“What are you giving him?”
“I’m not telling!” She laughed again, and he knew everything even before the sweat broke out on his hands as it always did. In his mind he saw his father untying the ribbon, folding back the tissue paper, carefully and with a very special expression on his face that Armin otherwise only saw when his parents believed themselves to be alone. His eyes would drink in the lace, the flowered straps, before he folded the tissue paper shut again and said, “I’ll save this for later.” And none of his friends was allowed to peek. Every year it was the same.
Mama was much more casual. Her gifts lay around to be looked at, pored over. It didn’t bother her at all when Aunt Margot ran her hands longingly across the silk ribbons, when Uncle Herbert plunged a greedy fist inside a still virginally-wrapped satin camisole. Papa didn’t like that. Armin knew this, and understood that these instances were among the rare occasions when the two of them agreed on anything.
“Papa has so much to do,” she complained, and he asked himself yet again why she had married him, why she waited patiently, for nearly two decades now, for him to come home, bringing his horrible work and all the thoughts that belonged to it into their small house.
“Why do you have such a hard time showing him how much you care for him?”
Her eyes focused on him, brooding, moss green with yellow flecks. In the sunlight they reminded him of light amber. He pushed back his empty soup plate. Her timing for “serious” talks had always been catastrophic, in his opinion. He made a noncommittal noise and stood up to clear away the dishes. He knew she was studying him intently. A view of his back, clad in gray. Presumably her forehead was wrinkled in consternation.
Did she look like that when she talked to his father about him? In their bedroom. Wearing the burgundy-red neglige, birthday 1997. Or the emerald-green boy-cut pants, Christmas 1999. Had she already noticed that the bodysuit was missing? The apricot one with five pale flower appliques on the front, with vermilion-red pistils and lime-green stems embroidered in the finest, thinnest thread? Their wedding anniversary in 1996. He had torn it unintentionally along the side seam. His shoulders were too wide; he’d really grown over the last year. That cool feeling on his skin, the faint scent of White Linen, her favorite perfume these last few months, had pricked his senses so much that the hair had stood up on his arms and legs.
“I mean, you show me how much you care.”
Her voice had a pleading tone now. But loving your mother doesn’t mean telling her everything. Even with Mama there was a limit as to how much she understood intuitively, and it was dangerous to expect too much from her. Armin turned around, the dirty plate still in his hand.
“Oh, Mama, don’t worry so much. Everything’s fine. We’re a happy family. I’m giving him something really special this year. It’s a surprise. So I’m not telling you, either.”
He was still smiling when he reached the top of the stairs and the door to his room. No, Father would never forget this birthday. The question was merely whether he would solve the puzzle in time, because he hadn’t shown any sign of that yet. The silk flowers, hadn’t they provoked any spark of recognition? But Father almost never talked about his work, at least never when Armin was there. Did he mention his investigations in the bedroom, as he gently pushed the satin camisole up over Mama’s shoulders? Did he say: You know, I saw one just like this today, on a corpse, the apricot-flower murderer.
No, Father wouldn’t talk like that. Work is work and schnaps is schnaps. I don’t bring the dead home with me. That’s the way he always interrupted colleagues at social events who began carelessly to talk about a case. Armin would have liked to know whether the investigations were conducted the way they showed them on television. If they were, his father would arrive upon the scene of the crime, follow the police officers to the body, look around him, observe all the tiny details, make notes, declare open season on the killer in the quietest of voices. He must have recognized the bodysuit. So carefully chosen; all the dark blue and black silk undies and bras had been considered and discarded. Armin had taken a lot of time for the decision. Did Father ask Mama about her underwear? Did she wear what he suggested or did she select it herself? Had she already begun to search for the pieces that were missing? The plum-colored ensemble had only been gone for two days, the high-cut panties and the underwire bra. The finest embroidery in eggplant and reddish-purple thread on stretch tulle. But just a little, just enough that you could run your finger over it. The fabric was so soft, you just couldn’t help holding it to your own skin. The woman this afternoon had understood that.
He got ready for bed, humming, and turned the light out. Subdued noise rose up from the first floor; Mama had turned on the radio. Armin liked the dark. The blackness didn’t frighten him. The woman, on the other hand, had gasped underneath the pillow, even though he spoke soothingly to her and told her it would be over soon. Yes, he’d really grown this past year, become a strong young man, broad-shouldered and imposing, according to Aunt Margot. And good-looking. In his own kind of way.
“You wait and see, now he’ll go out with the other boys and come home drunk for the first time and discover girls!” Aunt Margot had found this idea very amusing.
Mama, on the other hand, knew that remarks like this made him nervous, that he didn’t like them. Mama was sensitive and respected his silence. The woman this afternoon had talked so much. Talked and talked about nothing at all. Useless conversation. It never ceased to amaze him how easily he gained entry to strangers’ homes, how he was positively urged inside.
November. Soon Christmas decorations would appear in town, strung across the street to swing spectrally in the fog above the cars. As a small child, he had sung Christmas songs with Mama, for what now seemed to him like weeks and weeks. He had baked cookies with her, dipped lumpy candles. He loved the short days, the long twilight, the smell of damp wool. The first snow, the flakes drifting down hesitantly. He and Mama in a circle of light inside the warm house. Father’s arrival home in the evening came as a loud disruption of that idyll. His hand on the child’s shoulder was just the hint of a hug, but Armin always pulled quickly away.
My little man, Father often called him.
November. There had been pumpkins in the apartment of that other woman, the one three weeks ago, and colored corn cobs in a wooden bowl; a leafless branch of wild rose hips, glowing red, stood in a floor vase. Mama would have liked the sparely-furnished room. Only the plants added any color. And the apricot-colored bodysuit suited the scene perfectly.
Father hadn’t said anything. Only Mama had occasionally mentioned the new case since then. She probably didn’t know enough; the lingerie hadn’t been mentioned in the newspaper. Sometimes, when Armin brushed her hair for a quarter-hour, hard, the way she loved, she speculated on Father’s work and how it must be to be so close to crime.
The house had now grown very quiet. He heard the kitchen door squeak, and then her steps, moving into the living room. She would wait. For half her life she had waited. Had let time dribble away. Had oriented everything toward that moment when her husband came home. Toward creating a meaningful life for him. Thus the child: something for the lonely hours. Armin, there to fill the gaps in her days. Without Father it would be different. Better, he thought. For her, too. Finally her own life, with new goals. Would she still wear silk underthings then?
He stretched and looked at the glowing hands on his old alarm clock. The woman this afternoon had told him that she was expecting visitors this evening. They must have found her by now. And by now it would surely be dawning on the investigators that the murder three weeks ago wasn’t just an isolated case, it was the beginning of a series. Father was the specialist in cases like these.