by Judy Nunn
Klaus envied Fritz his youthful appearance. The man was over a decade his senior, and yet it was Klaus who looked the older of the two. His rapidly greying hair was successfully disguised with henna, but it was not so easy to disguise the evidence of a year’s dissipation. His skin was sallow these days, a result of the fine Cuban cigars he’d come to enjoy, and his body, in which he’d taken such pride, was thickening from a surfeit of alcohol and rich food, indulgences he’d previously denied himself. At first he’d tried to resist the impact of his lifestyle, cutting down on his excesses and physically working his body, but of late he’d abandoned all forms of self-discipline. Buenos Aires had seduced him. The hedonist had won over the disciplinarian.
‘Get on with your life, enjoy it while you can,’ the voice of the hedonist whispered to him daily. ‘You’re thirty-three years old, you’ve devoted the prime years of your youth to the Reich, you deserve the right to indulge yourself.’
He no longer attempted to resist the voice of the hedonist. It spoke the truth after all: he had served his Führer, body and soul; he had earned the right to a life of his own.
He leaned back in his chair and lit up a cigar, and he joined in the conversation for the next hour. He talked of the Reich’s history and offered views which he knew concurred with Fritz’s, even though he despised the man when he spoke of his devotion to Nazi Germany. How had Fritz von Halbach served the Reich? Had he faced death? Had he killed for his Führer? No, Klaus thought with contempt, he’d been little more than a fundraiser, a conduit to the wealthy. But he was a powerful man, and it was wise to maintain their close relationship, so Klaus played the game accordingly.
From the outset, he had found it easy to manipulate Fritz von Halbach. He’d observed the man’s two principal weaknesses. Von Halbach was vain and he was obsessed, and Klaus had indulged him on both counts, always engaging his intellect, careful not to appear obsequious. Von Halbach was an arrogant man who’d led a privileged and protected life, but he was no fool. It had been relatively simple, and at times Klaus had felt like a puppeteer. He’d rather enjoyed it.
Not tonight, he thought an hour later as he lit a second cigar. Tonight his role of puppeteer was proving tedious.
It was ten o’clock when he left.
‘Goodnight, Fritz,’ he said at the door. ‘It’s been a most pleasant evening.’
‘Goodnight, Umberto.’
Fritz was adamant that all aliases be religiously maintained. Even during the official meetings held upstairs, a man was always referred to by his new identity. If the habit was observed in private, it avoided public lapses.
When Klaus had gone, Fritz emptied the two cigar butts from the ashtray into a paper bag which he crumpled and placed in the rubbish bin, then he carefully washed out the ashtray. He didn’t smoke himself, although most of his contemporaries did. Personally, he found it a filthy habit and the smell annoyed him, but he was prepared to suffer the discomfort in exchange for Klaus’s company. It was a relief to find an intellect equal to his own; he’d been starved for conversation the past several years. And he and Klaus made such a good team, serving the cause as they did with a common fervour. Fritz was delighted that Klaus Henkel had arrived in Buenos Aires.
Klaus cut through the cramped back lanes of the working-class barrio of La Boca, passing brightly painted, multi-coloured houses with corrugated iron roofs, and poky cantinas in which families dined noisily. He always walked to the clubs and bars, leaving his recognisable red Peugeot parked at the clinic; it seemed wiser that way, and besides, he’d probably get drunk.
He turned the corner into the main street where the football stadium towered high and splendid over la Piccola Italia as La Boca was known. The stadium was the pride and joy of the barrio, and indeed of Buenos Aires. With a seating capacity of 50,000, it had been opened only seven years before and affectionately named La Bombonera because it looked like a giant chocolate box. He would go to the match with Fritz this Saturday, he thought, and then he would enjoy the man’s company. It was the one time they shared a common passion.
Fifteen minutes later, he was in the neighbouring barrio of San Telmo where the cobblestone streets teemed with revellers. Tables spilled out onto the pavements and he had to sidle past the diners. Rows of early nineteenth-century colonial buildings which had once housed affluent Spaniards were now tenements, the wealthy having long before deserted their opulent mansions. But, even in their shabbiness, the ornate stone buildings, with their arched entrances and decorative columned windows, remained impressive. In the tiny upstairs apartments, families lived cheek by jowl, but at street level, lined up competitively and touting for business, were the affluent cafes, bars, clubs and cantinas.
Klaus headed directly for Oswaldo’s. He’d frequented many tango halls and clubs during his early days in Buenos Aires when the eroticism of the music and the dance had first claimed him, but Oswaldo’s Tango Club, where the musicians were superb and where a number of the dancers were discreetly available, had become his firm favourite.
The entrance to Oswaldo’s was nondescript – two large wooden doors set in the rear of an alcove beneath the stone arch of a building. But inside was a different matter.
Klaus nodded to the doorman.
‘Buenas noches, señor,’ the man replied as he opened the doors and stepped to one side.
The music assailed Klaus’s senses as soon as he entered. On a rostrum at the far end of the wooden parquetry dance floor a seven-piece combo was playing ‘The Blue Tango’ with all the fiery passion and seductive melancholy peculiar to the tango.
‘Buenas noches, señor.’
A pretty girl in a flared peasant skirt and off-the-shoulder blouse smiled flirtatiously as she guided him to a table.
‘Buenas noches, Marie-Luisa.’
He knew her. He’d invited her home with him a number of times, but she’d always charmingly refused, so he’d given up trying. She was obviously not a ‘working girl’. But he tipped her well, encouraging her flirtatiousness, which he enjoyed.
The drinks waiter arrived and Klaus ordered a beer, feeling dehydrated from the Cognacs he’d had with Fritz and the walk from La Boca. He also ordered a whisky chaser and the mandatory bottle of cheap sparkling wine which masqueraded as champagne and which the management sold at an exorbitant price. Then he sat back and watched the couples on the dance floor.
In the garish light of day, Oswaldo’s might have looked shabby, but at night its allure was magical. The dance floor was surrounded by candlelit tables, and the slowly turning mirrorball overhead cast ever-changing patterns on the terracotta-hued walls. In each corner stood clusters of huge potted palms, indirectly lit to give a jungle-like appearance, and next to the band’s rostrum was a spangled curtain leading backstage. When an exhibition dance was announced a spotlight would hit the curtain and the girls would make a spectacular entrance.
Those on the dance floor were a mixed bunch. Professional dancers partnered men who sought out tango halls for the eroticism they offered, but there were couples who had come simply to dance. Some were young, some middle-aged, and here and there, disguised by the half-light and their own vivacity, were some who could only be described as elderly. With the exception of several of the men partnering the professional dancers, all were accomplished. It was not surprising – the modern tango had been born in Buenos Aires. A combination of the Spanish tango and the milonga – a risqué Argentine dance – it had been considered flagrantly sexual and had been socially unacceptable for years. Now it seemed everyone in Buenos Aires could dance the tango.
Which didn’t alter the power of its seduction, Klaus thought as he watched one of the professional dancers expertly guide an apparent newcomer around the floor. It was Elizabeta, a working girl who’d accompanied him home on many an occasion, and she gave him a wave over the man’s shoulder. She was an exotic-looking creature, but then they all were, with their heavy eye makeup and their lithe dancers’ bodies. And they bore themselves with a sexual ar
rogance, confident in their ridiculously high-heeled shoes, their strong shapely legs exposed in skirts split to the thigh.
Klaus returned the wave, and Elizabeta smiled before twirling her back to him. Her partner, inept in a sea of expertise, was startled by the speed of the movement but enjoying the feel of her groin against his.
She was doing more than guiding the man in the tango, Klaus thought, she was making love to him on the dance floor, and he was reminded of his own first experience in a tango hall. How could a dance be so erotic and yet legal, he’d wondered, and he’d been convinced that the girl was deliberately arousing him, seeking an offer. But when he’d tried to negotiate a transaction, she’d very icily put him in his place.
‘I am a dancer, señor,’ she’d said with contempt, and she’d walked away.
He’d learned to tango after that, quickly and well. It had come easily to him – he was a natural athlete, balanced and light on his feet. And he’d learned to distinguish which of the girls might be available for other activities. He would not make the same mistake twice, he’d decided – he would not have a dance hall woman look at him with contempt. He’d also learned the correct approach. He treated the dancers as if that’s what they were, dancers and not prostitutes – it was the way they liked it. And word got around that he was a generous man, one who treated women well. He rarely made a wrong judgement these days, and even if he did, he caused no offence.
‘I cannot go home with you, señor, I am married,’ a dancer might say, ‘but Annita, she likes you very much.’
To Klaus, they were all whores.
Ten minutes later, Elizabeta joined him. Close up, she was even more exotic than she’d appeared on the dance floor, her dark hair pulled back tight, highlighting her impressive cheekbones. The kohl-rimmed eyes, the blood-red silk rose behind one ear and the velvet choker about her throat created a highly theatrical effect, as was the intention. But candlelight was kind. Klaus, who had seen her in harsher lighting, knew that she was showing her age. At thirty, Elizabeta was the oldest of the dancers employed at Oswaldo’s and her days were numbered.
He poured her a glass of ‘champagne’ from the bottle that sat in its ice-bucket on the table. The management did not mind if the dancers sat with the customers, so long as the customers were generous with the ‘champagne’. Klaus looked around for the man with whom Elizabeta had been dancing, surprised that she had not joined him at his table, but she answered the question before he could ask it.
‘He does not like champagne,’ she said with a disdainful shrug. It meant that the man did not know the rules. The girls received a bonus for every bottle of ‘champagne’ a customer bought them.
Elizabeta chatted and flirted with him as she drank the wine. When she had finished the glass, he poured her another, upon which she excused herself briefly.
‘I will be back in just one minute,’ she promised, ‘you will dance with me, yes?’
‘Of course.’
She kissed him on the cheek and departed, glass in hand.
He watched, amused as she pretended to chat with one of the other girls beside a clump of palms, knowing that they were both surreptitiously tipping their wine into a pot plant. They all did it – it was amazing the plants continued to survive.
Upon her return, they danced to an excellent tango arrangement of ‘Perfidia’, after which he poured her another glass of ‘champagne’, which she took with her as she excused herself to visit the powder room, where Klaus knew she would pour her drink down the lavatory. It was all part of the game. Occasionally an irate customer would realise what was going on and make an accusation, to which the girl would respond with a fiery denial at the top of her voice and one of the bouncers would appear from nowhere to defend her. It was a humiliating experience for the customer, who either left in high dudgeon never to return, or learned that in the future he must abide by the rules.
Klaus ordered a second bottle of ‘champagne’ and danced with a number of the other girls but, two bottles later, towards the end of the evening, he returned his attention to Elizabeta. There were no new girls on tonight, which was a pity, he would have liked to have tried a new girl, and a younger one at that, but of those available Elizabeta was the most exciting in bed, so she would have to do.
They took a taxi to La Recoleta, and it was three o’clock in the morning when they pulled up outside his apartment block. A converted nineteenth-century mansion in French-style architecture, it was a handsome building with balconies overlooking the elegant Avenida Alvear.
He led her through the side entrance and up the stairs to his apartment on the second floor, and as soon as he’d turned on the lights and closed the door behind them, he started to undress.
Elizabeta was disappointed. It was going to be another of ‘those’ nights, another of the nights when he treated her like a whore. She didn’t like him when he was like this. She was not a whore, she was a dancer, and the first several times he’d brought her to his apartment he’d treated her with respect. He’d played records on his gramophone and they’d danced, and he’d talked about the music. The Comedian Harmonists were his favourite recording artists he’d told her as they’d danced to a German rendition of ‘Amapola’ which she’d found rather strange. ‘Amapola’ was a Spanish song and she hadn’t liked hearing it sung in German, but she’d nonetheless taken it as a good omen. ‘Amapola’ had always been her own special favourite and she’d fantasised about the possible implications of such a coincidence. He was handsome and rich and a gentleman, and it was not the first time Elizabeta had entertained such fantasies.
There had been no mention of money, and as he’d said goodbye at the door, he’d slipped ‘a little present’, as he called it, into her evening bag. She’d been equally gracious in her acceptance. ‘Thank you,’ she’d said, ‘you are very kind,’ and she hadn’t even looked in her evening bag until she’d left the apartment. But out in the street, when she’d counted the notes, she’d found each time that he’d been most generous.
He was still generous in the amount that he gave her, but it was no longer a ‘present’, it was a payment, and he no longer saw her to the door. These days he thrust the notes into her hand and Elizabeta had stopped deluding herself. He was just another man interested only in her body, but she wished he would treat her with a little more dignity.
She started undressing. Perhaps he wanted to make love right here in the lounge room; they’d done so before. They’d danced naked to ‘Amapola’ that very first time, and she’d fantasised that the two of them belonged together, that she lived in this luxurious home, surrounded by antique furniture and works of art, and that this man was hers. And as they’d danced she’d straddled him, taking pride in the pleasure she offered, her unspoken assurance being that he would receive such pleasure nightly if she were his.
‘In the bedroom,’ he said. Naked to the waist, he flung his shirt over a chair. ‘And don’t turn the light on,’ he added as he crossed to the gramophone which sat on the heavy oak dresser in the corner.
She obeyed, leaving the door open so that some light spilled through from the lounge room, and as she undressed and slipped naked between the sheets, she heard the music. The Comedian Harmonists again, but this time it was ‘Barcarole’. She wasn’t sure what to expect. He’d played ‘Barcarole’ once before as they’d made love and he’d behaved differently. ‘Love me, love me,’ he’d said over and over, and she had. She’d made love to him fiercely, the way she knew he liked it. But he hadn’t liked it that night. ‘No,’ he’d said as she’d clawed his back and bucked like a wild mare. ‘Not that way! It wouldn’t be that way!’
Elizabeta now lay in the gloom of the room, hearing ‘Barcarole’ and wondering what it was that he wanted of her.
He stood naked in the doorway, silhouetted for a moment, then as he closed the door the room was plunged into darkness, ‘Barcarole’ still clearly audible; he’d turned up the volume just to be sure.
He was fully aroused as he joi
ned her in the bed, there was no need for foreplay, and she opened her thighs to him.
‘Love me, love me,’ he whispered as he entered her.
She moaned. She would play it differently this time, she decided, and without moving her body, she undulated the muscles of her vagina, clenching and unclenching, caressing him, teasing him, locking him inside her, then releasing him only to suck him in deeper, and deeper.
‘Love me, love me,’ he said over and over as the image of Ruth consumed him. This was right, he thought, this was the way it would have been if she had loved him.
For a year, Klaus had lost himself in the hot-blooded sexuality of the women he’d brought home from bars and clubs, but lately his fantasies of Ruth had returned. He’d tried to imagine it was Ruth he was making love to, but it had been impossible – Ruth would not respond in such a way. He’d played ‘Barcarole’ on a number of occasions when he’d taken women to his bed, but their fierce Latin passion and their dark, dramatic looks, the very elements which had so attracted him, had been distracting when he’d thought of Ruth. Tonight it seemed Elizabeta was about to fulfil his fantasies.
‘Love me, love me,’ he whispered. He was lost in her.
Elizabeta’s own fantasies returned with a vengeance. He was hers, she could feel it, he was completely in her power, this was what he wanted. She wound her arms gently around him, stroking his back, feeling him quiver inside her. She moaned again as she drew him in deeper.
‘Te amo,’ she whispered.
The spell was broken in an instant, and she knew it as he growled and thrust himself frantically into her the way he usually did.
The bitch, Klaus thought, why did she have to speak? She’d spoiled the final moment.
He was near ejaculation and Elizabeta obediently met his urgency, aware that her power had evaporated, wondering what she had done wrong.