Katherine Carlyle (17 page)

“Home?”

“My friend’s apartment.” I gesture towards reception, which seems far away, on some horizon. “He’ll be worried.”

“One drink,” Raul says. “In my room.”

As he alters his grip on my arm he brushes my breast with the back of his hand.

“That wasn’t part of the agreement,” I say.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

He pushes me up against the wall next to the lift, then jabs the call button. “One hour in my room,” he says. “You come now.” He has me pinned. I can smell the musk duck on his breath.

An elderly Japanese couple approach, the man in a business suit, the woman in a traditional kimono. The man is holding an umbrella. Water drips off the tip and collects in a pool on the sand-colored marble floor. Raul pretends to be adjusting the collar of my coat, then he turns to the couple and says good evening. The man’s head dips. The woman blinks.

I look straight at them. “Help me. Please.”

The couple don’t seem to have heard. Their faces, curiously unlined, are tilted upwards, fixed on the glowing red number above the lifts.

“Can’t you do something?” I say.

There’s a brisk
ping!
as the lift reaches the ground floor. The doors slide open and the couple step inside. We stay where we are. The doors slide shut again.

“Nobody will help you,” Raul says.

A second
ping!
as another lift arrives. Raul bundles me inside and presses the button for his floor.

“Excuse me? Is everything —?”

A bellhop in a round red hat and a gray jacket has appeared and is asking if I’m all right but the doors close over him before I can answer. Raul is facing away and doesn’t notice. As soon as we’re alone he puts a hand round my throat and pushes me up against the wall.

The lift soars upwards.

You’re not out of your depth, are you, baby?

Raul pulls my coat off my shoulders, then turns me round and forces me into the corner. My arms are pinioned behind my back. I feel him reach beneath my dress.

“Do you know what my name means?” he says.

I try to kick backwards, but he’s standing up against me, between my legs. One of his hands is in my knickers.

“Wolf,” he says. “It means wolf.”

I remember a vase in the lobby, huge and glossy and stuffed with tropical flowers and blossoms. I wonder if I’m about to faint.

The lift doors open.

Raul grunts, then lets me go. Two men are waiting by the lift. One of them is bald. He has black eyebrows and wears a sheepskin jacket. The other man is taller, with silver hair. Raul ushers me out of the lift.

“You dropped your coat.” The man with the silver hair picks up my coat and hands it to me.

The other man wants to know if there’s a problem.

I lean against the wall next to the lift while Raul addresses the two men in German. I’m too sickened and dizzy to follow what he says. I only know he sounds indignant and threatening, and that he scarcely allows the men to speak. But they stand their ground. Raul swears at them and then at me and walks away.

There’s a long, still moment, then the bald man asks if I’m a guest at the hotel. I shake my head. He offers to escort me back to the lobby. The lift has already gone, and the man with the silver hair steps forward and presses the call button. After what has just happened, though, I don’t want to travel in the lift. I try to explain but my German has deserted me. Still, the men seem to understand. In the distance a door slams.

As we walk down the stairs, the bald man asks if I want to file a complaint. Should the police be called?

“No,” I say. “I’m fine. Thank you.” My legs are trembling and it’s all I can do to stay upright.

On the ground floor the men guide me to one of the orange sofas. Would I like to sit down? I shake my head again. The man with the silver hair fetches me a glass of water. I drink half of it, then straighten my clothes.

“You’re really all right?” he says.

I nod quickly. “I think so.”

They will see me out, he says, when I feel ready. He tells me I should take my time.

As we cross the lobby a few moments later, I keep thinking the Croatian will intervene. He’s a man who can impose his will on any given situation and extract exactly what he’s after. He’s accustomed to being taken seriously, to being obeyed. To being effective. But there’s no sign of him. Only the hum of voices, like insect life, and the Muzak, which is orchestral — a low lush wash of strings. I seem to see him as if from behind, sitting on the edge of a wide bed, his head lowered, his suit jacket stretched tight across his shoulders. What will he do now? Smash something? Get drunk?

“Let’s find you a taxi,” the bald man says. “Do you have money?”

“Yes. Thank you.” I glance over my shoulder. “That man, he was dangerous.”

“So are we,” the bald man says.

He looks at his friend, and they both laugh.

I let them walk me down the steps and out onto the pavement, where they hail a cab for me. I thank them again and tell him how grateful I am to them for intervening.

“Anytime,” the bald man says.

The man with the silver hair gives me a tender, almost wistful smile, then says,
“Pass auf dich auf.”

Take care.

/

I hear the music as soon as I step out of the taxi. At first, though, I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I let myself into Cheadle’s building. The door to his apartment is open and people lean against the wall outside, drinking and smoking. Among them is a girl in a T-shirt that says
NOTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT
.

“Good T-shirt,’ I tell her.

“Thanks,” she says.

I edge past her, into the room that used to be a garage. Strings of colored bulbs loop through the darkness, and the music is so loud I can’t hear what anyone is saying. Smoke hovers in a flat cloud below the ceiling. Tanzi’s down in The Grave with three other girls.

Cheadle walks over, raincoat flapping, a cigar stub in the corner of his mouth.

“Come and dance,” he roars.

I tell him I need to change.

“You’re fine as you are.” He lurches backwards, then looks me up and down. “Better than fine.”

“You didn’t say you were having a party.”

“I didn’t know!”

Tanzi came home with two friends and a duty-free bottle of Malibu, he tells me, then a DJ from the neighborhood showed up and — Boom — the whole thing just took off. While Cheadle’s talking, I scan the room. I’m looking for Anna and Oleg but the dim lighting and the crush of people make it difficult to see. When I refused to go to Raul’s room with him did I renege on my agreement? Panic surges through me and I’m sweating suddenly. I don’t dare ask Cheadle if he’s expecting the Russians. Apart from anything else I don’t want him to remember what I was doing earlier. When he turns away from me to accept a spliff from a man in a porkpie hat, I seize my chance and sink back into the crowd.

In my room I change out of my clothes, then pack my case. It’s the work of a few minutes. I leave the gold dress and the sandals on the bed. Taking a last look round, I peel my Richter postcards off the wall and push them into my coat pocket, then I open the door and peer out. The girl in the T-shirt is halfway down the corridor, a cigarette between her fingers, bending into the flame of someone’s lighter. There’s no sign of Cheadle or of the Russians. I pick up my bags and make for the front door.

“Going somewhere?” the girl says, smoke emerging from her mouth in little chopped-up clouds.

I smile but don’t stop.

Outside, a fine drizzle veils the buildings. The streetlamps look soft and fuzzy, like dandelion flowers, a whole row of them
reaching in a long diminishing straight line, all the way to Ostkreuz. It’s the early hours of Tuesday morning. I’m going to have to leave Berlin as soon as possible. In the next two days for sure. In the meantime I need to disappear.

My first instinct is to check into the hotel near Kluckstrasse, but it might be dangerous to retrace my steps. I reject Klaus Frings for the same reason. No backward glances, no unnecessary complications or entanglements. What I crave more than anything is a hot shower. I want to wash away all memory of that Croatian. I think of my father and his weakness for modern hotels with state-of-the-art plumbing. On Warschauerstrasse I flag down a taxi and ask the driver to take me to a Hilton or an InterContinental.

The driver looks at me. “Which one?”

“Whichever’s nearest.”

I climb in and close the door.

/

On the morning of October 9 I have breakfast in my room, then I sit at the desk in a white toweling bathrobe and write two letters to my father, both on hotel stationery. In the first letter, which is only a few lines long, I tell him I’m in Berlin, and that I need to talk to him. Could he meet me at midday on the seventeenth in Café Einstein on Kürfürstenstrasse? I know my request might seem unreasonable and that it might disrupt his schedule but then again how often do I make demands on him? He
is
my father, after all. I hope he can make it, I tell him. It’s important to me. I sign the
letter —
With love, your daughter, Kit
— then I seal the envelope and address it to the apartment on Via Giulia.

The second letter, which is more complex, runs to three sheets of writing paper and will be delivered by hand. I’m not sure how to address the envelope. In the end I settle for
DAVID CARLYLE
. I take the short letter down to the lobby and ask the woman on reception if she can post it for me. No problem, she says. It will go today. First-class. Her eyes are dark brown and depthless, like those of a shop mannequin, and seem at odds with her clipped efficient sentences.

“How’s Klaus?”

I turn to see Horst Breitner standing at my elbow in a camel coat and a large orange scarf. Horst Breitner, from the Konzerthaus.

“What are you doing here?” I say.

“Breakfast with a client.” His smile is condescending and only lasts a second. “You were living with Klaus, I think. Is he well?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“So it’s over?”

I consider him for a moment. His slicked-back hair, his damp eyes. His lavish clothes. Then I turn back to the woman on reception and ask her to put the postage on my bill.

Horst places his card on the counter in front of me. “A drink, perhaps — when you are free …” Pulling on a pair of fawn leather gloves, he leaves through the revolving doors.

As I watch him go I wonder if it matters that I’ve been spotted in the lobby of the InterContinental. I examine all the angles and decide it doesn’t make the slightest difference.

On the way back to my room I drop Horst’s card in the silver rubbish bin next to the lift.

/

After spending an hour in the hotel’s business center I set off for Berlin Hauptbahnhof, where I am hoping to buy a ticket for that evening. In the back of the taxi I take out the longer of the two letters I wrote to my father and read it through again.

Hotel InterContinental

Berlin

October 9

Dear Dad
,

Thanks so much for turning up. Actually, that’s a weird way to begin, since I really have no idea whether you turned up or not. But I have to assume you’re sitting in the Einstein with my letter in your hand, otherwise there’s no point writing. It’s what I’m imagining and I hope I’m right. By the way, please order anything you like. I left some money with the waitress. She’ll take care of the bill
.

You’ll have noticed by now that I’m not there. It’s not because I’m late. It’s because I’m not coming. I’m not even in Berlin any more. I left days ago
.

I imagine you looking up after reading those last two paragraphs and rubbing the back of your neck like you always do when you’re annoyed. I don’t blame you for being annoyed. Please don’t think it’s a wasted trip, though. There are things I need you to hear, and this is the only way I could get your attention
.

When I was growing up, you spent a lot of time away from home, and though I missed you I got used to it. Normal’s whatever happens — when you’re a child, anyway. And you have to live for yourself — we all do — or you risk losing sight of who you are. Isn’t it also true you avoided me, though? Or was that only later?

After Mum died, you certainly went missing. You left me with relatives, the parents of my friends, au pairs. They were nice enough, but they weren’t you. And even when you were there, you weren’t there. I know you were grieving, but still. You seemed to find it hard to be at home. Was that because it reminded you of her? Or was it because I reminded you of her? Maybe you blamed me for the whole thing. Because in a sense I was responsible. If she hadn’t had a child, she would still be alive. There’d still be the two of you. I know we never really talked about her death, but sometimes I imagine us having an argument and that’s what you always say. Why her? Why not you? Because if you’d had to choose between us I know you wouldn’t have chosen me
.

In fact, I’m not even sure you wanted me in the first place. Maybe I was her idea. Her dream. As Rome was. And when she got ill you were proved right, and that made you angry. I can imagine you shouting at her. You should have listened to me! If only you’d listened! Yes, you wanted her, not me. But she wanted me. So when I lost her, I lost everything. Is that unfair? If so, I’m sorry. It’s how I feel, that’s all. It’s how I’ve always felt. Some things you always thought were solid turn out to be made of fucking tissue paper and rubber bands. It’s not until you touch them that you find out. Not until they fall apart in your hands
.

I’m not coming home, Dad. I’m going in the opposite direction, returning to something I’m used to. Something that makes sense to me. I don’t expect you to understand that
.

I’m not even sure you’re reading this
.

Are you reading this?

Your daughter
,

Kit

I don’t much care for the letter. It seems confrontational, and the “fucking” is overly dramatic, but I don’t have time to make
any alterations. It will have to do. At the last minute I decide to enclose one of the passport photos Oswald gave me. I study the picture before I slip it inside the envelope. My face is joyful, and also fierce, my chin tilted in a suggestion of defiance, which seems in keeping with what I have written. Oswald looks unwholesome, as always, but the exhilaration is visible in both of us. We’re giving off a kind of glow, and I’m reminded of the morning I spent in Pavlo’s gallery. The light that illuminates an icon is an inner light, he told me. In an icon there are no shadows.