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“All right, I’ll think.”

26

F
or the second weekend, Renate managed to keep Luisa at home and away from her friends. This was fairly easy: she reminded Luisa that the ophthalmologist had said that she wasn’t to lift anything, even a kettle of hot water.

On Monday, Renate and Luisa made another trip to Dr. Widmer for a ten o’clock appointment. He pronounced the eye “all right.” No inflammation. Renate spoke of a sensation of pressure, still. The doctor tested the vision. It was equal to the other eye.

“If you want to see me—I am here,” said Dr. Widmer, as if he didn’t want to see her, but if she insisted—

That was not very nice of him, Renate thought, not a professional tone to use. In the taxi riding homeward, Renate mulled over Dr. Widmer’s attitude, even his remark that the black patch seemed unnecessary.

“From now on too,” Renate said to Luisa, “you can keep your food separate from mine in the fridge.”

“Oh—I was already doing that,” Luisa said calmly.

Renate hated her calm. There was something the matter with the girl. Well, that was plain, wasn’t it? Renate, her one eye gazing out the window as the taxi sped along, looked at Luisa suddenly and said, “Taking on a girl like you—from nowhere—I should have known.” She said it firmly, as if there were something in Luisa that rendered her hopeless, unredeemable, for the rest of her life.

At home, Renate saw that the girls had their work assigned for the day, and instructed Vera to double-check on a navy blue jacket whose gores were tricky. Renate was slowly making Vera her foreman, which she was already, but she was nudging Luisa out of any and all vantage grounds of the past.

Still feeling the sting of Dr. Widmer’s offhand treatment, Renate announced to the workroom that she would be out for lunch, back she hoped before three. She went into her bedroom and telephoned for a taxi to arrive in forty-five minutes. That would give her time to freshen up and apply a little makeup.

Renate asked the driver to go to the Hotel zum Storchen, which had a rooftop restaurant, but en route she decided to try the Storchen’s bar instead. It was of a comfortable size, with a piano, and some tables for two at which one person did not look odd. She had removed her eye patch as soon as she was out the door of her apartment house.

What a shame the old days were past, Renate thought as she savored her lobster meat, when she and Luisa might have been enjoying a similar lunch together. Once in a while she had given the girl a treat, of course. Those days were before Luisa had plunged herself into the homosexual scene. Who would’ve thought it! Renate took consolation in sips of delicious white wine. The meal was followed by an espresso and a cigarette.

At the hotel door, she asked the porter to summon a taxi. She had given him a two-franc piece, and he held the taxi door open for her. Renate was not sure how it happened, but suddenly her face was on the taxi floor, her nose scraping along the corrugated rubber mat.

Renate gasped.

The taxi driver opened the other door. The porter was trying to take her arm to help her. Renate had to crawl backward out of the taxi in order to get to her feet. And was her long skirt up at the back? Certainly the porter would’ve had a fine view of her feet, one in a slipper, the other in an ugly boot!

“Madame!” said the porter, extending a forearm.

“Are you all right?” asked the taxi driver.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Finally settled in the taxi, Renate gave the driver her address, and turned her attention to keeping the blood from dropping on to her dress front. She thought she had a slight nosebleed, and some kind of scratch along the bridge of her nose. She put the eye patch on before she opened the apartment door.

From the workroom, she heard the murmur of voices, and a shrill “Ha-a—
ha-a
!” which Renate recognized as Stefanie’s.

Renate entered her bathroom, and washed the smeared blood from her nose and cheeks. She was glad no neighbor had seen her downstairs just now! A nasty scrape on her nose. That would create little dark red scabs. Renate applied alcohol.

Then she entered the workroom, where the conversation died at once, though Vera and Luisa did not stop their work.

Stefanie looked at her, and said, “Oh, Madame Renate, what happened?”

Renate noticed that Luisa glanced at her face, then continued to pin something. “Oh, nothing! It’s because with this eye patch I can’t judge distances, you know.”

Renate sent Luisa down to the local pharmacy for calcium tablets and more aspirin.

F
ROM
R
ICKIE,
L
UISA LEARNED THAT
Teddie had had his second article, “A Night in Town,” accepted by the
Tages-Anzeiger
, which proved to Luisa that a letter to her from Teddie was missing.

Luisa was convinced that there was no limit to the twists that people in authority could invent. Rickie saw things the same way, though he had never said it in so many words. This was why Luisa liked being with him and talking with him. And he took chances. He had told her a story of being in a hotel in Istanbul in which the air-conditioning didn’t work, and his windows were not made to open, the hotel told him. Rickie had finally driven his right fist through a windowpane. He had shown Luisa a scar on the outer edge of his right hand.

“Have another evening with Dorrie,” Rickie said. “What’s the harm? Or with Teddie. He’ll want to celebrate when that second article comes out.”

Yes, Luisa was sure of that. “Tell him I’ll try.”

“Try? You’ll make it! You make a date with him now—and we’ll make it.” Rickie meant if she rang Teddie up now.

Luisa didn’t. She was then in Rickie’s flat, at just before seven on a Thursday evening.

Rickie saw her hesitation and said, “Come on then, you and I are going to a cinema tonight. It’s a new film made in China. All right? Do you want to ring the old witch?” He gestured gracefully toward his telephone.

It seemed so easy. Luisa dialed, stood up straight, and informed Renate that she was going to a cinema and would be home later. Before twelve, she added for politeness’s sake, and hung up before Renate could reply.

“Splendid! Now we’re free.”

She felt free. They shared a cold beer, checked the film time in Rickie’s newspaper, then rang for a taxi. In town they had time for a wiener before the film started. They’d go to a Chinese place afterward, said Rickie.

The picture was not as great as they had expected. In the talky parts, Luisa’s thoughts wandered to the prison that the apartment, the workroom had become. Renate was trying to push Vera into her place. Well, so be it, Luisa didn’t care. Vera, who was a
Schneiderin
anyway, higher than Luisa, didn’t want a “favored” place, because she didn’t like Renate. Who did like her? Vera realized that she could get excellent training from Renate, and that was all she wanted—plus perhaps a good recommendation from Renate when her contract was finished. What did the girls think of the present state of affairs? They’d never guess that—or would they?—that Renate had blown her stack over a date or two with a boyfriend, then a girlfriend? Luisa was learning not to underestimate what another person might guess or divine. But Luisa doubted if Vera and the others could imagine Renate’s intensity, once she realized that she, Renate, might not be number one in Luisa’s—what? Affections? Luisa’s eyes focused as a ball of red fire sank into a horizon of dark blue water.

“FIN” appeared in large white letters on the screen, and the audience began to stir.

“You see? You’re going to need it,” said Rickie when they were out on the pavement. He handed her the tweed jacket that he had insisted on taking from his closet.

“Rickie!” a voice cried.

It came from a tall young man in a beige summer suit, who was going into the cinema for the next show. Rickie introduced him as Markus. The young man grinned.

“
So
, Rickie,” he said, glancing at Luisa.

“Yes. Isn’t she a darling? She has metamorphosed my life. Wears my clothes!”

“Hah-ho-o!” said Markus, and drifted away.

Luisa was smiling. She felt happy—for the first time in days.

They walked to the Chinese restaurant.

With a taxi, Luisa was in front of her house before midnight. Rickie paid the taxi off, and insisted on waiting until he was sure she could get in. If she couldn’t, she was to come home with him.

Luisa entered the house and climbed the stairs. Rickie had told her to keep his jacket “till next time.”

The apartment door opened easily, and then Luisa was confronted by Renate looking shocked.

“Don’t bring
that
in the house! Whose is it?”

“I had to borrow it. I was cold.”

“Get it out of here! Out!” Renate snatched the jacket, which Luisa was carrying over her arm, clumped into the sitting room, and without putting the light on raised the window higher and threw the jacket out.

“All right, I’m going to get it!” Luisa headed for the door.

“You do and you won’t get back in tonight!”

Luisa went out the door and closed it, and sped down the stairs. Rickie was just bending over a bush by the front step, retrieving the jacket.

Rickie laughed softly. “I could
hear
her!” he whispered. With a movement of his head, he indicated that she should come with him.

27

L
uisa awakened just after six on Rickie’s big sofa, clad in large yellow pajamas, under a white sheet folded double. She felt happy and rested too, though she’d slept hardly six hours. Soon she’d be drinking coffee with Rickie here in a pleasant atmosphere, maybe eating bread and jam with him. Enjoy this while you can, Luisa told herself.

She walked barefoot on Rickie’s wall-to-wall carpeting. Luisa put on water and accidentally clanked the kettle on the hotplate. “Damn!”

Rickie slowly awakened. He wanted tea this morning instead of coffee, because it was a special morning. He appeared in pajamas and a striped cotton dressing gown. “Ah, Markus should see us now, breakfasting together!”

“Oh-h—the fellow at the cinema! Yes! Bread, Rickie?”

“No, my dear, my diet. I try. I give up a lot of things, but not my beer or my croissant in the morning.”

“Arf!” said Lulu.

“Lulu, at Jakob’s—not here. It’s the word ‘croissant.’”

They sat at Rickie’s polished dining table. Butter and jam and sliced bread for Luisa. A cigarette and tea without sugar for Rickie. Luisa stopped herself from saying thank you again to Rickie. She felt so happy and secure with him, as if he could arrange anything, protect her, hide her, if necessary. “Renate took a bowl out of my hands and threw it in the sink—about four days ago.”

“Broke it in the sink?”

“I’d nearly finished a bowl of soup—out of a can—so in she comes humming, not saying anything. Then, ‘Filthy soup!’ she says, and
bang
! I rinsed the pieces and dropped them in the bin. My heart was beating like blazes. ‘Now you can complain!’ she said and—when I didn’t react at all, she hit me with her fist on the shoulder. Can you imagine? I saw the blow coming so I just tensed my shoulder and she fairly bounced!” Luisa laughed, remembering.

“I think you’re taking it all very well.”

“The bowl was one I’d brought from home—made by a woman potter I knew when I was about eight. And like a fool I’d told Renate this.”

“It won’t last forever—this monster in your life,” said Rickie. “I’m sorry you have another six months of it.”

“Five months and a week. Even so.” She looked at her watch: seven twenty-two already.

Rickie went to a cabinet in his living room and pulled out a drawer. “My apartment here.” He held a key between his fingertips. “Give me your key ring, I’ll put it on for you. Anytime, day or night—just come.”

Wordless, Luisa put the key ring back in her trouser pocket.

“Use the bathroom. I have plenty of time.”

When she came out of the bathroom, dressed, Rickie said, “Shall we have lunch? What time? I’ll meet you at Jakob’s.”

Luisa twisted on her toes, nervous. “She’ll say she needs me to make her lunch. She’s playing the invalid now.”

At ten minutes before eight, Luisa encountered the cheerful Stefanie on the front path.

“Out already or out all night?” asked Stefanie.

Luisa whispered, grinning, “Don’t you recognize my same clothes?”

“
Yes
.” She sounded impressed. “Hey—” But she was whispering, glancing up quickly as if she expected Renate to be leaning out of a front window. “What’s she up to—treating you like a servant?”

Luisa shrugged. “Her nature. Got to crack the whip, you know.”

“But what did you
do
—anything? Or maybe you don’t want to tell me.” Stefanie smiled mischievously.

“Nothing!” Luisa said firmly, believing it.

They climbed the steps to the front door.

“Got a nice boyfriend?” Stefanie asked, with hopeful air.

“Very.”

In the presence of so many others, Renate took the tack of ignoring Luisa that morning. Luisa had gone at once to her room to put on a fresh shirt. Renate had removed her eye patch, and from time to time put her cupped palm carefully over her right eye, as if it hurt, though it looked no different from the other.

Luisa did not go out with Renate for the nine-thirty coffee break, but took coffee in the kitchen with the girls.

Around eleven, the doorbell rang. Renate sent Vera down to see who it was.

Vera returned in less than five minutes with a big bouquet in her arms. “For you, Luisa!” Vera said, smiling.

“
Me?
” Luisa stood up from her sewing machine. She was aware that Renate stared with disapproval, as Luisa took the cellophane-wrapped bouquet from Vera. “Thanks for bringing it, Vera.”

“Oh, that’s OK! Seems to be roses.” Vera winked.

Luisa took the bouquet to the kitchen to make use of the big table. The flowers required snipping of thin wire, disposal of damp tissue. And she had to find a vase, or vases. A dozen red roses! Long-stemmed. An envelope held a card. It said:

              I am walking on air, my

              darling. I hope you are

              too. Your Moritz.

Luisa bit her underlip quickly, repressed a giggle. She found two vases, put seven roses in one and five in the other. Then mustering courage, she went into the workroom with the larger vase.

“Oo-ooh! Look!” cried Stefanie.

“Oh, gorgeous!” From Elsie.

“Aren’t they? I hope they’ll brighten up the workroom!” said Luisa, setting the vase down in the middle of the long table, where today there was room.

“You will take those to your own room, Luisa. This is a workplace.” Renate’s thin black brows came down.

“But I have another vase for myself. I thought the girls might like to—”

“Take them out!”

Luisa did. And dear Stefanie groaned loudly in sympathy. Luisa vowed to herself, she would manage to let the girls know they were welcome to one or two roses to take home. How often did something pretty come into the workshop?

At noon, Luisa asked Renate what she might like for lunch. A tuna fish salad with lemon, onion, and buttered toast. Luisa delivered her creation on a tray in the TV-sitting room, then with keys in pocket slipped out the door. She had passed a message to Stefanie in the kitchen: the girls could go into her room and take a couple of roses before they departed this afternoon, if they wished.

Luisa trotted toward Jakob’s, aware that, if Rickie weren’t there, she would be badly disappointed. Sometimes he had to work over the lunch hour. Rickie was not at his usual table, but suddenly she saw him standing in the doorway that led to the back terrace. They took a table under the grapevines, with more shade than sun.

“Rickie, the roses are beautiful! Thank you.”

Rickie lightly blew her a kiss. “My love! I have had a good morning’s work and I’ve been thinking.”

Ursie arrived, beaming with good spirits, her fair hair streaked with perspiration and her white apron rather soiled for this time of day. Rickie ordered a Coke at once for Luisa and beer for himself. Cold cuts and bread for both.

“We must somehow make better use of Dorrie—in regard to Renate.” Rickie’s brow wrinkled. “If you moved to my atelier to sleep—to make your breakfast, to live—she’d consider you a delinquent. Fine. We have to make her
throw
you out, so you can finish your apprenticeship with another seamstress.”

“Yes. With bad references,” Luisa said at once.

Their plates arrived.

“Another beer, Rickie?” asked Ursie. “While I’m here.”

“
Ja—
um
—ein kleines
,” said Rickie. He pushed the mustard pot closer to Luisa. “Ah, these Renate types. They occur among men too, you know? Didn’t happen to me, but to a young friend of mine about eight years ago. Heinz. Apprentice advertising artist and
again
the man who befriended him—Heinz was living in his big studio—was a closet queen. Most people assumed he was straight. He had
no
sex life, so as soon as Heinz met a boy and fell in love”—Rickie lowered his voice, glanced at the next table which was noisy with its own conversation—“Meyer the older man blew up. He kicked Heinz out like something filthy. That wasn’t disastrous, because Meyer wasn’t his teacher, just his landlord. But it’s the same situation, you see, Luisa.”

Luisa did see. She sought for the right word and came out with “possessiveness.”

“More profound,” said Rickie darkly. “The Meyers and the Renates see their protégés meeting people who will give them something they can’t give—or won’t. Sex. I doubt if you’d accept any advances from Renate if they came, would you?”

“No.” Luisa smiled nervously, because it was weird to imagine, yet not impossible to imagine. Luisa had always been aware that it pleased Renate to think that she, Luisa, had a slight crush on her, or more than slight. Luisa didn’t want to say this, and she felt Rickie knew, anyway.

A certain recollection had jolted Rickie: Heinz had died young. AIDS. And from whom? Who knew? Heinz had wasted away fast, was already in hospital when Rickie had paid his first and last visit. He’d looked like a skeleton, something to be afraid of. Rickie was ashamed of himself. Why hadn’t he found the time to visit twice, three times, even though Heinz hadn’t been a close friend? Philip Egli had done better as a friend, Rickie remembered. He remembered Heinz’s smile from his hospital pillows. Rickie had brought some peaches and a book. Pitiful.

“To change the subject— Ah, most welcome, Ursie!” His beer had arrived. “Teddie phoned me this morning. He’s having a birthday in about a week—wants to invite you and me and a few others for dinner at the Kronenhalle. And—said his mother will pay for a year at journalism school.”

How nice for him, Luisa thought. “It sounds like a happy future.” She pushed back her empty plate, aware that Rickie was watching for some reaction in regard to Teddie.

“Oops,” Rickie said quietly. “Our Willi has reappeared. Behind you. He’s standing in the doorway looking around at people. Coffee, dear Luisa?”

“No time. You know, we don’t get quite an hour.”

“Lunch is on me. Now you run if you must.”

“Thank you, Rickie.” Luisa stood up, glanced behind her long enough to see Willi Biber’s figure—sporting his gray hat—slowly turn in the doorway. “You know, Rickie, I think you’re looking trimmer.” She slapped her own waist.

Rickie beamed.

She bent toward Rickie. “Even Frau Wenger at L’Eclair asked me what happened—because Renate’s so hostile to me. She told me Renate said, ‘It’s something so shocking, I prefer not to tell you or anyone.’ Ha-ha!” Luisa was off, trotting toward the back garden gate.

Typical, Rickie was thinking. Renate Hagnauer was a classic case indeed—with a list of symptoms as definite as those of Spanish flu or meningitis. Rickie had forgotten to pass on something else Teddie had said. He wanted to invite Luisa for a cruise on the Nile. Rickie had reminded Teddie of certain dangers from fundamentalist attacks on tourists lately. Teddie had said, “A cruise down the Mississippi then. A steamboat down to New Orleans!”

“Come on, dear Lulu. Back to the factory.”

Rickie had work, and his work went well that afternoon. But he was aware of feeling lonely. He hadn’t a date that night, certainly not with Teddie Stevenson, of whom he sometimes thought, or daydreamed, even when he was working. Or with Freddie Schimmelmann either. He felt like ringing Freddie up. But where was he, at work, at home, in one of his classes for detection training? Working out at a gym?

One telephone call that afternoon was from a salad-sauce company, Rainbow, whose representative wanted to tell Rickie that “the boss” liked his waterfall idea. With an effort, Rickie recalled: a façade of falling water of various delicate of colors.

“I’m glad,” Rickie said. “Thanks for telling me.”

The rep did sound happy about it. Rickie felt just as down, however, after he had hung up. He looked over at Mathilde who was addressing envelopes, then at the phone on his long table.

Rickie dialed Freddie’s home number.

A woman answered.

“Hello,” said Rickie. “Is—Officer Schimmelmann there, please?”

“Not here now. He’s going to phone in before six. Who shall I say called?”

Rickie hesitated, then took the plunge. “Rickie. It’s—”

“Rickie. Oh yes, he’s mentioned your name,” the voice said on a cheerful note. “Any message?”

“No-o. It’s not important. Just say I phoned, please.”

“Certainly will, Rickie.”

They hung up. Was that his wife? Rickie supposed so. Amazing. How did Freddie do it?