"What about the act?" She tried to keep her voice casual, but she was shaking. He still wouldn't look at her. "Luis, what about the act? We're partners — if we divorce do you still want me to run the show?"
He turned to her then. "You can do what you like with it, it's not mine anyway, but... I'll still retain my fifty percent — half the animals are mine."
Ruda felt drained. "I see... so my money, all the money I've earned and poured into it, everything, all the new cats that I've trained, my cats, it's all split fifty-fifty, is that right?"
Luis nodded. "That's only fair, you had nothing when we met, everything you have is from me. I mean, if you want, you can pay me what the act is worth, what the animals are worth, and then, do whatever you want, but you can't use my name."
Ruda snatched the poster off the wall. "Look at it, Luis — it's not your name, it's mine! I've not used your name for the past two years, I don't want your name!"
"Just my act! You think nobody knows? My name is still a crowd-puller, may not be on the fucking headlines, but it's the Grimaldi Cats."
"It's not your act anymore!"
Grimaldi shook his head and half smiled. "All I want is my fair share, my cut. Anyone can take over an act. I can work in someone else."
"You can what? What did you say?"
"I said, I can train another girl to replace you. If you want to take the act as it stands, then pay me — it's as simple as that."
Grimaldi opened the trailer door. She snapped at him: "Where are you going?"
"I'm going out, okay? And while I'm gone, Ruda, just sit down and remember, remember where you came from, what you were before you met me. Sit on what you made your living on and tell me how much you fucking owe me...!"
The trailer rocked as he slammed the door. She gripped her head in her hands, wanting to rip her hair out. What did he know about pain? What could he know? She felt a burning sensation in her temples. He couldn't stand pain, but she could. She kicked the trailer wall, punched the doors, the walls, with all her strength until she gasped for breath. It was then that she shouted, "I was tested. He tested me, I was Papa's favorite!"
She began to pace the confined space, clenching and unclenching her hands. First Kellerman, now Luis, both wanting to take from her everything she had fought to get. She wouldn't let them, either of them. As she showered and changed, she tried to contain the blinding fury boiling up inside her. She forced herself to think what to do.
Ruda checked the cats one last time, staying a moment longer with Mamon than with the others. He was restless, as though he felt her anxiety, and he pressed himself close to the bars, then lay down, submissive. She reached to touch him. Ruda let his rough tongue lick her hand. She whispered to him. "You know, you know, I won't be kicked, I won't take it, nobody kicks me, yes? Yes?" She loved this creature more than any other living thing. It was Mamon, her angel, who had elicited from her a love she had believed herself incapable of feeling.
She clung to the bars. "I'm ready for him, I can deal with him, I am strong, I am strong."
The metal felt cold to her brow as she pressed closer and closer. The voice whispered to her, soft, persuasive, "You can do it, fight through the pain... that's my little girl, that's Papa's girl. You can do it, pain is sweet, pain is beautiful, come on Ruda... give your Papa what he wants, you love me, prove it!"
She was ready, ready to face Kellerman, ready to go to East Berlin. She pushed herself away from Mamon. "I'll be back!"
Ruda passed by the trailer, and through the window saw Luis take out a fresh bottle of brandy. She walked on. She caught the bus into the city center; first, she had gone to the taxi stand, but then changed her mind. She waited for a bus to take her into East Berlin.
It was a strange experience crossing the shabby Kreuzberg district, which in the old days hugged the wall, but now was home to a large Turkish population. She was shocked to see anti-Semitic slogans spray-painted on the walls of the rundown houses: "Auslander Raus" "Foreigners... get out!" Bricks were thrown at the bus as it passed through the area. The mostly women and children passengers cowered in their seats. More anti-Semitic slogans were smeared on the sites of former synagogues and on the walls of the Jewish schools. Ruda began to sweat as a group of young skinheads spat at the bus, their hands lifted, their voices screaming "Sieg Heil!" Their shouts made Ruda bow her head. She hissed under her breath, "Bastards... bastards!"
A woman seated in front of Ruda shook her fist at the skinheads, then turned to her companion, and they began talking to the rest of the occupants of the bus. "If your skin is the wrong color, if it isn't pale enough, if your hair is too dark, too curly, these pigs will attack. Something must be done! Why has this hatred been allowed to continue and fester? Turn the machine guns on them, fascist pigs!"
When Ruda got off she was engulfed in a strange fear. Two yards from the bus stop, she saw a huge poster of herself. The incongruity made her gasp, but the image calmed her, comforted her.
She took out her map, and looked for the direction to Keller-man's hotel. She hesitated, checked the dwarf's scrawled note, and headed down a dimly lit street to a small bed and breakfast establishment that could hardly be described as a hotel.
It was almost ten when Ruda walked into the dingy reception. There was no one around; she then turned to what looked like a guest register, scrawled all over with memos and messages. "T. Kellerman" was listed in Room 40. She waited another minute before heading to the elevator. On the fourth floor, she stood outside Kellerman's room listening to the sound of a television, the volume turned up loud. She tapped and waited, tapped louder, then the door inched open.
"They should have called from reception," he said petulantly as he opened the door wider. He was in his shirt, tie loosened, and he was wearing suspenders, wide, red suspenders. Ruda closed the door and looked around the small room, dominated by the TV set.
"Jesus, Tommy, what made you choose this dump?"
"It's cheap, nobody asks questions, and nobody's likely to come looking for me, that answer enough?"
"Yeah, I suppose so, but I'm surprised you haven't had a brick thrown through the window, or found a turd in your bed!"
"Got scared, did you?"
Ruda shrugged, then after a moment: "More like sickened."
She put her large leather bag on the edge of the bed. As she turned, Kellerman suddenly clasped her tightly around the thighs, and buried his head in her crotch. She didn't resist.
"Still working the same foreplay game, are we?" she asked sarcastically.
He chuckled, and stepped back. "Lemme tell you, that's turned on more women then I can count, they love it, hot breath steaming through their panties. Just a taste of what is to come, because when I ease the skirt down, really get into it, no woman can resist me, not when I've got my tongue working overtime."
Ruda laughed and unbuttoned her coat, tossing it over her bag.
"You disgusting little parasite, I thought you'd have grown up by now, but then I suppose it's tough — not ever growing, I mean."
Kellerman hitched up his trousers and crossed to the mini bar. "Want a miniature drinkie? From your own miniature lover?"
He peered at the rows of bottles in the fridge and chose a vodka for himself.
"I won't have anything."
"Suit yourself," Kellerman said as he opened some tonic and found a glass. His stubby hands could reach only halfway around the tumbler.
Ruda sat on the bed watching him as he fixed his drink, dragged a chair from the small desk by the fridge, moved it closer to the bed, then waddled back to get his glass, handing it to her as he gripped the chair by the arms to haul himself into it.