The Riddle of Sphinx Island (9 page)

It was good for her to talk. It was therapeutic. Doctor Klein spoke in reassuring tones. It would take her mind off what happened tonight. ‘Tell me about the home movie. I am interested in stories about Germany. I still have relatives who live there. Berlin is a fascinating city. I remember a dancing club. I remember the linden trees.
A little on the lonely side.
That was a song I remember. Do forgive me. I am getting soft and sentimental. Tell me what happens exactly in the home movie.’

She shut her eyes. ‘It’s after closing time. Oswald’s restaurant is empty. A festive candle-lit table. Silver and fine porcelain. The windows are bespattered with rain. Oswald is dressed in a white dinner jacket and crimson cummerbund. He looks very dashing. He is holding the camera in his right hand. He is waving – it is his reflection in a tall gilded mirror we see. There is Gabriele in a long, pale green dress –’

‘You have very good visual memory.’

‘Freddie looks preoccupied but she smiles bravely. She is painfully thin and pale, cheaply dressed. Gabriele has put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. They are about to sit down to dinner. The camera swirls. Close ups of the girls’ faces. Although Freddie looks haggard, she is prettier than her sister. She has brought a “socialist” chess set, as a present to her sister.’

‘Ach, yes.’ Doctor Klein nodded reminiscently. ‘I know exactly the kind of chessboard you mean. I used to have a socialist chessboard. They were very funny. They were not meant to be funny. I gave one such set to my sister. That was a long time ago.’

‘They set it up and laugh at the unusual-looking pieces. Freddie has a little scar above the right eye. It is in the shape of a horseshoe. Oswald asks about it and she explains that she got it when a boy threw a stone at her. She says she must be very lucky. She could have been killed! She takes a sip of wine, then another. The scar is oddly becoming –’ Ella broke off. For some reason she shivered. Something – she couldn’t say what – brought an icy chill to her bones and a tingle to the hairs on the nape of her neck.

‘What is the matter, Ella?’

‘I don’t know. Someone walking on my grave.’

‘Would you like me to shut the window?’ Doctor Klein sounded concerned.

‘Yes, please. Just for a moment I imagined that – I don’t know what I imagined. No, it’s nothing. I feel light-headed – a little giddy – a little sick –’

‘I do apologise, Ella. I am keeping you up. You have had a terrible experience. You should go to bed. I must leave you alone –’

‘No, don’t go yet. I haven’t finished. Where was I? Oh yes. The home movie. Freddie picks up and eats a sausage. She laughs. She looks happy and excited. She bares her teeth in a mock snarl. She displays a strong set of teeth. She says she likes to fight with her teeth. She laughs again. Gabriele says she used to be covered in bites when they were children. Freddie starts singing a song –
Wenn Der Sommer Wiede Einzieht –
is there such a song?’

‘I believe there is. I congratulate you on your superb memory.’

‘Freddie remembers how she danced with a sailor once, at some club, and how he then tried to seduce her … The two girls get quite silly … They hug and kiss and laugh … Oswald laughs with them … They sing and they dance with Oswald … He puts his arms round them … He kisses them … The camera swirls … Blackout … Well, that’s the end of the film. It only lasts about seven or eight minutes.’

‘What else did they talk about? Did Oswald tell you?’

‘Freddie got a bit drunk and became voluble. She said she hated her Soviet job. She hated her Soviet masters. She was terrified of the Stasi. She also said how much she wanted to be with her sister, how much she’d like to live in the “West”, though she couldn’t quite see how that could happen. Oswald told her that that wasn’t as impossible as she seemed to think …’

‘He raised her hopes …’

‘He gave her presents – a brand new handbag, a cashmere sweater, a warm winter coat, bars of Swiss chocolate, Nivea soap and some nylons … Apparently poor Freddie started crying … She insisted on kissing his hand, which pleased him … He then overheard Gabriele and Freddie talk about him … 
My boyfriend is rich and he likes you very much. He can get you out. You can trust him. Look at this gold bracelet he gave me. And these earrings – do you know how much they cost? He can do anything.
’

‘He didn’t suggest he might be able to smuggle her sister out of the East sector into Free Berlin, did he?’

‘That’s exactly what he suggested.’

‘But couldn’t Freddie simply have stayed on, given that she was already in West Berlin?’

‘She couldn’t. There was an old friend of their late father who was in a hospice in East Berlin.
Onkel
Wolf. She couldn’t leave him.
Onkel
Wolf was an old man and mortally ill. He wasn’t expected to last long. She had promised to go back. It had to be done at some later date. Oswald said it was tricky but not impossible. He promised her a new identity and protection in case the Stasi sent a hitman after her. There was only one thing he wanted Freddie to do in return. One very tiny thing. So tiny it was hardly worth mentioning. There was a particular file, which he wanted Freddie to leave on a bus in East Berlin.’

‘It does sound tiny, yes.’

‘It was a bus chiefly used by Soviet officials – to which she had access. The file contained information concerning US military plans. Seemingly accurate but in fact entirely bogus. Freddie agreed. She did as instructed and the operation was a success. Then Oswald asked her to do it again, only this time she had to leave the file in the lobby of a hotel which catered for Soviet officials. Then she was asked to do it a
third
time … Oswald told her she would be able to join her sister soon, very soon. He assured her that everything was in place. She was to wait for instructions. But these particular instructions never came.’

‘He lied to her …’

‘He’d never had any intention of reuniting Freddie with her sister. Meanwhile, Gabriele had discovered she was pregnant. Oswald told her they’d get married and then they would go and live in America – or in South Africa. One day Gabriele arrived at Oswald’s restaurant and found the place closed. She was told the restaurant was under new management. No one knew where Oswald was. He was not in his flat. She became frantic. She went to the police. She was in floods of tears. She sat and waited. She seemed convinced something terrible had happened to him. Eventually she was told that Oswald had left Germany and gone back to the US. Then she had another shock –’

‘Yes?’

‘She learnt that her sister Freddie had been arrested by the Stasi, tried for spying and summarily executed. Gabriele had a miscarriage.’ Ella’s voice shook. ‘Soon after she committed suicide. She poisoned herself. She took cyanide.’

‘Cyanide? Very fast and very efficient,’ Doctor Klein said. ‘You choke, then you die. You know the two deaths to be an established fact?’

‘Oswald told me they were. I don’t think he lied about
that
. He said he had seen a photo of Gabriele’s dead body. It was his bosses who informed him. His bosses knew the exact sequence of events. His bosses knew
everything
. He said he’d only been doing his job. He said he couldn’t very well have foreseen that Freddie would be caught, but that was the kind of thing that sometimes happened. He had
told
her to be careful.’

‘Wasn’t he sorry for the baby?’

‘He said he was but he didn’t sound it. He said Gabriele should have taken precautions. He said Gabriele had got pregnant on purpose. She had done her best to “get” him. She had been manipulative and deceitful. He had never been in love with her. He didn’t believe the baby had been his anyway. Gabriele had had other boyfriends. They had both been rather stupid girls, he said. Mentally undeveloped. He called them “featherbrains”. They were “trashy”. He’d found them and their lives incomprehensible, alien.’

‘But he regards his Berlin mission as a success?’

‘Oh yes. He said it had given him a great sense of achievement. His bosses had been extremely happy with him. He was generously rewarded for his efforts … After his return to the US, he prospered. He invested his money wisely and made a fortune, which he managed to double, treble and quadruple when he got married. He made a good marriage. He married an heiress.’

There was a pause.

‘Martita Stanhouse? That was her name, wasn’t it? I remember the day I saw photos of the two of them in a newspaper. That, I believe, was the hand of destiny. Perhaps as a man of science I should avoid such fanciful language.’ Doctor Klein gave a little smile. ‘It would most certainly not endear me to my patients who are frequently highly strung individuals and delusional to boot. The moment I saw those photographs I knew what I needed to do. I knew, yes.’ He nodded. ‘I didn’t stop to consider the pros and cons of the matter. I knew I had to do it. Isn’t that strange? I
knew
.’

‘Do what? Sorry – I don’t understand …’ Ella looked at him in some confusion.

‘One day you will. The time has not yet come. They had been snapped entering the Metropolitan Opera House. Oswald had his public face on. He looked like a senator, I thought. Suave, respectable, confident, relaxed, faintly amused. He might have been on his way to the Congress. I spent an hour studying those photographs, you see. Martita looked extremely unwell. Her mouth was twisted to one side. Her eyes were wild and staring.’

‘Martita looked ghastly, yes,’ Ella agreed. ‘Hardly human. By then she was very ill. Those photographs should never have been taken. I believe that was her last outing. We had gone to see
Don Giovanni
 … Appropriate, in a way … 
Ironic
 … Don Juan – the serial philanderer!’

‘You were there too? You were with them at the opera?’

‘I was. I am not in any of the photographs, but I was there all right. I was always with them. Faithful Ella. Always a couple of steps behind. Oswald wanted it that way. He needed me to take care of Martita. Martita was getting extremely difficult. Well, I was Martita’s companion and nurse maid till – till he decided to replace me with a younger and prettier woman.’

‘Maisie.’

‘Maisie, yes. Sweet, innocent Maisie … Sorry, I mustn’t be catty. Oswald and I had an affair. It went on for a couple of years but then it came to an end. I stayed on. He made me stay on.’ Suddenly Ella sounded breathless. ‘I am ashamed to admit it but I was in love with him once, very much in love, that’s what makes the whole thing so awful. I’ve been doing my best to forget that I was in love with Oswald. I’ve tried to put it in the bottom drawer of my mind. I wince each time I remember the feelings I had for him. I can’t help thinking there is something wrong with me. Something abnormal – freakish –’

‘
No
. You should never think that, Ella.’

‘I can’t help it. I seem to be one of those natural victims one reads about. Fated from birth to frustration and despair. It couldn’t have been love, could it?’ Ella’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I mean – not
love
. I couldn’t really have loved a man like Oswald – it seems impossible, when I think about it now. It’s obscene – grotesque. What
kind
of love could it have been? I don’t understand myself.’

‘Wittgenstein says somewhere that love which can’t be classified is the best.’

‘Apollo and Marsyas.’ She was staring before her. ‘Do you remember what Apollo did to Marsyas?’

‘Apollo flayed Marsyas.’

‘The agony of Marsyas is said to be the inevitable agony of the human soul in its desire to achieve God. Nonsense, all nonsense. I am afraid I’ve lost my faith in God.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t even know if Marsyas was male or female!’

‘You don’t? Male or female? Male or female?’ Doctor Klein reiterated in an odd voice. Suddenly he laughed. He clapped his hands. ‘You really don’t know?’

‘I am sure you’ve been wondering why I never left Oswald – why I am still with him? You have been wondering, haven’t you? It must strike you as terribly twisted, this whole situation.’

The tall lamp beside the fireplace shed a diffused light upon Doctor Klein’s face, which had retained its detached expression.

‘I have been wondering, yes. So what is the answer? Why haven’t you left him? Why are you still with him?’

‘I can’t leave him because I am afraid of him,’ she said. ‘This sounds like the first sentence of an Iris Murdoch novel, doesn’t it?
Ella Gales stayed with her former lover because she was afraid of him.
I am afraid of what he might do to me. I really am. It’s a complicated story. He threatens to destroy me if I leave. He wants me to stay with him.’

‘How could he possibly destroy you?’

There was a pause.

‘Years ago he promised to marry me, only he didn’t. At first he told me it had to wait, that I needed to be patient. Then suddenly he said he’d never promised anything and that I’d imagined it. He suggested that I was prone to fantasies, that I was delusional. In the very first year of our affair I became pregnant with his child. He said it wasn’t his child. He said I was trying to entrap him.’

‘He said the same thing about Gabriele.’

‘Yes. Certain patterns seem to repeat themselves, don’t they? He said he had evidence I’d been seeing someone behind his back. He said he was damned if he would become father to someone else’s child. He told me to have an abortion. I didn’t want to, but he bullied me into it. I was in a fragile state. You mustn’t think I am trying to justify what I did –’

‘You had the abortion?’

‘I did. Yes. It was terrible. I cried my eyes out. After that I couldn’t imagine myself being under the same roof as him a moment longer but when I told him I was leaving, he said he still needed me, if anything more than ever before. I knew then I was dealing with a madman. I went up to my room and started packing. He followed me. He told me that if I left him, I would be sorry. I said I didn’t care. I went on packing. He then told me exactly what he proposed to do. To me and to my brother.’