“No, thanks, it might be loaded with saltpeter or laxatives. What are you doing here?”
He pulled up a chair and provided himself with an ashtray by dumping out the paperclips in a small ceramic bowl. He was dressed pour le sport, as he was fond of saying, in well-cut boots and ski pants and a cable-knit sweater in a heavenly heather blend that set off his rosy cheeks and bright brown hair. The antique silver ring on his right hand glowed in the lamplight as he knocked ashes off his cigarette.
“I am in Munich to consult with Frick at the Glyptothek,” he explained seriously.
“No, you’re not.”
“Of course I am not.” Dieter grinned. “I could not get the museum to pay my travel expenses unless I consulted with Frick. I am on holiday, in fact; I hoped I could persuade you to join me for a few days of skiing.”
“No, thanks. When I go on holiday I want to relax, not be on guard for snakes in the bed and buckets of water on the top of the door.”
“I don’t play jokes on the ladies who share my bed,” Dieter said, reaching for my hand.
“That’s not what I hear. Elise—”
“Oh, Elise.” Dieter’s fingers wriggled under the cuff of my sweater and squirmed up my arm. “One cannot resist teasing Elise; she is so funny when she is angry. You are different.”
“How?”
“You are much bigger than Elise,” Dieter explained. “You might strike me.”
“Good point.” Dieter’s arm was now entirely inside the sleeve of my sweater, and his eyes were crossed in intense concentration as he tried to stretch his fingers a strategic inch farther. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” I inquired with genuine curiosity.
Dieter put his cigarette in the ashtray. “I am thinking perhaps it would be better to start from the other direction—”
I pushed him away and pulled my sleeve down. “You are weird, Dieter. If I ever did decide to play games with you, it wouldn’t be in my office.”
“In a mountain chalet, then, with the snow falling and a fire on the hearth and a large furry bearskin in front of the fire—”
“I’m afraid not. I can’t get away right now.”
“Next week, then?”
“Sorry, I’m busy.”
“You are always busy.” Dieter lit another cigarette. “Why is it you always say no to me?”
I wasn’t sure myself. Dieter’s round face and dimples made him look like a kid, but he was well past the age of consent and not unattractive. Stocky and compactly built, he was an inch or two shorter than I, a consideration that didn’t seem to concern him any more than it did me. He was good company, when he wasn’t pulling chairs out from under people, and very good at his job. In a few years, when Dr. Fessl retired, he would probably be head curator—no mean accomplishment for a man in his mid-thirties. I loved him like a brother, when I didn’t hate him like a brother. But I had no desire to go to bed with him.
“Maybe some day,” I said soothingly.
For a moment I had feared he was really hurt by my excuses, but if so, he recovered quickly.
“Who is my rival?” he demanded in tragic accents. “Who is it I must kill to win your love?”
“It’s none of your business, actually,” I said. “But if you mean whom am I seeing next week—it’s Tony.”
“Tony. Ah, dear Tony.” Dieter chuckled and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “He looked so funny, when the chair broke under him—those long, thin legs and arms entwined like pretzels. How is he?”
I coughed and brushed at the smoke. “He’s fine, I guess. How is Elise?”
“I have not seen her for months. I hear her marriage is finally ended.”
I wondered how much Dieter had had to do with the breakup of that marriage. To judge from Elise’s complaints, it had not been a very stable arrangement anyway; but if her husband had got wind of her fun and games with Dieter during the meetings the year before…
We gossiped about old acquaintances for a while—academicians are no more immune from that vice than other people—and then Dieter got up to go. “I don’t suppose you will have dinner with me,” he said dispiritedly.
“Thanks, but I’d better not. I have to work late.”
“I will see if Gerda is busy, then.”
“You leave Gerda alone.”
“Why? She is a little plump, but I like ladies with something to hold on to. And she deserves a thrill, poor girl—” He ducked my half-joking swing at him and ambled toward the door. “Perhaps I will telephone next week, if I am still in Munich. I would be so happy to see dear old Tony again.”
I said that would be fine, though I had a feeling Tony wouldn’t be so happy to see dear old Dieter. He had too often been the butt of Dieter’s jokes.
Dieter didn’t quite close the door when he left. I slammed it shut and heard a grunt of surprise and a chuckle, and then the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. A cursory search of the room confirmed my suspicions. He had been a busy little lad. There was prune juice in the coffee pot and another wind-up toy in the filing cabinet—a tin bird that flapped its wings and cackled maniacally over a tin egg.
These offerings having been disposed of, I went back to work and actually finished the Holbein section of the article. Crazy Dieter had cheered me, not so much with his antique pranks as with…Well, why not admit it? A girl wants to be wanted, even by a man who likes women he can hold on to. It never rains but it pours, I thought complacently.
Pride goeth before a fall, and complacency before a kick in the fanny.
I worked late, partly to make up the time I had taken off to gad with Gerda, and partly in the hope of avoiding the worst of the rush-hour traffic. I was still feeling quite pleased with myself when I wended my way through the dungeons and out into the parking lot.
My car wouldn’t start.
I loved my little Audi, which I had owned for only a few months. It was the main reason I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to Minnesota that year. It was cute and foxy-colored, in keeping with its name; it had fake velvet upholstery in an elegant pale gold shade, and a stereo and a tape deck and fancy wheel covers. It had given me faithful service, and it got fifty kilometers to the gallon.
So, naturally, I got out and kicked the tires and called it bad names.
The janitor had left, but the night watchman was on duty. Hearing my curses, he emerged from his cubbyhole and joined me under the hood. The only thing he was able to contribute was a flashlight; he didn’t know any more about engines than I did, and after we had tried all the obvious easy things, to no avail, he suggested a mechanic. I replied with only a forgivable degree of sarcasm that it was a brilliant suggestion that never would have occurred to me, and where did he think we would find one at this hour?
He said he’d get right on it. I decided I might as well go home—there was no telling how long repairs would take. I went grumpily back into the building looking for Schmidt. His car was in the parking lot, but Schmidt himself was nowhere to be found.
There was nothing for it but to take the tram and then a bus; I live in the suburbs, near Grünwald, on account of my dog needing a yard.
The trams were still crowded with late workers and Christmas shoppers. I had to stand, squashed in between ranks of wet, tired, annoyed people. Shortly after we left Residenzplatz, I spotted Schmidt. He was wearing a bright red-and-green babushka with strands of gray horsehair sticking out all around the edges, a pair of dark glasses, and a purple scarf over the lower part of his face, to hide his mustache. I had no trouble seeing him, despite his diminutive stature, because nobody was anywhere near him. It wasn’t hard to understand why people were giving him a wide berth; he looked like an escaped lunatic.