The Dark Frontier

by A. B. Decker

  He stood up, pulling Frank to his feet with the help of Wolfgang. Together they instantly forced him onto his knees and brought him face to face with the ugly expressionless ogre of Horst’s warped libido.

  “Suck on this, my little virgin.”

  Utter nausea restrained him from making even the remotest gesture in that direction. He felt painfully mocked by Horst’s apparent pride and joy that glared at him in its aggressive silence. He was riveted firmly into place by his disgust. And showed no sign of moving one way or the other – until a sharp blow to the side of his face that sent him reeling to the right.

  “You heard what he said,” growled Wolfgang, who then kicked him viciously in the thigh as he added: “Get to it.”

  Frank dragged himself back up onto his knees. He knew there was no way he could avoid their sport with him. He had to get it over with. Spontaneously he took the thing in his right hand – perhaps just to get the feel of it, to test it. The familiarity surprised him. Familiar because it could have been his own. And it was this that enabled him, by closing his eyes, to overcome his deep nausea and repulsion. With his eyes still firmly shut, imagining that – by some impossible contortion – it was his own, he placed it in his mouth and worked on it with all the clumsiness of a novice. The bizarre idea that it might be himself he was playing with triggered a disturbing reciprocation that had him visibly excited.

  And the more electrified this reaction, the more real became his fantasy – much to the amusement of the onlookers, who saw in this a vindication of their judgement that, deep down, he preferred Horst to Helga. Not that this spoiled the girls’ enjoyment of the sport. Frank caught their giggles clearly through all the foggy haze of the depravity – and the sudden gleeful roar of laughter when Horst’s pleasure manifested itself in full. The hot sickly sensation that hit the back of Frank’s throat hurled him back from the fantasy with a force that had him coughing and spluttering, choking on the floor, in utter degradation.

  “Ach! Scheisse!” he cried. The words crawled with abject disgust.

  He felt more wretched and tarnished than a disease-ridden dog. And was treated no better: the boot caught him square in the face, instantly washing away the sour pungency of Horst with his own sweet-tasting blood. It was impossible to count the number of teeth swimming around in this bath. And any interest in such detail was quickly kicked out of him by a second heavy boot to the solar plexus.

  “No one does that to me and gets away with it.” Horst barked. “Come on, Wolf. Let’s get this filth out of here.”

  Frank felt each one grab him under an arm and haul him to his feet. He was barely conscious, but was aware of being dragged out through the door and bundled down the stairs. His battered, naked body slipped headfirst to the bottom and sank in a heap beside the dining-room door through which he had been so cynically ushered about half an hour earlier. His clothes landed on top of him where he lay. A wet pool quickly gathered under his head where the blood continued to pour from his mouth.

  “You see what trouble you can get into when you find yourself on the wrong side of us.”

  All Frank could see through his barely conscious daze were two nameless feet in the doorway, right beside his face. But the two-tone shoes were sharp enough in their vulgarity to pierce even the thickest fog. And the arrogance of the voice that went with them was unmistakable.

  “You came off lightly this time, because I asked the boys to treat you with respect. It could have been so much worse.”

  The two-tone shoes walked back and forth, mocking Frank as he lay immobilised by his pain.

  “You find Lola for me, and you will find I can be a very generous man. But for now, you filthy little fairy, get up, get out of here and stay away from Mademoiselle Roche!”

  These last venomous words were delivered with the toe of his right shoe propelled sharply into Frank’s shoulder. A token gesture. It should have been the head. But Breitner would have wanted to avoid getting blood on his two-tone shoes.

  Frank was not afforded the time to dress. Having arrived at the bottom of the stairs the slow way, Breitner’s odd-job men now dragged him to the door and kicked him out into the refreshing chill of the afternoon air, tossing his clothes after him once again.

  Chapter 10

  After Breitner’s crash course in compliance, Frank spent the next few days in his hotel room, nursing his injuries. He avoided the mirror for fear of what he might find. When he ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, he was surprised to find that he still had all his teeth. Loose, but in place. Yet the bruises were slow to heal. And his dignity even slower. He skulked in his room, outraged, scared and vengeful – like a scheming injured rat. The entire negative spectrum of human sentiment occupied his every thought in the four walls of that room from where he had been dragged so rudely into his nightmare. He relieved the lingering pain in his jaw and ribs with a ready supply of wine. But his thoughts remained devoid of any constructive pattern.

  His only consolation on getting back to his hotel room was the discovery that the record he had bought for Patricia Roche was still intact. But even this was not enough to lend any meaningful structure to his thoughts. Two strands of thinking preoccupied his mind, each as mystifying as the other: the paradox of why such an obnoxious misogynist as Breitner would insist on always referring to Patricia Roche with such respect as to call her Mademoiselle; and the question who the hell was Lola?

  He remained cooped up with these questions wary of venturing out at least until the weekend. His left eye was still swollen, but had become more yellow than black. His mouth too felt misshapen by the multiple contusions and a deep gash in his upper lip. He knew he was not a pretty sight. But after the conversation with Breitner, he sensed that he could not leave it too long before contacting Achim.

  It was mid-morning on the Sunday when he called at the hotel. It seemed a reasonable time to catch him in.

  “He checked out on Wednesday, sir,” the young lady on the desk informed him. “With his family.”

  Frank was stunned.

  ‘How could he just check out without getting in touch?’ he asked himself. ‘And only two days after we’d last seen each other. Why didn’t he tell me he would be moving on so soon? Maybe Breitner had got to him. Or did it have something to do with the mysterious Silverstone? Or the even more mysterious Lola?’

  These thoughts flooded his mind in a torrent made all the fiercer and more urgent by the memory of Breitner’s thugs still fresh in his bones.

  “Do you know where they went?” he asked the receptionist. “Did they leave a message or a forwarding address?”

  She simply shook her head and continued with the paperwork on her desk.

  Having persuaded his friend to join him in this strange exile, as he saw it, Frank felt a sense of responsibility for him. Yet from the first moments of Achim’s arrival, he had found there was no cause for any such sense of duty. On the contrary, he saw in his old friend a steely independence that both mystified and at the same time slightly irritated him. Irritated probably because he wanted Achim’s dependence on him, and found that all along it had been he who was dependent on his old friend. Now, after all the promise Frank had nurtured before his arrival, his old friend was already gone again. And it was he who felt abandoned.

  Out on the street, he spent the rest of his Sunday solitude wandering aimlessly through the city trying to fathom Achim’s behaviour, wondering where he might have gone, why he might have gone and, above all, why in such secrecy.

  The most constructive outcome of that lost day was the decision he made to move out of his hotel surroundings and to look for less extravagant lodgings. His resources were not unlimited. And with the Hotel Storchen clearly a familiar haunt for Breitner, the case in favour of an alternative had become all the more compelling.

  It was when he considered crossing the river in the hope that he might find a room at the Kolping house that he was reminded of Achim.

  ‘Perhaps that explains his di
sappearance,’ he thought. ‘Maybe he followed my suggestion and has gone to the Kolping house on the other side of the river.’ This idea encouraged him all the more to head across the river the next day.

  He rose early the next morning and, after breakfast, set off with an unaccustomed zeal in his step. Just in case they had no room at the Kolping house, he decided to stop at the nearest kiosk and buy the local newspapers. He’d be sure to find something in the classified ads for apartments or some offers of lodging. On the way, he passed an inconspicuous grocer’s. Outwardly, the premises gave no reason to invite even a passing glance. It was presumably the reflex behaviour of a hunted animal that had him look through the window of the shop as he passed by.

  His eyes were instantly greeted by a temptation he was unable to resist. His heart skipped a beat. He caught his breath. A tremor coursed through his body. As he opened the door, the bell above that sounded his entrance rang especially for Frank – and announced not only his excitement, but also the stark warnings of Willi Breitner.

  She did not see him as he entered the shop and stood a few short paces behind her. Waiting. He watched while she recited her shopping list to the woman on the counter. A kilogram of Gravensteiner apples, a lettuce, and a camembert cheese. A modest shopping basket. Short and concise. Yet spoken in a voice which came to him like the gentle rippling cascade of a mountain stream and drenched him with the cool bewitching sweetness of its tone.

  “That will be three francs seventy, please,” said the woman on the counter, bringing Frank briefly down to earth.

  Patricia Roche became very busy in her handbag as the humourless woman made no attempt to conceal her impatience. She kept her waiting hand demonstratively outstretched.

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry, I seem to have left my purse at home.”

  The despair and embarrassment in her voice vexed him. But what pained him more was the rudeness of the woman on the counter.

  “And what do you expect me to do about it?” she asked. “Give it to you? I’m not a charity, you know.”

  “Here,” Frank said, moving up to the counter and putting down four one franc pieces. “Let me help you out.”

  When Patricia Roche turned to identify her Samaritan, she looked both shocked and less than pleased. She hesitated. It was plain that she was about to refuse the offer.

  “You can pay me back later,” he added in an effort to pre-empt the refusal.

  “Er, no. No, thank you,” she said. There was a hint of resentment in her voice. She then turned to the woman on the counter:

  “Would you put the items to one side, please? I’ll be back later for them.” With that, she hurried out through the door and did not give Frank so much as a look. He turned back to the woman on the counter.

  “I’m sure you will take my money though, won’t you?” he said, pointing to the four francs on the counter.

  “What?”

  “For the apples, cheese and lettuce,” he added, pointing now to Patricia Roche’s order.

  “You can’t have those,” she said, dry and dour as ever, “they’re reserved.”

  “In that case,” Frank rejoined, somewhat baffled, “would you please give me a kilogram of Gravensteiner apples, one camembert cheese and a lettuce.”

  With a methodical sense of propriety that belied the unreasonable, crotchety impatience of the woman and completely blinded her to the nonsense of the scene, she gathered together the ordered items afresh and handed them to Frank.

  “You can put the others back,” he said, and left the woman to her ill humour.

  “Sauschwob,” she muttered, as he closed the door behind him. Frank ignored the insult. He had grown used to being called a German pig in this city, where his fatherland was generally held in pretty low regard. And not without reason, he had to admit.

  The aim of Willi Breitner’s brutal instruction course the previous week was clear. Yet now, as Frank hurried after the enchanting presence of Patricia Roche, it had lost all value. When he reached the address to which he had followed her that fateful early morning, she was just coming back out onto the street. The closeness of her as they virtually collided – the discreet passing touch of their bodies – rendered him almost speechless. She looked up at him, and he saw a new kind fear in her eyes that was disconcerting. Yet when he held up the groceries he had bought for her, the hint of a capitulating smile flickered across her captivatingly clumsy lips.

  “I almost didn’t recognise you in the shop,” she said timidly, “with your rather gruesome makeup.”

  “That’s a memento from your friend Breitner.”

  The faint spark of concern that showed in the momentary flinch of her eyes made every inch of his suffering worthwhile. So dark, so mysterious – and yet so warm and soothing.

  “I’d like you to know,” she said at last, “that Mr Breitner is not my friend. Our association is a purely business arrangement.”

  “What sort of business?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that’s any concern of yours.”

  “And I have bruises that suggest otherwise.”

  “Look.” Her voice, so soft and mellow, was beginning to crack with exasperation. “I don’t know what sort of a game you think you’re playing, but you’re not very good at it. And you’re starting to irritate me. Let me pay you for these groceries, and we can go our separate ways.”

  Maybe she was right. Whatever he was playing at, he was really not very good. But he was not prepared to throw out this intriguing potion before he had drunk from the cup and tasted the poisoned nectar for himself.

  “You know, I took a good deal of beating and humiliation for you. I thought it was because you were Breitner’s girl. Now you tell me it’s business. So it seems to me the least you could do is tell me what the business is I took that beating for.”

  She said nothing. But the anxious movement in her eyes told him she was hard at work choosing the right words. Until he added:

  “You could tell me all about it over lunch.”

  To his surprise, the movement in her sparkling eyes became quite still. She hesitated – with a gentle smile that made his heart miss a beat. He had expected outright rejection. And was rewarded for his perseverance. But when eventually she agreed, she did so on condition that she fix the time and place where they would meet.

  And it was this, the meeting place for their projected lunch date, which startled him above all. Eleven-thirty, she insisted, at the Holbein collection in the new Museum of Fine Arts.

  “There are various restaurants nearby where we can eat,” she added. Then turned to take her leave of Frank. The sleekness of her raven hair taunted him with its sensuous motion as she dipped her head slightly to bundle the groceries under her arm. Then she disappeared through the doorway to her flat.

  A good three hours remained for him to kill before they were due to meet. Although he partially resumed his original plan for the morning and bought a local newspaper, it was only a token gesture. He was completely unable to focus on his search for new lodgings. His thoughts were fully occupied by the significance of the proposed meeting place. Was it coincidence? Or was it some kind of signal? Did she have some connection with Silverstone, and by extension also with Achim?

  The endless unanswered questions sharpened his appetite all the more for his lunch date. And ensured that he would be at the museum with time to spare – and with the gift that he had bought for her in Globus.

  The waiting did nothing to help quell his impatience for answers to all those questions. As time dragged on, he recalled his fruitless lingering in the wine tavern some ten days earlier – the first time she had stood him up. Would this be the second? The thought occurred to him that it was after this first futile attempt at a date with Patricia Roche that he had experienced his paranoid trek through the streets, hounded by the conviction that he was being followed. Had she checked with Breitner about the fake date in the tavern, prompting him to put his bullies on Frank’s tail? And had Frank now fallen int
o the same trap again?

  It was already a quarter to twelve, and these thoughts trailed endlessly through his mind. She would not be coming now. That was plain. It seemed to him that everything was managing to slip through his fingers or evaporate, as if none of it existed, as if he were dreaming his life away.

  The idea both irritated and frightened him. He thought of Breitner, and it struck him that he should make certain this time that he was not being followed when he left. He took a last cautious stroll through the rooms of the Holbein collection, looking about him like a hunted animal. As he turned into the last room of portraits, his heart instantly skipped a beat. There she stood, studying a painting. Her head of silk-black hair slightly inclined. Her delicate frame captured against the gallery wall with the suggestive economy of a line drawing. Yet it was not this which made him catch his breath as much as the portrait she was examining – the very same one that had witnessed the meeting between Achim and Silverstone.

  It seemed to Frank that coincidence was being pushed beyond the bounds of credibility. And the questions this begged ran furiously around his brainpan like balls of hot fat, when suddenly she turned and saw him. She smiled.

  “I’d almost given you up,” she said, the smile still lingering tantalisingly on her lips. “I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes already.”

  In dumb silence, he let her words wash over him with all the responsiveness of a lumpfish caught between ebb and flow. He did not even consider how it was that he had managed to miss her while he was waiting round the corner, and how or why it was that she had missed him. He was completely tongue-tied, his brain barely functional. It was not just that he was utterly taken aback to find her standing in front of this portrait – of all the paintings in the museum she could have chosen. It was as if she was baiting him in some way that his befuddled brain was incapable of processing. But there was more to his hopeless inertia than this.