The Teleportation Accident (26 page)

Loeser’s favourite book in Blimk’s shop, where he spent most of his afternoons, was still
Dames! And how to Lay them
. He referred to it constantly, like a psalter, with an inexhaustible excitement at the notion that it was possible to seduce a woman just by following a rigorous system of instructions. The problem was, there wasn’t much in it that he felt he could put to practical use. ‘Want to impress a dame the morning after the night before? Run to the kitchen while she’s still snoozing fit to bust, and come back with what I like to call the Egg Majestique. That’s one of every type of egg on a tray: a soft-boiled egg, a hard-boiled egg, an egg over easy, an egg sunny side up, a poached egg, a devilled egg, a pickled egg, a coddled egg, a scrambled egg, a one-egg omelette, and a shot of egg nog for the hangover. No dame will be able to believe you know so many ways to cook eggs. Egg protein is good for the manly function, and after you’ve pulled off the Egg Majestique, you’ll probably need it, if you know what I mean.’ This sounded pretty authoritative to Loeser but he just wasn’t quite sure.

His amity with Blimk was of an unfamiliar kind. They’d never been drunk or hungover together; they had no one to gossip or complain about; and they were of such different backgrounds that they didn’t feel even secretly competitive. In other words, they had brought together none of the essential constituents of a friendship, and yet the result was still recognisably a friendship, which to Loeser was by definition an avant-garde achievement, like Duchamp’s urinal. When he was still living back at the Chateau Marmont, it was only really out of boredom that he had first got into the habit of visiting the shop, but Blimk had seemed to appreciate the company. Now, they often sat reading together for hours at a time inside a companionable silence so sturdy that customers looked almost apologetic when they had to interrupt it to buy a book. On Sundays, to Loeser’s faint disbelief, they played tennis.

In April the previous year, word had reached Blimk that H.P. Lovecraft had died of intestinal cancer at his aunt’s house in Providence. By that time, diligent as a seditionist, Blimk had collected nearly all the fiction Lovecraft had ever published, swapping decade-old issues of
Weird Tales
and
Amazing Stories
in the post with a network of eight or nine other Lovecraft obsessives. Often Loeser would read out a story from beginning to end so that Blimk, who couldn’t type without glaring at the keys, would still have a copy after he was obliged to pass on the original magazine. One of his correspondents was a Professor of classics at Harvard, another was an inmate at Attica prison in New York, and another was a congressional aide in Washington, from whom Blimk had first heard that rumour about the Secretary of State’s complete faith in the scientific accuracy of these ‘stories’. To Loeser, Lovecraft’s work seemed to be in flight from its own unlikelihood. How on earth could one plausibly account for the presence of ancient evil in a country as young as the United States of America? In New England and Rhode Island, Lovecraft could just about sustain it, but if he had lived in sunny, modern Los Angeles, Loeser sometimes felt, the man could never have become a writer.

But of course it was wrong to assume that, as with some obsolete make of spark plug, the production of ghosts had been discontinued. There could be ghosts in new places, in airports and automats and amusement parks. Loeser had become aware of his own ghost within a week of moving into Gorge’s spare bungalow in Pasadena. In the middle of the night, he had been awoken from a dream about pencils by a thumping and scratching above his head, loud and wild as if something was about to smash through the ceiling. Terrified, he pulled on a dressing gown, got a torch from the kitchen, and went out on to the patio to see what was on the roof. But there was nothing there. When he went back to his bedroom, the thumping had stopped, but a few hours later, just as he’d finally calmed down enough to doze off, it started again, even louder. He slept on the sofa that night, hearing only the snores of the icebox motor. The following morning, he decided he ought to venture out as usual – this was when he hadn’t yet run out of ideas for how he might find Adele – so it wasn’t until he got home that evening, and made a thorough investigation of his bedroom, that he discovered what the ghost had left for him: a pair of dark stockings, expensive ones, stuffed down behind the headboard of his bed like the discarded cocoons of two great pedigree silkworms. Doing his best to be sceptical, he tried to think of other ways they could have got there. But all the doors and windows had been locked when he went out and they still were when he got home. The house had no secret tunnels. There was no way any human being could have got in. And ever since then, he had heard the same thumping and scratching about once a week, and found a physical deposit from the ghost in some odd hidden place about every few months. They were almost always feminine in nature, which is how he’d decided the ghost itself was a woman. He didn’t want to bring it up explicitly with Woodkin in case Woodkin thought he was a lunatic, but he had at least managed to ascertain that the house had never had any female tenants, murdered or otherwise.

Were ghosts moored to structures, he sometimes wondered, or to spatial coordinates? If he had his house jacked up on wheels and towed to Venice Beach like that house he’d once seen on Sunset Boulevard, would the ghost be dragged with it, or would it continue inanely to haunt the same triangle of land even after it was empty? If you could have a ghost ship, could you have a ghost tram? Could the ghost be Scramsfield’s fiancée, the one he’d strangled to death in that Boston art gallery, passed on to Loeser by some ritual invocation over the champaggne?

He decided to open his post. The first letter was his monthly cheque from the Cultural Solidarity Committee of California. The second was from Achleitner. And the third was from Blumstein. He hadn’t heard from the director since he’d left Berlin.

Dear Egon,

Perhaps you are surprised to find me writing to you. It has been so long now since our friendship was interrupted. After you dismissed my first & only attempt at reconciliation, it would have been unpleasant for both of us if I had pressed the matter. So I decided, unhappily, to respect your wishes. If I am to explain why I have altered that policy now, I want to do so without using a melodramatic phrase like “last chance”. I will only say that I truly believe that we in Germany are approaching some sort of rupture, some sort of chasm, in our history. From this side of the chasm, I can still speak to you. From the other side of the chasm, there is no way of knowing. So I write to you now, hoping you will indulge my letter.

Perhaps you are already sceptical. I know you never believed in politics, or in history. For a long time, I didn’t either. So there is no point repeating the bare facts that you must already have read in the newspapers, because I know it won’t make any difference. I think the only way to persuade you that my concerns are real may be to tell you about something that happened to me yesterday. It was what finally inspired me to write to you.

I was on a tram to Schlingesdorf. It was the middle of the afternoon & the tram was quite empty. Everyone had distributed themselves evenly among the available seats, as they always do, so that nobody had to share an armrest with anybody else. There was also a man in Nazi uniform, I think he must have been a member of the Schutzstaffel, who was standing up near the front of the tram even though there were all those seats available.

We came to a stop & a man got on. He wore a shabby overcoat & shoes with the soles almost falling off, & he had one of those faces that, even to another Jew, seem so characteristically Jewish that they almost approach caricature. He gave the Schutzstaffel man an uncomfortable glance, then carried on past him, twisting his whole body so that he couldn’t even be accused of brushing against the man’s uniform. He sat down next to an old woman with some shopping bags. The Nazi watched him for a while, sneering, & then said ‘Jew. Why do you assume that a good citizen like that will be willing to sit next to you?’ The Jew shrugged & asked the woman if she objected. The woman shook her head. Then the Nazi said ‘Jew. You are intimidating her into silence. Unless she specifically tells me that she is willing to sit next to a dirty Jew, I cannot allow you to sit next to her.’ The Jew obviously didn’t wish to make life difficult for the old woman, so he got up & moved to another seat, next to a businessman. The Nazi said ‘Jew. Why do you assume that a good citizen like that will be willing to sit next to you?’ But the Jew didn’t want to be made to move a second time, so he looked at the businessman in hopes of support. The Nazi said ‘Sir. You must say “I am willing to sit next to a dirty Jew.” Unless you say those exact words, I will conclude that he is intimidating you into silence, & I will insist that he find another seat.’ The businessman hesitated & then looked down at his newspaper. The Nazi said ‘Jew. Find another seat’ but the Jew didn’t move, so the Nazi said ‘Jew. Unless you find another seat I will arrest you.’ So the Jew asked where he could sit, & the Nazi said ‘Well, I don’t know. Is anyone on this tram willing to sit next to a dirty Jew like this?’ I raised my hand.

The Nazi turned to me & said ‘Say it out loud.’ I said ‘I am quite willing to sit next to that Jewish gentleman.’ The Nazi said ‘Is that because you are a Jew yourself?’ I said ‘I am Jewish, yes.’ So the Jew came & sat next to me. He didn’t thank me & I didn’t want him to. For a few minutes, there was silence on the tram – silence like you’ve never heard on a Berlin tram! And then the Nazi began the second act of his production. He said ‘Do you two Jews realise that young couple sitting opposite you now have no choice but to look at the two of you? You are right in front of them.’ Neither of us answered, so the Nazi continued ‘Why do you assume that two good citizens like that will be willing to look at you?’ Again, neither of us answered. ‘Unless they specifically tell me that they are willing to stare at two dirty Jews, I cannot allow you to sit opposite them.’ Egon, I have dealt with bullies before, and I decided I had had enough. I got to my feet and

Loeser crumpled up the letter and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. It went on for pages and pages and frankly he had better things to do. It was just like his former mentor to tell some long, convoluted, implausible anecdote about public transport because he thought it would get him some sympathy – undignified for a man of his age. He started on Achleitner’s letter.

Egon,

Sorry I haven’t written for so long. I’m back in Berlin now and you wouldn’t believe how hectic things are here. You were right – my long holiday in the castle couldn’t last for ever (although it did seem to last about nine tenths of for ever). We’ve been expelled from paradise. Buddensieg’s been called back to the city and he insisted we all come back with him. It’s all right, though, because he’s given me a job, so I can pay my rent. And I reveal the following in confidence, Loeser, because I deduce from the tone of your last letter that you need a bit of cheering up, but you’d better not tell Hecht or Gugelhupf or Ophuls or any of the others out there with you: I have to wear a uniform! Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? But at least I don’t really have to do anything – much the same as your cushy post on that committee, or so it sounds. Oh, you’ll never guess who I saw in the street the other day. Blumstein! Yes, the old bore’s still around. I went up to say hello but after he saw the uniform he wouldn’t even look me in the eye. Probably still wishing the November Group years had never ended. Well, they have. They really have. So how are things in the Golden State? Have you found Adele yet? No, I thought not. I hope you’ve at least found somebody willing to reset your stopwatch, as it were. I’m surrounded by vigorous men in riding boots so as you can imagine I couldn’t be happier. Well, I suppose I should go, we’ve got a reception in a minute for some lunatic who says he can see psychic runes or something. Stay out of the sun, it never agreed with you.

Hugs!

Anton

The Gorge House

Over the huge Georgian fireplace in Gorge’s billiards room was the stuffed head of a grizzly bear, its jaws fixed open in a way that made it look not so much ferocious as just very impressed. ‘Sit down, Krauto,’ said Gorge, who reclined in an armchair with a glass of strawberry milkshake. ‘Anything to report?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘Still German?’

‘I believe I am, yes.’

‘Can’t be helped. Job for you, if you’ll take it. Should damn well take it. Reek of idleness, Krauto, don’t mind me saying. No room for idle men on Gorge land. Now, Marsh – remember him? From CalTech. Building my auditorium.’

‘The fellow from the Executive Council. Yes.’

As he spoke, Gorge kept glancing over Loeser at the bear’s head. He had an expression as if some kind of turbid struggle was going on in his brain. ‘Heap of delays, but theatre’s finished now. This Christmas, first play. Needs a director. Want to put you forward to Marsh. Couldn’t refuse you, Marsh, if I did.’

‘First of all, Colonel Gorge, I’m not a director, I’m a set designer, and second, even if I were to direct for the first time, a Christmas play at a university theatre . . .’