The bow seemed to hurt the strings; the high-pitched notes were coarse, scratchy and ruthless on the ear. I had no trouble pulling the violin away. I was about to shush her peals of laughter when I saw tears streaking her face and wondered if she was really laughing. She buried her face in mine and I thought of the face bored into Dante Molevare's.
***
My visit to the mental hospital was nothing like what Dr Gregor and his glossy brochures had prepared me for. The living quarters may well have been cleaned every day but they still stank to hell. With a handkerchief to my mouth I followed the head nurse down a long, over-lit corridor where one patient was finger-painting the wall with his excrement. Greasy individuals were slumped in poses of lassitude in filthy, bolted-down armchairs. One patient was having an argument with himself, another one was preaching to an imaginary military crowd, another chanting 'That's a no no' to his cradled fist. The banging, moaning and howling were as demoralising as the white-eyed laughter. The institute's employees, doctor and custodian alike, waded through this foul red tide of madness as if nothing were out of line.
By the time I made it to my father, I was ready to turn around and run. He'd turned into one of the immobile many. His inner being had wandered off somewhere. What was left was no more than the mould any apprentice would have left behind in an art school's graveyard of such figures: empty, hardened, calloused by life, petrified in their last attempted position. Even so, I couldn't stomach his being among those lunatics, who might once have been as normal and caring as he, but to me were inconceivable as anything else but lunatics. I told myself I must find a solution. Anything — death itself — would be preferable to this.
***
I touched Elsa's reflection in the mirror, slid my hand from her cheek to her collarbone, edged it down to her breast. She arched her back under my touch, her buttons straining under the pressure. I flicked at them, but the reflection of her dress remained in place. She helped me, let it fall to her feet. Her face chilled, seeing herself naked. I breathed on the glass to clothe her in hot vapour, spun her a gossamer gown shaped by my own fantasy. When she relaxed again, was steamy with desire, I ripped through it with my fingers, went down on my knees to rub it with my lips. She ran her fingers down my own reflection, shielding me with her own breathing. I erased and re-erased these barriers of her desire. Soon I was longing for whole lengths of the cold mirror as we both scraped at each other's unattainable selves, knowing the stabbing ecstasy of wanting and not getting.
Another time I craved her so penetratingly with just my eyes, she fell back on the bed and went through the motions she guessed I was dictating. We were wild with desire, my eyes never leaving hers but pulling some part of her, closer and closer, grafting it to my core, two slits, the sap seeping sweet. Then her face grew perplexed as if an unexpected rain had dampened our leafy, lush paradise. And that's when I heard, to my utter consternation, my father. My plan was backfiring.
'I think your butler is calling for the maid again,' Elsa said. She sat up, scratched her knee and sighed.
What was happening shouldn't have been, considering the amount of medicine I'd made sure he'd swallowed. This wasn't the first time he'd awoken from a deep sleep, called out for help, and fallen back asleep.
'Oh Lord,' I said. 'He's senile; what can I do?'
'Where's he got himself to this time? In the cellar, polishing silver we don't use? In the attic, greasing your Great-Grandpa's riding boots? Retirement, you know, might be more charitable than fruitless labour.'
I brushed away her questions with a wave of my hand. 'He's been with the family a long time. I do what I can for him, put him up as I can. Besides, he'd never accept wages otherwise. I know the old fellow. And he won't have it being in the way. It's not as if he disturbs us much.'
I was justifying myself too much to sound credible. Elsa looked at me, puzzled, but didn't pick up on the grotesqueness of this last falsehood. When I'd brought my father back home covertly and locked him up where there was little chance he'd be found, I was sure my making up this story about him being an old butler — in the event he be heard — would push me to do what I should long since have already done.
Slowly but surely, Elsa continued to adapt to her new role as lady of the house. She tied my shoes to her knees, attached an apron above her breasts, and shuffled between refrigerator and bench top. One would've thought it a normal manner of moving about. To protect her eyes from the pans spattering grease at eye level she rummaged through a drawer for my grandmother's glasses to wear. They were powerful reading glasses, so she had to feel her way back to the cooking range blindly, hands out in front of her. Doing the dishes, she joked, 'Life would have been kinder to me had I been born a dwarf.'
She read in a cookbook how to make my favourite Austrian dish, which Bavarians claim Bavarian, and purists Czech, before the Empire appropriated it: crispy roast pork with red cabbage. She had a ball, so to speak, preparing a Serviettenknödel, a giant, ball-like dumpling made out of stale bread, wrapped in a tea towel and boiled in water. We were in stitches over it, especially when she claimed it looked American to her and pretended to pitch it like a baseball. I knew she was making a double effort: one, to cook; two, to deprive herself of what she cooked, in particular the crisp pork. But, once she'd tasted it, her diet was forgotten. Thereafter, we ate the same meals, from the same pot. I was pleased with this romantic turn of events — that is, until we both started putting on weight.
I was helping her bottle preserves in the back room behind the kitchen when we heard a prolonged yell followed by a thud. Elsa went in pursuit of it, stooping as she ran but still too tall for the windows.
'Ignore it! It's nothing!' I tried to push her back down but she resisted. After a short chase I caught her by the waist, but she gripped the doorframe and, with a few good kicks, got free of me. She used the raspberry-stained spoon she was still holding to undo the antique lock to Ute's room and her whole body to thrust it open.
Completely drugged, my father had fallen off his foldaway and was lying flat on his face with no sign of life.
'Mein Gott! Loosen the poor fellow's collar! Make sure he doesn't choke on his tongue!' Elsa cried.
'Get out. I'll take care of this.'
'Air! Is he breathing?' Obstinately, she turned him over. Almost in answer to her question, he farted twice.
She turned his face to the light and I tried to stand strategically so as to shade it. It looked so altered anyway, I didn't see how anyone could recognise my father in that simpleton's guise. She did. 'Oh my God, Herr Betzler! Herr Betzler!'
She lifted his eyelids and felt his throat for a pulse. Reassured he was still living, she lifted his legs, I suppose to get the blood to his brain. She was the closest she'd ever come to ugly as she twisted back to shout at me, 'How could you say he was your butler? How could you tell me such a lie! You told me your father was dead!'
'He's worse than dead! Now you finally see what happened to him! I'd rather he was dead. You wait until he comes to.'
The truth is, if Elsa hadn't found out about him, I might just have put him out of his misery quite soon. I'd been increasing his dose of sedatives, and needed just a boost of courage to tilt the pill bottle a fraction more.
***
The architecture of the brothel-house itself was surprisingly classic, and the interior immaculate, cosy though over-perfumed. The ground floor was used as an extensive sitting room, with a bar to the far right and a broad red-carpeted stairway funnelling out the back and up to the individual rooms. The armchairs were arranged in horseshoes and rounds of five and six, in which businessmen were conducting meetings, old buddies were slapping their knees over beer-garden memories, and some lone individuals were reading or writing in the sole company of their drink. A house-mate of Madeleine's, taking her place on a high stool at the bar, was having trouble keeping her mules on the footrest, which was a metal rod. The heels were so high that they reminded me of cloven hooves. A group gone boisterous,
watching her slip and slide in her place, invited her to join them. I had the feeling it wasn't the first time she'd staged this skit.
Two robust men blocked the entrance, along with a short, squat man in his fifties, olive-skinned and bushy enough of moustache to compensate for his baldness. When I'd solicited admission he had looked me over before nodding at the others to let me in. I took him for the boss and approached him when he went to the bar for a glass of water. My reason for having to see Madeleine — I needed her not for me but for the good, the health of my father — was met with a burlesque thatched grin. I actually had to pay before I went up just to talk, and no drop in the bucket, after which he invited me in a patronising strut and flick of his stocky arm to have a few drinks beforehand. For the moment, he bragged, Madeleine was busy with 'another client'.
Madeleine awaited whomever was next in a coldly professional position on her regal bed, her right leg bent, her left arm thrown over a heap of satin pillows. She was surrounded on three sides by an avalanche of purple velvet. The fourth wall was a mirror, against which her bed was pressed and in which the room was duplicated, as if the reality of the room could become dreamlike by passing over to this plane, and whatever took place in it could count more, or not count at all, depending on the viewer. Above her, a ceiling fixture soared like a giant octopus with electrified suction cups.
Her expression didn't change when she saw me, but her foot twitched like a crouching cat's tail. Finally she spoke in a soft if charged voice. 'You know, I'm entitled to refuse clients.'
I took off my hat, was kneading it out of shape and becoming conscious of something knotty under my shoe. I looked down to see that I was standing on the tail of a zebra skin. 'I'm not here for that.'
'That?'
'What you think.'
'You know what I think?' Her eyes narrowed.
I wished I hadn't come and it must have shown in my face, and my voice too — I made three attempts to speak before I had the sense to shut up.
'So, you can't handle Pop? My care's not going to be free this time. You know that?'
I nodded and found myself dumbly taking note of the zebra skin's pattern.
'Listen, I'm not going to make you go down on your knees to beg for forgiveness. If I make you go down, it'll be to do something better than that.'
She patted the bed beside her and, after a reasonable wait, said, 'Don't be scared. I'm not going to bite.' As if to appease my doubts she crossed her arms behind her head. I noticed she was still wearing my mother's pendant. 'So. I'm all ears. Contrary to what you believe, those are the orifices most of you fellers come to me for.'
xxi
At the end of our snowy drive, our mailbox stood like a low-perched bird-house, a blank book of snow keeping its page on its slanted roof, icicles growing from the awnings like a row of bestial arctic teeth. I flinched on discovering the letter bent inside, addressed to my parents, Herr and Frau Wilhelm Betzler. It was from America, from a certain E. Affelbaum, and though I don't remember the address, I remember it was something like 11211 E 115 Street, New York, NY 10011 — all in hundreds, thousands: to each his number, building, apartment, life, stacked up higher and higher out of everyone's way. The stamp was of the Statue of Liberty. Cut-throat financial liberty. Sexual liberty. The letter filled me with foreboding: what did this E. Affelbaum want from us — or rather who did he want? Who was this pest? A voice inside rationalised that it wasn't addressed to me, I wasn't answerable for my parents, so why should I have to even open it? I reduced it to shreds, let it join the snowflakes.
After stomping the snow off my boots I was surprised to find breakfast dishes still on the table, the bathroom still in its morning disarray; our bed had not even been made. I found Elsa napping, so I put down the basket of groceries and tiptoed away to take advantage of being alone to go over some legal papers. But as dinnertime approached, and no sweet aroma beckoned me down, I conceded to myself that I'd been shamefully lazy lately.
I thought she would still be lounging around, but her usual spot was vacant. I looked around and started when I caught sight of her. She was leaning on the back wall in the library, facing me squarely as if she'd been waiting for me, her prey. Blank squares of canvas seemed to have materialised at her feet. One rested on her easel, which stood on its segmented wooden legs like a faithful pet. Dipping her chin, she gave me a sadistic smile that could have been interpreted as loathing just as easily as lust. The haircut I'd given her made her hair stand up every which way; I noticed it was going white with a sort of aesthetic regularity: its new colour — 'salt and pepper', as she referred to it — accentuated the rapacity of her eyes, the maturity of her face. She took me in, with the doorway framing me, in a way that let me know it was my portrait that interested her.
Elsa hadn't touched a canvas in ages, long enough to give me hope that she was happy. But today some un-nameable aspect of her face had shifted a degree.
'Elsa?'
'Yes?'
'How are you feeling?'
'Fine.'
'Are you sure?'
'Tell me, sweet Johannes, should I not be?'
Slowly, slowly I approached her. It was unclear to me whether we'd strike each other's cheeks or reach out to caress them. For a split second our actions were so intricately linked, we were attached to one another as a man and his shadow.
I crossed my arms in discontent. 'May I ask, what is it you're doing?'
'Guess.' She filled something in, her wrist moving in small, controlled circles. Rather than looking at what she was doing, she smiled at me in a defiant manner. I couldn't see what she was painting but I wondered if it wasn't my own eye, for while she focused her attention on me — or should I say on it — she kept dipping the paintbrush in bright blue. She knew what I'd just wondered and it tickled her, either because I was on the right track or because she had triumphantly led me astray.
'You're painting.'
'Bravo.'
'After what happened, you dare paint again?'
'I am painting for pleasure, not for a purpose.' She picked up a tube of black.
'I forbid you to touch that!'
Gloating at my disapproval, she twisted the tube until a dab made it out on to her palette. Another shrewd look to my eye and she jabbed the wooden tip of her handle into it. With a cruel twist she made what I assumed must be the pupil. I picked up a few of the empty canvases she'd spread about and flung them towards the tiled stove. Only then did she seem less sure of herself, particularly when I broke the wooden frames with my foot and rolled the canvases up like storm-weathered sails.
'You have no right to do that!' Her hands, joined together as in prayer, cupped her nose and chin, which, together with her short hair sticking up and her enlarged eyes, made her look like a frightened bird.
'It's my house; I have every right!'
'I'm not in prison, you know! I'm free to walk out!'
'Walk out to your death?'
'I'm free to walk to my death! It's my death, mine, not yours!'
'Be my guest.' I acted as if I couldn't care less and lent undue attention to the contents I drew out of my pockets — matches, a bluish marble that reminded me of the earth, receipts — while hoping she'd back down. I was aware of her gazing at me in disbelief, but she didn't move. Just as I had started to breathe more easily, she called my bluff and bolted for the front door. I ran after her and caught her by the arm, and pushed her as easily as a child against the wall. I didn't mean to scare her but I was desperate.
'You are not alone in this! If you get yourself killed, you get me killed! Your death is my death! Your life is my life! We're linked, verdammt — don't you understand? Like Siamese twins! Separate us and we'll die!'
She twisted and turned to escape my grip, but never with sufficient force, repeating, 'Let me go! Let me out of this twenty-cell prison!' She just wanted to convince me that I needed her more than she did me.
I gave her what I knew she really wanted — a bear hug to control her
. Gradually her thrashing stopped and the hug became more mutual.
While she'd been challenging me she'd been catty, wilful, independent. She was another person now: tenderhearted, submissive, dependent on me. She looked up at me with compassion, tears welling in her softened brown eyes. I asked myself which Elsa was the genuine one and which the impostor.
'I was making a surprise for you.' She nodded at the easel. 'It was for you. Still is, if you want it.' She blinked the tears out of her eyes and wiped them away.
I looked from her to the back of the frame. What was it she had painted? Was it my portrait? Was she ridiculing me? I was afraid that if I moved to look, she'd make a run for it. I tightened my grip, kept her by me.
I stood frozen in front of the canvas. I felt her rapid pulse beating in my hand, my legs getting weak. The painting was unfinished, and as simplistic as any child's drawing, yet I was sure it had something to do with what had just happened between us. There were two stick figures standing within the crude frame of a house. They were side by side, facing the viewer. I happened to be standing in front of the taller male figure, and she happened to be standing in front of the female. Or was it a coincidence, and not a manipulation on her part? It looked as if they were holding hands, yet if one looked carefully (and believe me, I did — in fact I couldn't take my eyes off this one detail) they weren't really. At first the two arms had seemed to cross at the wrists, like two lines forming a top-heavy x.
I brought my face closer to examine the brushstroke, and that's when the shock hit me. The arms came down to join at the wrists, but the hands were not a continuation of the same brushstroke. From where they joined, each then deflected away. We weren't holding hands, we were handcuffed together. And this corresponded more or less to what I was doing then and there — holding her tightly by the wrist. None of the facial features had been drawn in yet, except for one of my eyes — wide, inquisitive, blue — which seemed to be examining me as much as I was examining it. I was going crazy. What did it mean? Was I some sort of tyrant, keeping her at my side by force? Or was she the one with the power, keeping me emotionally leashed to her like a dog? Or was it just a naïve portrait of the two of us, and there I was reading all kinds of cutting messages into it?
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