by Alan Isler
To Stella
A sweet rotundance in the tum
Doth please as well as bouncing bum.
A bosom bursting from its bra
To tempt a bite mandibular;
And flesh so soft, so smooth, so white,
Which beauty lends to clothes too tight;
A mons veneris, from which source
Sweet gums and resins hotly course;
An eager mouth, deserving note,
That sucks me freely down the throat;
Fingers to which delighted balls
Oft sing their silent madrigals;
Do prove that in Poore-Moody’s wife
I joy in paradisal life.
Not bad, not bad, he thought. The last couplet should be tidied up perhaps:
Do prove I in the Churl’s sweet wife
Enjoy a paradisal life.
Possibly. Meanwhile it would take its place with a brief series inspired by Stella’s recent fear, wholly unjustified, that she was putting on a little weight.
He dropped the poem into his venerable and otherwise empty briefcase. Anything else? Yes, of course: Nimuë’s Passport to Parnassus. He must remember the bread and the Cetonese – and some antacid tablets: the spices in Stella’s lasagna were subtle; one did not notice their viciousness until it was too late, ‘Questa,’ he hummed gaily, ‘o quella…’ As ever, his best hums were unpremeditated.
TWO
TOWARDS TEN O’CLOCK the next morning Kraven rose slowly to consciousness, luxuriously, stratum by stratum, stretching his muscles motionlessly, unwilling yet to open his eyes. He enjoyed his limbs’ refusal to obey the brain’s command to move, enjoyed even the panic their refusal engendered. Experimentally he concentrated his will on his toes, increased the insistence of the command, another notch, another, and lo, his toes twitched, they shifted, grudgingly, to be sure, but with ultimate obedience to authority. He was not paralysed after all. Perhaps his rebirth in America had confused the familial demons, had kept them at bay. Kraven opened his eyes.
Squinting against the light that blazed in through the windows, he was able to make out a shrouded form on the far side of his bed. There was Stella, lying on her back, the sheet pulled up to her shoulders. Stella, his beloved … He smiled warmly at her. Last night she had been a catwoman, an avatar of the non-sublimated libido. No wonder he ached in every limb.
Stella! He sat up in the bed. It was broad daylight, she should have left hours ago. He looked at his watch: ten-fifteen. Good grief!
‘Stella!’
He thought to shout, but his vocal chords were not yet up to the task. The shout was a croak, scarcely more than a whisper. He started to lean towards her but stopped in horror. Her eyes were open wide, but the pupils had disappeared, had rolled up out of sight. Her jaw hung slackly. He leaped out of the bed and flung himself across the room, turning in a half crouch, horrified. She had not moved. The light from the windows glanced off the waxen pallor of her cheek, glinted on the ghastly white of her eyes, gleamed on the exposed teeth. His heart twisted painfully in his chest. She did not breathe, the sheet that covered her lay quite still. She was dead. SHE WAS DEAD!
What to do, oh Lord, what to do? Call the police, that was it. But perhaps Poore-Moody had already called them, perhaps even now they were in the Poore-Moody apartment. ‘I am not one who panics easily, officers, but I know my wife. She’d never go out without leaving a note, a message of some sort. Something’s happened to her, something dreadful, I feel it.’ ‘We’d better search the building, sir.’ Kraven rushed to the window and looked down into the street. Nothing. Not a police car in sight. Clarence, the doorman, was picking his nose.
He should call a doctor. ‘You say this woman is not your wife? But she is married? Have you notified her husband? I see. There’ll have to be an autopsy, this is obviously a case for the coroner.’
It would all come out. The newspapers, TV. His career destroyed. No, he could not now indulge his private grief. There would be time enough for that. Stella, his Stella, was beyond help. His first duty was to the living. ‘Hi there, this is Smedlow of the Post. Crime desk. We’d like to give our readers your side of the story.’ BIZARRE DEATH OF PROMINENT SOCIALITE IN COLLEGE PROF’S SEX PAD. DA Vows to Press Vigorous Investigation. Interviews with Suspect’s Neighbours. ‘To look at the guy, you’d’ve said he was as normal as you or me.’ ‘You could tell he was a fruitcake, one of the quiet ones, kinda creepy.’ ‘He pinched me once in the elevator, don’t ask where, but this is New York, y’know. Gee, it could’ve been me up there.’ Special Feature on See here: Inside the Twisted Mind of a Sex Fiend!
Perhaps the thing to do was to put her clothes back on her, carry her into the living room, prop her up on the couch. Yes, yes! She had just dropped in for a spot of English breakfast tea. A neighbourly encounter merely, innocent of any significance. And then, all of a sudden, it happened, a heart attack, whatever … Ridiculous. If he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, how would he be able to touch her? A shudder ran through him. He was naked himself. First dress, then think.
Keeping his back to the bed, he made his way crabwise around the room to where last night in lascivious eagerness he had thrown his clothes. He thrust one leg into his rumpled trousers, then the other, hopping, tripping, almost puncturing his head on a point of the bedside table. Calm down, calm down. Putting on his shoes he was facing the bed again. He forced himself to look at her. Oh God, she seemed to be grinning. He felt the madness rising within him, hysterica passio, down thou swelling mother! Kraven ran from the room.
It was intolerable, simply not fair. What had he done, what crime committed? Adultery? A twentieth-century commonplace, as American as cherry pie. This was the Age of the Open Marriage, 1974, for pity’s sake, when one selected, as in a supermarket, the brand of Lifestyle best suited to one’s taste and pocketbook. From time to time one changed brands, moved to a different shelf, that was all. Given the kinkiness that was unashamedly going on out there, a simple case of adultery had become banal, almost charmingly old fashioned, a quaint relic of a simpler, bygone era. To be sure, in that ‘simpler, bygone era’ his own father had enjoyed the odd spot of adultery, as had all that generation of male Kravens. But that truth merely confirmed the point from another perspective: to commit adultery was to be human. Adultery was built into the human condition. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. Yes, one had only to explain to Poore-Moody that Stella had loved both of them and he was bound to understand.
Kraven was pacing between the couch and the dining table in a room that still bore the visibilia of last night’s entertainment. On the table lay the wreckage of the meal, the plates caked with tomato sauce, the crumbs of garlic bread, the left-over salad, the wine glasses, the empty bottles of Cetonese, the gutted candles. By the couch, the coffee table offered a scattering of crackers, the remains of a horseradish dip, and a small dish of those vile oysters swimming in their glutinous oil. It was astonishing how the mind under such pressure could record irrelevant detail. From the dozens of photographs on the surrounding walls, dead Kravens watched him. Opa was pointing his magic stick at the stuffed chair by the window. Kraven looked. There where Stella had left them prior to the Panty Parade lay her clothes, neatly piled. He scooped them up, shocked, and ran to the bedroom. Opening the door wide enough only to admit his arm, he threw them inside. His heart was beating madly again. He must get a grip on himself. Quietly he closed the door and resumed his pacing.
Simple adultery was not, after all, the problem. Poore-Moody was scarcely a child. He was in his mid-sixties. They were all adults. But it was a question of delicacy. Poore-Moody was the victim of a double sorrow. How did one break the news to the elderly cuckold that his wife lay dead on her lover’s bed, that she bore in and on her body sure signs of her infidelity? Kraven, in terror of exposure, of condemnation or, worse yet, of ridicule, had managed to suppress his private grief. Stella was gone. He would mourn her when he could.
Into his inner t
urmoil the doorbell intruded, buzzing loudly. Kraven jumped, then stood stock still. The police? So Poore-Moody had called them after all. He heard the sound of a key in the lock. The super must be letting them in. It was all over then? So be it.
‘You decent, perfessor?’
Early Byrd, Kraven’s cleaning lady, had let herself in.
His forehead was clammy with sweat. He heard her muttering along the short corridor leading to the living room, dragging her carrier bag of supplies after her. She appeared now in the doorway and let down her burden.
Early had once confessed that she would never see seventy again, but Kraven would have believed any age she claimed over forty. She wore her blue-black hair tied back in a tight bun. Her yellow face was wrinkle-free. She was short, solid, as if compacted for maximum efficiency. Kraven she thought of as one of her charges. Like Miss Hudson of his Harrogate schooldays, she had little patience with his nonsense. Now she stood surveying with undisguised distaste the disaster of the living room.
‘Good morning, Early.’ Kraven strove for hearty naturalness.
‘You had yourself a party last night.’ She shook her head and made tsk-tsking sounds. In his distracted state Kraven heard only snatches of her grumbling: ‘… man, a perfessor, live like a pig … thought I seen it all … don’t matter if you black, white, or grizzly green, pig’s a pig …’
‘Sorry about the mess.’
‘You wanna help, you can carry some of them dishes through to the kitchen. I scared to look in there.’
Kraven began to do as he was bid.
‘Seeing as you up, I gonna begin in the bedchamber.’
‘No!’ Kraven shrieked. Oyster dish in hand, he leapt to bar her way. ‘Stay the bloody hell out of there!’
Early’s hand flew to her mouth; her eyes popped wide. She backed away from him.
‘Didn’t mean to startle you.’ Kraven dropped his voice. ‘All I meant was, no need to do the bedroom today. Took care of it myself, you see. Woke up with the lark, couldn’t get back to sleep.’
‘You putting me on. You took care of the bedchamber? That’s something I gotta see for myself. Way you use it, that bedchamber make a hooker blush.’ She grinned and shook her head. ‘You one frisky fella, no two ways, frisky what you is.’
Early made for the bedroom, but Kraven stood his ground, blocking her path.
‘You got someone in there.’
‘No, no, of course not.’
‘You crazy then. Lemmee see for myself. You change them sheets? They ’bout ready to crawl away.’
Kraven would not budge. ‘Later. Look, why not make some coffee? I haven’t had any yet. You’d feel better for a cup yourself.’
‘I fine right now, don’t need no coffee. Coffee, huh? Heh-heh-heh.’ She shook her head. ‘Sure I fix some coffee.’ She turned and made her way to the kitchen. ‘He frisky all right, heh-heh-heh. Clean the bedchamber hisself! Man think I stupid, heh-heh-heh.’
Kraven pressed his hand to his heart in a vain attempt to still its thumping. How could he keep Early out of the bedroom? Well, it was his apartment, wasn’t it? He would just order her to stay out. Yes, but was the body to lie there all day? Early was slow and thorough, never leaving until late in the afternoon. He could pay her for the day and ask her to leave now, of course, tell her it was a Jewish holiday or something. No, that would only further excite her suspicions. Yet every minute that passed made it less likely that he would be able to rid himself of the body. If forced to wait until the evening, if forced finally to phone the police or the doctor or Poore-Moody himself, how then could he possibly explain his delay?
Early poked her head into the room. ‘You want I fix you something to eat?’ But the doorbell rang. ‘I get the door. You suppose to help with them dishes.’
This time it must be the police.
In a minute Early shuffled back. ‘Man say his name Widdershins, claim he a rabbi. You in?’
Widdershins? Widerschein! ‘No, say I’ve left. Europe, you don’t know when I’ll be back.’
‘Ah, Professor Kraven, shalom. What’s a Jew doing?’ Menachem Widerschein materialized from the dark hallway behind Early’s back, gold teeth flashing, holding out his hand in greeting. Kraven shook hands glumly. But Widerschein, his eyes adjusting to the dimness, saw Kraven whole, saw him dishevelled and unclean. He jerked his hand free and wiped it on the side on his long silk coat. ‘So, it’s been a year already. Go know.’
Tears of frustration stung Kraven’s eyes.
‘The Talmud says, no need to tell you, “The road goes out, but the road comes back.”’ Widerschein rocked gently back and forth. ‘And Rabbi Akiba interprets this passage, “We complete the year and begin again.”’
Menachem Widerschein turned up at Kraven’s apartment once a year to collect money for the Children of the Spanish Inquisition, an orphanage located, he said, on the Hill of Evil Counsel in Jerusalem. At first Kraven had explained he was a secular Jew, scarcely a Jew at all by orthodox standards. Widerschein had shaken his head in mingled reproach and compassion. ‘Yes, in Cordoba too there were some like you, in Cadiz, in Granada. And where are they now? Go ask Cardinal Ximenes, ask Leo X, ask Philip II, may their names rot in eternal shame, may the cholera eat their souls. The Children of the Spanish Inquisition makes it possible for you to be a secular Jew.’
From their very first encounter, Kraven had had his doubts about Widerschein. Why then had he always paid up? Perhaps it was the sheer effrontery of the charlatan that had appealed to him, a kind of homage due il miglior fabbro, the better fabricator.
Now once again he dug into his pocket. Bloody hell, his wallet and cheque-book were in the bedroom. ‘Unfortunately, at the moment …’
‘Take your time. The first lesson the poor scholar learns is patience. “Charity is never late.”’
Early’s grin was stuffed with wickedness. ‘I hears my coffee perking now. You wanna bet the rabbi he thirsty? I knows he feel better for a cup.’
Widerschein ran his fingers through his curly red beard.
‘Rabbi Widerschein has many more calls to make. We mustn’t delay him,’ said Kraven.
‘Naturally, I wouldn’t want I should be a trouble.’
‘You ain’t no trouble, rabbi. Coffee up anyways.’
‘Coffee, two years now, I don’t drink.’ He struck his chest with the back of his thumb and offered an illustrative belch. ‘But perhaps a glass tea? Wouldn’t hurt. A twist lemon, a lump sugar.’
Early returned bearing a tray on which sat two cups of coffee, a glass of tea, a saucer of lemon slices, a bowl of sugar cubes, milk, and suitable spoons. Putting the tray on the coffee table, she sat herself next to Widerschein. ‘Help yourself.’
‘You rotten bastard! Why didn’t you wake me? D’you know how late it is, for God’s sake!’
In the bedroom doorway stood Stella, stark naked, angrily scratching her hip. Kraven’s jaw dropped, his scalp prickling. As for Widerschein, he clapped his hands to his eyes. Early grinned, delighted: ‘What I tell you? He frisky, frisky what he is.’
Stella saw that she and Kraven were not alone. ‘Excuse me.’ She turned with solemn, stately dignity, re-entered the bedroom, and quietly closed the door.
‘Near as I can tell, we needing another cup of coffee.’ Early got up. ‘Clean the bedchamber hisself, heh-heh-heh.’
To know Stella dead and yet to see her living! My God, did she always sleep like that? Kraven felt giddy. His lover still breathed, and he was released from Death Row, granted a full pardon, found innocent of all charges! The Kraven demons, who, in his late Onkel Ferri’s sweetly demented imagination, stood ever on offensive alert, must indeed have been asleep.
Widerschein separated the fingers before his eyes and peeped about. He lowered his hands to his lap, his cheeks aflame. ‘Your wife, Professor Kraven, you’re married?’
‘No.’
‘So who says it’s my business? Sometimes from immorality too we can learn a lesson. Meanwhile, what I have
seen, maybe could be I didn’t see. All I know is, like I say, go know. But it is clear that here there are private matters, delicate matters, no one should stick in his two cents. A stranger, I mean me, Menachem Widerschein, has no place. The tea, just the same, is delicious.’ He took a large swallow and smacked his lips.
Early returned from the kitchen with another cup of coffee. She sat down close to Widerschein, who rolled his eyes heavenwards as if seeking deliverance, a man who had tumbled undeservedly into the Valley of the Shadow, where dwelled fornicators and gentiles. Early shook her head at Kraven. ‘Heh-heh-heh.’
* * *
‘NO, DON’T GET UP.’
Stella spoke totally without irony. It was inconceivable to her that Kraven and Widerschein would not seek instantly to rise to their feet. They watched her majestic approach, awed. She was clothed now, immaculate, cool, regal. She sat down on the ottoman at Kraven’s feet, her unsupported back gracefully straight. Smiling, she radiated the room with light. Inclining her head towards Kraven, she took his hand in hers.
‘What a horrid mess we sometimes make of our lives, don’t you agree?’ She sighed. Her smile was gentle, bittersweet; her eyes guileless, trusting, appealing. ‘There’s no point in pretending. Obviously Mr Kraven and I have a problem. It’s not your problem, I know, but through our carelessness we have exposed you to it. I’m truly sorry. It’s unforgivable. Dare we ask for your understanding, perhaps even for your help?’
‘I with you, honey.’
‘Rabbi?’
‘The Talmud tells us that the olive tree, in its desire to praise the Creator of all things, twists itself, is bent and crooked,’ said Widerschein mysteriously. Stella paused, expecting him to elucidate, but he merely closed his eyes.
‘Upstairs in my apartment, at this very moment, my husband is frantic with worry.’
Early bit her lip; Widerschein bit his nails.
‘My husband is the dearest, the kindest man that ever lived. I love him very much, you must believe that. But I also love Nicholas … Mr Kraven.’