Tours of the Black Clock

by Erickson, Steve;

  56

  I SELL YOU TO them. As though I’ve put chains around your feet and led you by a rope down the Kärntnerstrasse, I sell you, for the usual amount. I guess Petyr’s finally convinced Kronehelm not to come along to the rendezvous; the translator waits at the appointed time and place alone. They don’t know what they have in you. You’re worth more than any of them can pay; at the next appointment Petyr even complains. “Herr Kronehelm,” he announces coolly, “says to tell you your last chapter won’t do. It’s much too …” he looking for the word, “… elusive.”

  “If it isn’t satisfactory,” I answer, “then you should find yourself another partner.” I take my money and leave.

  The other day I went to find your street again. There on the edge of the Ring not far from the street where I lived seven weeks. I walked up one road and down the other, looking for the candleshop. I scoured maps, I questioned residents of the neighborhood. I mean, it’s not such a big neighborhood. It doesn’t have so many streets, and there are only so many candleshops. But I couldn’t find the candleshop, and I didn’t find your street. And I wonder if I’m really leading you by a rope, chained and enslaved, or if I’m the gateway through which you’ve escaped to other places, as though through a shadow’s door.

  But you come back to me every night. Wherever else it is you go, you come to me and when we’re through with the night I sell it. By the high price they pay me, I know I love you.

  57

  WHEN THE SUMMER’S OVER, Carl finally leaves. His affair with the Spanish girl hasn’t gone so well lately, and I’ve been urging him to go anyway. The city’s become dangerous for him. Italy doesn’t make a lot of sense anymore either, so he takes a night train back to Paris. No way the fucking Germans are going to take over Paris, right? The Spanish girl and I see him off at the Westbahnhof, and I shake hands and then I watch his train disappear.

  The Spanish girl is somber. She’s invited to a dinner hosted by a rich Scot the other Spanish girl’s been seeing, and her escort with all the languages has just vanished on a train in the distance. In lousy English she pleads that I come along, if only awhile. I don’t know if I owe it to Carl, I certainly don’t imagine I owe it to her. From the windows of the station the city is ignited by the scatter of fire and glass as though chandeliers have plunged to the streets below them.

  We take a taxi to a neighborhood behind the museums of the Burg Ring. Anyone with a house in this part of town has a few extra schillings jangling in his pocket. We go upstairs in this house where there are already four or five other people, all of them young and rich and attractive. I don’t think one of them is Austrian; most are German. From the window I can see the dark dolloped trees of the Volksgarten rustling against the light that lingers in the west. Standing in the doorway is a guy in old disheveled clothes with a three-day stubble on his face drinking Scotch from the bottle, and I think to myself that one of the vagabonds has somehow wandered up; I wonder if the German guests will start thrashing him. He’s the only one who looks almost as bad as I. Turns out he owns the place.

  One Spanish girl is moping about Carl, whom she’s insisted half the summer she doesn’t love anyway, and the other Spanish girl is plotting marriage with this derelict in the doorway. Everyone’s on their way out to dinner and the girls say why don’t I come along. I don’t have any money and I don’t fit in with the crowd at all, but we all pile into a couple of taxis and are on our way. We arrive at an apartment we could have walked to in six minutes, and take a lift up to a suite that would shame Doggie Hanks’ joint back in New York, an Eighteenth Century apartment facing the Inner City. The hostess is a beautiful young girl who appears to have sprained her wrist and wears it in a fashionable little sling resting below her breast. She greets everyone in a very cordial fashion until she comes to me, whom she regards rather peculiarly. It’s explained to her delicately that I’m an American.

  My only recourse is to saunter over to the bar and drink something. Then I walk over to the hors d’oeuvres and wolf down about half the table. This is exactly the kind of behavior that’s expected of me. I’m regarded by the other guests, who now number twenty or thirty, with fascination; they all think I’m a direct descendant of Geronimo. Standing at the table is a plump little English girl who appears to be about four feet tall. She’s squeezed all of herself into about six inches of clothes, and she has a tiny little waist from which the rest of her bubbles out. It’s not unappealing. Her hair is a blaze of red redder than mine, and she has freckles. “Big appetite,” she observes, watching me. I stroll through the suite checking out the rooms and opening windows and emptying other people’s drinks, and finally the party decides to move again and everyone loads into half a dozen taxis and we caravan off down the Ringstrasse. We come to a dark alley near the Hofburg where the taxis can’t go and get out and march to a dark street near the center of the Inner City where all the strippers and streetwalkers live. The building looks like a warehouse. It doesn’t have a single window, and only a single door. The door opens and somebody in the shadows says this or that, and then we go inside.

  We’re now in the sleekest nightclub in Vienna, maybe in the world for all I’ve seen of nightclubs. It makes the Top Dog look dull, everything’s a deep blue that’s very popular with people who can afford not to look at themselves. One of the Germans tells me it’s the most exclusive private club in Europe. I order a double bourbon on ice with no water. It occurs to me what money I have isn’t going to go very far here. The menus have no prices. But I figure I’m a guest, right? The Spanish girls are seated across the table from me with the Scottish bloke who’s tastefully discarded his bottle by now; we get to talking and he’s not a bad guy, actually, though his accent’s incomprehensible. There’s a beautiful Dutch blonde on my right and the voluptuous freckled little English redhead on my left, and we’re all talking and everything seems jake, and the people at the table now assume that if I can talk and dress and act this way and lumber around in polite society as though I don’t give a fuck about anything at all, then I certainly must be the wealthiest person in the room. They’ve decided I’m from some frontier in America with cotton or oil, a shrewd fellow who neatly sidestepped the Crash like a croquet ball. They’ve concluded I’m absolutely stinking with money and probably a regular patron here and a couple of them ask what I recommend as far as the cuisine goes. I point out this or that, whatever part of the menu my finger happens to be on, and I give them a knowledgeable wink as I do so. Pretty soon I’m ordering the wine and cheese, I’m calling out to waiters for another bottle of Chateau Whatever 1896, and everyone’s having a splendid time. These Yanks may not look like much, they’re saying to each other, but they have style. The Spanish girls are ignoring it completely, jabbering on and on about the Scot and Carl who with luck is about to Switzerland by now, and the only one who watches me intently and doesn’t look like she’s fooled for a minute is the little English pudding at my side, who seems to be having the best time of all. Her knowledgeable winks are for me.

  The evening progresses, so to speak. We have a fine meal but I’m careful not to act too impressed. I tactfully but pointedly disparage the pureed carrots and look a little bored with the brandy mousse. The only thing I wonder about are the other guests in the club. Lots of men. Women with our party to be sure, but the rest of the clientele divides up into male couples, all seated at intimate tables. As I sit there listening to the voices from these other tables, I’m sure I recognize some of them. Soon I’m sure I recognize all of them. I realize I’ve talked to every one of these voices on the other side of the door in the Spanish girls’ flat where I was living not so long ago. I decide to pay no attention to this and before I know it the meal’s finished and I’m enjoying a cognac and talking with the Dutch blonde when some German two seats down from me begins to catch my attention; he’s rattling off numbers and figures and various divisions, and I look over and realize he has the bill. The Spanish girls want to investigate the dancehall downstairs and I
interject that this sounds like an excellent idea and let’s do it jetzt. We get down to the dancehall and the Spanish girls disappear, and I’m hanging around biding my time until all the figuring over the bill is finished upstairs, when this guy comes up and asks me to dance. Excuse me? I say and he repeats the question and I’m shaking my head, Uh nein, nein, es tut mir leid, when some other guy comes up and he wants to dance too. Soon there are these two guys arguing over who’s going to dance with me. As fast as I can, I run back upstairs and back to the table only to find they’re just getting around to shelling out the schillings, so I beat it back downstairs where the two guys are still squabbling; moreover the more these guys talk the more familiar their voices become until I’m certain that at least one of them stood haranguing me outside my door a few months back. If I say too much now they’re going to discover I am in fact Thierry, elusive object of desire who places advertisements in newspapers as a vicious tease. I get back upstairs pronto and ease my way back into my seat at the table where everything seems to be settled. The money’s already on the tray with the bill and nobody’s too concerned with it or looking around saying where’s that cheap stinking-rich American who hasn’t paid up. The coast seems clear to me. I sit down and let the conversation wash over me like the waves of the Mediterranean, when the German two seats down who’s been tallying the score passes the tray to me and says, cool as ice, “I’m certain you would not wish to leave again without paying for yourself or the lady.”

  Myself or the lady? I don’t know which lady he means, unless it’s one of the Spanish girls. It’s one thing to call me a freeloader, which of course I absolutely am, another thing to saddle me with responsibility for the lady. He shouldn’t have said that, actually; it was a bad move. He had me shamed until he came up with that lady bit. “Don’t worry about it, Wilfried,” I say, and get up out of the chair for the full effect, “don’t you have something better to concern yourself with? Aren’t there a couple of old Jews wandering around outside you and the boys can beat up, a crippled old gypsy woman you can lay out and fill up with rancid brown German cum?” The room seems to have gotten quiet, and I like it. I feel perfectly fine at this particular moment, I should have done this long ago. I’m almost certain at this moment I’m going to kill someone again; it seems like much too long since I last did it. This asshole’s perfect. He’s every little piece of German shit I’ve seen in the last eight months rolled into one, I’d crush him and grow a plant from him if the little white worms of his fecal matter didn’t make it impossible. The color of his face is just like the white of little worms, I see their little heads wiggling in his soulless pisscoated eyes. “Tell you what, Heinzly,” I say, “send the damned bill to your minister of propaganda, the little one with the foot that looks like horsemeat. See, he’s a client of mine. He works for me. Tell him I said to write you a nice big tip for licking every shithole in Wien where I’ve set my ass in the last eight months after blowing your pathetic soul-curdling goodlife right out the end of it. He’ll be glad to, that boy jumps when I say to,” snapping my fingers. “He may write your propaganda but I’m the guy who writes his. He reads it with one hand while he pops his wang with the other until your fucking Berlin drips with it.” Now the little white worms in his eyes are practically dancing on their tails, and while I refuse to tear my own eyes from his, I’m vaguely aware of the other men in the room around me beginning to stand; I gather they’re all Germans too. Also, by now they’re certain I’m Thierry, mysterious messenger of passion who’s led all of them to their respective moments of unfulfillment, which makes them even less happy about me.

  “Now listen here,” I hear someone behind me, and without even turning I can tell it’s the English redhead, though for a moment it’s not certain which of us she’s talking to, if not both of us. Turns out it’s him. She comes up alongside me into my peripheral vision and says, “This gentleman is my guest, I thought I could count on this evening to show him what Viennese hospitality’s all about, my mistake obviously. Nothing wrong with the Viennese I suppose that one or two less foreigners wouldn’t take care of,” and she’s directing it at the German and he blanches, even though it’s completely crazy since she and I are a lot more foreign than he is. By now he regrets having brought up the whole thing, by now he wishes he’d just reached into his billfold and paid the God damn bill. I haven’t the slightest idea what the English girl’s up to except that she’s taken command of the situation, a nightclub full of excitable men, and though a few seconds ago my murdering this German seemed an enthusiastic inevitability, while she talks I start figuring that if she can get me out of this, so much the better. She steps right up to me, and without looking at me once, still staring the others down, she keeps talking while she reaches into the pocket of my coat lining. “As I see it you owe all of us an apology,” she says to the German, “but if you offered it we’d then be in the position of having to accept it, assuming we have more social grace than you deserve.” Out of my pocket she pulls a wad of schillings, pounds, Swiss francs, French francs, Italian lire, German marks, more money than I’ve seen or held in my life. It’s an amazing sleight of hand, and I probably look as stunned as everyone else. “Your lot may fancy itself fit to rule the world,” she says, “but you’re not fit to dine in public, so why don’t you just leave bloody civilized behavior to the bloody rest of us, all right?” and she casts the wad of money on the table like something she’s blown her nose with; half of it flies all over the room. No one has the shamelessness to pick it up, and no one makes a sound. She has me by the hand and, not too quickly, utterly self-possessed, leads me out of the club. The silence roars at our backs when, at the door, she whispers, “Let’s go, big boy. The trouble here is even bigger than you are.”

  58

  WE GET OUTSIDE AND she breaks for the Ringstrasse, pulling me behind her. We catch a cab and head for a section of town on the other side of the Wien-Fluss from Dog Storm Street; in the cab I’m breathing hard and feeling myself all pumped up. She’s looking out the window and then she’s looking at me from out of the dark of the backseat of the cab; we get to her place and she gets out. The door’s still open for me to climb out so I do. She pays the driver and off he goes; if I had plans to take the cab back to my flat, she clearly has other ideas. She hasn’t said a word in all this, she understands exactly what she wants, and what she wants is exactly what’s going to happen. She unlocks the door and we go up to her flat.

  It’s a nice enough flat. In the light she unpins part of her hair, which is even redder and longer than it’s looked all night. “My name’s Megan,” she says, and begins to prepare tea. We’ll have little shortbreads too, I guess. “Banning Jainlight,” I tell her. “Make yourself at home, Banning Jainlight,” she says. She has a lovely little beestung mouth but other than that and the blizzard of freckles there’s nothing special about her face. From what I’ve seen so far nothing’s unnerved her in the least about the evening, she acts as though she manages her way through episodes like this all the time. She’s twenty-four years old and, more than once in our short lifetime together, the four years difference will feel profound.

  We sit on a little sofa in the corner of the flat, something she finds cozy and I find like trying to cram myself into a doll’s house. We talk about this and that, the woman’s pulled me out of a tough spot; it would be rude of me just to get up and leave, wouldn’t it? Her father runs some sort of shipping empire out of London or something. I gather he owns half the boats on water these days, though in no way is she making a big thing of it. Somehow she’s totally in charge without seeming the least bit overbearing. I tell her I’m a writer but I suppose it’s clear I don’t want to go into it, what I write or for whom I write. She doesn’t press the matter at all, she’ll toss a line out if I want to bite, and if I don’t she reels it back in empty. “And what am I going to do with you now, Banning Jainlight?” she says.

  “Do with me?” I say.

  It’s not my fault, it’s seduction p
ure and simple. She’s brilliant at it, always giving just what I can handle at the moment, in fact giving just a little less than I can handle if you want to know the truth. I … I never forget you, though. I always have you in my mind, when she’s got her hands in my hair and her full little mouth on my face, you’re still there, though I’ve never seen your face so well in the shadows, and some time’s passed now since I saw you there in that window. My brain grasps for an image of you, and all it retrieves is your pink body in the black petals on my bed; and I try to hold that when she unbuttons her clothes. Her breasts float up enormous and white, I must look completely stunned because she laughs. “Now come on,” she jokes, “I just know they’re not too much for you.” And in that instant it’s all I can see, whatever else I want to see, whatever else the mind’s eye searches for; I’m lying back in this ridiculous little sofa and soon she’s straddling me and rocking back and forth. I’m so far up in her I can feel the tip of me tickling the underside of her heart. “Oh love love love love,” she moans.

  And when I come into her, it’s then of course you come over me. You and I know it’s infidelity. There in the little sofa with her slumped over me I can hold grief and torment at bay only so long; when I feel her asleep I move her, pick her up and put her in her bed. She whispers in her red hair; I like her. I haven’t even begun to know what she’s worth. Ten weeks from now I’ll marry her, though at this moment it doesn’t remotely occur to me I’ll even see her again. I escape in anonymity. I return to Dog Storm Street, when I come into my room I’m sure you can smell her on me. The first thing I do when you come to me is trace with my finger your face so that never again will it defy my reach. Your banal mud brown eyes and your dirty blond hair, and in the corner of your mouth, for the first time it’s clear to me, the scar where you were struck by the rock that first day I saw you. It’s small and white, and sparkles like a diamond in your tooth. I open you beneath me and expect your reproach, but you’re happy. You already know that the seed left in the folds of a little English redhead has sanctioned that love in a way you would never choose: I would rather, you say when the window blows violently open, be your adulteress than your wife, it makes me fuck you ferociously. I would rather, you say as the window bangs open and shut, hold the part of your love that’s clandestine and damned, it’s what you created me for.