“One I hope you remember when you need to.” she answered. “Drink up.”
He did, trying to figure out what she was saying. Maybe it was the beer talking? “Excuse me while I go to the bathroom.”
“May I give assistance?”
“You may stay right here and have another drink.” He went into the bathroom and leaned over the sink, because his heart was hammering and sweat was rising on his face. He might be a killer, but he wasn’t a monster. He couldn’t do this. No, tomorrow he would go to the safe house and tell them he was done, he was out, and to send a killer with the fingers of an angel and the mind of a blank slate to remove Franziska Luxe from this world.
He took the ball of waxed paper from his pocket and held it over the toilet.
But he asked himself: if it fell in the water and was swirled away into the depths of Berlin, would this be the act of a hero or the shame of a coward?
The light and the dark, all mixed up together. The words of a priest.
“Darling?” Franziska called. “Shall I phone for a plumber?”
“Hush!” he told her, trying to keep his voice light.
When he’d pulled the chain, the toilet had flushed and the waxed paper was gone, he walked out of the bathroom and found her naked on the bed but for a strip of sheet clutched between her legs. She was drinking her champagne and reading the afternoon’s edition of the Deutsche Allemagne Zeitung as casually as if she were waiting for the next tram to come along.
“Oh!” she said at his appearance. “Are you the new serving-man here?”
“Does the uniform give me away, madam?”
“It does. Please be kind enough to take it off and serve me.”
She watched as he undressed, making rather interesting noises and a few earthy comments here and there. Then, nude, Michael took her flute and poured some more champagne and as she leaned forward and gave his right buttock a fairly stinging slap he dropped into the sparkling liquid the small pill that had been held in his palm. He faced her with the glass down at his side, giving time for the dissolvement.
“You have a very strange look on your face,” she observed.
“Possibly there are strange thoughts in my mind.”
“I’m a journalist!” she said brightly, and sat up on her knees. “Tell me everything!”
He drank down the rest of his champagne, set her full glass on the table and his empty one next to it. His voice was husky when he spoke; not with passion, as she might think, but with the first pangs of true grief. “I’ve always been better at showing than telling.”
If anything, he had to command his own performance. Franziska was talented, true, and she was eager and hot-blooded and adventurous, but Michael Gallatin was fighting his own battle even as he stormed her walls.
He gave her as good as he could, as long as he could. He stretched her out and pressed her inward. His tongue shattered her dam, and her mouth brought forth droplets of rain in February. He lay back on the pillow, seeing colors and catching his breath.
Before he could move or speak or do anything, she stood up from the bed, picked up her flute and drank the champagne. She took three long swallows.
It was too late to move. To speak. To do anything.
He noticed then the bruises on her smooth bottom and the backs of her thighs.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Those what?”
“Bruises. Right there.”
“Bruises? Where?”
“There. Right there, on your—”
She slid into bed, tight up against him, and kissed him. Her mouth might have given him a taste of her champagne too, he thought. But it no longer mattered.
He pushed her back. “The bruises. From what?”
“I fell down today. I slipped on some snow. Fell smack on my bottom.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true!” she said, right in his face. “I promise!”
“I don’t believe you. Not even a promise.”
She tapped his lower lip with her forefinger. “Is this our first quarrel?”
“No, it’s not a quarrel.”
“That’s too bad.” She sat astride him, her legs curled around his hips. “Because, you know, they say the best thing about a quarrel is the making-up.”
The bruises were not going to be explained. Michael let it go; the ticking of the clock had begun.
They lay together, cuddling. Warmth upon warmth. They kissed lightly and deeply. One mouth was never without the other for very long.
She lay without moving for awhile.
Michael said, “Are you all right?”
“Sleepy,” she answered. “It just came on me.”
“It’s late,” he told her.
“I did have a long day.” She turned toward him and, looking into his eyes, she softly stroked his cheek. “You need a shave.” Her voice was a little listless.
He caught her hand and kissed the fingers. Every one.
“Will you hold me while I sleep?” she asked, nestling against him.
“I will hold you forever,” he said, and he put his arm around her.
“I’m so…tired. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired. Or so happy,” she amended. “I think you’ve worn me out.”
“Just lie still. Rest.”
She gave him a crooked smile, her eyes hazed. “I used to be young,” she said.
He waited.
When he looked at her again, her eyes had closed.
“Oh!” she said suddenly, with a jerk of her body. Her eyes opened. They were bloodshot, and Michael thought with a shrill of alarm that he was going to have to kill a messenger after all.
But she smiled in his direction, and she felt for his hand until he found hers, and she asked in a voice that was going away, “Am I still…only nearly…the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?”
He might, in some other situation, have had a response to this. A quick-witted comeback, a double-entendre, a poetic witticism worthy of Cyrano. Now, though, at this crucial and terrible instant he was struck dumb as a stone.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. Her eyes closed again, and with her last dwindling strength she squeezed his hand. “Tell me when I wake up.”
She breathed in and out, and in and out. He heard her breathing become shallow. As if in slow-motion, her head came back and her neck stretched, a cord standing out against the flesh, and for an instant Michael thought she was having one of her small deaths, and that when she regarded him again it would be with sated eyes, a dimpled smile and the sparkle of sweat on her cheeks.
But she was gone.
He felt her leave. Because suddenly the room felt so dark, and suddenly he felt so alone.
He got up after a few minutes, because she wasn’t coming back. He went into the bathroom, where he sat down on the cold tiles in a cold corner and wept.
She was right, he decided when he was all cried-out. Maybe he did need a fresh shave. She never knew my real name, he thought. That was what caused the first cut. Then, dripping blood from seven slips of the Solingen, which was not such a safety razor after all, he stood over her body and finished the last glass of champagne. He sat beside her for a time, just looking at her. She did appear to be only sleeping. But when he touched her hand he felt her already becoming common clay. That thought caused the tears to burn again. His nose ran like a spigot. Still, he held her hand until he was sure her ghost was no longer there, and he could no longer hear the music of her laughter.
One last thing. To get her properly in bed, with the sheet tucked around her and the fan of her black hair spread out on the pillow. Her face in repose did seem to have the hint of a secret smile. Something, perhaps, she knew that he did not?
Good dreams, he wished her.
He was tired, too. Worn out and weary. Sick with himself. He wished he could go to sleep and dream with her. It was going to be mind over matter tonight to get dressed and make his way to the safe—