Lucca (31 page)

The day before Christmas Eve she went into town in the afternoon to go to the cinema. When she left after the film it was dark. She walked through the pedestrian streets, where people struggled past laden with all the parcels that twenty-four hours later would be unwrapped again by other people who had toiled along with similar parcels, just as red in the face with effort and irritation. Now all she needed was to run into Otto and his divine photo-mulatto, or whoever he had replaced her with if
Miriam was right that their affair had already ended. Once that had occurred to her she couldn't get it out of her head again. Of course she would meet Otto at any moment with Christmas presents under one arm and a gorgeous doll under the other, and then she would have to stand and smile all over her face to convince him of what actually was the case. That for weeks she had hardly given him a thought and had already begun to wonder why she had loved him so much.

She went round Magasin du Nord's food halls without finding anything to buy. Finally she decided on fillet steak. There were two steaks in each tray, obviously they thought no-one would be so extravagant as to buy fillet steak for themselves alone. But she could always eat the second one tomorrow, she thought, and now she was pushing the boat out she also put a tin of foie gras and a jar of caviar in her basket. As she approached the wine department she caught sight of a man standing with his back to her studying the labels. He wore a camel-hair coat and the grey curls at his neck fell over the turned-up collar.

She thought of turning round, he must have read that embarrassing interview, but she went on. The Gypsy King was not going to stop her drinking red wine on Christmas Eve. He glanced up from the bottle he held in his hand. He was pale and looked tired. She tried to smile but he did not smile back. Catching up with the shopping? he said finally. She held up her basket. My Christmas dinner, she said, launching into an over-elaborate explanation of why she would be alone, regretting she had disturbed him. He smiled wryly at her efforts and she stopped talking. Neither of them said anything, and when the silence grew too strained she found the courage to ask after his wife. She had not given her a thought since the première celebration. He put the bottle back on the shelf. She died this morning, he replied dully.

Afterwards Lucca could not have said how long they had been standing like that, looking into each other's eyes, she with her plastic basket, he with his hands in the pockets of his coat. He cleared his throat. She shook her head rapidly as if waking from a trance. He looked down at his shoes and then back at her. His
wife had been alone, he had overslept. He looked away. They had phoned, he had gone out there as quickly as he could, but too late. He had come too late for her death.

For a moment his face seemed about to collapse. He turned his back and took a step or two between the shelves of bottles, and she heard a half-strangled throaty sound. She went towards him but stopped as he turned back again. He dried his eyes with the backs of his hands and looked at her. I'm sorry, he said. She said he needn't be. Would he rather be alone? He avoided her eyes and took another bottle from the shelf, desultorily studying the label. I don't really have any choice, he mumbled. But she supposed he needed something to eat . . . the words tumbled out of her mouth. He looked at her blankly. She pointed at her basket of fillet steaks. There are two of them, she said. He looked at her in surprise. Did she mean it? She shrugged her shoulders. He had better find something drinkable, then. He walked slowly along the shelf, carefully inspecting the labels, suddenly shy at having her standing there.

She made a bowl of salad while he fried the steaks. To start with they were a little stiff with each other. He said he had read the interview. She had said some nice things. She told him what she thought of the journalist. He smiled. A journalist like that wants to show she is someone too. You mustn't grudge her that . . . Now and again they fell silent and avoided each other's eyes, as if they took it in turns to regret she had gone home with him. They spoke about the performance, he said she had earned her success. If she wasn't too terrified he was thinking of asking her to work with him again next year. He felt like doing a new production of
A Doll's House
. It was fifteen years since he had last worked on the play, and he had actually considered it was
passé
since, according to their friend Strindberg, marriage had long since become ‘a partnership with economic activity'. He smiled tiredly. But she had given him the courage to try. He had thought of her as Nora. She held her breath a moment. Yes, thank you, she said. He shook his head. She had nothing to thank him for.

When they had eaten they sat for a long time looking over the
lights of the city. He told her about his wife, but not at length. They had lived apart for several years, she at the villa north of the town, he in the rooftop apartment. For years it hadn't been a real marriage, he said. There had been too much . . . how to put it? Too much and too little had been said between them. He put down his wine glass and walked over to the French window at the terrace. Either she should go now, or stay.

She stayed. Everything happened very slowly, as if through water, with long pauses when they just lay side by side until they had to give in to what they had so hesitantly begun. His body was different from any other body she had known. His skin was looser, but very soft, and his arms and legs were more sinewy than she had imagined. He did not let go of her eyes as she straddled him, and she recognised the open, vulnerable expression that had made her speculate so much. As if he marvelled over what she was doing to him, at the same time taking hold of her buttocks. There was something unfeigned, at once reckless and completely stripped bare over his face when he groaned and she felt that he came. She lay awake while he fell asleep in her embrace. It was a terrible thought, but she did think it. She thought that she was glad his wife had died before this happened. Since she was dying anyway.

T
he plane from Madrid had landed when she entered the arrival hall with her cardboard placard. She placed herself at the front of the group of people waiting. The first passengers came in sight with their luggage and looked around them, searching. People called out greetings and kissed each other. She recognised him at once, before he caught sight of her placard, it must be him. Andreas Bark looked pale, as Danes do when they emerge from winter and screw up their eyes against the bright light. He wore black jeans and a shabby leather jacket of the kind sported by the Copenhagen in-crowd of young artists and film-makers. But at least he wasn't shorn like the really hard-boiled arty types with their cropped pates that made them look like convicts. In fact he was not bad looking with his dark, unruly hair and prominent chin.

She waited until his gaze lit on her. His smile expressed surprise in a boyish, slightly flustered way. He knew very well who she was but he had not expected to meet her here. Andreas Bark probably did not read glossy magazines and obviously did not go in for gossip. He talked a lot as they drove, but his voice was pleasant. It had been snowing in Copenhagen when he left. I ask you! No wonder there was something abject, somehow aggrieved about the Danes. Each time you stuck out your nose for a whiff of spring you were put in your place with a shock of cold. He took off his leather jacket, he was sweating. He had spent the winter in Rome. His arms and wrists were surprisingly slender. Rome . . . wasn't it a place for old ladies? He laughed, but made no reply. He said he had seen her in
The Father
. The production had impressed him, its rhythm and clarity . . . And she had been good, he hastened to add, like something he almost forgot to mention.

They left Almeria behind them. At the end of the stony plain you could see the snow-clad ridge of the Sierra Nevada. Andreas gave free rein to his delight, genuinely bowled over. He caught sight of one of the mock-up towns left among the furrowed rocks after being used for a spaghetti western. Couldn't they stop by there? They walked among the wooden houses consisting of mere façades, with name-plates reading
Sheriff
or
Saloon
in faded lettering. The façades had wooden pillars and planked walkways, where the sheriff and the loafers of the town had sat tilting their chairs with their hat brims pulled down over their eyes. In the middle of the set there was a gallows with a rope that swung lightly back and forth in the wind. Andreas put the noose round his neck and stuck out his tongue. She laughed. He beckoned her with a familiar gesture, as if they already knew each other. From where he stood, beneath the gallows, you couldn't see the supporting beams against the backs of the flats. It was an authentic scene from a western, where the dust had just subsided after a horseman had ridden off.

Harry was disgruntled when they finally arrived back and joined him on the roof terrace. Did it really take so long to cover the hundred kilometres? Andreas was disconcerted at the grudging welcome and politely tried to defend her. He talked about their visit to the wild west town. He had led her astray, he said apologetically. She was annoyed that he was suddenly so smarmy. He had been more himself as they drove, she felt, but how could she tell? After all, she didn't know him. Well, Harry growled, it was time for a drink, anyway. Did he like white wine? Andreas shrugged his shoulders with an embarrassed smile. He liked everything. Harry stopped on his way across the terrace and turned towards him. Everything? That was quite a lot . . . They sat on the parapet while he went down. Andreas was less talkative than he'd been in the car. He avoided her eyes and studied the view. The riverbed was in shadow, the pink flowers of the oleander bushes glowed on the steep cliff sides. The cicadas rattled away as usual. Why were they suddenly lost for words?

Harry came back with a tray of glasses, a dewy bottle of white
wine and a bowl of black olives. He placed the tray on the stone table and turned towards them. Come along then, children! He had recovered his good humour, and Andreas seemed more relaxed, but she could tell from his tone of voice how much he respected Harry, and took pains to find the right words. He spoke in a different way here on the terrace, his voice was more cultivated, and he did not smile boyishly as he had done at the airport. It was the master and his apprentice sitting in the flickering light under the canopy, drinking white wine and chatting about a Verdi opera Andreas had seen in Verona. Harry knew the director, a German. Andreas listened intently as Harry talked about the German director's staging of Schiller's
The Robbers
at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

Lucca was not listening. Andreas took a pack of Gitanes out of his bag and put a magazine on the table. Harry asked if he could have one. It was a long time since he had smoked a French cigarette. As many as you want! Andreas was a model of generosity. She picked up the magazine without asking leave and riffled through it. It was one of those so-called
men's magazines
with the latest in watertight watches and instructions on how to fasten a tie in fourteen ways, and how to find the most authentic run-down hotel in Havana with damp-stained columns in colonial style and mahogany ventilator fans. There was also an interview with a racing driver and a mountain climber, and at the end, between two whisky advertisements, there was one with Otto. She rose, saying she was tired after the drive. Harry looked up at her as if suddenly remembering she was there. She took the magazine to the bedroom and lay down on the bed.

Otto and his girlfriend were photographed in front of an American camper-van from the Fifties, rounded and shining silver. It was chocked up in the corner of a field. They went out there, said the caption, when they just needed to get away from it all. The girlfriend was a reflexologist. She looked sweet, she was four months gone. Lucca looked at the picture more closely. It must have been taken in the autumn, the sunlight was white and sharp, and there seemed to be a cluster of withered leaves hanging in the foreground. She counted on her fingers.
Otto had dropped Lucca in June. If the picture had been taken in October, he must recently have become a father. He hadn't wasted any time. He could not have known the reflexologist for more than a couple of weeks before she became pregnant, unless . . .

Otto confided to the readers that it had been like a revelation when he met the reflexologist. She was the woman in his life, and she had taught him what life was about. It had just been
wham
! He hadn't doubted they were made for each other. Lucca imagined what it had sounded like when he said
wham
! He explained that for years his life had felt unreal. Today he realised he had been through a depression. He had been concerned with external things, success and prestige, it had all happened much too fast. He had not had genuinely close relationships with anyone, and he had been about to lose his faith in love. Until he met the reflexologist. It had felt like being pulled down to earth and shot out into the galaxies at one and the same time. Otto felt as if only now was he starting to grow up. Now, when he was to be responsible for a new little person, totally entrusted to him. A little one like that, it was just a miracle. It was a boy, they had seen it when she had had a scan. He was already looking forward to the day when they would play football together . . .

Lucca put down the magazine. She thought of the American boy who had been given a red car for his birthday and sent his unknown father a drawing. She was glad she had persuaded Otto to send Lester that advent calendar. Otto . . . the twenty-fourth man in her life. She had really believed he was Father Christmas. It was less than a year since she had still believed that. At that time the Gypsy King was merely an old goat who had sneaked up on the pretext of his interest in her youthful talent. She took off her clothes and stretched out on the bed in the semi-darkness, thinking of Otto. He did not remember much, or else their memories differed. In any case she had made a mistake when she thought he was the one, hadn't she? . . . She pulled herself together and wished him luck.

A child. They had never talked about that. It was not something which could ever arise with Harry. He had said so, without
her asking. He didn't want to be one of those pensioner fathers who were moved to tears over themselves, but who nevertheless took to the rocking chair before their children had passed their driving test. She felt he was right. There was more to life than children. There were enough of them anyway, more than all the adults in the world could provide with happiness. Her own childhood had not been particularly happy. She could say that now, matter-of-factly, without being upset. She had said it to Harry, and he had looked at her without comment. She was grateful he had not been sorry for her. Then she thought of Otto's pious chatter about the little boy who would depend on him completely. Poor child, she thought, and not only because of the thought of Otto as a father. He would probably be just as good or bad a father as anyone else. It was the dependence itself, the helplessness of the little child, that repelled her.

She heard Harry's hoarse voice behind the door when he came in from the terrace, saying something to Andreas. He walked downstairs, but the sound of his moccasins stilled halfway down. He had taken off his shoes, he must have thought she was asleep. She heard the dry skin under his bare feet rubbing against the tiles, his thoughtfulness made her smile. A gecko sat on the wall beside the door. Its white, rubbery, almost transparent body made her think of the foetuses she had seen in biology class at school, preserved in spirit. Anonymous abortions that would have been twice as old as she was if they had been allowed to live. She turned on her side and bent her knees. The mosquito net in front of the small window filtered the sun's afterglow, and the dim light was reflected in the smooth skin on her thigh and knee, surrounded by the soft swaddling of shadows.

She thought of Harry's gentleness in bed, his calm, confident hands and the vulnerable nakedness in his eyes when he let her do to him what she knew he was waiting for. Even when he was entirely defenceless, delivered over to her young, provocative body and his own desire for it, without his well-considered, civilised words, even then he was himself. Not someone different according to the situation, but wholly and completely himself. In contrast to Andreas Bark, who had been boyish, almost skittish,
in the car and the wild west village, but who became precocious and anxious to please when he was in the presence of his master. She almost wished he was not there. She almost wished Harry would come to her as he did sometimes in the afternoons, when she lay in half darkness. He would stretch out beside her with closed eyes as if asleep. It was a game, when she caressed him slowly and his body began to admit what his unmoving face would not yet acknowledge.

She stretched out a hand and closed the window shutter so the room was totally dark. Only the hands and the circle of figures on the alarm clock shone green, far away. It was so dark that she saw no difference when she closed or opened her eyes. She remembered the first time she woke up in his bed. He was not there. She rose and pulled the curtains aside, at first slightly confused to be standing without a stitch on, looking out over the town from Harry Wiener's rooftop apartment. It was snowing, with big, woolly flakes. When she turned round he stood in the doorway holding a tray. He had made tea, he did not yet know she preferred coffee in the morning.

She sat cross-legged with the hot cup in her hands, looking out at the snow over the harbour. When she turned towards him, he was leaning against the wall regarding her sorrowfully with his narrow eyes. She began to think of his wife. She did not know what to say and asked if he would like her to leave. He smiled tiredly and sent a finger sliding down her spine. If you'd like to, do stay, he said. You will leave me one day anyway. She put the cup down on the tray and lay down with her head on his lap. Not willingly, she mumbled. We'll see, he replied, slowly stroking her coal-black hair.