The Truth and Other Lies

by Sascha Arango

  The crumbling façade and front door were smeared with graffiti. The door was open. FASCH was scrawled in pen on the little nameplate next to the bell. Henry put on disposable gloves and rang the bell—you never know. Then he stepped into the dark hallway. Fasch’s mailbox was overflowing with mail. Henry went up to the third floor.

  The door wasn’t deadbolted, and it was child’s play to push back the latch with a penknife. Opening it didn’t take five seconds. He noted with satisfaction that he had not yet forgotten the time-honored motions—but you don’t forget how to ski either. The door opened only a crack, then it met with an obstacle. The gap was just big enough to squeeze through. Henry was met by a strong smell of drains. Entering the apartment, he had the absurd feeling he was conducting an endoscopic tour through the body of a stranger, beginning in the musty rectum of the hall.

  Henry had never stolen more cash or jewelry than he needed to live. Because he respected people’s privacy, he always left personal effects untouched, which made the theft more tolerable. He never went near art on principle; that kind of thing is hard to turn into money. Ideally, the theft would go unnoticed, but that rarely happened. Once, many years earlier, he’d broken into a dental practice and stolen dental gold. When, days later, he read about the doomed special units who had forced open the mouths of the dead and quarried gold out of them behind the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he returned the gold immediately and left two opera tickets by way of apology. Thrilled, the dentist and his wife watched La Traviata from the best seats. When they got home, their diamond jewelry had vanished. But that was a long time ago.

  Printed paper was piled up to the ceiling on both sides of the hall. Newspapers, magazines, books, photocopies by the ton. The dust had strung threads, and clouds of disintegrating cellulose snowed down on him. The paper was elaborately held together with string, and shored up with broom handles and all manner of laths and slats, so that the hall resembled a mineshaft. Between the mountains of paper ran a path less than six inches wide. It was only thanks to his early participation in Boy Scout field trips that Henry was able to negotiate it.

  Silverfish scuttled under the shower tray, shunning the light, when Henry looked into the bathroom. The vile smell was coming from there. Henry closed the door. The bedroom floor was covered with semi-disemboweled appliances, rotten fruit, and dirty laundry. In the bed lay an almond-eyed creature with her thighs spread and her mouth open wide. Her perfectly proportioned body and expressionless face were turned a little to one side. Curling irons were lodged in her hairless vagina. Out of sheer curiosity Henry lifted the doll and discovered that she weighed the same as a living woman; he put her at over one hundred pounds. Her name was stamped on the sole of her dainty foot: “Miss Wong.” The doll couldn’t have been cheap. The flesh color was convincing, but the silicon skin felt cold to the touch, which would explain the irons to heat her vinyl vagina. This still life with curling irons seemed to Henry like a joke in poor taste.

  A telephone was ringing somewhere. Henry felt his way back along the paper bowels of the hall and followed the sound until he came to Gisbert Fasch’s surprisingly tidy, spartan study. On a big double-sided corkboard Henry saw himself. His life in the form of a flowchart, with pictures, dates, and hundreds of different-colored circles. Henry was touched. It was as if he’d just entered a lost-and-found office for vanished memories. There were Polaroids of buildings and places, press photos, pictures of him at readings, and, in the top third of the chart, an old postcard showing a photo of an arched gateway. On the arch in cast-iron letters it said: SAINT RENATA. In this instant Henry knew where he’d met Fasch.

  The almost antique answering machine started up. A cassette began to whir. This is Gisbert Fasch speaking. I can’t take your call right now. I’ll get back to you. Beep!

  Mr. Fasch, this is Honor Eisendraht from Moreany Publishing House. As we have already communicated to you, we do not release personal information about the life of Mr. Hayden. Furthermore I must point out to you that an unauthorized biography of Mr. Hayden could have legal consequences for you. I would ask you not to address any further written inquiries concerning the matter to the publishing house. I wish you a pleasant day.

  Henry barely heard the end of the message. He had already stepped back into the bedroom and switched on the curling irons in the doll’s plastic vulva. He left the apartment in silence. No one saw him drive away.

  The black smoke alerted the neighbors. It rose through the cracked bedroom window and up the front of the building. A little later, the windows in the living room shattered. The firemen came with three large engines and put out the fire with foam. Anxious tenants rescued their children, animals, and most valuable possessions, and assisted the firefighting operations with their silent prayers. Outside the cordoned-off area a number of onlookers recorded the event on their phones. Some of the videos appeared the same day on YouTube. The one to get the most hits was by a thirteen-year-old elementary-school girl who filmed the rescue of two burned cats from the third floor and set it to music she’d composed herself. After the smoke had dispersed and the static equilibrium of the building had been tested, the majority of the tenants returned to their apartments. The arson squad set to work in the charred apartment. They came across what was left of a melted silicon doll; the foot had survived and belonged to the “Miss Wong” model. Her remains were salvaged. The forensic investigation into the cause of the fire dragged on in the usual way.

  ———

  The friendly gentleman from the insurance company waited patiently while Betty hunted for the car key. She had gone to the door in wooden sandals and a robe, assuming it was the courier service bringing her typeset pages to proofread. The man waited in the hallway outside the door. He had put down his bag and folded his arms over his belly. He enjoyed contemplative moments such as this.

  Betty knew perfectly well that she wouldn’t find the key, because it was rusting away in the Subaru at the bottom of the sea. For a long time she’d driven the Subaru with the spare key, because the original key had gotten lost at some point. Nevertheless she rummaged around in the drawer of her desk, theatrically pushing it open and shut.

  “I can’t find the key just now,” she explained in embarrassment as she handed the car’s papers to the friendly gentleman at the door. “Does it matter?”

  “What about the spare?”

  “The spare? Lost that ages ago.”

  “That’s bad,” the insurance expert said with regret. “Because without the key to the vehicle we can’t accept liability for the loss.”

  “Never mind,” Betty let slip far too quickly, “I didn’t report it because I wanted money from you.”

  “Then why?” he asked, clearly surprised.

  “Well, because I thought it’s what you have to do when your car’s stolen. Isn’t that right?”

  “No. You just have to cancel the car’s registration, because you no longer drive it or because you’ve sold it.”

  “I haven’t sold it!” she protested, and immediately lowered her voice. “It was stolen.”

  “That”—he bent down lithely to open his bag—“is why your vehicle is being searched for. The police are looking for it all over Europe.” He took out his documents and a questionnaire, put the papers from the Subaru into a transparent folder, and slipped it into his bag. Then he licked his index finger, opened up the questionnaire, suddenly and inexplicably had a pen to hand, and clicked the doodad.

  “Now then. Where was your vehicle stolen?”

  “Right outside my front door.” Betty tried to remain polite. “Listen, I don’t have any time; I have to drive to work in a second.”

  “In which car?”

  The fellow was getting more impertinent by the minute. “I’m driving a rental car at the moment.”

  “We undertake to pay part of the cost of that if your vehicle has been stolen.”

  “No need. The company pays for the car.”

  “That is”—he looked in
his documents—“Moreany Publishing House?”

  She wanted to poke the pen in his eye, but left it at a dry “Correct.”

  “You’re renting the car from Avis.”

  He smiled when he saw her surprise. “The rental car is insured with us as well. Your company”—he looked in his documents again—“Moreany Publishing House, has not received a rental agreement.”

  Betty felt the blood shoot up her throat. He noticed that too, but stuck to the facts.

  “I’ve spoken to accounts. Ms.”—he looked at his cursed documents for the third time.

  “Eisendraht?”

  “That’s right. She knows of no rental agreement in your name. But Ms. Eisendraht knows a Mr. Henry Hayden.”

  Henry’s name fell like a sword. She felt suddenly dizzy. How on earth had this guy gotten onto Henry? The friendly gentleman from the insurance company studied her face, registered the increased frequency of her pulse, her twitching eyelid, the way she turned down the corner of her mouth and shifted the position of her feet. With increasing experience, he got more and more pleasure out of his job.

  “You showed a Visa partner card as security. The amount will be debited from Mr. Hayden’s account.”

  Betty tore the questionnaire out of the man’s hand. “OK. I’ll fill this in and send it to you. You don’t have to pay a thing. Oh and by the way, I’m going to terminate my insurance agreement.” Then she shut the door and leaned up against it. Her heart was pounding. She felt her hot cheeks with the back of her hand.

  She hadn’t thought of that. Henry had given her the card for emergencies, so she could make transactions and purchases for him when they went on business journeys abroad together. Because she had of course presumed that Henry would pay for the rental car, she had used his card. Just the once. Now her connection with Henry was documented. She dressed hastily. In her hurry she tore a run in her tights. It was only in the mirrored wall of the elevator on the way up to Moreany’s office that she noticed that the rip had risen from calf to thigh like blood poisoning.

  15

  Ms. Eisendraht was at the window watering the dragon tree and didn’t turn around when Betty walked through the outer office into Moreany’s room without a word of greeting. Moreany was sitting pale and very quiet behind his desk and didn’t get up to give her his hand. Betty shut the office door.

  “I’d like to clarify something, Claus,” she began, but before she could continue, Moreany motioned toward the Eames chair.

  “Sit down, please.”

  She sat down, crossing her legs to conceal the run. It might be something nice or something really awful, but there was no way it was the trifling matter of the car rental. She hadn’t put in an appearance at the office for two days, and a foreboding rose up in her that a number of events must have overlapped in the interim. Moreany took off his reading glasses and set them on his immaculate desk. It was never tidy—that wasn’t a good sign either.

  “I’ve put you in a very awkward situation.” Moreany breathed deeply. He screwed up his eyes. The whole thing was obviously difficult for him. “Please accept my apologies and forgive me my—how should I put it?—passionate stupidity.”

  Then he said no more. Betty waited until the silence was unbearable.

  “What’s happened?”

  Moreany slid open the drawer of his desk, took out an opened envelope, and held it out to Betty. She got up and accepted it after some hesitation.

  “I only opened it because it was addressed to me.”

  Betty felt the envelope and saw the stamp of her gynecological practice on the back. With two fingers she pulled out the CD with the ultrasound images of her baby stored on it.

  “It’s a girl,” Moreany said gently. “The bill’s enclosed. Allow me to settle it for you.”

  Back to the beginnings of humankind. A Cro-Magnon man returns exhausted but happy after a day’s hunting. In his comfortable cave in, let us say, present-day Apulia, he throws freshly killed game down next to the fire and looks around for his wife. He is tired, he is hungry, he wants to tell her about his hunting success. In the dark of the cave he hears her groaning. He takes up a burning piece of wood and goes to look for her. He finds her lying in a side passage, her newborn baby beside her. The bitten-off umbilical cord is still hanging out of her womb. The woman is clutching the baby, covering the fine small face with her hands. He tears it out of her arms; the baby begins to scream; he sniffs it and scrutinizes it. It’s a little Neanderthal. He knows at once that he is not the father of this bastard. He kills the child with one swipe against the rock wall and returns to the fire. The woman cowers in her corner of the cave, not knowing whether she’ll survive the night.

  Since the Pleistocene, things have moved on, it is true, but the question of paternity remains a delicate one, even for women now. No matter who had sent the ultrasound images to Moreany, there was no way it was a misunderstanding and even less chance it was a wrong address. It was simply the work of a very bad person. Henry can be ruled out, thought Betty, as she stood at Moreany’s desk, taking stock, because it wouldn’t be in his interest. Henry’s never done anything that wasn’t in his interest. But no one except him could have known about her pregnancy. She hadn’t even told her mother. An obscure enemy had done it, invisible and yet very close. After this brief analysis, Betty sat back down in Moreany’s Eames chair and, by way of explanation, said the only sensible thing she could think of—nothing.

  As Moreany, likewise speechless, sat at his desk looking at Betty, his heart was weeping. The last plan of his life had failed. His late-summer romance in Venice was to remain a foolish old man’s dream. The end would be lonely. There’s no more to be done, he thought, I’ve reached the end of my journey. He got up, walked a little unsteadily to the black ebony side table, poured cognac into two balloon glasses, and handed one to Betty.

  “I’d like you to do something for me. Drive to Henry’s and discuss the novel with him. I can imagine that he needs you at present. Time’s running short; it’s almost too late for the book fair. He told me he’s only got twenty pages to go, but I can’t believe he’s able to write just now. It would be a real shame if he couldn’t finish the novel before I go on vacation, eh?”

  Her mouth was so dry that her lips stuck together when she sipped the cognac. The alcohol burned in her throat. He doesn’t know, she realized all of a sudden. He doesn’t know it’s Henry’s. She got up, put the glass down on the table, and hugged Moreany. She pressed him tightly to her. Never had she been so close to him, or felt so grateful. What a noble man, what a wonderful man, she thought.

  “I’ll call him now, Claus, I promise.”

  Moreany nodded, a little tired. “Thanks. Don’t tell him anything about me if you can help it.”

  If Moreany had asked for her hand just then, she would have said yes without hesitation.

  “Of course I won’t, Claus.”

  Honor took from her ear the glass she’d been using to eavesdrop at the dividing wall and quickly sat down at the computer. In a single gesture she slipped on her headphones and placed her fingers on the keyboard. Betty didn’t walk through the outer office in silence as she usually did, but stopped in front of Honor and rested her palms on the desk.

  “Honor,” she said softly, “can I ask you a favor?”

  Honor took off the headphones. It really was the first time that this person had addressed her respectfully and, above all, directly. She wanted to hear it again.

  “Pardon?”

  “May I ask you a favor?”

  “Anytime. What can I do for you?”

  “Next time one of those insurance fellows calls you, please don’t pass on confidential information about Mr. Hayden.”

  Eisendraht’s head jerked, like a chicken that has just spotted a grain of corn. “He asked me about Mr. Hayden!”

  “Yes. A lot of people do. And we protect the privacy of our authors, do we not?”

  This “do we not” left Honor no alternative. “I’ve b
een working here for many years, Betty,” she said, “and if there’s anything that’s sacred to me it’s the privacy of our authors. You ought to know that.”

  “All I know is that it was you.”

  Betty was already out the door, leaving Honor Eisendraht in a state of turbulence.

  ———

  “She did what?”

  Henry leaped up and began to pace in front of the picture window in his studio. The hovawart immediately got up from its place under the coffee table and slunk out of the room with its tail between its legs. It wouldn’t come back until its finely tuned ability to pick up on bad vibes had given it the all clear.

  On the table in front of Betty was the envelope with the ultrasound images of the fetus. She followed Henry from the sofa with her eyes. Against the light she could see his silhouette flitting back and forth, a restless shadow.

  “The envelope went straight to Moreany,” she went on. “She rang up the practice and asked them to send the pictures to him at the company.”

  “Eisendraht?”

  “It must be her. It was a woman. She pretended to be me. She knows how old I am, where I live, and that I’m pregnant.”

  Henry turned his back on Betty for a moment and looked out at the fields. It wasn’t yet ten in the morning and the sun was already blazing down. Not a cloud was in the sky. There was just a stork circling high, high up. It was going to be a hot day.

  “How can she know that?” he asked, without turning around.

  “Not from me.” Betty took off a shoe and pulled her leg up onto the sofa. “And no,” she added, “I haven’t told Moreany anything. No one except the doctor knew about it. By the way, the insurance man dropped by yesterday and wanted the car key for the Subaru. I didn’t have a key to give him.”