Knife Fight and Other Struggles (38 page)

Nearly sixty ticks of the metronome and the doctor dared clear his throat. Gottlieb seemed to be dozing, and if he was, the throat-clearing would rouse him. But based on his experience, the doctor suspected something other: a phenomenon he had observed not infrequently in the course of his work. In certain instances, the patient would inhabit the memory so deeply that there would be no words for it. The patient might recollect these deep fugues, later, and might write those memories in a journal, and might share that journal with a trusted psychotherapist. And that might be as near a psychotherapist would get to the nub of that deep, crucial memory.

The only thing to do until that resolved, in the doctor’s experience, was to wait.

The doctor reached and lifted the needle from the Dictaphone. He set about replacing the cylinder, which was more than three-fourths finished. Then, as quietly as he could manage but by no means silently, he shut and fastened the windows. Before he did, he drew in a last breath of the valley, and regarded the circle of smooth-skinned girls and boys, sunbathing by the riverbank. The doctor savoured the breath, imagining he was capturing a last whiff of their virility . . . their fecundity.

From the chaise longue, Gottlieb gasped. The doctor didn’t need to look to confirm: He had ejaculated.

“Herr Gottlieb,” whispered the doctor after he had set the needle back on the fresh cylinder.

Gottlieb’s naked torso twisted, the pale droplets of semen distending into ghostly rivulets down his belly, and his eyelids fluttered over a gaze that was still focused elsewhere.

“Tell me his name,” said the doctor.

Gottlieb’s lips parted, so his tongue could wet them, because they were very dry.

“I cannot say now. I do not know it. He has not said it.

“We are deep in the cellar. I am lying close along his flank. My head is resting in the crook of his shoulder, my nose pressed into the damp fabric of his undershirt. I can smell him, even as his taste is still fresh on my tongue. . . .

“We are resting in the crook of two stacks of barrels. He has taken me to the darkest corner, past high stone arches and thick pillars. There is some light—from the far end of the cellar—and there is some sound . . . men talking, perhaps, at that end of the cellar . . . the noise of the beer hall above us? No. It is the scurrying feet of rats. That is what he says.

“‘The true fathers of Munich,’ he says. ‘When those men are gone’—his hand leaves my shoulder to gesture upward, to the beer hall above us—‘the rats will hold a feast.’

“‘Do you not think they are holding one now?’ I ask him, and finally he laughs at a jest I make.

“‘It is true. I have never seen a starved rat. They have that advantage over we men: they will eat
anything
.’

“He pushes me away from him, just enough that he can straighten against the wall. He kicks away our trousers, where they are balled at our feet. Then he asks me: ‘Do you know your blood type?’

“I do not know it and he scolds me. ‘If you find yourself in a hospital, needing a transfusion, you had better know it. There are different types. There is A, there is B, there is AB, and there is O. Mix it up, get the wrong blood in you . . . that’s it!’

“‘Why do you say this now?’ I ask. I am thinking all of a sudden about
Nosferatu
—the moving picture. I had watched it not even a year earlier. The blood-drinking cadaver, who arrives in town on a ship of rats.

“Rats . . . blood type. . . .

“‘You can tell about a fellow from his blood type,’ he says. ‘Type O . . . I think you are Type O.’

“‘I don’t know what type I am,’ I say. ‘What type are you?’

“‘I am Type AB. I,’ he says, ‘can take any transfusion . . . transfuse to nearly anyone. Most of the time.’

“‘Most of the time? Have you done this often, swapped blood?’

“‘No. Hardly at all.’

“‘What does your blood type say about you?’

“‘It says. . . .’ he starts the answer but seems to consider. He pulls me closer again, and takes my wrist, and pulls it over to his penis. It is hard again already. I tug at the foreskin with my thumb, and begin to caress it.

“‘I can travel anywhere,’ he says, ‘speak with anyone, although I am never truly
of
anyone. I can see the truth of matters, when others are blind to it. As I saw the truth of you.’

“I ask him what that means.

“‘You think that there is greatness in you—you have thought this since you were very small. But it is hard to discover, yes? You followed the Kaiser into war and thought there might be greatness there. But there was nothing but mud, and blood, and death. You write lies in a book that you hope others will read one day. Perhaps they will venerate you. Perhaps, through words bound together in a cloth cover, your greatness will be assured. But true to yourself, you know that words in a book won’t carry you any more than deeds in the War did. Not so long as the only words you write are lies.’

“‘I have a confession,’ I say, and I kiss his throat, insinuating myself closer. ‘I am not writing a novel.’

“‘Ah,’ he says. ‘The truth of you. As I sensed. Thank you for that.’

“And now he takes my face in his hand and draws me nearer, and kisses me on the mouth. . . .

“And. . . .

“Oh.

“Light!

“Light has filled the room—another bulb in the ceiling, switched on. There are three men. They wear brown shirts and ties. One has a stick, like a walking stick.

“One says: ‘What is this here?’

“Another: ‘My God—look there. A pair of deviants!’

“The third says nothing, but reaches down and grabs my shoulder, pulls me half to my feet. He has short hair, almost no hair . . . he is not much taller than I—but bigger around the middle. He has a wide moustache.

“‘Look at this,’ he says, and pushes me to the ground. ‘Bare-bottomed, hey? You a man or a woman?’

“I try to get to my feet. The walking stick hits me. I think that is what it is. Who knows? I fall.

“‘We need to get them out of here,’ says one. ‘Tonight of all nights.’

“‘Teach them a lesson.’ The one with the stick. He strikes me again. In the chest this time. I feel a boot in my stomach. Another in my ribs. Someone laughs. I’m rolled over onto my stomach. The stick slaps my backside. I cry out—but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

“This has happened before, yes. In Stuttgart. Before the war. Then it was a whipping. I am recalling it. How I was made to scream. Manfred and I! Manfred!

“I will not scream at this. No. No screams. Tears—nothing to do for that. But no screaming. Not from me.

“But there are screams.

“Two gunshots, first. Like little barks from a dog, a room away. Maybe from upstairs. In the beer hall. Men screaming upstairs—the scraping of chairs on the floor above us . . . something is happening upstairs.

“Then . . . a moment of quiet. But barely that before. . . .

There are screams
everywhere
.”

Gottlieb’s eyes were wide and he sat upright. Was he still entranced? Or had the recollection of the events in the cellar—the admixture of the beating in Stuttgart—pushed him back to consciousness, or perhaps into a mania?

“Herr Gottlieb,” the doctor said. “Markus. It is necessary that you breathe.”

Gottlieb did breathe—he drew a deep gulp of air, taken as though he were preparing to dive beneath the river.

“Let the breath out slowly,” said the doctor. “Slowly. And with it, let the memories of Stuttgart go too.”

The doctor knew about Stuttgart already. They had discussed this shortly after Gottlieb arrived here at the estates.
Surrender your garments first, and then your story
. And oh, Gottlieb may have been shy about those garments, but he told his story easily—a tale of how his father and uncle had found him and his cousin Manfred in an act of sodomy. Manfred denounced Gottlieb, and Gottlieb believed that because of that, the flogging had gone harder for him than Manfred. In fact, claimed Gottlieb, it had been Manfred who had instigated the encounter. Gottlieb was not blameless—yet nor was he guilty.

The doctor frankly did not care one way or another.

“Leave Stuttgart,” he commanded. “Return to the cellar. That is where we are.”

Gottlieb drew another breath, and lowered himself back to the couch, and although his eyes did not close, they refocused on the ceiling.

“The screaming,” he said as the metronome ticked, “is everywhere.”

“He has pulled one of the men to the ground, tripping him between his legs first and then grabbing his belt, and then hauling him closer and grasping his head, by both ears. He holds it like an accordion, squeezing in. The man shouts. He twists. The man’s legs twitch madly. It happens very quickly—so quickly the other two barely see what is happening before their friend is dead. This is a difficult thing to do, it is nearly impossible . . . to kill a man by twisting his neck. But he is very strong, stronger than anyone.

“The one with the stick swings at him now. But he catches the stick in one hand and twists it out of the man’s hand. Then he stands, and spins it in a blur, high enough to strike and shatter the lightbulb hanging over us. It is darker again.

“And . . . 
crack!
The stick strikes bone. And a second man falls, nearly in my lap. Yes. I am turned over now, coughing, watching the third man—the one who took hold of me, I think—running between the pillars, shouting “Help!” And he runs after that one, very fast. They don’t get far before he overcomes the other. He leaps on him, straddling him from behind as he draws the stick around the front of his throat and kills him.

“I get to my feet. I find my trousers. The one who hit me with the stick might still live. I do not look to see. I do not care.

“I am not blameless. But I am not guilty either. He, after all, was the one who struck me.

“My . . . my lover, that is what he is, isn’t he? He returns and bids me help him drag the third man back to the shadows here.

“‘The
frauen
rarely come back here,’ he says. ‘It is filled with spiders and rats. We can leave these men here for a time.’

“He gathers his clothing and does up his trousers. ‘But we should be tidy,’ he tells me, and I ask him what he means, and he shows me.

“He takes the man he just killed and hefts him into the crook of barrels where we had just been. He takes the second man, and lays him next to him. The third man—who had hit me—he we stack on top of the other two both. As you would stack wood for the winter.

“‘We ought to take our leave,’ he tells me. ‘It has been some time. Do you think your friends are still drinking?’

“‘I don’t want to drink with them.’

“‘Better to do so,’ he tells me. ‘Unless they have chosen to leave.’