Pavel & I (31 page)

‘You are nothing like me,' he told me in the evening, just as I was settling down to share my first night with him. ‘All we've got in common is this –' He used his chin to gesture at the cellar, the cage and the boiler, the cracks in the plaster. ‘Other than that, we are perfect strangers.'

‘Well,' I said. ‘It's something, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' he agreed, pensive. ‘Something. It's the easiest thing in the world, you know.'

‘What?'

‘Identifying. It sneaks up on you like flu.'

The next day he asked me for a sponge, a bar of soap, and some luke warm water. I brought it down for him and, from the corner of my eye, watched him strip and wash his body best he could. Not that I was queer, either then or ever; but I savoured observing him in unguarded moments, searching his face and body for clues. It still felt like I only knew the half of him. The pallor surprised me, especially around the buttocks and thighs. A swarthy man shut away from the sun. There were a few scars, though nothing dramatic; too red, perhaps, to date from boyhood but all well healed and looked after. Slim hips, a birthmark on the left shoulder blade, crescent-shaped, and a fetching dark line rising out of his pubic hair to form a noose around his navel. He took his time with his wash, and stepped back into his clothes with considerable disgust, frustrated that I had been unable to find him clean replacements.

‘Thank you,' he said with great formality when handing back the soap and the sponge, along with the fluffy towel I had fetched for him from the Colonel's laundry. ‘And now, why don't you tell me something about the midget? I haven't the faintest idea who he is.'

I did, too, tell him about the midget, that is, and in return I received the story of how Boyd had brought Söldmann round in a suitcase. Not in a thousand years would I have come up with the story of the cats! I made Pavel repeat it several times, until I had it memorized.

‘Incredible,' I mused. ‘Boyd must have heard it somewhere.'

‘It's possible,' Pavel conceded. ‘But he told it well, didn't he?'

‘That he did. What did you do then?' I asked. ‘After Boyd left you?'

‘I combed the midget.'

‘You
what
? Oh Pavel, that's priceless.' And upon consideration: ‘How was it?'

‘Difficult. His hair had started to freeze.'

He had me in stitches, this Pavel. I could see he took pleasure in my joy, and soon he told me how he'd gone about hiding the corpse.

Pavel and I spent New Year's Eve together, down in our cellar. I had hoped we might be able to hear some of the fireworks from down there, but either the walls were too thick or the Allies kept their celebrations to a minimum. Perhaps they feared that the sound of explosions, however celestial, would bring back bad memories. I had pilfered a bottle of champagne from the Colonel's larder, and we sat together at my little table, drinking it up before it turned tepid in the cellar's heat. At midnight we shook hands and clinked glasses – proper champagne flutes, I might add, I like to do these things in style. Throughout, I felt I had to keep one hand on my gun holster in case Pavel should try anything stupid. It was the first time I'd let him out of his cage. Pavel behaved like a gentleman, however, and when the bottle was gone he got up wordlessly to return to the cell.

‘Thank you for the drink,' he said courteously.

‘You are very welcome.'

The bubbly gave me some funny dreams that night, including one where I combed Pavel's hair over and over, looking for lice.

‘Find any yet?' he would ask, and I would answer in the negative.

‘They must be here,' I insisted.

He just smiled sweetly and let me get on with the combing.

He had marvellously thick hair.

The next morning, the first of January 1947, Mrs Fosko walked in on us as we were having our morning coffee. I don't know how she decided on opening the cellar door. Perhaps she had been curious about it all along. I had taken care to lock the door at night, and had thought my presence alone would discourage her and her progeny from exploring. As it turned out she had more pluck than I had given her credit for.

She had dressed for the occasion, grey flannels and a knitted patterned scarf that set off her reddish hair. Slowly, choosing her steps on the battered old staircase, she came down far enough to catch sight of us sitting on our respective sides of Pavel's cage, a Meissen cup and saucer on each of our laps, alongside some homemade cookies that I had pulled out of the oven very early that morning.

‘How do you do?' she breathed, barely audible. She really did have impeccable manners. A spasm ran through her nostrils when they caught our smell. The basement lacked ventilation and no attempt at washing could dispel the odour of prolonged confinement.

I jumped up from my chair, spilled coffee from my cup into my saucer, and started walking towards her.

‘Mrs Fosko,' I beamed desperately, casting around for a plausible tale with which to see her off. All I managed was a rather dangerous: ‘Would you like to join us for a cup of coffee?'

Mercifully, she declined.

‘That man,' she asked instead. ‘Is he a prisoner of war?' Her eyes betrayed an intelligence that thus far I'd had no reason to suspect.

‘In a manner of speaking,' I answered.

‘My husband, he knows that he is down here?'

‘Yes, ma'am, he does.'

‘Does the prisoner understand English?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then perhaps I should speak to him.'

To my growing horror, Mrs Fosko proceeded further down the stairs and made her way towards the cage, noting in passing the various instruments of abuse that lay stacked on cheaply constructed shelves along the wall. The heat of the cellar settled on her, and I imagined I could see some perspiration gather by the side of her nose.

‘You don't look German,' she said when she was within a yard or two of Pavel.

‘I'm not,' he responded. ‘Not altogether, that is.'

She reacted to his accent.

‘American, right?'

‘Yes.'

‘I could alert the authorities, you know. I doubt this is legal.'

She gestured vaguely at the bars and the room that surrounded them.

‘You could,' he agreed. ‘I rather doubt that you will.'

‘Why?'

‘You did not have to come snooping down here to know your husband was a swine.'

She raised her hand then, in a spontaneous gesture of reprimand, before realizing there was no easy way of slapping him short of entering his cage. Her hand, I remember, was gloriously soft and white. She stood like that for a moment, before turning on her heel to face me, the hand still raised as though in casual salute. I was
reminded of newsreel images of Hitler, who'd had a similarly casual way of hailing the masses.

‘He is a dangerous criminal, no doubt?'

‘A threat to national security, ma'am. Half American, half German. A Nazi; unrepentant.'

‘He looks it,' she sneered and then walked away, her head held high. At the top of the stairs I saw her wipe the perspiration off her face with a handkerchief she produced from out of one cuff; then she put on the gentle smile that characterized her interaction with her children, and left.

‘You might as well have told her the truth,' Pavel complained after she had closed the door on us. ‘It wouldn't have made a difference.'

‘How did you know?' I asked, impressed by his instantaneous judgement of the woman. Thus far, I had been inclined to think her the perfect victim, chafing under her lot; a little cold, it is true, in her demeanour, but nursing great hurt nonetheless.

Pavel did not answer me. It was only later that the thought occurred to me that he could not bear the notion that the Colonel's wife should have been a better woman than his whore; that the one would dare challenge Fosko where the other quite literally bent over backwards to accommodate his every whim. I was about to float the idea, but dropped it. There was little point in endangering our budding friendship with such an unflattering observation. The last thing I wanted was for Pavel to revert to his early sullenness and his mongoloid fascination with his prison's insect life. Better to talk of other things. I settled on what seemed like an innocent topic.

‘Did you ever want children?' I asked him casually, intending to lead the conversation to Anders and the precise nature of their relationship with one another. He shook his head, the brow creased with old regret.
‘

My wife was pregnant once. Before the war. She lost it in the seventh month and swore she would never have another child.'

‘Christ,' I said. ‘I'm sorry.'

And I was. All the same, it was becoming less of a mystery to me why Pavel was hiding out in war-weary Germany, with no forwarding address.

‘Tell me more,' I pleaded.

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Everything.'

‘Everything?' he laughed. ‘The last time anybody said that to me, I ended up marrying her.'