by Joseph Flynn
“That’s a joke, too.”
“I know, but I don’t understand it. Perhaps you can help me see the humor someday.”
“Ulrike had long since stopped having sex with me, but she was jealous, certain that I was sleeping with someone else, that I would divorce her even though she’d given me my daughter. She was determined to find out who my lover was and drive her off.”
“And she spotted Warner?” Robin couldn’t believe that.
“No. Warner is brilliant. His mother was a German national, a war bride, so he speaks the language like a native. And he always wore the right clothes. And as you probably noticed he is both pleasant and elusive, without being sneaky about it.”
It was true; Robin couldn’t quite picture the man now, even though she’d met him for the second time only that afternoon.
“Unfortunately, Warner broke his leg skiing in Bavaria, and his superiors, over Warner’s objections, thought that having him contact me wearing a cast and walking with crutches would make him far too obvious. They replaced him with a woman. She also had agreeably plain features and spoke perfect German, but she was new and had yet to obtain a local wardrobe. Ulrike spotted her for an American immediately. She jumped to the hasty, yet entirely correct, conclusion that the woman was a spy and I was working with the Americans. The irony, of course, was the woman was not my lover; in fact that was the only time I ever saw her.”
“Still, Ulrike turned you in.”
“Ja, and divorced me and vowed publicly that I would never see my daughter again.”
“You must have felt awful.”
Manfred shook his head.
“Determined. I told all of them, Ulrike, the Stasi, the judges, that I would last longer than they would, and I did.”
“So what are you afraid of?” Robin asked.
“Afraid?”
The question seemed to strike Manfred as odd. Robin thought that he probably had his courage questioned about as often as she got wolf-whistles.
“Yeah,” she said. “Scared.”
Manfred looked as if he might try to run a bluff, then he sighed and shrugged his massive shoulders.
“My daughter. I am afraid she won’t love me. She was only ten months old the last time I saw her. She can have no memory of me, and I am sure if Ulrike told her of me at all it was only that her father was a traitor and is a monster.”
Manfred rubbed a hand across his face.
“I have always liked who I am; I enjoy being big and strong ... but just this once ... when I first meet my daughter again, I would like to be small and unthreatening. Like Warner.”
Robin immediately thought of the innumerable times when she was growing up that she’d wished she’d looked like Nancy.
Now, she wished she could find some words of comfort for him, but she didn’t know any. It had been too many years since she’d felt sorry for anyone but herself.
Manfred’s rueful smile returned.
“This is why I fix up everything. If I can’t be what I want, I make a home for Ha—for Bianca that is warm and cozy and beautiful. Someplace where she can come to see her Vati must not be such an ogre after all.”
Robin nodded, glad that she had acceded to Manfred’s list of requests.
He then explained to her that the deal Warner had negotiated with Ulrike had left him with a reserve of five thousand dollars. Manfred wanted to know if he could add that to Robin’s five hundred for the building’s rehabilitation.
Robin immediately felt a childish surge of anger. Here he was trying to take over again, but she stifled it. The man had just bared his soul to her. He was just trying to do the only thing he could think of to make sure his daughter would love him.
She said, “You might want to hang on to that money for other things. From everything I hear, kids are one unexpected expense after another.”
He started to object, but she told him about Mimi’s business proposition. He could make some extra money that way, and if he wanted to put that money into the building ... well, that would be his business.
“I have very much enjoyed our evening,” Manfred said, as he stood with Robin at his front door. “Thank you for joining me.”
Then, before she knew what he was doing, Manfred took her hand and kissed it.
Robin used her other hand to brace herself against the doorjamb so she didn’t fall over; being hit with a feather would have done the trick. Okay, he’d just kissed her hand, but at that point she’d been trying to decide if they should shake hands.
“I’ve got to go,” Robin said quickly.
Manfred gave her his little nod.
But before Robin could flee, Manfred brought up one more thing.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Do you know a young, thin boy with glasses who lives around here?”
Robin had no idea what he was talking about.
Manfred explained.
“I nearly ran him over in the alley. He stopped his bicycle directly in front of my car.”
“That’s very strange.”
“Ja. And he said he knew who I was and he would be watching me.”
Robin’s stomach suddenly felt queasy.
“What did he look like?”
“Just a boy. Except for his eyes. They were wise far beyond his years.”
David Solomonvich, no question. He’d followed through on Robin’s request, found out something about Manfred, and was acting out some pubescent Galahad fantasy ... Oh, God. David was going to demand a kiss from her.
Manfred said, “It’s probably nothing, a case of mistaken identity. But with my history, I think I will ask Warner to investigate this boy.”
Robin’s mind went tilt. She’d sent David to snoop on the CIA, and now Manfred was sending the CIA to snoop on David. What was she going to do now?
Run.
“I’ve got to go,” Robin said.
But before she did, without conscious thought, she grabbed Manfred’s hand, perhaps to shake it as she’d originally intended, but to her acute horror, unable to stop herself, she watched as some impulse from hell made her bring his hand to her mouth and kiss it.
She’d kissed his hand!
Robin couldn’t believe it.
Manfred stood there nonplussed himself.
Robin turned crimson, let his hand go, and finally ran upstairs.
Not seeing the broad smile that formed on Manfred’s face.
That and his little nod.
Chapter 14
Robin wanted to die.
The embarrassment had lasted the whole restless night through and, if anything, was worse when she rose bleary-eyed the next morning. She couldn’t remember ever having done anything so mortifying even when she’d been a teenager. An hour ago, she’d pulled the covers over her head when she’d thought she’d heard Manfred’s footsteps on the landing outside her front door. She would have died if he’d rung the bell, but he hadn’t. Then she’d wondered if he’d left some baked goodies for her. But when she hadn’t smelled anything, she’d wondered if she hadn’t fantasized the whole idea that he had come to call on her.
That depressed her enough to finally permit an hour of sleep.
Still, when she got out of bed, she tiptoed over to her front door and opened it a crack ... just to check on the state of her mental health.
Manfred had been there.
He’d left a large gray sweatshirt, matching sweatpants, and a note.
The note gave directions to his school and told her that if she wanted to stop by at lunchtime he could show her how to stop being fat and start being strong.
Robin could think of only one person to call for advice.
“He’s offering to be your personal trainer?” Nancy said from her office at the real estate agency. “Woo-woo, hubba-hubba!”
Robin ground her teeth.
“I’m asking for some help here, some serious advice. Can you manage that or not?”
“Robin, you’re almost forty. Don’t you think you can work this out for your
self?”
Robin hung up.
Nancy called back.
“Okay, let’s take this one step at a time. Are you sorry you let Manfred move in?”
“Only occasionally now,” Robin said.
“Oh, brother,” Nancy said, but she continued before Robin could hang up again. “Let’s put it this way then: Is your life better since he moved in?”
“My house is much better maintained.”
“Always the romantic, that’s you. What about your discovery that you possess an entertaining new underwear fetish?”
“Will you please not mention that?”
In the hour that she’d slept that morning, Robin had had a most disturbing dream, a nightmare really. She’d gone down to her basement to do some laundry and the moment she’d stepped through the door she’d been surrounded by clotheslines hung with giant pairs of underwear. Each pair was covered with a pattern of erections, and each erection ended in a little smiley face. Damn Nancy for putting that image in her head. Then the erections leaped off the underwear and started doing an elaborate dance number — like they’d all been choreographed by Busby Berkely — and Robin suddenly had a silver top hat and cane in her hands and started high-kicking at the center of a long chorus line of giant smiling phalluses. It was all too—
“Are you still there?” Nancy asked loudly, making Robin realize that her sister had been talking to her while she’d been out in the ozone.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Good. So, what’s your answer?”
“To what?”
“Do you think this guy is interested in anything more than being friendly?”
“I ... I don’t know.” Then Robin remembered something Manfred had said. “He said he liked the way I look.” She didn’t add that he also thought she looked like him.
This time the silence was on the other end of the line.
“You think he was sincere?”
“What’s that mean?” Robin snapped. “I’m ugly or he has an ulterior motive? Like maybe he wants a reduction in his free rent? Yes, he was sincere. He’s honest — to a fault.”
Nancy chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Robin demanded.
“You’re defending him, kiddo.”
“I am not.”
“You’ve got feelings for him, even if you won’t admit it.”
“I do not.”
“Mom thinks it’s great you’ve got a boyfriend.”
That stopped Robin as if she’d been pole-axed.
“Mom?” Robin asked after a long silence.
“Sure. I tell her about you. She’s interested in what you’re doing.”
“I didn’t know she was interested in whether I’m still alive.”
“Life is full of surprises. Look, I’ve got to get back to work. If the guy just wants to help you get fit, that’s great. You could use it. If he’s interested in more, that’s great, too. You deserve it. But if you’re not interested in his offer, give him my number, will you? I think I’m ready for a personal trainer.”
That notion galvanized Robin. Nancy horning in on Manfred. Well, his offer to train her, she meant. What gall!
“Thank you, Nancy. But I’m going to accept the offer.”
As Robin hung up, she pretended that she didn’t hear Nancy chuckle again.
Robin called David Solomonovich’s work number from a pay phone outside a nearby Walgreen’s drugstore. She was taking no chances that the CIA would be able to trace the call back to her house. She hoped to get a number from David’s office where she could reach him at the University of Chicago, since he attended classes during the morning hours. But she got lucky because he was on some kind of quarterly break or something and she was put right through to the boy wonder himself.
“Hi, it’s me,” Robin said, not giving her name.
Because he was a genius, David immediately drew the proper inference from the fact that Robin hadn’t identified herself by name: He wasn’t to use her name or his own; they’d talk between the lines.
“Hi,” David said, “nice to hear from you again.”
Tell me what the heck’s going on.
“Did you stop by yesterday but not come in?”
What in God’s name did you think you were doing?
“I happened to be in the neighborhood, but didn’t want to bother you.”
Okay, you caught me, but I was only doing what you asked.
“Did you happen to bump into a friend of mine in passing?”
Are you crazy or what, giving warnings to someone five times your size?
“Friend, was that a friend of yours?”
Hey, this monster was the guy you were worried about, remember? I was just trying to help.
“You made quite an impression. He’s going to ask his friend from Washington to see if you have any mutual acquaintances.”
He’s putting the CIA on your tail, you idiot.
“I doubt there’s anyone to find, and it’s a shame but I happen to be going out of town since I’m off of school for a while.”
I didn’t leave any tracks, and I’m blowing this pop stand.
“Well, have a nice time then.”
“I will. And I’ll look forward to collecting on my IOU when I get back.”
The subtext of that line was painfully obvious. Robin hung up. She looked down at herself standing there in her new gray sweatclothes. What did David see in her? For that matter, what did Manfred? He did see something, didn’t he?
With great trepidation, Robin headed off to stop being fat and start being strong.
Robin never would have made it through the front doors of St. Malachy’s if the gray-haired man in the black suit hadn’t been there to meet her. It was lunchtime and any number of teenage boys idled about the grounds of the school. They were remarkably well behaved for specimens of their kind, but even so they couldn’t help but notice — check out — someone new approaching their turf. As she passed various knots of students, Robin heard the raw, raucous laughter that came from those first torrents of testosterone, and she was sure that at least some of it was at her expense. She felt absolutely elephantine in her gray sweats, and would have walked right on past the school except the man in the black suit stepped forward and intercepted her, extending his hand.
Robin made good and sure she only shook it.
The man said, “You must be Ms. Phinney. Coach Welk said we might have the pleasure of your company. I thought I might welcome you.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Brother.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m Brother Damian, Order of Christian Brothers, headmaster of St. Malachy’s.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I come out here at lunchtime to keep an eye on things and catch a smoke.”
Brother Damian put the index finger and thumb of his left hand to his lips and inhaled deeply ... but he wasn’t holding a cigarette. He saw the look Robin gave him and smiled.
“My confessor and I got into a debate last year as to whether smoking is a sin, since everyone knows that it’s suicide on the installment plan. Our argument proved inconclusive, but the lack of a clear-cut victory was enough to make me reconsider my wicked habit. So, I gave up smoking in fact and continue to smoke symbolically. I hope that will please both God and my doctor, but I’m afraid it amuses the students no end. I don’t see why, as so many of them play the air-guitar — but you may have noticed some of them laughing at me.”
With that, of course, he eliminated any possibility that anyone had been laughing at Robin.
“Allow me to show you to our gymnasium,” Brother Damian said, and gestured to a nearby door.
Robin thanked him again, and walking at his side, nobody laughed at either of them.
The gym was sparkling clean and there was a hint of some perfumed disinfectant in the air, but beneath it all was the smell of sweat, of generations of boys who had used this space for their games, hurling their bodies into one another, ye
lling and cheering and cursing. Well, no, not cursing, not as long the likes of Brother Damian had been around. Still, it was an environment that made Robin feel powerfully out of place.
“I’ll leave you here,” Brother Damian said. “Coach Welk will be with you momentarily. I’ve noticed him sticking his head out of his office at ten second intervals.” Robin didn’t doubt the school’s headmaster noticed everything that went on in his domain. “Oh, look, here he is now. A pleasure to have met you, Ms. Phinney. Feel free to visit us any time.”
Brother Damian waved to Manfred and left the gym.
Manfred walked over to her and Robin was sure he was sizing her up every step of the way, as if she were some underachieving student he was going to have to work hard to whip into shape. Which reassured her no end. Busting a gut she could handle; hanky-panky, especially with Brother Damian lurking like an all-seeing God, no way.
Manfred gave her his little nod.
“You came. Gut.”
Robin noticed that his German accent was much thicker in this place.
The better to scare you with, she thought.
He gestured for her to come along and she followed him to the weight room.
They started with stretches. Robin was amazed at how supple Manfred was; he bent, folded and twisted his massive body with a plasticity that would have done credit to an Indian yogi. She was appalled at her own rigidity; she had all the flexibility of a two-by-four. Next came rope jumping. She seemed to remember being able to jump rope for hours at a time as a girl. Now, she lasted thirty seconds with four misses, three of which nearly sent her sprawling on her face. Robin glared at Manfred to make sure he wasn’t laughing at her clumsiness, her total red-faced, air-gulping lack of aerobic fitness.
But he remained deadpan.
“You will get better,” he said.
More of an order than a prediction, Robin thought.
Finally, they moved to the weights themselves. Manfred told her that there were over six hundred muscles in the human body and he could show her how to exercise all of the ones that worked voluntarily. But they would start with the two main strength-builders: squats for the lower body; bench-presses for the upper body.