way, when a lady with her dog stepped around him and made a disapproving clucking noise. Perhaps she was speaking for the whole street. The dog, a game-looking mongrel, was interested in the case that Leonard had pulled upright. It sniffed along the length of the case, wagging its tail, and then came round the other side, avid all of a sudden and muzzling hard against the fabric. It was on a leash, but the woman was one of those owners who do not like to cross their pets. She stood patiently, with the leash slack in her hand, waiting for the animal to lose interest. She was less than two feet away, but she did not look at Leonard. She spoke only to the dog, whose sniffing was now frenetic. It knew.
“Komm schon, mein kleiner Liebling. Ist doch nur ein Koffer.” It’s only a suitcase.
Leonard also indulged the dog. He needed an excuse not to pick up the cases. But now it was growling and whining by turns. It was attempting to close its jaws round a corner of the case.
“Gnädige Frau,” Leonard said, “please control your dog.”
But rather than pull on the leash, the woman merely increased the torrent of endearments. “Little silly one, who do you think you are? This luggage belongs to the gentleman, not to you. Come on now, little sausage …”
A becalmed and abstracted version of himself was speculating that if one had something to dispose of, one could do worse than consider a hungry dog. One would need a pack. The dog had found a purchase. It had its teeth into the corner of the case. It was biting, growling and wagging its tail.
At last the woman spoke to Leonard. “You must have food in there. Wurst, perhaps!” There was a touch of accusation in this. She thought he was a smuggler bringing cheap food over from the East.
“It’s an expensive case,” he said. “If your dog damages it, you, gnädige Frau, will be responsible.” He looked around, as if to summon a policeman.
The woman was affronted. She gave the leash a savage jerk and moved on. Her dog yelped and came to heel, and then seemed to regret its compliance. As its owner walked away, the dog was straining to get back. Through the fogs of species memory it recognized a chance of a lifetime, to devour a human with impunity and avenge the wolf ancestors for ten thousand years of subjugation. A minute later it was still looking back and giving token tugs on its leash. The woman sailed on, refusing any compromise.
There were teethmarks and saliva on the case, but the fabric was not torn. Leonard positioned himself between his burdens and lifted. He walked fifteen steps and had to stop. The woman’s disapproval lingered, it was infecting the glances of other passersby. What could he possibly have in those cases that could be so heavy? Why didn’t he have a friend to help him? It must be illegal, it could only be contraband. Why did he look so haggard, that man with the heavy cases? Why hadn’t he shaved? It was only a matter of time now before a green Polizist caught sight of him. They were always on the lookout for trouble. That was the kind of city it was. They had limitless powers, these German police. He would not be able to refuse them if they wanted him to open up his luggage. He could not afford to be seen standing around. He settled for frantic effort, for little dashes of ten or twelve steps. He attempted to transform the trembling rictus of effort into the smile of a respectable traveler fresh from the railway station, who needed neither surveillance nor help. In between, he took the briefest possible rests. Whenever he stopped he glanced around him, for the benefit of the passing traffic, as if lost, or looking for the right house.
By the Kottbusser Tor U-Bahn he set the cases down on the curb and sat on them. He wanted to give attention to the pain in his foot. He needed to get his shoe off. But the cases sagged unpleasantly under his weight, and he stood up immediately. If he could get ten, even five minutes’ sleep, he thought, he could manage the luggage with less fuss.
He was close to the Eckladen where they sometimes shopped for their daily needs. The owner, who was bringing in his vegetable and fruit racks, saw Leonard and waved.
“Holidays?”
Leonard nodded and at the same time said, “No, no, not yet,” and then in his confusion added in English. “It’s business, really,” a statement he instantly wished to retract. How would he be, answering routine questions from a curious Polizist?
He stood by his cases watching the traffic. He was seeing objects drifting on the periphery of vision: an English letter box, a stag with high antlers, a table lamp. When he turned to them, they dissolved. His dreams were starting without him. He had to turn his head to dispel each phantom. There was nothing sinister. Bananas rotated end over end; a tin of biscuits with a thatched cottage on the lid opened by itself. How was he to concentrate when he had to keep turning aside to keep these things at bay? Did he dare leave them where they were?
There was a plan formulated, so long ago that he doubted whether it could still be valid. But there was no other; he had to stay with this one. And yet a kind soft thought was pulling at him. It was getting dark, the cars already had their headlights on, the shops were closing up, people were heading home. Above him a streetlight, screwed wonkily to a crumbling wall, came on with a crackle. Some kids went by, pushing a pram. The taxi he had been looking for was pulling up by the curb. He had not even hailed it. The driver had seen his cases. Even in the dusk he had guessed at their improbable weight. He got out and opened the trunk.
It was an old diesel Mercedes. Leonard thought he would be able to swing one of the cases in before the driver touched it. But it turned out that they heaved it in together.
“Books,” Leonard explained. The driver shrugged. It was not his business. They shoved the other case onto the backseat. Leonard got into the front and asked for the Zoo station. The heater was on; the seat was huge and shiny. The soft thought was tugging again. He only had to speak t
he words and he would be there.
But he did not even remember the taxi pulling away. When he woke, it had stopped and the cases were already on the sidewalk, side by side, and his own door was open. The driver must have shaken him. In his confusion, Leonard overtipped. The man touched the peak of his cap and strolled over to stand with the other drivers who collected by the station rank. Leonard had his back to them and knew they were watching him. It was for their benefit that he made the effort to carry the cases smoothly across the ten yards of pavement to the high double doors that opened onto the station concourse.
As soon as he was inside he set them down. He felt safer. Only a few feet away a dozen British soldiers were lining up with their own regulation suitcases. All the shops and restaurants were open, and there was residual rush-hour bustle for the Stadtbahn trains upstairs. Beyond a lingerie shop and a bookstall was a sign pointing the way to the luggage lockers. Everywhere was the cigar-and-strong-coffee smell of German well-being. The floor was smooth and he could drag the cases across it. He passed fruit stalls, a restaurant, a souvenir shop. It was all so cheerful, it was all such a success! He was a legitimate traveler at last, utterly inconspicuous, a traveler moreover who would not have to drag his luggage upstairs to the trains.
The place to check luggage was a little way down one of the tunnels that led off the main concourse. There was a circular area with newly installed lockers set around the walls facing a counter where two men in uniform stood ready to receive bags and stow them on the racks behind them. Two or three people were waiting to collect or deposit luggage when Leonard arrived. He dragged his cases as far as possible from the counter and found two vacant lockers at floor level. He moved deliberately, lining up the cases, straightening to search his pockets for the change he had brought with him. There was no hurry. He had a fistful of ten pfennig coins. He opened a locker and pushed a case with his knee. Nothing happened. He pocketed the change and pushed harder. He glanced over his shoulder. There was no one at the counter now. The two men there were talking and looking in his direction. He bent down to find the obstruction. The space was an inch or so too narrow. He made a halfhearted attempt to squeeze the case, and then he gave up. If he had not been so tired, he might now have done the right thing. As he stood up he saw that one of the luggage officials, a man with a graying beard, was waving him over. It was logical: if your luggage did not fit in the lockers, you took it to the counter. But he had not prepared for this, it was not in the plan. Was it the right thing? Would they want to know why his cases were so heavy? What powers did their uniforms grant them? Would they remember his face?
