The Empire of the Senses (29 page)

“How did this happen so suddenly?”

The rabbi shook his head, his gray beard thin and brittle. “I know now that I cannot return to the old ways. The old ways are dead.”

At dinner, Lev turned this phrase over in his head
—the old ways are dead
. Were they? What were the old ways, as opposed to the new ones? Looking at his family around the table, he had his doubts about the future. His son, Franz, was a stranger to him. He clung to past heroes but knew nothing of battle. He was, in a word, not grown up. Under the influence of his friends in these reactionary groups, Franz, Lev noticed, was turning anti-intellectual, repudiating thinking as impotent. They clung to the rigidity of drill practice, ready for anyone who would command them, and yet when Lev tried to engage Franz on a subject he studied, Franz only stared at him blankly, answering,
Yes, No
, or
I don’t know
, in an attempt to end the conversation as quickly as possible, as if talking with his father was a repellent exercise.

And his daughter, Vicki, who was in the middle of an argument about jazz—an argument she would never win with her mother—had such stubbornness, cutting off her hair without permission. When she shrugged, Lev admired her athletic shoulders, the way her face shimmered with just a touch of makeup under the chandelier, how when
she leapt up to demonstrate the futility of the waltz, her body appeared weightless, nimble, free. Today, Vicki wore a striped dress hitting below the knee and she had a red pocketbook matching her openwork pumps, which were her two most recent purchases from Wertheim’s, purchases Josephine had deemed indulgent. He thought he’d caught a whiff of cigarette smoke on her clothing when they waltzed around the dining table, possibly the unfiltered Turkish ones. Short hair, short dresses, cigarette smoking, gum chewing—this was how women acted today, their reckless determination admirable and confusing to Lev. On the train home, he watched young women like his daughter cut through the crowds on the sidewalk, their backs straight, eyes focused ahead, no chaperone in sight. The men his age offered up their seats to women on the train, which was now an apparently antiquated and boorish thing to do, but Lev did it.
As long as a man can still fall in love, he’ll offer up his seat to a woman on the streetcar
, Lev told Vicki when she teased him about it. When he did so, younger women smiled as if he was in dire need of instruction. But women over forty almost always accepted his seat, whispering Thank you with such solemnity it was as if they were thanking him for upholding one of the last pillars of civilization. And maybe he was.

Franz mechanically stood up from the dinner table, averting his eyes. The boy is strange, Lev mused when Franz left the dining room, barely speaking. We have nothing in common—not music, not women, certainly not business. He said the other day he wanted to be a farmer, return to the soil. He worships that hermit Heidegger living in the Black Forest among the peasants, willfully provincial. But that is youth, confusing manual labor and living on the land for a certain purity of thought, an ideal that doesn’t exist. Absolutes exist only for children … that’s the problem—Franz is still a child.

Lost in thought, Lev hadn’t realized that the table had been cleared, the lights dimmed, and he sat here alone. In the next room, he heard the radio on low, playing Vicki’s beloved jazz. She’d probably knelt down next to it, her head resting on a cushion, dreaming of an alternate existence. He had hoped she would linger with him at the table, and the
night would grow late, late enough for him to enter his bedroom and find Josephine already asleep.

When he went upstairs, Josephine was positioned at her vanity mirror, unhooking the coral necklace he’d given her some years back. He asked if she needed help, and she shook her head, the necklace sliding off her neck in one fell swoop. The clink of the coral beads against the crystal bowl, where she kept her less valuable jewelry, sounded like the start of an argument. Lev flopped down on his side of the bed, still wearing his shirt and tie and his lace-up oxfords. Josephine glanced with distaste at his shoes on the bedspread. Then she returned to examining her face in the mirror, tracing the faint lines around her eyes. The sound of a trumpet floated up the stairs. Mitzi growled from Franz’s room.

Josephine sighed. “Franz seems out of sorts.”

Lev pulled a cigarette from his case. “I wouldn’t pay attention to it. Only makes it worse.”

She started brushing her long fine hair. “I’m not.”

“That’s debatable.”

She glared at him through the mirror. “Must we always have a debate?”

Lev smiled sarcastically. “Yes.”

“I’m tired, Lev.”

He stared at her long fine hair, the only part of her that had retained her girlishness, but hair was, ironically, dead matter.

She put down her brush and then picked it up again, scrutinizing the bristles. “When I called this afternoon—”

“I was out.”

“Frau Blutcher didn’t know where you’d gone. Is that how you instruct her to answer my calls?”

Lev peeled off his shirt. The room was stuffy and the ceiling fan sputtered. “I went to see my mother.”

Josephine stopped brushing her hair and swiveled around on the miniature velvet stool. The front of her dressing gown flashed a slice of white skin. Instinctively, she tightened her robe. “Is she well?”

“No,” Lev said. “She wants to see her grandchildren. Specifically Vicki.”

Josephine strode across the room to retrieve her ivory comb. Twirling her hair into what looked like a long twisted ribbon, she tucked it up into a bun and speared the comb into it. Her fingertips lightly touching the sides of her head, she said, “I don’t want Vicki exposed to the wrong elements.”

Lev kicked off his shoes. His feet swelled in the heat. “She’s old and lonely. Think of your own mother.”

Josephine flinched. “My mother wasn’t a Bolshevik.”

“Your mother still sent the Kaiser a birthday card every year.”

She suppressed a smile. For a moment, Lev thought they might not fight tonight. He stroked the hairs on his chest. It felt good to be touched, even by his own hand. Changing the subject, Lev said he’d heard that at Alfred Flechtheim’s last private party during Fasching, Anita Berber wasn’t allowed inside. She’d stood on the street yelling—everyone heard her all through the Tiergarten, but apparently she was fatally ill, having since gone south, to Baghdad of all places, to die of consumption.

Josephine perched on the foot of the bed. “Such a shame.” She looked down at the satin bedspread, spreading her white hands over the smooth fabric. “I don’t like Alfred Flechtheim much. I don’t see why you still frequent his flat.”

Lev sat up, no longer relaxed. “You don’t like Flechtheim because he’s a Jew.”

She continued to concentrate on the bedspread. “I never said that.”

“It’s why you don’t want Vicki to visit my mother, to know the Jewish side of the family.”

She flashed him a nasty look. “You were with a woman this afternoon.”

Lev crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, it’s true. My mother is a woman.”

“Not your mother.”

“Have you forgotten I’m a Jew too?”

She winced, as if she couldn’t stand the sound of the word. “Why
such insistence on this topic?” She paused. “What I mean is, you aren’t exactly one of them, wearing those fur hats, speaking Yiddish, and praying in the corner.” Then she slumped onto her side, resting her head in the crook of her arm. “I’m tired, Lev. Worn out. Exhausted.”

“Are the meetings for the German Association for the Protection of Mothers so strenuous?”

Her lower lip trembled. For a moment, Lev felt sorry for her. The radio had been turned off, and the house was suddenly silent. He only heard the dog climbing the stairs, padding down the hall. He pulled at her robe, and she let it slip open. Shivering slightly, she glanced down at her bare shoulders. Lev’s hands slipped under her breasts, as if weighing their merit. “So I’m a respectable Jew.”

“Well,” Josephine murmured, “yes.”

They both laughed. A trace of hope dangled—Josephine’s bare torso, her petulant smile, the way her hair caught the dim light. She stretched out on the bed, her naked body within reach. Lev slid on top of her, enjoying the mutual heat of her breasts pressing into him. She tugged on his earlobe. He nipped her shoulder and then buried his face into her neck, inhaling the soft darkness.

When he grew more decisive, wiggling out of his pants, pulling down her underwear, he felt her legs tense. He went ahead anyway. On top of her now, both of them naked, her thighs clamped around his waist. He could barely move forward or back. Her head turned to the side, her eyes shut. He didn’t know how to proceed. Touching her face, he whispered, “Josephine? I can’t move …”

“Herr K,” she began weakly.

He dropped his head onto her chest. Ever since she’d started analysis, at Lev’s prompting, this Herr K figure had emerged from the shadows of her girlhood with such force it seemed as if she still saw him at family dinners leering across the table, while her father looked on with the passive acknowledgment that his business partner fancied his fourteen-year-old daughter. She kept revisiting one episode in particular, which had occurred on a balcony overlooking a parade. Herr K had appeared out of the darkened living room and, closing the French double doors behind him, had tried to force himself on her. She’d described
it to Lev in great detail: she felt the air empty from her chest, her nose rapidly filling with the strong tobacco he smoked. She’d tried to breathe through her mouth, but her throat closed like a fist clenching tighter and tighter. When she jerked her head to the side, she remembered seeing the slow-moving crowd below, the horse-drawn carriages, the brass band with their pageantry, the ladies twirling their parasols, children running. Her head grew light. A chilled sweat broke, soaking her underclothes. The parade dissolved into a blurry whiteness. The last thing she remembered was gripping Herr K’s lapels, afraid she would pitch over the balustrade, headfirst into the throng. Afterward, no one understood what was so terrible about igniting the interest of a good-looking thirty-year-old bachelor with a promising career. She should feel flattered, her mother had said, and they apologized to Herr K, explaining away Josephine’s rude behavior.

Josephine stroked Lev’s hair, apologizing through her fingertips. Any chance was lost for tonight, as it had been for countless nights. Even before the emergence of Herr K, this cool reluctance, this inability of his wife’s to fully capitulate had persisted; only now she attributed it to Herr K.

Lev drifted into sleep, vaguely aware of someone clipping the hedge outside. He curled onto his side, yanking the bedspread over his ear, and prepared himself for dreams of Leah, dreams he always had after seeing his mother.

16

Berlin, Friday, June 10, 1927

North of Alexanderplatz, early evening, deafening traffic. Franz walked briskly, turning it over and over—why Wolf had looked at him with such disdain. They’d been eating luncheon in the cafeteria, and Wolf was telling Franz about a youth group, the Wandervogel (Wandering Bird), that met in the countryside on weekends. “Swimming and hiking and fresh air. Only men. Physical training and that sort of thing.”

Franz had squeezed Wolf’s arm and exclaimed, “Let’s go, Wolffchen!” Wolf recoiled, as if Franz carried some infectious disease. Wolf’s eyes—light blue with shards of a darker sea color—flickered for an instant before he wiped his mouth and threw down his napkin in a gesture that could only imply distaste. But everyone had nicknames in the fraternity—Oswald was Ossie, and Fritz, Fritzi—where did he misstep? The closeness they’d shared had unfolded so naturally over the spring term: fencing in the Tiergarten, swimming in the woods, the clear water submerging their light naked bodies. They shot water out of their mouths, propelling the limpid streams into each other’s faces. But such a friendship proved an intricate dance, and he had stumbled.

He studied the second hand of his watch ticking. He ran his thumb along the smooth glass surface, chastising himself again for calling Wolf that silly name. He shouldn’t have! A cigarette seller bumped into his shoulder. “Cigarettes?” His sour breath bloomed into Franz’s face. Franz turned away muttering no thank you. Two women dressed as men strode by, bowler hats pulled down to their eyes. They walked arm in
arm, cutting through the throngs of people. He trailed them, noticing the way they laughed and smiled at each other, as if they alone felt happy.

A boy grabbed at his jacket.

“Hey—what do you want? I don’t have any money.”

The boy smiled sheepishly. He had a beautiful mouth, lips the color of raspberries. Long elegant limbs. Not so young in fact … close to fifteen.

“Come on—I’ve got something to show you.”

“Sure, but why make a point of it on the street?” Franz fingered the banknotes in his jacket pocket—all there.

The boy shifted from one foot to the other, digging his hands deep into his front pockets. “Come on, don’t make this hard.”

On an impulse, Franz ruffled the boy’s hair, an auburn brown, soft through his fingers. The boy looked up and a quiet smile passed between them. “Let’s go, then,” he said, gesturing for Franz to follow him.

Last week, Wolf wrote a poem about his favorite whore. He described her legs, her ass, her breasts—Baudelaire’s my inspiration, he’d said. Franz didn’t know Baudelaire—probably some damn French poet. Then Wolf stopped his raving and asked Franz where he went for sex. Right in front of everyone. “You never have a girl, so?” He’d raised his golden eyebrows, his question so precise and mocking it cut right through Franz.

The boy stopped in front of a looming apartment block on Breslauer Strasse. The well-lit building led into a pitch-dark courtyard. Franz followed the boy up three flights of creaking stairs until they reached a door illuminated by a paraffin lamp. The whole time Franz stared at the boy’s back, his legs, the way his light agile body easily climbed the stairs made his chest tingle with anticipation. As the boy unlocked the door, Franz stood close behind him and imagined grabbing him, sucking on his soft downy earlobe.