The Quiet Twin (22 page)

‘Is this the Kasperl Club?’ she asked, blushing. ‘May I come in?’

The man sucked on his pipe. ‘Are you a guest or trade?’

‘I – I am here to see – the show.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a cover charge. Eighty pfennig. You have that?’

She nodded, dug in her handbag, could not locate her purse. Her eyes filled with tears.

‘It must be somewhere,’ she said, stepping closer, into the hallway’s light. The porter stooped over the handbag with her, blew pipe smoke in her face.

‘No money, no entry, Missy,’ he guffawed and his epaulettes shook with his laughter.

‘Ah, go on,’ said the barman, who had finished his cigarette and picked up the bucket. ‘Such a nice lady, and the place half empty tonight. I’m sure someone will buy her a drink.’

His accent was Styrian, soft and melodious; nicotine stains on his fingertips and teeth. ‘What do you care if this one gets in for free?’

The porter shrugged, and the barman took her elbow and pulled her along with him, down the cellar stairs.

‘What would you like, sweetheart?’ he asked as they stepped into a long if somewhat narrow room filled with several rows of round tables and chairs. The floorboards were bare and very dirty, littered with cigarette ash and mud. There was a long bar on their left, and a raised stage to the front, the latter screened by a set of red curtains. The light was dim, made dimmer yet by the cloud of smoke that clung to the low ceiling. Just about half the tables were taken, mostly by solitary men, though there were some brightly made-up women to be seen. In one corner, near the stage, a group of six or seven young men sat together, wearing SA uniforms, the table in front of them overflowing with glasses. The atmosphere was muted, almost tense. Just then a hush came over the crowd, and the lights were further dimmed.

‘The show is starting,’ the barman whispered to her and led her over to the wooden counter. ‘Beer or wine?’

‘Wine,’ she answered, grateful, and sat down on a stool. Otto Frei had taken the stage.

He came on without announcement: parted the curtains and stepped out, dressed in black from head to toe. He was carrying a chair. It was only when he had crossed the stage, put down the chair and sat himself down that the house lights were switched off. All that remained was a single spotlight that sought out his face, and the glow of cigarettes amongst the guests. Everything that she knew about his face – the brow, the cheekbones, the fat, sensual mouth – was just the same, but it had been bleached of all emotion. A canvas remained, startling in its blankness; the large eyes cold and emptied of their passion. He stared out into the audience for an endless minute, his face disembodied in the dark.

‘Who’s first?’ he asked.

The voice had not changed. It was coarse and full of anger, the weak link in his act. For a moment he seemed human: a man with a painted face. Then the lips closed and silence reclaimed him.

‘Rudolf,’ a voice shouted, amongst the group of SA youths. ‘Over here! He’s reporting to barracks tomorrow, and soon it’s off to war!’

A second spot came into being, scanned the faces of this lively gang, half a dozen fingers pointing at someone sitting in their midst. The light settled on the man they indicated, a blond lad of twenty, his face drained of colour by the light. Now there were two death masks, one on the stage, the other rising from amongst the gaggle of his peers, staring one another in the eye.

‘All right then,’ said the young man, lips forced into a smile. ‘How will I fare?’

The mime did not react at once, but peeled back both his gloves and set them beside him on the chair. He stood, the light following his every movement, the hands falling lifeless from their cuffs. The next moment, they took on a rhythmic movement, up and down, forward and back, and in a moment it was clear the mime was marching, though his feet did not stir and he made no progress across the stage, just the hands moving to the inaudible rhythms of some drummer boy. The face meanwhile was proud, imperious, a soldier about his duty, only there was fear in it, too, a trembling right around the lips, and the occasional sideways glance to check on how his comrades were getting on, just to see whether they, too, were marching fearless to their likely death, or whether he had been fooled into taking to the road alone. A shell hit. It made no sound, but it hit all the same: the mime’s eyes caught it as it came hurtling into his line of sight. He dropped to his knees, raised his hands to cradle his ears, a soundless scream falling from his lips. More shells fell, the heat of battle, and the mime in their midst, hands curled to fists, stoppering up his painted ears. Then, the battle over, he stood, a frail, handsome smile spreading on the parchment of his face, shy at first – could it be that he was alive? – then young and carefree, though he kept his eyes up, not caring to look at what lay littered on the field. The mime sat down again, his chin raised in triumph. One hand turned around upon itself and became the hand of another man, pinning a white cotton ribbon on the black nothingness of chest. No medal had ever been better earned: the face said it, had long forgotten its fear. Then the hands disappeared within their gloves, and a great solemn blankness descended upon the whitewashed features of the mime. He was Rudolf no more.

The room exploded into laughter and applause.

‘And his girl?’ somebody shouted. ‘Will she be faithful?’

The mime heard it, shushed them with a finger laid across his lips. His eyes opened wider, became pretty, the mouth soft and round. The gloves came off again, and the mime-turned-girl began to write a letter, tender words that left their imprint in her tender smile. She had not finished with her composition, was labouring, her tongue between her teeth, to find phrases that did justice to her virgin love, when a knock interrupted her: she looked up, startled, waved one hand to usher in her guest. That it was a man, a stranger, one knew at once by the caution that crept across her face. She shook her head twice, gave curt and hurried answers to some unheard question, each answer mouthed by pale and displeased lips. The man would not leave, drew nearer, put a hand upon her arm. She tried to shake him, struggled, beat a fist against his chest. Then, little by little, a change stole over her, some sort of slackening of the will. At first she hung lifeless and endured his groping, her lips tightly sealed against his kiss. But slowly, moment by moment, caress by caress, something else woke in her, old and powerful and born of the body. It would not be denied. She gasped in surprise as she watched herself yield: a stretching of the throat and jaw, eyes swimming with the knowledge of her need.

The act finished with the mime enacting her passion, the heavy braying of a beast in heat, made all the worse for its total lack of sound. When he was done, shouts and whistles followed him off the stage. He stepped through the gap in the red curtain, dragging his chair behind himself like a rag-and-bone man dragging home his cart. He never even bothered to bow.

‘He’s good,’ said the barman, and refilled her glass. Zuzka had not realised she had drunk it. ‘Three days back, he told some fat man he would die on the crapper.’ He wagged his chin. ‘Heart attack. Just as he was reaching for the paper, to wipe his old arse: out pop his eyes and his ticker goes bust. It nearly came to blows.’

She smiled back at him and drained her second glass in three quick sips.

‘Where is he now?’ she asked.

‘Backstage. The door over there. You know him?’

‘Yes,’ she said and her heart beat as though she were pleading guilty to some unknown crime.

She got up, made her way towards the stage and past it, to the metal door the barman had indicated. Some of the men looked up from their tables, followed her with their eyes. She was still wearing her wet coat and hat, the leather handbag dangling from the crook of her arm. The sign read ‘No Entry’ but the door wasn’t locked. It opened upon a black, heavy curtain, designed to keep out the light. She closed the door, stood in darkness looking for the gap in the curtain, then stepped through into a brightly lit corridor with linoleum flooring that reminded her for a moment of a hospital corridor. A mop stood in an empty bucket in one corner, a number of doors led off to her left and right. She stepped up to the one closest to her (it stood ajar) and pushed it open a little wider. A woman, stripped to the waist, was stepping into a cocktail dress. Her chest and ribcage were covered with old bruises, her painted face looked haggard and worn. Zuzka had not seen another woman naked since puberty and was taken aback by the sight. She was particularly struck by the smallness of her breasts and nipples, and the sickly cast of the woman’s skin; the knobbly protrusion of her belly button that clung to her belly like a tumour. She had a cluster of moles over her left hip.

‘What is it?’ the woman asked, fastening the dress at her waist and pulling its top over her naked frame. Her voice was tired, not unkind. ‘You lost, honey?’

‘I’m looking for Otto. Otto Frei. The mime.’

‘You his girlfriend or something? Third door on the left. Unless he nipped out for some air.’

Zuzka left her, followed her instructions: a door with a crack in its lacquer running from handle to hinge. It, too, stood ajar; behind it, Otto, sitting on a stool. The room was large and barren, held no mirror and no sink, a tube of make-up lying crumpled on the floor. He rose when she stepped in, a cigarette jutting from the painted lips.

She expected him to say something, welcome her, offer her a seat, but he remained as he was, silent, the face white and washed of all expression. With a tremor she recalled why she was there, and dug the newspaper page from out her handbag.

‘Evelyn,’ she said, not without triumph. ‘Her name is Evelyn. Not Eva. I know why you killed the dog.’

Her hand was actually trembling.

He accepted the article with great carelessness, laid it next to him on the table that served as his dresser. There was a bottle of spirits there, standing open; an ashtray overflowing with butts. She wished very much that she could see his face behind the paint. She needed to know if she’d hit her mark.

‘Admit it,’ she tried again. ‘There’s no use denying.’

He rose and took her by the wrist.

Any moment now, she thought, he was going to tell her the truth.

‘My uncle,’ she said, filling the silence between them. ‘Speckstein. He’s giving a party. Vesalius told me to buy a new dress.’

He shrugged and pulled at her, used her weight to slam her back into the wall.

Her breath was knocked out of her. In that instant, she was sure he would beat her, cut her open with his knife. He was so close, she could see down his mouth, the gums very red behind the white of his lips. Then she felt his knee, forcing apart her thighs, the weight of his body crashing down upon her chest. He did not kiss her, not on the mouth, though she felt his teeth travel up and down her neck. ‘Oh God,’ she murmured, and it fell from her lips lifeless and abstract, like a line from a play read out by the prompter. One hand (he was still wearing his gloves) reached around to cup her buttock, and she realised in wonder that he strove to be tender in his lust. He had yet to lift her skirts. Over his shoulder she became aware of a presence, the woman in her cocktail dress. She was standing in the door, unembarrassed, watching their embrace. All she saw was a colleague kissing his girl, her long neck smudged with the white of his make-up. Otto became aware of her, pulled his leg from between Zuzka’s thighs; he stepped back from the wall, one hand still pinning her wrist above her head.

‘Do you have any cigarettes?’ the woman asked, and Otto nodded, passed her his pack, then let go of Zuzka and offered her a light, the match catching fire between cotton fingers black as tar. Zuzka used the moment, grabbed her handbag, slipped over to the door. She wanted to run away but felt abashed somehow, needed to tell the woman that things were not as she assumed. ‘We’re not –’ she began and stopped herself. ‘I’m not – He just grabbed me, and I–’

The woman smiled, blew smoke and watched it drift across the room. ‘Just close the door next time, honey,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to get embarrassed.’

Zuzka turned and walked away then, through the club and up the stairs, headed homewards through the night. Once, near the Fleischmarkt, she saw a man step out of a house in a hat and coat and for a moment she thought it was the doctor, squeezing the hand of someone unseen, but she hurried on, fearful, ashamed to hope that it was he.

Two

Rudi Schneider was eleven when he first manifested supernatural powers. The year was 1919: March. His sixteen-year-old brother, Willy, who had already begun to draw the attention of Schrenck-Notzing and like-minded researchers, was performing a seance in his father’s house in Braunau am Inn, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. When in trance, Willy gave himself over to a ‘trance personality’ called Olga, whom some identified as Lola Montez, the Irish-born dancer and erstwhile mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. On this particular night Olga demanded Rudi’s presence. The parents, concerned for their child’s sleep, refused to wake him. When Rudi stepped out of his room a few minutes later – with tousled hair, no doubt, wearing a nightshirt handed down from his sibling – he was in a state of deep trance. From this day forward, Olga attached herself to the younger and more gifted Rudi. In a Munich facility purpose-equipped by the Baron von Schrenck-Notzing, he was subjected to one of the most intense and scientifically rigorous testing cycles ever developed for a spiritistic medium. Separate test series took place at the Institut für Radiumforschung der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Vienna and at the National Laboratories for Psychical Research in London through the 1920s and ’30s. Large numbers of interested laymen, including doctors, scientists, artists and professional stage magicians, were invited to attend the seances. The young medium was particularly adept at the telekinetic manipulation of objects and the manifestation of ‘teleplastic’ limbs that bore only a rudimentary resemblance to human arms and legs. In his spare time Rudi completed his apprenticeship as an engine mechanic. By the mid-1950s he was living in Meyer, Austria, working as a driving instructor and running his own driving school. He died in 1957, a young man of forty-nine.