by A. B. Decker
“Good morning, Mr Eigenmann,” he said, instantly dispelling any sense of this new quality with his familiar, unctuous smarm. “Please get in.”
Frank hesitated, but Lutz did not let his greasy smile weaken for a moment. He was supremely confident. He knew that Patricia was too much of an inducement to resist. Was this what Breitner was counting on? Frank kept his fingers crossed and clambered in.
“I hope you remembered to bring your passport,” Lutz said, as he settled uneasily into the leather upholstery. Frank nodded.
“Please,” Lutz said, opening an outstretched hand towards his passenger.
Frank pulled out his passport and placed it in the outstretched hand, nervously recalling stories about the recent abduction of the journalist Jacob as he did so. Am I now to be the protagonist in a rerun of that scene and become a diplomatic incident? Frank asked himself. But no, no one would give a damn – and why should they? He was a German citizen of good Aryan stock. Apart from his brief spell as a failed courier, he offered no history to arouse the interest of those who make it their life’s work sniffing out causes for persecution. He was a negligible quantity.
Breitner knew it. Yet it was precisely this that made Frank feel especially uneasy. Breitner knew he was not the stuff that diplomatic incidents are made of – an insignificance he would delight in exploiting. He would take the utmost pleasure in repatriating Frank to stand trial for treason as a courier of anti-government propaganda. Not only would it help to ingratiate him with the people of influence in Berlin (it did not matter to them how small the fish were as long as they filled their nets). It would also rid him of a rival for Patricia’s attention.
He looked across at Lutz. His driver was still smiling. Were his thoughts moving in the same direction? Frank wondered. If there was even the slightest possibility of seeing Patricia, it was a risk he felt compelled to take. But this was presumably what they were counting on. These dark thoughts focused his attention on the cold chamber of destruction in his pocket. It had already served him well, and he had not even had to use it. He tightened his grip on the gun for reassurance while the car sped on, curving through a tunnel of trees, to the border with France. The forest on either side was suffused with a curious grey light that made the trees loom like a vast neglected paling erected haphazardly across a wasteland for some long-forgotten purpose. On the other side of the woods at the crossing stood a small customs house. They stopped.
When Lutz wound down the window and let in the cold Bise that gusted through the trees behind them, Frank caught the sound of a shutter flapping on the side of the house. The French customs officer appeared in the doorway. He was alone, and wore the stern expression of a man looking for distraction, anything to chase away the boredom. He walked over to the car and peered suspiciously at its occupants. Lutz gave him the passports, but the officer cast only a cursory glance inside. He was more interested in the car. What was in the boot, he wanted to know. Lutz duly climbed out and opened up both the boot and the bonnet to satisfy the man’s undernourished curiosity. The butt of Frank’s gun became moist with the sweat from his palm. He prayed that the officer would not see the nervousness in his eyes when he returned to the car. But it was Lutz, not the customs man, who came back to the car door and leaned through the window.
“Would you happen to have ten francs with you, Mr Eigenmann? It seems we have to pay for the privilege of driving into this delightful country.” Frank sensed himself scowling at the thought of paying good money for his own abduction. “On the other hand,” Lutz reflected, without waiting for him to reach into his wallet, “we don’t have far to go. It’s only a few hundred metres from here. And it would seem a shame paying good money to avoid a little healthy exercise, so I suggest we leave the car and walk from here.”
The way Lutz used the self-same expression that had gone through his own mind only a few seconds earlier irritated Frank intensely. It was as if he were arrogating some kind of intimacy with him. But he pocketed the insult and climbed out of the car while Lutz backed up and parked it on the side of the road under the trees. The customs man had lost interest by now and ambled around to the side of his office to fix the flapping shutter before returning to his isolation.
Walking side by side with Lutz along that lane into France was not a comfortable exercise. Once again it seemed to him that the world at large was being treated to a declaration of intimacy between them by the very fact of their togetherness, and he kept defiantly quiet in an effort to correct the image.
For all Frank’s distrust of Lutz, however, the man proved to have been reliable at least when he said it was not far. After a thankfully short walk from the border, they soon found themselves descending a dip into a sleepy hamlet with no obvious character to it beyond the fact that it sat on a border. It gave the impression of not really knowing where it belonged. While it was nominally in France, the few houses Frank could see, and the church in the distance, yielded no clue to their affiliations; they could just as well have been in Switzerland, or then again in Germany. This was a part of what Achim had called the Sundgau, stamping ground of his uncle Max and scene of misspent summers. This thought had Frank wondering where Achim was at that moment, what had become of him. If he had fallen victim to Breitner’s evil, then probably Lutz knew what had happened. But Frank hesitated to grill him for fear of the answers he might get.
“Please, Mr Eigenmann,” Lutz said, interrupting the uneasy drift of Frank’s thoughts, as he opened a door to one of the few buildings in the hamlet and ushered him inside. It was an anonymous-looking auberge, and the dark bistre of the restaurant inside was neither inviting nor warm. The red-and-white gingham tablecloths tried to conceal the grimness of the stuffy, burnt sienna atmosphere, but their efforts were thwarted by the hostile emptiness of the place.
“Please, Mr Eigenmann. Take a seat. Is there anything I can get you?” Lutz asked.
Frank said he would gladly take a cup of coffee, at which Lutz disappeared into a back room behind the bar. Meanwhile Frank sat himself at a discreet table in a darker part of the restaurant, trying to estimate the significance of his driver’s nauseatingly attentive behaviour.
“Hello squirrel.”
The voice caught Frank unawares. Such sweet cadence that had played on the edge of his impatient memory for so long. And now he trembled to hear it – and to hear the affection in that ludicrous pet name she had chosen for him. He was angry at his foolishness, almost afraid of his own desire. And at the pitch of his agitation, he hesitated to turn. But he had no need to: as she spoke, she moved around from behind him and sat down on the opposite side of the table.
“Patricia,” was all he managed in response. The melancholy sparkle in her eyes and the sensual parting of the lips pursed in a deeply seductive smile. Yet the smile was deceptive. It blew like the Föhn, melting down the Alpine snow, but too fickle to break the hold of winter. He sensed the same cool distance between them that he had felt when they first met. But it seemed different now, mingled indefinably with a certain reluctance. She seemed sadder and colder than ever before. Yet simmered with the passion of a sleeping volcano.
Her hands were like marble to the touch. He recalled the last time he had enjoyed the pleasure of their searching path across his body. So warm and so inquisitive. But that was just another brief chapter in the history books. Something had happened in the meantime to deepen her sorrow, and it disturbed him.
“When did you get back?” he asked.
It seemed a simple question, but she plainly had difficulty finding the right words in answer. While she was still searching, an elderly man with the look of arthritis in his walk and one too many glasses of marc in his cheeks shuffled up to their table with two cups of coffee, then withdrew again without uttering a sound. Frank gave up on his first question and tried another approach.
“Where’s Lutz disappeared to?”
This time the ice broke.
“He’s waiting back at the car,” she said, after testing
the coffee with her lips. Her words tugged on his heart like a lead weight. Set an undefined time limit, hovered like the writer’s hand impatient to pencil in the full stop on their meeting.
“Patricia.” He touched her hand as she put down her cup. The coffee already seemed to have added a hint of warmth to her skin. “Patricia, I have so many questions I want to ask. Too many. About Lutz. About you. About what on earth we’re doing here. About so many things I don’t understand.”
Her eyes sparkled faintly with a smile of amusement. “In that order?”
“You think I might be more interested in Lutz than in you?”
For an instant her self-control evaporated, and she broke into a laugh so exquisitely fragile he wanted to take her in his arms, to preserve every atom of her curious beauty. But now was not the time. The table lay between them and they needed to talk. He suggested they start from the moment they last said goodbye – he wanted to know what had been happening to her in the intervening weeks to make her so indescribably sad. But she remained characteristically obtuse.
“I’d prefer to start from the moment we just said hello.”
These few words of contradiction breathed a bewitching hint of affection. But this was plainly not her purpose. From her guarded manner, it was clear that, while there were certain things she wanted him to know, she was keen at the same time to withhold secrets that were not for his ears. And he had the impression she found it easier to manage the disclosure process by working back carefully step by step from the moment she had Lutz bring him here across the border.
“You know, Patricia, while we were on the way here in his car, I was beginning to wonder whether Lutz and Breitner were doing a Berthold Jacob with me.”
“You can trust Lutz,” she said, dismissing his remark with an impatience he found hard to accept. He recalled how she had used that same phrase when she introduced him to her mysterious friend Léandre. Did this testimonial cast him in the same role as Lutz? Frank wondered.
“You had rather less flattering things to say of him the last time I saw you,” he replied.
“Times change.”
Lutz had always been a reluctant accomplice to Breitner’s business affairs, she explained, but he was basically a decent man. And over the last few weeks, he had been an indirect party to things that left him no choice but to cross over and saddle a worthier horse – even at the risk of his own skin.
“What sort of things?”
“You know yourself the very least that Breitner is capable of,” she said, and left him briefly to his unquiet memories. “That’s partly why you have Lutz working on your behalf.”
“What do you mean ‘partly’?”
She ignored his question.
“Tell me about your trip to Cologne. What happened?” she asked instead, feigning an interest which he felt was not there. But, with some reluctance, he gave her an outline of his abortive journey north: the betrayal of friendship and trust by Achim, his abandonment of the false mission that was left in his hands, the boat ride back up the Rhine and – without going into every gruesome detail – the disgusting carnage he had found on his return.
“There was no sign of Achim. Do you suppose Lutz knows what happened to him?” he asked. “I had the impression Silverstone thinks I have something to do with this and wants me dead as a result.”
She left him again to pause for reflection, letting him know that she was there only by the touch of her hand on his.
“But it occurs to me,” he continued. “Could he have had something to do with it? You know Breitner a lot better than I do. Is it possible that Silverstone is a traitor to his cause and is really working for Breitner?”
A peculiar look of hurt and reproach came into her eyes, which he was unable to explain.
“It’s very easy, when you’re sitting on the fence, to see betrayal lurking on every corner. It makes your own position so much more comfortable, doesn’t it? But you should take care, Frank. The worst betrayals are those we commit without even realising, without even moving an inch no matter where we sit. Just because we’re too dumb. Or too naive. And they go unnoticed until it’s too late.”
“Well, I feel my position is anything but comfortable just now,” he assured her.
It was not only her thinly disguised criticism that unsettled him – as it was certainly intended to – but the realisation that he was completely out of his depth. And she did nothing to ease his disquiet when she brought her philosophy of betrayal back to the trust he should put in Lutz. That was an investment of faith that called for emotional gymnastics in which he had had little training.
“It’s mainly thanks to him that I found somewhere else to live so quickly,” she insisted. He has some very useful connections.”
Her last words reminded him of the way Achim had described Silverstone, a memory that had him ponder further on Breitner’s interest in Achim.
“You’ve spent a lot of time with Breitner. Did he ever mention anyone called Lola?” he asked.
Patricia’s melancholy lifted for a moment. She smiled with a genuine sparkle of amusement at the question.
“You’ve been to Breitner’s villa,” she said. “So the erotic paintings and drawings on the walls can hardly have escaped you.”
It was a memory Frank would have preferred not to be reminded of.
“He’s vulgar of course,” Patricia continued, “but he likes to think of himself as an art lover. Édouard-Henri Avril is a favourite of his. Not the finest art that France has ever produced. But it feeds his fantasies. Like Lola Bach. She was an erotic dancer in Berlin who Breitner became obsessed with. So, when he saw a painting of her, he was determined to get his hands on it, as were many other people. Your friend was bringing it to Switzerland for safekeeping.”
“And that’s where Silverstone comes in?” he asked, recalling now the rucksack which Achim had with him when they met and which he took with him when he met with Silverstone.
“I have no idea what Silverstone does,” she shrugged.
“Apparently he works at that hornet’s nest they call the Bank for International Settlements.”
Again she smiled with wry amusement. But said nothing. Growing impatient with the dead ends into which his questions kept sailing, he changed tack.
“Why find somewhere else to live?” he asked.
“Breitner,” she replied. “You’re not the only one he’s looking for.”
“Well, if it’s such a safe house that Lutz has found you, why didn’t we meet there?”
“It’s not safe. There’s no such thing. Especially for you,” she added ominously. As if to accentuate the concern expressed in these last three words, she squeezed his hand. “That’s why I want you to stay across the border here in France for the time being, while we consider what to do.”
“What do you mean ‘what to do’?”
She took a last sip from her coffee as only she could – a sparkle in her melancholy eyes and a touch of irony on her lips.
“For one so lacking in curiosity, little squirrel, you ask far too many questions. I shall get Lutz to bring your things out to you from the Kolping house.”
“No,” he interjected. “They’re watching the house. I just have a few things in your old flat. Razor and so on. That’s all I need. Or perhaps I should just grow a beard.”
She laughed.
“Oh no. I couldn’t stand that. Lutz will bring a razor out to you this afternoon.”
Her mock horror at the prospect of him with hair on his chin teased his male vanity. That she was sufficiently interested in him to express such preference pleased him, and robbed him of the strength to contradict her. She was in control, and he was happy to submit.
But the finality with which she put down her coffee cup and got up from the table threw him into a premature despair made all the more acute by her words:
“I shall come out and see you every so often, when I can. But I won’t be able to come for a few days.”
“Ple
ase don’t go yet, Patricia,” he begged her. “We’ve hardly spoken. There’s so much I want to say. And so much I want to hear.”
But he knew she had long since reached the limit of what she was ready to tell him. And she was insistent.
“I’m sorry squirrel. I have things to do.”
“What sort of things?”
“Work. Somehow in all this mess I still have to study. And on Thursday there’s a concert at the Stadtcasino – a friend has given me a couple of tickets, and I have to go. I’ll try to get out here on Friday.”
“I’d like to meet some of your friends someday.”
“You will,” was all she said. But she could not disguise a certain amusement in the smile that came with those two words. It chipped away at his self-esteem. ‘That smile will be the death of me,’ he told himself – like a dark inviting destiny shining out across the water from its unlit world.
“What’s the concert?”
“Bartok. It’s a world premiere. I can’t afford to miss it.”
Nor did she miss his desperation. She sensed it in the drift of his questions.
“But it’s much too dangerous for you, Frank. Breitner’s looking for you, and if he sees you with me…”
“I believe I’m right in saying the Stadtcasino was the venue for a Zionist Congress,” he interrupted her. “It’s hard to imagine Breitner setting foot inside the place unless it’s been fumigated first. And since you have an extra ticket, it would seem a shame to waste it. Unless you have someone else in mind,” he added fearfully.
“No.”
“Good. Then I’ll come.”
“No, Frank.”
Patricia was smiling, but she remained insistent. It was only the delicate kiss she left on his lips before taking her leave that finally silenced him. And set the sweetest seal on his decision to stay put. For the time being.
The man with arthritis in his hips who had served them coffee proved to be the owner of the auberge. When Patricia had gone, he led his guest limping up a dingy staircase to a room that appeared to have already been prepared for him. Patricia plainly had everything well thought out and under control.