The next morning I left the refrigerator door open, substituted our table and chairs with leather coats thrown down on the tiles, offered her a bite of dry haddock. She bit, but took more time to swallow. She accepted the journey, grew familiar with an Eskimo family — the daughter who didn't want to marry the boy from the igloo next door, who bored her with his bragging about killing elephant seals. She knew of their son, who dreamt of leaving Eskimo ways, earning a salary on an ocean liner, the shame of his parents. My supervisor became the dishonest chief, selling baby seals to Canadian investors, letting his people starve; my co-workers became his greedy daughters and son-in-law. Elsa was soon an Eskimo woman and I her Eskimo man! We rubbed noses before I left for work.
When she'd had enough of vast, chilly white spaces, I turned the calendar pages and brought her down to Africa. She lived with me for a week in a hut with a dirt floor. We lived on the Equator and the open oven let her know how hot that was. I could do little to relieve her thirst outside of the few drops of warm water I provided her from our leaky tap. We lived under constant threat from wild elephants, fire ants, disease; but most of all, the warriors of rival tribes. I brought home a tomtom I tapped to give a heartbeat to my tale, which took us deeper and deeper into the successive nights.
Elsa grew confused. I was telling her about a whirlpool we had to circumnavigate before reaching the Basin of Sichuan when she interrupted to ask, 'How long ago was it that we moved from the house to this apartment?'
A week later I was ironing my shirts next to her, telling her that our boat was stuck in the muddy rice paddies of the Guangzhou Delta and we were pushing it out with leeches on our legs.
'How old am I?' she suddenly asked. She was looking at her reflection in the window, transparent, spectral.
Wanting to weasel my way out of the question with humour, I replied, 'A hundred years.'
'Where do I live?' I gave her our address. I had to repeat it, spell the street name to her twice. 'Why do I live here?' She needed to hear it all again, the same old story that was getting impossible to tell.
We flowed out of the Xi into the South China Sea, but she jeopardised our escape to ask, 'What's going on?'
Her inattention was making me cranky. 'I said, we've just reached the South China Sea. Pay attention! Above us are whirlwinds of seagulls, beyond us a storm is gathering. Behind us, bloodshed and plague.'
'I mean where we are.'
'Open water, deeper than the highest mountain is high.'
'What's going on here, Johannes, in our land?'
I chose a newspaper at random from the stacks and, after monkeying around with the pages and making faces at the titles, adopted a mock voice. '"The Cage. A barbed-wire fence is splitting a great German city in two. In places, the fence was put right in front of buildings overnight, so that when the people living there looked out in the morning to see if it was sunny or raining, they bumped their noses on their cage. The cage cut homes up into funny shapes. More than once a father and son were on one side, asking what was for breakfast, while mother and daughter on the other were busy frying them eggs. Psychologists say it's the fence itself pushing hundreds of thousands to climb over it, many of whom would stay if there were only a chalk line on the ground. However, a border patrolman rejects this, saying, "What this country needs is a great wall like China's . . ."'
Elsa waved me away with her hand.
'Fine, fine. Here's another story. Hm-hm. "Wernher von Braun: From V-2 to Space Rocket."'
I hammed it up, reading the text verbatim, though I skipped lines and whole paragraphs. '"As the Soviet Army was approaching in the spring of 1945, Wernher von Braun and his team of scientists fled to surrender to the American Army. Braun's brother, a fellow rocket engineer, cried out to an American private, 'Hello! My name is Magnus von Braun! My brother invented the V-2!' On 20 June 1945 the U.S. Secretary of State approved the relocation of Braun and his specialists to America as part of Operation Paperclip, which resulted in the employment of German scientists who were formerly considered war criminals or security threats. Walt Disney's first of three TV programmes, Man in Space, with Wernher von Braun as technical adviser, drew an audience of over forty million. Can man survive in outer space? Is a mission to the moon far-fetched or feasible?"'
I got up and made a charade of hopping about lightly. 'You know, they say there's no gravity up there.'
She laughed and threw one of her slippers at me to make me stop.
'Can you imagine you and me dancing? For once you wouldn't have me stepping on your toes.' I danced on her mattress and made my movements more effeminate, which made her laughter redouble. 'If you think our living conditions are bad, get a load of this . . . If they send men up there, like they're planning to, all they will get to eat is dried, concentrated food. Green powder for peas, brown for meat, white for milk. You think you don't have enough space? How would you like living in a cylinder as wide as your shoulders? Every object nailed down, including your soap? You'd have to get down and rub your backside against it to get clean. The water drops from the shower would rise, so you'd have to be ready, hovering above them. If you lost hair each time you combed it, you'd look up and find a nest on your ceiling — which would look like the underneath of an umbrella!'
By then Elsa was holding her side, asking me what she would do without my crazy stories. Thus encouraged, I pointed to a third headline at random. I pretended to read: 'Man Hides Woman. Once upon a time, there was an Austrian man who loved an Austrian woman so much, he hid her from the world, or hid the world from her, for a decade. He risked his life doing so . . .'
Elsa aimed her second slipper and behind her good play a threat glinted in her eyes.
'. . . but not the way she thought. Really, Austria had been in the hands of the victors for ten years. The city that was split in two was Berlin.'
I dared not take a breath. My heart was doing its familiar little three-step dance, faster and faster, round and round. I lifted my eyebrows high, twisted my lips to one side, pointed down and said, as comically as I could, 'Says so here.' I didn't sound funny, I sounded strenuous, nasal, like some clown trying to be funny but knowing he wasn't, and knowing the crowd knew he knew he wasn't.
Elsa, her arm still in the air, dropped her slipper. Her laughter carried a trace of bitter relief and maybe overripe deception; it was indeterminate, but for the most part it was much like her usual jittery laughter.
xxxi
The next day was a Monday. The pink pastries rattled down the belt past me, their synthetically sweet scent hitting me in the face at intervals of ten seconds. I was too habituated to seeing thousands of identical pink goodies per day to discern one from the next without giving it my utmost concentration. Whole batches could go by without my really having looked at them if I did so much as think. That day I was doing a lot of thinking. The pastries were mesmerising, pink blurry spots, followed by a clump, bump, thump, and more pink blurry spots. Then, just like that, my decision was made. I hung up my white coat and cap on the hook. I had had no nods of greeting, I would have no nods of farewell.
I was overjoyed. After so many false solutions, I had arrived at the true one. I would take Elsa thousands of kilometres away to an exotic island, but not on the flying carpet of a story this time; no, the real thing. Reality was the solution. I would sell the flat, take the money — it would be worth ten times as much in an underdeveloped land. The life we would have! I'd never have to work again. The sun would shine on us, the sea sparkle around us, the palm trees toss their cool, shaggy heads above us. Elsa would be ecstatic when I told her, just as she would when she dug her feet deep in the warm, real sand. Our new lives would rejuvenate us. There were many places like that left in the world. What was I waiting for? What was I still doing in Austria? I had no family to keep me back, no roots binding me to my homeland. Why hadn't I thought of this possibility before?
I thumbed through catalogues at a travel agency. If anything, the choice was too big, the world too wi
de. There were the Polynesian islands — just their names made me dream: Rurutu, Apataki, Takapoto; Makemo, the Caribbeans, Barbados, Grenada . . . Over a thousand islands were waiting for us in the Maldives alone. There were turquoises to make one not care less where the sea stopped and the sky began, in the same way one wouldn't care any more about where his past stopped or future began: both suddenly seemed flimsy as cardboard.
The idyllic imagery, however, only buffered reality. I discovered that each island or cluster of islands was its own country. Which one would allow us to immigrate? In which would my resources have the most value?
The travel agent provided me with flight schedules, fares information, was keen to sell me tickets but couldn't answer my questions. He copied down a list of embassies and consulates. My dreams were dashed by an officer from the Dominican Republic Consulate, who told me that to travel to his country I would need two valid passports, mine and my companion's. I was told the same at the other consulates. Elsa's passport, if I could find it, was old, would long since have expired. She was only a girl in the photo. Besides, the passport had a yellow star on it. Would that attract attention if I went to renew it? How could I find out whether presenting her passport anywhere was risky or not? Was she registered on some list?
The fresh air on my face did me good as I walked home, offering new solutions. Rather than get a new passport, I could just change Elsa's photo. I could alter the expiry date with a black pen. If that got us out of the country — she could hold her fingers over the star — would anyone on far-flung Takapoto Island know what the star meant? I doubted it. They might even take it as some diplomatic honour.
My sense of victory was short-lived. What if they checked our passports here at Schwechat Airport before we left? I had to get home to think more clearly. There was no turning back. If worst came to worst, I could hide her in a suitcase. But this time we were going far away — she could die. As I climbed up the stairs I thought of all sorts of other risks. I was taken aback when my key met a gap in the door. The wood had been gnawed out. My first thought was that we'd been robbed, and that the robbers now knew of Elsa. Before it dawned on me that they wouldn't have thought a thing of finding a woman in an apartment, I realised Elsa was gone.
At that moment I knew I'd be put behind bars, condemned to live without her. Would she come with the police so I could at least give her my version? That was the worst I could imagine: not being able to have one last talk with her. I wouldn't know where she lived, what she was doing, what she thought or felt. If only I'd spilled it all out before, maybe with it in the back of her head, wherever she went, whoever she met, however life treated her, she would have my arguments with her.
I told myself it wasn't fair. She was as guilty as I! I had no proof, but I knew she knew! Every time it was on my lips to tell her, she'd thrown herself at me, warned me off, physically suppressed my words. And in doing so, kept all the blame on me! It couldn't have always been coincidence. It wasn't all in my mind. She'd been outside. She had to know. Lord, it would be her word against mine! I condemned my youthful errors, my cowardice, until soon I found myself hoping the police would hurry up and take me away. Being in our home without her made no sense. I'd at least have a room in prison, and be fed.
Then a ferocious will to survive overtook me. I had a chance of escaping before they came. Hitch-hiking, I could reach Italy in a day, and take the next boat to South America, Timbuktu, who cared where? Anything would be better than what was in store for me here. I rammed my belongings into a sack, looked to my desk for a picture of Elsa to take. There were my grandparents, parents, sister, but not Elsa. I'd never needed a picture of her, for she'd always been there.
Two flights down, I rushed back up to scribble a note for the police to pass on to her. Looking for the right words, I had a troubling thought. What if she came back? What if she needed me? She had no money, no one else to care for her. Would anyone even believe her story? Would she go on living here without me, waiting for me? Would that be allowed? What if she were kicked out? What if she had only gone to play cards downstairs? Or talk to that scamp Beyer? What if she had meant no harm wherever she had gone?
I was torn, each version offering its own hopes and perils. If I were caught because of this far-fetched hope, I'd consider myself an ass. Yet however small the possibility that just maybe she might come back, if she did and I missed out on it because I'd escaped to another continent, it would be my life's regret. Then again, I'd never know what happened. But I'd wonder about it until it drove me crazy. I had to know the end of the story. I undid my sack and, after tarrying, returned the contents to their places.
Daylight was waning. I didn't have the heart to turn on a light. I lay under the window and stared at the sky. What great truths did she see? I imagined her walking freely, hands swinging, buttocks seesawing, knowing she risked absolutely nothing, chuckling at the scare she'd give me. I saw her with her bust leaning heavily forward in her resolute manner, eyebrows creased, crossing the park, stopping the first person she met to ask for explanations to her unsettled notions.
I saw a widower on a park bench, throwing crumbs to the pigeons as she sat down, her hands folded like a good little girl on her lap. He and she would grant each other the easy confidences one does strangers. Any lies she could come up with would be more believable than what had really happened. She'd just left her husband who was drinking, cheating on her. He would take her into his home, talk to her about his deceased wife. Months would pass before she trusted him enough to tell him about me.
I saw the young people she would feverishly question. Was Adolf Hitler still alive? They would edge away from her, thinking she was deranged. She would misinterpret this fear for fear of the totalitarian regime. These young people were my only chance. But I also saw the police officer she'd open her heart to.
The night was interminable. There were as many stories as the millions of stars I gazed upon. How could I choose the right one? Maybe she felt prison was too easy a punishment. Perhaps that was why she needed time to think, to come up with a plan, her and her accomplice. I saw her sneaking back in to pour petrol over our property, throw a match on her way out. I saw a man come in her defence, take vengeance into his own hands. I saw her appearing at the door, shy, artless: she'd just gone for a walk, please would I forgive her, beckoning me for a kiss with my old pocket-knife opened behind her back.
Morning came, ripened into noon, and still she didn't come. What was harder to believe was that neither did the police. For the first time it occurred to me that I might have reason to worry. Someone might have kidnapped her: Beyer, the architect, his detective, Petra and Astrid, Madeleine, Max Schulz, whoever the deuce E. Affelbaum was, far-off relatives of hers, Nathan's ghost . . . No, it was the Owners' Association! Knowing I wasn't home, they'd carved out the lock. Maybe she had banged on the door for help. Then the worst hypothesis grew out of my imagination. I saw the first man she'd come across. Finding her to his liking, he'd confirm everything she said I had said, everything she wanted to hear, assure her it was perfectly true. He'd take her to his place in order to keep her for himself. Didn't everyone need their secret Elsa?
I didn't know how Elsa could have stood it so long under that window; time slowed to such an extent it stopped. I twiddled my thumbs, my real one with the one I still imagined. Did I really believe she'd come back? Each pointed to one possibility, this one or that, right or left, take your pick, wrong or right, truth or lie, real or imagined. Twiddle, twaddle, twiddle, twaddle, until I was dizzy guessing between perfectly equal possibilities.
***
I had nothing more to sell. Ready cash became a forgotten memory. I had nothing in my pockets, nothing in any account, not even for a badly needed bottle of beer. I applied for some odd jobs but that actually cost me. Paper, envelopes, carbon paper, postage all added up. I descended to the streets and offered to wash two businessmen's cars for a coin. They accepted my offer. I washed their cars for a coin. Fair enough, a deal was
a deal. Old ladies were less willing to accept my services, even for a coin, although I maintained that carrying their groceries or walking their dogs for them could have been mutually beneficial. Their refusals, clutching their handbags so their knuckles turned white, were more humiliating than the two businessmen's combined effort to produce a single coin.
I was left with one solution, the brainchild of panic and petty vengeance, and that was to sell one of the two rooms. It took some careful weighing to decide which one I would part with, hers or mine. Hers had the bathroom, mine the kitchenette, which meant that thereafter I'd be obliged to either wash in my kitchenette or cook in her bathroom. Both were impractical but I found the latter less downgrading. I didn't have the funds to hire a mason, nor did I have the trust of the bank to lend me this last vital amount. So with bricks and mortar I obtained thanks to a private American company's 'credit card', a foreign practice considered disreputable in conservative Austria, I built the wall that was to separate the two. It took four days to produce a straight, solid-looking wall.
The Hoefles' young maid bought the one-room flat, but, before signing, imposed a last-minute condition on me. I was to put up a wall and knock down part of another to create a hallway linking the bathroom to the landing, and, in doing so, block off access to it from my room, thus turning it into a community bathroom for both households. I had no choice and she knew it. I now had to go out of what was left of my only room to use my own bathroom. More often than not I lay in bed with a full bladder, lacking the will to get up.
What was more, I rapidly came to suspect that I was on display within that cube. Though no one knew of my existence, I was known on some universal level — a specimen of modern man, a human curiosity. I couldn't do anything any more without feeling I was being watched. My cube shrank. I was reduced to a tiny person. I had the corner I slept in, the corner I ate in, the corner I groomed myself in, complete with the small white sink I drank from and washed in. The cube turned into a cage, and someone immense was watching me. I sensed the presence of a great, unfailing eye peering into my sole skylight, night and day. Was it my idea of God?
Caging Skies Page 35