‘Tails,’ I say.
He slaps the coin down on the back of his hand. His drooling mouth.
‘Feeling lucky, are we?’ he says.
‘Maybe,’ I say.
He narrows his eyes, squints at me. His eyeballs are tinged orange. What is that? Liver disease, heart disease? He tilts open his hand.
‘Ha!’
Removes the hand in a flourish.
The angular eagle, the swastika in the wreath. Deutsches Reich 1943.
Heads.
He steps up to the girl, leans into her, slobbers in her ear and straightens up again.
‘Are we on?’
The alcohol is rank on his breath.
_ _ _
Kindler’s dick.
She sucks it erect. It is red as fire, a dog’s dick.
_ _ _
Kindler holds her knees together with one hand, presses them upwards to her chestbone and bats aside the flaps of his coat. His boots are by the bed.
He crumples her up, flattens her, grinding away inside her.
He slaps her in the face a couple of times and increases his cadence.
Her neck is stretched, her head turned towards me, but she is not looking at me. At first there is only her rhythmically jolting head and the slap of flesh against flesh, then a trickle of blood from her left nostril, and Kindler opens his mouth, a torrent of obscenity, groans and stiffens, empties himself inside her.
My Efka has burned out between my fingers.
_ _ _
Kindler is asleep, his breathing ceases, then from the darkest depths a sudden eruption as he heaves in air like a man drowning.
The girl is seated on the bed with her hands between her knees.
The tartness of cold and semen.
I stand up and lift my father’s travel bag onto the table. I take out zu Gutenberg’s uniform and hold it up in front of me, judging the size against the sleeping Kindler. The girl follows my movements with her eyes. I arrange my weapons at the bottom of the bag and place it by the door, hang the uniform over the back of the chair, put the cap on the table.
I pick up the jug from the washstand and fill up the samovar.
‘Have you got firelighters?’ I say to the girl. ‘Firelighters?’
‘Gospodin?’
‘For the samovar … come on!’
She gets up from the bed, takes her top from the bedpost.
‘Don’t put your clothes back on.’
She fails to understand. I snatch the top from her hands, lead her to the samovar, my hand around her neck.
‘Tea,’ I say.
Her hands tremble as she gathers kindling and a couple of firelighters. She cannot hold the match still. I squat down too, and now we are next to each other.
I snap the dry twigs into smaller pieces and insert them under the samovar, get a flame going and stare into it. The flame is blue, it licks and devours, it leaps in the darkness.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No, gospodin.’
Do you understand pee … piss? Do you need to …?’
I gesture with my hand.
She shakes her head. I nod, indicating the samovar.
‘Tea first,’ I say.
The water boils. I open the tap and fill the little teapot, then pour a small cup and hand it to her. It steams in the cold of night.
The girl raises the cup to her lips.
She is afraid. She smiles. I put a blanket around her.
‘What’s your name?’
She says nothing.
‘Your name? Sjto tebja zovut?’
‘Irina.’
‘Heinrich. Menja zovut Genrikh …’
She empties the cup, looks up at me.
‘I think I need to now,’ she says.
‘Drink some more. We’ll wait.’
_ _ _
‘No, not me. Him …’
I point at Kindler. His mouth is open. The bridge in his lower jaw has dislodged, a verdigris copula on which he chews, a skeleton, a roll of barbed wire transversing his gaping mouth, he sucks and chomps, his tongue around the metal, slavers and mutters, chokes and splutters.
‘Gospodin …?’
‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘I know him.’
She goes over to the bed, looks back at me.
I nod and she straddles Kindler’s face, the open jaws, hesitating still.
‘Yes, yes!’ I say.
She presses a hand to her crotch, the muscles of her abdomen tense, and then it comes, a couple of ragged splashes at first, then a forceful, unsteerable cascade into his face, into his mouth. I step up and put my hands on her hips, steering as she drenches him, pisses all over his uniform, his leather coat, his hands, his filthy hands.
Only gradually does he come to his senses, reach a hand between her legs, fling her hard against the wall.
‘What the hell …!’ he bellows, his feet on the floor at once. ‘What the … fucking hell …!’
He rises from the bed, bewildered for a moment, grabs his P38 and racks the slide, turning towards her. She has curled into a ball, hugs the wall, hands cupped around her neck: the serrated ridge of her spine, her jagged knees, her scrawny body. I am across the room in one movement to knock his hand away. He lashes out, I swivel and lock my arms around his stomach.
‘Sigmund …!’
‘I’ll fucking … fucking …!’
‘Sigmund! You told her to yourself. You told her to, only you can’t remember!’
His eyes are so close to mine. He could destroy my face with his bare hands.
And then he starts to laugh.
‘Fucking hell! Did I really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fucking hell. She’s pissed all over me …’
_ _ _
Zu Gutenberg’s uniform fits him perfectly. I adjust the collar. Kindler sways gently as I place the cap on his head. He takes out his little box and shakes a pill into his palm. He opens his mouth and I place the small, round tablet onto his tongue.
‘You look much better now,’ I say.
‘I’d better be off home,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You better had. Come on.’
_ _ _
We step out into the alley in front of the shed. Kindler stands for a moment looking forlorn. I guide him up to the road and shove him onwards before turning back down the alley on my own. He staggers out into the road, his legs unsteady. Reaching the pond, I drop the bag and take out the StG 44, click in the
