Mirage

by James Follett

  Unable to check her balance with jeans around her ankles, they both fell in an untidy sprawl when Albert pulled her away from the wall. Hoping to calm him, she tried to return his kisses but his mouth passed across her face and was gone - seeking elsewhere like a starved small animal sensing an impending meal. All the time he kept up a stream of garbled German. He suddenly yanked her jeans and panties clear of one ankle. She felt his hand thrusting clumsily between her legs - his fingers possessed of demonic strength. And then his knees were forcing her legs apart. Bracing herself was no preparation for the painful rasp of his fingernails against her dryness. She gave a little cry.

  ‘Please, Albert... .’

  Perhaps he mistook the cry for a gasp of ecstasy. Perhaps he didn’t hear it. His thumb jabbed blindly at her mound. She cried out again. The episode was assembling the word ‘disaster’ in mile-high letters.

  ‘Please, Albert - let’s go upstairs.’

  ‘No - now,’ he panted, his mouth by her ear.

  ‘No, Albert,’ she begged. ‘Upstairs.’

  There was panic and despair in his voice. ‘You don’t understand. It has to be now please, Raquel.... Oh, Raquel - it’s been so long.’ The panic was becoming hysteria. Then he was fumbling with his trousers. The sound of a zip fastener breaking open. Now he was pushing. Pounding his entire torso. She realized that the blindly thrusting thumb wasn’t his thumb. She reached down, not so much to help, but to end the sharp jabs of pain that accompanied every thrust of his body. She had a momentary impression of the feel of a silk-smooth uncircumcised penis. Then there was a burst of rhythmic spurts of warm wetness which spelt its own mute epilogue of failure.

  For some moments Albert lay still over Raquel, sucking his breath in shuddering gasps - hardly moving - as if the enormity of what had happened was sinking slowly into an uncomprehending brain. He suddenly let his breath out in a long groan of misery and rolled to one side. Raquel climbed unsteadily to her feet. He looked up at her, an expression of pain as wide as the planet on his face. She reached for a tissue from the nearest table and wiped herself clean. It was a simple, reasonable enough gesture and yet it had the effect of cutting one of the tenuous strands that tied Albert to his sanity. He gave a cry of misery, buried his face in his hands and sobbed - great, heaving sobs that echoed two decades of wretchedness and failure.

  ‘Albert...’ She quickly pulled up her jeans and knelt beside him, touching him - not in affection but as a trainee mine disposal engineer would touch an unknown type of unexploded bomb. ‘Albert,’ she repeated, feeling the helplessness of someone confronted by a stranger in the throes of awesome illness.

  He turned away from her, tightening his body into a protective ball that would admit no one to his private inner world of misery and wretchedness.

  ‘Albert - you mustn’t worry - it doesn’t matter. Really it doesn’t.’ Ye gods - she sounded like a cliche. She had no way of knowing if her words were penetrating the hapless man’s senses. If anything the sobbing ball of humanity that was Albert Heinken became even tighter and more impenetrable. She tried pulling his head around, forcing him to look at her.

  ‘Listen, Albert. It happens to all men at some time or another.’

  He suddenly looked up at her - his eyes bloodshot and red- rimmed. ‘You don’t understand! It always happens! Always!’ His voice was the scream of a madman who, with the awful clarity of insanity, knows that his deeds have brought him eternal isolation from an uncaring society.

  Her attempt to kiss him pushed him over the edge. He jumped to his feet and yanked his trousers over himself like a despotic emperor thrusting a particularly despicable traitor from his sight. Before Raquel could stop him, he staggered to the bar and snatched up the sandwich knife. He raised it high. A crazed gesture, almost theatrical in its intensity. But Albert wasn’t acting. Raquel screamed terror and hurled herself at him. She grabbed his arm with a demented strength that dragged both of them to the floor for the second time that evening.

  ‘I want to kill myself!’ Albert screamed, scrabbling wildly for the knife that clattered from his fingers and skittered across the tiled floor.

  ‘Albert - listen to me!’

  ‘I don’t want to live with this any longer! Not now. Never again! It’s all finished!’ It was only the gist of what he was shouting: in reality his speech was a hysterical mixture of German and English. Raquel couldn’t understand most of what he was mouthing but his intentions were clear enough.

  ‘You must listen to me, Albert! You must!’

  Raquel threw herself astride Albert as he tried to rise. But she was too late; he had hold of the knife again. She clung grimly to his wrist and threw all her weight against his arm but she knew that this was a battle she could not hope to win. ‘Listen, Albert. Please listen to me! None of this is your fault! It was a put-up job. The whole thing!’ He seemed not to hear her. She brought her hand across his cheek with a swingeing slap that seemed to have a momentary effect of breaking through his single-minded assault on his own life. ‘For Chrissake listen to me! All this is a put-up job! Please listen to me, Albert! Please!’

  His arm lashed out, knocking her away from him. He sat up and held the knife to his stomach like a failed Samurai warrior about to commit hari kari.

  Her voice was a shrill scream: ‘None of this is your fault, Albert!’ The knife paused. For the first time since his humiliation he actually looked straight at her. He frowned. His lips moved. ‘I don’t understand. What is this you are trying to tell me?’

  In that moment Raquel realized that she would have to tell Albert everything.

  ‘Let me have the knife, Albert.’

  For a few moments he seemed undecided. Finally he appeared to come to a decision because he offered no resistance when Raquel removed the knife from his fingers. She stood. A victor contemplating the vanquished except that she wasn’t sure that she was the victor. She helped Albert to his feet. The black spider in the depths of his reason had spun a few strands of sanity - his voice was almost normal when he spoke. ‘What is not my fault?’

  ‘Come on. Let’s have a drink and I’ll tell you everything right from the beginning.’

  10

  An unusual feature of Daniel’s and Raquel’s relationship was that they rarely quarrelled. Their disputes were usually conducted in a good-natured atmosphere which they pursued to logical conclusions in bed. Not this time: Daniel came close to losing his temper on his return to Winterthur the next day when Raquel related what had happened.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he yelled - an oath he never normally used. ‘You didn’t have to tell him everything!’

  Raquel got mad because he didn’t ask how she was. Okay - so it was obvious that she was all right, but he could’ve asked. ‘Of course I had to tell him,’ she yelled right back. ‘The stupid gook was about to kill himself! He’s a big guy. What the hell else could I do? A soft-shoe shuffle maybe to take his mind off it? The Dance of the Seven Veils? Or maybe you think I should’ve let him go right ahead because you know what a fun time we’d have explaining to the police why we’ve got a bar full of corpses.’

  Daniel was about to shout back, but he wasn’t an unreasonable man; he realized what Raquel must have been through. ‘So what the hell do we do now, Rac? He’s sure to have gone to the police or something.’

  Raquel looked cynical. ‘Oh yeah? Report an attempted rape and suicide? Would you?’

  ‘That’s assuming he’d act rationally. From what you’ve said, he doesn’t sound rational.’

  ‘He is in his way. Anyway - it’s his word against mine. We’ve done nothing wrong, Daniel. You’ve always said yourself - our strength is that everything we’ve done is a hundred per cent legal.... Somehow I don’t think Albert will go to the police.’

  ‘Let’s pray you’re right,’ Daniel muttered.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I was goddamn near raped, for Christ’s sake!’

&n
bsp; Her angry face and his own helplessness provoked a feeling of bitterness in Daniel towards his father. From the way Emil had reacted to the scheme, it was Daniel’s guess that his father had not passed on his proposals for stealing the Mirage drawings despite promises to the contrary. No - his father would pass on the report; he would never go back on his word ... Or would he? It was the uncertainty that was so unnerving - not knowing if he and Raquel were working in a friendless vacuum; wondering if anyone would lift a finger to help them now that everything was going badly wrong.

  ‘Daniel! You’re not even listening to me!’ Raquel yelled. She lunged across the bar and twisted her fingers into his hair. ‘Bastard!’ she screamed again. ‘I nearly get raped for your poxy little warmongering country and you don’t give a shit how I am. Well fuck you, Jack. I’ve had enough. I’m going back to London to finish my studies.’

  Daniel fought back, trying to break Raquel’s demented grip on his hair. Their wrestling match caused them to crash into the jukebox that decided that now was as good a time as any to start grinding out ‘Cinderella Rockefella’ at full volume. Raquel let go of Daniel’s hair. They gazed at each other in surprise as the inane lyrics crashed across the bar. Raquel was the first to start giggling. Then they clung to each other, laughing and smothering each other in kisses. Raquel became aware of a loud, insistent banging on the front door. She jerked the jukebox’s plug from the wall. They stared at other in fear as the banging continued. It had that determined quality of someone who felt they had a right to be in the bar. Someone such as the police.

  Daniel tried to make out the shape through the front door’s heavy net curtain. It looked like one man. He unbolted the door and pulled it open. Albert stood there looking uneasily at Daniel. He drew back, ready to run at the slightest sign of trouble.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry ... I didn’t know you were back, Daniel.’

  ‘Well I am. What do you want?’

  The hostility in Daniel’s voice didn’t make it easier for Albert. Nerving himself to go to Cinderella’s had taken a great deal of courage.

  ‘I wanted to speak to Raquel—’

  ‘Well she doesn’t want to speak to you. I’ll leave you to figure out the reason why.’

  Daniel made to close the door but Raquel stopped him. ‘Don’t be stupid, Daniel. Come in, Albert. It’s good to see you.’

  Albert entered the bar and gave Daniel a nervous glance. ‘I suppose she told you everything?’

  Daniel nodded. ‘Rac and I don’t have secrets.’

  Albert looked appealingly at Raquel. ‘Could I speak to you alone? Just for a few minutes?’

  Daniel snorted. ‘No way.’

  ‘Leave us, Daniel,’ said Raquel quietly.

  ‘If you think I’m leaving you alone with this—’

  ‘I said leave us!’

  Daniel shrugged and left the bar. Albert waited until he could hear him moving about upstairs before speaking. ‘Raquel... I want to say sorry for what happened the other night.’

  ‘You said sorry a thousand times. Best forget it.’

  ‘I can’t forget it. I can never forget it. Or you. Raquel -I want—’ ‘Albert - please listen to me. It would be better all round if we all forgot what happened. You carry on coming in here - you’ll always be welcome - and we carry on with the bar. That wasn’t the original idea, of course, but it’s what I want now. We like it here; we like the business, and we like our customers,’ she smiled to make him feel at ease. ‘Especially you, Albert.’

  Albert shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, Raquel. I’ve done a lot of thinking since ... since .... Well - I’ve decided that I want you to have the drawings - all of them.’ He saw Raquel open her mouth and pressed on hurriedly as though frightened that he might change his own mind. ‘I’ve always admired Israel. I’ve always admired the way she stood up for herself against all the bullies. I was bullied at school. I know what it’s like. I think the way Israel has been treated by her friends is despicable. But why I’d really like to do it is for you. Because I love you, Raquel. I always will.’

  ‘No!’ said Raquel suddenly, almost shouting. She moved closer to Albert. Hands on hips. Her stance angry and provocative. ‘If you do this thing, you don’t do it for me. I don’t want what might happen to you on my conscience, Albert. I’m not even an Israeli, for God’s sake. I’ve never been there. I don’t have any allegiance to Israel. Only to Daniel and maybe hardly even then.’

  ‘But I want to do this for you,’ Albert whispered. ‘And nothing can happen to me. Nothing could be easier. Next week we’re starting a major print run on all the drawings. It’ll go on for several months. All I have to do is alter the distribution list so that an extra set is copied.’

  Raquel broke the brief silence that followed. ‘Remember your dreams you used to tell me about?’ she said. ‘About owning a boat... fast cars ...? Having all the things that your boss has? Were they for real?’

  Albert thought for a moment and nodded. ‘They’re real enough, Raquel. Why?’

  ‘Then do it for money. Not for me. If you want to make me happy

  - then please do it for money! At least that has an intrinsic honesty in a Judas sort of way.’

  ‘For money?’ Albert echoed, looking doubtful.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Half a million dollars,’ said Raquel promptly.

  Albert looked shocked. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Sure you could.’

  ‘I could never demand that sort of money from Israel.’

  Raquel snorted. ‘That must be peanuts compared to the millions it would cost them to develop their own jet fighter. Only don’t tell Daniel it was my idea.’

  Albert had a vision of sunning himself on the afterdeck of a luxury yacht; an iced drink in his hand; Raquel lying stretched out naked on a sunbed so that he could just look at her without being forced to commit himself to further acts by touching her. He nodded. His voice was nearly a whisper when he spoke. ‘Very well then, Raquel. Half a million dollars.’

  ‘And you promise not to say anything about it being my idea?’

  He nodded again and licked his lips. ‘I promise.’

  11

  Albert entered the print room and watched Heidi working the wheel guillotine, trimming prints as they rolled out of the dyeline machine. The big Ozalid hummed gently, producing a pungent smell of ammonia that not even the huge extractor fans seemed able to cope with. Heidi was a matronly fifty-year-old with a husband who drank her earnings. That much she had once confided in Albert and never again allowed her private life problems to intrude on her job. She was an efficient worker; as she completed the copy, she started on feeding a second master into the machine even before the first had finished emerging from the rollers, and she used the few spare moments during each cycle to fold the new prints in the correct manner so that the drawing number was visible regardless of the drawing’s size.

  ‘How’s it going, Heidi?’

  ‘Oh, fine, Mr Heinken,’ she answered, giving Albert a quick smile but not pausing in her work. ‘I’ll have this batch finished and parcelled by lunchtime.’

  ‘How would you like to go on to full-time work for six months from next week? I’m starting the Mirage print run.’

  Heidi looked pleased. ‘I thought we wouldn’t be starting until the new year?’

  Albert nodded his head to the rows of tracers bent over their drawing boards. ‘The girls have done exceptionally well. We’ve got enough secondary masters in hand to make it worth starting the run now.’

  Heidi smiled. ‘I could start full-time from Monday, Mr Heinken. Would that be all right?’

  ‘That’ll be fine, Heidi. You’d better get the orders in for paper. And don’t forget we’ll be printing four copies of every drawing - not three.’

  Heidi was puzzled. ‘The masters go to Sulzers. We have a copy, one for production, and one for the patent office. Who’s having the extra print? We won’t have any room in our
plan chests.’

  Albert laughed. ‘I’ve decided to let the patent office have two

  copies this time so that there won’t be any more of the mess ups we had last year.’

  ‘A good idea, Mr Heinken,’ said Heidi, smiling. It was a standing joke that the Swiss Patent Office should’ve hung on to Albert Einstein when he used to work for them so that he could have designed them an efficient drawing filing system.

  ‘And I’ll be delivering the drawings in person,’ Albert added. ‘That way we’ll always get receipts on time so that you’ll be able to keep your books straight.’

  ‘That’ll be a change, Mr Heinken.’

  ‘So not only plenty of drawing paper on your order, Heidi - but plenty of brown wrapping paper as well.’

  She laughed. ‘And string, Mr Heinken?’

  ‘Plenty of string,’ Albert replied solemnly.

  12

  GENEVA December 1968

  ‘Mission Control in Houston report that the countdown is going smoothly. In forty-eight hours the three Apollo 8 astronauts, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, will strap themselves into their command module to begin Man’s first trip to another world. By Christmas Day they will be orbiting the moon and sending back television pictures, not only of the moon, but of Earth as seen—’

  The Patent Registration Officer’s telephone rang. He pulled the radio earphone from his ear, picked up the receiver and listened. He was wanted in the parking bay. A few minutes later he was looking askance at the parcels of drawings that were loaded nearly to the roof in Albert’s Peugeot. They were even piled high on the floor and seat beside the driver’s seat. He sighed. ‘I’ll get a couple of men to help unload them, Mr Heinken,’ he offered grudingly. ‘But we won’t be able to make a start on registering them until next year. Maybe late next year. We’re hopelessly understaffed.’

  They were the sort of excuses Albert had heard before. This time they suited him admirably. ‘But you can book them in,’ he pointed out, producing a clipboard.