Part 33 (1/2)

'The Opera season will start in the fall,' Fehlgeburt said, 'and you and your family must leave the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re by then. Promise me,' she said, halting me from moving farther up her gaunt body.

'Why?' I asked.

'Please leave,' she said. When I entered her, I thought it was the s.e.x that brought her tears on, but it was something else.

'Am I the first?' I asked. Fehlgeburt was twenty-nine.

'First and last,' she said, crying.

'Do you have anything to protect you?' I asked, inside her. 'I mean, you know, so you don't get schw.a.n.ger schw.a.n.ger?'

'It doesn't matter,' she said, in Frank's irritating fas.h.i.+on.

'Why?' I asked, trying to move cautiously.

'Because I'll be dead before the baby's born,' she said. I pulled out. I sat her up beside me, but she - with surprising strength - pulled me back on top of her; she took me in her hand and put put me back inside her. 'Come me back inside her. 'Come on on,' she said, impatiently - but it was not the impatience of desire. It was something else.

'f.u.c.k me,' she said, flatly. 'Then stay the night, or go home. I don't care. Just leave the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re, please leave leave it - please make sure Lilly, especially, leaves it,' she begged me. Then she cried harder and lost what slight interest she'd ever had in the s.e.x. I lay still inside her, growing smaller. I felt cold - I felt the draft of coldness from under the ground, like the coldness I remembered feeling when Frank first read to us from Ernst's p.o.r.nography. it - please make sure Lilly, especially, leaves it,' she begged me. Then she cried harder and lost what slight interest she'd ever had in the s.e.x. I lay still inside her, growing smaller. I felt cold - I felt the draft of coldness from under the ground, like the coldness I remembered feeling when Frank first read to us from Ernst's p.o.r.nography.

'What are they doing on the fifth floor at night?' I asked Fehlgeburt, who bit into my shoulder, and shook her head, her eyes closed tightly in a violent squint. 'What are they planning?' I asked her. I grew so small I slipped completely outside of her. I felt her shaking and I shook, too.

'They're going to blow up the Opera,' she whispered, 'at one of the peak performances,' she whispered. 'They're going to blow up The Marriage of Figaro The Marriage of Figaro - something popular like that. Or something heavier,' she said. 'I'm not sure which performance - - something popular like that. Or something heavier,' she said. 'I'm not sure which performance - they're they're not sure. But one that's full-house,' Fehlgeburt said. 'The whole Opera.' not sure. But one that's full-house,' Fehlgeburt said. 'The whole Opera.'

'They're crazy,' I said; I didn't recognize my voice. It sounded creaky; it was like Old Billig's voice - Old Billig the wh.o.r.e or or Old Billig the radical. Old Billig the radical.

Fehlgeburt shook her head back and forth under me; her stringy hair whipped my face. 'Please get your family out,' she whispered. 'Especially Lilly,' she said. 'Little Lilly,' she blubbered.

'But they're not going to blow up the hotel, too, are they?' I asked Fehlgeburt.

'Everyone will be involved,' she said ominously. 'It has to involve everyone, or it's no good,' she said, and I heard Arbeiter's voice behind hers, or Ernst's all-embracing logic. A phase, a necessary phase. Everything. Schlagobers Schlagobers, the erotic, the State Opera, the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re - everything had to go. It was all decadent, I could hear them intoning. It was full of disgust. They would litter the Ringstra.s.se with art art-lovers, with old-fas.h.i.+oned idealists silly and irrelevant enough to like opera opera. They would make some point or other by this kind of everything-bombing.

'Promise me,' Fehlgeburt whispered in my ear. 'You'll get them out. Your family. Everybody in it.'

'I promise,' I said. 'Of course.'

'Don't tell anyone I told you,' she said to me.

'Of course not,' I said.

'Please come back inside me, now,' Fehlgeburt said. 'Please come inside me. I want to feel it - just once,' she added.

'Why just once once?' I asked.

'Just do it,' she said. 'Do everything to me.'

I did everything to her. I regret it; I am forever guilty for it; it was as desperate and joyless as any s.e.x in the second Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re ever was.

'If you think you're going to die before you'll even have time to have a baby,' I told Fehlgeburt, later, 'why don't you leave when we we leave? Why don't you get away before they do it, or before they try?' leave? Why don't you get away before they do it, or before they try?'

'I can't,' she said, simply.

'Why?' I asked. Of these radicals in our Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re I would always be asking why why.

'Because I drive the car,' Fehlgeburt said. 'I'm the driver,' she said. 'And the car's the main bomb, it's the one that starts all the rest. And someone has to drive it, and it's me me - - I I drive the bomb,' Fehlgeburt said. drive the bomb,' Fehlgeburt said.

'Why you you?' I asked her, trying to hold her, trying to get her to stop shaking.

'Because I'm the most expendable,' she said, and there was Ernst's dead voice again, there was Arbeiter's lawnmower-like process of thought thought. I realized that in order for Fehlgeburt to believe this, even our gentle Schw.a.n.ger would have had to convince her.

'Why not Schw.a.n.ger?' I asked Miss Miscarriage.

'She's too important,' Fehlgeburt said. 'She's wonderful wonderful,' she said, admiringly - and full of loathing for herself.

'Why not Wrench?' I asked. 'He's obviously good with cars.'

'That's why,' Fehlgeburt said. 'He's too necessary. There will be other cars, other bombs to build. It's the hostage part I don't like,' she blurted out suddenly. 'It's not necessary, this time,' she added. 'There will be better hostages.'

'Who are the hostages?' I asked.

'Your family,' she said. 'Because you're Americans. More than Austria will notice us, then,' she said. 'That's the idea.'

'Whose idea?' I asked.

'Ernst's,' she said.

'Why not let Ernst be the driver?' I asked.

'He's the idea man,' Fehlgeburt said. 'He thinks it all up. Everything,' she added. Everything, indeed, I thought.

'And Arbeiter?' I asked. 'He doesn't know how to drive?'

'He's too loyal,' she said. 'We can't lose anyone that loyal. I am not so loyal,' she whispered. 'Look at me!' she cried. 'I'm telling you you all this, aren't I?' all this, aren't I?'

'And Old Billig?' I asked, winding down.

'He's not trustworthy,' Fehlgeburt said. 'He doesn't even know the plan. He's too slippery. He thinks of his own survival.'

'That's bad bad?' I asked her, brus.h.i.+ng her hair back, off her streaked face.

'At this this phase, that's bad,' Fehlgeburt said. And I realized what she was: a phase, that's bad,' Fehlgeburt said. And I realized what she was: a reader reader, only a reader. She read other people's stories just beautifully; she took direction; she followed the leader. Why I wanted to hear her read Moby-d.i.c.k Moby-d.i.c.k was the same reason the radicals had made her the driver. We both knew she would do it; she wouldn't stop. was the same reason the radicals had made her the driver. We both knew she would do it; she wouldn't stop.

'Have we done everything?' Fehlgeburt asked me.

'What?' I said, and winced - and would wince, forever, to hear that echo of Egg. Even from myself.

'Have we done everything, s.e.xually s.e.xually?' Fehlgeburt asked. 'Was that it? Was that everything?'

I tried to remember. 'I think so,' I said. 'Do you want to do more?'

'Not especially,' she said. 'I just wanted to have done it all once,' she said. 'If we've done it all, you can go home - if you want,' she added. She shrugged. It was not Mother's shrug, not Franny's, not even Jolanta's shrug. This was not quite a human movement; it was less a twitch than it was a kind of electrical pulsation, a mechanical lurch of her taut body, a dim signal. The dimmest, I thought. It was a n.o.body-home sign; it was an I'm-not-in, don't-call-me-I'll-call-you signal. It was a tick of a clock, or of a time bomb. Fehlgeburt's eyes blinked once at me; then she was asleep. I gathered my clothes. I saw she hadn't bothered to mark the spot where she stopped reading in Moby-d.i.c.k Moby-d.i.c.k; I didn't bother to mark it, either.