Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

In this pause, Frau Tummel lit a cigarette: she only managed to light half its tip. She inhaled deeply, until the whole circumference fiercely glowed.

She appeared to change the subject. What a wonderful grandson Benjamin must be, she said: what a solace — as she busied herself with tidying Haffner's bedroom, opening the curtains, neatly folding his tracksuit jacket: its arms pinned behind itself — a straitjacket.

Perhaps, thought Haffner, he was not so wrong to dream of Frau Tummel as his mother. She represented all the domestic he had ever known, a sinful heaven of supervision. And Haffner liked to feel that he was supervised. It was how he had lived in the family home — where at Pesach the cockney maid fell into the dining room, closely followed by the cook, who had been listening in amazed curiosity at the door: a door which had been flung open by Papa in hopeful if theatrical expectation of Elijah.

But surely, thought Haffner, he wasn't here, in exile, banished, to find a second version of a mother. It couldn't be that. Haffner was here to find a house, not a family: not a mother or a wife.

Yet Haffner was still so easily won over by those who tried to care for him. Those who sacrificed themselves for Haffner! Like Barbra, the delight of his New York years, who used to keep a selection of his clothes freshly ironed in her wardrobe. The secret of a marriage? Haffner once argued with Morton. He wanted to know the secret of a marriage? You had to find someone who agreed to be the slave. Somebody had to give up. That was the only solution. Two people in love with their pride, then everything was over. Maybe not immediately, but in the end. The only successful marriages involved someone giving up on their life.

He did not tell Morton who, in the marriage of Livia and Haffner, was the masochist, and who was not.

But it wasn't just marriage. It seemed, thought Haffner, to be the secret of everything. At a certain point, you just gave up on the infantile wish to be an emperor. You stopped complaining that people were changing their clothes beside your marble statue, or carrying a coin stamped with your counterfeit face into a bathroom, or a brothel. Those were the crazy edicts of Augustus. And Haffner, now, was beyond them.

Frau Tummel stubbed her cigarette, half smoked, into Haffner's ceramic ashtray, engraved with a view of a mountain whose name Haffner did not know. Then, slowly, Frau Tummel began to undress.

— We don't want to talk, after all, she said.

What was the point in all these arguments? They loved each other; that was all that mattered. Her husband, he was talking to her all day. His health, it was so up and down. He planned walks in the mountains which he would never take. And to think that she was contemplating leaving him! So much strain she was under! But what could she do?

She wanted the sex. And this might have suited Haffner, but the sex was wasted on him, because she wanted to make the sex love. It wasn't that he couldn't have the two together at any point, but with Frau Tummel it was impossible. He didn't love her. The dramatics bored him. With Frau Tummel, he just wanted the purity of pure dirt. The kind of dirt Frau Tummel could have been into as well, with her lavish breasts, the tired lilt of her belly, if only she had been less in love.

She reclined: as normal, her bra still on.

— There might be no more beauty, said Frau Tummel, observing herself, but there can be a little grace.

And although this forgivable vanity touched Haffner with a remote tenderness, he still felt nothing. Yes, at this point, Haffner suddenly discovered that not only did he not love her, but he didn't even want her. It struck him as strange.

Would he put her on her stomach? Frau Tummel asked him.

He wished he could; he wished that he wanted to do this for Frau Tummel; but he could not see his way to it. Kneeling on the bed, he toyed with her bra. She looked up at him, breathing heavily.

Then there was a knock at the door.

Saved! thought Haffner. Saved!

He dreamed of the receptionist, of Viko, of the waiter in the dining room: joyfully, he considered how it could only be someone who was here to help him, to release him from this agony of politesse and sadness.

No voice came. Haffner asked who it was. Still no one replied. Frau Tummel looked at him: startled.

— My husband! she exclaimed, in a whisper.

To his surprise, Haffner discovered that he was enjoying himself. The male competition of it appealed to him. Anything, so long as Frau Tummel was returned to her own life: a life which had no place for Raphael Haffner.

Did she think so? he whispered back to her. She was sure. Who else could it be? It could be anyone, he argued. Absolutely anyone from the hotel. Or even Benjamin, he argued. Whispering, she shouted at him that this was no time for argument. It was obvious who it was. They needed a plan.

Haffner had no plan. Haffner had no plan.

They looked around the room: at the desk, the window, the elegant armchair, the veranda and its view, the door to the bathroom.

Five seconds later, Haffner confidently opened the door, to discover Zinka: in her sunglasses — twin beige lenses, flat against the hollowed angles of her cheeks.

Haffner could understand the icons of the Orthodox Church, with their mournful expressions: the deep sadness of distance inscribed in their high cheekbones, almond eyes, the nose which Haffner always found alluring: dense with bone, its line an asymmetrical quiver.

Perhaps it was true that he had momentarily abandoned the quest for Zinka in his quest for the villa. He would admit so much. But that was no argument against the sincerity of his desire. The true desire, as Haffner was discovering — as Haffner had so often discovered — was returning. Just as it had returned when he first met Barbra, in his office on a twilit morning in November in Manhattan: a story which Haffner cherished. Just as it had recovered when he had met a woman called Olga, in an executive box at the World Series, who said she was with the Dow Jones, and who so wanted to write about his career, who would appreciate just a few moments with him in private: a story which Haffner, when questioned by his colleagues, had always denied.

Zinka stood there in front of him. She had just come because she had a message from Niko. That he would meet Haffner in the car park: after dinner. It was OK with Haffner? He understood? It was OK, said Haffner.

— So OK, she said.

Haffner did not shut the door. She noticed this. She did not move.

She observed that they seemed to get along. And Haffner agreed. So she had nothing to do now, she said: she was just here to tell him the message.

Haffner thanked her. He told her to thank Niko.

— Maybe, said Zinka, I can come in?

Panicking, considering Frau Tummel in the bathroom, a recording booth, Haffner asked her if she wanted to get a coffee. It seemed the better option: to lock Frau Tummel in, rather than let her hear who was now replacing her — in Haffner's room, in Haffner's desire. But Zinka said that no, why did they need to go anywhere else? He wasn't sure, said Haffner, if he had the facilities for making coffee.

— But whatever, said Zinka, elongating past him. And Haffner paused, anguished by indecision.

But, too late, Zinka had walked towards the window, where her silhouette asked him if she might change into her yoga things in Haffner's room. There was no way, thought Haffner, in which he could answer this with anything approaching the correct decorum. So Haffner only nodded. And as, delirious, he nodded, Haffner considered Frau Tummel, in the bathroom. Transfixed in the fluorescent light. He considered this in a different delirium to the delirium with which he looked at Zinka: a delirium of pensive concern.