The Stronger Sex (14 page)

She nodded, smiling. “Karl brought it over here for me yesterday.”

Another conspirator. I couldn't think that Karl's boss had been told about that errand.

She took my arm. “Come on, let's sit down.”

She led me over to the group of seats and pointed to the sofa. I sat down. She hesitated for a moment and then sat down beside me. I noticed her perfume again. Her knee brushed my thigh. She looked at me and smiled.

For Heaven's sake, how old was this woman?

Had she by any chance invited me here to get into bed with me? Or was it to be here on the sofa with its brightly coloured linen cover? How many other guests had she entertained here? Did her husband know, did he guess that maybe more than painting drew her back to this studio?

She said, “This may perhaps seem to you like a… an ambush. And so it is, of course, in a way.” She smiled. “But with the best of intentions. I wanted to ask you if you'd model for me some time.”

After a tiny pause I asked, “Model for you?”

“Yes. You've seen this studio now.” She pointed to the easel. “I started on that after you first came to see me at home. Came to see my husband, I mean.” She frowned slightly, as if doubting whether I understood what she was talking about. “You sat in the living room with me for a while after your conversation with him. Don't you remember?”

“Yes, yes, of course I do.”

“Anyway, now I'm not sure whether I want to paint you like that. In that pose, you understand, sitting in an armchair as you were then.” She smiled. “I think there are more interesting situations.”

What on earth did she mean, more interesting? She didn't want to paint me as a nude, did she?

My first reaction couldn't have been more ridiculous. I regretted putting on my plain ordinary underwear that morning, not a pair of the designer briefs that Frauke had given me for Christmas.

I tried to shake off this stupid embarrassment once and for all. I said, “No – no, I don't think I'd really like that.” After a pause I was quick to add, “I mean, it… naturally it's an honour that you think I'd be a suitable subject for a portrait by you. A portrait by Cilly Klofft. But…” I shook my head.

She scrutinized me, frowned slightly again. “What do you mean by suitable?”

“Well…” I was trying to appear amused – no, cheerful. Cheerful and composed. “Well, I don't think I'm good-looking enough for that sort of thing!”

She made a sudden movement, as if what I had said was some kind of provocation. Her knee touched my thigh
again, and I thought I caught her perfume once more. She said, rather vehemently, “It's not a question of good looks! And even if you were not good-looking – which, as you must know, you are – even then you would be a man worth painting.”

“But that's really…” I shook my head again. I couldn't think of a way to finish the sentence. After what threatened to be an awkward silence I pulled myself together. “No… maybe it's much simpler than that.”

She looked at me. I said, “What do you think your husband would say if he found out I was modelling for you?”

Her eyes widened. She said nothing for a while, without taking her eyes off me. Then she said, “My husband? Do you really think you should worry about
his
opinion of anything you or I did or did not do? Or that interests me? You know him by now! You've found out certain things about him! Do you seriously believe he is qualified to pass judgement on other people's conduct? Moral judgement, because that's what it would be.”

I wasn't going to let this woman catch me out. I said, “Just a moment, please. I—”

She interrupted. “No, let me finish what I was saying!” She leaned back slightly, but she didn't take her eyes off me. “I can tell you what my husband's opinion would be if you modelled for me. He'd say: what does that young whippersnapper think he's doing, posing nude for my wife? Is he planning to bring out his… his cheesy white doctoral prick? And what does the old slut think she's up to, using a boy like that as a model? Is she so hot for it, before it's too late, that any pretext is good enough… well, I don't want to be vulgar.” She laughed. “That, my dear, or something like it is what my husband would think if you modelled for me. Except that he'd put it even more coarsely. Very much more coarsely. His moral judgement, right? Do you really think you need bother about that for a single moment?”

She leaned back on the sofa. I saw what I hadn't registered before, that she was wearing a blouse and denim waistcoat, dark-brown and presumably exquisitely elegant jeans, with a wide belt and a big, gleaming, silvery belt buckle. I thought of her brown legs, her knees under the fine fabric of her smock, and instantly censored those thoughts.

After a while I said, “Your husband is my client.”

She said nothing for a moment, then asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, it may seem ridiculous to you, but not to me.” I was trying to concentrate. “Your husband is my client. To go behind his back in any way at all wouldn't do. I… I'd be neglecting my professional duty. And of course we
would
be going behind his back if I modelled for you. Because we'd be keeping a secret from him.” I looked at her. “It's not just that my clients owe me something, I owe them something too. Not least loyalty. Do you understand?”

She looked at me in silence, nodded thoughtfully. Then she said, “Did Hochkeppel tell you that?”

“No need for Dr Hochkeppel to tell me. You learn it studying law. If your own instincts don't tell you.”

I wasn't feeling too good about the way this was working out. I was not sure that I was right. I could hardly ask Hochkeppel. Maybe I ought to look at a few legal books again.

She nodded again, this time briefly and firmly. “Right. Loyalty it is. I suggest we file the modelling question away.” She smiled. “And anyway that's not why I asked you here.”

“No, so you didn't.” Suddenly I felt relieved. “You had something to tell me about the dismissal of Frau Fuchs, didn't you?”

“Absolutely accurate. But right at this moment I could do with a drink.” She stood up. “What would you like?”

I raised a hand, declining the offer. “Not for me, thanks.”

She smiled at me. “Afraid I'll get you drunk?”

“No, no.”

“Glad to hear it.”

She turned away and went to the door next to the bathroom. I watched her go. The jeans were a perfect fit over her small, rounded behind. She had dark-brown moccasins on her feet.

If she'd tinted her thick grey hair, maybe blonde, that clear blonde you sometimes saw… or coloured it a little more soberly, chestnut brown, a brown with auburn highlights – well, you could have thought her a woman of thirty. I felt sure of that.

I heard her opening and closing kitchen cupboards. Glasses clinked.

Was I out of my mind? I'd more or less clearly implied that she wanted to sleep with me. And I'd responded in terms suggesting that she had made me an indecent and repellent offer.

I must have insulted her – I must have wounded her profoundly. It was a wonder that she hadn't thrown me out on the spot.

15

She came back with two mini-bottles of champagne and two champagne glasses. I was wondering apprehensively whether she was going to sit down next to me and touch my knee again, but this time she chose an armchair to the left of the sofa. She opened the first of the little bottles, filled one of the glasses and put it down in front of me.

I raised my hand. “No, thank you. Not now.”

She smiled. “All right.”

This was all getting too much for me. I wasn't going to take her merciless mockery in silence any more, but before I could say anything, she asked, “Can I get you anything else? A cup of tea? Some fruit juice?”

“No, thank you, nothing at all at the moment.”

“OK.” She took the glass back, sipped from it herself and sighed pleasurably. Then she said, “Well then, the dismissal of Frau Fuchs. Without notice, wasn't it? And one reason was that she had taken time off when he hadn't given her permission. And why didn't he give her permission? He had no alternative. Because he was expecting a really urgent, really important order. An order from abroad. That's what he told her. And that's what it says in his written notice of dismissal to her, am I right?”

I looked at her. She returned my glance as if she were very well aware that something had intrigued me, but she had no idea what it was. I left it at that exchange of glances for a moment. Then I asked, “How do you know all this?”

For a few seconds she maintained her innocent expression. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and said, “Oh!” And she added, “Loyalty, you mean?” She nodded. “I mustn't tell you how I know all this. And so I don't have to tell you what it is I know either. That's to say, I can tell you but you can't listen to me, right? It would conflict with the loyalty you owe your client.”

She was paying me back. I had hurt her, but she wasn't caving in. She was firing a broadside at me in return. The arguments I'd meant to use to deter her were suddenly blowing up in my face.

For a moment she looked at me with a smile that I might have thought regretful, if I hadn't been sure by now that it concealed pure derision. Then she asked, “That's so, isn't it? Or do I misunderstand you? Surely you can't listen to any information I happen to have picked up behind my husband's back?”

It was no use, I had to come out of cover. I didn't want to throw away my case unthinkingly. And I certainly didn't want to end up as the butt of this woman's mockery.

“Well,” I said, “it's… it's not quite as simple as that, you see. I don't have to refuse to listen to information that would help me to represent my client properly.” I cleared my throat. “Strictly speaking I can't… I ought not to reject it without any idea what it is.”

She widened her eyes as if greatly surprised but also relieved by the turn our conversation had taken. “Oh!” She nodded. “Yes… I see. Well, I do think that what I've found out
will
help you to… to represent my husband properly. Or let's say to do him justice.”

She fell silent, and I looked at her. After a moment she said, “He invented that order from abroad.”

For a moment I was baffled. Then I asked, “How do you know?”

“I read the notice of dismissal. The one he keeps in the file.” She hesitated, and then went on, “On Friday at midday he left the file lying on his desk. When he went to have his afternoon nap. I found the file and looked through it.”

“But,” I said, “there's no indication of what you claim in the file.”

She smiled. “Not in
your
copy, of course not. But he made some marginal notes here and there on his copy of the documents. In pencil. So that he can erase them if he thinks it necessary. And there was one of those notes in the margin of the notice of dismissal. A certain word. He wrote it next to the passage where he cites the order from abroad. The order that he said he was expecting.”

She obviously planned to enjoy this revelation. I said, with some reluctance, “What word?”

“The word
Thionville
.”

“Thionville?” I looked at her blankly. “And what's that supposed to mean?”

She drank a little champagne. Then she said, “Thionville is a town in Lorraine. In France, the Moselle
département
. Diederhofen is its name in German. It's not far from the
Saarland border. And Luxembourg. Not far from the coal and steel industry of Lorraine either. The coal and steel industry used to be very important, but it's not profitable now, there or anywhere else.”

I said, “Forgive me, please – but what has that got to do with the dismissal of Frau Fuchs?”

She smiled. “We'll get to that in a minute! We used to have – my husband used to have, I mean – a very good customer in Thionville. A supplier to the iron and steel works. His name is Gaston Weber, he's a little younger than my husband. He was such a good customer that they quite soon made friends. Well, so far as my husband is capable of friendship.”

I wondered whether any feeling for her husband, other than hatred, had survived in her.

She said, “Gaston Weber used to invite him to hunting parties, and my husband responded with similar invitations. Sometimes to go hunting. In summer to join him on a yacht he hired. Your boss used to join the party in those days, by the way, and other friends. The wives never went.” She smiled. “But I did go with my husband to Thionville now and then. I spent my time drawing and painting while he and Gaston were hunting.”

She fell silent. After a while I said cautiously, “I still don't quite understand what you…”

She looked at me. “I was only saying that I know Gaston Weber well myself. We were friends. We still are.” She took a deep breath. “And when I saw Thionville written in that file, I was suspicious. I haven't heard from Weber for some time. If he had been phoning my husband, he'd have wanted to speak to me as well, I was sure of that. Or at least he would have sent his regards.”

She crossed her arms. “So I called Weber. I asked how he was. A long time since we'd been in touch, and so on. And then I said that recently I'd heard his name mentioned in
connection with an order he was going to give my husband. Was business looking up again, I asked?”

“And he said he knew nothing about any such order.”

She nodded. “Yes, he said that unfortunately the good times were over. Most of the iron and steel works he used to supply had gone out of business now. That branch of industry couldn't compete any more. Exactly the same in Germany. He had to go in search of other customers, he said, had to readjust the supplies he made. So the idea of the large order must be a mistake, and maybe I'd misunderstood something.”