Read Online The Marshal's Own Case by Magdalen Nabb - Free Book Online Page B

live as men during the day and dress up at night like women. Well, I know what I am but I don’t know what they’re supposed to be, do you?’
    ‘No . . . I . . . No.’
    Carla tapped her temple. ‘Those people have sexual problems, that’s the way I see it.’
    ‘Ah . . .’
    ‘Like a lot of the clients we get—oh, not all of them. I have some very good regular clients, what I call mature people, do you understand? They want a transsexual for fun, for a change, out of curiosity, whatever you like, but they want a transsexual and say so. You can have a real relationship with somebody like that. Friendship, a bit of affection even, but the others—you can’t imagine!’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Pick you up pretending to think you’re a woman for a start—as if there were any young women on the streets in Florence. Then they act all surprised—but they don’t go away, do you understand? They don’t go away, they just carry on, still pretending you’re a woman. And then—listen to this! Florence is a small place, you know, so then maybe after a day or two you happen to pass each other in the street and he’s with his nice little bourgeoise fiancée. Well, a client’s a client—he’s paid for what he’s had and I don’t expect more. I don’t even look at him in the street, right? But what does he do? He nudges his girlfriend and sniggers and says, “Look at that! It’s one of them! ” They’re sick, people like that, sick! And of course there are all the hundreds of homosexuals who can’t admit it even to themselves. Wives and kiddies at home and all the rest. But fancy not being able to admit it even to yourself! That’s awful, I think, pitiful. So they need somebody like me. There are a lot of people who need somebody like me, Marshal, but only the mature ones admit it. An all-purpose toy is what most of them want, that satisfies their weirdest dreams and doesn’t have to be acknowledged as a human being when they wake up. Do you understand?’
    ‘Perhaps . . .’ More, at any rate, than he’d understood the night before. ‘You’ve thought a lot about it . . .’
    ‘What else have I got to think about, given the life I have? Or are you surprised I can think at all?’
    ‘No, no . . . I didn’t mean—’
    ‘I’ll tell you something else. I studied philosophy at university. I graduated, too. But I couldn’t go on pretending. I’m made the way I am. It’s not very nice to be obliged to dress up as a man when you feel like a woman. I couldn’t take it any more so I decided to accept the way I am, only nobody else will accept me. I wanted to be a teacher, do you understand? Do you think anybody will give me a job in this country?’
    ‘I suppose not.’
    ‘You suppose right. And yet they need me and those like me, enough to keep over two hundred of us in luxury in one small city. In luxury, but without any human rights. So I go out of here every night dressed up for the show and I survive—until some lunatic chops me up. That’s not my real life. My real life is here, by myself—or with my little Mishi, and my books and records. It’s peaceful here. That’s what I like.’
    It was peaceful. The canaries singing and chattering, the sunlight slanting in through the muslin-curtained window, the little black cat purring. It was a long way from last night’s nightmare scene in the park, from the severed limbs on a rubbish dump. But for Carla the nightmare became reality, night after night until, as he said . . .
    ‘Do you know of any client going the rounds who might be really dangerous?’
    ‘Not specially—only you want to watch out for the ones who insist on dressing up as women themselves when they’re with us. For me they’re the worst sort.’
    ‘Dress up . . . ?’ This was really one twist too many.
    ‘Wait, I’ll show you. Mishi, get down a minute.’ Carla rummaged in a drawer of the sideboard and came back with a photograph. ‘See that? That’s me.’ He would never have