Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

♦

Before Ishmael could say, ‘What about my laundry?’, Howard was out of the door. Politely, Ishmael followed. He offered Howard a lift in Enlightenment. He declined.

‘I’m afraid I have to be discreet,’ he said.

Ishmael shrugged. He had no idea what Howard was talking about.

Howard’s flat was, Ishmael supposed, actually quite nice. To be honest, it wasn’t really to his taste. It seemed a bit middle class. It smacked too much of materialism. He knew that was a terrible thing to think about anyone but he would have had to say what he thought.

There was a rattan three-piece suite and a nest of rattan tables with glass tops. There were lots of art deco bits and pieces — lamps in the shape of boy shepherds, a clock with an enamel sunset, and a cocktail cabinet with carved fauns for legs. There were more mirrors on the walls than anyone could possibly find any use for, art books were spread around conspicuously, and there was a massive collection of videotapes.

Howard mixed a potent gin and tonic.

♦

Werlin answers Hitler as best as he can. Peter listens intently to it all even though he cannot know what questions are being asked, but above all he feels proud to be of such a direct use to the Führer.

♦

Ishmael was sitting in a rattan chair looking out of the window on to a patch of communal lawn when Howard drew the curtains.

‘Too, too bright,’ he said.

Ishmael was about to encourage him to let the sun shine in, but Howard said, ‘Do you like this table?’

He pointed at the largest of the glass-topped tables. Ishmael didn’t like it especially, but he saw no reason to be hurtful.

‘It’s fine,’ he said.

‘It’s my very favourite,’ Howard said, chuckling. ‘If this table could talk…’

By now Ishmael was convinced that Howard was raving. He just wanted to get out of there and retrieve his laundry. Oh, Howard was one of God’s creatures and all that, unique and special and worthy of respect, but Ishmael felt Howard’s path to spiritual redemption might be a long one, and on this occasion at least he wasn’t offering himself as a guide.

‘Thanks for the drink but I’d really better be…’

‘Oh no you don’t. Just you wait here.’

Howard rushed out of the room. He was trembling and sweating. You had to feel sorry for the poor chap. A middle-aged man, living alone, probably his wife had died or had left him, it was bound to make you a bit inward-looking and weird. He was probably just lonely. He shouldn’t be ashamed to go to one of those agencies and meet a good woman to keep him company in his autumnal years. Ishmael thought he’d find a way of suggesting this when Howard returned.

♦

In early 1937 Haupt Sturmf¨hrer Albert Liese is recruiting members of the SS to form a large team of drivers to test Dr Porsche’s latest prototype, the car now designated the Kraft-durch-Freudewagen. Since the Avus episode, which is known to and envied by his fellow-soldiers, Peter Baldung seems a natural choice. He wants to be part of the process that brings National Socialism to the working man. He also thinks that being a test driver might be fun.

♦

When Howard returned he was wearing a leather dog-collar, a black latex posing pouch and nothing else. It did not seem the best moment to advise him on personal problems.

‘You know,’ Ishmael started, ‘there are many rooms in the mansion of human sexuality but whatever you’ve got in mind I’d just as soon keep this one locked.’

‘I hope you’re not going to turn out to be a tease,’ Howard said. ‘It’s very, very simple. I lie on the floor with my face under the glass table. You lower your blue leathers and you defecate on to the glass. That’s all, no touching, no sexual contact, no possibility of disease. And you’d make an ageing man very happy.’

♦

Peter is indeed selected, along with perhaps a hundred others. Dr Porsche demonstrates the car to them, and each day they go along to the SS barracks in Kornwestheim, not far from the Porsche villa, and there they collect the motorcars that they will come to know intimately and to despise.

♦

What would Debby have said if she could see her Barry now? Probably she would have sent for an exorcist and the vice squad. Then Ishmael remembered that he had set out on this journey for the sake of new feelings and experiences, and doing what Howard was asking would certainly be a new experience and a half. Howard had been kind with the offer to share a washer, had been free with his gin, and Ishmael was even in need of a bowel movement since the breakfast had worked its way through. But still…He dithered.

‘Pervy sex outside the context of a meaningful relationship would really be a mockery of the values I hold most dear.’

‘Dearie, underneath that cigarette lighter, the one shaped like a boatplane, you’ll find four fifty-pound notes. They’re yours if you do what I ask. And don’t give me any balls about meaningful relationships.’

♦

Peter Baldung’s superiors have made it clear that he is not involved in a perk, in some piece of apolitical joyriding. He is taking part in a rigorous scientific experiment, an experiment which seems above all to exist in conditions of nightmarish security.

Peter is not allowed to discuss the tests, not in any way, except with the management and the SS officers involved with the project; and he must swear an oath to this effect, and this oath will not only apply now but for an indefinite period in the future.

He must report any and every observation or incident. Concerning the car, regardless of how trivial those incidents may appear to him, for he is, after all, not the one to judge. Of course, he is not allowed to take any passenger in the test vehicle, nor must any third party be shown any document or drawing or report or set of results that relate to the vehicle in any way. Smoking and drinking while with the car is naturally forbidden. Photographing the car is not absolutely forbidden, but any film containing an image of the vehicle must be given undeveloped to the management.

The management also retain the right to change any or all of these regulations at any time they see fit, and also to impose any new regulations as and when they seem necessary or desirable. Any breach of the regulations will result in the test driver being instantly reported to the Gestapo.

As Peter Baldung takes his Beetle out for the tenth day of alpine testing he concludes that motoring may not be quite the joy he had always hoped it would be.

♦

An hour later Ishmael was back on the road. He had clean, freshly laundered clothes. He had taken off his blue leathers. He drove to a motor accessory shop and blew most of the two hundred pounds on having bucket seats fitted, and as an extra treat he bought himself a gear knob in the shape of a skull.

Life, Ishmael thought, wasn’t so bad.

Yes, Ishmael did sometimes think of Debby in those first few days, and not just when he had laundry to do. The last time he saw her she was giggling in an hysterical way and her last words to him were, ‘I knew it. I always knew you were mentally unbalanced, Barry Osgathorpe.’

He had taken her out to see the car. She let out a yelp.

‘What the fuck do you call that?’ she said.

‘Enlightenment.’

They talked about this and that, about where they were going, whether they were going by the same form of transport. Ishmael tried to communicate his thoughts about his new-found need to be himself, but it was water off a duck’s back to Debby.

Finally, Ishmael said, ‘You see, Debby, there’s a party in my head and I’m afraid you’re not on the guest list.’