The Stronger Sex (24 page)

After a pause in which he kept grinning, he said, “I bought all six portraits. All signed by hand with a personal message. I still have them. Want to see them?”

“No, thank you.”

I assume he was slightly piqued. Or maybe genuinely surprised that I didn't want to take up his kind offer. He said, “Ah, well. But that's not why I told you the story.” He looked away from me and at his hand holding the cigarillo. “That doctor, our friend… you ought to see him today. Or maybe not, it'd make you feel bad. I visited him once before
I… well, withdrew to my citadel up here, shall we say? He told me something about a muscular inflammation he had, said it would pass. Pass my arse! I looked it up. Probably muscular dystrophy, and that doesn't pass. It does for you slowly but surely, not very nicely either.”

He preserved quite a long silence this time before he spoke again. “He's only a wreck now. A wreck falling apart bit by bit. That big, strong man! Lies in bed and can't even sit up on his own. He has a switch to raise the head end of the bed. Nasty sight when the motor gets going and his face zooms toward you. Like the ghost train. And he needs his wife's help to stand up. She helps him, but she doesn't look as if she likes doing it. And she wipes his bum. I'd guess she likes that just about as much. He can't do it any more. Too weak. Too limp.”

He looked at me and nodded. Then he asked, “Can you imagine how humiliating that must be for the man? Such a big strong fellow as he was?”

I'd had enough of this. I was tired of it. I no longer felt capable of listening to these confessions, or revelations, without protest.

I said, “Yes, I can. I do think I can imagine it. I just wonder whether
he
can imagine… if he could ever have imagined how humiliating it must have been for his wife, what he got up to in that little hotel, I mean the hunting lodge in Hungary. That unusual photocopying session.”

He looked at me in surprise. “But she never did know about it, surely?” He shook his head. “I don't think any of us talked. No, no, we kept our mouths shut, as a matter of honour, strictly shut!”

“And do you really think that makes a difference?” I asked.

He stared at me as if he wanted to reply but didn't understand the question. I had no intention of explaining it. I asked, “And did you or did your friends who are now so
regrettably reliant on the help, the demeaning help of their wives, ever wonder whether what you were doing at that… hunting party, whether it wasn't also a little demeaning for the ladies you invited? Or even very demeaning?”

He narrowed his eyes, and said, “You're not just a lawyer. You're a real stickler for truth and justice.” He intensified the twisted smile. “Am I right?”

“Do you mean by that, do I think it just that someone who used to humiliate other people should be humiliated himself later?”

He carefully put the cigarillo he had been smoking down. “Well, I'm sorry I told you that story. I thought it was really funny.” He looked up. “Didn't want to hurt your feelings.”

I hesitated, but then said nothing. I looked at my watch. “It's getting rather late. Sorry, but I must go.”

As I reached the door, he said, “If it's all going to take such a long time… couldn't we play another game of chess in the interim? Or two, with a return match. Some time or other, I mean?”

“I must see how I'm…” I hesitated. Then I said, “In principle, yes, of course.”

25

When I came out at the top of the stairs I saw Olga coming up them, carrying a tray on which there was a small terrine, a plate, a spoon and some bread. She said, “Wait, wait! No go away!” The staircase was too narrow for us to pass each other, so I had no option but to step back.

She said, “Wife wants speak! You go see her!” Raising her chin, she jerked it at the door to Cilly's home studio.

I was completely taken by surprise. Had Cilly been in the house when I rang the bell to summon help for Klofft? If
so, why hadn't she reacted? Had she even already been at home when I arrived?

Olga, opening Klofft's door with her elbow, stopped, looked at me and jerked her chin at the door opposite again. “Go in! She waiting.”

I was so irritated that I asked abruptly, “How do you know?”

She stared at me in surprise. Then she smiled. “I know! You believe! She waiting!”

I was about to go on with this silly argument when the door opposite opened. Cilly appeared in her painter's smock. She smiled and waved me in.

When she had closed the door after me, she came close, raised her lips and kissed me. “How are you, my dear?”

Oh no, not this too! I'd had enough of these people. I didn't want to go on administering first aid for their problems with growing old, neither the husband's exhibitionism nor the wife's hunger for love.

I took half a step back and asked, “Were you here when I rang the bell? When I needed someone to help your husband?”

She looked at me as if testing me, and smiled. “Yes.” When I said nothing, she asked, “You want to know why I didn't come in answer to the bell?”

I said, “Well…”

“I knew Olga was in the house. And that she'd go to him at once.”

She was still smiling. Apparently she, like her husband, was letting me know that I wasn't to be taken entirely seriously. She said, “You see, I've escorted him to the lavatory so often, got him in a fit state for it, that I've certainly more than done my duty. Or that's what I think, anyway. And if I accept that he brought Olga under our roof as… as a maid of all work, literally
all
, then I think that I can also expect her to see to the reverse side of the man. Service and maintenance.”
And without a word to bridge the gap she asked, “Won't you sit down?”

“I'm sorry, but I really think I should be getting back to my office.”

She nodded, and smiled. I said, “Thank you, by the way, for those two newspaper cuttings. I thought they were interesting.”

She nodded again, and said after a moment, “I'd like to have them back. Maybe you could post them to me some time.”

“Of course. I'll copy them for myself first. If I may.”

“Naturally. Why not?”

Suddenly it occurred to me that this might be our last private conversation. At the same time I realized that she alone could probably answer the questions I had asked her husband in vain. I remembered her reserve when I'd first tried to get answers out of her, and I was well aware of the risk of losing access to her once and for all.

But hadn't I done that already?

I said, “I'd like to ask you something.”

She looked at me, but did not respond.

“I know I once bothered you with it, but now I've asked your husband, and he said that Frau Fuchs did
not
threaten him. It's about his last conversation with her, you see, in his room over there, before she went off on her holiday…”

She waved that away. “Yes, yes, I know. The conversation which I partly overheard. And now he says she didn't threaten him with going off work sick if he didn't give her time off anyway?”

“Yes, that's exactly what he said.”

She let out the air through her lips. “He's lying.”

I nodded and hesitated. But then I asked, “Are you sure? That she threatened him with pretending to be ill?”

“Of course I'm sure! I wouldn't have said it otherwise.” Her voice was a little sharp. “Or do you think I wanted revenge on the woman?”

“No, no… no, I assume not.”

She smiled grimly. “Just as well, my dear.” It sounded almost like a threat. After a short pause she added, “Did you by any chance tell him that
I
gave you that information?”

I shook my head. “Of course not! Do you think I'd… well, stab you in the back like that?”

She didn't answer. After a moment she turned away and went to the table with the two chairs at it. I saw the teacups set out. She sat down.

I tried to meet her eyes. “Would you be prepared to say so in court? That Frau Fuchs threatened him, I mean? And say what her threat was?”

She smiled. “So would you be ready to stab me in the back in court?”

I looked at her hard.

She said, “Or what would you call presenting me as an informer who slinks around eavesdropping on other people? On my own husband, at that!”

“I don't think you're looking at it in the right way.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I mean, it would be possible that you just happened to go out on the balcony and heard…”

She waved that away. “Thank you, never mind the rest of it.” She looked away from me and at the table, biting her lower lip. After a while she said, “But I can't see any reason why he would say she
didn't
threaten him. It would surely do him good if she threatened him, or am I looking at it in the wrong way?”

“Oh no, in absolutely the right way. It would be an argument I could quite possibly use to turn the whole hearing around. In his favour.”

She nodded, looked at the fingernails on her right hand, bit her lower lip again. I had an idea it wasn't helping my argument for me to go on standing up while I talked to her. I went over and sat down on the chair opposite hers. She
looked up. I had the impression that she was both surprised and pleased.

I said, “But there's one other point.”

She nodded. “You mean, you were asking whether, in the same… conversation he, well, sexually pestered her?”

I said, “Yes. I know you didn't want to answer that question.”

“You're right,” she said. “And I don't want to answer it now either.”

I shook my head as if I couldn't understand her reluctance. “But you see, that point could be very important.” When she said nothing, I went on, “Not least for me. For me personally. Because if, during the hearing, Frau Fuchs unexpectedly came out with the fact that your husband came too close to her in any way at all… It doesn't have to have been rape. Not rape in the usual sense of the word.”

She nodded quickly a couple of times, as if I was taking too long to finish making my point for her liking. I said, “It would be enough if he tried putting her under pressure to… for instance, if he offered some kind of deal. Such as if he said to her: if you'll see me once more, just once more…”

She said, “For sex.” She smiled. “If you let me have sex with you once more – that's what you mean?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, something along those lines. And if he had added that then she would get the week off she wanted – if he'd offered a barter of that kind…”

She nodded and smiled to herself. Then she looked at me. “You're a clever man.”

This was incredible. Instead of giving me a plain answer she was buttering me up again. I said, “What do you mean by that? Did he in fact offer her such a deal?”

“I didn't say that.” She leaned back.

“But you understand what I'm getting at?”

“Yes.” That smile again. “You don't want to stand up in that tribunal and suddenly look a fool.”

I threw up my hands and brought them down rather vigorously on the table. The teacups clinked. “But it's not about that!”

“Of course it is!” She shook her head. “I don't want it to happen either. You don't deserve that.” She put her right hand out and laid it on my own hand where it rested on the table.

I felt like pulling my hand away, but I realized that her gesture was an approach that I had better not reject if I wanted to achieve my aim.

No, that was wrong. I certainly did want to achieve my aim. But if I didn't withdraw my hand, it was more because the touch of hers was very pleasant. Her hand was warm and smooth, soft but not limp like many other people's fat, moist hands.

She said, “But there's one thing I don't understand.”

“There is? What is it?”

She frowned. “Why didn't her lawyer bring that up among the charges in his bill of complaint?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't understand that either. Maybe he wants to save it up and make a big dramatic number of it when the case comes to court.”

She nodded. I felt her hand move slightly under mine. She was stroking my wrist gently with her fingertips.

All of a sudden she said, “Yes, I take your point.” She breathed in deeply, with a sound almost like a sigh. Then she added, “But… I'm sorry, I still don't want to answer your question.”

I reacted at once. I regretted it as soon as I'd done it. I pulled my hand away, got to my feet and said, “I really do have to go now.”

She accompanied me to the door. I was about to press down the handle, and then I said, “I'll send you back those two press cuttings. If I put them in the post tomorrow, is that soon enough? I'd just like to copy them first.”

“Yes, yes, take your time, my dear.” Once again she raised her mouth and kissed me. I stood there until she took her lips away from mine.

I said, “Those articles… I'd very much like to discuss them with you some time, Cilly.”

She laughed and gave me another kiss. “You really are a dear,” she said. I turned away and left.

26

The presiding judge of the employment tribunal, Herbert Pandlitz, known in legal circles as Panda, a tall, massive man in his mid-forties who was regarded as an equable character, had set the date of the hearing for 10 September. Since I obviously had to write off any hope of getting answers from either of the Kloffts to my most pressing questions by then, I could keep out of the way of my client and his wife for some time. However, the relief I felt when I looked in my diary at the office didn't last for long.