by Jeremy Welch
He stood over the pimp, his legs straddled across the prone pimp’s torso.
“I’ll be watching you. You so much as lay a finger on one of those girls, I’ll know. You understand me?”
The pimp nodded.
“And buy your own fucking trainers, you little shit,” Sebastian snarled at the pimp.
His adrenaline now dissipated, he had achieved what he had set out to do. He placed the knife inside one of the shoes and with a swing of his arm threw the trainers into the canal. With the splash from the water he knew this had been an error. He first felt the sharp pain of a fist hitting his testicles. The pain made him double over, presenting a perfect target for his opponent. The pimp crashed his forehead into Sebastian’s face at nose bridge level. The pain like an electric shock sending waves of pain into his brain. He couldn’t think. He knew he was out of his depth, his upbringing had not taught him street survival; that’s all the pimp’s upbringing had been, from some hellish decayed town to the hellish pimping world of trafficked women. He represented street-style natural selection at its evolutionary apex.
Sebastian curled into the foetal position exposing only his back, his face barricaded in his arms and his hands covering the top of his skull. The pimp still found a way in, raining punches onto his jawbone, kidneys and liver. Sebastian was thankful that he had thrown away the shoes or the kicking would have been more severe. His body screaming in pain from all quarters. The pounding continued but the pain didn’t increase, it couldn’t.
He heard the heavy breathing after the last punch connected with his temple.
“If you ever come here again. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.” The voice thick with a foreign accent made almost unintelligible by the fat swollen lower lip.
The pimp reached into his inside jacket pocket. The lighter flicked alive and the cigarette glowed. After the first inhalation of smoke the pimp coughed and spat an oyster of bloody phlegm smelling of tobacco into Sebastian’s face.
“Understand?”
Sebastian whimpered.
Sebastian didn’t hear him leave the alley on his stockinged feet. He did see his shadow approach as he walked away towards the lights of Oudezijds Voorburgwal. He remained stationary, curled into a ball, aching.
He heard the bang on the windows.
“Get your coat. We’re done for tonight.”
A female voice raised a protest.
“No, you can’t get changed. Get your fucking coat. Let’s go.”
Sebastian heard the clicking of heels recede down the street.
The last thought as he passed out was one of uselessness. He had failed as a street fighter and with the two essential human functions inoperative – his balls aching and his eyes swollen – he really wasn’t much use in the red light district either.
3
He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. He did know it had rained. His clothes were wet, his hair damp and a cold chill made him shiver. He struggled onto his hands and knees and crawled onto Oudezijds Voorburgwal. The pain was ubiquitous. He slumped into a doorway.
Sitting in the doorway he looked down into the pool of rainwater pixelated by the cobbles. Slowly his eyes focused on the hydra-headed reflection. The faces were fractured and gaunt and the iris of their eyes held in bruised orbits of off white by fissures of red. There was a sheen of sweat on the faces making the many images seem almost in relief as the dimming red lights of the whore’s cabin melded with the slit yellow hint of sunrise.
Christ, he hurt; liver, kidneys, eye, nose and head ached. The lower part of his legs filthy with grime from the street, his right foot rested on a used condom. He wasn’t conscious of the act just felt the heat of tears running down his cheeks.
He sensed he was slipping into unconsciousness when he felt the welcome warmth of a fur-cuffed hand wrap around his shoulder, the end of which glowed with five perfectly painted scarlet nails.
“Sebastian, what are you doing here?” she said.
“Saying a goodbye…” were the last words he mumbled before passing out.
Chapter 20
1
“OK, so what are we going to do with him? We can’t leave him here. Anneke, I been planning this for ages, he can’t ruin it, it’s too important.” The voice was foreign, angry and vaguely recognisable.
“We can handle it,” a deep voice replied, a voice of authority.
“Well you had better!” It was said accusingly.
A door opened and shut with a bang.
Sebastian felt the bed open up and swallow him. It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling; the sheets seemed to wrap around him like a shroud. He sank further down; it was warm and safe where he was going.
“We can, can’t we, Umuntu?” Her voice searching for an answer.
2
It was dusk when he woke to a sharp pain. His kidneys felt as if a stiletto blade had entered them – short, sharp and twisted. He turned in the bed. The sheet had been tucked tight around his body and an eiderdown kept him warm. He wriggled his arms out from under the sheets and with each movement a new pain announced its presence.
Sebastian tentatively sat up in bed. Even in the purple light of dusk he could see the walls were white with a photograph perfectly centred on each. His arm reached out for a bedside table; there was no side light, just a glass of water and a bowl of lukewarm water with a flannel neatly rolled up. A pool of yellow light invaded the room from under the closed door.
“Hello?”
He groaned as he shuffled towards the door. The pain was everywhere.
Opening the door onto a small hallway he tried again.
“Hello?”
There was no response.
The light reflected off the bathroom mirror making the room seem much bigger. He looked down to undo his flies for a pee and was surprised to feel the flannel of striped pyjama bottoms. It hurt to pee; inspecting the arc of liquid he noticed it was not the usual yellow but a rusty brown. The water in the bowl turned a weak red.
Turning to the washbasin a partially recognisable face looked back from the large medicine cabinet mirror. Staring back at him was a face that had taken a beating. Both eyes swollen and red like the inside of a pomegranate, a darkening skin topped his nose.
“Christ.” He placed a hand on either side of the washbasin as he half swallowed a bitter reflux of bile escaping his stomach. He gagged and spat. He remembered too.
He heard keys being placed on a table and the rustle of plastic shopping bags. Before he could speak he gagged again, a dry back-of-throat gag.
“Sebastian, you OK?”
When he looked up at the mirror Anneke was behind him. He nodded at her reflection.
“It’s too early for that, I’d avoid mirrors for a while. Those are going to become spectacular bruises.” Her hands reached and glided over the swelling without touching the skin.
“Come next door, I’ve got something from the pharmacy to dress those.”
She led him into the sitting room. The room was lit by uplighters and a collection of lamps on pale blue side tables giving a gentle glow rather than illumination to the room. Like the bedroom the walls and the wooden floorboards were painted white. The centre of the room was occupied by a blue lacquered table at knee height covered with perfectly spaced fashion magazines, the table surrounded by cream sofas with colourful silk cushions. Every surface had a vase of flowers, the vases empty of water and the silk flowers shining with the light. The room had a sense of order that told of the recent visit of a cleaner.
He sat on one of the sofas as Anneke opened cotton wool packages and a bottle of Dettol.
“Do you remember anything of last night?”
He winced as she applied the liquid to the bruising over his eyebrow.
“Unfortunately, yes. Almost all of it, well up to when I passed out on Oudezijds V
oorburgwal.” He raised his hand to touch the bridge of his nose. “How did I get here?”
“It was our last night. After the show we started the packing up. You know we are off in the next two days?”
Sebastian nodded and realised he hadn’t managed to leave before them after all.
“By the time we had finished the initial pack up it was late. On the way back the troupe went to some club for an end-of-show party. Umuntu and I walked back and he was just about to enter his apartment when I saw a crumpled heap. I didn’t know it was you. Umuntu told me to cross the canal in case it was a comatosed junkie. Lucky for you I didn’t. As I got closer I recognised your jacket.”
He kept perfectly still as she dabbed gently with the cotton wool. To alleviate the pain of the medicine he concentrated on a photograph on the sideboard. The photograph was of a smiling couple at the end of a fashion runway. The model was attractive and her makeup exaggerated. Standing next to her was a neat and precise, almost feminine, man of the same height with dark hair perfectly cut around his ears and parted at the side. He was wearing a black suit and a white shirt with the top button undone. His arm raised in salutation acknowledging praise.
“Umuntu carried you back here and put you to bed.”
He leant forward to look at the dimly lit photograph. He thought he recognised the woman. The man vaguely familiar but undefined when he tried to recall the face from his memory.
“Keep still, Sebastian, I can’t do this if you keep moving.”
A drop of Dettol got into his eye.
“Sorry about that, you OK?”
Sebastian rubbed his eyes creating tears and blurred vision.
“Well it’s the best I can do for the moment. Look, why don’t you have a shower and I’ll make us some food. You must be starving. There is a spare towel in the bathroom.”
Turning the light on in his bedroom the four photographs came alive from a cluster of spotlights held in an orb set in the ceiling. Each photograph was of the same model as the one in the sitting room, the same setting, a catwalk setting. The clothes she modelled were extravagant and of the unwearable type beloved of the fashion world. He approached each in turn. He did know the model. She was the one in the photo pinned up behind the bar at the Vlinder. The one above his bed showed her arriving at the start of the catwalk; the soft curtains at the entrance to the walkway seemed to cling to her as she made her entrance. A board above the curtained entrance announced, “The Jurgen Collection”. He leant closer to the picture. In the right of the photograph looking from backstage and almost obscured by the curtain was the same man, dressed in black with a white open-necked shirt. With his eyes still smarting from the Dettol the face was vaguely familiar but Sebastian couldn’t attach a name.
He heard Anneke clattering around in the kitchen preparing supper as shower water hissed down. He felt a hint of a coming headache and opened the bathroom cabinet looking for painkillers. The inside was neat, disciplined and contained an impressive array of makeup. It had been arranged on the shelves in order of use. On the top row was a selection of cleansers and moisturisers from Clinique. He was surprised to see on the next row a collection of Mehron paint sticks next to containers of foundation, concealer and highlighters all made by Kryolan. Both brand names he was familiar with from his student days as the head of makeup at the university theatrical society. The Kryolan brand had been founded by a 1920s chemist, Arnold Langer, who had been mesmerised by the glitz and glamour of 1920s Berlin. He had combined both interests to specialise in the production of makeup for the stage, cinema and television. It was not everyday makeup. A small tube of eyebrow wax had a set of tweezers next to it. The final two shelves had a selection of coloured skin toners, mascara, eyeshadows and lipsticks.
He stood under the shower and felt better as the water washed away the dried sweat from the previous night. The slight pain of his head remained. He looked for a laundry basket to put his pyjamas into. In the corner was a wicker basket with the arm of a silk shirt hanging out. He lifted the lid and was embarrassed to see a bra. As he pushed the washing down in the basket his finger caught the bra, not on the strap but in a slit of a pocket at the back of the cup.
Back in his bedroom his clothes were washed and ironed in a neat pile on a white chair. He searched through his jacket pocket for his lighter. The note to Anneke from the inside pocket had gone. Standing close to the photograph he flicked the flint of the lighter to get more light onto the photograph. The man in the corner shone back at him. He knew he recognised the face, not as it was in the photograph but what the face could become.
“Are you ready for something to eat?” Anneke asked from the kitchen.
He dressed quickly.
“Give me a minute.”
Sebastian returned to the bathroom, closed and locked the door. He looked around him, looking for some drawers or another cupboard. Below the sink was a small unit with one drawer. He knew what he was looking for. He opened the drawer and neatly placed on a towel was a cellophane package containing two perfectly formed small, nippleless breasts made of silicone gel.
He raised his face to the mirror; he didn’t see his battered face. He saw Anneke crush a cigarette with her Doc Martens; saw her tired and overly made-up after a night of watching football; saw her always let her hair drop to cover her face. He heard Pepper say, “Anneke, shy, reserved and not what she is”, Umuntu’s speech after his tour of the red light district, “Things are never quite as they seem. Are they?”
He inhaled deeply, shut the drawer and closed the cabinet door on the makeup. Straightening his back he pushed his shirt further into his trouser waistband and then did something he hadn’t done since an earlier age: he buttoned his top shirt button.
“It’s ready, Sebastian, you can tell me what happened over supper.”
He walked into her small kitchen where she had placed two bowls of soup on a neatly arranged table. She turned with a smile half-formed on her lips. She looked at him standing in the doorway, studying him closely and in silence. Her face seemed to relax totally, the muscles around her mouth and cheeks at ease. Sebastian thought she looked peaceful, almost serene.
“Sit down,” she said softly as she reached for her cigarettes. Sebastian slowly and quietly sat at the table with his hands in his lap. She lit two cigarettes, handing one to Sebastian.
He drew on his cigarette; his hand shook slightly as he pulled the cigarette from his lip.
“You never suspected, did you?” She spoke gently.
Sebastian’s eyes roamed her face. Her makeup was perfectly applied to alter the main differences between a man and woman; he knew how difficult that process was to achieve. He had never quite managed that; there had always been one feature that had betrayed his efforts and the character under the stage light was never as convincing as he had wanted. Her hair cut with the wispy bangs had narrowed her forehead and the bony bridge that runs across the forehead above the eyes had been softened and smoothed. The eyebrow wax and plucking had moved her eyebrows from their natural position on the orbital rim bone to above the bone making them finer and curved. Her eyes showed her skill to the fullest; she had overcome the deep set of men’s eyes by using eyelash curlers and mascara. Her application of eye makeup removed the shadow from the brow ridge making her eyes seem less deeply set in their sockets. The use of shadowing and contouring had lifted her cheekbones and narrowed her nose which rested on fuller lipstick-covered lips narrowing the distance between the base of the nose and the top lip.
“No. I wasn’t looking. I suppose I never look beyond my assumptions.”
She poured two glasses of red wine and placed one in front of Sebastian before she sat down opposite him. They sat in silence.
“Who are the people in the photographs?” He felt foolish asking, but wanted to know why Anneke had become who she was.
She took a sip of wine and carefully placed the glass in the
exact place she had raised it from.
“The one in the suit is me.”
Anneke had always struck him as rather sexless, but perhaps not to other women.
“Tell me about her.”
Anneke looked away from him to stare through the kitchen window into the orange yellow of the streetlit night.
“I love her. I loved her with my entire soul.” She spoke slightly above a whisper.
She started to talk, not to him, but to some invisible listener beyond the room.
“I had left the ESMOD fashion school in Berlin. Like so many others I wanted to design my own range of clothes. I didn’t want to work for one of the big established fashion houses. I was broke, of course, so did the design, cutting and sewing in my flat. I thought my creations could sell themselves. It took me time to understand that the creation of such beautiful designs can only be fully appreciated if worn by someone of matching beauty.”
She walked through to the bedroom and placed the photograph of the girl with the curtain clinging to her in front of Sebastian.
“Don’t you agree?” There was a hint of a smile.
She didn’t wait for an answer and sat down.
“I met her at a fashion party. I knew the moment I saw her I wanted her to be part of me. I had never been more assured of anything in my life. I think you know that feeling, Sebastian, don’t you?”
This time she did wait; she looked at him almost willing him to give the answer she wanted. If it was the answer she wanted he would hear the rest of the story. If it wasn’t, the story wouldn’t be told. He knew what she meant; he now knew that she had always known. She had recognised it in him when they first met at dinner in the Envy.
“Yes, I know that feeling exactly. Did you know when we first met?”
She nodded her head and continued the narrative.
“She started modelling my clothes. Over time the Jurgen Collection became quite famous amongst a cult following. We had a shop here in Amsterdam, one in Berlin and were thinking about opening one in London. The range grew, the cut altered and the style morphed though not with current trends. We were always trying to be different to the mainstream. I really had two ranges. One was designed and cut for distribution for retail. The other was for her.”