As always, Hans Martenglass awoke reluctantly, into a world of quiet
desperation.
"Once more into the breach, dear friend, once more,"
he muttered and opened his eyes to the surprising sight of his bed
covered in snow. It was not really sensational, not like being out in
an Antarctic blizzard with Robert Falcon Scott or something, just
a pretty veil of finely frozen waterlace, but snow all the same. Not
the thing to expect inside the supposed safety of one's attic on a
February morning late in the twentieth century.
Martenglass wondered if this might stir up some of
the old fire within, enrage him to the point that he would speak
sternly to his landlady, the negligent Mrs Brick, but soon realized
that he could not be bothered. A few blobs of chemical goo would do
just as nicely. He smiled to himself. Time was mellowing him, after all.
He lifted the blankets to look at his bedfellow,
good old Capital Punishment, who was rolled up against his belly, still
in his guise of a lilac-point siamese, raising a sleepy head, one ear
dog-eared.
"Morning, old man," said Martenglass warmly. "It's
that time again."
The cat yawned with abandon, displaying all the grim beauty of his pink
maw and frosted teeth. The snap of his jaws gave him a startled look,
but then he closed his eyes contentedly and started to purr.
Martenglass stroked him. He loved that cat. Gods, how he loved him.
While he stroked the cat’s
velvet head, he reflected on the countless moments of joy afforded him
by that little, wayward creature. Boundless beauty, affection and
companionship. What woman could even remotely approach it? Ah… women.
There he went again. He growled softly, keenly aware of the power of
his morning erection, straining like the foresail of a clipper running
before a gale. He chose to ignore it. No point in dwelling on all his
needs and wants at this early hour. Plenty of time for that later…
suitably drunk. And yet … He looked at the empty pillow beside his own.
Round and fluffy, undented by any female head for many years. A mixed
curse. After all, his women had always been more trouble than they were
worth. And yet...
At this point in time there was Klazien. At least,
he thought there was. His memory did not serve him well. A late
encounter in the depths of last Saturday night. He could not even
recall precisely where. Close to the red-light district, for sure,
given the unholy hour. On his weekend ventures he always descended the
social ladder with slow and inevitable steps. After starting in trendy
places full of glitter, rousing music and classy, young women,
rejections would force him down until he ended up in smelly old pubs,
infested with drug addicts and elderly prostitutes. Not this time,
though. Klazien had been quite presentable, he recalled, albeit
vaguely. Long, wavy hair and a sumptuous body in flowing garments. Not
a super model – there was just a little bit too much of her for
that – but perfectly suitable for some direly needed sexual healing.
This, alas, opened a fresh can of worms: Martenglass was nothing if not
moral. He frowned upon much of his own doings, even though the modern
rabble might applaud and even envy it. At core he was a man of ancient
virtue. He believed in honor, duty, decency and loads of other obsolete
oddities nowadays unmentionable outside low comedy.
He recoiled from using a woman for mere lust. But
what choice had he? His sanity was fragile, madness never far away, a
quick slide into evil broodings. At those times he often realized that
the bloodiest maniacs must have started out in some semblance of
normalcy, slowly growing aware of the whispering demons within, getting
acquainted, exchanging pleasantries, breeding mutual contempt,
forbearance, fostering tolerance until the unthinkable began to be
thought. Shadowy contemplations in the night, daunting yet titillating,
curdling the blood, hardening the heart. Hans wanted to do the right
thing. Not for gain or acclaim but simply because it was right.
He checked his diary. And true enough, it contained an entry for this
very evening. Klazien at 20:00 hours, and an unfamiliar address.
"Avaunt," he shouted with some glee, throwing aside
the bedclothes in a flurry of snow. "Up, up and away."
Capital Punishment uttered a soft protest.
"Meow," he said.
"Don't remind me, pal. I know. I know."
With great determination Martenglass swung his legs
outside the bed and placed his feet firmly on the floor, right splash
in the middle of a toe-deep puddle of slush. The shock almost made his
eyes pop. It took him a full speechless minute to regain control of his
heart, which had bolted like a runaway steam hammer. When he could
finally draw breath again, he looked down at the ice-logged water about
his feet, so cold that it hurt. Momentary defeat. What to do? He could
of course go howling mad. Throw a tantrum, get out his battle axe, ram
a hole in the floor and calmly watch his troubles flow away. Right into
the barren waste of Mrs Brick's lap, one floor down, if there was to be
any justice at all. Martenglass wriggled his right foot big toe;
mournfully its black nail rose up among the little ice floes. A silent
reminder that his personal hygiene left something to be desired. When
he really could not think of any decent response to this calamity,
Martenglass settled for his Oliver Hardy routine, gazing woefully into
space before heaving a terrible sigh. Then he got up and waddled to the
kitchen unit.
There his glance chanced upon his reflection in the
mirror and he recoiled in disgust.
"It never rains ..." he muttered, but kept his eyes
steadfastly aimed at the flabby face that returned his gaze.
"What an ugly little customer you are," he said.
"Liquor-logged flesh drooping all over the place. Your cheeks are
beginning to sag, pal. A few more mid-thirty years and you'll look like
an aged bloodhound."
He gave himself a nasty little squeeze on the left
cheek but the visage did not flinch. With a shrug of his shoulders
Martenglass started to prepare his breakfast, in silence, waiting
patiently for the direction his mind would take. One never knew. A
sudden bright, world-shattering idea might come gurgling up out of the
mental mire any moment. But not today, it didn't. Alas. The first
thought to materialize was: O, heck, not another wicked winter
Wednesday at the library.
"Damnation," he said.
Just then an idea popped up belatedly. He was not
going. Not at once, anyhow. He would go riding first. One of the rare
joys his father had bequeathed upon him. When Martenglass senior ended
his tyrannical life in a bloodstained bed, he had left his son just
enough ill-gotten gains to enable him to buy a horse, which Hans had
done right after the funeral and now stabled in a riding school on the
verge of the Kraling Wood. A horse of his own. The fulfilment of at
least one lifelong ambition, however tiny. (Not that 1 out of 239 was
anything to get flustered about, but a complete blank had always been a
distinct possibility, because most Martenglass ambitions were
unfeasible without drastic changes in the physical laws presently known
to science.) Inveterate romantic that he was, Martenglass had always
dreamt of becoming a knight in shining armor. Some kind of Heavy-metal
Ivanhoe. And a horse was the one indispensable attribute for the likes
of them. Only serfs walked. Yet, this was just a minor consideration, a
playful thought to bait the envious. In reality Martenglass had found
that few creatures were easier to love than those big, dumb brutes.
Their awesome power harnessed by inborn submissiveness and xenophobia
in this, strangest of all worlds. Panic always a triggerhair away.
Martenglass loved his horse, without really knowing why. It was nothing
like the physical affection between Capital Punishment and him. Not
once had he seen a glimmer of recognition in the beast's mournful
brownglass eyes. Perhaps a mere question of mutual trust across the
evolutionary chasm. When spooky things erupted on the scene (some madly
barking dog, rattling bulldozer or flapping cloth) to frighten his
powerful mount into a terrified bundle of backward scrambling nerves,
Martenglass need only give a pat on the muscle-bound neck and utter a
few soothing words to calm the shaken brute. This, the animal's
boundless confidence in him, tiny tot and basically ludicrous-looking
manikin, produced the good, overgood feeling that he experienced on the
back of the creature that could floor him at will and pound him into
strawberry sludge in a matter of seconds.
At 9:26 Martenglass was busy saddling his horse and singing "Oh what a
beautiful morning" at the top of his voice. Pale sunbeams slanted down
diagonally from the roof lights like shafts of powdered ice, frosting
every blade of straw they touched. Sparrows chirped among the rafters.
The horses stood resigned in their boxes and the familiar scents of
straw and manure caressed the Martenglass nostrils like cold smoke.
He heard a slight, scampering sound behind him.
Expecting to see a mousie running for its life, Martenglass turned and
found himself face to face with a young and timid girl, cast in such
beauty that it stopped his breath. Exquisite she was; tall and willowy,
her sleek hair dropping in a dark auburn veil to her shoulders. In the
lines of her face, soft and delicate, Martenglass read bewitching
serenity till he saw her eyes, half hidden by the tatters of a
brow-skimming fringe. Pallid blue, cool yet brooding, immovable, many
years older than she seemed to be. For several slow heartbeats
Martenglass stood robbed of locomotion and speech before he overcame
his surprise.
"Hello there," he said. "Are you looking for
someone?"
Her smile broke forth with such spontaneous ease that he found it hard
to believe after the coolness of the eyes. Beauties like her were
usually coated in a thin layer of flexible ice.
"No," she said. "Not someone. Something. A broom.
Have you seen one?"
He had, and while she walked to the corner pointed
out by him, he watched her in mute wonder. She appeared to be a new
stablehand; at any rate she was dressed in the regular outfit: sweater,
riding breeches, long socks in battered shoes but otherwise she looked
like a lost mannequin, wandering about in a graceful daze. When she had
taken up the broom (long slender fingers taking a firm hold, instantly
jolting the Martenglass heart, Freudian reminder of witches riding the
phallus through tempestuous nights), she said goodbye cheerily and
started to walk away.
Normally Martenglass would have left it at that
(courtesy toward the lower classes should not be overdone and, she,
being female, did embody the supreme danger) but the moment she walked
away, languidly, with fluent even faintly catprowl grace, he felt a
sudden and unbearable need to see the magic of her face once more.
He called out after her.
"Hey! Have you come to work here?"
She stopped, turned and came back, with the same
supple, graceful gait, smiling again. Sunlight rubbed her hair,
burnished it to a reddish bronze.
"Yes," she said. "This morning."
"Then I had better introduce myself outright. I'm Mr
Martenglass."
She held out a long slender hand, which he shook
with reverent caution.
"Anoushka."
"A beautiful name."
"Yes, I think so too," she said, without the
faintest trace of arrogance.
Martenglass had forgotten his next line and could
only grin stupidly.
"Well, I must be getting on with my work," she said,
after waiting patiently whether there was more to come and walked away.
Martenglass finished saddling his horse, climbed on and went outside
for his ride through the snow-powdered wood.
Thus it began. Nothing spectacular, one might say. Not an event to be
shouted from the roofs or to incite long, overwrought letters home.
Just a stroke of lightning that flashed, blinded and was gone, but left
Martenglass with the mystical vision of a burnt-out forest, a host of
cindered trees, black skeletons that were sure to glow up in some
eventual night. The dreamtrees of his youth, or so he believed,
although any chimney-sweep would tell him it might take decades of
dogged, psychoanalytical excavation to get to the bottom of such a
thing.
Anoushka. At any rate he had come away with her
name. That was something. Not a lot by modern standards. But better
than nothing. A name. Powerful taboo, once, a name. And, again, one
never knew. Martenglass wondered if he alone possessed the sense to
distinguish between progress and chronology. Anoushka. It was a
splendid name to keep handy, just in case some suicidal urge would come
to haunt him again.
Sauntering home that evening through the dusk, Martenglass felt a great
need of comfort. A good, strapping housewife who would hug him in her
portly arms and stroke his head and say: "Cheer up, Hansje,
everything's going to be fine". And this performed in such a way that
he might believe it. Ach, the idea alone was enough to make his eyes
water. Nobody loved him. This he felt keenly. Mrs Sugarysyrup, his
superior at the library had spoken very unfeelingly about the lack of
respect he displayed to the general public. True, he had not made
himself popular with a female who wore a little dead fox around her
neck. But, surely, it had not been all that bad. He had only suggested
some gentle torture until she lost what little sense she had. After
all, the said cave woman had more to fear on the Day of Reckoning, had
she not? What did people expect of him? Meekness in the face of Mrs
Beelzebub?
While he slouched along the façades, he felt
the weight of his existence again press down on his vertebrae like a
rucksack full of bricks. Why could nobody see that he really was not
such a bad guy? Perhaps he should call in an advertising agency. But
no, those folks were not to be envied either, those artistic blends of
Doktor Goebbels and any old hooker.
The sky above Martenglass was ultramarine. Flecks of snow fluttered
down like drowsy little moths. Nearly all the windows were lit in
winter scenes of domestic bliss that would have warmed other hearts but
only tore at his. Still, he had one straw to cling to, this night.
Klazien. Oh, Klazien, be miraculous, surprise friend and foe, shame the
unbelievers, be good, be willing, he thought, grinning feebly, in the
certainty that he could not, by any stretch of his flexible
imagination, foresee Klazien cause anything but galloping despair.
The penultimate street was a so-called "singel", a street with an
ornamental moat in the middle, icefree, a black abyss between the
facades so richly decorated with 17th-century Dutch Masters. The
streetlamps only managed to cast pale ghosts of light upon the water.
And nevertheless, life stirred there. Ducks floated there, softly
cackling among themselves. One of them broke into a peal of derisive
quacking. Ever growing was the Martenglass conviction that they, the
downtrodden of this earth, knew more, much more, than he, the creator's
apprentice, of the eventual outcome of all this.
Two hours later, despite all his skepticism, Martenglass hurried up the
stairwell of the early-postwar apartment building that Klazien
inhabited. After allowing himself a short breathing spell he pressed
the bell button. The door was torn open at once. Klazien in the
doorway, radiant as a springtime bride. Martenglass recoiled two steps.
How now? A sudden change of form? An Ovidian Metamorphosis? Her hair,
flowing strands of roebrown satin only Saturday, hung in tatters and
seemed to have been dipped in whitewash, while her broad hips made
cruel demands on the textile of a pair of jeans that one would barely
condone on the sweaty posteriors of a cotton-picking tramp.
"Hi, Hans," she said, sensuously puckering her lips
for a kiss.
With his vocal cords stunned, Martenglass stood for
no less than thirty seconds battling his rising anger. But when he
finally spoke, his voice still shuddered with rightful wrath.
"What kind of tomfoolery is this?" he said. "Art
thou female, person?"
Klazien gasped for breath.
Martenglass caught sight of the bouquet of red roses
he was holding. With a growl that would have done a grizzly proud he
flung the bouquet to the floor, kicked it against the wall and started
to perform an Irish jig upon it. Klazien retired behind the door,
leaving a chink to peer through. When the flowers had been ground to a
bloody pulp, Martenglass realized that he was, perhaps, making somewhat
of a fool of himself. He stopped dancing, cleared his throat and
addressed Klazien sternly.
"Madam, what gives you the ungodly impudence to
approach me in this clown's outfit? Methinks, monkeys in drag belong in
a circus. Perhaps you labor under the delusion that my invitation
concerned a bricklaying contest? A night of rust-chipping inside a
mammoth tanker? Creative claywork? You abominable sheman! Trouserling!
This is an affront. You have seen the last of me, unwife. I wish you
à Dieu."
Brusquely he turned and descended the stairs with
measured step.
Outside, in the sobering black of the February night, his fury still
simmered like molten tar. He scanned the surroundings for something to
vent his feelings on. Luck struck. An old-timer Citroen 2CV was parked
in the street. A white one, with all kinds of insulting stickers of
ducks on the rear, begging to be vandalized. Sorely tempted to rip it
apart with his bare hands Martenglass glowered at the monster. He took
a few ominous steps, then decided on inaction.
It had started to snow again, with big silent flakes
that clung to the eyelashes. This is how I grow old, he thought,
experiences are strung together and leave me behind, sadder but none
the wiser.
After this, in so many respects, memorable day, little happened in the
life of Hans Martenglass for many months. Throughout the spring and a
bit of summer he dwelt mainly in a backroom of his brain, which he
furnished with knowledge of medieval warfare, toying with the idea to
write a historical novel. He hankered for nobler ages. The days
that men were still permitted to meet death in its true form: the
apocalyptic horseman swooshing his scythe. At least they had known the
privilege of being hacked to pieces awares, growling, snarling, lashing
out with a broadsword, kicking to the very end and not, like his
father, drugged so senseless that the wretch did not even know what he
was doing when he crossed the finish line.
His studies left Martenglass little time to do any
riding, but the few times he saw the girl Anoushka, there would be the
faintest suggestion of distant thunder claps and lightning flickers. He
was always overcome with admiration, teetering on the brink of
reverence. He caught himself red-eyed in the act of looking forward to
seeing her again, to feast his eyes on the being of beauty that she
was. Occasionally he would have a chat with her. She was nineteen,
almost half his age. Still a child. She might have been his daughter.
It started slowly, covertly, a sweet poison stealthily administered.
The image of her majestic face would linger in his mind. First a couple
of minutes, then all the way home, and finally in his dreams. She did
not play any leading part in them, neither lusting bedlass nor
frostlipped maiden. She simply figured as a walk-on somewhere in the
background, gazing at him broodingly between the ragged strands of her
long, chestnut hair. Martenglass in control. He enjoyed her appearance,
her presence. The feeling she gave him might be compared to the joy
that sensitive natures derive from gazing at a full, creamy moon. But
slowly the wheels of fate unlocked, swung forward and began to roll.
Martenglass under a vague impression that she, Anoushka, was
deliberately seeking his company whenever he was at the riding school.
Not that he really believed it. He did not consider himself a likable
person, so it was always hard for him to imagine that other people
could like him. But then, they did not know him like he did. They had
not, drunkenly, in the hollowness of winter nights, lighted only by the
fickle flame of his self-disgust, ventured down into the catacombs of
his lecherous soul. No. Among his own admirers Martenglass was not to
be found. Still, Anoushka seemed to like him. And, of course, he did
not object, but it did create the need to adopt an unequivocal
attitude, he thought, remote from creating any false impressions. After
much soul-searching and many alcoholic midnight babbles to Capital
Punishment he finally opted for the role of the reliable elder brother:
cordial and helpful, laconic and sophisticated, but above all: aloof,
by all means aloof. And that was how she seemed to accept him. Their
talks grew in length and frequency but remained on the surface: small
about the topics of their weekends.
She merrily out with girlfriends, to a movie or
disco, looking at and listening to humans, films à la Kramer
versus Kramer, records of Abba & Bowie, an occasional tale of
Daphne Dumaurier, and horses, horses and more horses.
He grimly out alone, stalking vulnerable women in
public places; desolation and unwanted drunkenness, music of Beethoven
and Queensryche, films of Akira Kurosawa, meaty prose and Chansons de
Geste and horses.
Isn't this nice, Martenglass would think, at times, such a decent
friendship between mature man and adolescent girl. He should have known
better. Nothing endures on this side of the cosmic fence.
One day in July she got into an argument with her boss. Angrily she
stamped out of the riding school, into the pouring rain, coatless.
Martenglass felt the urge to follow her, but it seemed improper, so he
did not give in to it. But when he left, some fifteen minutes later, he
saw her sitting small on a hillock in the middle of the exercise field.
The rain was still humming down relentlessly. Propriety counted for
nothing now. This here was an emergency. Martenglass went up to her,
feeling strangely manipulated by forces beyond his control. She was
moping, her pallid-pink lips in a moody yet sensual pout, her hair
dripping along her face.
"Oh, boy," he said. "A poisonous lily of the field."
She managed a wry little smile.
"It's not as bad as all that."
"You shouldn't be out in the rain like this. You'll
catch your death of cold."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"So what?"
"So quite a lot."
"Nobody cares what happens to me anyway." she said,
wiping some wet strands of hair from her eyes.
"My, my, we are feeling sorry for ourselves today."
"Not at all. It's the simple truth. Apart from you
nobody gives a damn about me around here." She cast him a hard,
expectant look. His heart missed a beat. Sudden discomfort.
"Don't exaggerate." he said weakly.
She lowered her eyes, shrugged her shoulders again and pulled a stalk
of grass from the ground.
"It's the way it is."
"Please go inside, there's a good little girl. If
only to please me."
She looked up, a vague smile about her lips, a
diamond glitter in her eyes.
"All right. But only to please you."
He helped her up. She stumbled, fell against him and
retained that pose several seconds longer than necessary before she
sauntered away. Her riding breeches clung so tightly to her lithe body
that the edges of her briefs stood out like thin welts. Martenglass
gasped for air. The taste of sodden grass stuck to his tongue. A Great
Blue Heron passed overhead, winging languid and black against the pall
of clouds, and uttered a raucous, ill-boding call. It made Martenglass
realize that it hurt him to see this girl walk away.
"See you tomorrow," he called out.
She looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes were
orbs of blue fire behind the soaked strands of her hair, like predators
behind bars.
"Bye-ey" she sang.
Walking to his car, Martenglass could feel his heart hammer out a loud
and deliberate drumroll. He felt tense and confused. What the heck was
happening to him now? Apart from you nobody gives a damn, she had said.
Those words kept tumbling through his mind. Her expectant eyes were
branded in his memory. Expectant? Why? Expectant of what? What had she
meant? Had she meant anything at all?
After the incident in the rain, seriousness sprang up in their talks,
like a tough weed among fragile blossoms. Although silent and withdrawn
by nature she started to unveil the precious little secrets of her life
to him. Her lonely childhood in a big, empty mansion, oft forsaken by
parents who chased Cultural Experience with the zeal of bounty hunters,
true high-browsers, hankering to be deeply moved by the empty
lamentations of make-believers while their little daughter wandered
through a deserted home. Finally she found refuge at a riding school,
among ponies and horses, where she could feel needed and safe. Her
beauty had soon become a bane to her. Too hot a fire for this tepid
world, she drew to her window many a fiery but all too cold-hearted
boy, who would always want more than she was ready to give.
"Why can boys never stay nice?" she once asked
Martenglass, referring to their amorous inclinations.
"Perhaps because the species could not survive on
boys staying nice." said Martenglass.
"I hate it," she said, with unwonted vehemence. "I
just want to have a good time. But they always want more. You can't go
out with a boy without him pawing you before the evening is half gone."
"You shouldn't have been so beautiful then."
Martenglass said, smiling gently while he caressed her indignant face
with his gaze.
"That's not my fault is it?"
"You might consider plastic surgery."
She bumped him with her shoulder.
"Idiot."
He laughed. So did she. Briefly they stood uprooted,
alone together, glances entangled, lips relaxed and willing to caress.
Martenglass was the first to lower his eyes.
"Well, I'd better saddle my horse," he said.
"I'd better get back to work," she said, a trifle
too airily.
"Don't overdo it."
She laughed.
"Have nice ride."
Anoushka enjoyed listening. Well, then she had come to the right man.
Martenglass prattled on and on, amusing her with anecdotes from his
eventful past. She took a special interest in his love life. And again
she was in luck. If love be war, Martenglass bore as many decorations
as scars. He could relate of glittering triumphs but also of gloomy
days under the high heels of a heartless oppressor. And so, one day,
they came to the tenderest of subjects. A Monday morning it was, at the
end of August. Peace reigned inside the riding school. There were
restless clouds abroad, causing the sunlight to flicker like a
stuttering neon tube. Martenglass was grooming his horse, Anoushka was
sweeping the stable. Sunlight fluttered around in the dust she raised.
They had finished a pleasant chat some minutes
before. All of a sudden Martenglass noticed something odd about the
silent, lanky girl. She was no longer sweeping, but stood motionless
beside her broom, scraping a foot through the straw, like a restive
mare.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
She jerked her shoulders a little.
"I want to ask you something but I'm afraid you'll
think me silly."
"Ask me whatever you want."
"You're not to laugh."
"Cross my heart and hope to be struck by lightning
where I stand."
She giggled, gave a tug with her head, sweeping the
dark hairveil across her left shoulder, and looked straight into his
face, with those luminescent eyes of hers.
"What I want to know ..." she began bravely but
gradually lost control of her voice as it rapidly lost force and volume
"... er ... what's it like ... I mean ... the first time?"
The grooming Martenglass hand stuck like a
windshield wiper.
"The first time?"
She lowered her eyes, blushing.
"You know. When a boy and a girl do it ... for the
first time ..."
She fell silent, studied her left foot while she
scraped the floor with it. The bay-colored curtain had fallen, hiding
her face.
Martenglass stammering:
"Do you mean to say that you never ..."
She nodded, without looking up.
Aah! Martenglass benumbed. A single sunbeam flashed
through the window at that very moment, bordering Anoushka's hair with
a golden trim. In the lightshaft a sparrow fluttered above her head for
several seconds. From the depths of the stable the first ponderous
tones of the Canon of Pachelbel came rolling on. Emotion, deep, warm
and tingling, melted the Martenglass heart. This is she, he heard a
voice mutter in the background. The virgin, the saintly one, the
patient one. The devout mistress. The path through paradise. The
untrodden snow. The silent mirror lake. The purity of a dewdrop on
moss.
Far did he have to extend his chest to suck enough air into his lungs.
She looked up, with a moody little twist to her
mouth.
"Why don't you say something. Is it that stupid?"
"Stupid? But no, my dear Noush, anything but. I'm
only flabbergasted. Such a beautiful girl like you. This being 1999
A.D. I thought virgins had long become extinct, or at any rate hooted
down. Off to a brothel with them, on a tumbril, to teach them manners.
The unison of ardent lovers discarded in favor of genital fumbling with
strangers. Travesties of love. Churlish lust. Monkeys and goats, wasn't
that Othello's saying? Intimacy? What intimacy? The body freely loaned
as an urinal to the first prick that raises its head. Oh times, oh
mores."
Martenglass had sunk down on a bale of straw,
shaking his head. (Sure, he made no denials, he too had not remained
untainted by the venereal epidemic that had raged through the world
since the nineteen sixties. Often enough he had gagged at the
recollection of things he had done in alcoholic vapors. But
nevertheless. His shame had been genuine. A deep, splitting realization
of unworthiness. It was quite different for many).
The girl stood watching him in wonderment, head
slightly tilted, lower lip lax so that the sun brushed a moist gloss
upon it. Martenglass looked up, bemused, and scratched his head.
Anoushka burst into laughter.
"The way you carry on sometimes. You're really nuts,
do you know that?"
"Thanks."
"But nicely so."
He laughed too. And, for a brief spell, fleeting as
a rainbow, their glances struck a bridge between their eyes. Then a
pack of kids came in to jostle one another noisily before the box of a
pony.
"I think we had better continue our talk elsewhere,"
said Martenglass.
"Yes," said Anoushka. "I can take my lunch break
now."
"What about going for pancakes?" asked Martenglass,
on an impulse that he regretted instantly. This could be interpreted as
an obtrusion. But his fear was quickly dispelled.
"Great!" Anoushka said with obvious delight. "Just
let me change my shoes." And off she went.
Martenglass stayed behind in a pensive mood. This thing was going in a
different direction than he had imagined. As everything always did, in
fact. Growth and decline. Eternal motion. Nothing ever settled down for
the merest fraction of a second. Even in a block of concrete there was
uncontrollable fidgeting and shivering. Molecules, atoms, everything
was moving frantically about. This inevitably led to the two basic
queries of modern life:
1) What the hell do we think we are doing?
2) Where the hell do we think we are going?
Martenglass chuckled and shook his head. Bizarre chemical reactions
were taking place in his system.
The pancake house the Suckling Sow lay about three hundred paces from
the riding school in the Kraling Wood. Martenglass had once paced it
off in a particularly listless mood. While Anoushka and he walked
there, they both smiled uneasily. It's almost like feeling happy,
Martenglass thought, with a furtive glance at the young, beautiful and
friendly face beside him.
The wood was clamorous; a cool breeze rummaged
through the dry and weary August leafage. A herd of tattered clouds,
grays and whites, stampeded across the paleblue sky.
"I kind of like this weather," said Anoushka. "So
fresh."
"Yes," said Martenglass. He really felt different,
which could spell little good.
The Suckling Sow was a sturdy wooden shed with small windows. On the
inside the woodwork was stained darkbrown. The curtains were checkered
red and white in an attempt to create a rustic old-Dutch atmosphere.
Black frying pans dangled from the ceiling. The acoustics were
terrible: harsh and resounding. A broad counter separated the seating
area from the kitchen behind it. Somewhere a radio was mumbling a soft
ballad. For the rest the place looked deserted, not a soul in sight.
Martenglass led Anoushka to a table in the back.
There they sat down, facing each other, separated by a wooden tabletop
full of veins and knots. Anoushka had her back to a window displaying
the shimmering leaves of a birch outside.
Embarrassment had risen between them like a
forbidding specter. They could hardly look at each other. Martenglass
did not want to broach the subject before they had their refreshments,
but nobody appeared. So he just blurted out the question.
"What made you ask me a thing like that?" he asked.
She smiled gently, a slight tremor at the left
corner of her mouth.
"I don't know. Simply because I felt I could."
"Seems more of a question for girlfriends."
"That's just it. Ilse, my best friend, always puts
on this song and dance about how horrible it was ... Is it? Surely you
must know."
His memory fell open like a shoebox filled with old,
faded photographs.
"Yes, I do," he said softly. "Only from the other
side, of course." he added, by way of a joke, which she did not heed,
face tense with solemn attention. For the first time since he knew her
he wished she were not so beautiful. He felt very uncomfortable in this
role of makeshift sexual educator.
"Well? What was it like?" she asked.
"Awful," said Martenglass. "Especially with the
first two. Nervous and awkward, tremors and giggles, bodies tense, eyes
furtive ... doubts, scruples, manhood wilting, sorely taxed by ineptly
handled condoms. Nope. Actually, it was more like a clumsy exercise in
mutual first aid than an act of simmering passion."
"Must it be like that?"
"I guess not. Things were a little better with the
third one. But I had more experience then."
"What about the pain?"
"It differed. Marina almost passed out. That was a
scare. She behaved as if I had knifed her in the belly. I can still
picture myself, lying on top of her, a loving but very uncouth lad of
nineteen, astonished and sobered by her shriek, while she wriggled out
from under me, moaning, and staggered out of the bedroom bent over,
both hands between her legs. I must add, though, that Marina had a weak
constitution to begin with. I never knew the day that she did not
complain about some part of her anatomy."
"Was it never good?"
"Sure. With Suzanne, the last one. I wasn't so
clumsy then. I went about things very cautiously. It was a matter of
biting the bullet and everything turned up roses in the end." He
grinned sheepishly, but Anoushka's face remained solemn.
"So it depends on the boy?"
"Yeah, I suppose it does. Technique plays its part."
Again he grinned to hide his embarrassment. "The first two girls I
bedded were deeply to be pitied. By jove, a mad stallion would seem
tame in comparison. I hardly knew where I was going. So I just battered
away with a vengeance. Deep shame could I feel on that count. But, what
the heck. I didn't know any better."
Anoushka looked at him pensively.
"Gosh," she said softly.
Breathtaking she was, so fresh and innocent that
Martenglass suddenly felt a dirty old man. Rightly so. Could he deny
it? Did he dare? Her eyes gazed into his, motionless. She trusted him
like her older brother. If only he were. He sighed, weak-fleshed,
keenly aware that he could not be trusted with such innocence, glad to
be safely in a public place.
Party time at the riding school canteen. Martenglass in tuxedo.
Anoushka in a white, clinging evening dress in which her slim body was
outlined like a birch in its bark, terrifyingly beautiful to a mortal
as Martenglass all too much was. Drunk with admiration he underwent her
existence from a safe distance. She enraptured him. It was almost as if
he saw her in slow motion. Everything but her escaped his notice. He
observed her like an exhausted predator his frolicking prey. She hung
around her peers, danced with young guys a few times. Then she came to
him.
"Why aren't you dancing?" she asked, laughing, the
long dark fringe of hair almost touching her eyelashes.
"I don't know anyone to dance with," he said, with a
lump in his throat.
She tilted her head a bit.
"How about me?"
"Would you want me to?"
"Of course, you idiot."
They danced. Martenglass like a zombie. He wanted to keep her at a
distance, but it just would not work. She slid toward him magnetically.
And even when they danced apart, her eyes embraced him. Two sparkling
blue stars in a morning twilight. Her laughing mouth promised him
everything. He could not believe it, nor did he want to.
When the band took a break, he led her to the bar.
There she stood very close to him. Still and demure. She hardly spoke,
but the smile never left her lips.
"Nice," she said. "Like this, with you." Her hand
briefly stroked his upper arm.
Vaguely Martenglass was aware of questioning looks
around him. For shame: the old wolf and the stable virgin. There were
giggles from her workmates. But she was unshakable, shamelessly frank
in her choice. Martenglass talked with other men in tuxedos without
knowing what they were talking about. He only felt the occasional
pressure of Anoushka's breasts against his upper arm. At times she
rested her head on his shoulder for a few seconds.
During the next dance he suddenly found himself
kissing her cheek. Her lips instantly shifted to his mouth for a long,
famished kiss. Mountain water to a desert tongue. Balm to a blistering
burn. Yes, it even reminded him of a mother's kiss on a grazed little
knee or a telephone that rings just after all hope has fled.
Martenglass out of control. Without a word he led her away, outside, to
his car. She did not speak either. In the car she encircled him. Her
hand rested in his lap for a moment, where few signs of brotherly
affection remained. She uttered a deep sigh as she felt his erection
and cuddled closer to him.
In a daze Martenglass started the car and drove off. On his lips burned
the question whether she realized what she was doing, but he knew what
her answer would be: you idiot. And that was exactly what he was.
Never could Martenglass have imagined that so much tenderness still
lingered in his mortal remains. He unveiled her cautiously as if she
were a crystal-frail sculpture. She seemed drugged, her smoldering eyes
half closed, mouth a fount of joyful whimpers. He took her, carefully
as a painter of miniatures, holding his breath, the brush hovering over
the canvas, pausing at the slightest tremor of her wonderful face. The
pain he had to cause her touched him so deeply that he could hardly
bear it. Fortunately it did not take long. Her eyes glistened when his
pubic hairs touched hers.
"You couldn't possibly be sweeter," she whispered and started to move,
clumsily but with abandon.
Long and tenderly Martenglass had made love to Anoushka. Now she was
asleep, on her back on his green quilt, a purple Loony Tunes towel
between her thighs, right arm extended along her body, left hand with a
gracefully arched wrist on her belly. Her face, streaked by strands of
wet hair, looked paler than usual, with some reddish blots around her
mouth, where his stubbles had scraped the skin.
The man himself sat on a stool beside the bed and
tried to control his runaway emotions. Overjoyed, he could not stop
grinning. It was making his face hurt, yet sweetly so.
Anoushka. Here! On his sordid attic where loneliness
had held its brutal sway for so very long. Was this the beginning of
the end of being alone? Hard to believe. And yet, the living proof lay
before his eyes. Sweet, strange, quiet Anoushka. A creator's dream,
apart from that silly towel. Most beautiful, no, most delightful
creature he had ever known. And he had made love to her, as first and
only one, so that now, according to ancient custom, she was his. For
ever.
He sank to his knees beside the bed, clasped his
hands together like a devotee, entranced by the one who had given him
so much. His very own angel. He stretched out a hand and brushed the
hair from her face with floating fingertips. She uttered a small,
contented sigh. Martenglass clenched his teeth. Gods! Now they were
abroad. He no longer doubted their existence. He felt them present
everywhere, looking down with warm smiles upon the effect of this rare
boon. His eyes began to tingle. Who was he to deserve this?
He rose, unsteady and naked, and wandered away from the bed, to the
open window, where the warm breath of night caressed his face. The
opposite facade was all darkness. Only somewhere down below did a light
burn behind two misted windows. Soft guitar music drifted up from
there, a faint trickling of tones, like a mouse dancing on the strings.
A strange, soothing calm descended upon him. All
tremors were stilled, as were his doubts and fears and aches, and those
nasty little irks that frustration breeds. All was well. Home at last.
He tried to recall when he had felt so good. He never had. This was
where he had always wanted to be.
He looked back over his shoulder. The only lamp in his attic cast a
cone of light on the bed and bathed Anoushka's body in a pallid glow on
the emerald green quilt, like a sculpture of living marble on a lawn, a
Celtic princess on a moss-clad, sacrificial stone.
Martenglass smiled, moved an easy chair to the
window, grabbed a bottle of malt whisky, called for Capital Punishment
and settled down to savor the moment.
Time ceased to matter. He sat in his chair, smiling, taking little,
tepid sips from the bottle, while he stroked his purring cat. He did
little thinking. No need. Everything made sense. He had a future again,
still vague and hazy, like a summer morning mist, but glowing with all
the promise of a golden dawn. This happiness would last a lifetime, he
knew for certain.
Finally, weary with bliss and drowsed by whiskey, he
went in search of a place beside the sleeping girl, very careful not to
disturb her, legs dangling outside the bed.
His first sensation when he broke through the cobwebs of sleep was the
smile on his face: upper teeth on an outstretched lower lip. It gave
him a start. This had been unknown since childhood. Had his mind
finally collapsed? Or did this morning cheer have a reasonable cause?
Had - no snickering please - something good happened? He drew his
eyelids apart. An early sun cast the customary yellow, sloping
quadrangle on the floor but this time the patch of light was partly
filled by a bent silhouette. His glance flew toward its origin.
Anoushka. Ah! He remembered. A flash of joy shot through his body. At
last, he thought. He stretched his limbs languidly and sat up, grinning
like an ape.
His young bride sat on the stool at the window, clad
in a T-shirt and riding breeches, both his. She was busy putting on a
riding boot.
"Noush?" he said softly.
She looked up, eyes pursed against the light.
"Hello Mr Martenglass," she said cheerfully.
Avalanche, whiplash or lightning could not have
struck a crueler blow. Mister Martenglass? MISTER? He gasped.
"I'm borrowing your riding togs," said Anoushka
airily. "You don't mind, do you? I have to go to the riding school and
I can't very well go in my evening dress."
"But..." said Martenglass, without an inkling what
else to say. What was this? Riding school? Now? There was so much to
discuss. Eternal loyalty, ceremony, honeymoon, number of kids, et
cetera.
Meanwhile Anoushka had put on one of the boots.
"A bit big," she said. "But good enough." She
started on the second one.
"But Noush," muttered Martenglass. "Surely you don't
have to go NOW?"
Without heeding his words, grunting softly, the girl
also worked her second leg into a riding boot.
"There. Done. Could you drive me down?" She rose to
her feet.
"But ..." said Martenglass, numb with amazement.
Her face was hid in shadow, her torso was engulfed
by the copper sunlight. The wide T-shirt camouflaged her form, although
her taut nipples stood out visibly in the fabric. Martenglass at an
utter loss. I love you, he thought, I love you infinitely. Marry me.
Today. Right now.
She approached, out of the sun. Her face darkened on
seeing his dismay.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I don't understand," said Martenglass.
She laughed.
"It's not that difficult. I have to go to work."
Her face had skipped the night. This was how she had
looked at him before, before she had lain bolted to him, a creature of
sighs and squirms and lewd caresses. Surely, this could not be
happening?
"But what about us?" he stammered.
Taken aback, a little suspicious even, she looked at
him.
"But what about us?" she repeated.
"Yes."
"Now I'm the one who doesn't understand."
"Last night!" exclaimed Martenglass, as the world
rolled away from under him. Nothing but chaos embraced him now.
She smiled.
"Oh, yes. I'm very grateful to you for that."
"Grateful?" whispered Martenglass hoarsely.
"Grateful?"
"Yes. Now I'm no longer afraid. You've been a great
help."
Martenglass felt his blood thicken and slow down.
Suddenly he knew again who he was. A loser in his thirties who smoked
too much and drank too much and kept himself going with faint illusions
of future fame and fortune.
"What's the matter?" Anoushka asked. "You look gray
as a ghost. Aren't you feeling well?"
"No," said Martenglass. "I'm feeling rather sick."
"Gosh, what a shame."
Martenglass collapsed on his back with a thud. Have
me put out of my misery, he thought, now! He looked straight up into
the darkness between the rafters of his attic. Don't think, he thought,
just don't think. All will be well then.
"Is there anything I can do?" she asked.
"No. Nothing," said Martenglass, closing his eyes,
fully aware that the sight of her would rip him apart like wet paper.
"Time," he said. "That's all. You can take my car,
if you want."
"I haven't got my licence yet."
"Oh."
"I'll take a street car. Is there really nothing I
can do for you?"
"No. More's the pity."
"All right. I must be off. I'll be seeing you at the
riding school."
"Yes," said Martenglass. He still kept his eyes
tightly shut. She came to the bed, bent over and kissed him on the
mouth. A caress so vain that it did not inspire the slightest urge to
move his lips. He heard her hesitate near the bed for a few seconds.
"I'm really very grateful," she said.
"You're welcome." he said.
He remained motionless, listening how she descended the stairs, had
some trouble opening the outer door, finally succeeded, stepped outside
and closed the door behind her. He also heard her footfall rebound from
the pavement for dozens of yards. Then the sounds she made melted into
the daily morning streetnoise.
Immovable he lay upon his bed. His stomach was
already aflame. It's not fair, he thought. Capital Punishment emerged
from under the bed. His nails tapped on the floor. With one leap he was
on the pillow. Martenglass moved his arm and the animal nestled himself
in his armpit, purring, his velvet head against his master's cheek.
Martenglass turned on his side, pulled up his knees, embraced the cat
tightly and gave him a kiss on his cold, moist nose.
"Oh Capital, my dear, beloved Capital. Rejoice at
not being human."
His desperate heart was still circulating blood, but
the first hair cracks were beginning to develop. With trembling lower
lip he braced himself.