Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

Drunk again, he sighed.

A car approached on a long straight section of the road. They dipped their headlights at each other. As the car drew nearer he took advantage of the light to check the back seat in the rear view. Nothing. He reached behind him and swept his hand across the seats. Stupid drunk.

Red lights receded into the blackness, quickly obliterated.

The road climbed up through the dense darkness of the pine trees, past Malveira da Serra, the road winding, cutting back on itself, the steering wheel shooting through his hands, a little sweat on his top lip from the drink oozing out of his system.

He turned off at the top and dropped down through the village of Azóia and out towards the lighthouse where his house, huddled in its own courtyard, shouldered the weather. He got out to open the gates. The wind inflated his lungs, the rain battered his hot ear. He drove the car up to the garage and went back to close the gates. He'd left a lamp on outside the house on the corner and in the light that shone off the hard wet mud in the courtyard, he saw footprints going to the side of the house.

He put his own foot down over one of the footprints. His were smaller. He squeezed his chin and swallowed. The GNR had warned him that bandits were operating on the roads around the Serra da Sintra. He drove the car into the garage. He opened the glove compartment and removed an old Walther P48 he'd kept from the war. He checked the magazine and tucked it into his waistband. His mind worried over ammunition corroded by the sea air, and he tried to remember when he'd last cleaned and oiled the damn thing. Still, having it in his hand was the important thing.

He stumbled into the house and saw his rubbery face in the hall mirror. Maybe, that was it. He was just drunk and they were the gardener's footprints. That must be it. He took off his coat, shook the rain off it and hung it up. The gardener was small, didn't even come up to his shoulder, had the feet of an elf. His ears strained for movement and returned to him the tinnitus that had developed since coming back from Africa.

He wiped his feet and moved down the corridor. His leather soles sounded loud against the wooden flooring. He turned on the kitchen light. Empty. He crossed to the living room. Flicked that light on. The Rembrandt looked down on him. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a shot of aguardente from an unmarked bottle. He sniffed it, the raw alcohol unstuffed his head, the paranoia backed off a notch. He lit a cigarette, took two fast drags and crushed it out. He removed the gun from his waistband and turned.

A man was standing by the door, grey hair swept back, blue raincoat, the wet shoulders glistening in the light. He had a gun in his hand.

'Schmidt,' said Felsen, surprisingly calm, given that the name had come into his head like a lobbed grenade.

Schmidt adjusted his grip on the.38 revolver, and the four-inch barrel performed a small circle. He was surprised that Felsen wasn't thrown against the wall in astonishment at the sight of him. He was surprised to see the Walther in the man's hand. How could he be armed and ready? Did he know things?

'You should put that down,' said Schmidt.

'You could do the same.'

Neither of them moved. Schmidt breathed loudly through his broken nose, his mouth sealed, the stress of the situation working his jaw muscles, his brain calculating as hard as a chess grandmaster's but without the clarity.

'Smoke?' said Felsen.

'I gave up,' he said. 'My lungs didn't like the tropics.'

'A drink then?'

'I had a brandy earlier.'

'I didn't think you drank.'

'I don't usually.'

'Have another then, see if you can get a taste for it.'

'Put the gun down.'

'I don't think so,' said Felsen, his heart pounding in the roof of his mouth. 'Why don't we both put our guns down over here on the sideboard.'

Schmidt moved through the furniture, his gun leading. As he came closer the greyness in his face became more apparent. He was a sick man and more dangerous for it. With a nod they laid their guns down simultaneously on the polished wood. Felsen poured drinks.

'I'm surprised,' said Felsen, not sounding it, a day's drinking and the burst of adrenalin having a curious effect on him. 'I was told you were lying in a river with your pockets full of rocks and a bullet in your head.'

Felsen handed him a glass of the aguardente. Schmidt sniffed it.

'Your partner. He never even came after me. I saw him. He stayed close to the house as if he was giving me time to get away, and when he thought I was well gone, he walked out into the poppy fields and let off a round into the air. Not a brave man, but not a stupid one either. I'd have killed him.'

'Why didn't you come into the house after us?'

'Like they do in the films,' said Schmidt, canting his head to one side, sardonic. 'I thought about it, but I decided it was too dangerous, and anyway, killing the two of you wasn't the point at that time.'

'Was that why you sent Eva after me?'

'Eva?'

'Susana. I meant Susana Lopes… from'são Paulo.'

'Susana got close. She made a beginner's mistake, but then, that was what she was.'

'Are you working for someone, Schmidt?'

'This is a personal thing,' he said.

'Why don't we start with what you want,' Felsen said. 'Let's get that out into the open. You're not after the gold, are you?'

'Gold,' he said, not a question, not an answer.

'You're sick,' said Felsen, disturbed by the man's lack of direction. 'I can see that.'

'Fibrosis of the lungs,' said Schmidt.

'Where are you living now?'

'Back in Germany, Bayreuth,' he said, sipping his drink. 'I was from Dresden. Did you know that? You know what they did to Dresden. I haven't been back.'

'Did your family survive?'

'They're in Dortmund,' he said.

'Children?'

'Two boys and a girl. They're quite grown-up now.'

'I see,' said Felsen, feeling oddly like a bank manager. 'That's an American gun you have there.'

'A souvenir.'

'Does it fire the Stars and Stripes?'

Schmidt smiled. The stress eased. Felsen edged him away from the guns. He sat on the arm of a leather sofa with Schmidt on the arm of one of the chairs, their knees almost touching.

'That painting looks familiar,' said Schmidt.

'Another souvenir.'

'It doesn't look like a cheap print.'

'I bought it on the Bayswater Road in London.'

'Is it a copy of…?' asked Schmidt, starting to get up.

Felsen rested his hand on the man's shoulder.

'It's a Rembrandt, Schmidt. Now tell me the purpose of your social call. I've had a long dinner and I'm tired.'

Schmidt's creased neck turned in its frayed collar. He had a patch of grey bristles visible under the jawline missed in the morning shave. A thicket of dark hair protruded from his ear.

'I'm not the only one with a sensitive past,' he said.

'Ah,' said Felsen, the angle revealed. 'Another of your American imports, Schmidt. I've heard blackmail's very popular over there now.'

Schmidt's eyes switched back to the guns on the sideboard, the old man in the Rembrandt watching.

'They're very interested in certain circles,' he said, his mind not on it.

'You don't think they've got their hands full with the Russians?'

'They've got plenty of hands when it comes to a multi-million-dollar corporation established with wartime SS funding.'

'There's a risk, of course, that it could all blow up in your face, Schmidt. You've got no evidence except your own colourful past.'

Schmidt threw himself at the sideboard. Felsen, who'd been half-waiting for this moment, found that the other half wasn't as alert as it should have been. He lashed out with his foot and caught Schmidt on the shin. Schmidt's arms flailed but his hands managed to come down on the sideboard. A gun clattered across the uncarpeted edge of the floor. Schmidt fell and twisted on to his back. Felsen found himself kneeling and looking down the barrel of his own gun held in Schmidt's hand.