Katherine Carlyle

by Rupert Thomson

  We stop on a tree-lined street near the Gendarmenmarkt. The restaurant is located on the ground floor of a grand stone building that looks as if it might once have been a bank or an insurance company. When we walk in, I gather from the welcome we receive that Raul is a regular customer.

  Once seated he orders champagne, then looks around. “Movie stars come here. And politicians.” He shrugs.

  “Do you live in Berlin?” I ask.

  “I live in Croatia.”

  “But you’re often here. For business.”

  “Yes.”

  He holds my gaze for a moment. His eyes are opaque and lackluster, like someone who has been watching too much TV. I have the sense that I shouldn’t probe too deeply into his life. At the same time it’s my job to keep him entertained.

  “This is my first time in Berlin,” I say. “I live in Rome.”

  He looks up from the menu. “You’re Italian?”

  “No, English. I was born in London.”

  “An English girl,” he says slowly and sips his champagne.

  The waiter arrives. I ask for the roasted gilthead. Raul orders breast of musk duck with glass noodles.

  It occurs to me that I can trust Raul with anything, even the truth, because he doesn’t know me and he never will. He’s even more of a stranger than Oswald or Klaus Frings or Cheadle. He sits at the table like something built to hold a secret. Like a safe. It also occurs to me that I will have to do most of the talking. Despite his command of the language he’s not a man who is profligate with words. For him, words are tools. Words fix things. Get things done.

  “I’m nineteen,” I tell him, “but I’m also twenty-seven.” I reach for my champagne.

  He stares at me and his face doesn’t change. He has a small scar near the edge of his mouth. His eyes are like wet wood.

  “I was born twice,” I say.

  He’s still watching me.

  I tell him about my conception in a London hospital. I was an IVF baby. Does he know what that means? He nods. I tell him I was frozen. I was stored for eight years before I was finally implanted in my mother. I was put together — formed — but then I had to wait in the cold, with no knowledge of how long that wait was likely to be, or whether it would ever end.

  “Like a hostage,” he says.

  The analogy catches me off guard and though Raul remains quite still and solid the room appears to liquefy behind him.

  “Yes,” I say. “Exactly.”

  “But you don’t remember that. It isn’t possible.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  Although I imagine him to be a man who has no patience with hypotheses and speculation, although his mind is almost certainly practical or even prosaic, he seems prepared to hear me out, and if I can find the right combination of words I might be able to convince him.

  “Somewhere inside me,” I say, “there is a memory of that time. I carry it. Not in my brain necessarily — not consciously — but in my bones. My marrow.”

  “Marrow?”

  “It’s the fatty substance in our bones. But we also use the word metaphorically, to describe the very center of our being.”

  He nods slowly.

  I tear off a piece of bread. Since English isn’t his first language I’m having to alter the way I speak and it’s giving me an unexpected freedom. I can come at things from a different angle. Make discoveries.

  “It’s not that I remember it,” I go on. “It’s more as if I have a sense of it.” I sip my champagne and the bubbles fizzle against my upper lip. “You know what it’s like to be caught in a thunderstorm? Well, the time I’m talking about is like the quiet before a storm arrives. It’s like uneasiness or apprehension. You feel the air begin to change. You feel something electrical —

  “Or imagine you’re in a foreign city and you go to a movie and you get lost in it. At the end, when you walk out of the cinema, it’s not the city from the movie, and it’s not the city you’re used to either, not the city you know, it’s somewhere else —”

  Raul is frowning. “This is how you feel,” he says, “when you think about this time?”

  “Those frozen years, they’re still with me. They’re imprinted on my cells. On my DNA.” I pause. “I’m actually made out of those years.”

  I finish my champagne. A waiter appears and pours me another. Sometimes I suspect I haven’t quite thawed out yet. My emotions are still frozen, my nerve endings numb. Sometimes I imagine I have been carved out of ice, like a swan in a medieval banquet, and that my heart is visible inside, a gorgeous scarlet, but motionless, trapped, incapable of beating or feeling.

  “I’m living in a different way now,” I say. “I’m trying a new approach. I think it’s working.”

  Our food arrives.

  Head lowered, Raul inspects his duck.

  “I’ve gone out on a limb.” I watch him as he picks up his knife and fork and starts to eat. “Do you know that phrase?”

  Perhaps I’m talking too much. How much champagne have I drunk? Two glasses? Three? It can be exhausting, having to listen to someone. But I’m supposed to entertain him, aren’t I.

  “It’s when you step onto the branch of a tree,” I say. “You begin to walk along the branch, cautiously, because you’re not sure it will take your weight. But you keep going. At any moment the branch might break. At any moment you might fall. That’s going out on a limb.”

  “I understand.”

  “I thought you would.” I’m smiling. “Your English is very good.”

  He looks at me. “No. Not really.”

  I eat a mouthful of gilthead, which is so soft that it seems to melt on my tongue. A bottle of wine arrives in a large silver bucket. The waiter pours us both a glass.

  “How is the fish?” Raul asks.

  “Delicious.” I reach for my wine. “There’s something I forgot to say. It’s exciting, going out on a limb. No, exciting isn’t the right word. It’s too small. Too weak. When you go out on a limb you feel alive — in every part of your being. Your whole being sings.” I look at Raul and see him as a man who has taken more risks than I can possibly imagine, and so I say, half to myself, “But perhaps you know that already.”

  He pushes his fork into a slice of duck but doesn’t lift it towards his mouth. He hasn’t touched the noodles.

  “You’re beautiful,” he says.

  His voice is so grave that it makes me laugh. Once again I wonder if I’ve had too much to drink.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Are you married?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “One child. A boy.”

  “He’s in Zagreb?”

  “In the country. Outside.”

  I tell Raul about my childhood, and how I associate the grayness and rain of London with stability and contentment, and how the sunlit years that followed were years of illness, frailty, and sorrow.

  “We moved to Rome because my mother was diagnosed with cancer,” I say. “We went because she wanted to. All her life she wanted to live in Italy.”

  “Your mother’s dead?” Raul says.

  “She died six years ago. I scattered her ashes myself. I did it secretly.”

  “And your father?”

  “He’s a journalist.”

  Raul pours us both another glass of wine. Black hairs bristle on the backs of his fingers. The symbol on his signet ring is an animal. I can’t tell what sort.

  “You’re not eating,” he says.

  “I’ve been talking too much. Am I boring you?”

  “I like to hear you talk. It’s relaxing.”

  “Relaxing?” I laugh again.

  “Did I say something strange?” For the first time I sense that he might be vulnerable, and that the balance of power has shifted in my favor. But it doesn’t last. Aware of the lapse, he makes immediate internal adjustments.

  “You make it sound as if I’m playing an instrument,” I say. “As
if you’re listening to music.”

  He nods. “Yes.”

  Later, as we speed back to the hotel — he doesn’t offer to drop me where I’m staying — all the energy drains out of me. The tires hiss on the road and everything beyond the window gleams; it must have rained while we were having dinner. The driver has turned up the heating. I can’t seem to draw any air into my lungs. The car rocks and sways, and I could easily fall asleep in my seat, but Raul’s gaze is on me, just as before, and I dare not close my eyes.

  The Kempinski appears. Gold lights bouncing, a blur of tinted glass. As I climb out onto the pavement, Raul takes me by the arm and guides me up the steps and into the lobby. Behind me I hear the car glide off into the night. The sound of the engine fading is like loneliness. Raul’s thumb presses into the slender muscle in my upper arm. Everything feels different suddenly. There’s an urgency, an undertow — and the way the car raced away the moment the doors were closed, as if fleeing a crime scene … But we’re in the corner of the lobby, near the black doors of the lifts, before I find my voice.

  “What’s going on?”

  He still has a tight grip on my arm and he is breathing heavily like someone who’s been running.

  “You come to my room, yes?” His English has deteriorated since leaving the restaurant.

  “I should be going home,” I tell him.

  “Home?”

  “My friend’s apartment.” I gesture towards reception, which seems far away, on some horizon. “He’ll be worried.”

  “One drink,” Raul says. “In my room.”

  As he alters his grip on my arm he brushes my breast with the back of his hand.

  “That wasn’t part of the agreement,” I say.

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  He pushes me up against the wall next to the lift, then jabs the call button. “One hour in my room,” he says. “You come now.” He has me pinned. I can smell the musk duck on his breath.

  An elderly Japanese couple approach, the man in a business suit, the woman in a traditional kimono. The man is holding an umbrella. Water drips off the tip and collects in a pool on the sand-colored marble floor. Raul pretends to be adjusting the collar of my coat, then he turns to the couple and says good evening. The man’s head dips. The woman blinks.

  I look straight at them. “Help me. Please.”

  The couple don’t seem to have heard. Their faces, curiously unlined, are tilted upwards, fixed on the glowing red number above the lifts.

  “Can’t you do something?” I say.

  There’s a brisk ping! as the lift reaches the ground floor. The doors slide open and the couple step inside. We stay where we are. The doors slide shut again.

  “Nobody will help you,” Raul says.

  A second ping! as another lift arrives. Raul bundles me inside and presses the button for his floor.

  “Excuse me? Is everything —?”

  A bellhop in a round red hat and a gray jacket has appeared and is asking if I’m all right but the doors close over him before I can answer. Raul is facing away and doesn’t notice. As soon as we’re alone he puts a hand round my throat and pushes me up against the wall.

  The lift soars upwards.

  You’re not out of your depth, are you, baby?

  Raul pulls my coat off my shoulders, then turns me round and forces me into the corner. My arms are pinioned behind my back. I feel him reach beneath my dress.

  “Do you know what my name means?” he says.

  I try to kick backwards, but he’s standing up against me, between my legs. One of his hands is in my knickers.

  “Wolf,” he says. “It means wolf.”

  I remember a vase in the lobby, huge and glossy and stuffed with tropical flowers and blossoms. I wonder if I’m about to faint.

  The lift doors open.

  Raul grunts, then lets me go. Two men are waiting by the lift. One of them is bald. He has black eyebrows and wears a sheepskin jacket. The other man is taller, with silver hair. Raul ushers me out of the lift.

  “You dropped your coat.” The man with the silver hair picks up my coat and hands it to me.

  The other man wants to know if there’s a problem.

  I lean against the wall next to the lift while Raul addresses the two men in German. I’m too sickened and dizzy to follow what he says. I only know he sounds indignant and threatening, and that he scarcely allows the men to speak. But they stand their ground. Raul swears at them and then at me and walks away.

  There’s a long, still moment, then the bald man asks if I’m a guest at the hotel. I shake my head. He offers to escort me back to the lobby. The lift has already gone, and the man with the silver hair steps forward and presses the call button. After what has just happened, though, I don’t want to travel in the lift. I try to explain but my German has deserted me. Still, the men seem to understand. In the distance a door slams.

  As we walk down the stairs, the bald man asks if I want to file a complaint. Should the police be called?

  “No,” I say. “I’m fine. Thank you.” My legs are trembling and it’s all I can do to stay upright.

  On the ground floor the men guide me to one of the orange sofas. Would I like to sit down? I shake my head again. The man with the silver hair fetches me a glass of water. I drink half of it, then straighten my clothes.

  “You’re really all right?” he says.

  I nod quickly. “I think so.”

  They will see me out, he says, when I feel ready. He tells me I should take my time.

  As we cross the lobby a few moments later, I keep thinking the Croatian will intervene. He’s a man who can impose his will on any given situation and extract exactly what he’s after. He’s accustomed to being taken seriously, to being obeyed. To being effective. But there’s no sign of him. Only the hum of voices, like insect life, and the Muzak, which is orchestral — a low lush wash of strings. I seem to see him as if from behind, sitting on the edge of a wide bed, his head lowered, his suit jacket stretched tight across his shoulders. What will he do now? Smash something? Get drunk?

  “Let’s find you a taxi,” the bald man says. “Do you have money?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” I glance over my shoulder. “That man, he was dangerous.”

  “So are we,” the bald man says.

  He looks at his friend, and they both laugh.

  I let them walk me down the steps and out onto the pavement, where they hail a cab for me. I thank them again and tell him how grateful I am to them for intervening.

  “Anytime,” the bald man says.

  The man with the silver hair gives me a tender, almost wistful smile, then says, “Pass auf dich auf.”

  Take care.

  /

  I hear the music as soon as I step out of the taxi. At first, though, I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I let myself into Cheadle’s building. The door to his apartment is open and people lean against the wall outside, drinking and smoking. Among them is a girl in a T-shirt that says NOTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT.

  “Good T-shirt,’ I tell her.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  I edge past her, into the room that used to be a garage. Strings of colored bulbs loop through the darkness, and the music is so loud I can’t hear what anyone is saying. Smoke hovers in a flat cloud below the ceiling. Tanzi’s down in The Grave with three other girls.

  Cheadle walks over, raincoat flapping, a cigar stub in the corner of his mouth.

  “Come and dance,” he roars.

  I tell him I need to change.

  “You’re fine as you are.” He lurches backwards, then looks me up and down. “Better than fine.”

  “You didn’t say you were having a party.”

  “I didn’t know!”

  Tanzi came home with two friends and a duty-free bottle of Malibu, he tells me, then a DJ from the neighborhood showed up and — Boom — the whole thing just took off. While Cheadle’s talking, I scan the room. I’m lo
oking for Anna and Oleg but the dim lighting and the crush of people make it difficult to see. When I refused to go to Raul’s room with him did I renege on my agreement? Panic surges through me and I’m sweating suddenly. I don’t dare ask Cheadle if he’s expecting the Russians. Apart from anything else I don’t want him to remember what I was doing earlier. When he turns away from me to accept a spliff from a man in a porkpie hat, I seize my chance and sink back into the crowd.

  In my room I change out of my clothes, then pack my case. It’s the work of a few minutes. I leave the gold dress and the sandals on the bed. Taking a last look round, I peel my Richter postcards off the wall and push them into my coat pocket, then I open the door and peer out. The girl in the T-shirt is halfway down the corridor, a cigarette between her fingers, bending into the flame of someone’s lighter. There’s no sign of Cheadle or of the Russians. I pick up my bags and make for the front door.

  “Going somewhere?” the girl says, smoke emerging from her mouth in little chopped-up clouds.

  I smile but don’t stop.

  Outside, a fine drizzle veils the buildings. The streetlamps look soft and fuzzy, like dandelion flowers, a whole row of them reaching in a long diminishing straight line, all the way to Ostkreuz. It’s the early hours of Tuesday morning. I’m going to have to leave Berlin as soon as possible. In the next two days for sure. In the meantime I need to disappear.

  My first instinct is to check into the hotel near Kluckstrasse, but it might be dangerous to retrace my steps. I reject Klaus Frings for the same reason. No backward glances, no unnecessary complications or entanglements. What I crave more than anything is a hot shower. I want to wash away all memory of that Croatian. I think of my father and his weakness for modern hotels with state-of-the-art plumbing. On Warschauerstrasse I flag down a taxi and ask the driver to take me to a Hilton or an InterContinental.

  The driver looks at me. “Which one?”

  “Whichever’s nearest.”

  I climb in and close the door.