Pavel & I (37 page)

They sat having dinner. She had fried two pieces of liver along with half an onion. There was bread and boiled potatoes on the side.
Anders did not have much of an appetite but forced himself to eat anyway. He remembered, all too vividly, the day when he had tried to feed Pavel on what he'd held to be his deathbed. It had been innards then, too. He chewed slowly and smuggled the meat past his swollen tonsils.

A record was playing, a woman singing something foreign. Franzi owned a gramophone and a few dozen records. Sonia had gone through them several times, putting aside three or four she liked. Whenever the record stopped, she got up and moved the needle back to the beginning. She did not seem to like silence.

Anders wasn't comfortable with Sonia. She kept watching him. Every time he looked up, her eye was on him. He had pieced together a few things about her: that she must have lived with Boyd, but worked for the Colonel, whom he had failed to shoot. That the
mitchut
was involved somehow. That she sold herself for money.

‘Did he force you to do it?' he asked all of a sudden. ‘The Colonel, I mean.'

Her fork stopped halfway between plate and mouth. The piece of liver, seen in cross section, looked grey. There was a sliver of pink at its centre.

‘Do what?'

‘You know – going with Boyd and all.'

‘You ask too many questions.'

‘He paid you to do it, right? You could've said no.

' Sonia pushed her plate aside and stared at the tabletop. The record finished, and this time she made no move to restart it. Anders wondered whether she might be crying.

Why should she?
he marvelled.
I didn't say nothing bad.

‘Did I say something bad?' he asked her after a while. ‘It's not what I meant.'

She looked up then, and her eyes were dry. ‘You really don't know, do you? How it is. You're too young, I guess. Good God, the way you
sit there, dangling snot into your dinner – who would ever believe that a few years down the road you'll be one of them.'

‘One of who?'

‘Men. We'd all be better off without them.'

‘Why?'

The question shot out before he had time to swallow it. He felt it gave him away somehow, made him look childish. Still, it slipped out, and he was keen for an answer. ‘Why?'

She sighed and took a deep breath.

It wasn't something she could explain. She took refuge in platitudes, launching into a speech about men controlling women's lives: second-hand truths inherited from her suffragette mother and her claque of liberal friends. She told him that as a woman she could not rent an apartment or buy a car without a father or a husband signing for her; that she could not cross a border without papers that were issued by men. ‘A man decided whether I was a Nazi or not,' she told him, ‘while he shot glances at my breasts across his narrow desk.'

She stopped herself short and studied the boy. He sat, untouched by her ramblings. She wanted to drop the conversation, but found herself asking a question instead.

‘Do you know what sex is?' she asked. ‘Love-making?'

He nodded. His teeth were in his lip.

‘It's like a disease. It takes hold of them and won't let go. When a woman steps near, you understand, and there is a curve to her body, just so' – she stroked her flank where torso gradually widened into buttock and hip – ‘Christ, it well near eats them up.'

Sonia pulled a face, then smiled.

‘But I'm telling you fairy tales. Ghost stories, is what I am telling. Here, let me put on a new record. It's Glenn Miller, who plays
trombone. My grandmother used to say it sounds like a god breaking wind.'

They sat and listened to Miller for a while. Every time the trombone set in, the boy shifted to one buttock and made as though to fart.

Later, over tea and milk, he told her he wouldn't get mixed up with sex.

‘I won't,' he said sulkily. It made her laugh.

‘Won't what?'

He sat in silence, searching for words.

‘I won't be mastered like that.'

She swallowed her laugh and watched him spoon sugar into his tea. He used so much of it she would have to get another packet soon.

‘Where did you learn to speak like that?' she asked him as she stood doing the dishes in Franzi's cramped little sink. ‘
Mastered.
It's a bookish word. But you don't read.'

He sat there chewing his tongue. ‘Should I say it different?' he asked.

She shook her head.

‘No,' she said. ‘I think it's one of the reasons why Pavel loves you so.'

He looked away at that, and she pretended not to see the tears that sprang into his eyes. He might have accepted some comfort then, a hug or a brush of the cheek, but she didn't find it in her heart to reach over and touch him. She poured more tea instead, and made him drink it. When it was all gone, she went out to fetch more water from
the pump and suggested he wash, despite the fever. The boy smelled to high heaven. Anders acquiesced when she promised that she would not come into the bathroom while he was in there getting clean.

‘God knows,' she murmured to herself, ‘I have seen enough peckers in my life.'

He surprised her by singing as he stood naked in his wash bowl, sponging himself with Franzi's lavender soap. He could barely hold a melody. The monkey joined in, and between them they made a right racket. While they were thus occupied, Sonia went through Franzi's wardrobe and found a pair of men's briefs that she laid out for the boy to wear. His own underwear was soiled beyond repair. She threw it out along with the undershirt, then washed her hands with soap. If Pavel had been there, he might have taken care of such domestic duties. She tried to picture him, to remember his hand on hers, but all she could conjure was the myth of their love. It was devoid of content: three brief kisses and some half-hearted admissions; the pressure of his erection against her body. It did not suffice for mourning. Moodily she searched the apartment for booze, but all she found were empty bottles. She tried smoking instead and noticed she was running out of cigarettes. There was no piano to play, nor any books to read. She sat around on Franzi's well-worn couch and asked herself what she would do once Paulchen found her a projector.

The boy came out of the bathroom and got into bed. She put a hand to his forehead an hour later and noticed his fever had risen again. Sleeping, his face looked particularly ugly, screwed up and wrinkled like the monkey's. It might have been easier to care for a handsome child.

Sonia left the apartment to go for a walk. The cold taut on her skin and in her joints, forcing itself on her body. She entered a bar, charmed cigarettes off an American journalist and drank chocolate liqueur, the only alcohol on offer. When the barman suggested she
might want to go home with him and warm his bed, she called him names and stormed out. It wasn't that she was upset about his offer. She had simply learned that one needed to be emphatic in one's refusals, lest one be misunderstood.

Early the next morning, Sonia called Paulchen to see whether he had got hold of a projector for her yet. He hadn't and sounded annoyed.

‘It'll take a few days. Maybe a week.'

She rang off and wondered whether Pavel had that long. It might be best to forget about it; burn the microfilm, run for cover. Only then she would never know what she had sold her body for, and whether there could be such a thing as love.

Tomorrow,
she told herself.
You can always burn it tomorrow.

The boy woke, and she put out some rolls. They ate breakfast in silence. He remained feverish, and visibly preoccupied by last night's talk. As the morning stretched into midday she watched him strain to formulate a question. He would curl his lip around the first syllable or so, then abandon the effort.

‘What is it?' she asked, irritated.

Anders flushed and dug himself into his blankets.

‘You were like Franzi, right? One of Boyd's girls. Did you' – he hesitated – ‘did you ever do it with the
mit-chut
?'

She nodded yes, amused at his choice of verb. He sat with his forehead creased in thought.

‘Was it any different?' he asked.

‘No different.'

‘But he was shorter than you.'

‘Yes,' she agreed. ‘That much is certainly true.'

‘I shouldn't have asked.'

‘No,' she agreed. ‘You shouldn't have.'

‘Pavel wouldn't have.'

She considered this. ‘No, he wouldn't have. But I'm sure he must have thought it.'

She could see he didn't understand her and refused to say anything more. There were things in her past about which she would not talk.

‘Tell me about your family,' she asked instead. ‘How come you don't know how to read?'

‘I didn't go to school,' he answered. ‘My uncle didn't want me to.'

‘Why?'

‘Don't know. Something to do with politics.'

‘You're Jewish?'

‘No.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Schlo' said that if you are Jewish you have a number on your arm.' He showed her his wrists.