The Sensualist

by Barbara Hodgson

  She then studied her map and carefully circled the location of the library. Still unaccustomed to European phone calls, she braced herself and composed the number of the library. After being passed to several departments, she was connected with the curator of the rare book collection, who suggested that Helen come over the following morning, as gossip had reached them about the reappearance of the woodblocks and they were curious to hear anything new. The afternoon was free so she wandered through the streets of the old town, basking from time to time in the fleeting warmth of wind-sheltered havens, and daydreaming in front of window displays heaped with confections and cakes.

  As she turned the corner and started down the street leading to the hotel, she could see several black BMWs with official insignias on their doors sitting at the entrance. A large crowd was assembled outside the lobby entrance, talking animatedly and gesturing to the top floors. Seconds after she first noticed the commotion, the sound of sirens could be heard approaching. She briefly hesitated, considering going away and waiting until the fuss died down, but against her better judgment walked towards the hotel anyway. Several policemen were standing in the middle of the road, turning cars back, causing a traffic jam of unbelievable chaos, as there were no places to turn, and reversing became less and less possible as more cars joined the turmoil. Horns blared and drivers were getting out of their cars, yelling and waving their arms in frustration. As she approached the ever-growing mass of people, glimpses of glass and of a body sprawled upon the ground emerged between shifting legs. She looked up and saw that one of the windows from the second or third floor had been broken, accounting for the shards of glass on the sidewalk and the road.

  Helen tried to ease her way between the people and the building, hoping to be able to pop into the lobby without seeing any details of the tragic accident. By this time the wailing sirens had become very loud, the voices around her had risen to be heard over the din, and the blue pulsating emergency lights rebounded staccatically off the windows and walls with each revolution. Two policemen were standing at the hotel door, pushing people away. Helen resolved to retreat and return when the fuss had died down. Being squeezed in so tightly meant that turning around took great effort, but it was nothing compared to trying to fight against the flow of the increasing numbers of gawkers. She clasped her shoulder bag close to her stomach and slipped her arm out in front, using her elbow as a wedge. She’d managed to take two or three steps away when she felt a strong hand seize her shoulder, restraining her from further progress. Twisting to see the source of this hindrance was almost as difficult as putting one foot in front of the other, but she finally realized that a policeman was pulling her back towards the door.

  “Pardon me,” he said in her ear. “Do not misunderstand. I do not intend—” a surge from the crowd lifted his hand off her shoulder and carried her out of earshot; another wave brought her back “—to be rough.” She struggled to turn around again. He was handsome and mustached, with an imploringly gentle smile. Too gentle for a policeman. Wearing the mustache that Hauptmann Bauer should have had.

  The arrival of the ambulance was marked by a sudden hush. He led her into the lobby, asked for her passport, and while flipping through it curtly motioned the clerk to come over and join them. The clerk emerged from behind his counter, carrying the guest registry along with the police form she had filled out. She refrained from asking any questions, imagining that all guests were being interrogated.

  “Do you know the deceased?” the policeman asked her.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Who was it?”

  “Who was the person you were traveling with?” he asked.

  “I’m traveling alone.”

  The policeman impatiently waved his fingers at the clerk who handed him the registry.

  “You were traveling with a Günther Mann.” His displeasure. She couldn’t bear his displeasure.

  Helen cursed herself for being so thickheaded. “Now I see what you’re getting at. I’m not traveling with him. He’s an acquaintance I made two days ago on the train from Budapest to Vienna. I ran into him again just this morning and finding that he had no money and no place to stay felt sorry for him and offered to put him up for a day or two, until he could find a means of returning to his home. I really don’t know him at all. He’s a customs official,” she added, “and he’s Bulgarian.”

  The questions went on and on, giving Helen no time to speculate over Günther’s death. The police officer seemed little inclined to fill in the details and Helen sensed that his mood was too dark for her to hazard an inquiry. He asked her where she’d been, why she was in Munich, how much money she had, where she was going next, who her friends were. She asked if she could sit down, was told to stay where she was. The clerk made motions to return to his counter; the policeman gestured for him to remain. Helen began feeling nauseous standing in one place for so long and inched towards the wall where she could at least prop herself up.

  She looked out towards the street. The crowd had dispersed and the body had been taken away. She thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to look at Günther. A dead body engraved onto a piece of paper was not the same thing as crushed and broken flesh and blood. More policemen came into the lobby and talked to the one who had been interrogating her. She was informed that she would have to go to the police headquarters for further questioning. The poor clerk was dragged along as well, but not before he called out to a young boy who came running in and took his place authoritatively behind the counter. The whole party left, with the clerk calling out instructions to the boy.

  The ride to the police station was of unparalleled excitement: the siren blared; the driver swung the car in and out of traffic, hopping up onto the sidewalk, needlessly scattering pedestrians as he went. He careened across two lanes, across oncoming traffic, to the station entrance, and stopped with a screeching jerk by pulling up on the emergency brake, throwing all of the passengers into each other’s laps and arms.

  Their sensational arrival was followed by an endless hour of questions and then the announcement that Helen would have to identify the body. This, she felt, was the moment when they were obliged to explain. They told her perfunctorily that Günther had either leapt out or had been pushed through the window of his room, falling to the street below. His actual death, according to bystanders, had occurred a few minutes later. His age had no doubt contributed to his inability to survive, as the drop had not been severe.

  Günther had meant nothing to Helen, but she had pitied him and now she felt genuine regret for his death.

  Helen woke up with the sound of shattering glass in her ears. Strong hands lifted her off the bed, gripping her nape and her buttocks, cinching the skin of her neck, cutting into her throat, strangling her breath. She was hurled like a projectile with great force towards the window. Swirling slivers of glass spun about her, weaving a cocoon of twinkling stars as she flew through the window, out into the open air, past the illuminated hotel sign, and down, down, into the street below, landing with a bone-splintering thump back onto the bed. She lay gasping and sobbing, paralyzed by the fearsomeness of her nightmare, a nightmare that seemed by no means over.

  Imprisoned in the airless vacuum of this maelstrom of ricocheting light and billowing winds, she groped for the pillow, the bed sheets, things of substance to anchor her to the earth. The soft glow from the sign, colliding with the surrounding violence, revealed exploding windows and glass shards that flung themselves helter-skelter about the room, onto the bed and floor. The mirror in the bathroom burst into sharp missiles, followed by the light bulbs and the glass in the transom above the door. She put her hands over her ears, trying to block out the fierce clamor echoing all around her. When the tumult abated she dropped her hands and surveyed the room. In the dimness she could see that the glitter of glass covered every surface of the floor and the bed. Glass nested in her hair, and minuscule pieces were lodged into the skin of her face and hands. She wrenched the covers off, careful
ly patting the sheets, making sure that no glass got into the bed. She then groped for a shoe, shook it out, and with it brushed away a space to stand. Gingerly she placed her feet into the cleared area, slowly and methodically extracting the flakes from her cheeks and forehead, and finding that her fingertips were covered with spots of blood from tiny wounds on her face.

  The door to her room quietly opened, admitting both a ray of strong light from the hallway and the silhouette of Rosa who, after taking a second look up and down the hall, came in, neglecting to close the door behind her, sweeping through the glass with loud crunching steps. She was still wearing her wedding dress but now had two black bands on her right arm. She inspected the room and then yanked her veil off, pulling the wig away at the same time. While she was extricating the veil from the hair and the pins, Helen stared at her and wondered why no one else was rushing to the room.

  “What happened?” she asked incredulously.

  “Exciting, wasn’t it?” Rosa absently worked away, still trying to free the wig.

  “But what’s going on?”

  “That’s what Günther heard, poor soul, as he fell to his death. Ha!” The wig was free; Rosa let the veil drop to the floor and stuck her wig back on her head.

  “How do you know?”

  “Why, I was there, my dear.”

  “Did you push him?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t need to.” Helen knew instinctively that Rosa was lying; she could lie no better than Helen herself could. She had killed Günther, and she wasn’t making much of an effort to hide it. But Helen wanted to see where her game would lead them, what she would get out of the deception. “Why did he jump then?”

  “Don’t worry yourself about it.”

  “The police were questioning me for hours. I have the right to know! I had to look at him, too,” she shuddered soberly.

  “Listen, dear, Günther was pathologically shallow. It is of no consequence why he leapt out that window.”

  “You stole his money.” Helen changed the topic accusingly.

  Rosa looked at her with no expression. “So?”

  “Rosa, he loved you. Doesn’t that mean anything? He loved you for all of his life. He carried a torch for you.”

  “And I killed him, you think. Well, what better way to go—at the hands of your beloved?” Her sarcasm was bitter. “Your sentimentality is gauche and juvenile. Louis was right when he called you an imbecile.”

  “Rosa,” Helen’s voice was wavering, “two dear old men have died. Have you no sorrow?”

  Rosa walked over, picked up the coverlet and shook it out, sending more glass scattering. She replaced it and sat down on the edge of the bed. Helen was still cloistered by the ring of shards.

  “Your face is a mess,” Rosa observed, squinting at her. “Why don’t you go wash it off? I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  “Get out of here, Rosa.”

  “I don’t think so. We have so much left to talk about.”

  “I’m going to call reception and have someone remove you.”

  Rosa leaned back on the bed, reclining on one elbow. She beamed and pointed to the telephone.

  Helen picked up the receiver expecting to hear a dial tone. Instead she heard a woman’s voice—reminding her of the morning in Herr Anselm’s study—repeating over and over “Hello? Hello?” In a panic she slammed the receiver down and looked wildly over at Rosa who burst into uncontrollable laughter.

  “Show me my picture. Let me see it again.” Rosa was suddenly serious and demanding.

  “I can’t.”

  “You’ve lost it?”

  “No, I burned it.”

  “Burned it?” Rosa was incredulous. “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “But why?”

  “It should have burned in the house. Who cares, anyway?”

  Rosa rolled off the bed, casting her sharp eyes to and fro, nostrils quivering and jowls shaking as though she were on a long-awaited hunt. Dipping down to look under the bed, her corpulent haunches casting massive shadows; sliding out empty drawers, leaving them hanging hungrily open; kicking aside clothing and stray bits of furniture, tangling her feet in the wanton sleeves and legs. Helen watched her, mouth agape in disbelief, as she landed on the bag that held the box. Rosa opened the box and tossed the contents out onto the floor. The box empty, Rosa looked at Helen.

  “Where’s my picture?”

  “I told you, I burned it.”

  “Where are the ashes?”

  Helen raised her arms dramatically, gesturing to the open skies.

  “Then there’s nothing left of it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You are sure?” Rosa’s intensity was as alarming as her wickedness.

  Helen met her hard gaze. “Quite sure.”

  Rosa approached the younger woman, gripped her rigidly by both arms while scrutinizing the fragments of truth revealed on her open brow. Rosa pressed so close that her gigantic breasts crushed Helen’s own.

  The breasts that Helen wore.

  She stood so close that her thick glasses reflected her distorted and watery eyes into Helen’s.

  The eyes that Helen wore.

  Her damp, warm, mortifying breath, so near, so tangible, invaded Helen each time she inhaled.

  The death that Helen smelled.

  Her fingers, caressing Helen’s cheeks, chin, temples, rasped against her skin like fingernails against a chalkboard.

  The sound of Rosa’s vengeance.

  Rosa, still clasping Helen in an imprisoning embrace, freed one hand and tenderly combed strands of Helen’s hair back off of her face, back behind her ear. She brushed her lips against Helen’s cheek—a woman’s kiss: warmer than a mother’s, cooler than a lover’s, the kind of kiss you would give yourself, if you loved yourself—then whispered, “Are you absolutely sure?”

  Helen squirmed: the prisoner needed her freedom. “Yes!” she cried out. “Yes! Yes! I’m absolutely sure!”

  Rosa released her and plunged her hand down the front of her dress, wrestling something out from between her breasts. It was her own copy of the photograph in question.

  “Here, take this one.” Rosa looked around for the box and found it lying on the bed. She tossed the photo in then turned to Helen. “Well, maybe I’ll go after all. See you later.” She walked to the door, her long dress sweeping a path through the glass. Helen stood watching as she opened the door, flinging a perfunctory wave over her shoulder without turning round. The door closed quietly behind her, closing out the only real source of light. Helen sat back down on the bed, shivering with the experience and, she realized, from the cold air that was blowing in through the holes in the glass. The room was like ice.

  When Helen woke up the next morning she scrambled out of bed and then frantically hopped back on it, remembering the glass shards on the floor. But when she looked around the room there was no glass, there were no holes in the windows, the mirror and the transom and the light bulbs were intact. It had been a dream. And what a dream, she thought, sitting back against the wall behind the bed, cradling her head in her hands. No wonder no one came to investigate the noise. No wonder. No wonder Rosa left? Rosa hadn’t even been there. It was a dream. Helen got up again and walked over to the window. It was another beautiful day with bright clear skies. People were out and about in the street, cars were honking lazily at each other, a chambermaid was leaning out the window of the hotel opposite, shaking out blankets, singing loudly and off-key, scattering her lyrics to the passersby. Helen held onto herself for a few minutes as she looked out into the street. The memory of Günther was coming back along with the realization that his death had thoroughly driven Anselm’s out of her head. He deserved so much more than the few minutes she had given to him.

  She walked over to the washroom and turned on the cold water. As she splashed her face, though, her skin began to sting hellishly. She looked up at the mirror to see what the matter was. Her face was covered with tiny wounds.<
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  CHAPTER 18

  THE LIBRARIAN

  The librarian, Frau Sophie Lowe, sat in a silent display of exemplary posture, her white, patient hands lying on the desk clasped in latent expectation, her hair sculpted into an expert chignon. She had not a strand out of place, no misplaced expressions, and seemed at first to have little to tell Helen. Her mutedness contributed to the almost deafening hush: all of the faint sounds that would have been disguised by activities and noises were now running rampant at full volume. Whispers from the outer offices, cart wheels squeaking down the hallway, car horns from distant streets, air blowing in from the vent, the undertones of synchronized breathing—hundreds of lungs, nostrils—from all over the building.

  When Helen had been led in to the room by the assistant, Frau Löwe had conceded a slight rise out of her chair just long enough and far enough to grace Helen’s outstretched hand with a glancing sweep. It was difficult to say whether or not their hands actually touched or if it was just the air that cushioned Frau Löwe, warmed to the same temperature as her skin, but a gentle rustling like the sound of papers rearranged by a breeze suggested that they had indeed shaken hands. Helen was immediately uncomfortable, feeling herself cold, clammy, creaky and certain that her own dignified features were coarse and clumsy in the presence of this finely wrought woman. Self-conscious, too, she instinctively knew that the minute scars on her face had been noticed but would go unremarked.