Read Online Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson - Free Book Online Page B

a flight to Berlin on September 8, but after that? What are the chances of somebody tracing the taxi driver who took me to the blue hotel? Slender, to say the least — and anyway, I checked out after just four nights. And nothing connects me to Klaus Frings, nothing at all. My disappearance is like a crime without a motive, and they’re notoriously difficult to solve, aren’t they?
    /
    I have been staying at Walter-Benjamin-Platz for no more than a couple of days when Klaus asks if I would like to go to a concert with him. Two symphonies are being performed, he says. Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. I know nothing about classical music, I tell him. I’m worried the ticket might be wasted on me. He seems fascinated and appalled by this gap in my education.
She knows nothing about classical music
, I hear him murmur as he moves across the kitchen, shaking his big head.
    On Saturday night we take a taxi to the Konzerthaus in the Gendarmenmarkt. Under my coat I’m wearing a clingy black shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, a denim miniskirt, black tights, and black ankle boots with heels. Earlier in the evening, when I emerged frommy room, I asked Klaus if I was appropriately dressed. He smiled, then looked away, ruffling his hair. At the time I wasn’t sure how to interpret his response, but as we mingle in the lobby with other concertgoers — tuxedoes, jewels, furs — I understand that I do in fact look inappropriate, and that it pleases him. I’m flouting convention and since he’s escorting me this means that he too is flouting convention but in the only way he can — at one remove.
    Upstairs in the bar Klaus introduces me to a man with slicked-back hair and a damp handshake. His eyes are damp too. When he looks at me they seem to leave a deposit, as snails do, and I have to resist the urge to reach up and wipe my face. His name is Horst Breitner. Klaus, Horst — German names are truncated, harsh, almost greedy, like bites taken out of something crisp. For a split second I glimpse the apple on the bed in the hotel on Via Palermo.
    When Klaus goes off to buy a program, Horst insinuates himself into the space in front of me, blocking my view of the ornate, high-ceilinged room. He holds his champagne flute below his chin and speaks over the rim, in English. “You have known Klaus long?”
    “I met him a few days ago.”
    “Ah, so this is — how do you say?
— fresh
.”
    Horst has an air of urgency, as if he is required to extract certain information from me before Klaus returns. As if he has specific goals or targets. The effect is flattering, but vaguely repellent. I could pretend not to notice, of course. Frustrate him. For some reason, though, I decide to lead him on.
    “We met in a café,” I tell him.
    “Really?”
    “He was sitting at the next table. I asked for the sugar —”
    Horst lets out a brief breathy laugh of disbelief.
    “We started talking,” I say.
    “In a café.” Horst’s eyebrows lift and he turns through ninety degrees. Standing sideways-on to me, he looks away across the bar. He raises his glass to his lips, then tilts it quickly, swallowing a mouthful that is economical, precise. “And now you live with him, in his apartment …”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m surprised,” he says. “Really.”
    I shrug, then I too look away, scanning the people to see if they have anything to impart. That’s what life is like now. I hold myself in a constant state of readiness. Every occasion — every moment — trembles with a sense of opportunity. I have no idea where the next communication will come from, but I know that one will come — perhaps even from the unwholesome, insidious man who is still standing beside me.
    Klaus returns with two glasses of champagne and a program.
    “Quite a crowd,” he says.
    “Tchaikovsky’s
Pathétique
.” Horst twists his lips. “Always popular.”
    Klaus looks wounded.
    “You’re here too,” I say to Horst.
    “I have a complimentary ticket,” he says.