Shadows in Paradise, Page 2

  I looked up from the chessboard. "That's true, Vladimir. But how long will it last?"

  Someone limped into the lounge. We were sitting in the half-light, and I couldn't see the man clearly; but I was struck by his odd three-quarter-time limp. "Lachmann!" I gasped.

  The man approached us.

  "My name is Merton," he said.

  I turned on the light, which trickled lugubriously from a blue-and-yellow ceiling fixture in the worst art-nouveau style. "Good God, Robert!" he cried. "You're alive? I thought you'd been dead for years."

  "Same to you," I said. "I knew you by your walk."

  "My trochaic limp?"

  "Your waltz step, Kurt. Do you know Melikov?"

  "Of course I know him."

  "Do you live here?"

  "No. But I drop in now and then."

  "And now your name is Merton?"

  "That's right. And you?"

  "Ross. But I've still got my own first name."

  "So we meet again," said Lachmann with a faint smile.

  We both fell silent. The usual embarrassment between refugees. Neither of us knew what questions it was safe to ask, who was dead and who was alive.

  "Any news of Kahn?" I finally asked.

  That was the standard technique. You inquired first about casual acquaintances.

  "He's here in New York," said Lachmann.

  "How did he get here?"

  "How did he get here? By chance, by luck."

  None of us figured on the list of prominent intellectuals whom the American authorities made a point of saving.

  Melikov turned out the light and produced a bottle from under the desk. "American vodka," he said. "We've got everything over here. California Bordeaux and Burgundy, Chilean Rhine wine, et cetera. Cheers. One of the advantages of being a refugee is that you're always losing sight of people, so when you meet again you can celebrate. Gives you the illusion of long life."

  Neither Lachmann nor I answered.

  A hotel guest came in, and Melikov went out to the reception desk for his key.

  "A shady character," said Lachmann with a glance in Melikov's direction. "Do you work for him?"

  "How could I work for a hotel clerk?"

  "Oh, he's got other irons in the fixe."

  "For instance?"

  "Girls. A bit of heroin. A little bookmaking, I think."

  "Is that what you've come for?"

  "No. There's a woman here that I'm crazy about She's fifty, from Puerto Rico. A Catholic, and she's only got one foot The other was run over. She's tied up with a Mexican pimp. For five dollars he'd even make the bed for us. But she refuses. She's adamant She thinks God's looking down from a cloud. Even at night I told her God was nearsighted. Nothing doing. But she takes money. And makes promises. When the time comes, she laughs. And promises again. What do you think of that? Is that what I came to America for?"

  Lachmann was neurotic about his limp. He had been a great lady's man in his time, or so he said. Some S.S. men in Berlin had got wind of his exploits and dragged him to their headquarters. They were going to castrate him, but the police turned up in the nick of time. Lachmann had got off with a few scars and a broken leg that hadn't set right. He had limped ever since, and acquired a taste for women with slight physical defects. Nothing else mattered, as long as they had big hard buttocks. After escaping to France he had kept up his activities under the most difficult circumstances. He claimed to have known a woman with three breasts in Rouen—and, better still, they were in back. A marvel! He could see everything at once without having to turn her around. "And hard as rock!" he cried in ecstasy. "Hot marble!"

  "You haven't changed a bit," I said to him.

  "We never change. We swear to turn over a new leaf. We even try to, when things are going badly. But as soon as the trouble passes over, we slip right back." Lachmann heaved a deep sigh. "Would you call that heroic or idiotic?"

  "Heroic," I said. "In our situation we may as well treat ourselves to the best adjectives. It's no good looking too deeply into our souls. We never know what we'll find."

  "You haven't changed either," said Lachmann-Merton. "Still the same taste for popular philosophy."

  "I need it. It comforts me."

  Lachmann grinned. "It gives you a feeling of cheap superiority. That's why."

  "Superiority can't be too cheap."

  "Oh well," said Lachmann. "I should talk!" He sighed, reached into his side pocket, and took out a package wrapped in tissue paper. "A rosary," he said. "Guranteed blessed by the Pope. Genuine ivory and silver. Do you think that might soften her up?"

  "Which Pope?"

  "Pius. Who else?"

  "Benedict XV would have been better."

  "What do you mean?" He gave me an angry look. "He's dead."

  "A dead Pope would give it more class."

  "Oh! Still the same old wit I'd forgotten. The last time we. . ."

  "Stop!" I said.

  "Why?"

  "Stop, Kurt. Not another word!"

  "Well, if that's the way you feel about it" Lachmann hesitated a moment. He wanted to go off in a huff. But his heart was too full. He took another little package from his pocket and unwrapped the light-blue tissue paper. "A little something from Gethsemane; olive wood from the Mount of Olives. Stamped and certified. If that doesn't melt her! What do you think?" He gave me an imploring look.

  "It's bound to. Have you got a bottle of water from the Jordan?"

  "No, I'm afraid not."

  "Fill one."

  "What?"

  "Fill one. There's a faucet out in back. Put in some dust to make it look more authentic. Nobody can prove anything different. You've got a certified rosary and olive wood—all you need to make it complete is some water from the Jordan."

  "But not in a vodka bottle!"

  "Why not? Wash off the label. The bottle looks oriental. I'm sure your Puerto Rican woman doesn't drink vodka. Maybe rum."

  "No. Whisky. Would you believe it?"

  "Yes."

  Lachmann pondered. "There ought to be a seal on the cork. That would convince her. Have you got some sealing wax?"

  "Where would I get sealing wax?"

  "People have all sorts of things in their pockets. For years I had a rabbit's paw . . ."

  "Maybe Melikov has some."

  "That's it. He's always sealing packages. Why didn't / think of that?"

  Lachmann limped out to the reception desk to confer with Melikov. A few minutes later I joined them.

  "It's all settled," Lachmann said triumphantly. "Look at this. Vladimir had this Russian coin that will make a beautiful seal. Cyrillic letters. Anyone would think the bottle had been filled by the Greek fathers in a monastery by the lordanl"

  Melikov produced a candle, and they set to work. I was hypnotized by the sealing wax, bright red in the light of the candle. What's the matter with you? I said to myself. That"s all over. You're saved. Life is out there waiting for you. Saved! But was I saved? Had I really escaped?.

  "I'm going out for a while," I said. "My head's too full of words. I've got to shake them out. See you later!"

  When I got back, Melikov was still on duty.

  "Where's Lachmann?" I asked.

  "Gone up to see his ladylove."

  "Do you think he'll have any luck this time?"

  "No. She'll ask him out to dinner with the Mexican. And let him pay. Was he always like this?"

  "Yes. Except that he used to have better luck. He claims that he used to be normal, and that his taste for crippled and deformed women came with his limp. Maybe it's true. Maybe he's so sensitive that a good-looking woman would make him feel ashamed. We'll never know."

  Melikov set up the men. "Who cares!" he said. "You can't imagine how unimportant these things seem when you get older."

  "How long have you been here?"

  "Twenty years."

  I saw a shadow coming through the door. It was a slender, tallish girl with a small face. She was pale, with ash-blond hair t
hat seemed to be dyed and gray eyes. Melikov rose to his feet "Natasha Petrovna!" he cried. "When did you get back?"

  "Two weeks ago."

  I had stood up. The girl was almost my height. She had on a tight-fitting suit and seemed very thin. She had a hurried way of talking; her voice was a little too loud, almost jangling.

  "Vodka?" Melikov asked. "Or whisky?"

  "Vodka But just one finger. I can't stay. I'm working."

  "At this time of night?"

  "All evening. The photographer only has time for us in the evening. Dresses and hats. Tiny little hats."

  It was only then that I noticed that Natasha Petrovna was herself wearing a hat, or, rather, a cap, a little black nothing perched slantwise on her hair.

  Melikov went out for the bottle. "You're not an American, are you?" the girl asked.

  "No. German."

  "I hate the Germans."

  "So do I," I said.

  She looked at me with surprise. "I didn't mean it personally."

  "Neither did I."

  "I'm French. You understand. The war."

  "I understand," I said calmly. This wasn't the first time I had been held responsible for the sins of the German regime. You get used to it after a while. I had been sent to an internment camp in France, but I didn't hate the French. There was no use trying to explain that. I could only envy the primitive simplicity of her black-and-white approach.

  Melikov came back with the bottle and three tiny glasses, which he filled. "None for me," I said.

  "Have I offended you?" the girl asked.

  "No. I just don't feel like drinking right now." Melikov grinned. "Na zdorovye!" he said, raising his glass.

  "A gift of the gods," said the girl, tossing her head like a colt, drained her glass.

  I felt like an idiot for having declined, but it was too late now. Melikov picked up the bottle. "Another, Natasha Petrovna?"

  "No, thank you, Vladimir Ivanoyich. I've got to be going. Au revoir."

  She held out her hand to me. "Au revoir, Monsieur." She had an unexpectedly powerful grip. "Au revoir, Madame."

  Melikov saw her to the door and came back. "Did she insult you?" "No."

  "Think nothing of it. She insults everybody. But she doesn't mean it."

  "Is she Russian or French?"

  "Both. Born in France of Russian parents. Why?"

  "I once lived with some Russians for a while. Russian women seem to specialize in cutting men into little pieces. It's their favorite sport."

  Melikov grinned. "You don't say so. But is it so bad to shake a man up a bit? Isn't it better than shining the buttons of his uniform every morning and polishing the boots he's going to trample innocent people with?"

  I flung up my hands. "Have mercy! It seems to be a bad day for refugees. Let's have some of that vodka I turned down before."

  "Okay."

  Melikov pricked up his ears. "Here they come."

  There were steps on the stairs. Then I heard a melodious feminine voice. It was the Puerto Rican belle, with Lachmann in tow. She didn't limp, and no one would have suspected that she had an artificial foot.

  "Now they'll call for the Mexican," Melikov whispered.

  "Poor Lachmann," I said.

  "Poor? He's still able to desire something he hasn't got." I laughed. "I guess that kind of desire is the one thing we never lose."

  "A man isn't poor until he stops wanting anything."

  "Really?" I said. "I thought that made him wise."

  "Not at all. Checkmate, incidentally. Whafs the matter with you today? You're playing like a bow-legged baboon. Do you need a woman?"

  "No."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  "General let down now that the danger's over," I said. "You must remember that from your younger days."

  "We always huddled together. But you don't seem to care much about your fellow refugees."

  "Because I don't want to remember."

  "Is that it?"

  "Refugees build invisible prison walls around themselves. I've had enough of that."

  "You mean you want to become an American?"

  "If s not a question of nationality. I'd just like to be somebody after all these years. If they let me."

  "That's a tall order."

  "A man's got to encourage himself," I said. "No one else will."

  We played a second game. I lost again. Then the hotel guests began coming in, and Melikov was busy handing out keys and taking cigarettes and liquor up to people's rooms. I kept my seat What was actually the matter with me? I decided to tell Melikov that I wanted a room of my own. I didn't know exactly why; we didn't get into each other's way, and it was all the same to him whether I shared his room or not. But it suddenly struck me as important to have a room to myself. On Ellis Island I had slept in a large room with other people, and it had been the same in the French internment camp. I knew that if I had my own room it would remind me of times I preferred to forget But there was no help for it I couldn't evade them forever.

  Ill

  I met the Lowy brothers late one afternoon, at the hour when the setting sun suffuses the antique shops on the east side of Second Avenue with a honey-colored glow, while the cobwebs of night are already forming on the windows across the way. As I opened the shop door, the redheaded Lowy brother stepped out of his aquarium, blinked, sneezed, peered out into the soft light, and sneezed again. Then he noticed me. "Pleasant evening," he said in no particular direction.

  I nodded. "Nice bronze you've got there."

  "A fake," Lowy replied, rather surprisingly for a dealer.

  "I suppose it doesn't belong to you?"

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Because you say it's a fake."

  "I say it's a fake because it is a fake."

  "But aren't you a dealer?"

  Lowy sneezed again and blinked again. "It was sold to me as a fake. This is an honest shop;"

  The whole shop began to glow as the sun struck the mirrors on the back wall. "But mightn't it be authentic?" I asked.

  Lowy stepped back from the doorway and looked at the bronze that was standing on an Early American rocking chair. "You can have it for thirty dollars," he said. "With a teakwood stand thrown in. Carved!"

  I still had about eighty dollars to my name. "Could I have it for a few days?" I asked.

  "You can have it for the rest of your life if you pay for it"

  "Couldn't I have it on approval? Just for two days?"

  Lowy turned around. "But I don't know you. A few months ago I gave a lady two pieces of Meissen china on approval. She had an honest look."

  "And she disappeared?"

  "Oh no. She brought them back in shards. They'd been knocked out of her hands in a crowded bus. She cried as if she'd lost a child. Two children. Twins. They were identical pieces. She had no money to pay for them. All she'd wanted was the pleasure of looking at them for a few days. And showing them off at a bridge party to spite her friends. All very human. What could we do? Chalk it up to bitter experience. So you see . . ."

  "A bronze isn't so fragile. Especially if if s a fake."

  Lowy gave me a sharp look. "You don't believe me?"

  I didn't answer.

  "Leave us twenty dollars," he said. "You can keep it a week. If you sell it, we split the profit. How's that?"

  "Outrageous. But it's a deal."

  I accepted because I wasn't sure of my guess. I took the bronze to my hotel room. Lowy had told me before I left that he had bought it from a museum that had wanted to get rid of it when it was found to be a forgery. I stayed home that night. When it grew dark, I didn't turn on the light. I had put the bronze by the window, and I lay on the bed looking at it. During my stay in the Brussels Museum I had learned one thing: that objects begin to speak only after you have looked at them for a long time, and that the ones that speak soonest are never the best The museum had a fine collection of early Chinese bronzes' and now and then, with my protector's permission, I took one of th
em with me into the solitude of my storeroom. If anyone had noticed its absence, he would say that he himself had taken it home to study it. In this way I gradually learned the feel of patinas. On summer evenings I would peer into the cases for hours, and so became a good judge of texture, though I had never seen the colors by proper daylight. But, above all, my studies in the dark had in course of time given me a blind man's heightened sense of touch. I didn't trust it entirely, but sometimes I felt pretty sure.