Goodbye Lucille Page 3

  The friend dashed to open the front door while Claudia and I staggered towards her. By the time we managed to clamber upstairs and fall into the apartment, the two women were exhausted. Then the friend disappeared. I kept expecting her to return, naked.

  ‘Where’s what’s-her-name?’ I asked.

  Claudia was wandering round the apartment for no discernible reason, wringing her hands. ‘Here, drink this.’ She handed me a glass beaker of black coffee. ‘Sylvie’s gone home, silly. Why do you ask?’

  I shrugged. Sylvie had left without so much as a ‘good night’, which struck me as rude. The night was racing away from me now and I longed for sleep. I sipped the coffee and reached across the sofa and kissed Claudia for what seemed like hours. She wriggled free and began to comb her fingers through her hair, undoing the multi-coloured extensions piecemeal.

  ‘What’s your line of work?’ she asked as she placed another extension on the coffee table beside her, then smoothed down her dress. She was intent on readjusting herself every other minute, which seemed pointless at this stage.

  ‘I’m twenty-four,’ I said.

  ‘No, work – what do you do?’

  I wasn’t up to any kind of conversation. I gave her what I thought was a seductive look and leaned forward again. I couldn’t work the zip at the back of her dress. I yanked it down, then up again, but it moved only a centimetre. After a minute or so she began to resist. There seemed to be two of her now.

  ‘If we don’t do it now, I’ll fall asleep. I’m dog-tired.’ I was trying to be gentle, but I couldn’t blame her for looking hurt. ‘Where’s the bedroom?’

  We tottered along a corridor, fumbling kisses along the way, and then she rushed into the bathroom. I lay spread-eagled on the bed and began to twirl the tassels on the bedspread. A large Chinese paper lantern loomed down at me giving out a soft, pink glow. The next moment I was being slapped across the face.

  ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ Claudia kept on in a loud whisper.

  ‘Stop. Please, stop,’ I mumbled, unable to move. I thought: How have things come to this, begging not to be hit?

  Claudia continued to provoke me until I was forced to open my eyes.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ she sighed. ‘I thought you’d never wake up.’ She sounded more relieved than annoyed. ‘You’re a real sleeper, aren’t you?’

  Daylight oozed in around the edges of the curtains. I wondered what had happened to the night. It seemed unfair to be unaware of whether or not one had experienced any kind of pleasure. Claudia sat on the edge of the bed in an oversized yellow T-shirt and a man’s striped pyjama bottoms. She had scraped off her make-up and wrapped her hair in a loose bun, providing clear access to her features: high forehead and cheekbones and a smattering of freckles. She was neither Latin American nor North African, I could see that now.

  ‘Well, I’m awake now,’ I smiled. I reached across and kissed her and slipped a hand beneath the yellow T-shirt. I took her nipples in my mouth, one after the other. She moaned quietly and lay back. I tugged at the drawstring of her pyjamas, then tried to yank the material beyond her hips.

  ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ Claudia released the knot, then attempted to remove the pyjamas, but I pushed her hand aside and was already thrusting by the time they were around her thighs. It was almost too late. In a moment it was over, barely three minutes since she had slapped me awake. She looked stupefied. I felt a pang of remorse, on the one hand for having been so quick, and on the other, for being unfaithful to Lucille. But then it wasn’t the first time.

  ‘I should go,’ I said. I wanted to be in my own bed, without the complication of the situation.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Claudia said. ‘Don’t go.’

  I was about to mention Lucille, but I decided against it. It seemed too much of an effort. I got up and staggered towards the bathroom. I was still drunk from the night before; my head felt like a calabash with a lead weight knocking about inside it. When I returned, Claudia had pulled on a pink dressing gown. She sat with her knees drawn up against her chest, arms wrapped round them. She watched closely as I dressed. I was worried she might break into hysterics at any moment. It had happened to me before and I had never forgotten. I felt powerless to assuage the situation.

  ‘I don’t suppose …’ she said after a long silence, but she didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t respond. I wanted to be away from there.

  In the morning light I could envisage myself in her eyes and I seemed distant. That is how I must have appeared to her; very cold and far away.

  On the U-Bahn home, some youths were causing a disturbance at the far end of the carriage. They were shouting and laughing at nothing in particular. I could tell their night of revelry was only just petering out. They seemed intent on clinging to whatever vestiges of frivolity remained.

  At Hallesches Tor there was a splashing sound and the handful of passengers in the carriage kept turning round. I thought it might be a station cleaner washing down the platform. I heard a retching noise and realized one of the ruffians was being sick. The doors closed abruptly and the youth returned to sit with his friends. He was smiling now. They were all grinning and laughing. They seemed terribly pleased with themselves. ‘Dirty rotten drunks,’ I muttered. I turned away and didn’t give the situation another thought.

  3

  I CALLED MARIE at the magazine. I tend to phone at random. I’m sure she doesn’t appreciate this, but I do it, regardless. There was no work, of course, but an exhibition was being scheduled for the Andreas Grob gallery. She said she would notify me as soon as it was confirmed.

  ‘You’re still on for the Henkelmann assignment?’ she asked. ‘Next week, remember?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, without hesitating. ‘Just checking to see if there’s anything else.’ I had forgotten, actually, and it disturbed me to have lost a memory so easily. I wrote out a reminder of the job and stuck it on the refrigerator door. There was a note in place already:

  Henkelmann – Thursday – Marie

  No date.

  Afterwards I rang Thomas at Zip to apologize for not contacting him earlier. I’d been away, I said. I didn’t elaborate. He grunted and there was a moment’s silence in which I was sure he was trying to think of a way to end the conversation. I told him something terrible had happened – there had been a death. In the family. ‘I can’t talk about it,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said, without emotion. He seemed to be mulling over something. ‘Why don’t I have a look in my diary and we’ll see what we can do. I’ll get my secretary to make another appointment.’

  Once arranged, I wrote out another reminder and stuck it beside the two Henkelmann notes.

  I began to work again on the photographs I had been trying to exhibit for the past four months, based on the lives of asylum seekers in the city. Christian, who manages Galerie Messinger on Knesebeckstrasse, keeps promising to show my work as soon as he sees ‘something inspiring’. If you didn’t know him you might think he was being tactless and insensitive. That’s just his way and I appreciate the candour. The last time I saw him he said the photographs were interesting, but not quirky enough for his market.

  I yawned and a moment later my stomach growled. I checked the hall clock and realized I had been working non-stop for nearly three hours. It worried me because there is no ventilation in the darkroom. I’m afraid of succumbing to the fumes one day, waking sometime in the future, emaciated, perhaps not regaining consciousness at all.

  Apart from the eggs and a few tins of corned beef and sardines, there was no food in the kitchen, so I had to go out for lunch. Frau Lieser surprised me on the staircase.

  ‘Good morning,’ she warbled, even though it was well into afternoon. She has long been under the impression she possesses a fine singing voice. Her greetings are invariably delivered in the tune currently bustling through her head.

  ‘Afternoon,’ I replied, trying to steer round her. She seemed unaware she was blocking the way. Like
me, Frau Lieser is not thin. I started to panic because I was sure she was going to mention the rent. I couldn’t remember whether I had settled for the month, although it was remotely possible I was even ahead with the payments.

  ‘These stairs,’ she complained with a theatrical sigh. ‘They’re murder on the old bones, you know. You young people, you’re up and down like squirrels. When you reach my age it’s a chore simply to get out of bed.’

  ‘You’re still young, Frau Lieser,’ I said, because to me she didn’t look in any way enfeebled. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  ‘Just wait and see,’ she said. ‘When you get to be my age you’ll remember my words. You’ll say, “She was right after all, old Marianne. I wish I’d listened.” Look at you, jetting about the world every day. It would be the death of me.’ Her fingers danced lightly above her scarf, over the place where her hair was thinning.

  Frau Lieser thinks I travel a great deal more than I actually do. Whenever we meet she will ask if I have just arrived from somewhere, if I am about to set off again. I’ll usually reply, Yes, I have been to New York or Marseilles in the past few days, that I’m planning to travel to Dakar or Reykjavik to cover a story. Whenever I mention the name of a country or city she has never heard of, she squeals and closes her eyes. ‘Oh, the heat, the warm shifting sands,’ she sighs, regardless of whether or not the place is blessed with a warm climate. ‘The dancing girls!’

  ‘I was making my way upstairs,’ she gestured towards the ceiling, referring to the punks, Caroline and Dieter. ‘They’ve got problems again. With the toilet. Am I in any fit state to do anything about it?’

  I spotted her bag of tools beside her feet. Everyone in the building has noticed this bag, but so far, no one has ever seen it open. When I first moved in she carried it upstairs to answer my complaint about a leaking radiator. She examined the problem briefly, rapped twice against the metal, and said, ‘Needs professional attention.’ Which is what she always says.

  ‘As I was coming up to your floor,’ she continued, ignoring my efforts to squeeze past her, ‘I suddenly remembered that bread you brought me once. From Scotland. It’s given me the most awful craving now, that lovely Scottish bread.’ She smoothed down her apron with her palms and smiled coyly.

  I couldn’t remember ever giving her anything apart from the rent. She might have been confusing me with someone else, but then I couldn’t imagine any of the tenants being generous towards her. Apart from Clariss, perhaps.

  ‘That time you went to Scotland. There was a festival, remember?’

  ‘Oh, that time,’ I recalled. The episode had been fictitious, a ruse to encourage leniency towards me during another period of unemployment. I was afraid the lie had come back to haunt me.

  ‘It’s called shortbread, Frau Lieser. You can buy it down the road, you know.’ I certainly had.

  ‘Nonsense!’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, it wouldn’t be the same. Only the Scottish know how to bake it that way. Properly. Next time you are in London, please visit Scotland and get me some of that bread.’ She reached into her apron and retrieved a few crumpled marks. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t forget now. I’m relying on you.’

  I did not tell her I hadn’t been to London in over six months, that I had no intention of travelling there in the near future. She would have been bewildered to learn I had never been to Scotland.

  ‘Frau Lieser,’ I inhaled. ‘I have an urgent assignment. Some musicians are, at this moment, waiting to be photographed at the InterContinental. I have to hurry.’

  ‘Oh, of course, of course!’ she exclaimed, managing only to become more involved. She shifted a few millimetres. ‘These musicians, they are …are they? Do I know them?’

  ‘No, Frau Lieser, you do not,’ I said, squeezing past her. I muttered my excuses and left her to wheeze up the stairs.

  The lunch menu had come and gone by the time I arrived at the Rio. I asked whether there was anything I could order. The waitress scurried into the kitchen and returned moments later saying the cook could prepare a Spanish omelette and French fries. I smiled in approval and she tweaked her ear and disappeared into the kitchen as quickly as she had arrived.

  I sipped my beer at first in order to make it last the meal, but my thirst got the better of me and I drained the glass before the food came. I bought another straight away.

  Apart from the waitress and myself, there were few other people in the room. In a corner towards the rear of the café, a man, perhaps in his late twenties, sat with his palm against his forehead. He began to write in a small pocket book next to his plate. After a moment, he stopped writing and started to pick at his food. He was wearing blue flip-flops and cutoff jeans, and a black T-shirt with faded gilt lettering. He took up his pen again and wrote for perhaps another minute. He wavered slightly, attempted to write something else, then brought his head towards his hand again. When my food arrived he was still clutching his head.

  The chef had tossed slivers of red peppers into the omelette, and a heap of paprika. I spent the next couple of minutes picking out all the peppers, placing them carefully to one side of the plate. I thought we made a pernickety pair, the intermittent writer and I.

  In the middle of this, a woman strode up to me from the side entrance. I didn’t look up at once, but I could tell she was tall. She gave off a strong scent; like wading through the perfume section of a department store.

  ‘Hello, Clariss,’ I said without glancing up. I had nearly rid myself of all the peppers.

  ‘What’s shaking, honey?’ She sat down and rested her chin in the cradle of her hands and looked at me.

  ‘Nothing much,’ I said. ‘You?’ The omelette minus the peppers was close to perfect.

  ‘Go on and eat, sugar,’ she waved. She lit a cigarette. ‘I’m just fine.’ She looked at the man in the corner. When he finally began to write, she started to applaud. ‘Bravo!’ she called in her American drawl, ‘Bravo!’ her claps like pistol shot.

  He turned to look at her. Embarrassed, he swivelled back to his work, but he didn’t write a word. He just sat there. The room was silent.

  ‘I think you’ve interrupted his flow,’ Clariss whispered.

  ‘Interesting theory. Have a French fry.’

  ‘Very generous, but no – I’m reducing.’

  Clariss was wearing an indigo velvet trouser suit, with a sea-green and yellow silk scarf draped round her neck. Her hair fell in thick black curls round her face and shoulders. Her face was almost as black as her hair. Every time she took a drag on her cigarette, her bracelets slid down to her bony elbow. After a while she balanced the cigarette carefully on the side of the ashtray and shook the bracelets back into place. Clariss was taller than anyone I had ever met without the aid of heels. Today she was wearing stilettos.

  ‘You look stunning,’ I said.

  ‘Aim to please, sweetpea.’ She pointed a very long finger at me. She seemed thrilled with herself, but she was trying not to let it show. ‘What has a girl got to do to get some service these days?’ She snapped her fingers at the waitress, making a surprisingly loud crack.

  The waitress traipsed over with absolutely no sense of urgency. ‘What’ll you have?’ she barked.

  Clariss gabbled something unintelligible.

  ‘What’s that?’ the waitress glanced at me for an explanation, her palms held out. She didn’t like Clariss. ‘What’d she say?’

  I shrugged. Clariss tried again. The waitress collected my empty glass and left.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Clariss asked.

  ‘You – what language were you speaking?’

  She glared at me and tutted. The writer in the corner had disappeared.

  ‘I have to go now,’ I said. ‘I’m halfway through work.’

  ‘Work? And leave a girl on her own? In a strange bar? How ungallant.’

  ‘You’re not a stranger here; this is practically your home,’ I said. ‘All right, I’ll stay for one more.’

  ‘Fine. Do as
you please,’ she sighed. ‘Gentlemen are so hard to come by these days.’

  I felt sluggish after the lunchtime drinks, but decided to continue. I had been working on a set of photographs of my neighbour, Arî. He looked uncomfortable in every print I had developed. Arî Jaziri is a Kurdish Asylbewerber. Asylum seeker. He fled Turkey over a year ago and has been waiting for a decision on his immigration status ever since. Every day he has some new worry more pressing than the previous day’s. It will invariably be linked to his current state of limbo; he is not strictly a resident of any country at the moment.

  The first time I asked if I could photograph him, he flatly refused. Then one day while he was having another one of his crises, I sat him down at my kitchen table. He began by telling me how the police had harassed him on the U-Bahn yet again. He halted in mid-tirade.

  ‘Who are they, this people?’ He pointed to the photographs on the walls.

  ‘They’re part of the project I’m working on at the moment,’ I said. ‘Partly why I’ve asked you to sit for me.’

  He stood and scrutinized them, shoulders scrunched up, eyes hooded by thick eyebrows. He stopped in front of a triptych of three sisters.

  ‘They’re from Eritrea,’ I explained.

  ‘Why you take this pictures?’ he asked.

  I touched the triptych and straightened it, but it only teetered again. ‘It’s my job. And I want to.’ I couldn’t explain.

  He smoked in silence for several minutes, then turned to me and said when I realized why I took the photographs, I should be sure to let him know. He had forgotten about the incident on the U-Bahn.

  A few weeks later, I took Arî to a jazz club along Bleibtreustrasse. I’d been sent to cover a set by a band from Miami who had been touring Europe for the past five months. We were late. The air was viscous with smoke. Arî confessed he had never been inside a jazz club before. We sat as near to the front as possible and shared a table with three students from the Free University. The waitress arrived with our orders. In a moment I rose to take my photographs.