I WOKE UP alone and my face was stiff with cold. I vaguely remembered a dream, a different dream than the one about Molly, but the images had dissolved upon awakening. All I knew was that I had heard my father’s voice. ‘Pack your bags. We’re leaving.’ Those were his words. For a long time I lay on my back, thinking about the lost dream, when suddenly I was aware of the crackling of the hearth-fire. I sat up, and only then did I see the glow of the flames. A brisk, lively fire was burning in the grate, not too wild, the sort of fire that quickly heats up a room. I looked at it and thought: For two days I’ve been playing boy scout, I assumed I was the only one who knew the art of firemaking. I sank back and began thinking about Nina. She’s a woman, not a child anymore. Thirty. I talk to her as if she’s an adult, but I treat her like a child. I want to let her lean on me, when I’m the one who … Crime and Punishment. Those were her words. Always been alone, led my own life, looked after myself. So I wouldn’t have to be dependent? So I’d never feel guilty? I frowned. ‘Doctor Spielvogel,’ I said, closing my eyes, ‘do you think I want to sleep with my mother and murder my father?’
‘Good morning.’
I shot up. Nina was standing at the foot of the bed holding a tray. She walked round to my night table, swept aside my still-life of candle, matches, hip flask, and Alka Seltzers, and put down the tray. ‘You didn’t tell me you were doing a correspondence course in psychology.’
She picked up the mug of coffee from the tray and handed it to me. I stared at her smiling face and moved my lips. ‘Are you going to take this, or did you want me to help you drink it?’
‘You’d better hurry. I’ve filled the bath. There’s another bucket of water boiling on the stove, but if you wait too long, there won’t be any left.’
‘Good grief,’ I said.
She was still smiling. ‘But I must warn you. I took the liberty of going first and I didn’t feel like lugging all those buckets upstairs again, so you’ll have to make do with second-hand water.’
‘God, you’re …’
‘Terrific? Good enough for now. We’ll get around to fantastic.’
Zeno, I thought. Zeno, you’ve changed us both: me, into a bowl of mush, her, into a pillar of right-mindedness and reason.
I drank the coffee, nerves came to life, muscles filled with blood, the cobwebs of sleep melted away. Nina took the mug and handed me a plate with two thick slices of bread and cheese. I was just about to bite into one of the sandwiches, when I looked at her and said, ‘I had a dream …’
‘About Molly.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I dreamed about my father. He said, “Pack your things. We’re leaving.”’
‘And when you woke up, you thought: Why not try the Oedipal approach for a change?’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Sorry? Again?’ She picked up the mug she had brought for herself and drank. ‘The unimpeachable integrity of Nathan Hollander.’ She put down her mug and looked at me impudently. ‘If we ever get out of here, you ought to ask for the phone number of Uncle Herman’s call girl.’ I looked at her, unmoved. ‘What you need,’ she said, plucking an invisible speck of dust from the sleeping bag, ‘is for someone to give you a good shaking. Honestly, Nathan, you’re my uncle, and I like you for all sorts of reasons, but you’re also an unbelievably bourgeois sonofabitch, with that tame life you lead and those impeccable manners.’
I lowered the plate to my lap and picked up my mug. The hearth was burning cheerfully. I had lit sound, responsible fires. Fires that didn’t use too up much wood, or too little. But this: a feast of flames and warmth. Nuncle Chaim, I said to myself, Magnus, help me.
I ate my bread, finished my coffee, and climbed out of bed. Nina piled the breakfast things onto the tray and left the room. I pulled on some clothes, socks, and shoes, and went upstairs.
The bathroom smelled of sandalwood. Two large towels were hanging on the rack, next to the bath stood a wooden stool, and on top of that was my shaving gear and a washcloth. I felt the water. It was still agreeably warm.
Agreeably warm, I thought. Agreeably goddamn warm.
I started getting undressed, laid my clothes on the sink, and stepped into the bath.
For two days we hadn’t been able to wash. The water felt so good, it made me want to sing. I picked up the shaving brush from the stool and wet it. Nina came in with a steaming bucket. She grabbed a towel and supported the bottom of the bucket as she lifted it above the water.
‘I’ll pour it in at your feet,’ she said. ‘Very slowly. Just say when.’
It warmed up fast, but I didn’t want her to stop. By the time the bucket was empty, my forehead was beaded with sweat. I felt the warmth soaking into my bones. I laid my head on the edge of the bath, eyes closed.
‘You look tired,’ said Nina.
‘I am tired.’
She rolled up her sleeves and reached for the washcloth lying on the stool. She dipped it in the water and rubbed it with a bar of soap. ‘Sit up straight.’
‘Why …’ I started to sit up. ‘I may be old, love, but I’m not an invalid. Leave me …’
‘Stop whining, Nathan.’
She came and stood behind me and began lathering my shoulders. I sat up and felt the rough cloth chafing against my skin. From my head to my toes, I felt my resistance draining away. I wanted to fight this hospital treatment, but I had no strength, no will. She washed my back, my chest, dipped the washcloth into the water again and scrubbed my face. ‘Lie back.’ I did as she said and closed my eyes.
‘Thank you,’ I said after a while. My voice sounded hoarse.
‘Don’t you need to shave?’
I picked up the bar of soap and rubbed it between my hands. Nina sat down on the edge of the bath and watched as I lathered my jaws. Her right hand played idly in the water. I picked up the razor, placed it next to my ear, and drew the first pink tracks through the foam.
‘Is it still sharp?’ she asked.
I felt the water move.
‘The razor. Is it still sharp?’
‘Yes.’ I began on the other side of my face.
The water rippled back and forth. A silky ebb and flow over my stomach and thighs. I felt something I didn’t want to feel and took a deep breath. The blade scraped across the stubble, I ran my fingers over my jaws to see if I had missed a spot. Clean. I thought: dirty and clean at the same time. ‘I’m coming out.’ Nina stood up and grabbed one of the towels. I looked at her for a moment and then got up. If she hadn’t stayed in there with me, I would probably have spent another half hour in the warm water. When I was standing on the floor, dripping wet, she wrapped the towel around me and started to rub.
‘Nina.’
She was rubbing me down like a horse.
‘Nina.’
‘What?’
‘I can do that myself. Thank you.’
‘Stop whining, Nathan.’
‘Your vocabulary certainly has improved in the last twenty hours.’
She turned me round and dried my legs. ‘Maybe I’ve just realized that you’re not the type that thrives on intelligent conversation.’
‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. Here, you can do the rest.’
I leaned over, splashed some bathwater on my face, and dried myself off. Then I got dressed.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed in the hunting room, putting on my shoes, when Nina came in to ask if there were any clean clothes.
‘I’m using Uncle Herman’s things, whatever fits, underwear and socks.’
‘What about me?’
I went to the cupboard and pulled it open. ‘Take whatever you need.’
She rummaged around until she found a pair of heavy tweed trousers, a couple of T-shirts, and a few pairs of socks. She laid the pile of clothes on the foot of the bed and began undressing by the fire.
Although we had been in the house for two days now and spent two nights in the same bed, I had never seen her naked. We had always gone to bed in shirts and trousers because of the cold. Now she was taking off her clothes, right here in front of me. I averted my eyes.
‘N?’ I looked sideways. She was wearing a T-shirt and Uncle Herman’s corduroys. ‘My panties and bra are lying in the kitchen. I washed them in the bath this morning and laid them out to dry by the stove. Would you get them for me?’
It was only when I was back in the hunting room and about to hand her the two wisps of lace that I realized she had nothing on under her clothes. ‘I’ll go get a fire started in the library,’ I said, holding out her underwear.
‘I’ve already done that.’ She ignored my outstretched hand and pulled the T-shirt over her head. I turned away.
It was a while before she spoke.
‘May I have my things, or are you just going to stand around playing with them?’
I held my hand out behind me, but felt nothing. When I turned around again, she was standing there naked. Before I could say a word, she took the panties, stepped into them, grabbed the bra, and put it on. I shook my head and walked out of the room.
Sure enough, the fire in the library was burning, but it had already died down a bit. I threw on more wood and stared into the hearth from my chair. In my head the trains of logic rode back and forth. They changed tracks, waited at the station, sped past each other, and disappeared from view. For a long time I sat there, a helpless victim of my own thoughts. Then I stood up and went back to the hunting room.
‘Listen here, young lady,’ I said, as I walked in.
Nina was sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing only her underwear.
‘If you think I’m naive enough to let you practise on me, you’re dead wrong. This is going to stop right now.’
She said nothing.
‘Did you hear me?’
She looked at me, but I couldn’t tell by the expression on her face if my words had sunk in. I felt anger rising inside me like boiling milk.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ she said finally.
‘Do you know what you need?’ I shouted. And I thought: My God, I’m shouting, I’m raising my voice. ‘You should have had a stricter upbringing!’ I thought it sounded rather weak myself, this continuation of my initial threat.
‘And who do you think should’ve done it? What about you? Are you going to teach me a lesson?’ She turned round and crawled onto the bed, her buttocks towards me. She pulled down her panties, and said, ‘Punish me, Nathan. Go ahead, punish me.’
‘Dammit, Nina.’
‘Punish me.’
I took a step towards her, voices began crying inside my head. Then I raised my hand and spanked her.
She screamed.
‘Jesus.’ I heard myself and was shocked by the distance between the man who had spoken and the other man, within. I laid one hand on her back and brought the other down on her buttocks. Not hard, but I could hear the blows echoing in the room.
‘Punish …’
‘God.’
‘Bad …’
I recognized something in her voice. My hand came down and whacked against the soft skin. Molly.
I froze, my hand in mid-air.
‘Please.’
I felt the two Nathans that I was become one again.
‘Punish Nina.’
I had an erection. I turned around and held my head in my hands. I crumbled like an old house. Then I felt Nina’s arms around me.
‘Nathan,’ she said. ‘Don’t.’
Not my name, I thought, not my name. I shook my head. She turned me round. She was naked. ‘Come.’ I let her lead me to the bed, and on the way there, I became someone else. The man who forced her down on her back, took her nipples in his mouth and bit them so firmly that she whimpered, wasn’t me. It was a beast that took her, as if that were simply a law of nature. He pushed her legs apart, slid into her and fucked her as if it didn’t matter who she was, or what. She moved against him as if she only wanted him more, her head went from side to side. She slipped out from under him and crouched over him. Her pelvis moved. He ate her. Eat me. Eat me. Eat me up. She came, shivering, fell on top of him and lay there for a long time. Then he felt her lips around his glans. Her tongue circled around it and he felt his erection harden. She took him deep in her mouth, her head moved up and down. She got on her hands and knees. He came up behind her and slid inside. They fucked in silence, until she looked over her shoulder. He felt his heart skip a beat. He felt her hand. She was touching herself. She was panting. He felt her belly tighten under his hand. His other hand clutched at her breast. From far, far away came the tide of his orgasm. ‘Nathan.’ He heard himself. Breathing like a god on the last day of Creation.