I said, 'As long as we can watch from out front.' Thinking about the cold lager they served there in tall chill-sweating steins.
'It’s a deal. Set ’em up and I’ll catch you when I’m decent.'
'That’ll be never then.'
She gave the back of my head a light slap as she ran off to the showers.
It was a poorer house than it’d felt from up on stage and I had no trouble bagging a table towards the middle of the room. For once my nod to the waitress produced swift results and soon I was sitting back with a cool beer and a cigarette. I was beginning to learn that there were some things you couldn’t touch the Germans on. Good beer and a lax smoking policy in public buildings came pretty high on the list.
The twins, Archard and Erhard, were nearing the end of their acrobatic act, a narcissistic man-in-the-mirror excess of preening and vogueing that had a table of buff queens next to me sitting to alert. Each twin was decorated with the inverse of his brother’s tattoos, spiralling green, black and red designs curling out of their tight trousers, across their chests and down their arms, emphasising the swell of their muscles, the sinewy definition of their bodies.
When the twins looked at each other they saw themselves, but I found no difficulty telling them apart. The secret lay not only in the direction of their tats but in the tiny Greek letters, one alpha, the other omega, clumsy home-done jobs, inked into their wrists, telling the world the first and last out of the womb.
I watched as Archard nimbly climbed his brother’s torso, and then did a handstand on his image’s upturned palms, gently disconnecting his right hand, each acrobat slowly moving his free arm until it was at right-angles to his body. They held the pose and my neighbours clapped ecstatically. It was a good effect. I glanced at my watch just as Sylvie slid in beside me smelling clean and citrus.
'Those are two strong boys.'
'You know who to ask if you can’t get the lid off a pickle jar.'
'Ah, they wouldn’t be my first choice.'
'No?'
'No, definitely make the reserve list though.'
I was about to ask who would be at the top of the list when all chance of talking was drowned by cheers from the next table as the twins took their final bow. The ninja prop shifters jogged on in their wake, bearing a huge plastic sheet. They spread it across the stage, ran off and returned with a full-size bathtub and half a dozen buckets of water. A trapeze was lowered above the bath, then the next turn came on and I worked out the answer for myself.
Kolja’s naked chest shone with oil; he stalked across the stage, pecs puffed out, shoulders thrown back, spine straight all the way down to the swell of his muscular buttocks. The bulge on the other side of his white leggings looked unnaturally large. I whispered to Sylvie, 'I see he’s packed his sandwiches.'
But she ignored me, concentrating on the vision of Kolja circling like a young Nureyev about to wow the Bolshoi. He stopped, rubbed some chalk theatrically into his palms, casting a superior glance at us mortals below, sneering slightly, as if he didn’t even deign to pity us, though I knew the lights rendered everything beyond the stage invisible.
The trapeze looked impossibly high but Kolja sprang effortlessly into the air and grabbed it with both hands, hoisting himself steadily upwards until his chest was level with the bar, he hung there for a moment, letting us admire his silhouette, then swung his legs into the dark, tipping himself slowly up and over into a leisurely 360 degree turn that made his muscles swell. The men at the table next to us sat without touching their drinks, nodding in appreciation as Kolja threw himself into a faster loop and then another, spinning round and through the trapeze, switching hands, making his slim hips follow through, his white leggings shining against the black backdrop of the stage, his speed increasing until he no longer looked like a man, just a twirling birling blur in the centre of the stage.
I nudged Sylvie, thinking she’d be amused by the body culturalists’ captivated stares.
But she put her hand on my arm, staying my elbow. I turned to look at her and saw her lips parted, her tongue pressing against her teeth. I downed the dregs of my beer and signalled for another.
Up on stage the trapeze was descending with Kolja astride it now, he sat motionless for an instant above the bath, then somewhere a needle hit shellac and a slow number started up.
In the heat of the night
Seems like a cold sweat
Creeping cross my brow, oh yes
In the heat of the night
The stage lights switched to a cool midnight blue, Kolja swung to and fro, clutching the supporting rope, making his muscles swell in the deep indigo, then he fell suddenly backwards into a turn that made my stomach slide and Sylvie give a quick short gasp.
I’m a feelin’ motherless somehow
Stars with evil eyes stare from the sky
In the heat of the night
Kolja caught the bar of the trapeze, holding his body rigid above the tub, ignoring but somehow basking in the audience applause. Then he swung himself into the water, all the time holding tight onto the U of the trapeze, drenching his legs, torso, chest, emerging dripping, his costume clinging. The men at the next table went wild and Sylvie joined in their applause.
Ain’t a woman yet been born
Knows how to make the morning come
So hard to keep control
When I could sell my soul for just a little light In the heat of the night
Kolja continued, oblivious to the audience. He swung himself up and over, submerging then resurfacing, sparkling with droplets as if it were all for his own amusement.
In the heat of the night
I’ve got trouble wall to wall
Oh yes I have
I repeat in the night
Must be an ending to it all
Then finally he slipped from his swing and into the tub, sinking his head beneath the water, releasing himself from the audience’s gaze. He broke the surface and lay looking up towards the heavens and into the beyond like a man with serious troubles on his mind. The music carried on.
Oh Lord, it won’t be long
Yes, just you be strong
And it’ll be all right
In the heat of the night
The last bar crackled to its close, the scene sank into dark. Then just as quick the stage lights came up, Kolja tumbled from the tub and stood, arms outspread, water cascading from him onto the plastic sheeting, warming himself in the audience’s ovation. I turned to look around the room and saw Ulla standing below the glow of the exit sign. For an instant our eyes met, then she turned away.
Maybe it was the music or maybe it was the beers hastening my descent from the euphoria of my own applause, but suddenly, watching Kolja take his bow, I felt a swift sharp stab of melancholy.
I caught Sylvie’s eye, she laughed, still clapping, and leaned across to me.
'Now that’s what our act needs, a bit of sex appeal.'
I wondered at the ‘our’, but when the floorboards began to vibrate with the force of the audience’s stamping feet, I realised she could have a point.
Dix was wearing an expensive charcoal-grey suit that could have been Armani, Versace or fucking Chanel for all I knew. It made him look like the younger, richer brother of the stubbly unwashed man I’d last seen slumped in a torn chair in Sylvie’s flat. He raised his beer and saluted me.
'To your new partnership.'
His smile was amused. For some reason it annoyed me.
Sylvie filled her glass with white wine from a deceptively dainty jug and said, 'To our new partnership!' Half draining the large glass, then refilling it.