Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

It was so beautiful.

‘Nothing will happen,’ Désirée whispered. They whispered often when they were together, even if there was no danger of anyone hearing them. She laid her head very close to his and whispered in his ear, and then there was his earlobe, which had to be kissed as well, sometimes she nibbled on it and even bit into it. Once she had tasted his blood, just a drop, and it had made a magical connection between them.

But they were magically connected anyway.

When they had met again anyway, just by chance, she had been dismissive of him, really quite brusque. Alfred continued to hold it against her, and claimed he was still angry with her about it. Only as a joke, of course, in truth he could never have held anything against her. Then he tried to pull a severe face, which he couldn’t do at all, and after that he imposed a punishment on her that had to be kissed away, kiss after kiss. ‘I am a lawyer,’ he said, ‘I cannot let lenience prevail.’

She had been quite brusque with him.

Her piano teacher lived and taught in Stockerstrasse, an old Frau Breslin who actually had a much more complicated Russian name, and who seemed to hate the music she hammered out of her piano every bit as much as she hated her pupils. No one liked going to see her, but her unfriendliness had won her a reputation of particular capability, and Mimi wouldn’t hear of her daughter giving up her lessons or switching teachers. ‘You just have to practise more,’ she said.

Désirée hadn’t practised that day either, and she was late as well, which would lead to a tirade half in German and half in Russian. At the Conservatoire in St Petersburg lazy pupils were rapped on the knuckles with the conducting baton, and Frau Breslin was very sorry that she wasn’t allowed to introduce this method in Zurich as well. Désirée had wedged the thin music folder under her arm, turned the corner far too quickly — ‘A lady doesn’t run!’ — and almost knocked him over. Her music fell to the ground, he bent down for it and only when he handed it to her did they recognise each other.

‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, Déchirée?’ asked Alfred, and she wrenched the folder from his hand as reproachfully as if he had been responsible for the collision, and walked on without a word.

She had been really brusque.

And then, an hour later, when she left the house in Stockerstrasse again, he was already standing outside the door, he had just walked after her and waited for her and said, ‘Hello, Désirée.’ But the tone in which he said it sounded arrogant, and she didn’t like him at all, not at that first meeting, and not the next time either.

Because a week later he was there again. ‘I’ve waited for you every day,’ he said. ‘Except on Shabbos, of course.’ The word sounded artificial coming from his lips.

She didn’t like him, she really didn’t. She threw her head back and left him standing. He had watched after her for ages, he claimed later, but she hadn’t turned round. And why should she have? It wasn’t as if he thought she was interested in him.

She didn’t care about him, that’s right, she didn’t care about him in the slightest, but then she couldn’t stop thinking about him, she was all over the place, and dreaming with her eyes open. Mimi was already starting to worry because Désirée was always so careful and reliable about everything, she gave her cod liver oil, and Désirée had to gulp it down because she couldn’t tell her mother what was really wrong with her.

She didn’t understand it herself.

Eventually, and she would have burst if she hadn’t done it, she talked to Esther Weill about it, and Esther immediately got very excited. Esther was the kind of person to whom nothing dramatic or extraordinary can ever happen, because they don’t have the talent for recognising the extraordinary. That Désirée was experiencing secret love — ‘I don’t love him, what would give you such a meshuganeh idea?’ — and this love of all loves, which was so impossible and forbidden — ‘If you say “Love” one more time, I won’t talk to you again as long as I live!’ — that her best friend had fallen head over heels in love with this baptised relative — ‘Esther, really!’ — thrilled her so much that she was scared by the idea that this second-hand experience might soon be over. ‘You have to accept his invitation,’ she urged, because he had actually asked Désirée to meet him, just so they could talk, really, just talk, nothing more, he had so much to say to her.

But Désirée couldn’t go on meeting this strange man — all right, not really strange, but it made no difference — couldn’t just go on meeting this man, what would people think? Esther offered herself as an alibi, as a chaperone and a co-conspirator.

If you really thought about it, it was all her fault.

The first time they went walking along the Sihl. The spring was almost over, and beneath the chestnut trees there lay a carpet of blossom. Esther always stayed a few discreet paces behind the others, but even though she couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other, she could still see how Désirée changed during the walk, how her posture became increasingly soft and yielding. And she was walking more and more slowly, too; at first she had actually been walking away, and by the end, as they approached the Selnau again, she had become so slow that Esther almost had to come to a standstill lest she catch up with the others. Désirée no longer held her arms folded, but let them dangle by her side, almost as if she were hoping that Alfred would grab her and hold her tight. But he didn’t do that, he just said goodbye without a handshake, with a small, still bow, and when he had gone Désirée said, ‘He’s very different.’

He was unhappy, but he said so without complaint, he just stated the fact, a doctor diagnosing an illness. Had Désirée ever heard of Kaspar Hauser? That was exactly how he felt, as if he had lost part of himself and no longer knew where he belonged. ‘I’m always in between,’ he said. ‘Do you understand what I mean?’

He had never been able to talk to anyone about it before, not even with Mina, who understood everything. Never had he found anyone he could confide in about everything. Until all of a sudden Désirée had been there again, little Déchirée, who he had played with as a child.

Not that he only ever talked about himself, far from it. He even apologised for bothering her with his problems, and generally treated her with such care it gave her the feeling that she was something particularly valuable.

She often wondered when she had actually started loving him, and could find no answer. It hadn’t been right at the start, certainly not at first sight, and yet she felt as if it had never been otherwise. It had been going on for almost five months now, next week it would be five months.

Five months since Désirée had had finally redeemed the promise of her name.

Désirée, the desired one.

When the story of the booth and the whale skeleton had happened, she had almost died of fear. But then in her desperation she had come up with the idea of attributing the whole story to Esther, and since then there had even been a second person to whom she could describe her feelings. It was almost as if she had told Mimi the whole truth.

That she had only seemingly drawn her mother into her confidence was the most unforgivable thing of all.

Mimi had happened by the Weill shoe shop just by chance, had seen all the boxes through the window and, as she liked to be the first where fashion was concerned — not that she was vain, certainement pas — she had gone in. To her disappointment, the new delivery consisted entirely of gentlemen’s boots; Mimi was about to leave again, but was held back by Herr Weill. He absolutely had to show her an extremely elegant clasp shoe that only women with very narrow feet could wear and which was therefore, he dissembled in his best rabbi voice, could have been made specially for dear Frau Pomeranz. Mimi knew he was lying to her — ‘No one has ever been able to deceive me’ — but she liked the compliment, and she had no urgent plans.