A Shroud for Jesso

Chapter Twelve

They sat in the dining room with the high ceiling lost in the dark because there were only the yellow wall lights over the buffet and the two candelabra on the table. They all sat in their seats being formal with knife and fork and a sip of wine now and then. Kator sat looking at von Lohe and Jesso sat looking at Renette. He had a good view

Renette might have been alone at the table or she might have been in the middle of a cluster of men, all looking at her. She sat unconcerned, just there, the way a magnet is unconcerned.

She wore a dress like a second skin, long-sleeved and naked on top. There was a very fine chain around her neck with a pearl that rolled a little each time she breathed. It lay off center on her bare skin and kept rolling there.

Hofer wasn’t serving. Hofer carved and poured wine. Two stripe-vested servants did the work and Hofer just hovered.

They sat around as phony as people in an ad. Like a whisky ad showing how only the very best people drink only the very best whisky. Jesso sipped wine the way they all did and thought of whisky, even the very worst whisky. He wasn’t nervous. He never drank whisky when he was nervous, but a raw drink right then would have helped.

Kator was talking to the Baron. “Any progress this afternoon?”

Von Lohe swallowed and answered as if he had just waked up. “Yes, Johannes. Oh, yes. We must discuss it. After dinner.”

“Not business, Johannes.” Renette gave him a smile with a question in it. “We must think of our guest.” She nodded at Jesso, moving her head at him in a gesture that was beautifully done. Jesso wished she would do it again.

“By all means,” said Kator, and he moved his head too. It was more like a muscled python making another slow loop before the kill. “Even though Mr. Jesso might be too polite to object,” Kator was saying, “we should perhaps discuss business at some other time.”

Nobody waited for Jesso to say anything, because Kator was dabbing at his mouth, which meant he wasn’t through yet.

“On the other hand, as an American, Mr. Jesso might find talk about business a very fitting topic after a meal. In fact,” said Kator, “his business acumen might be-“

“You mean talk about the Zimmer matter?” Von Lohe sounded surprised.

“Of course not,” said Renette. “Johannes was only teasing. And besides, Mr. Jesso hasn’t given his view yet. It should be his decision how we spend the evening.”

She had a thought there. And the way she smiled at him, Jesso had a moment’s crazy thought that she might even listen.

“Of course,” said Kator. “There must be topics just as universal as business. Eh, Jesso?”

Jesso could think of one.

“I can think of one,” said Helmut, and he raised his glass. “To love!” He saluted Renette, drank some wine, and looked pleased with his conversation.

“Of course.” Kator leaned back, dabbing at his mouth.

“I should like to hear Mr. Jesso on the topic of love. Had you thought of the same thing, Mr. Jesso?”

“What thing?”

“Love, Mr. Jesso.”

“I was thinking of women,” he said.

Right then Renette became all hostess, telling Hofer to serve the coffee in the music room, and then she got up.

They all sat around her in the music room and Helmut said we must have that piano tuned. Renette nodded, and Jesso drank coffee. Kator didn’t talk for a while, but then he started to toy with an unlit cigar, and when Renette was through with her sentence about Helmut’s Turkish cigarettes he got up and made a small bow.

“Forgive me, Renette, but Helmut and I must discuss a few matters. We may rejoin you later.”

So Jesso and Renette stayed alone. The music room wasn’t large, but the chandelier and the silk on the wall made it all very cold. So did the grand piano. It was large and black and the lid was down.

“Do you play, Mr. Jesso?”

“No. Never did.”

“I don’t either,” she said, and she smiled as if she were relieved. “I don’t like to play the piano and I don’t like to talk business.”

“If you got any other universal subjects-” but she laughed again and he didn’t have to finish.

“No,” she said. “But I’m glad they’re gone.”

The way that room was lit up and all silk, grand piano, and glass-topped tables, there was nothing warm about it. But Jesso didn’t notice it any more. She leaned over to place her cup on a table and Jesso watched the small pearl swing free. Then it lay there again, rolling a little on the curved skin.

“You needn’t look so glum about it,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“My pearl.”

“I’m not glum, Mrs.-Frau-”

“Frau Baronin, if you want to be formal, Mrs. von Lohe if you’re just polite. Are you polite, Mr. Jesso?”

“Like the next fellow.”

“Oh, no. Not like Johannes or my husband. That’s why I’m glad they left.”

They looked at each other. She looked back at Jesso as if she were never afraid.

“Who’s Kator?” he said, because he wanted to know.

“He married us. He is my brother.”

Her brother. She sat still, letting him look at her. He tried to find in her some similarity to Kator. He thought perhaps the eyes, but then that was gone too because all he saw was Renette, breathing there with that goddamn pearl winking at him.

“You don’t like him at all,” she said.

“Who cares?”

“I do, in a way.”

Jesso sat still. It was like the moment before a jump.

“Why?” he said.

“I don’t want him to get in the way.” After she said “way,” her mouth was still open, just parted, and nothing was in the way when the moment before the jump was gone and Jesso held her as if he had always been holding her.

She had given back the kiss but she hadn’t moved. Jesso sat up again. Her eyes were as they had been before, just looking at him, and then she put her hands where the dress ended on top and pulled it up. She did that while she said, “He didn’t get in the way,” and it sounded wrong. It made the gesture with the dress almost public, and it made Kator more present.

Now he wanted her more. Now he wanted her because she was there and not there, because he had started but had hardly started at all. And Renette looked to him as if she had waited a thousand years and all that kept him back was the puzzle of what waiting meant to her; whether waiting was an indifferent habit or whether it meant that the wait had grown like a fever and was searing her now, close to the end…

He moved again, but she was up.

“Jesso,” she said. “Jesso, wait.”

He stood next to her and held her arm.

“Wait for me, Jesso. In the next room. I’ll come back and we’ll sit in the next room.”

Her arm moved in his hand and she was walking to the door that led into the hall.

“There’s brandy in the cabinet,” she said. “The one by the fireplace.” Then she closed the door.

Jesso balled his hands and stared after her. She’d done it again, that trick of saying the wrong thing, of mixing things that didn’t belong together.

He went to the next room, which was almost dark. The only light came from a lamp with fringes hanging down from the shade, and from the fireplace. The fireplace was busy with red flames and being cozy and intimate, and the whole thing was so completely what might have been expected that he kicked at an overstuffed chair. And brandy yet. Sniff brandy and say things into the fire and she’d probably be wearing a hostess gown. Nothing slinky, of course, because now they knew each other, but probably a heavy brocade or some such lavish thing to make it festive and also lush.

He had the cabinet door open and saw the bottles and started to reach for one, just as he was expected to do. And of course there were the snifters, a row of them with big bellies. He slammed the cabinet shut, hoping to break something, but didn’t bother to check. Then he was on the second floor. There was also a third floor and another wing where the house angled about the garden, but she was probably here on the second floor. Both halls were dark. He went down the hall that angled to the right. At the end of the hallway there was light under a door. He walked in without knocking.

They both turned, the maid holding the house gown for Renette and then Renette, more slowly She finished shrugging it over her shoulders and held the front closed.

“Send her out,” Jesso said.

Renette turned to look at him. Her face was cold, he noticed, and if she had cared a little more it might have been mean. He looked where she held the gown and the damn thing was stiff, rich brocade.

“Get her out,” he said, and this time Renette nodded at the maid, who left obediently. When the door clicked shut, the silence was thick.

It wasn’t a very frilly room, but it was all female. Even the bed looked female.

“I’ll call you Renette,” he said. “Come here.”

She didn’t move.

He had his hands on her arms and ran his palm up and down. The brocade made a scratchy sound, feeling like tiny hooks on his skin.

“Wait, Jesso,” she said.

“Call me Jack.”

“I was coming back,” she said. “I didn’t expect-”

“Call me Jack.” He had her around the back now, the brocade like the tiniest hooks on his skin, millions of them, and then he felt her relax a little. She raised her head to him and she seemed smaller. Her shoes were off. He noticed the wide eyes looking and they were still waiting, but more blank now. Her mouth held a smile that was ready to make allowances.

“I’ll call you Jesso,” she said, and there was nothing friendly about it.

He bent down and kissed the mouth. Then he came up slowly.

“Try again,” he said.

There wasn’t time to answer.

Then he held her away a little and a line grew in the middle of his forehead.

“You don’t fight fair,” he said.

“I don’t fight.”

He laughed and looked at her hands, holding the gown together in front.

“You don’t let go.”

“I’m not holding you, Jesso.”

“You got it wrong.” His hands went over her arms again, scraping. “You’re supposed to give.”

She didn’t get it, and when he pulled her again she leaned away.

“You got it wrong,” he said again, and his hands were at her front, holding the lapels of the gown. When she shrugged and dropped her hands, the gown parted with a rustling like that of the old trees in the Allee.

She was naked, and beautiful. And like white stone.

“You bitch!”

She couldn’t answer then because his arms pressed the breath out of her, but she started to fight. It was crazy. He got her across the room, feeling the clawing of her nails, seeing her eyes, and he never knew it was fear.

When he woke the lights were still on. He got up, kicked his clothes out of the way, and turned the switch.

She lay still in the dim light from the night sky, eyes closed, but she didn’t seem stone any more. He lay down again, just touching her, hearing her breath. Then she moved.

“Jesso,” she said.

He could feel her heat as she turned.

“Jesso. Again.”