Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 1. Whole No. 767, July 2005

Silk Road by Beatrix M. Kramlovsky

This is Beatrix Kramlovsky’s second appearance in Passport to Crime. The Austrian writer returns with a story that was nominated for Germany’s Friedrich Glauser prize for short crime fiction in 2004. Ms. Kramlovsky worked as a professional painter before starting to write fiction and she continues to pursue both careers today. She also describes herself as an enthusiastic “mother, gardener, and traveler.” She belongs to the Austrian chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Toward seven in the evening, Armin Pewlacek headed quietly up to his bedroom, double-checked the pens and papers he had spread out on the desk, looking for telltale signs that would reveal an unannounced motherly visit to his room, breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled off his clothes, and enjoyed a leisurely shower. A short time later, the telephone rang downstairs. He heard her light step, the creaking of the pearwood floor as she stood before the telephone, shifting her weight restlessly, waiting, as she always did, for the ring tone to finish before she picked up the receiver. Wasn’t it comforting, this predictability in all she did?

“Pewlacek.” Her voice was high when she spoke, rising on the last syllable like a question, as if she were unsure, after all these years, that this really was her name.

He stood motionless, and waited.

“Papa won’t be home till later; we’re supposed to go ahead and eat.”

Armin grunted his agreement, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him, and pulled on a sweat suit. One more look in the mirror. He hadn’t missed anything. Everything was under control. Whistling cheerily, he pounded down the stairs into the kitchen, where his mother stood working at the stove, her skin shiny from the steam.

The table had already been set for three. Armin hesitated only a moment before he cleared away the extra place setting and got out the candles and matches and the round glass candleholder he had given her for her last birthday. She turned around when she smelled the smoke, first startled, then smiling. To Armin, her pleasure felt like the softest flannel, warm from sleep. For a moment he closed his eyes and was, once again, a small boy lying in bed in the evening.

Why can’t I fly, Mama?

Because you have no wings.

If you were a bird, I would sit on you like Nils Holgerson on his goose, and we could fly out into the big wide world. Far, far away.

Oh, but that would make Papa sad.

Well, I hope so, he had thought, but he hadn’t said it.

She set down the steaming pot and lowered the ladle into the thick broth. He loved her economical movements. She didn’t fumble unnecessarily like some other mothers, artificially spreading their manicured fingers. She rarely wore anything but her wedding ring. Only once had he seen on her arm the ruby bracelet that his father had given her on their fifteenth wedding anniversary. In her simple way, Mama had a touching beauty, and it annoyed Armin every time his father felt it necessary to enhance it. But now she reached for her spoon, and smiled at him before she began to eat.

“Isn’t it cozy here, just the two of us?”

Her lips opened wider and the spoon, full of soup, vanished between them. It hurt so much to watch her, and at the same time it made him so inexplicably happy.

“Papa will be late again tonight. Work. Much too much work.”

Armin said nothing.

“I hope nothing will hold him up on Saturday.”

“Saturday?”

“Oh, Armin, now don’t tell me you’ve forgotten his birthday!” She laughed. He listened as she planned the dinner, named the guests. In a voice that was light and suddenly young.

“What are you giving him?”

“I’m not telling!” She laughed again, and he knew everything even before the sweat broke out on his hands as it always did. In his mind he saw his father untying the ribbon, folding back the tissue paper, carefully and with a very special expression on his face that Armin otherwise only saw when his parents believed themselves to be alone. His eyes would drink in the lace, the flowered straps, before he folded the tissue paper shut again and said, “I’ll save this for later.” And none of his friends was allowed to peek. Every year it was the same.

Mama was much more casual. Her gifts lay around to be looked at, pored over. It didn’t bother her at all when Aunt Margot ran her hands longingly across the silk ribbons, when Uncle Herbert plunged a greedy fist inside a still virginally-wrapped satin camisole. Papa didn’t like that. Armin knew this, and understood that these instances were among the rare occasions when the two of them agreed on anything.

“Papa has so much to do,” she complained, and he asked himself yet again why she had married him, why she waited patiently, for nearly two decades now, for him to come home, bringing his horrible work and all the thoughts that belonged to it into their small house.

“Why do you have such a hard time showing him how much you care for him?”

Her eyes focused on him, brooding, moss green with yellow flecks. In the sunlight they reminded him of light amber. He pushed back his empty soup plate. Her timing for “serious” talks had always been catastrophic, in his opinion. He made a noncommittal noise and stood up to clear away the dishes. He knew she was studying him intently. A view of his back, clad in gray. Presumably her forehead was wrinkled in consternation.

Did she look like that when she talked to his father about him? In their bedroom. Wearing the burgundy-red neglige, birthday 1997. Or the emerald-green boy-cut pants, Christmas 1999. Had she already noticed that the bodysuit was missing? The apricot one with five pale flower appliques on the front, with vermilion-red pistils and lime-green stems embroidered in the finest, thinnest thread? Their wedding anniversary in 1996. He had torn it unintentionally along the side seam. His shoulders were too wide; he’d really grown over the last year. That cool feeling on his skin, the faint scent of White Linen, her favorite perfume these last few months, had pricked his senses so much that the hair had stood up on his arms and legs.

“I mean, you show me how much you care.”

Her voice had a pleading tone now. But loving your mother doesn’t mean telling her everything. Even with Mama there was a limit as to how much she understood intuitively, and it was dangerous to expect too much from her. Armin turned around, the dirty plate still in his hand.

“Oh, Mama, don’t worry so much. Everything’s fine. We’re a happy family. I’m giving him something really special this year. It’s a surprise. So I’m not telling you, either.”

He was still smiling when he reached the top of the stairs and the door to his room. No, Father would never forget this birthday. The question was merely whether he would solve the puzzle in time, because he hadn’t shown any sign of that yet. The silk flowers, hadn’t they provoked any spark of recognition? But Father almost never talked about his work, at least never when Armin was there. Did he mention his investigations in the bedroom, as he gently pushed the satin camisole up over Mama’s shoulders? Did he say: You know, I saw one just like this today, on a corpse, the apricot-flower murderer.

No, Father wouldn’t talk like that. Work is work and schnaps is schnaps. I don’t bring the dead home with me. That’s the way he always interrupted colleagues at social events who began carelessly to talk about a case. Armin would have liked to know whether the investigations were conducted the way they showed them on television. If they were, his father would arrive upon the scene of the crime, follow the police officers to the body, look around him, observe all the tiny details, make notes, declare open season on the killer in the quietest of voices. He must have recognized the bodysuit. So carefully chosen; all the dark blue and black silk undies and bras had been considered and discarded. Armin had taken a lot of time for the decision. Did Father ask Mama about her underwear? Did she wear what he suggested or did she select it herself? Had she already begun to search for the pieces that were missing? The plum-colored ensemble had only been gone for two days, the high-cut panties and the underwire bra. The finest embroidery in eggplant and reddish-purple thread on stretch tulle. But just a little, just enough that you could run your finger over it. The fabric was so soft, you just couldn’t help holding it to your own skin. The woman this afternoon had understood that.

He got ready for bed, humming, and turned the light out. Subdued noise rose up from the first floor; Mama had turned on the radio. Armin liked the dark. The blackness didn’t frighten him. The woman, on the other hand, had gasped underneath the pillow, even though he spoke soothingly to her and told her it would be over soon. Yes, he’d really grown this past year, become a strong young man, broad-shouldered and imposing, according to Aunt Margot. And good-looking. In his own kind of way.

“You wait and see, now he’ll go out with the other boys and come home drunk for the first time and discover girls!” Aunt Margot had found this idea very amusing.

Mama, on the other hand, knew that remarks like this made him nervous, that he didn’t like them. Mama was sensitive and respected his silence. The woman this afternoon had talked so much. Talked and talked about nothing at all. Useless conversation. It never ceased to amaze him how easily he gained entry to strangers’ homes, how he was positively urged inside.

November. Soon Christmas decorations would appear in town, strung across the street to swing spectrally in the fog above the cars. As a small child, he had sung Christmas songs with Mama, for what now seemed to him like weeks and weeks. He had baked cookies with her, dipped lumpy candles. He loved the short days, the long twilight, the smell of damp wool. The first snow, the flakes drifting down hesitantly. He and Mama in a circle of light inside the warm house. Father’s arrival home in the evening came as a loud disruption of that idyll. His hand on the child’s shoulder was just the hint of a hug, but Armin always pulled quickly away.

My little man, Father often called him.

November. There had been pumpkins in the apartment of that other woman, the one three weeks ago, and colored corn cobs in a wooden bowl; a leafless branch of wild rose hips, glowing red, stood in a floor vase. Mama would have liked the sparely-furnished room. Only the plants added any color. And the apricot-colored bodysuit suited the scene perfectly.

Father hadn’t said anything. Only Mama had occasionally mentioned the new case since then. She probably didn’t know enough; the lingerie hadn’t been mentioned in the newspaper. Sometimes, when Armin brushed her hair for a quarter-hour, hard, the way she loved, she speculated on Father’s work and how it must be to be so close to crime.

The house had now grown very quiet. He heard the kitchen door squeak, and then her steps, moving into the living room. She would wait. For half her life she had waited. Had let time dribble away. Had oriented everything toward that moment when her husband came home. Toward creating a meaningful life for him. Thus the child: something for the lonely hours. Armin, there to fill the gaps in her days. Without Father it would be different. Better, he thought. For her, too. Finally her own life, with new goals. Would she still wear silk underthings then?

He stretched and looked at the glowing hands on his old alarm clock. The woman this afternoon had told him that she was expecting visitors this evening. They must have found her by now. And by now it would surely be dawning on the investigators that the murder three weeks ago wasn’t just an isolated case, it was the beginning of a series. Father was the specialist in cases like these.

Father would stand in the door and stare at the bared body, noting the synthetic blanket that had been drawn carefully over her head, over the pillow on her face. The hands laid across her naked belly, the fingers folded in a last prayer. The legs straight and close together, alabaster with fine blue veins. Like a statue that had fallen over. Father would recognize the dignity with which the body had been handled. A still life of death. Father would observe the silk panties and risk a brief moment of near-recognition. He would lift the blanket from the torso and suddenly see the purplish lace at the decolletage as if it were covering other breasts, against familiar skin. And how would he react then?

Armin turned over in bed. He’d have loved to be there, to watch it all, while Mama sat unsuspecting in the living room, reading and looking occasionally at the clock and the hands that moved much too slowly.

Father would have to think of the bodysuit. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. The uncertainty would tear at his mind. He’d run home, rummage through the drawer. Note the absence. One apricot and two plum-colored. Oh, how that would pain him. Armin groaned with pleasure.

What a dilemma! Father would have to cover up for him. He’d be the only one who knew. There were no other clues, no traces. Armin had been careful, had considered everything. And then the birthday this weekend! The package with Mama’s gift. Delicate underwear. Or maybe, this time, satin pajamas for him, wrapped around a book. Father loved coffee-table books on historic gardens and famous roads. Europe’s Amber Roads. The Via Appia. Route 66. The Silk Road. Armin giggled. No more silk for Papa! And just how would he explain that to Mama? Or would he be able to bring himself to go on buying lingerie, pandering to this secret vice in their relationship, all the time knowing everything? Imagining the dainty things on strange, cold, dead skin, and simultaneously on her, rosy and alive?

What a choice! What a life! Father in the vise grip of all the variations on deceit and silence. Mama would never forgive him either the one or the other. Father would be terrified that she might leave, terrified that the truth might come out. Career over. Marriage over. It was too wonderful!

A car drove by, and stopped in front of the neighbors’ house. Then a second. Armin’s brow creased. Usually nothing happened on their street in the evening. The house door opened. Father was home! At that instant, the apartment doorbell rang. But Father never rang the bell. Armin jumped out of bed. Downstairs, he heard his mother’s voice, astonished. A step creaked. Someone threw open his bedroom door, turned on the overhead light.

Blinded, Armin shut his eyes.

“You filthy...” whispered his father hoarsely. “You disgusting beast.” The voice broke.

Then Armin heard his father turn and go into his bedroom, and he opened his eyes. Two police officers stood there, shocked into breathlessness.

“Get dressed.”

They focused past him at the sky-blue window curtains with their pattern of white clouds. His mother appeared, her hair disordered, her hands covering her mouth. She gazed at him in horror, stared as if he weren’t merely a stranger, but also incomprehensible, unfathomable to her.

“Mama!”

He began to cry, and then suddenly to tremble all over. His body was seized with shudders. He shook so hard that he fell to his knees, and yet he went on screaming for her, wailing her name in desperation even between the spasms of nausea that made him vomit his dinner all over the floor.

“Now he’s throwing up the last remnants of his soul,” he heard one of the police officers say in disgust. His mother turned on her heel and disappeared. As if through a fog he registered that someone was handing him something to wear, insisting again that he get dressed. There was no answer to his cries. He heard nothing from the next room, nothing, just a silence that swallowed and utterly buried his hopes.

Minutes later, as they pulled him from the house, he was still shouting her name through his sobs, outraged that his father had chosen this response, aghast that his mother had made a choice that called into question everything he was, everything he believed. All his plans, all his prospects had turned out to be false, without substance. How could that have happened?

Hands pushed him into a car. He huddled there, a foul-smelling bundle of misery. Not a single neighbor would have given him credit for the evil of his thoughts, the ruthlessness, the cool planning. He tilted his runny-nosed, tear-streaked face up toward the brightly lit window of his parents’ bedroom. Naturally the curtains were already closed against the dark, but he could see the silhouettes of two heads, like black paper forms against the light.

He had no idea what they were saying, how they were looking at one another. He couldn’t imagine what lay dumped unceremoniously on the bed between them. A crumpled pile of stretch lace and Swiss guipure embroidery, flowers flocked on fabric, baroque richness in charmeuse, satin, and silk. And of course, he couldn’t possibly imagine his mother’s feelings, his father’s feelings, the purgatory he had made of their future.

And as he lay in his cell, his thoughts circling obstinately around the question of why his father had turned him in, his mother left the house, a sack in her hand. She ran down the street, turned the corner, ran again, until finally, at a safe distance, she came to a stop next to a garbage container. She raised her arm slowly and turned the sack over, allowing the contents to spill. The streetlight illuminated a glowing waterfall of lingerie slipping languidly down into the container, steel blue, the purple of figs, white, burgundy-red. Peach-colored chiffon wafted down to join the odors of decay and mildew.

Then she turned and staggered, crying, back to her home.

Copyright (c); 2003 by Beatrix M. Kramlovsky; “Die Seidenstrasse” first published in Liebestoeter (Scherz Verlag). Translation (c); 2005 by Mary Tannert.