Blood on Snow

Chapter 4

When I stand behind you in the underground, I always wait until our carriage goes over a join in the rails before saying anything. Maybe it’s a set of points where the track divides. Either way, somewhere deep underground where metal rattles and clatters against metal, a sound that reminds me of something, something to do with words, things falling into place, something to do with fate. The train lurches, and anyone who isn’t a regular passenger momentarily loses their balance and has to reach out for support, anything that can help them stay upright. The change of tracks makes enough noise to drown out anything I might want to say. I whisper whatever I want to whisper. Right at that point when no one else can hear me. You wouldn’t be able to hear me anyway. Only I can hear me.

What do I say?

I don’t know. Just things that come into my head. Things. I don’t know where they’ve come from, or if I really mean them. Well, maybe I do, there and then. Because you’re beautiful, you too, as I stand there in the crowd right behind you, looking at just the bun in your hair and imagining the rest.

But I can’t imagine that you’re anything but dark-haired, because you are. You’re not fair like Corina. Your lips aren’t so full of blood that I want to bite them. There’s no music in the sway of your back and the curve of your breasts. You’ve only been there until now because there hasn’t been anyone else. You filled a vacuum that I never used to know existed.

You asked me back to yours for dinner that time, just after I’d got you out of trouble. I assumed it was as a thank-you. You wrote the invitation on a note and gave it to me. I said yes. I was going to write that down, but you smiled to let me know that you understood.

I never came.

Why not?

If I knew the answer to things like that...

I am me, and you are you? Maybe that was it.

Or was it even simpler? Like the fact that you’re deaf and dumb and walk with a limp. I’ve got more than enough handicaps of my own. Like I said, I’m good for nothing apart from one thing. And what the hell would we have said to each other? You would doubtless have suggested that we write things down for each other, and I — as I’ve said — am dyslexic. And if I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now.

And you can probably imagine, Maria, that a man doesn’t get that fucking turned on by you laughing loudly and shrilly in that way deaf people do because he’s managed to write “What lovely eyes you’ve got” with four separate spelling mistakes.

Whatever. I didn’t go. That’s all there was to it.

Daniel Hoffmann wanted to know why it was taking so long to get the job done.

I asked him if he agreed that I should take care not to leave any evidence that could be traced back to either of us before I got going. He agreed.

So I carried on watching the apartment.

Over the following days the young guy visited her every day at exactly the same time, three o’clock, right after it had got dark again. Came in, hung his coat up, hit her. It was the same every time. At first she would hold her arms up in front of her. I could see from her mouth and neck muscles that she was shouting at him, begging him to stop. But he didn’t stop. Not until the tears were streaming down her cheeks. Then — and only then — would he pull her dress off. Every time a new dress. Then he would take her on the chaise longue. And it was obvious he had the upper hand. I suppose she must have been hopelessly in love with him. The way Maria was in love with her junkie boyfriend. Some women don’t know what’s best for them, they just leak love without demanding anything in return. It’s almost as if the very lack of any reciprocation just makes them worse. I suppose they’re hoping they’ll be rewarded one day, poor things. Hopeful, hopeless infatuation. Someone ought to tell them that isn’t how the world works.

But I don’t think Corina was in love. She didn’t seem interested in him like that. Okay, so she would caress him after they made love, and follow him to the door when he was about to leave, three-quarters of an hour after he arrived, and hold on to him in a slightly affected way, presumably whispering sweet nothings. But she seemed almost relieved once he had gone. And I like to think I know what love looks like. So why would she — the young wife of the city’s leading purveyor of ecstasy — be willing to risk everything for a tawdry affair with a man who hit her?

It was the evening of the fourth day when it dawned on me. And my first thought after that was how strange it was that it had taken me so long to work it out. Her lover had something on her. Something he could take to Daniel Hoffmann if she didn’t do as he wanted.

When I woke up on the fifth day I had made up my mind. I wanted to test the short cut to the place we didn’t know about.