Pavel & I

by Dan Vyleta

  ‘What happened to you, Mannie?’ Anders called over to him. ‘You look like a house fell on you.’

  Mannie pulled a face but didn’t answer. Anders drew level with him and spat.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ he said. ‘I brought back the gun. Paulchen and I, we’re on the up-and-up.’

  The boy stared at him sullenly, then turned on his heel and walked away. They weren’t a bad lot, those Karlson twins, but boy, did they hold a grudge.

  Next, Anders met Woland. He was sitting on the stairs right outside headquarters, laying a hand of solitaire on the step below. He, too, had been in some sort of fight, his lower lip split and clotted, and a nasty bruise running across his cheek from eye to mouth to chin. All of a sudden, Anders was worried.

  ‘Woland?’ he called out.

  ‘Anders? I thought the woman was coming over.’

  ‘I came instead. Is everything all right?’ The boy didn’t answer.

  ‘Is it a trap? You would tell me, wouldn’t you? If it was a trap? I brought back the gun, didn’t I?’

  Woland turned over a card, the ten of clubs, then another, the queen of diamonds.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘You gotta go in.’

  He wouldn’t say more. Anders watched him a while longer, preparing words of apology. It was evident that Paulchen remained angry with him. Anders would offer him to go ahead and sock him one. A free shot so that they were even, in the face or in the body, wherever he liked.

  ‘Go on,’ he would say, ‘I deserve it,’ and afterwards they would hug and be friends once again.

  Anders walked over to the door and knocked. It swung open almost at once.

  Paulchen had picked Georg to administer the beating. He was new to the gang, and didn’t know Anders all that well. A big bruiser, too, for a kid of fourteen, who hung out at the boxing gymin the evenings and laced up fighters’ gloves in exchange for tuition. He went about it professionally; taped up his fingers, stuck penny rolls into the hollows of both his fists, and gave Anders a wordless beating, the nasty sort that seeks out the short end of the ribs and the soft parts next to the spine. Anders would be pissing blood all week. Thus far they hadn’t asked him any questions.

  The beating took place at the very centre of the room. They’d had to make space for it: had moved the armchair and the table, cleared away ashtrays and milk bottles, a drying rack full of socks. Anders had watched these preparations, his hands on his hips and waiting for an explanation. Thus far, Paulchen hadn’t said a word to him. The boys had expected the woman to come, but it had been the boy who’d shown up, babbling about the Luger and how Paulchen should ‘sock him one’, only he seemed to have broken his arm, so maybe he could save it for later, when it was healed. He fell silent when Georg sidled up to him, on his leader’s command, and grabbed Anders roughly by the collar.

  Paulchen had understood right away what needed to be done. No sooner had he seen Anders than he knew they’d have to hurt him. They were in it up to their necks. He didn’t even consider asking him nicely. He’d lived with Anders since the end of the war. He knew him the way a man might know his wife. This one, he didn’t like to do things the easy way. Paulchen told Georg not to pull any punches.

  When the beating started, the other boys formed a ring around the two combatants; flinched whenever the elder boy hit home. At first it had looked to them like any other afternoon fight – an uneven pairing perhaps, but whoever said life was fair? When Anders went to the ground for a third time, they started to become uneasy, looked over to their leader, an unspoken question on their lips. Paulchen ignored their stares. They were nothing but children. They hadn’t really understood yet what was at stake.

  Anders hit the floor a fourth time. He hit face first, his arms too tired to catch his weight. One of his teeth broke. You could hear it crack. The boy lying there with an arched hip, crumpled like a pack of ciggies.

  ‘That’s enough.’

  Georg held off a kick that was already mid-swing; lost his balance and stumbled, trampling on Anders’ hand as he did so, leaving behind a dirty print. Paulchen crouched down next to his friend and whispered in one ear.

  ‘Where is Sonia? You tell me, or the Colonel will massacre the lot of us.’

  ‘Screw you,’ said the boy, and blood came pouring over his chin.

  ‘Have it your way.’

  This time, Anders went down with the very first punch. He lay senseless, his eyes rolled over to display their whites. One of the boys tried to bring him around with water but all it did was soak his hair and clothes. His skin felt hot and clammy. There was nothing to do but wait. Paulchen had not counted on the boy passing out. ‘ Scheiβe,’ he said, and lit himself a cigarette.

  ‘You want me to go through his pockets?’ Georg asked. He was icing his knuckles with some snow he’d scraped off the sill. ‘He might have cash on him or something.’

  ‘Sure,’ Paulchen said. ‘Go through his pockets. Anything you find, put it on the table. Maybe we can figure out where the fucking woman’s at.’

  I was back with the Colonel when he received the call. We were both in his study where he stood, clad only in underpants and vest, ironing his shirt. I had offered to do it for him, of course, but the Colonel was particular about his linens. ‘I have seen your shirtfronts,’ he muttered caustically, and bid me take a seat by the smoking table. ‘Watch and learn,’ he said. Thus far he had spent five whole minutes on the left sleeve.

  The phone rang. He let it ring three times, tutted, then walked over to his desk with no especial hurry.

  ‘Yes? … Ah, our friend Paulchen. Hold on, I will put on my expert in Krautspeak.’

  He waved me over, and strolled back to the ironing board.

  ‘He says they don’t have the woman yet, but they have her phone number.’

  ‘Her number?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s in Berlin?’

  ‘Yes, sir, a Berlin number.’

  ‘Excellent. Write it up, Peterson. Anything else?’

  I hesitated. It should have been easy to lie.

  ‘Spit it out, Peterson.’

  ‘He says he has the boy.’

  ‘Which boy?’

  ‘Pavel Richter’s boy.’

  ‘Oh. I thought we had killed that one.’

  I stood embarrassed.

  ‘Perhaps, sir,’ I said, ‘we made a mistake. He asks what they should do with him.’

  ‘Hold on to him, naturally. I’ll come and pick him up once I have a moment. Tell them to guard him with their lives. Boys like dramatic language like that.’

  I translated Fosko’s message, and listened to Paulchen’s glum assent. The line went dead.

  ‘Do you want me to dial Sonia’s number?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Call the police. The Tiergarten station. Ask for Wachtmeister Studer. Tell him I need to know which address belongs to this number, and I need to know fast.’

  He smiled in obvious self-satisfaction, and turned his attention over to the right sleeve.

  ‘Let’s just hope Studer doesn’t also report to the Russians. Last thing I want is that Russian General on my case now that I’m so close. What’s his name again?’

  ‘Karpov.’

  ‘Carp-off, yes. A tiresome fellow, though he has splendid English for a Bolshevik.’

  I saw him off. He finished ironing his shirt, dressed with elaborate care, then collected his coat and car keys.

  ‘What are my orders?’ I mumbled as he squeezed himself into his Volkswagen.

  ‘Orders? I don’t know. The house could use a hoover, I guess. And put some fresh sheets on my bed; my wife sweats like a pig.’ He turned the ignition, pumped the accelerator a few times until the engine warmed up.

  ‘If Karpov calls, tell him as far as you know I’m still in London getting scolded for exceeding my authority. Use precisely that phrase. It’ll please him no end.’ Then he tore away down the driveway and onto the icy road towards the city.

  Morosely, I
climbed the stairs back up to his study and sat down behind the Colonel’s desk. He had forgotten to unplug the iron, the only clue to the fact that he must have been uncommonly excited. It sat steaming on the ironing board; a slender, steel pyramid, pink at the tip, the colour of broiled salmon. I should have switched it off, I know, but I left it steaming, staring at it across the room. Mentally I was with my employer, hurtling along pockmarked roads. I will admit, it sat uncomfortably with me, this cloud of unhappiness that was gathering over Sonia. I wish I knew what the Colonel was thinking.

  Thus far I have resisted the temptation to slip into the Colonel’s mind, out of docility, you might say, mixed with the fear that any amount of exposure would beget sympathy, however reluctant. Perhaps, though, such scruples are misplaced, or even unfair. After all, it is not inconceivable that there lurked a heart somewhere in his fleshy bosom. A scene comes to mind, of the Colonel playing with his son (I forget his name, or never knew it): the two of them sitting on the villa’s floor, mid-morning on Christmas day, six feet apart and pushing a wooden train back and forth between them. Where did he take it from, the Colonel, that artless laugh, whenever he launched the train across the gap? All this in the shadow of the Christmas tree, his wife knitting to Caruso.

  It is hard to know what to conclude from a moment such as that. Now that he sat in his car, his mind intent upon his prey, one searched his face in vain for traces of Christmas morn. From the way he clutched the wheel, it is tempting to infer that his hands were already rehearsing their impact upon Sonia’s flesh, and though the depth of shadow within the car won’t allow us to be certain, there seemed to be an ominous bulge by the side of his crotch that gave this imaginary beating a particularly unsavoury edge. Another story comes to mind, from the early days of Fosko’s stint in Berlin: November ’45, or thereabouts. In those days the Colonel kept a tiny, naked dog, not much bigger than a rat, that he claimed was Mexican, until one morning, in a fit of temper (it had peed on some important papers), he broke its back over one knee and watched it crawl under his desk in order to die. He did it in sight of the cleaner, who spread the story. I daresay he meant her to. He wasn’t one to waste grand gestures of cruelty. Once the cleaning lady, an elderly German, had done her work and spread the tale, Fosko had her sacked on suspicion of espionage. She was investigated for several months and could find no work in the meantime. Finally, she admitted to everything, in the hope, not entirely misplaced, that she would be better fed in prison. And so it goes. For all the use she is for my narrative, I might have buried her in silence. In any case, as a vignette, the Mexican dog might serve to balance Christmas day; together they offer something akin to truth.

  Whatever his mindset – and his worth as a man – the Colonel drove the few miles to the city centre in record time and parked the car a good block away from Franzi’s ground-floor apartment. It would be wrong to say that he slunk down the sidewalk towards the house’s door; he certainly did not run. He walked up, in slow, girthy self-assurance, past the half-house’s rubble, and rang the bell same as any visitor would have done. There was no gun in his pocket, and he clutched neither truncheon nor sap. All he had with him was his smile, fat on those lips, and the fury of having been betrayed.

  Sonia opened the door at once. Afterwards, she reasoned that it was because the monkey gave a chatter of joy as though it had recognized the coming of a friend, and also because she was glad that the boy had made it back from his errand. Fosko slipped through the entrance and pushed his bulk past the apartment door with astonishing speed. There was no time for Sonia to cry out. The door slammed into its lock behind him.

  Pavel stood in his cell shouting for his captor. Stood, brow knit, jaw raised, a vagrant’s stubble on the stretched-out throat.

  ‘Peterson!’ he yelled up towards the ceiling. ‘Come back.

  ‘Come back, Peterson!’ he yelled. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  It would have been difficult for him to explain his agitation. He had been alone for perhaps an hour. There was no indication that anything was amiss: no sounds that had travelled down the stairs, nothing to go by other than his knowledge that Fosko was back, and was hunting for Sonia. And yet he was certain that she was in danger while he clamoured helplessly behind bars. He yelled again and felt himself getting hoarse.

  There was no answer.

  She had forgotten how fat he was, and how quick. Sonia had been packing when the bell rang, arranging her possessions by importance, one suitcase full of essentials, the second for her luxuries. Folding and re-folding her blouses, nervous for the boy’s return. Then the bell. Mechanically, she’d folded over one more collar, then stepped out from behind the kitchen table and opened the door. Her hand was still on the doorknob when Fosko burst in; stood looming in her living room.

  Good God, he was fat.

  Dripping in mink and jewellery.

  The monkey gave a cry of delight and scrambled over to hug his leg. The Colonel bent to pick it up by the scruff.

  ‘You haven’t been feeding him,’ he complained. ‘He looks scrawny.’

  She’d forgotten about his voice, too, the wet of his lips; his hands chubby like a choirboy’s. Sonia backed away from him. She wished he’d skip the talking and start hitting. It would be easier that way.

  ‘My, my, the trouble you’ve caused me. You and your dreamy-eyed lover. First Söldmann, then Boyd; the whole long dance to see who’s got the merchandise. Now I’ve got a Russian general up my arse over a dead soldier, and a Yank in my basement who’s eating me out of house and home.’

  He dropped the monkey onto her bed, and took another step towards her.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ she chanced. ‘Tell me. Is Pavel alive?’

  He smiled; fat lips smiling. There was spit in their corners.

  ‘Alive and well. Making eyes at my dear Peterson. Another week or so, and they’ll go and elope. Of course, now they won’t have a week. Romance cut short. The year, it starts in tragedy.’

  ‘What will you do with him?’

  He shrugged and stepped closer. ‘You have other things to worry about.’

  He was almost touching her now. She stood pressed against the kitchen table. There should have been a knife on the table. There wasn’t a knife. There was a pair of panties, Parisian lace; mending in the gusset. She noticed him noticing.

  ‘The film, Sonia,’ he whispered. ‘Give me the microfilm.’ He stretched out one hand. His fingernails were filed and painted with a subtle gloss. ‘Please.’

  She handed it over. What the hell else was she going to do? Got it out of the cupboard drawer, and placed it into his fat-fingered palm: not a word of protest, resigned to it now, her skin crawling with his presence. He reached up and stroked her cheek with the other hand.

  ‘There. That wasn’t so hard.’

  All of a sudden she felt dizzy. She stumbled, and he had to steady her by the armpit to keep her from falling over. Up close he smelled of talcum powder. They stood like this for long minutes while the monkey played under her skirts.

  When she had regained her balance, he helped her close the suitcases and tied a piece of string around the animal’s throat. The Colonel stuffed both cases under one arm, and wrapped the leash around his wrist. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said. He did not bother to wait for her as he stepped out the door.

  Sonia followed him out and over to his car. Somewhere along the line her nose had started bleeding and she dabbed at it with a tissue until the blood clotted and dried.

  Anders woke upon a hardwood floor. He fought to open his eyes. The left one wouldn’t obey. Something pressed down on it, from the general direction of his brow. His legs hurt, and it was difficult to breathe. When he tried to move his arms, he realized they were bound. He had no feeling in his hands.

  ‘He’s awake,’ a voice announced. The blood was pounding in Anders’ ears, and it was hard to be sure who had spoken. Nor could he see much of anything. Anders lay on his side, the good eye close to the floorboards, a broken t
ooth rising jaggedly out of its grain. He tried to turn his head but was stopped by a jabbing pain that ran from crotch to gut. He wondered whether he’d been stabbed.

  ‘Go on,’ he croaked, struggling to get the words out of his swollen mouth. ‘Hit me again. I won’t say nothing.’

  ‘It’s over, Anders. We found the phone number. Now, it’s all up to the Colonel.’

  Anders retched. Something was wrong with his stomach. It felt lumpy and bloated, like a sack of mouldy spuds.

  ‘You gave it to Fosko?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  He didn’t receive an answer. Instead, he felt someone crouch next to him; felt a hand in his hair. Anders couldn’t tell whether the gesture was meant to appease him, or announced another beating.

  ‘Forget about it,’ the voice said, not unkindly. ‘It’s out of your hands.’ The boy thought it might be Paulchen.

  ‘I have to go warn her. We were going to rescue Pavel.’

  He tried crawling, pushing his body along the floor with the strength of his knees. The hand in his hair turned into a fist. It shoved him back into the floor, right on top of the broken-off tooth.

  ‘You’re staying here.’

  A blanket was thrown over him, and someone – Gunnar? – pushed the corner of a pillow under one cheek.

  ‘There’s water if you want some.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Anders, searching his vocabulary for terms of abuse. ‘Arsehole-sackrat-bastard-pig. I fucking hate the lot of you.’

  Not one of them bothered to answer his curse. He listened to them lounge about, smoking, drinking, playing marbles, arguing about whose turn it was to cook dinner. It was as though Anders was eavesdropping on his own past. In his mind he went around and stuck a knife in each of their chests; watched them bleed. It made his gall rise within him, and he lay there coughing, choking on its juice.

  The Colonel drove a Beetle. At another time she might have laughed about it, the way he sat, his stomach trapped behind the wheel, and the gear stick snug against his thigh. It was a clear night, inky, the moon so low in the sky it seemed to balance on the treetops. Berlin was a glow at their backs. It was the sort of night Pavel might have liked. She grimaced and opened the glove compartment to look for a cigarette. The monkey jabbered behind her and clambered over the Colonel’s shoulder down onto his stomach’s ledge. It hadn’t been able to keep its paws off him ever since he’d returned into its life.