William Boyd - Sweet Caress

‘No. We are opening.’ Rainer stood up and I did so too, taking the opportunity to quickly snatch a photograph or two of the room with my little Ensignette. So much for the celebrated decadence of Berlin, I thought. Where was I going to find my scandal?

The Iguana-Club, Berlin.

Rainer guided me through the tables and we made for the corridor that led to the lavatories.

‘Welcome to the Klosett-Club,’ he said.

There was a door — it looked like the door to a broom cupboard — between the Damen and Herren toilets, and a tall moustachioed man in a gold-frogged greatcoat that came down to his ankles stood there guarding it. Rainer gave him first a card, then some money and the door was opened for us revealing a steep flight of stairs that led down to a thick leather curtain. As we descended I could hear the excited chatter of conversation and could smell cigar and cigarette smoke. Rainer held the leather curtain open for me and I stepped into the Klosett-Club. Now, this was more like it, I thought.

It was a dark, narrow, low-ceilinged room — I wondered if it had been an underground garage in a previous life. Clustered tables and chipped gilt chairs faced a tiny stage with a backdrop of shimmering sequinned curtains. All the tables had small stubby lamps on them like mushrooms, with domed crimson shades that gave forth the dimmest glow. I could hear American, French and Dutch voices amongst the chatter. A few waiters squeezed through the tables, trays of drinks held aloft. It was warm and there was a curious underlying smell in the room — below the perfume and smoke. Oil and grease? Maybe it had indeed been a garage, once.

I turned to find Rainer in conversation with a skinny man in a pistachio-green satin jacket and a yellow bow tie. Rainer beckoned me over.

‘This is Benno, the manager,’ he said. ‘This is Fräulein Clay, the famous English photographer.’

We shook hands. I saw that Benno had painted eyebrows as he leant forward, confidentially.

‘You may take any photos you like — but just of the show. You must only mention the Klosett-Club when you publish them, please.’ He pointed. ‘See — we have another photographer here tonight. We are making good publicity.’ He laughed and gestured across the room at a young man in a dark suit lounging against the far wall. His collar seemed too large for his thin neck — almost affectedly large — and his straight blond hair fell down in a lock in front of his right ear. He turned to look at us, almost as if he knew he was being discussed, and I saw a thin, big-eyed, starveling’s face. A beautiful waif. I noticed he had a Rolleiflex over his shoulder. Damn, I said to myself, feeling my disappointment weigh on me like a heavy rucksack. Another photographer — another fucking photographer, as Greville would have said. It was like a tourist trail.

‘Thank you very much,’ I said to Benno, who kissed my hand and sped off towards the stage. ‘We can go,’ I added, turning to Rainer, ‘this place is obviously too well known.’ I inclined my head at the other photographer. ‘Hardly exclusive.’

Rainer shrugged. ‘We might as well see the show,’ he said, undauntedly cheerful. ‘Have a few more drinks. Benno’s getting us a good table at the front.’

I saw Benno beckoning us over so we went to join him and he sat us down at a table one row back from the little stage where a man was setting up a microphone on a stand. We took our seats and I asked for a gin and orange, leaving my camera in my handbag under the table. I glanced over at my rival who was now talking to Benno, himself, and I saw Benno point us out — Fräulein Clay, the famous English photographer. Then the lights dimmed and a couple of spots hit the stage. A Negro with a trumpet in his hand emerged through the sequinned curtains wearing a white suit dotted with black discs like a Dalmatian dog. The crowd roared their approval.

‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he said into the microphone in English with an American accent. ‘Ingeborg Hammer will dance “Cocaine Shipwreck”!’

Whoops and cheers greeted this news. Rainer leant over.

‘Sometimes she is dancing with a man but tonight she dances alone. We are very lucky.’

‘What’s her name again?’

‘Ingeborg Hammer. Very famous here in Berlin.’

The Negro began to play his trumpet — an improvised jazzy wail — and, slipping out from the curtains, a tall wraith of a woman in a filmy black dress appeared, its neckline slashed to the waist. Her face was a white death-mask of face powder, her eyes smoky with kohl and her lipstick was a purple gash. She stood for a moment as the applause died down, arms spread, hands fluttering, as the trumpet solo continued its free-form extemporisation. She was indeed very tall, I saw, almost six feet — and then she started to move in a series of jerky, impressionistic dance steps and, inevitably, her décolletage gaped to reveal her hanging flat breasts, the prominent nipples purpled like her lips. She lurched and swayed, stooped and staggered, her white arms flailing, looming over tables and recoiling dramatically. Sometimes she would stand immobile for ten or twenty seconds while the trumpet riff continued. It was, I thought, at once ridiculous and completely mesmerising.

At one moment in the dance she passed near our table, walking on tiptoe with tiny bird-steps, and I became aware, at the edge of my vision, of my rival photographer, head bowed over his Rolleiflex, snapping away. Ingeborg Hammer struck her pose by our table and a waft of a curious perfume came off her — of camphor, I thought, or formaldehyde — the smell of a mortuary or dissection laboratory. I looked up into her white face, completely expressionless, her body trembling as the trumpet’s screeching began to crescendo, telling you that the ‘Cocaine Shipwreck’ was about to reach its fatal encounter with the rocks. Ingeborg took three steps back, ripped off her dress and fell to the floor, naked, her pudenda shaved clean, one hand twitching for a few seconds before there was a final demonic scream from the trumpet and the lights went out. When they came back on seconds later she had gone. She took no bow; the trumpeter mopped his glossy face with a handkerchief and accepted the plaudits on her behalf.

‘ Das ist fantastisch, nein ?’

I turned. I hadn’t heard anyone approach but here was the rival photographer, crouching by my chair.

‘ Ich spreche kein Deutsch ,’ I said, realising instantly that the thin-faced waif with the flopping lock of hair was a woman.

‘I’m Hannelore Hahn,’ she said in near-accentless English. ‘Benno told me you were a famous English photographer. Where’s your camera? You missed a real—’

Rainer stood up, interrupting her. ‘I’ll leave you to talk about lenses and exposures and all that stuff,’ he said. ‘Give me a telephone call tomorrow, Amory. I take you somewhere else.’

He kissed me goodbye, shook Hannelore Hahn’s hand and sauntered off. Hannelore slipped into his seat. She was wearing a black and red striped tie with her big-collared shirt and I could see, now that she was opposite and lit by the glow of the mushroom lamp, that she was lightly made-up — and eerily beautiful in a vague manly way. Which was the point of the outfit, I supposed.

‘It’s better when she dances with her partner, Otto Deodat,’ she continued. ‘It’s more. . More sexual. He’s very handsome, Otto, with head shaved, you know, and often naked with his body painted. Very tall like her.’ She smiled showing her uneven teeth, overlapping at the front as if too crowded for her narrow jaw. ‘I’ve many photos of them both. I can show you if you like.’ She took out her cigarette case and selected a black one from the multicoloured row that was lined up inside. ‘Is that gin? Could I ask you to buy me one? I’ve no money left.’ She smiled, holding up her camera. ‘I spent everything on my Rollei.’