The Fig Eater

by Jody Sheilds

  Both Philipp and his doctor may have very different reasons for not telling the truth. Then again, perhaps there is some other link between them that he’s not aware of. Not yet.

  The Inspector closes Steinach’s file on Dora’s father and flops it on the desk toward Franz. A boat launched on the water. Here’s our case, he says. Have a look at these photographs. He begins to pace the room.

  “Philipp has syphilis, has had it for decades, and he’s being treated with mercury. Probably infected by a süsses Mädel.”

  Franz leafs through the file. Without looking, the Inspector senses he’s staring at the photograph of Philipp’s genitals.

  Franz whistles. “This is certainly a lesson, sir.”

  His face flushed, Franz goes quickly through the rest of the file, his fingers skipping over the photographs, uneasy about touching or studying them too closely. As if they were contagious.

  The Inspector leaves Philipp’s file on the table in the hallway while he reads in his study. Erszébet goes through it, stopping at the photographs. She can duplicate the papers, carry them sentence by sentence into her notebook. But the photographs must be copied with brush and paints.

  Late that night, alone in the kitchen, she studies the details of Philipp’s photographs, his snarled pubic hair, the dark, starry patches of infection and lesions like thumbprints on his pale skin, the flaccid gray penis. Then she begins to paint.

  She copies one of the black-and-white images in colors of her own imagination. The blotches on his genitals become a livid rainbow of green tints and yellows tinged with red tones, luteous colors. The penis is transformed into the tense hanging shape of a ripe fig, a rich violet red darkened with imperial purple, a paint made from acid extracted from the excrement of Peruvian gulls.

  Uninterrupted, she finishes her watercolor of the photograph. Afterward, she tapes the damp paper on the underside of the kitchen table to dry. Her secret.

  Her husband is asleep when she comes up to bed, holding a rim of violet red paint under her fingernails, a color she transfers to his body.

  Wally, Otto, and Dora’s mother take a closed fiaker to Stadtpark. They get out at the north end. Wally notices that the landscape of the park has changed since she was here a month ago, before the tender trees and ornamental shrubs in pots were wheeled into the greenhouses for the winter. Now the ground is completely white, and the artificial lake is frozen, ready for ice skating. Otto pays the attendant six kreuzers so they can sit on the benches along the side.

  Across the lake, a line of workmen join hands and slowly slide forward, testing the ice. Two of the men at the end slip and stagger forward, arms windmilling until they fall. The others break the line to help them to their feet, and then the procession moves again.

  Wally helps Dora’s mother settle herself on the bench, tucking a fur lap robe around her legs. This should keep her in place. Otto has just been released from the Kinderklinik, and she plans to talk to him alone.

  “Has Otto ever skated here before?”

  “We came last year with Dora. I remember it was a very cold day. A band played Strauss waltzes. You could hear the music across the ice.” Dora’s mother falls silent and stares at the lake.

  Wally wonders if she anticipates her dead daughter will materialize from the ice.

  Eyes still focused in the distance, the older woman begins to speak, but it’s as if she’s talking to herself. “I skated here when I was younger. After Tegetthof’s expedition to the Arctic, ice-skating was very fashionable. We called ourselves Esquimaux. Some daring women had costumes made. I had a cap, a coat, breeches, and leggings all made of black fur, and I carried a muff. I remember I made a pirouette and my cap came off. I had very long hair then, down to my waist, and it flew all around my head.”

  Wally gazes over the lake, a dark white oval, picturing a young woman spinning on the ice, her long pale hair a blur, a horizontal halo around her head.

  “Maybe you’d like to look at the ice, the bandstand? We can go closer.”

  “No, no. My legs are too frail. You go ahead, take Otto with you. Be careful. Promise me you won’t step on the ice.”

  She seems older, the sad bulk of her body immobilized by the lap robe. Glad to leave her, Wally guides Otto over to the lake, their feet crunching on snow. She can tell he is eager to run, to throw sticks on the ice, which would provoke a call to come back from his mother.

  “If you walk carefully, we can go around the lake where she can’t see us.”

  He glances back and then takes Wally’s outstretched hand. They edge around the lake until the woman huddled on the bench becomes a diminutive brown shape. He drops Wally’s hand.

  “Cold out today.”

  “Doesn’t bother me.”

  “No? You’re a brave boy.”

  “Mama opened all the windows to air the house before we left. I’d rather be out here than freezing in my bedroom.”

  “What did your sister do when your mother opened all the windows like that?”

  “She hated it. They argued. Dora would start coughing and wouldn’t speak.”

  They’re a quarter of the way around the lake. From the corner of her eye, she sees his mother stand up and wave in their direction. Wally quickly looks away, looks out over the ice. Soothed by its dull, blank surface, she continues her interrogation. Did your sister have a sweetheart? she asks.

  “A sweetheart? Dora? No.”

  “No one?”

  The boy shakes his head.

  “What about Rosza, Dora’s promeneuse? Did Rosza like your father? Did they ever talk together?”

  “They talked together sometimes.”

  “But did they go anywhere alone, did you see them?”

  He’s silent. Wally taps a stone with her foot until he talks.

  “Rosza made me promise not to tell anyone, but I guess I can tell you. Sometimes she made me stay in the kitchen because she’d go upstairs with him. I went up there once, and the door to her room was closed.”

  “How many times did that happen?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  The boy picks up a rock and politely shows it to her. See, it’s not so big, he says. Can I throw it? She shrugs, and he steps back and pitches it over the ice. There’s a faint cry behind him. They disregard it and she urges him to walk faster, away from his mother’s voice. Stumbling on patches of frozen snow, they hurry to the far end of the lake.

  “I need to know something about your father and Frau Zellenka.”

  “I don’t want to talk about them. Can I toss another stone?”

  Answer my question, she says, or I’ll take you back to your mother. He searches the ground for a stone while he talks about his father and Frau Zellenka. Their walks together while Mama cleaned or napped. At Franzenbad, the two of them would often go back through the pines to the cottage while everyone else stayed by the lake. He tried to follow them. Once he saw his father push Frau Zellenka in the hammock. Once he heard Dora angrily tell her she’d seen them together in a café, and Frau Zellenka closed her eyes and turned away, her face suddenly pale. He recites his story with a remorseless happiness, settling a score with his father, Rosza, and Frau Zellenka. When he’s finished talking, he stares at her, the stones clenched in his hands forgotten.

  But Wally doesn’t notice him. She’s furiously considering a new hypothesis. Was Dora’s father intimate with Rosza and Frau Zellenka?

  Suddenly, a handful of stones rattles on the ice, and the men shout; Otto’s missiles went too close. They both laugh and run away onto the lake ice, sliding, their balance suddenly transformed by its slippery surface. Otto turns around and furiously lobs another rock in their direction.

  Wally barely hears the men’s angry cries. She believes the stones that struck the ice have cracked it into a web of silver slivers, a flat explosion that moves faster and faster across the lake. She runs, imagining the ice silently shattering into lace behind her. It will break beneath her feet, and she will plunge into the bitt
er water.

  Erszébet persuaded her husband to come to bed early. She waits for him there. As he enters the bedroom, he senses her perfume unfolding around him, a narcotic atmosphere of musk, ambergris, vanilla, iris, rose. She prepared this invisible landscape for him to cross.

  As Erszébet planned, he is compelled to reenter a memory, their intimate encounter in the woods near Csurgó, when she’d worn the same fragrance. Even as he steps forward, shadowless, he marvels at his wife’s deliberation, how she’s doubly invoked her presence.

  The curtains are pulled back from the window, and the moonlight illuminates her reclining figure. She is polished stone, she doesn’t move. He crosses the space between them like a dancer, oblivious to the scenery, the audience, everything in him wholly focused on his next cue, his next step, his arousal.

  As she rises over him in bed, he glimpses a trembling, teardrop-shaped swell of light at one of her ears, the unaccustomed gleam of a pearl earring. He reaches up to touch it, but she slips away from his hands.

  In the next moment, before he passes into the state toward which Erszébet drives him, he recognizes the earring. He believes they are identical to Dora’s.

  In the morning, remembering what he saw, he sweeps her hair back on the pillow, checking for the earrings. Her ears are bare. When she turns her face to him, he reads a calculation in her eyes that he is unable to decipher.

  Then he does something surprising. Instead of asking her about the earrings, which her expression seems to demand, he watches as she obligingly narrows her eyes and transforms her face into its familiar mask of pleasure, following the urging of his fingertips.

  Later, he tells himself that what he saw — Dora’s earrings — was a trick of the light.

  There’s a Hungarian word for his state of mind, lidércnyomás, meaning dread, depression, nightmare.

  Seated in the library, the Inspector listens to Dora’s father confidently explain his wife’s disappearance. She suddenly left Vienna for Franzenbad, a sanatorium in western Bohemia. She needed rest. Grief caused her nerves to fail. She may return in a few weeks. No, he had no idea he should notify the police before she left. None at all. Why did they need to talk to his wife again? Are there any new developments in his daughter’s investigation?

  Philipp seems anxious to help, deferentially inclining his neat head toward him. The Inspector lets a moment of silence pass before he answers, struggling to rid himself of a fuzz of impatience. His voice is almost lazy.

  “There are some developments which I am not at liberty to disclose to you. However, I want your wife’s address in case I need to reach her. Is there a telephone at the sanatorium? No? I didn’t imagine there would be.”

  The Inspector had come to the house to talk with Dora’s parents about another matter. Now he regrets that his treasured information will only be displayed in front of this man. He considers whether this is a conceit or a strategic error, and takes out his notebook, stalling for time.

  “Sir, I have interviewed Dr. Steinach. He has no memory of meeting you at a café the evening of your daughter’s death.”

  Philipp raises his eyebrows. He meets the Inspector’s eyes.

  “He doesn’t? Now that is very strange indeed. I even remember the meal we were served. Szegedi gulyás. Pity I didn’t leave my hat or walking stick there. At least I’d have some proof to offer you besides my good word.”

  “Yes. Have you managed to locate your missing appointment book?”

  Philipp strokes his nose. He has a patient and regretful expression on his face.

  “Unfortunately, the book has failed to turn up. I’ll ask the girl to search the office a second time, just to be certain.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your help.” The Inspector nods and makes a note to discreetly contact Fräulein Fürj again. “But it is necessary to face in advance the possible falsehood of every statement of witnesses. To do so is not to display exaggerated mistrust, but is only a proof of prudence and experience; for one has often found that false depositions slip into an inquiry in the most innocent and least suspected form.”

  While Philipp is relaxed, confident the issue of the missing appointment book has been resolved, the Inspector quickly continues his questioning.

  “I understand you’ve had a relationship with Frau Zellenka for several years. She had no expectation you would marry her?”

  “We never discussed it. The arrangement suited everyone as it was. My wife has a blind eye about my relationship with Frau Zellenka.” His attitude is that it is too complicated to explain.

  The Inspector is silent. Sometimes this can be interpreted as a judgment.

  “If my wife wanted a divorce, the Landesgericht would investigate her. All her faults would be made public.”

  “Surely your wife has conducted herself in a blameless fashion.”

  “Certainly. But she could never face such scrutiny. She isn’t well, inspector. And why should my wife put herself in such an unpleasant situation? It’s an ugly process. Even if a woman has good reason to file for divorce, the Landesgericht usually dismisses her claims. That is the procedure unless both parties agree to a divorce. But I’m certain you’re familiar with all this.”

  Philipp offers a Regalitas, and the Inspector understands he wishes to end this topic of conversation. He thanks him for the cigar and ignores Philipp’s last comment.

  “The situation couldn’t have been pleasant for your children. Dora knew about your relationship with Frau Zellenka. She must have been extremely jealous.”

  Perhaps his comment about the man’s children was a mistake. Never show judgment. And Philipp doesn’t answer his question but shifts the objects around on his desk.

  “If Dora was jealous, I wasn’t aware of it. In fact, she and Frau Zellenka were very good friends. When we were on vacation, they were constantly together.”

  “I believe Frau Zellenka is much younger than your wife? In fact, she’s closer to Dora’s age?”

  “Yes, Frau Zellenka is younger than my wife, but you could have answered that question yourself, since you’ve spoken with her.”

  Now the man sitting across from him is flustered. His fingers touch his nose and lips.

  The Inspector feels his words contract and narrow around him. He raises his voice and is dismayed at how bitter it sounds.

  “Did Dora sense it was unnatural to be friends with her father’s lover?”

  Philipp stands up behind his desk. “Since you came here without an appointment, I must ask you to leave. I have an evening engagement.”

  He walks to the door and waits for the Inspector. He doesn’t acknowledge his farewell or shake his hand.

  The Inspector is certain Philipp has lied to him about his whereabouts on the night of the murder. And possibly his wife’s disappearance. He prides himself on his ability to pick out the thread of a lie and follow it through the events of a case. Sometimes he can even decipher the structure of the falsehood before the confession, as some men can recognize a certain tailor’s hand by the set of the shoulder on a jacket.

  Without any advance notice, a fiaker was dispatched to bring Frau Zellenka to the police station.

  The Inspector ushers her into the bare room next to the morgue and then brings her a chair. She sits down without even glancing at the tattered cloak spread out on the table. She’s obviously not pleased to be here. It’s an ugly place, and the lighting is harsh. She takes out a cigarette and lights it.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  He says no but doesn’t offer a container for her ashes. She crosses her legs and elaborately flicks her cigarette onto the floor.

  He makes her wait a moment.

  “Frau Zellenka, thank you for coming here on such short notice.”

  “My pleasure, although I’m not very presentable at this hour of the morning. I hope your assistant didn’t mind waiting for me.”

  Sarcasm is one of the most difficult obstacles in an interview. Even silence offers more nuances of int
erpretation.

  “That’s his job. Now I’d like you to examine the cloak on the table.”

  She pivots around in her chair, the cigarette between her lips. Grudgingly, she gets up and walks to the table.

  “May I touch it?”

  He nods. She gingerly opens the dirty cloak at the top, checking the inside of the neck.

  “The label is missing.”

  “You’ll find it inside the envelope on the table.”

  She opens the envelope, reads the label without removing it. She stares at him, her expression confused.

  “I believe this is my kazabaika, the cloak Dora borrowed from me. Of course, it’s hard to recognize, the color is quite faded. The lining held up remarkably well.”

  “Any idea where Dora might have worn it?”

  “You mean a special evening?” She laughs. “Dora had no special evenings. Maybe she wore it to one of her lectures.”

  There’s silence between them. He senses she’s waiting for something.

  “Strange thing to borrow in the summer, a cloak.”

  “It was.” She shrugs. “Dora paraded around the bedroom with the kazabaika wrapped around her, laughing. It pleased her. She never returned it to me. Where did you find the cloak?”

  “In the Volksgarten.”

  Stalling, he thinks. He takes out his notebook. They face each other across the bare room, awkward and oddly formal, like actors rehearsing without the benefits of props or scenery. His voice is gentle.

  “Frau Zellenka, anything you can do to help me. Is there anything you remember about Dora that might be significant? Did anyone bear her a grudge?”

  After a moment she looks up at him. Her mouth has relaxed.

  “It’s nothing, really. Last summer, Dora left her new reticule on the bench in my garden. Jószef found it and buried it. I guess he was teaching her a lesson, although he claimed it was a joke. Of course she told her mother. I had to reprimand him and he returned it. He hadn’t stolen anything, all the coins were still inside. But Dora was hysterical when she saw her reticule, all dirty.”