Rain Girl (4 page)

Franza shrugged, wishing herself away, to Lapland or the Arctic Ocean. There were lights there, iridescent lights, far out on the ice. Will-o’-the-wisps with white halos, hissing and fizzing like sparklers, only brighter. And more dangerous. They were ghost lights, and if you walked toward them you would disappear. Franza wanted that sometimes on days like today. To disappear as if she had never existed. Just for a few moments. Into the ghost lights and away.

“Would you like some almond cookies?” she asked, pulling a Tupperware container out of her bag. “And my famous meringues? I have enough for both of us.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Unbelievable! Have you been baking again?”

They gorged themselves, the cookies sweet in their mouths.

11

“I’ve been so many places,” she said. “And it’s always different from what you expect. It never is the way you imagine.”

Ben didn’t dare to move for fear her touch would dissolve into thin air, and then it would be as if it never happened.

“You’re too scared,” she said, smiling. “You’re too scared to run off, to just jump with no safety net.”

He didn’t know what to say. Her hair fell down over his face, smelling of summer. He closed his eyes.

“But that’s OK,” she said so quietly he could hardly hear. “I was just kidding. It’s OK that you’re too scared. It’s all right.”

She let go of him and he instantly burst with longing for her, because he knew she wanted to leave—at once, this moment. He racked his brains wondering how he could keep her a little longer, but he couldn’t think of anything.

She smiled, and he saw that a tiny, green piece of apple peel was caught between her teeth. “Can you let me out?” she asked.

“Already?” he asked and knew it wasn’t enough.

“Yes,” she said. “Already.”

He nodded, pulled over to the side of the road, his thoughts with her, as they had been for days.

She opened the door, her hand almost touching his. “You know,” she said, “I’ve had enough of all this moving. I’m sick of it. You never reach home.”

He had to clear his throat, and could only nod.

“See ya later,” she said, smiling. Her fragrance was that of a breeze from the South Seas and the moon. “No,” she said. “You never get there.”

Then she was gone.

Marie in the streetcar. No ticket. Tits like melons. Eyes like apples. Never got home. That’s Marie for you. Of course she didn’t have a ticket.

12

On her way home, Franza took a detour past the theater where Port performed every night.

She’d never seen him onstage, didn’t go to the theater. It wasn’t her thing. She knew it hurt him although he wouldn’t admit it. She knew he wanted her to come to the theater, to watch him and admire him. He was vain and arrogant when it came to his acting—like a faun. When they first met, it came as a shock to him to realize she didn’t know who he was, hadn’t seen him onstage, and didn’t even recognize his name.

Franza smiled when she thought of it. He had tried hard to hide his dismay, but it had been obvious.

His apartment turned out to be an ideal retreat, apart from the lack of a coffeemaker, which she decided to do something about.

She stopped the car outside his place, leaned her head against the headrest, and closed her eyes. It would be hours before he got home, and he would be tired, possibly a little drunk. There was little point in waiting, but she sat there thinking it over anyway, and drifted off to sleep.

She jumped when her cell phone rang. It was her husband, Max. “Franza?” he asked. “What’s up? Are you coming home? I’m cooking.”

She couldn’t help laughing. Ever since TV became full of those cooking shows and it was fashionable for men to cook at home, Max had begun cooking, too. He denied the connection vehemently, but Franza wasn’t buying it.

“Yes,” she said, and all of a sudden she was starving. “I’m on my way. Twenty minutes.”

She hung up, sighed, and looked longingly up at the fifth-floor windows. Then she started her car and set off for home.

Port had guessed from the start that she was married. As with each of her affairs, she had announced on their first date: “I won’t tell you anything. No name, nothing. Can we do that? Do you agree?”

Port had lifted the right corner of his mouth sardonically and raised the opposite eyebrow.

“Yes,” he had said, “agreed. I know everything anyway, everything important. I know you’re married, if that’s what you’re worried about. Anyone can tell from a hundred feet away.”

“Really?” she had asked sulkily. “You can?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

That’s when she had decided that whatever happened happened. But nothing dramatic happened. They just screwed. This, however, they did to perfection, and with passion, as if it were everything. And she thought, all right, so this is how it works, it just keeps going; there is nothing more to it than that.

She had been late for a meeting because of their first date, but she needed to breathe. After she had left him, she went down to the Danube, watching as it flowed by, smoothly but impatiently. Franza thought,
so this is how it is now
. And she thought,
I don’t know his name
. And she trembled. Just a little, but still.

Her cell phone rang again, startling her out of her daydream. “We’re out of ketchup,” Max said. “You forgot to get some. Could you pick some up?”

She looked at her watch. “Do you know how late it is?”

“Try the gas station,” he said. “See you soon.”

At home, the table on the terrace was set for a candlelight dinner. Franza was surprised. “Do we have something to celebrate?” she asked, as she put the ketchup on the table.

Max’s face took on a serious expression. “Yes, you could say that. Since our beloved son doesn’t seem to be remotely interested in dentistry, I sold the practice.”

Bang. It hit home.

She stared at him, speechless, her jaw dropping. Then he burst out laughing. “God, you swallowed it! It was a joke! A joke! Do you seriously believe I’d ever sell my practice? What would I do all day? Cook?”

She turned around, picked up the barbeque tongs from the table, and threw them at him. He ducked, still laughing. “Are you trying to kill me? No, we don’t have anything to celebrate, just a beautiful summer evening. And that we’re both here. Don’t you think that’s nice? Franziska?”

He came closer and lifted his hand to touch her, but she drew back, just a little, but he noticed. She saw the suspicion in his eyes, and she tried to smile.

“Don’t call me
Franziska
. You know I don’t like it,” she said, just for something to say as she sipped on her wine.

He fell silent and concentrated on cooking the food. He had not been his old, cheerful self for some time.

“Where’s Ben?” she asked. “Have you seen him?” He shook his head.

She walked from the terrace into the garden, stroking her roses. Her son lived a life apart. Since she had accepted this fact everything was easier. She had stopped asking, “When will you be home?” If he was there, he was there; if he wasn’t, he wasn’t.

She had to consider carefully what she asked him about, which was difficult since it was her job to ask questions—precise, difficult questions, tough questions on the verge of indiscretion.

Once she had noticed that his lips were cracked. “How can you kiss with those?” she had teased. “Lips like sandpaper! Don’t you kiss anyone?”

That had been too much. “Mother, please! That’s none of your business!” he had said gruffly.

And then he took off, jumping into Max’s second car and heading into town, leaving Franza just standing there.
Why is your love life none of my business,
she thought stubbornly,
when you were a result of mine?

She knew that Ben was at loose ends. Since getting his high-school diploma last year on the second try—which they had all been delighted about—he had been drifting, trying this and that, but not settling on anything. It wasn’t helping Franza’s guilty conscience.

She had been living with it ever since Ben was born. She was never sure she had been there enough for him or given him everything he needed. She had gone back to work right after he was born, doing the balancing act between job and family, putting him in day care every chance she had. She hired au pairs from all over Europe, one of whom—a young woman from Sweden—felt responsible not only for Ben’s welfare but also for Max’s.

That had been the first breach of trust, a humiliation Franza couldn’t get over for a long time. Max, of course, insisted it meant nothing to him, just a flirtation, a warm body in the cold of winter. Franza was never there, always preoccupied with her corpses, if not in person then in her mind.

During their crisis she had thought about divorce, starting over again, but somehow everything had stayed the same, except there were no more au pairs, and Ben suddenly insisted on being called
Ben,
not
Benny
or
Benjamin
. Ben. From that day on he was
grown-up
.

Franza often wondered if Ben had noticed anything at the outset or if he knew about the little Swedish girl who now would be about as old as Ben was at that time and who couldn’t talk with her father in her own language because he couldn’t even speak it.

That Franza even knew about the girl was due to a ridiculously mundane incident. She had picked up Max’s suit jackets from the cleaner’s one day, and the woman behind the counter smiled and handed her the clothing along with a photo of a little girl, a toddler, with Max’s eyes beaming at the camera.

“This must be your little one,” the woman had said, as she continued to smile. “Adorable. My granddaughter is the same age. It was in one of the pockets, and I thought you’d miss it, so I kept it for you.”

Franza had stared alternately at the photo and the woman behind the counter, whose smile slowly turned into confusion. Finally Franza put the picture into her bag, said “Yes, thank you,” and paid. Then she ran outside, jumped into the car, and drove around aimlessly for two hours.

That’s how it had happened.

She hadn’t confronted him. She had gone home, put the photo down in front of him, and retreated into her study with a cup of coffee.

It had taken an hour before he could bring himself to face her. They sat opposite each other, looking at each other, not saying a word. He brushed a strand of hair from her face, and she took hold of his hand and pressed it against her lips.

It was a farewell, they both knew it, and at first it had seemed easy. The pain came later, in the night, toward morning. She moved into her study and didn’t sleep with him for a long time. Once a year he went to Sweden for a week, and she took a lover from time to time.

“Oh, I just remembered,” Max called from the other side of the garden. “He called this morning.”

Franza turned around. “Who?”

He looked up briefly from turning the chicken on the grill. “Ben, of course. Who else are we talking about?”

“And?” Franza asked, walking back to the patio.

“Oh, I don’t know, we only talked for a minute. I was busy with a patient. He said he’d be away for a few days and we needn’t worry. He would explain everything when he got back, and he’d have a nice surprise for us, something we’d be happy about. Something along those lines. It sounded promising, as if he’d made a decision.”

Franza took a sip of the wine and looked at the meat, which had been on the grill for far too long now. It would be dry, which was just the way they liked it—one of the few preferences they had in common. “Really?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Max put the pieces of chicken on two plates and set them on the table. “Come, let’s eat. Help yourself to salad.”

He took the ketchup, squirted a big blob on his chicken, and looked pleased.

Franza cringed and felt her hunger disappear. “Hm!” she said.

Max took a long drink of his wine and leaned back, sighing contently. On the patio, they were sheltered from the gentle breeze wafting through the garden, while the wall behind their backs radiated the warmth it had stored up from the sun during the day.

“Wonderful, these summer evenings after the rain. Smells so good!”

Franza nodded.

“How does it taste?”

She nodded again. “It’s excellent.”

He squeezed her hand briefly.
I’ll probably grow old like this,
she thought. And at eighty we’ll still be fighting over who gets the ketchup from the gas station.

Crickets were chirping in the garden, and it was getting dark.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“A girl who was murdered,” she said.

He didn’t respond. At some point he had lost interest in her cases. They were all the same to him. He didn’t understand what for her was the basic rule of her job: death, when it happened, was always new and always different.

She knew he didn’t understand and felt a sudden surge of tenderness toward him because he lacked this important knowledge. She looked at him and noticed that his hair was thinning and his shoulders slumping forward. On an impulse, she lifted her hand and touched his cheek gently. He looked at her in surprise. Then she thought of her lover and his director, and of the girl, and of the tears she hadn’t yet shed, and she longed for Port’s shoulder. She smiled.

“He called you, too, by the way, but your phone was turned off,” Max said. “Why?”

She didn’t react right away, but she saw the alert look in his eyes and took a forkful of salad before answering.

“Why what?”

“Turned off. Your cell phone.”

“Oh, yes!” She dabbed her mouth and lifted her glass, aware that she was annoying him. “Was it? This morning? Oh, yes. The battery was dead. I had to charge it at the office.”

She tried to sound casual and could sense she was failing and that he didn’t believe her.

“How is Felix?” he asked.

13