William Bayer: Wallflower

Their sweat ran together and formed a seal.

"I haven't done this since She turned to him, eyes glowing. "You're the first man I've been with since my husband died." Her fine eyes queried him. "It's been awhile for you, too, hasn't it?"

He nodded. "It feels good to make love again." , 'Oh, yes… She showered kisses on his chest. "Frank, Frank. -.." She made his name seem marvelous by pronouncing it in German. "It's very good. Very healthy. I think it must have been for this that I came to Venice." She licked his neck in long, even strokes. "But is this really happening?" She tenderly stroked his sex. "Yes, it is. And I love it. I'm so happy you followed me."

She looked up at him, her smile so bright, her eyes so brilliant-but this time he did not flinch, this time he drank in her light.

He took her to dinner at Antico Martini on the Campo San Fantin across from the Fenice Theater. There was only one other couple on the terrace, but they agreed they liked being in a nearly empty restaurant.

"Tonight Venice belongs just to us," she said.

He told her about himself, his marriage and divorce, his ambivalent affection for New York, how the Switch Case had changed his life, and how much he loved investigative work. "You love it because you're good at it, isn't that right?" He nodded. "Tell me about it, Frank.

What sort of detective are you?"

"Basically there're two kinds," he explained. "Scientists and artists. The scientists are puzzle solvers. they pore over evidence, figure out what's absent, then go after the missing piece. I'm probably more the artist type. I try to feel the case, identify with the perp, then generate the insight that will bring it all together. For me, the best cases are the psychological ones, where to solve them you have to go inside a mind and touch the madness."

"You're really a psychologist," she said.

"In a way-but I have no training in it. I operate on instinct. And often what I do isn't very civilized, Monika. Underneath I'm still a street cop. And New York is one very tough town."

She nodded. "Will you forgive me if I ask you a personal question?"

"I think we've been pretty personal with each far." other so She smiled. 'You're famous. You've been the subject of a book and a movie. I ask you this because I realize it must be your choice: Why are you only a lieutenant?"

Her question amused him, but he gave her a serious answer. "I won't take a field command," he explained, I 'which is what an officer above lieutenant is obliged to do. If I stay a lieutenant-well, I keep thinking I'll be able to work cases until I retire."

"Tell me why you like them so much?" "First, the problem, then the fun of the chase, the joy When I get the flash, figure out who did it and, most important, why. You see, once I know that, I can usually persuade the person to confess, not just because I've got the goods on him but because my understanding of him usually makes him want to explain himself even more. Then through his confession I relive the experience of the crime. And once I've shared that, it's over." "So you like confessions?"

He nodded. "Much better than building a case for trial. For me when a crime is committed, a wound is opened… and I want to be the one who closes it. An honest confession is the best kind of closure I know.'

She gazed at him, "Perhaps then you are something between a psychologist and a priest."

He shook his head. "I can't absolve anybody. I haven't the right. But I always try to grant criminals their humanity. to help them? Partly. But I think it's really for myself. There's so much evil in this world, Monika. Perhaps a billion varieties of evil.

The kind of work I do, and believe me it's very humble sometimes, puts me in touch with evil every day. And strange as this may see M, I think it's helped me gain a little wisdom. Though sometimes, I have to admit, I don't feel all that wise. Like this afternoon, for instance-following you around. That was very childish."

"Boyish." She corrected him. "I'm so glad you were boyish. It was exciting to feel pursued." She met his eyes. "If you're not a cross between a psychologist and a priest, then what exactly are you, Frank?"

He shrugged. "Just a detective," he said. they spent the night together in her room. Early the next morning Janek moved out of his hotel near the Giardino Papadopoli and into a single at the Danieli, just down the hall from No. 13.

"Every morning I'll sneak back in and ruffle up my bedding," he told her.

She was amused. "That won't fool the chambermaids."

"I'm sure it won't, but I hope they'll appreciate my efforts. "

"What do you want them to think? That you're discreet?"

Janek shook his head. "I want them to know I am protective of the German lady's reputation."

She laughed, then hugged him. "You're a very funny man.

Janek hired a speedboat to take them to Torcello, where they lunched on grilled fresh scampi, then explored the island's little lanes. In the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta they stood in awe before the apse, meeting the grave gaze of the Teotoca Madonna, whose cheeks are laced with mosaic tears. to eat, make love, experience the beauty of Venice these things became their enterprise. She had much to teach him about art, and he had much to teach her about the streets. On golden mornings they wandered the city, strolling along her white and ocher walls, upon her stone and marble alleys, across her rainbow-hued canals. they watched glass being blown. they sat in caf6s and made up tales about the people who passed. they told each other the stories of their lives.

Then, late in the afternoon, when the sweet fragrance of autumnal decay mingled with the saline scent of the lagoon, the heady aroma aroused their lust and drew them back to No. 13 and to her bed. Here, as the sun painted the walls gold and pink, they kissed, grew intoxicated, rolled together, and explored each other with their tongues. they made love lazily until darkness fell. Then they slept for an hour in each other's arms, showered, and went out to dine.

Monika's husband, Franz Daskai, was thirty years older than she. A handsome, athletic man with leonine features and a full head of iron gray hair, he had been chief of psychiatry at the Hamburg hospital where she had served out her residency. One day he stopped to watch her play tennis on the staff court behind the residents' dormitory. A couple of days later he called her to his office to invite her to be his doubles partner in an informal interhospital tournament. She accepted; they battled fiercely and to everyone's amazement won the cup.

A few months later, when she began to see patients, she asked him to be her supervising analyst. A year later they were married.

Franz, Monika told Janek, was a wise, sane man who was an exemplar to all his students. The men worshiped him, and the women adored him, perhaps because he was one of the few people in the profession who lived the kind of rational life that is the supposed goal of psychoanalysis.

Over their ten years together he had taught her much, but she believed his most memorable lesson was the eloquent way he defined the mission of a therapist. At some point in every patient's past, he believed, there occurs a character-distotting moment when an ernotion and an experience, normally incompatible, come together and lock. Abuse and love, she knew and pleasure-no matter how contradictory, the pieces engage so the person can survive his fear and rage. It then becomes the task of the therapist to locate this hidden lock, analyze its parts, then gently open it up to set the patient free.

"He taught me how to be a healer," Monika said. "This was his greatest gift. When, that first evening, you spoke of crimes as wounds and your role as detective confessor-well, I thought, you and Franz would have liked each other, I think he would have understood you."