Dirty Snow (11 page)

He had gone to the movies with Sissy again. By that time everything had been decided, all arrangements made between him and Kromer. Sissy, of course, knew nothing.

The same day he had asked his mother, “Are you going out on Sunday?”

“Probably. Why?”

She went out every Sunday. She went to the movies, then to eat pastry and listen to music.

“Will Bertha be going to her parents'?”

The house was usually closed on Sundays. Bertha would go see her parents, who lived in the country and thought she worked as a housemaid for a nice family.

Only Minna would be in the apartment. Nothing could be done about that.

As soon as they were seated at the movies—it was Friday—Sissy had asked, like a little girl begging for something, “Is it all right if I do this?”

She shifted in her seat a little, pushed Frank's arm out of the way, took off her hat, and buried her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

She almost purred, there was such an innocent satisfaction in her first little sigh.

“You're not uncomfortable? I'm not bothering you?”

He said nothing. Maybe she kept her eyes closed the whole time while he, this time, watched the film.

He hadn't touched her that afternoon. The idea of kissing her troubled him. She had suddenly pressed her lips against his, just once, a little before they reached their building. Then, just as she was leaving, when they were a step apart, she said very quickly, “Thank you, Frank.”

It was too late. Everything had in a way already begun. On Saturday the military police had come to search the apartment of the violinist and his mother. Frank had just stepped out when they arrived. When he came home, he could sense even from outside that there was something wrong with the building, though exactly what he couldn't tell. At the entrance a plainclothesman was talking to the concierge, who was trying to act natural.

When Frank reached the first landing—he had gone out to telephone Kromer—he found several men in uniform, three or four of them, who were keeping the housewives from going up to their apartments while preventing the other tenants from leaving.

Everyone was silent. It was deathly quiet. Other uniforms could be seen in the hall. The violinist's door was open—had they brought him back to be present at the search? There were noises of furniture being smashed and, at times, an old woman's pleading voice, beyond tears.

Frank had calmly taken out his green card, which he hadn't used yet, and everyone saw it, everyone knew what it meant. The soldiers stood back to let him pass. The silence behind him had grown even more oppressive.

He had done it on purpose. And the day before, he had brought Minna a dressing gown. He hadn't bought it in a shop; it was a long time since the shops had had any quilted satin dressing gowns. In any case, he couldn't be bothered to actually go into a shop.

His pockets had been stuffed with the money—he didn't know what to do with it all—that he had received as his share for the watches, enough large bills to feed an ordinary family, even two or three families, for years. At Timo's, as often happened, someone had been unpacking merchandise in one corner, and Frank had bought the dressing gown.

He half-believed he was buying it for Sissy. Not exactly, of course, since everything had been decided down to the smallest detail already. It was something he couldn't explain. He would give it to Minna, that was understood, but it wouldn't stop him from thinking about Sissy. Lotte would be furious. She would insist it looked like they were apologizing to Minna for her accident with that brute Otto.

It was the first time he had ever bought anything for a woman, something personal, and, crazy or not, the fact remained that he had Sissy partially in mind.

There was all that. Then there had been the replacement for Saturday—she had arrived already and was ill-tempered. What else had happened?

Nothing … Always this touch of a cold lingering, not getting any worse, this persistent headache, a vague discomfort in every part of his body that couldn't actually be called illness. The sky white as a sheet, whiter and purer than the snow, which looked as though it had hardened and on which there fell only a little icy dust.

Sunday morning he had tried to read. Then he had gone over to the window and stood looking out through the frosted panes at the empty street for so long, remaining so motionless, that Lotte, more and more uneasy about him, had grumbled, “You'd better take your bath while there's still hot water. Bertha is waiting her turn. If she goes first, the water will be lukewarm.”

Since the rooms wouldn't be used that day, Lotte wanted to install Minna in the bed in the little room, so she was surprised when her son said brusquely, “No. Put her in the big bedroom.”

Lotte sensed something. She knew he was expecting someone. She must have guessed it was Sissy. That was why she wanted the big bedroom free, thinking it would please him. She gave up.

“Whatever you want! You're planning on staying in?”

“I don't know. In any case, I'd prefer it if you didn't come home too early.”

As for Minna, she was idiotically grateful for the dressing gown, which she insisted on wearing in bed that day. She mistook it for a gesture of affection on his part. And for that very reason, before his bath, Frank seized Bertha, pushed her down across the foot of the bed, and took her. As usual in the morning she had nothing on over her big babyish body but a nightgown.

It didn't last more than three minutes. He did it angrily, as if seeking revenge. His cheek never brushed the girl's cheek. Their heads never touched. When it was over, he left her without a word.

During all this time an appetizing smell of cooking floated through the apartment. At last everybody was washed and dressed. They ate. Lotte was dressed almost like she used to be when she came to see him in the country; she had barely aged a day. He suspected she had started her so-called nail salon, and given up receiving men herself, for his sake.

She didn't need to be ashamed on his account.

Bertha, who had to make connecting trains, was the first to leave. Then Lotte powdered her face, looked at herself in the mirror, and hung around a while longer for no reason, still anxious.

“I think I'll have dinner in town.”

“I'd prefer that.”

She kissed him once on each cheek, then a second time on the first cheek, a thing that he detested because it reminded him of his wet-nurse. It was a mania with some people. Mechanically he counted, “Two … three!”

She went out and also waited for the streetcar at the corner. He knew that Minna, troubled about spending the whole day in the double bed in the big bedroom—at night it was Lotte's—couldn't keep her mind on the Zola novel he had loaned her.

She was waiting, without quite daring to expect it, for him to come to her, talk to her. She too had heard him knock on the door of the Holsts' apartment.

She wouldn't allow herself to be jealous, or at least to show it. She knew she wasn't a virgin, that she had come to Lotte's of her own free will, that she had nothing to hope for.

Nevertheless, after an hour, she tried a little ruse. She began by breathing hard, then she let out a little groan and allowed her book to fall to the floor.

“What's the matter?” he came in to ask.

“It hurts.”

He took the hot-water bottle and filled it in the kitchen, put it back on her belly, and, to show her that he didn't want to talk, picked up the book and laid it on the quilt beside her.

She didn't dare call him back. She couldn't hear him moving around. She wondered what he was doing. He wasn't reading, since all the doors were open and she would have heard him turning the pages. He wasn't drinking. He wasn't sleeping. Only from time to time he would go to the window and stand there for a minute.

She was frightened for him, and she knew that was the best way to repel him. He was old enough to know what he was doing. He was doing what he wanted to do. And he was doing it coldly. Once he had even gone over to the mirror to look at himself furtively, wanting to make sure his face was perfectly composed.

Hadn't he attracted Holst's attention, in the blind alley, when it wasn't necessary, when otherwise there would have been no witness to his act?

And, with the old Vilmos woman, had he used any tricks or ruses?

He wouldn't accept pity from anyone. Or anything that resembled pity. He never wanted to be the sort of coward who feels pity for himself.

That was what they would never understand, none of them, neither Lotte nor Minna nor Sissy. And in a little while Sissy would be out of the picture.

What had she been thinking, with her head on his shoulder all through the movie? Sometimes she lifted her head a little and asked, “I'm not bothering you, am I?”

His arm had fallen asleep, but nothing could have induced him to admit it.

Kromer wouldn't understand either. He didn't understand even now. Deep down Kromer was worried, although he wasn't going to say so. Worried about everything and nothing. Frank troubled him. Frank had his green card in his pocket and they were barely out of the offices of the military police when Kromer had asked him, “What are you going to do with it?”

And Frank had taken malicious pleasure in replying, “Nothing.”

Kromer didn't believe him. He tried to guess what Frank was scheming. He was no more reassured about the situation with Sissy.

“You really haven't touched her?”

“Only enough to know she's a virgin.”

“That doesn't do anything for you?” Then Kromer pretended to laugh, adding with a wink, “You're still too young!”

Kromer had seemed so ill at ease that Frank spent a good part of the afternoon wondering if he would show up. He was excited about Sissy. He must have tossed and turned all night thinking about her. But he was liable to panic at the last moment and go to Leonard's or somewhere and get drunk instead of keeping the appointment.

“Why didn't you tell her the truth?”

“Because she wouldn't have agreed.”

“You think she's in love with you? That's what you mean?”

“Maybe.”

“And when she finds out?”

“I guess it will be too late.”

In reality they were all a little bit afraid of Frank because he was willing to do what had to be done.

“What if her father shows up?”

“He can't leave his streetcar and it runs on Sunday.”

“If the neighbors … ?”

Frank preferred not to mention Monsieur Wimmer, who knew too much and might decide to interfere.

“The neighbors are always out on Sunday. If necessary the sight of my card will shut them up.”

That was true, broadly speaking. But there were fools who had let themselves be arrested for less than that, for the pleasure of shouting an insult in front of their friends at soldiers going by. And they were almost always people like Monsieur Wimmer.

Wimmer hadn't said anything to Holst so far. Perhaps because he didn't want to worry him, or because he thought he was clever enough to look out for Sissy himself. Or again, perhaps because he was convinced that she was a good enough girl not to get herself in trouble. Old people were like that. Including the ones who had had a child before they were married. Later on they forgot.

Minna let out another sigh. It was dark now. Frank thoughtfully went in to turn on her light, draw the curtains, and fill her hot-water bottle for the last time.

He would have preferred that she wasn't there. He didn't want any witnesses. So what? Wasn't it better, in fact, that someone should know, someone who would say nothing?

“Is she coming?” Minna asked.

He didn't reply. If he had picked the back room it was, first of all, because it had a door that opened right into the hall. And you could get to it from the kitchen.

“Is she coming, Frank?”

That was in bad taste. In front of his mother she called him “Monsieur Frank.” It annoyed him that she should be less formal when they were alone, and he replied impatiently, “It's none of your business.”

She seemed contrite, but then almost immediately she asked, “Will it be her first time?”

No, not that, of all things! No sentimentality, please! He had a horror of girls who felt sorry for other girls who hadn't gone through the things they had. Was she going to ask him, in another minute, to promise not to hurt Sissy?

Luckily, Kromer rang just then. He had come after all. He was even ten minutes early, which was irritating because Frank didn't want to talk. Kromer had just had a bath. His skin, too pink, too smooth, smelled like a whore's.

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Your mother?”

“No.” And out loud, on purpose, “There's a girl in the next room who got her plumbing wrecked by some bastard.”

It wouldn't have taken much for Kromer to run away, but Frank was careful to shut the door behind him.

“Come in. Don't be frightened. Take off your coat.”

He noted scornfully that Kromer wasn't smoking his usual cigar but sucking a mint instead.

“What'll you have?”

Kromer was afraid of drinking, which might affect his performance.

“Come into the kitchen. That's where you'll wait. In our house it's the holy of holies.”

Frank sniggered like a drunk, and yet the glass of brandy he clinked against Kromer's was the first drink he'd had today. Happily his companion didn't know it. He would probably have been really terrified if he did.

“There it is. It'll happen the way I told you.”

“What if she turns on the light?”

“Have you ever known a girl who wanted the lights on?”

“What if she speaks to me and I don't answer?”

“She won't speak.”

Even those ten minutes were long. He followed their slow passage on the face of the alarm clock over the stove.