The Knife-Edge Path Read online

  “Yes. Not so skinny, then, as you can see.”

  Still holding the picture, Stumpff glanced up at the tasseled camel’s blanket hanging from the wall behind the sofa, then back at the picture. “I’ve been wondering how you came by all this exotic décor.”

  “That rug was on my camel, the day I took a tour around the Cheops pyramid.”

  He set the picture down in front of Gunther’s. “Touring Egypt, were you?”

  “Not exactly. I might tell you sometime.”

  “Oh, how mysterious,” he said, flattening back a smile.

  Geli set the tray on the piano. The bottle began to totter and with lightning speed he steadied it, then with a firm grip around the neck said:

  “I wouldn’t want to miss my chance to try this stuff that might have ripened under one of your dusty oak trees, Madame.”

  She smiled.

  There was a kind of effeminate strutting in the way he spoke.

  “Have you any children, Herr Stumpff?”

  “God, no! I never married. There was a woman at one time. She said the child was mine, but I seriously doubted that. The thing was mongoloid. It only lived a few days, mercifully.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. A thing like that is better off dead. I’ve never entertained the idyllic fantasies of a family life. And you, Madame?”

  “Children weren’t at the top of our list when we could see the war was coming. I’m older than my husband and, well - it’s a long time since I was pretty.”

  He gave her a reproving look. “Not from where I’m standing,” he said, reddening a little as he reached for the bottle, then filled her glass and his.

  She swung her glass around, held it out for Stumpff to clink.

  He did.

  They both drank.

  “By the time I went to Cairo,” she said, “I’d all but given up on children.”

  “Ah. What took you to Cairo in the middle of the war?”

  “Gunther had a chance to go with Rommel to Tripoli after the Tommies finished pushing the Italians all the way across Cyrenaica, but they sent him to Greece instead. I didn’t want to stay back in Taranto, doing nothing. He told me I could go to Cairo the hard way, if I wanted to. To him it was a joke, but I took him up on it. The Abwehr needed agents. Being half Italian I could easily pass for a Saracen, so I volunteered. I wanted to use the name of our landlord in Taranto: Berti. But they decided to make me French instead – there were so many of them in Tunis. So I took the name of Mlle Simone Miroux, a woman I’d known in my childhood. They supplied me with a sister living in Paris named Maxine. If anybody tried to check up on me by telephone, a woman would answer, claiming to be Maxine Miroux, and she would vouch for me. I used to want to call that number just for fun, but Gunther warned me this wasn’t one of Missie Vassilchikov’s masquerade parties.”

  “So you went?”

  “Yes, I went.”

  “Rather brave of you. How much protection was your darker skin in a city full of Tommies?”

  “I stayed in a room in Shepheard’s Hotel, teaching French. Then of course there was the belly-dancing.”

  “My goodness! You taught French and belly-dancing?”

  Geli felt a little buzz coming on. Things were floating back to her in a haze of cigarette smoke in those strange, troubling days when she’d been happy. “Oh, no. I was the pupil on the dancing. Took lessons from the best of them - first Madame Badia, then Hekmet. The Tommies almost rioted when Hekmet got picked up as a spy. I left before I could find out what they did to her. We’d been friends.”

  “Making you quite nervous, I should think.”

  “I made sure she never knew that I was on her side. She only wanted to rid her country of British rule. I was doing my part for the war effort. Trying to impress Gunther, actually. You don’t always get loved for showing off, though, do you?”

  Stumpff tossed down another gulp, looked at her uneasily, then glanced at Gunther stoically failing to defend himself in the frame he was enshrined in. “So you were quite on your own over there, I take it.” He raised his glass to his lips and eyed her over the rim. “Let Rommel finally take Tobruk! You could go back.” He sipped and swallowed, smacking his lips with a hiss from the back of his throat.

  “No, thank you! Once was enough. I rather fell in love with a certain subaltern. His name was Reggie, a graduate of Sandhurst. He was killed at Halfaya Pass. Hellfire Pass, the correspondents used to call it. I didn’t know for almost a month. One of his chums on R&R told me. He’d left all his things in the storeroom at Shepheard’s. There were Cunard stickers all over his steamer trunk. In a certain way he was more like my child than a lover. You might say both. After all, I was married.”

  A sting came into Geli’s eyes, bearing the body of the boy she had slept with, then betrayed. He came into her mind and lay there with his inexhaustible devotion to her in bed, with the flies and that god awful desert heat sticking them together, while the paddle-fan on the ceiling turned and turned.

  Stumpff squinted at her shrewdly.

  She could see that he was getting tight.

  “Mmm. Well, I suppose that’s one way of doing it – in the line of duty.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think Gunther would have cared. When he was home he never really looked at me, you know. Not like he’s looking at me there. One time I took off all my clothes and did a belly dance in front of him. Put everything I’d learned from Madame Badia into it, and I felt so beautiful. He never quite knew what to do with me. He sat right there in that chair one time and glared at me. He told me once I didn’t have an ounce of natural grace. I wasn’t really very good in bed, either.”

  The wine going down Stumpff’s throat became a thick, loud glunk. He reached for the Frascati on the piano and with a slightly trembling hand sloshed some more into his glass. He set the bottle down too hard on the piano, then remembered hers. “Sorry, Madame.” He tilted the bottle stingily over her glass, let a small splash out, then lifted it away as if that was how a lady wanted it. He took a swallow, licked his lips and said, “Well, no regrets, Madame. The information you passed on might have helped to get the Tommy killed. So it came out all right in the end.”

  “Yes, he got killed, all right,” Geli blurted hotly, then lifted her face as if she smelled something, and in her mind she saw the boy again, standing in a doorway, looking out at the promise of a day before the sun came up and a wind full of sand flew in from the desert, forcing her back. He stood out there lost in the dust, trying to come back to her. He’d sworn to her he would, after the battle. The battle was over and soon he would be in her arms again, keeping his promise. He fought the sand and the dust as if he loved her that much – to get back to the place that she had saved for him. He was coming back to her as if the place left in her heart for him could bring back the dead.

  The plump, red face was watching her, and she said, “That was the funny thing, how afraid I was that Gunther would be glad I’d cheated on him in the line of duty. I wanted to have something he would think I should be proud of. After all, he was the one who’d said I should go. More worried that I’d upstage him than if some British officer swept me off my feet. So I let a young man die to get one back who didn’t really want me.”

  Stumpff blinked uneasily, looked around as if for a place to hide the red bloom slicked across his face, then shook his head. “Deplorable, Madame,” he slurred thickly. “And you! You bearing the brunt of all that danger.”

  Geli made a move, then, for the little Tutankhamen sarcophagus on the sideboard where she kept her cigarettes. She was halfway there on nerves before she remembered it was empty. She kept on going, anyway, plucked off the lid. “Oh, how stupid of me! Force of habit.” She clanked the lid back down.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t brought any cigarettes with me,” Stumpff said.

  “No matter, I should quit, anyway. As if I had a choice.”

  He looked aside, eyes misting over wistfully. “My
mother smoked quite heavily. Consequently I was short-changed in the womb. I wanted to be tall, like my uncle, but Mother smoked like a chimney and she made me stay inside when I asked to be excused. I hated her almost as much as the smoke, because I came to think she did it to spite me. Nobody could stop her. I was thirteen before I got up nerve enough to tell her that she looked unsightly with a cigarette dangling from her lips. She slapped my face - my own mother. I was always trying to make a lady out of her, without success.”

  “I’m sorry,” Geli said. “Gunther told me once that not even my Melachrino Number Twos could make one out of me.”

  He looked her up and down. When he did that it made her laugh, but she quickly clapped her hand over her mouth. He said in a solemn voice, “I wouldn’t say they’ve done you any harm.”

  “How sweet of you to say.” She stepped closer to him. “I could show you how I used to dance in Cairo if you want. Madame Badia put me to work in the Melody Club, the roughest bistro in town. I had to fight off Tommies every night.”

  He drew in his chin against a choking grin. “Yes, well, no need really, Madame.”

  She lifted up her arms, weaving from side to side and writhing her hips, remembering the heat and the smell of cigarettes and how the boys, when she got close enough, reached out and tried to touch her through the wire. She put out her hands, made a come-on gesture with her fingers.

  Stumpff stared at her as if there was a spider crawling up her neck. He backed away until the bow in the piano stopped him.

  Breathing hard, Geli dropped her arms. “I’ve lost my touch,” she said, and tried to smile but the veil slipped.

  He turned aside and took the path of least resistance out onto the rug, saying, “I must be going, Madame. It’s that hour. The bombing could start in at any moment.”

  “But we haven’t been bombed since -”

  “Don’t let them fool you, just because they’ve left us alone while they pound Cologne and Magdeburg, Würzburg, Lübeck, the filthy cowards. It’s only a matter of time before they get back to us.” He was talking angrily, now.

  She didn’t want to lose him. “But surely not tonight,” she said. “It’s after dark and we haven’t heard a single bomb.”

  “Let’s hope some stray doesn’t make a liar out of you, Madame. This air of Cairo won’t protect you from a 500-pounder.” He started toward the door, swaying off course, then stopped and seemed to think of something. “Don’t you have someplace to go when things get bad here in the city?”

  “We’ve got a cottage near Münster, but I think I’d feel much more alone, there, than I do here.”

  “Better alone than dead, Madame.” He suddenly turned and started reeling for the door again.

  There was something of a little boy about him, she thought, set loose by the Frascati.

  He was almost to the door when she called after him, “May I ask a favor of you?”

  His hand was on the knob. He kept it there, cranking his head around. “Cigarettes?”

  “Those wouldn’t hurt.”

  “They wouldn’t be anywhere near as tasty as the ones you’re used to.”

  “Actually, there was something else.”

  He turned to face her, looking annoyed. “Well?”

  “It’s my husband. I thought you might have some connections to help me find out what’s become of him.”

  He blew a sigh that seemed to shrink him, standing there. “I know a couple of people, but I can’t make any promises.”

  “Anything. Anything at all.”

  “I’m going to be away for a few days, then we’ll see. No promises, as I say.” He gave a little bow. “Thank you for the company, and your wine.”

  Without another word he went out, pulling the door shut behind him, softly.

  2

  She could hear the rain outside, gurgling in the gutter drain. In the window dark scuds drove on above the rooftops and the chimneys. She parted the curtain and looked down into the street at a young woman raising her umbrella. A runabout splashed past. Its occupants stared at the girl through rain-spattered glass before she hurried across toward Thaleiser’s and went in. She was so lithe and pretty, the same girl she had seen once on the stairway coming down, cradling a cat in her arms.

  She was beginning to despair of seeing Stumpff again. She’d let the days go by during which he was supposed to be away, then she began to wonder if he’d written her off. He must have better things to do than to keep the hounds of hunger from the doorstep of a rather bothersome, dreamy middle-aged woman. The worst was in the evening when he was due home, and she would make sure to be wearing something nice, had rouge on, and lipstick, sometimes a barrette in her hair. What if he did take her up on the damsel in distress she’d played for him? The demimonde, an easy mark to do with as he wished. Then what?

  She let the curtain go and came back to the sofa. The rain drummed hard on the rooftops. She wasn’t going anywhere, and yet… She could still catch a tram across town to where Anneliese used to live in Kurfürstendamm: she might still be there. Gunther had once warned her to leave that woman alone. The last known lesbian in Berlin had long since been arrested, probably to be sent away with those others, like the feeble-minded, to Hadamar or Grafenek where death certificates were made out in advance. Could Anneliese still be in Berlin, alive?

  She had no other friends to speak of. Gunther had been all she’d needed. All men wrapped into one, she’d once heard somebody say. The names she’d jotted down in her address book had no faces anymore. All the parties they had gone to blurred and the attendees shaken in a dice cup by the war and dumped out – men into the military, women left behind to wait.

  She had the radio on low, tuned to the Reich Broadcasting station. In the window the rain began to let up a little. A burst of the late, low sun flooded in. Shadows chased it back, then it rose and dimmed again like the houselights in a theatre. She thought suddenly she’d hurry and get into something warm, find her umbrella and go out. By the time she got to Anneliese’s, the storm could be over. She might pay another visit to OKA. Yes, she’d do that. She hadn’t tried hard enough last time. This time give that rude Frauenwerks bruiser a piece of her mind, if she got her again. Demand to see her superior and refuse to leave until she did. Bluff or no bluff, you didn’t want to fool with the legitimate spouse of General Gunther Straub.

  She went over to the radio and was about to turn it off when the sound of rapping on the door caused her to jump. She shut off the radio, hurried to the door and was pulling back the bolt when she glanced down at her bare feet showing white on the rug, but it was too late. The rapping came again. She opened the door.

  The scarecrow of a man in uniform stood looking at her anxiously, hugging a large package wrapped in brown paper. His cap sat low on his ears. He grinned through rotten teeth. “I have a package for you, ma’am.”

  The bundle he was holding looked heavy.

  “Who are you?” Geli said.

  “Corporal Obermeyer, ma’am. This comes from Captain Stumpff.” He peeked over her shoulder. “Where do you want me to put it?”

  Stepping aside, Geli pointed at the sofa. “Right there will be fine. No message from the captain?”

  “He’s right behind me, ma’am.”

  Obermeyer stepped in, staring hesitantly at the cushions where she’d left a rumpled blanket. She yanked it aside, he lowered the package and stood back, rubbing his hands together.

  Cold air came in behind him like he was the iceman.

  “Warm yourself a moment if you’d care to, Corporal.”

  Just then Stumpff stormed through the open doorway, cap pulled low on his forehead, coat buttoned up to his neck. “What are you doing, Obermeyer? Didn’t I tell you to go down to the car and wait?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve only just got here. She said I could -”

  Stumpff raised his palm, strutted over to the bundle on the sofa and touched it with the tips of his gloved fingers. “A little something for your larder, Madame.” H
e glanced back at Obermeyer. “What are you waiting for, Obermeyer?”

  “Sorry, sir. Just rubbing off the cold.”

  Geli suddenly felt sorry for the wretched creature, and said, “I don’t mind him staying, Herr Stumpff. He does look awfully cold.”

  “He knows better than to jump up on your furniture like some stray cat. Don’t you, Obermeyer? Now that you’re all nice and toasty, why don’t you start acting like a soldier?”

  “Sir!” Obermeyer riveted to attention, started stiffly toward the open doorway.

  “And shut that door!” Stumpff commanded.

  Obermeyer did, so carefully there was no sound of the latch catching. Stumpff paced toward the window, hands clasped behind his back.

  “That man is like a child sometimes. He tried to join up with a combat unit, but the Wehrmacht wouldn’t have him. He tested very poorly on his aptitudes. Plus he’s a hemophiliac. For him there’s no such thing as getting wounded and living to tell about it.” He turned suddenly, exhibiting a grin. “When they found a place for him with me, I tried to throw him back, but eventually I had to take him. Since then, actually, I’ve found his loyalty rather makes up for what he lacks in brains. You’d be surprised how well he does behind the wheel of a car.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Geli said, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  Hands still behind his back, Stumpff sauntered toward her. “Will you sit down a moment, Madame? I won’t take much of your time.”

  Geli moved toward the sofa, sat close beside the bundle and threw her arm across it, thinking some kind of apology was coming for the other night, and she was ready to tell him there was no need for that when he said, “I took the liberty of making some inquiries about your husband.”

  She searched his eyes that blinked as solemnly as a sheet being turned back from a face in the morgue. “Oh God, he’s dead!”

  “No. Not that we know of. I asked a friend of mine to do some digging for me. He came up with some quite interesting information.”