Read Online While England Sleeps by David Leavitt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Leavitt
Ads: Link
would be wise to get out of France. Before leaving he took down Fritz’s name and passport number. So it seems likely that any day now we will be asked to leave. The question is where to go.
For the moment we are just staying put, taking things as they come, which is easier said than done. Both of us have been plagued by nightmares, as well as acute paranoia. The other day we were walking near St. Germain, when I became convinced we were being trailed. I dragged Fritz down curving streets and narrow alleys and out again onto the boulevards, sure that the Gestapo were chasing us. Were they? Who can know? Undoubtedly Fritz’s father has provided them with his photo. We stay at home most days (a different pension this time!), waiting for the inevitable knock.
I don’t think the police can force Fritz to return to Germany, I think they can only force him to leave France, so I have been investigating countries that might accept us: Sweden is a possibility. Horst’s brother lives in Stockholm and would take us in. But how many months would it be before the Gestapo tracked him down as well, or France and Sweden exchanged lists of undesirables? The best answer, it seems to me, would be to acquire for Fritz an immigrant visa to South America then get the two of us safely onto a boat as quickly as possible. According to Horst such things can be bought, though the price is dear. I have got in contact with a solicitor in London who apparently specializes in matters of this sort.
In the meantime my love for Fritz only deepens. It is true that our days are full of bickering and anxiety; by night, however, we go on prolonged excursions into a different country, a country that exists only between lovers. How wonderful to explore its corners and intricacies, this place I have until now known only fleetingly! When we make love, Fritz’s blue eyes seem almost to bore into my own; he stares at me plaintively. I can read the intensity of his pleasure like lines of text. To kiss Fritz is to put your lips against the thin, delicate rim of a china teacup and then discover that the teacup, rather than porcelain-rigid, is instead possessed of its own fine musculature. Kissing him opens the door to that other country to which I wish we could emigrate forever, but of course you cannot buy passports to places like that. So I dream up a house with a few small rooms and warped, painted floors, perched on a cliff high over the crashing sea, in a city of tilting houses, a city that is safe and distant from war. At least that is how I imagine the place.
But wait! you are probably thinking. What kind of idealist is this fellow who would so casually conceive and then abandon the idea of fighting for the Republican cause in Spain? No kind of idealist at all, in fact. To the charge of moral fluxion I must plead guilty and can offer by way of excuse only the observation that such ideological promiscuity as I exhibited in those days comes naturally to the young. Life at that age is a banquet at which many dishes are served: we choose what tastes best, oblivious to nutrition, not to mention the starving hordes outside the door.
In any case, since I was not going to Spain—since, indeed, I now had good reason to keep my rooms in Earl’s Court—it occurred to me that I should have to start earning some money. While it was true that Edward’s imminent tenantship would cut my rent by half, half the rent I paid was still more than I could count on receiving from Aunt Inconstance, who, in recent weeks, had become more determined than ever to fix me up with Edith Archibald’s harelipped niece. Her tenacity surprised me, since each previous attempt she’d made to marry me off she’d eventually had to give up on, my pronounced lack of enthusiasm being, she said, “most dispiriting.”
Not this time. Now, thrice weekly, Aunt Constance sent anxious letters, never accompanied by checks and featuring her signature overdependence on underlining, as well as
For the moment we are just staying put, taking things as they come, which is easier said than done. Both of us have been plagued by nightmares, as well as acute paranoia. The other day we were walking near St. Germain, when I became convinced we were being trailed. I dragged Fritz down curving streets and narrow alleys and out again onto the boulevards, sure that the Gestapo were chasing us. Were they? Who can know? Undoubtedly Fritz’s father has provided them with his photo. We stay at home most days (a different pension this time!), waiting for the inevitable knock.
I don’t think the police can force Fritz to return to Germany, I think they can only force him to leave France, so I have been investigating countries that might accept us: Sweden is a possibility. Horst’s brother lives in Stockholm and would take us in. But how many months would it be before the Gestapo tracked him down as well, or France and Sweden exchanged lists of undesirables? The best answer, it seems to me, would be to acquire for Fritz an immigrant visa to South America then get the two of us safely onto a boat as quickly as possible. According to Horst such things can be bought, though the price is dear. I have got in contact with a solicitor in London who apparently specializes in matters of this sort.
In the meantime my love for Fritz only deepens. It is true that our days are full of bickering and anxiety; by night, however, we go on prolonged excursions into a different country, a country that exists only between lovers. How wonderful to explore its corners and intricacies, this place I have until now known only fleetingly! When we make love, Fritz’s blue eyes seem almost to bore into my own; he stares at me plaintively. I can read the intensity of his pleasure like lines of text. To kiss Fritz is to put your lips against the thin, delicate rim of a china teacup and then discover that the teacup, rather than porcelain-rigid, is instead possessed of its own fine musculature. Kissing him opens the door to that other country to which I wish we could emigrate forever, but of course you cannot buy passports to places like that. So I dream up a house with a few small rooms and warped, painted floors, perched on a cliff high over the crashing sea, in a city of tilting houses, a city that is safe and distant from war. At least that is how I imagine the place.
But wait! you are probably thinking. What kind of idealist is this fellow who would so casually conceive and then abandon the idea of fighting for the Republican cause in Spain? No kind of idealist at all, in fact. To the charge of moral fluxion I must plead guilty and can offer by way of excuse only the observation that such ideological promiscuity as I exhibited in those days comes naturally to the young. Life at that age is a banquet at which many dishes are served: we choose what tastes best, oblivious to nutrition, not to mention the starving hordes outside the door.
In any case, since I was not going to Spain—since, indeed, I now had good reason to keep my rooms in Earl’s Court—it occurred to me that I should have to start earning some money. While it was true that Edward’s imminent tenantship would cut my rent by half, half the rent I paid was still more than I could count on receiving from Aunt Inconstance, who, in recent weeks, had become more determined than ever to fix me up with Edith Archibald’s harelipped niece. Her tenacity surprised me, since each previous attempt she’d made to marry me off she’d eventually had to give up on, my pronounced lack of enthusiasm being, she said, “most dispiriting.”
Not this time. Now, thrice weekly, Aunt Constance sent anxious letters, never accompanied by checks and featuring her signature overdependence on underlining, as well as
Similar Books
