by Pierre Rey
"I don't believe a word of it," he said. She summoned a smile. ''Want me to invite you?" "Why you getting married?" She thought about that for several seconds. "To tell the truth, I don't know. What's your last name?"
He hesitated, but then admitted, "Baretto." Renata fleetingly tested Renata Baretto in her mind. "Love him?" he asked. "No."
'Then why you marrying him?" "I have no idea. But it’s too late, Lando. The wheels are turning."
He shrugged.
'I’m not alone, you know," she said. "The whole town knows about it And all those guests. I couldn't do that to my father."
"What does your old man do?"
"He's a banker."
"In Zurich?"
"Yes. And you—what do you do?"
‘I’m retired."
She burst out laughing.
"I used to be a professional soccer player. Now I run a chain of laundromats in Switzerland, France, Italy. Expanding into Austria."
"There's never been such a stupid marriage. And if s my own!" She made as if to get out of the bed. "Have to go now."
He pulled her back and hugged her. "You know, what happened between us, to me that was something real spe cial."
'To me too," she said seriously.
"Why don’t you come along with me?"
"Where to?"
"Wherever you want."
"Not now, Lando. No can do."
"Car's downstairs. We could just take off."
She looked thoughtfully at him, and he could sense her hesitation.
"You know, you're doing something terribly foolish. You feel good with me?"
She cuddled up to him.
"So?" he asked.
Without looking at him, she whispered quickly, "What you gave to me—no, you'd never be able to understand!"
She pulled away. His mind was churning as he tried desperately to find what would keep her with him. If only he could slug her, how simple it would be! He watched her climb down from the loft-bed, get into her panties, and slip on the skirt of her blue suit Then he came down after her.
"I can barely stand," she said.
Her legs were trembling, and she had to sit down on the couch. He sat beside her, and she let her head fall into the hollow of his shoulder, her hand caressing the muscles of his chest.
"Lando..."
"Don't go!"
If he had kept still, she might not have had the cour age to leave, but that phrase spurred her on. She got up with great effort, fastened her brassiere, and mumbled, "What's happening to me is just crazy. Just plain crazy!"
Looking into a mirror, she was startled. "My God! I look a hundred years old! What ever did you do to me, Lando?"
"Nothing—since you're leaving."
'Try to understand."
"No."
Tears welled up in her eyes.
‘‘Lando, tomorrow—if you want—I swear to you, I'll get a divorce."
He held her shoes out to her.
"You'll be late. It's one-thirty."
He had lost: his instinct told him there was no longer any way to make her give in.
"I don't even have time to go and change," she said. 'This is awful."
I’ll see you back."
Later, in the car, she said to him, 'I’d like to have a picture of you. Do you have one?" "No."
"Do you want one of me?"
It was almost 2:00 a.m. They were riding slowly along Stampfenbachstrasse, - which was now completely empty, its store windows lighted for no one to see. "Let me out!" Renata said.
Lando braked. She got out and quickly crossed the street. Between two high-class gift shops there was a little Photomaton hut Renata slipped in and pulled the curtain shut Lando vaguely noticed her legs in the space between the floor and the curtain.
The electric flash went off four times. Then Renata was back in the car with him.
"Quick she said.
Without looking at him, she held out the wet strip of snapshots. He glanced at it made a face, and leaned over and whispered something in her ear.
Renata looked surprised. "No," she said, "no, not now. Some other time."
Lando whispered a few more words. She hesitated, got out of the car, and went into the photo cabin again. When she closed the curtain, Lando noted that her legs disappeared from his field of vision.
Four more flashes lighted up the night
Lando turned on the ignition. He smilingly looked at the strip of pictures she was sliding over to him. This time they showed something else, from four slightly different angles: Renata's vulva. Lando slipped them into his pocket and tooled away from the curb.
"Renata," he said, "just in case you change your mind—I’ll leave you my ear. The keys'll be on the dash board, m wait for you at the apartment as long as I have to."
She took his hand, squeezed it very hard, and brought it to her lips.
Toward one o'clock, the eldest among the guests began to sit down around the small tables. They were unac customed to staying up so late. Chimene, feeling disaster on the horizon, wrung her hands and stormed toward her future son-in-law, who had just reappeared.
"Kurt! Did you find her?"
"No, ma'am. No, I couldn't discover a thing. She doesn't seem to be anywhere."
"Oh, heaven! What will I ever tell the reverend?"
"I'm not worried about the reverend, but about Renata!" Kurt answered her. "Everybody's here—except her. And she's the bride! Listen, didn't she give you any clue?"
"Not the slightest"
"You were the last one who saw her."
"I thought you had seen her after I did."
"Not at all. We left each other at noon."
"What can we do? Oh, Lord! What can we do?"
"Where is your husband?"
"Homer? I'm not sure. He was here just a minute ago."
"This entire thing isn't normal. Maybe Renata took ill..."
"But where, if she did?"
"I’ll telephone the police."
"But—but—what about all these people?"
"Let them sit down and eat They seem to be doing that already anyway."
"Ill go ask the reverend what he thinks we ought to do."
'Tf you wish, ma'am. But he certainly doesn’t have your daughter in his pocket"
As Kurt turned, he was grabbed by a group of young friends.
"All right already! So where's the Frau? We're getting hungry!"
"Go eat!"
He went his way, looking for Kloppe, whom he found at the far end of the living room, in conversation with two middle-aged men. Barely apologizing, Kurt pulled the banker away by his sleeve.
"I can't figure out what's going on. Renata still hasn't arrived."
"Have you tried our place upstairs?"
"Yes. She's not there either."
"What did Manuella say?"
"She hasn't seen her since four this afternoon."
Kloppe was getting sharp pains in his jaw, which immediately made him suspect that Volpone had staged an other assault.
"We have to call the police," he said.
As long as only he had been attacked, Homer Kloppe had stood his ground, refusing to involve the police in per sonal problems that were mere extensions of his banking business, but this time Volpone had gone too far. Even if it resulted in a public scandal, Homer now felt he had been all too slow to call in the authorities.
"Phone the cantonal police headquarters right away. Ask for Lieutenant Fritz Blesh. Tell him to start hunt ing for her!"
Chimene caught up with them, her face tense with worry, although by reflex she was still able to smile, and wave kisses to those of the guests who were making friend ly signs to her.
"What's going on?" she demanded. "Where's Renata? What’ve you decided to do?"
"Just keep calm," Homer told her. "Kurt is going to alert the police."
"But, Homer—all these people . . ." Two hundred formally attired people, glasses in hand, were standing around in small groups, and a rumble o
f impatience was beginning to be heard.
"Is anything wrong?" Joseph Heinz politely inquired. A couple of inches behind him, like his very shadow, was his wife, Utte.
"No, father, nothing," Kurt told him. "Everything's just fine. Take mother over there and sit down."
He looked at his mother, who seemed to hold him somehow responsible for the fact that his fiancée was late.
"Your son is right, Frau Heinz,’’ Chimene said. "Do go and sit down. I’ll instruct the staff to start serving.’’
"I haven't had the pleasure of seeing Renata yet," Joseph Heinz put in.
"Look, father, to tell you the truth, neither have I. But there's no time to talk about that now. Just go and sit down."
"You mean your fiancee isn't here yet?" Utte asked with a woeful look, and Kurt suddenly hated her for that green dress.
Chimene grabbed, one of the butlers. "Have the din ner service started immediately."
After a few too many glasses of bubbly, several smart alecks, claiming that the decor had made them seasick, were lying on their backs, inert among the upside-down chandeliers, their eyes staring at the furniture hanging from above. A bell rang to announce dinner, and the first people to get seated and read the menu burst out laugh ing, imagining that the printer had made a mistake. But the waiters were already bringing in trays of steaming hot coffee and bottles of Grande Fine Champagne cognac.
For just a moment the guests seemed to hesitate. How were they supposed to react to this flouting of con vention?
"Great!" someone cried out "Well have the oysters for dessert!"
The idea caught on and succeeded in unbending those guests who appeared to have swallowed their umbrellas —mostly invited by the elder Kloppes. The coffee was very welcome, partly owing to the numerous glasses of liquor that had been imbibed. While the passionate sherbet was being served, Chimene worried about how her guests would like eating the charlotte au chocolat next followed by the cheeses.
Chimene didn't recognize her own apartment. Even her prized paintings, hung upside down, seemed unfamiliar after thirty years of peaceful coexistence. This whole thing was maniacal, nightmarish, not to be believed. She didn't know which was more terrifying: Renata's prolonged ab sence, or the frightful panic she felt at the idea of Zurich's entire upper crust brought out in the middle of the night to attend a wedding that couldn't take place because the bride didn't show up!
"Kurt! Where are you going?" people were asking.
He was rushing among the tables, unable to get away from the outstretched hands, trying to put on a good face and pretending to laugh at the jokes coming at him from all sides. He patted a shoulder here, winked knowingly there, trying to make it appear that he was the one who knew the real secret and had the key to the mystery. At the beginning, Renata's absence had not been so noticeable, but now whispers were running from table to table, all sorts of knowledgeable nods suggesting some unforeseen coup de theatre. Just as he was about to reach the steps to the vestibule, Kurt found himself face to face with Pastor Lustz.
"Professor Heinz!"
"Yes, reverend?"
"Where is your betrothed?"
"On her way. I'm off to get her."
He pushed the man aside, ran down the steps, and grabbed the phone.
"Get me the police!" he shouted into it.
He was craning his neck to be able to see beyond the stacks of coats and keep an eye on the door. The three women working the cloakroom looked at him curiously.
"Let me talk to Lieutenant Blesh! Emergency!'‘
Just then he saw the front door open, and Renata entered.
"Do you have an invitation?" one of the cloakroom ladies asked her.
' Kurt was struck by her strange absent look. Her face was pale, taut, her hair unkempt She was not wearing her salmon-colored gown, but a lavender-blue afternoon suit that looked unpressed. Was she even wearing makeup?
"Renata!" he called, as he hung up the phone, his fear suddenly turned into anger. "Where have you been? You've kept everybody waiting! Your parents are beside them selves! I was just calling the police!"
The three women were all ears. "You, mind your coat business," he barked at them.
He took Renata's arm and pulled her into a corner. . She was eyeing him as if she had never seen him before..
"Will you tell me what this is all about? Why, you're not even properly dressed! Renata, I'm talking to you!"
She noted his sweat-gleaming face, tight with exas peration: this guy was a stranger. She was going to marry him, of course, but no later than tomorrow she would start divorce proceedings.
He shook her violently. "Are you high oh drugs, or what? Renata! Where the hell have you been?"
Wearily, she freed herself from his grip. "Kurt, do you expect me to marry you?"
"What are you saying?" he stammered.
"Well, if you do, just fuck off! Don't ask me any more questions!"
Floored, he took a step backward.
"But you can't... The way you look..."
"If you don't take me up there right now, I’m going away again!"
She started up the stairs, and he followed her, barely catching up to her as they reached the landing. He was just able to take her arm with a conquering, possessive air as they crossed the threshold of the grand salon.
"Here she is now!" someone shouted.
Renata summoned a smile as an ovation greeted her. The women whispered as she went by, wondering what was the significance of the lavender-blue suit at such an hour. After all, maybe she had intended it that way—everything was strange about this whole affair. Decidedly, Zurich wasn't Zurich anymore!
Renata sat at the table with her future in-laws.
"Problems?" Joseph Heinz quietly inquired.
"I'll tell you later," Renata said.
An overzealous waiter made a point of bringing her all the things she had missed since the dinner began: co gnac, coffee, sherbet, charlotte, cheeses; and a slice of sad dle of lamb. He leaned over to her and knowledgeably whispered, "You're s'posed to start with the coffee. And hurry up, the bass in pastry shell is on its way!"
"Take it all back," Renata ordered.
"Aren't you hungry?" Joseph asked her.
"Renata, oh, Renata," Chimene was saying.
Chimene had come over from her own table to find out how things were. The blue suit hit her in the solar plexus.
"But—what happened to your dress?" she asked.
Renata sweetly put her arm around her mother's neck and hissed into her ear, "Mom, "if you don't get back to your own table, I’m getting up and leaving."
Chimene, shocked and hurt, beat a hasty retreat.
Right after the dessert—Belon oysters on the half shell—a bit of news circulated through the room that ex cited all the guests: an Italian banker, having gone to the men's room, had looked every which way for a urinal. Finally, he located it where he least expected to find it— hanging from the ceiling. All the male guests rushed in to see this eighth wonder of the world—and to speculate on how it might be used.
Paster Lustz discreetly signaled to the engaged cou ple, their witnesses, and their parents. All together, they went into a room that had remained off limits to the assembled guests. Usually it was an office. This night, with benefit of clergy, it would be turned into a chapel.
The pastor read all the customary phrases. Then he asked, "Kurt Heinz, do you take Renata Kloppe to be your wife?"
"I do," Kurt said.
Chimene bit her lips to keep the tears back.
"Renata Kloppe, do you take Kurt Heinz to be your husband?"
"I do," said Renata without raising her eyes.
"I now declare you man and wife."
The doors opened wide and all the guests started flocking into the tiny room to smother the newlyweds with kisses and hugs. At the same instant, the wave of sound that swelled from their congratulations was drowned in the powerful noise of a motor: the copter was coming in.
Everyone
began to rush toward the stairway leading up to the terraced roof. Pushed by those behind, the peo ple in the front were shoved into violent gusts of wind that hit them like slaps in the face. Some of the women in evening dresses began to shiver, cuddling up against their escorts, who opened their tuxedo jackets as if they could afford protection. But there was no going back down; the stairway was jammed.