Tours of the Black Clock

72

THIS MORNING I RETURN to Dog Storm Street. Megan watches with anguish; she’s still in the window when I look up from the street. I won’t try to explain it. At my old flat there are Germans waiting; a soldier sees me and fumbles quickly with his telephone. Another emerges from the doorway with a gun, looking for the first. I suppose they have orders to arrest me on sight. I suppose they have orders not, under any circumstances, to cause me harm. They approach and I knock one of them down. Shoot me, I laugh at them. They can only wait until Holtz shows up. I go on upstairs; there’s someone else living in my flat, a fat New German. I open the door and he jumps up off the bed, I take his things and throw them out the window onto the street. I salute him, Heil, I salute the soldiers below. The landlady runs upstairs and when she sees me her eyes grow wide and she begins to shriek; I salute her too. Holtz arrives in almost no time, he gets to the top of the stairs as I’m throwing the fat New German down them. He reassures the landlady and coaxes her down the stairs; he turns to me and says, Banning, such a spectacle. He’s furious with me but he doesn’t want me to leave again. We have an agreement, he says, smooth and disappointed. Tell him, I say, that I’m fucking her. Tell him I fuck her all the time, and she sings for me from the bed, tied by her hair. I fuck her many ways, tell him that. Tell him, I’m saying to Holtz, my face inches from his, tell him I ravish her over and over. For a moment Holtz says nothing, only smiles slightly. But Banning, finally comes the response, he’s counting on it.