‘I’ve run out of coffee,’ she said. ‘There’s tea or cola if you like, or water.’ She looked at me, startled, as if I had caught her unawares, as if she had thought we could simply spend the evening exchanging pleasantries, sipping tea. I pulled her hair loose and pushed her against the edge of the counter and kissed her. I could feel her begin to relax in increments until her body went limp. I reached between her legs and slipped my fingers inside her, but after a moment she nudged my arm away.
We kissed some more and I worked my way down her neck, unclasping her bra, feasting, moving on, until I was on my knees and she stood above me in only the boots and the miniskirt. I smiled and she said, ‘You’re a bad boy, aren’t you?’ but her expression was uncertain. I nodded anyway and hitched her skirt high above her waist. She leaned back and sighed as I tasted her, gently at first, then lunging deeper with my tongue.
I couldn’t wait any longer and stood while she made a feckless attempt to free my shirt from my jeans. But I was already there, hoisting her onto the counter, her elbows raised and banging against the cabinet doors.
‘I knew you were bad,’ she gasped, and I grunted. She ground her heels into my back, then arched her body, pushing further against me. A roll of fat moved like a Mexican wave from me towards her, back into me again. I blushed, but she only continued to shudder.
When I came, we held each other, tight, then started slowly to slacken. My ankles ached. She lowered her head to my shoulder and sighed. A droplet of sweat fell from my chin onto her thigh.
We undressed in the bedroom and fell horizontally across the bed. Claudia was still wearing her boots. We were both silent.
At length she said, ‘Was it all right?’
I nodded. I didn’t know why she had to ask that. Her face looked oily and blotched pink and fawn. ‘And you?’
She turned and moved her head; all I could see was the mass of hair sweeping back and forth.
I slept for half an hour and woke abruptly. I couldn’t force the sleep to return. I eased away and pulled on my jeans and T-shirt. Claudia didn’t stir. I traced a finger over the mound of calf where the untied bootlace exposed her skin, but she didn’t respond. The window was wide open, the curtains drawn aside. I caught a slight breeze, warm as a woman’s breath. I crept out of the room and closed the door as much as possible without shutting it. My feet sank into plush carpeting.
There was milk and Coca Cola and grapefruit juice in the fridge. There were no bottles of beer or wine in any of the cupboards. I longed for a drink. I took a saucepan from the sink and filled it with water and turned the hob to its highest setting. There was a notice board above the kitchen table, with notes and keys and photographs attached to it. A memo read:
Vincent: 144D Muskauer Str – 615 95 30
She had my address after all; it was in my own drunken handwriting. I didn’t understand why she had lied.
Her father’s face stared out of a copy of the photograph I had seen at her mother’s apartment: the father, Frau Schlegel and Claudia as a child. There was another one of him looking older, wearing civilian clothes, next to Claudia as a gawky teenager with frizzy hair.
I boiled tea in the saucepan, added milk and boiled it again. I couldn’t find the sugar and was forced to drink it unsweetened. Like her mother’s place, everything in Claudia’s apartment looked pristine and expensive: the furniture, the wide television, even the saucepan I had used. The denim miniskirt, the boots, the garish make-up in the club smacked of a woman who lived in cheaper, shabbier circumstances.
There was a quiet purring from the sitting room. I didn’t move until I realized what it was. When I picked up the receiver I remembered it wasn’t my apartment.
‘Claudi!’ A harsh, breathless voice.
‘Hello. It’s Vincent.’ I didn’t know what to say to Frau Schlegel, how to explain that her daughter was naked and spent in the next room.
‘Come quickly!’ she said. She was shouting now. ‘Claudi, come!’ She dropped the phone, but the connection wasn’t lost.
I shook Claudia and she groaned softly and smiled, but did not open her eyes.
‘Claudia,’ I said. ‘Claudia, your mother’s just phoned.’
One eye peeled open.
‘I think you better go over,’ I said. ‘She sounded … upset. Come on, put on some clothes. Wake up now.’ I handed her the skirt, but she raced to the wardrobe and put on clean underwear, a T-shirt, a pair of navy tracksuit bottoms. She had kicked off the boots with ease. She dialled her mother’s number and returned the receiver almost immediately.
‘The line’s dead. What did she say? How did she sound?’ She pushed her feet into white tennis shoes.
‘I don’t know. Desperate. Maybe someone’s broken into her place …You think we should call the police?’
‘The police? No, I’m sure it’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and see what’s happened. I’m sure it’s nothing.’
We ran down to the lobby and when we emerged into the evening warmth, Claudia turned and said, ‘Okay, Vincent. I’ll call you later. I’m sure everything will be all right.’
‘What d’you mean, you’ll call me later? Let’s go!’
‘Please, it’s all right, Vincent. There’s nothing to worry about. You can stay here.’
She had tied her hair into a tight bun. With the change of clothes and the alert stance she seemed a world away from the clumsy boots and the miniskirt.
‘Listen, the longer we argue about this, the more time we’re wasting. I’m coming with you whether you like it or not. Come on.’ I took her hand to lead her towards the U-Bahn station, but she snatched it away.
‘Get in then,’ she said. There was a white BMW cabriolet parked in front of the building, with a navy and green tartan cloth top.
I didn’t say anything.
In less than six minutes we were in front of Frau Schlegel’s building.
‘I think it’s best if you wait here,’ Claudia said. She was twisting invisible rings on her fingers. She looked up at her mother’s balcony, then back at me.
‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘You didn’t hear your mum’s voice. I don’t think this is something you should face alone.’
She used her own set of keys to enter the apartment, then held the door against me, denying me access.
‘Claudia, what are you doing?’
She didn’t answer. She seemed determined not to let me in.
We grappled with the door for a moment, but she couldn’t outmanoeuvre my bulk. For a moment the situation seemed comical. Then I glanced at the sitting room beyond.
There was glass on the floor. Liquid had poured onto the Persian rug. The television had been tipped over and its screen had smashed. The framed photographs I had seen on my previous visit had been thrown to the floor. Shattered crockery and glass stretched from the balcony to the kitchen door. It seemed anything fragile now lay in pieces. It was a miracle the sliding doors were still intact.
‘Mum!’ Claudia screamed. She picked her way towards her mother’s bedroom.
A noise escaped from a corner of the sitting room, by the balcony. Not quite a word; a half groan, half plea. Frau Schlegel lay on the leather sofa. The elegant blue and white kimono had slid from her body, save for a sleeve, which clung stubbornly to her arm. Her legs were twisted up on the back of the sofa and her breasts fell sideways as she leant on one shoulder. She couldn’t manage the complication of the tangled kimono, her knotted body and the free arm she was trying to control. She groaned again and raised the arm towards her face. Something slipped from her hand against the sofa and onto the floor. Like everything else it smashed.
The noise seemed to wake Claudia, who tiptoed over the glass towards her mother. I didn’t know where to look: at the naked mother, the anguished daughter, the catastrophe of the room?
‘Mum,’ Claudia said again, but softly. ‘What happened?’ She worked to free her mother’s arm from the kimono, and then covered her with the cloth. She brushed her mother’s h
air away from her face, then shifted her so that her head rested against a cushion.
‘Claudi,’ Frau Schlegel moaned. Her head lolled back and forth as if she had lost the use of her neck muscles.
‘Where are the things … to clean with?’ I heard myself ask. I couldn’t locate the appropriate words.
‘Through there, in the kitchen,’ Claudia pointed. ‘In the cupboard, behind the door.’
In among the broken glass in the dining area was the photograph of the family – the child, the wife, the lost husband – staring up at me. The glass had shattered and a corner of the gilt-edged frame had come apart.
I used the broom and the dustpan to clear the mess from the sitting room. The photographs and books and items that could be salvaged I placed on the dining table. When a glass-free space had been cleared, Claudia attempted to lift her mother, but the body kept slipping away from her.
‘Vincent … Vincent, I can’t carry her.’ Her voice was small, almost inaudible and her face was wet with tears.
I put aside the bucket and broom. ‘Now, how do we do this? You hold her legs, I’ll take this end.’
We sat her up and Claudia reached down to carry her. I noticed bright spots of colour on the floor.
‘Wait – look at her feet,’ I said. Her soles were smeared with blood.
‘Oh, God!’ Claudia cried. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘You get the bed ready and I’ll take her,’ I said.
Claudia looked at me wildly as if she didn’t understand what I was saying.
‘Just open the door. I’ll carry her. It’s okay, I won’t drop her.’
She was light, Frau Schlegel, like a paper plane or a hollow thing that surprised you when you lifted it. I had carried Asa in the park in London, but even he seemed more substantial. A waft of alcohol seemed to seep from her skin.
‘Claudi,’ she moaned. ‘Claudi.’ She smiled and her eyes glazed over and then she was somewhere else.
The bedroom was a light, spacious room at the end of the corridor. It overlooked the rear gardens and the houses beyond that. I could make out the street I had mistaken for Frau Schlegel’s earlier in the day. I wondered whether she had been drinking even as I had gazed up at the windows.
I lay her down on the bed and the eiderdown seemed to engulf her slight form. Claudia placed a towel beneath her mother’s feet and fetched a bowl of water and antiseptic from the en suite bathroom. I held her feet while Claudia wiped away the blood and used tweezers to remove shards of glass.
‘She should go to a hospital,’ I said. ‘They’ll know what to do. There might be embedded pieces still in there that you can’t see.’
‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Claudia said. ‘There’s not so much glass. It’ll be okay.’
I didn’t argue. It sounded as if she had done this sort of thing before.
I changed the water when it became too bloody, and replaced the telephone receiver on the bedside table. I held Frau Schlegel’s feet again, but she did not flinch in her sleep. Claudia worked with a surgeon’s precision and detachment. I wondered what she did at the university. I realized I knew very little about her.
‘Who was that woman I spoke to this afternoon?’
Claudia looked up at me and frowned.
‘You said she was the cleaner.’
She sighed and began to treat the other sole, her breathing shallow so as not to disturb her work. ‘That was Sylvie,’ she said.
‘Sylvie?’ The blonde from the beach. ‘What was she doing here?’
Claudia pursed her lips, but didn’t respond.
Lining the periphery of the entire room was a neat army of women’s shoes of all descriptions, the trail broken by the bed, a chest of drawers, a two-seater sofa and the two doors. I noticed only the left shoe of each pair was on display.
‘Were you also here this afternoon?’ I asked. ‘When I called?’
She nodded. ‘We were all here. I couldn’t let you in. Mum wasn’t in good shape …I don’t know why Sylvie spoke to you. I told her not to answer the bell.’
She was a woman with secrets, Claudia. I did not know where they began and where they would end. I didn’t want to find out. She was as hidden as Lucille was an open book, her pages uncut, unread.
‘How are her feet?’ I asked.
She put down the tweezers and dabbed the soles with antiseptic, then wrapped bandaging around the worst cuts. ‘Good. She’ll be all right, I think. She just needs to rest and eat something. Then we’ll see. I’ll have to stay here tonight. I shouldn’t have left her alone today.’
I wondered whether she had left her mother to be with me. I poured the bloody water down the bathroom toilet. I had done a poor job of cleaning the sitting room; pieces of glass lay all around. I opened the sliding doors to the balcony and shook out the rug and draped it over the rails to dry.
I felt compelled to remove every fragment of broken glass from the apartment. I lifted the cushions and dragged the vacuum cleaner over the sofa and carried the ruined television set down to the lobby. When I returned I placed the glass and mess into old supermarket bags in the kitchen and left them by the television downstairs. When I was satisfied all the broken glass and crockery had been cleared, I returned to the bedroom.
They were asleep, side by side, mother and daughter, on the enormous bed. Frau Schlegel looked peaceful now. Her chest rose and fell evenly, and she did not stir. Claudia was fully clothed. She was still wearing the tennis shoes. I removed the bloody towel from the end of the bed, but red stains had leaked onto the eiderdown. I left the bedside lamp on and turned on the corridor light, switched off all the other lights in the apartment. It was after 2 a.m.
I carried the television to the dustbins outside and threw away the plastic bags. I walked past the cabriolet and looked up again at Frau Schlegel’s apartment. I had forgotten the rug on the balcony railing. I hoped it would not be blown away.
20
THE TELEPHONE RANG and rang. I was on a ship on the ocean. There were waves rising all around. Gulls were screaming over my head. Someone on deck was raising the alarm, clanging a bell, hollering. I couldn’t stop the noise. I had been trying to fuse the telephone trill into my dream, and my waking was gradual and unwelcome. It was barely six o’clock, but the caller would not give up. I dragged myself into the hallway, fearing another emergency.
‘Hey, sorry man. Sorry to wake you,’ B said. ‘We need another hand to help with a job. You have to help me, otherwise it could take all day. I tried to reach you last night, but you weren’t in.’
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I slumped to the floor. My arms ached, my legs were trembling, my body groaned. I remembered yesterday’s swim.
‘What kind of job?’ I asked.
‘Rich people. They’re moving to Grunewald. Big house. If we have more people, it won’t take so long. It’s good money, man.’
I was exhausted, but I needed all the money I could get.
The sky was blue and it was already warm. ‘Where do I meet you?’
B was talking to an Asian man when I arrived at the bottom of the Charlottenburg apartment block.
‘Tunde was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago,’ B said, as if it were my responsibility.
‘He’s probably still asleep,’ I replied.
Tunde didn’t need the money anyway.
‘I phoned him yesterday, man.’ B was already agitated and the day hadn’t even begun. ‘This is Suresh,’ he said.
I nodded. Suresh nodded back. We stood in silence for a while, waiting to start.
A lorry pulled up and two men wearing blue overalls jumped out. A minute later Tunde strolled up to us. B glanced at his watch and made a show of being cool towards him, but we still had to loiter around for another ten minutes. I wondered what all his anxiety had been about.
Rainer, the man in charge, took us upstairs. The family – a middle-aged couple, their teenage daughter and younger son – didn’t seem to be aware a move was immin
ent. They were eating breakfast in the kitchen, while the boy watched cartoons in the sitting room. Nothing was packed.
Tunde pulled me aside. I thought he might have a plan to get us out of this mess, but he only said, ‘Damn, I don’t know which one is hotter – the mama or the girly. What do you think?’
The girl was a carbon copy of her mother: straight black hair, parted in the middle, that fell two or three inches short of her waist. Lazy eyes. Nose like a razor blade.
‘You can do better in Sri Lanka, any day,’ Suresh announced.
‘Is that so?’ Tunde said. ‘So what are you doing here then?’
Suresh shrugged and looked out of the window as if he didn’t care one way or the other what Tunde thought. ‘Again, it will be hot today,’ he said.
I wondered what calamity would occur before evening.
In the end the job was not as daunting as I had feared. An upright piano needed to be winched down from the balcony. There were the usual white goods and the massive items of furniture, but the Metzlers were minimalists; it didn’t take long to pack and label their belongings, and load them onto the vehicle. Frau Metzler and her son drove ahead to the new house to ready the rooms for the furniture.
B and Suresh joined Herr Metzler and his daughter in a Mercedes station wagon, while Tunde and I squeezed into the cab of the lorry with the other two removal men.
‘That girly, she’s fine, fine,’ Tunde said. ‘Eighteen, nineteen. What do you think?’
‘Fifteen, sixteen,’ I replied, and he shoved me. ‘With her nose in the air like that, I don’t think she’ll ever notice anyone.’
‘That’s the beauty of it,’ he said. ‘She’s too, too aware of me. She can’t even look at me, otherwise she won’t be able to resist for one second. You wait and see.’
I wasn’t too sure about Tunde’s sexual psychology, but he was so adept at seducing beautiful women, I couldn’t discount it altogether.
I was grateful for the breeze of the moving lorry; by the time we arrived in front of the Metzlers’ new residence the sweat was beginning to evaporate from my clothes.
Goodbye Lucille Page 17