“Vera!” She’s wearing a black cape and scarf. A giant made of shadows …
We kiss cheeks. My heart jumps at being so close to her.
“Isaac says he saw your parents go out with Hansi,” she tells me. “Are you alone?”
“Yes, thank God. You want some soup?”
“Not now. Maybe in a little while.”
I lead her into the kitchen. Sniffing, she asks, “Did you have a fire in here?”
“Mama was burning the evidence against my father that he was a Communist.”
“So he’s joined the National Socialists?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize! It’s a good strategy. The Nazis might close the doors to new members soon and where would he be then?” Vera sits at the table and leans back, undoing her scarf. She kicks off her shoes and they fly into the oven. She’s wearing yellow socks.
“I thought you only wear black and white,” I say.
“I allow some hidden color just for myself and my admirers,” she replies, grinning mischievously. “So, Cinderella, what’s a pretty young thing like you doing home all alone on the night of the ball?”
I go back to my stirring and explain about not wanting to be stuck at my uncle’s house. She lights a cigarette. Summoning my courage, I ask if I can have one.
“You smoke now?”
“Hitler says women shouldn’t,” I say defiantly.
She gives me one and lights it for me. The cigarette tastes awful and feels as creepy as a furry caterpillar between my fingers. I pretend I’m Marlene Dietrich, but I’d cough out a lung if I breathed in all the smoke the way she does.
“Come over to our Carnival party,” Vera tells me. Putting on a snobbish accent, she adds, “Everyone who’s anyone is going to be there.”
I turn back to my soup, afraid to see her disappointed face. “My father would kill me.”
After I add a pinch of salt, I practice smoking, but all I can think about is what smelly clouds we’re making. I’ll have to open all the windows as soon as Vera leaves.
“So how are you and Tonio doing?” she asks.
“We … we slept together.”
I expect her to lurch or shriek. Instead, she lifts an eyebrow and says, “And …”
“And I’m not sure I should have done it.”
“Because your parents would object?”
“Not just that.” How to put my feeling of having been betrayed into words? And not by Tonio, but by myself.
“Because you didn’t enjoy it?” Vera speculates. “Listen, Sophele, no one ever does—not the first time.”
“You didn’t?”
“Me? All the time the man was on top of me, I just kept wondering what all the fuss was about. He was two feet shorter than me. It was like being fucked by a ferret.” To my laugh, she says, “When he was done, I was really puzzled. I thought, ‘This goddamned pounding is what provoked the Trojan War and the Iliad and then 2,000 years of literary criticism?’” She shakes her head. “In any case, it certainly wasn’t worth paying for.”
“You paid a man to sleep with you?”
“How the hell else was I going to get him in my bed?”
“Who was he?”
“A bricklayer from Romania.”
“Why him?”
“He was on sale.” In a concerned voice, she adds, “I hope you took precautions to keep from getting pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“So,” she grins, “how do you feel now that you’re an experienced woman like me?” She bats her eyelashes—the world’s most absurd femme fatale.
“You want the truth? It terrified me. I panicked. And I bled …”
“My first time, I thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. And that I’d been fatally wounded.”
“So I’m not an idiot?”
“Not entirely. Listen, nobody feels comfortable about sex at first. Not even men. Though they would never admit it.”
I take out a soup bowl from the cabinet above the oven. “You’re sure you don’t want some?” I ask. When she shakes her head, I add, “Have you ever loved anyone?”
“Once, but it didn’t last.”
“Who was he?”
“That’s classified information.”
“Was it Georg?”
She makes that lurch I expected before. “How did … how did you know?”
“The way he teased you at last year’s party. I could tell he liked you.”
“I liked him, too. But every time we got together we just ended up fighting.”
She stubs out her cigarette, which gives me permission to do the same. Then I open the window, fill my bowl, and carry it to the table.
“What was he like?”
She leans back. “Georg? Intelligent and kind, and a born circus star, but … but not very brave.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, brave is probably the wrong word. He just didn’t like taking risks. Not after falling from the high wire. He wanted everything to be safe and secure. The accident changed him. It made him more reticent with people, more …” She bites her earthworm lip while looking for the word.
“Untrusting?” I’m thinking of my father, of course.
“No, he was trusting. Just withdrawn. And bitter about not being able to perform. And then the trouble he had in Savigny Platz … getting shot at, it made him even more withdrawn.”
So maybe the joking mood he evidenced at his final lunch with his boss was to cover up a life that was more and more bounded by fear and regret.
I take a first spoonful of soup. The carrots are still crunchy, like I prefer it, but Mama would be horrified. “Do you know if the police are still investigating the murder?” I ask.
“Yes, they called me in a few weeks ago to question me. That was the second time. What’s irritating is that they could have spent the time they wasted with me hunting down the killer.”
“Did Georg have enemies you knew about? Someone who might want us to think the Nazis murdered him?”
Vera leans forward, eager to hear more. “What do you mean?”
“Painting swastikas on his face would be a good way to shift the blame.”
“You’ve seen too many movies.”
“Or whoever killed him saw too many. And why blue swastikas? Have you thought about that?” I stand up to get a slice of pumpernickel bread.
“Of course, I have—Georg was a good friend of mine for fifteen years!” she snarls.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything bad. It’s just … I consulted a medical text book and I found out that when people don’t get enough oxygen their face turns bluish. Maybe the killer was surprised by that strange tint on his cheeks, so he rummaged around and found some face paint. Isaac told me that Georg’s makeup kit went missing. But the thing is, Vera, even though his windpipe was broken, I don’t think Georg was strangled. I saw the photos K-H took of him and there are no marks on his neck.”
As she thinks about that, I tear my bread into tiny pieces, drop them in the soup, and swirl them around. When I finally look up at her, she says dejectedly, “In that case, I don’t understand what happened.”
“Me neither. But if we ever are going to understand anything, we have to figure out how Georg turned blue and had his windpipe broken without being strangled.”
I feel a strange exhaustion after speaking to Vera about my theories, as though I’m climbing uphill through my own life.
Vera leans forward toward me as I eat my soup. “I can’t think of anyone who disliked Georg enough to want to hurt him,” she says, “though …” She pauses, giving me a worried look. “Though maybe the police lied about his windpipe being broken. Maybe they were involved. They wanted to cover up something they’d done to Georg …”
“I didn’t think of that,” I admit, “but if they’re covering things up, we’re unlikely to ever …”
I don’t finish my sentence because tears are caught in her lashes. She wipes th
em away harshly. I put down my spoon. “I’m sorry to make you talk about these things,” I tell her.
“It’s not your fault. It’s that I hate this time we’re living in,” she tells me. “And sometimes I can’t believe Georg is gone. I dream of him all the time, and I wake up thinking I can just pick up the phone and call him. You know, Sophele, Germany makes you doubt everyone and everything. And the only way to be completely safe is to be already dead!”
A truth I should have paid more attention to … “Vera, tell me something. I found out that you carried furniture to Georg’s apartment the evening before his murder.”
“Yes, Isaac told me you’d been talking to his neighbors. Georg had decided to redo his place a bit.”
“But remaining in his apartment and buying new furniture probably means that he had no idea at all that he was in big danger. Yet he’d been shot at. Didn’t he ever consider moving or changing jobs? Something in his behavior doesn’t quite add up.”
“For a while, he did change his routines to be less predictable. But then, after a few months, he decided that he couldn’t let the Nazis determine how he lived … or force him to stop making plans. So when he saw a table he wanted, he bought it, and also an antique carpet he’d had his eye on for a while. It was an act of defiance. Not that he took silly chances. He mostly stayed in at night. And he bought a pistol. He carried it whenever he went out.”
“Do you know where the pistol is now?”
“Where it is?” she repeats in a surprised voice, which seems odd. “The police have it, of course.”
“So it was in his apartment when you found his body?”
“Yes, he kept it in his night table drawer when he was at home. I handed it over to the cops.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” she exclaims, banging her fist on the table.
“It’s just you seemed surprised by my question. And now you seem angry.”
“I am angry! Because the police didn’t like it that Georg had a gun … maybe because he was Jewish. And you don’t seem to think he had the right to protect himself either!”
“That’s not what I meant at all!” I snap back, since I have the feeling by now that Vera pushes until she meets some resistance. In a softer voice, I say, “But listen, things are getting really odd. The murderer could either have been a stranger or someone Georg knew, right? Imagine he was a stranger. Wouldn’t Georg have retrieved his gun before opening his door? Which means he’d probably have gotten off at least one shot before being overcome. But anyone who was a friend of Georg’s might have known that he owned a gun. In that case, wouldn’t the murderer have brought one with him—to even his odds in a fight? Maybe he’d have shot Georg instead of breaking his windpipe.”
“No, a shot would have been heard and the killer obviously wanted to avoid detection.”
“Did everyone in The Ring know that Georg owned a gun?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. He didn’t announce it at any meeting that I can recall, but after he was shot at most of us assumed he’d arm himself. I know he told me and Isaac about the gun. As for the others …” She stands up and goes to the doorway. Turning around, she shrugs as if we’ll never know.
I eat some more soup and sopping bread, trying to see below the glass. “Maybe the killer wasn’t Georg’s friend, but merely an acquaintance—a peripheral member of The Ring,” I say.
Vera sits with me again but says nothing. She stares beyond me, maybe at Georg. I eat my soup. Then I decide to return to the motive. “Do you know if Georg ever said that he might go public with the names of Nazis being bribed by Raffi?”
“I never heard anything like that.”
“And the table and carpet … was there anything unusual about them? Were they very valuable?”
“You mean was his murder a botched robbery?”
“Yes.”
“The carpet was kind of ratty, to tell you the truth. And the table was nice but nothing special. Besides, there was nothing but the makeup kit missing from his place.”
“Do you know where the rug and table are now?” I ask. I’d like to get a look at them, though I don’t know why.
“I’ve no idea. All I inherited were a few photographs of Georg performing on the high-wire. I don’t know where his other things ended up.”
“Do you mind my asking why you and he broke up?”
She rubs a tense hand back through her hair. “We were never really together. We liked each other, but the way I look posed an obstacle to him. And if I’m going to be honest, I don’t think I’m the kind of woman who can be half of a couple. The only reason for me to have sex now is so I can have a baby.”
“You want a child?” I ask, stunned.
“As long as it doesn’t come out looking like me. That’s why I want the handsomest father I can find. I want a man who looks like Rudolph Valentino!”
“But how can you be sure the baby will look like the father?”
“I can’t. And that, Sophele, is my biggest problem.” She lights another cigarette, but her hands are hesitant now. Leaning back in her chair, she smokes thoughtfully. “It’s not that the baby’s face would matter so much. I know I’d love my child no matter what. But its future prospects would be so … so dismal if it came out looking like me.”
“Has your life turned out that unhappily?”
“No, but my childhood wasn’t easy. As I grew more deformed I lost all my friends.” She looks at me as if she has needed to tell me of her past for some time. “My parents hid me away. It was as if I was … I don’t know what…” She looks inside herself for a word that is sufficiently damning.
“Garbage?” I interject, thinking of Isaac’s story about the skeletons of dwarfs that workmen found in Paris.
“That’s right. And then when I was old enough to leave, I had to earn a living, but no one would hire me, even just to scrub floors. I was the Ogre from Malta until Isaac found me. He was the first person who figured out that my talents with needle and thread could win me my independence. It had never occurred to me. It proves that the most obvious solutions are sometimes the hardest to find. But you know, I still won’t go out during the day—too many people staring.”
“Then how do you get to Isaac’s factory?” I ask, spooning up the last of the soup.
“I leave before dawn and come home after sundown. In the winter, it’s not so inconvenient because the days are so short. The long days of summer are tougher. I go in to work only three days a week then. I sew a lot at home. Isaac is patient with me. He’s a Jewish saint.” She shows me a wily grin. “But don’t tell him I told you so.”
“No, of course not,” I say, smiling too. “But going out only during the night must limit what you can do at the Spanish Embassy.”
“Oh, you mean our future embargo,” she says skeptically. “I went only once. They couldn’t get over my face. I don’t think they heard a word I said.”
“Vera, you can make sure your child doesn’t suffer like you did,” I say pressingly, wanting to reassure her. “I’m sure all your friends would help. I know I would.”
She gives me a solemn nod. “Will you come with me if I find a good candidate? To help me evaluate him, I mean.”
“A good candidate?”
“I’ve put ads in newspapers. For a man to father my baby. I’ve got K-H and Marianne looking for me, too. But the prospective fathers I’ve met so far weren’t right.”
“Ferrets?”
She laughs in a wild burst, which I adore.
“No, they were handsome enough, but …” She holds a hand up then lets it fall slowly to the table, making the hissing sound of a leaky balloon. “Men tend to deflate in front of me. So … so will you come to meet prospective fathers?”
“If I can get away from my parents. They’re sure I go around with all the wrong people.”
“Tonio?”
“He’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Oh, I see, like me!”
&n
bsp; * * *
Vera convinces me to risk my parents’ wrath and sneak over to Isaac’s party by telling me that Julia might know how Georg’s skin turned blue even if he wasn’t strangled. At the door, Martin greets us wearing a gold-painted papier-mâché crown. “I’m King Ludwig of Bavaria,” he tells us, jumping up out of excitement.
“Glad to meet you, your Highness,” I reply.
After I kiss his cheek and gaze around at the crowded room, a man’s hands blindfold my eyes from behind. “Guess who?” my assailant asks merrily.
I’d know that voice anywhere. “Raffi!”
When I turn around, my old babysitter shows me a face of such delight that I figure I ought to get married to him instead of Tonio. “I brought these back from the Nile,” he tells me, holding out a box of luscious dried dates, the first I’ve ever seen.
Raffi’s dates are each the size of a plum, and to me they taste like a mixture of honey and marzipan. As I gobble down a second one, he tells me he’s narrowed his research down to the ancient sculptural techniques used by an artist named Thutmose, who worked for the Pharaoh Akenhaten. After we talk about his work, I tell him I hated The Mummy.
“But I thought it was funny,” he says.
“Funny! Boris Karloff was creepy as can be!”
“You used to like scary stories,” he tells me. “I guess you’re not that little girl anymore.” He shakes his head in disbelief, as if my getting older was unpredictable.
“Raffi,” I then whisper, “I need to talk to you for a minute about something serious,” and after I’ve dragged him off to the corner of the room, I ask him if Georg ever said he might go public with the names of the Nazis being bribed.
“He never mentioned anything like that to me,” Raffi whispers back. “And don’t ask me anything more,” he adds gruffly.
“All right, so much for that idea,” I say, and since he’s still looking at me as if I’m dangerous, I kiss his cheek. He asks me about Frau Mittelmann and my latest sketches, which is his way of apologizing for speaking to me harshly. I gobble down four more dates as we talk, since they’re delicious and probably the closest I’ll ever get to the Nile. Isaac comes over, wearing a feathered headdress—“I’m an Iroquois chief!” he tells me joyfully. Then he warns me against eating so many dates, which I pay no attention to, of course. So when he reads my palm later that evening, he predicts two weeks of diarrhea followed by an unstoppable urge to see the camels at the Berlin zoo.
The Seventh Gate Page 20