Duet

by gay walley

  But all things, even tepid ones, must come to an end.

  Maurice began pouting. He would not talk. “What is it?” she asked. “What is bothering you?”

  Although she knew.

  He’s almost acting like Mahler, she thought. Moody and mercurial. What should she do? Go back now?

  Maurice called from the office. “I just bought you a present. It's a little corny but it reminds me of us. And the eighth.”

  “Great,” she said, suspiciously.

  She hoped it wasn’t something as horrible as that doll. That doll unnerved her. Sometimes she looked at it to imagine how Alma could look so much like her but then it seemed to her maybe the doll was her, that he was lying when he said it was Alma. Just then her phone rang.

  “Hi.” It was Alan, the psychoanalyst she had met on the street so long ago.“I was wondering how domestic bliss is going,” he said.

  She laughed.”I’m not sure the adjective domestic or imported is key, it’s the bliss that’s hard to pin down.”

  He laughed. “You sound like a wrestler…Want to have lunch?” he asked.

  “How's your love life?” she asked.

  “It's okay. Nothing special,” he answered, evasively.

  It wouldn't hurt, she thought, to see him. Interesting how Oskar never got in touch. Out of sight, out of mind. She was still galled over it. And still missed how he had mesmerized her with his masculinity. Maybe she didn't want this freedom after all, as she had thought. Maybe she was longing again for the ball and chains of a relationship. Something to force up against. Was it Goethe who said art comes out of the tension?

  “Yes,” she said, “I'll meet you for lunch. Name the place.” She knew, seeing someone new would subtly begin the shift. That's what the third person does. That was what she had been missing.

  Her afternoon with Alan at the rooftop of the Gramercy Hotel turned out to be telling. He was leading man-attractive, tall, outstandingly slim and elegant compared to Maurice’s broad, chunky body.

  Alan listened attentively to what she had to say. He kept asking why she had not got involved with him.

  He kept telling her she was not the type to bond. That here she was, so something must not be

  Right in her life, but that if she was with him, things would improve.

  His interest was flattering, but when a man says, Love me, and you don’t, it’s no good. Just as she

  had wanted Oskar to love her and he hadn’t been able to sustain it. She left the lunch with Alan and

  returned to Riverdale and thought, Maurice has his eccentricities but at least he doesn’t try and talk me into loving him.

  When she got home, she switched on a lamp and put the groceries away. She had surprised herself by buying some food on the way home. She rarely made dinner but she decided it would be a sweet thing to do, for both of them.

  So she cooked some broccoli, potatoes, a salad, and salmon, and then cheeses and grapes for dessert. She put a chardonnay on the table and even had some port for after dinner. As she used to have with Oskar. She can learn from her time with Oskar, she decided. She can learn to live well and attractively.

  Maurice came back early from work, excited to see her. She wanted to ask him whether Heidigger was as anti-Semitic in his philosophy as certain writers now said, and she thought about Oskar’s grandfather, the doctor, having been friends with him, according to Oskar. Was it true?

  Maurice was all smiles, delighted at this home cooked meal. Maybe she is growing to love me, he thought.

  She poured the wine. They ate and then he said, “I know it took a long time, way too long a time, but I finally,” she looked up not knowing what he was going to say, was he going to ask her to marry him? That he’d found a publisher for her music? “I finally have found out about where Daisy was and about this Dr Tremba.”

  Her soul froze. This was the key, she thought. . And she felt guilty about what she felt next: perhaps it is also the key to unlocking who Oskar is and they could be together.

  Maurice was holding some papers. “It’s in this file. I can tell you or you can read it yourself. Whatever you prefer.”

  She took the file and did not start reading, but could see that he had underlined sections.

  “I’ll read it myself,” she said. “Later.” And she smiled at him, gratefully. “You know I needed this.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Anything terrify you?” she asked.

  “No. It’s bizarre. But there it is.”

  “We never discussed, ever,“ she said, “my affliction.”

  And he looked at her wide eyed and said, “What affliction?’

  “My build.”

  “Oh,” he said, sipping his wine, “I never even think about it.”

  Thirty:

  She wanted to be alone when she read the information that Maurice had amassed for her. It was a Friday when he gave the file to her, so she had to wait the whole weekend. She was short of money so she couldn’t really do much. He uncharacteristically wanted to go hear some nostalgic cabaret music. It was so unlike him. The night before he had taken her to a lecture on Why does Abraham’s wife, Sarah, laugh? The teacher had said that Abraham had been willing to leave his comfort zone, been willing to MOVE, been agitated with himself and this is why he was blessed with Isaac, the one who laughs. Sarah also laughed, but in disbelief and joy, when she learned she was pregnant and Maurice said, as they walked, that is life. The negative and the positive.

  She nodded. There was never much to say with Maurice since he always said so much himself. The rest of the weekend was quiet. He watched old movies and she joined him, more interested in distracting herself than the movie.

  Sunday night she was anxious and reminded Maurice of a caged panther about to break. He knew she was not reading the file he had given her till she was alone and he understood. He made no reference to the material so she had no idea what he thought of it.

  Sunday night was warm and she could feel the rain coming on. Their windows were open and people were walking the wide Riverdale promenades.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I have a meeting at nine in the morning then back here.”

  “Ah. And you’ll read then.”

  “Exactly. With the dogs at my side.”

  The next morning they took the subway together. She had a business meeting at a company that she freelanced doing PR for, an investment banking firm, and he went into his office, as usual. He was still on the subway when she left him at Grand Central, and she waved goodbye softly before she got off. She had the strangest feeling that she might never see him again.

  After her meeting, she took the subway home. Once she had returned to the apartment, she took To Be and Not to Be for a walk. As she walked she thought about Oskar. Imagining him with other women, his back turned to her. But now she was going to be reading about his family. And her own. The shrink had inferred that all of this was only in her mind, in Daisy’s mind, but if it was all fictitious, Maurice would not have handed her any papers. There had to be something concrete. Something that explained why she was the way she was. Or even why Oskar was the way he was.

  She opened the red file. The sun was weak and shone pale through the window, barely warming her. She was wearing a sun dress and heels. She felt feminine, almost rich in her life. She felt inordinately happy and could not figure out why. She smoothed the fur coats on both dogs and then she realized it was because this red folder, this red folder was going to bring her closer to Oskar. As for her predicament, nothing could change that.

  She settled in, touched Oskar’s necklace which she still wore, and opened the file.

  The first set of papers were about the hospital. There was such a hospital which was really a chateau that had been taken over by the German armed forces. It was a hospital set up to help soldiers who had returned back wounded. As she read, it turned out it was more of a mental hospital. For post traumatic stress. She read on, and there wa
s nothing about Jews being there. She fingered down the list of doctors. Yes. Dr. Tremba.

  She kept flipping through, no Jews. No women. Was there a list of patients, she wondered. All this German. Why hadn’t she learned it? She searched for Daisy’s name. The Germans are legendary for documentation. For once, please have been as thorough as your reputation.

  Ah. Daisy’s name. But not a Jewish name. Daisy Riks, when in reality Daisy’s name was Daisy Steiner. Daisy Riks, assistant to Dr Tremba. Wait a minute. Not a child. Did Daisy lie about her age? Very possible with Daisy. Age. Seventeen. That would have made Daisy older than she said by ten years. No operations. No medical records. Dr. Tremba’s assistant.

  “I’ve slept with a few Germans myself. Voluntarily.” That was what Daisy had said. Daisy must have been Tremba’s assistant and mistress.

  The next question: Was Daisy Jewish? Why would a non Jew pretend she was a Jew? No. Daisy was a Jew and Tremba was protecting her. (And here Duet remembered that Oskar’s father had not seemed like a villain, nor was Oskar, in truth.) But that did not explain Duet’s predicament or what Daisy was talking about.

  She put the papers down, exhausted, knowing she had to keep going through them. True to Maurice, there was a voluminous amount of paperwork.

  Then she came to a huge file in German. The handwriting was distinctly feminine and the paper was old. And, as she held the paper, she felt suddenly nauseous. She felt she was as brittle and flimsy as the paper itself. It was Daisy’s handwriting.

  Trembling, Duet went to the internet and looked for a German translator. Started to call for one but changed her mind. She could not wait. She typed the whole document into the online free translator and knew she could piece together any words that were strung together incorrectly.

  It took her an hour to type it all in.

  It took less than fifty seconds to get it back:

  I am here at this place because when Gerhardt T saw me, with my parents, he said he would take me with him. We all knew what that was. And my mother gave me a look as to say, Go. You will live. I had never been particular about who I slept with and Dr Tremba was much like my father, tall, handsome, aristocratic, an attractive man. It was him or death. I could not believe my good fortune. And this for being pretty.

  Gerhardt saw that I was intelligent and put me to work in his office, keeping files of the soldiers coming in and out. He changed my name to Daisy Riks and got me new identity papers. With my turned up nose, I do not look particularly Jewish, although I am dark haired. I had not been raised the least bit religious so I felt nothing about being perceived as a Christian. I did not like the isolation of the religious Jews. I wanted to be thought of as Christian, anyway, and after six months, I actually thought I was Daisy Riks. Reinhold gave me a past in Vienna, what schools, what streets, and when we were in social situations with the other nurses and doctors, nobody questioned me. At least not to my knowledge.

  Gerhardt I knew was falling in love with me and, being young, my attentions began to tire. How long can you take being someone’s hostage? At this point, I had become spoiled and believed that, in this new life, I could choose my lovers. There were other doctors in the hospital who were after me and I did not like being a captive, which I was. Dr T did not take kindly to my rejection and began to be abrupt, cruel and mocking with me. He would tell me what was going on with less fortunate Viennese Jews, in other words, he was talking about my parents. He said it would have happened to me if it wasn’t for him. Which was probably true.

  I had to hide my emotions which I was good at but I knew this was a cat and mouse game. I began to be frightened. I felt he was suddenly cold and gunning for me.

  I was in the office one evening and he came in with his black bag. He had been doing rounds in the wards. He told me that he had been doing research most of his career, and he had found ways of enabling women to have twins, if they were infertile, and he was working on other experiments that would revolutionize the relations between men and women.

  I nodded and concentrated on my typing.

  He kept talking, “ I did extensive study on anthropology and prehistory in some of the best universities in Europe and was incorrectly discredited because of my beliefs in phrenology. They said I was dogmatic. What German isn’t? “

  The next day he began that a young healthy girl like me would be the perfect specimen for some tests he would like to do and that I would one day thank him.

  I did not know what to say so I said nothing.

  A week later, Dr Tremba closed the door and said, since I was a Jew, he had the right to do whatever tests he liked. He would not have me sent to a prison, but if we kept our secret together, I would live, not die in a concentration camp which he would be happy to describe in more detail to me.

  “I am not a Jew any longer,” I said.

  “Of course you are… I am not asking to have you killed, dear, just to give you a few tests.”

  And so the needles began.

  I am spending all my time now sick. I do not expect to live out the year. I can no longer work.

  “What will these tests do to me?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I hope you do live, Daisy, because the real results will come in future generations. I am thinking for the future of Germany, even if Hitler is not.”

  As he gave me more shots, he said, “Consider yourself doing more for the future of our nation than all those soldiers out there dying and losing their minds needlessly.”

  But I am losing my mind needlessly. I cannot remember anything. I cannot feel anything. I no longer cry. I go like a docile cow to his office and I leave as the same. I who was once feisty. I am mostly drugged and do not know one day from the next. He is killing me, for what purpose I do not know. Don’t they need their experiments to live to see results? Will he keep me here forever till I die? He takes my vitals all the time but sees no changes. He says, I must get you pregnant. That is his next program for me.

  “But I,” he said, “need someone else to be the father.”

  “Why?”

  “I will be more impersonal then about the tests.”

  And so he had Dr. Landau come in and have sex with me incessantly. I am so drugged that is of no import to me what he does.

  It will be his monster child that I have.

  I know I will get pregnant and then this child, this child will be the result of these tests.

  Daisy’s writing ends. And Duet felt sick. And then she knew that Michelle was Landau’s daughter. The war ended. Daisy , pregnant, got to London and then to the States. Duet didn’t know how Daisy had pulled that off, knowing Daisy probably through the aid of some man, but she now knew Michelle was born over there.

  No wonder Daisy never wanted much to do with Michelle.

  Thirty one:

  Maurice came home and she was waiting for him on the banquette by the window. “Thank you,” she said.

  “What did you think?” he asked quietly, as he put his briefcase down on the table.

  She said, “It explains why no one knew about this hospital. As the shrink had said. It explains me. Explains Michelle and Daisy a bit. “

  Maurice suddenly stormed around the apartment, once again pouting, like a child who is not getting his way, and becoming increasingly out of sorts.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “But it doesn’t explain,” he said angrily, “your attachment to Tremba’s grandson.”

  She sighed. She had no desire for this discussion. That in itself made it obvious to both of them she did not love Maurice. But what was worse to Maurice was he knew she was too passionate a nature to stay in a relationship where she did not feel connected.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said cautiously. “What’s complicated, Maurice? I am the granddaughter of Oskar’s grandfather’s mistress. It seems so biblical.”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  She decided to ignore it. “I’m taking the dogs for a walk. Want t
o come?”

  “No,” he said not looking at her and this was what, in her opinion, made her not able to love Maurice in the way she should. This petulance. As if that is what love is about. Oskar was cold, but not deluded that love is about self-aggrandizement and demands.

  As she and the dogs traversed the Grand Concourse, she looked at the old people on the benches and thought, as Sally Bowles said, from cradle to grave isn’t that long a stay, and she shouldn’t be where she shouldn’t be. Her grandmother had been in an untenable situation but Duet was not. Her affliction, so to speak, was a bit bizarre, a stigmata if you will, Duet told herself, as the dogs, now bigger and stronger, pulled her towards other dogs, and then turned away, as if being a shepherd was a higher breed on the dog hierarchy, and here she agreed with them. After all, she used to tell the dogs, You guys fought wars, rescued people, help the blind. As she knelt down to kiss and cuddle their soft strong bodies, her dogs – anyway, what does her stigmata mean?

  She was marked. No one was going to want her or want to stay with her. She could never be with a man for good. Maurice was willing. He loved her, as much as she loved the dogs. Why couldn’t she accept him?

  She turned around and the 10 feet of them began heading home.

  She and Maurice had dinner together and chatted about recent concert reviews. She thought Maurice was acting a bit bizarrely. He seemed to be looking at her with a sort of sideways lasciviousness. It made her uncomfortable. She said, “Maurice all this information is making me feel a bit strange. I’m going to my room.”