The Deadly Space Between

by Patricia Duncker

  But this was the truly uncanny, distinctive element in his arresting power; Samiel is a speaking role. The voice, freed from music, challenged the terms of the opera. It set him apart, gave him an eerie horror, which made him unforgettable. Samiel represented power, pure power, summoned and unleashed.

  We were thrilled to the core by his threat that he must have someone’s soul at dawn, delivered against a rising thunderclap from the drums and cymbals: ‘Morgen, Eroder Du!’

  ‘He’s got the most erotic presence I’ve ever seen,’ whispered Iso. I realized that she wanted to draw the character at once, before any of the details faded.

  ‘I think he’s wearing built-up shoes,’ said Roehm.

  * * *

  As we walked down the streets of Covent Garden towards our dinner and champagne, jubilant and elated, I asked why Der Freischütz had been regarded as the essence of the German soul. Roehm nodded grimly.

  ‘It’s a version of the Faust myth. Don’t you see? Sell your soul to the Devil, but the Lord will intervene through the love of a good woman and you will be granted salvation at the last.’

  ‘No, I don’t see.’ I wanted to argue back. ‘Why should the Germans be obsessed with Faust as a national myth?’

  But we had arrived at the restaurant.

  Roehm had already ordered our dinner so that we didn’t have to wait. We fell upon our rare steaming beef and rich sauce, laced with port and fresh mushrooms. We were slavering unrepentant carnivores. We practically licked our plates. Roehm ate little. He waited until we had finished before he began smoking again. I watched how Iso sat before him, illuminated from within, like an Advent candle, whenever he looked upon her. She was the handmaid of the Lord, ready and submissive to his will. I was jealous and irritated.

  While we were chomping chocolate I returned to the satanic pact which had been the subject of the opera.

  ‘Why’s the Faust myth so special for Germany?’

  Roehm’s pale eyes settled on my face. He didn’t answer my question directly.

  ‘The ultimate salvation of Faust is essential to the myth, because it redeems the fact that he is damned for his desire, the desire to suspend time and enter paradise. “Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen / Verweile doch, Du bist so schön . . .” ’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ demanded Iso.

  ‘Have you forgotten all your German?’ asked Roehm gently. Then he translated the words for her, changing the meaning with his glance.

  ‘Will I say to the passing moment, stay with me, you are so beautiful . . .’ Iso spread herself out like a peacock.

  ‘You’ve always maintained that you don’t know any German!’ My tone was aggressive and accusing. Roehm turned back to me and dismantled my anger with his full attention.

  ‘Are we to be damned for our desires? For wanting more than the world can ever offer us? For being curious? Longing for knowledge? Or for wanting back the time to relive our lost lives? Faust spends his youth trying to achieve wisdom through study, through books. He never lives, drinks, travels to other lands; he never makes love. What Mephistopheles gives him is his youth and the chance to live again. And think of poor Max. His desire for Agathe is so strong that he will risk his soul to possess her. This is the original sin, not ambition, not curiosity, but desire. It is the sin of Satan, Eve, Faust, the desire for more than our allotted portion. For more life, more love, more time.

  ‘We are willing to be damned for our desires.

  ‘And who is to judge us?

  ‘Desire is what draws us beyond ourselves and our safe, dull lives. Our desires make us greater than we really are.’

  ‘Yes, but –’ He still hadn’t answered my question.

  ‘Listen, Toby,’ Roehm cut me off, ‘Germany’s folk tales were terrifying. Do you remember Grimm? Which you must have read when you were a child?’

  ‘He had the cheerful versions,’ put in Iso, snatching the last chocolate.

  ‘Then,’ said Roehm strangely, ‘you cheated your son and you withheld the most important part of the truth. In the Grimms’ original version of Rotkäppchen, Red Riding Hood, the little girl and the grandmother are eaten by the Wolf. There is no handsome huntsman, no salvation, no redemption. We like the Faust myth because Faust is punished, as is Max, but eventually he is saved. Our desires may be dangerous, but forgiveness and salvation are at hand. This is comforting, but it is not the truth.’

  Iso guzzled down the last of the wine.

  ‘So the truth is that we are swallowed up and damned for all eternity?’

  Roehm said nothing.

  ‘Well,’ said Iso, and I knew that she was dreaming of the erotic green cadaver of the Demon Huntsman, ‘there must be worse fates.’

  * * *

  When I came down to breakfast on Sunday morning Roehm was no longer in the house and the panzer had gone. Iso was still fast asleep. But on the easel in the kitchen was her largest sketch pad and there, reproduced in all his uncanny glory, was the figure of Samiel, staring back at me as I filled the kettle. His cape swept the floor, and with a meticulous attention to detail she had drawn the giant hollowed chest and the ghostly ribcage of his living corpse. His face was slightly turned away, only one eye met mine, but the huge dome of his tremendous head loomed perfectly to scale. On the top corner of the page, neatly darkened with cross-hatching, were the barrels of a hunting gun pointing directly out of the picture at the level of the viewer’s chest. I put on the coffee machine and sat down at an angle to the image. But she had been too clever for me. Wherever I sat I saw the single eye of the demon, following me around the room, and the barrels of the gun swivelling steadily, taking aim.

  * * *

  It was now quite dark by four thirty. I met her at the college lodge, under the illusion that we were going Christmas shopping. Instead she drove straight to the park. The park was locked. Iso stopped just beyond the gates and leaped out.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ She rummaged in the back of the Renault and a damp wind ruffled my ears.

  ‘Getting the Christmas tree. We want a big one and we can’t afford it. Have you noticed the prices? I’ve had my eye on this one for over a month.’

  She rushed towards me, waving an axe. I got the message and set about scaling the fence. The arrowheads on the railings were rusty and dangerous. I crouched on the top, uncertain of the drop.

  ‘Can’t we just ask Luce for some dosh?’

  ‘I’m not asking Luce for anything any more, Toby. And our Christmas tree is going to be as big as hers ever is.’

  She passed the axe over the fence. I felt the edge. It was cold and clean and sharp.

  ‘How’d you sharpen the axe?’ I had last seen her weapon lying abandoned in the woodpile. The handle was loose and the blade covered in rust.

  ‘Did it in the metalwork department at college.’

  ‘Anybody see you doing it?’

  ‘The boys sharpened it for me, nutter. Here, hold tight. They won’t get me for forestry. I told them I was going to decapitate my lover.’

  I watched her slither over the rails, supple as an athlete, swinging her legs easily into the void, leaping well clear of the pruned stumps on the rose bushes. The park was an eerie orange in the half night. We were more circumspect than we had been on the street. There were occasional raids on the park to clear out the tramps, gays and drug addicts, who sometimes coalesced into an informal community round the summerhouse and the fountain. We slipped between the shadows, whispering, pausing, looking out for the parks police, running quietly down the bare paths. Offstage I heard the passing roar of the cars turning down the slip roads towards the motorway. There was a statue of Edith Cavell, sombre in bronze, her nurse’s uniform draped around her, gazing boldly out into a better future for women. We hid behind her skirts, waiting for the all-clear. In winter the parks police only did two or three rounds a night. The furtive homosexuals were, at this season, outnumbered by the pushers and their clients. Between seven and ten was usually a safe time.

 
; Iso’s tree was a crucial element in the formal garden. Little box hedges framed its silver elegance and the neatly dug beds formed a curlicue around its base, like a formal swirl, completing a signature on a legal document. Another ornamental pine around the same size balanced the pattern on the far side of the garden. I saw all this in the faded glare of orange and black.

  ‘Iso! You’re going to wreck the garden.’

  ‘Nonsense. We’ll take the other tree next year. Then it’ll be symmetrical.’

  She applied the axe to the base of the slender pine, slicing downwards towards the root. The tree’s wound gaped open, releasing a faint, sappy smell of resin. The thing shuddered with each violent cut and the crash of the axe seemed to bellow around the park. I begged her to stop. I was convinced that we would be caught. ‘You can’t cut down trees quietly,’ she snapped back. She pulled off her anorak. It was hot work. I watched her oval face, white and concentrated, as she aimed the axe. The tree wavered, then suddenly began to list.

  ‘Catch it,’ Iso hissed. I pounded into the flowerbed, leaving huge footprints.

  ‘You can see where I’ve been.’

  ‘Then burn your shoes later if you’re afraid of being caught.’

  The tree keeled over, scratching my face and arms. My knees gave way. We battled across the abandoned lawns with the dead tree swishing a long trail through the dew behind us. She climbed over first and pretended to be waiting by the car as a couple walked past. When she signalled that it was safe to approach I heaved the tree upright against the railings. We were now clearly visible in the lights of every car that passed. My hands and face were damp with soft rain.

  ‘Over you go.’

  Our attempt to tie the tree onto the Renault’s roofrack revealed that the thing was too big for the car. The cut trunk projected over the windscreen like a medieval siege engine. Iso drove off at speed. I watched the fine silver branches banging against the windows on the driver’s side as it lurched about on the roof.

  ‘Whoopee! We’ve got our Christmas tree! Listen, Toby, we’re having Christmas at ours. I’ve invited Luce and Liberty and I’ve told Liberty that I’ll never speak to either of them again if they don’t come.’

  I looked out of the back window to check that we were not being followed.

  ‘And I’ve invited Roehm.’

  I felt the tree heaving on the roof.

  ‘Iso, was that wise? Luce is still up in arms about Roehm.’

  ‘She’ll never come round unless she gets to meet him. You’d have hated him if he hadn’t been kind to you.’

  But you don’t hate men like Roehm. And Roehm was never disinterestedly kind to anyone. I stared at her disturbing confidence. She used all the wrong words. How do you react to a man like Roehm? You have two choices. You either follow him like the disciple who has just received the gospel through a Damascus experience, or you fear him to the core of your being. I hadn’t yet decided what to do. And I wanted to feel that I was still capable of a choice.

  * * *

  Luce did not take the Christmas at Ours proposal at all well. She scented a plot to win her over to our side and our way of seeing things. But she didn’t suspect the coup d’état which Iso had devilishly planned. I negotiated with Liberty over the phone, as if we were the second-rank diplomats at top-level talks, the ones in grey suits with forgettable faces, who were sent in to put out feelers and assess the other party’s more intractable positions.

  ‘She’ll come, Toby. But she’s not happy. And she doesn’t like the break with tradition.’

  ‘Tough nuts. Iso’s as obstinate as she is. Are you having hell?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Whadda you do?’

  ‘Listen her out. Then push off to chambers and get on with my preparation and paperwork. She sends me five emails a day.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Yeah, and they all start with stuff like “And another thing, she has never apologized for insulting my sexual preferences . . .” ’

  ‘I expect she thinks that we’re vicious and ungrateful.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Luce is crackers, Toby. She thinks that you’ve gone over to the enemy and that Roehm is the incarnation of evil.’

  ‘Rubbish! All that’s happened is that Iso’s got a posh foreign boyfriend, who’s a bit older than the last one, likes her pictures and has stacks more money.’

  This was a dramatic oversimplification of the case, but it was my official version and it was the one in which I most wanted to believe.

  ‘I know,’ said Liberty. ‘I can’t quite believe that Luce is carrying on like this. She sometimes sounds like the demon sister, Katie. We’re all perverts who’ve gone to the damnation bow-wows, etc. etc.’

  ‘We’ll have to form a cordon sanitaire around the warring parties.’

  ‘Keep at it. Good luck. So long, kiddo.’

  We spent far more than we usually did that Christmas. Iso actually baked an armada of home-made mince pies. We did two trips to Safeway and she insisted on buying potatoes that were all the same size so that they would cook evenly in the oven. Roehm had vanished. I never asked where he was. I assumed that he was abroad. There were no messages left on the answerphone and her hair was blissfully free of cigarette smoke. Then the first of the packages was delivered.

  I was lying on the sofa reading Stephen King when the doorbell went. I had to sign for a huge square crate that was appallingly heavy and addressed to both of us. One of the Securicor men helped me to carry it into the kitchen. He left the door open and a mighty gust of cold air ravaged the house. Once I was alone I turned up the thermostat and set about dismantling the package. It was an impenetrable Pandora’s Box. The outer carton was embedded in straw and sealed with black tape. Inside was a light wooden structure that appeared to have no hinged lid. It was sealed with staples. I searched for a screwdriver. It was only then that I thought to look at the shipment documents. There was no sender’s address, but the box had been sent through a company in Bern. It must have come from Roehm.

  Smiling and excited, I splintered the wood and burst in upon the treasure. The contents of the box were packed in fine, shredded coloured strips of paper, which I threw out in handfuls. There were bottles of ginger, marrons glacé, Turkish Delight, exotic spicy chocolates, a litre of Kirsch, and a sinister green phial of Grande Chartreuse. There were even two exquisite tiny vats with curling spouts and glass stoppers sealed in wax, containing olive oil and vinegar seasoned with walnuts. Carefully buried in the surrounding packaging were fragile glass and wooden angels destined for the purloined tree. All the delicacy and excess of Christmas was packed into that magic box. I danced on the ruptured cork tiles with pleasure at the gift, exultant as a spoilt child. I replaced as many of the treasures as I was able to do and rang Iso at the college. It was the last day of term and she was overseeing the studio clean-up and writing her reports.

  ‘Guess what he’s sent us . . .’

  ‘He hasn’t, has he? . . . Oh, Toby, he shouldn’t have.’

  ‘He is coming, isn’t he?’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘Luce’s nose will be way out of joint.’

  ‘God! Do you think she’ll start a row?’

  ‘If she does, it’s her problem. Come home quick. I want to show you everything.’

  Two more parcels came before Christmas. One contained twelve bottles of vintage champagne. The last one was slender and official. This was delivered, not through the export company in Switzerland, but from central London. The box within a box was wrapped in Christmas paper, a forest of silver stars. And the label was addressed to me in Roehm’s peculiar Gothic script. We laid it reverently beneath the Christmas tree.

  Luce and Liberty arrived early on Christmas Eve. They were invited to eat with us and then spend the night at our house. Luce swept over the threshold, dressed in black and white. She looked exactly like Cruella De Vil. The house was transformed. Iso had hoovered everywhere and packed all our daily junk into the Glory Hole. The lu
xuries from Switzerland were laid out on trays. The Christmas tree was alight with real candles. Next to the presents was a large fire extinguisher illegally borrowed from college. The fridge was full of champagne. It looked as if we had suddenly come into money. Luce began to melt.

  ‘Oh, Iso,’ she said, the old gentleness surging back into her voice, ‘you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble and expense.’

  I pulled Liberty aside and dragged her up the stairs.

  ‘Did you know that Roehm’s coming? Have you told Luce?’

  ‘Iso warned me. And no, I didn’t dare.’

  ‘Shit! What’ll we do?’

  ‘Brazen it out. And if she storms off home I’m not going. Where’d you get all that stuff?’

  But as she looked at me she guessed and burst out laughing at the realization Luce had been upstaged as Lady Bountiful. Liberty wasn’t naive. She knew that Luce used her gifts to control us and to keep us in her debt. It was a complex exchange of love and money. The usual terms of engagement had been breached.

  ‘Brilliant!’ Liberty and I giggled all the way back down the stairs.

  We were opening the second bottle from Roehm’s crate of champagne when I heard the panzer’s roar coming down the quiet street. He didn’t park where he usually did, but came right up to the front door. I pulled back the curtain so that the monstrous chariot was visible. Iso burst out laughing. The panzer’s windscreen was picked out in multi-coloured fairy lights. I flung open the front door and there stood the strange gigantic man who had seduced us both, his arms filled with glittering ribboned parcels.

  ‘Happy Christmas everyone,’ said Roehm.

  The really extraordinary thing about the whole situation was that nobody shouted, lost their temper, went all frosty or stormed out. Luce went a little whiter under her mask of elegant paint and her pupils narrowed to slits, as if she were a cat facing mortal danger, or a junkie feeling the first rush. But it’s very hard to be devastatingly rude to someone twice your size who has just oozed over the threshold bearing armfuls of expensive presents. Roehm was eerily at home in our house. He knew where everything was, even things we thought we’d lost. He was as easy with me as he was with Iso. He shook hands with my aunt and her lover as if he was honoured to meet them both. His courtesy was generous, but not excessive. He waited for everyone else to sit down before lowering his menacing weight into one of our straight-backed chairs. He finished opening the champagne without an explosion. He let the vapour rise from the green mouth before taking the tall glass in his hand. He said very little. He took his time over everything. He stepped outside to smoke, but lit Luce’s cigarettes one after the other. He sat back and waited for all of us to come to him.