Achleitner to Adele. ‘I shall enjoy watching you make a fool of yourself with this girl,’ is what Achleitner said with the smile he gave Loeser. ‘Apparently Brecht has just got here,’ is what he said out loud.

Back at the entrance to the factory there was indeed a small crowd of what might have been Brecht’s parasites. But Loeser didn’t see Brecht. He did, however, see Marlene, who had evidently also just arrived. He felt dispirited by how chic she looked. She was even wearing a vogueish monocle. Adele, meanwhile, was standing on tiptoes to try and catch sight of the playwright.

A monstrous thought sank its fangs into Loeser’s brain.

He blurted something to Achleitner about how he ought to tell Adele the story of Brogmann and the lifeguards while he had a word with Rackenham. Then he took Rackenham aside.

‘I know we’ve only just met,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to ask a favour. Brecht will leave after twenty minutes. He always does. Could you just sort of distract Adele until then? Dance with her or something. Take some more “photos”.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m sure even a man of your proclivities can tell that Adele is the most beautiful female at this party. And not only that but she’s new blood. If he sees her, Brecht will go after her like Ziesel after a coffin full of ice cream sundae. And she’s hardly going to say no to him. Even though he doesn’t wash or brush his teeth.’

‘Why don’t you distract her yourself?’

‘My ex-girlfriend’s here.’ He looked around. ‘I’m not sure where she’s gone now, but she is. And if she sees me trying to seduce a naive eighteen-year-old ex-pupil then she may get the impression that my new life without her is not quite the model of mature sexual prosperity that you and I know it absolutely is. I can’t have that.’

‘Loeser, the child seems very lovely, but if I don’t sell the rest of this coke I shall have to hide from my landlady all weekend.’

‘Please, Rackenham. If Brecht doesn’t fuck her then I really think I might be able to. And I know it’s silly but I can’t help feeling that if I did fuck her…’

‘What?’

‘I can’t helping feeling that if I did fuck her, just once, then everything would be all right,’ said Loeser hesistantly. ‘For me. Even if I didn’t fuck anyone else this year. I know it sounds pathetic, but look at her. Look at her eyes. And I’d probably be her first. Imagine that! You and Achleitner wouldn’t understand because you two can just fuck whomever you want whenever you want. But it doesn’t work like that if you prefer women. Unless you’re Brecht.’ Or a Stent Mutton hero.

‘Well, I can hardly say no after you’ve been so frank, can I?’ There was a sardonic edge to Rackenham’s tone but there was also a genuine sympathy, and for just a moment, as Loeser looked into the Englishman’s handsome blue eyes, he felt a befuddling combination of tearful gratitude, unaccustomed optimism, and perhaps even a small homoerotic tremor. Probably something in the coke. Regardless, he thanked Rackenham warmly and they rejoined Adele and Achleitner, then Rackenham went off with the girl. He was about to explain the situation to Achleitner when he saw Tetzner standing near by, and he didn’t want a conversation about his drug debts, so he rushed off in the other direction, and that was when he collided with Klugweil.

The actor had his arms in a double sling that bore a regrettable resemblance to the harness that had injured him the first place. And he was in mid-conversation with, of all people, Marlene, which was unfortunate but wasn’t a total surprise, since he had always been the first man she flirted with at parties, even when she was going out with Loeser. Thankfully, Klugweil was devoted to his boring girlfriend Gretel, and in Loeser’s experience it was always boring girlfriends who lasted the longest — like some Siberian brain parasite, they seemed to shut down their host’s capacity to imagine a more exciting life.

‘Hello, Adolf,’ said Loeser. ‘Hello, Marlene.’

Klugweil just glared at him, and Marlene said, ‘The doctor says that his arms will never quite go back to how they were before. That’s what you accomplished today, and here you are at a party as if nothing had happened.’

‘I did almost get my nose broken.’

‘And worst of all, Adolf says you made some comment afterwards about how the machine was actually designed to injure him, and that’s why you gave it that name.’

‘No, I didn’t say that, I was only making a theoretical point about how the name of the thing couldn’t logically make any difference to whether or not—’

‘Oh God, you’re always making some point, aren’t you? Always some useless fucking point. Well, what about his arms?’

Loeser shrugged. ‘At least they didn’t get ripped off completely.’

Marlene gasped in disgust and led Klugweil away, presumably to counsel him not to slip into the darkness. ‘Hey, calm down,’ Loeser called after them. ‘I was joking. Adolf! You know I’m sorry about it really. I am!’

‘Oh, just fuck off!’ Klugweil shouted back at him, not very languidly.

Loeser thought this might be a good time to do some more coke. So he found Achleitner and they went off into a corner and started drafting lines on top of a sewing machine.

‘That wasn’t actually Brecht, by the way,’ said Achleitner. ‘It was Vanel, but he happened to be wearing one of those long red overcoats like Brecht always wears.’

‘So why was there all that commotion by the door?’

‘It turned out he had a corkscrew on him.’

‘Oh, I might as well get Adele back from Rackenham, then.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I left her with him so that Brecht wouldn’t notice her. He was very helpful about it.’

‘That was brave,’ said Achleitner.

‘Brave?’ said Loeser. Near by he heard one of those startling explosions of communal laughter that are distributed at random intervals through parties like moisture pockets in a fireplace log.

‘He’s very charming.’

‘Yes, but he’s hardly going to make a move himself, is he? He’s queer. Ideal chaperone.’

Achleitner cocked his head. ‘Not exactly.’

Another monstrous thought sank its teeth into Loeser’s brain, which made the previous monstrous thought look like an adorable snuffly pet. ‘What do you mean?’

‘As everyone knows, all those English public-school boys are Gillette blades. They cut both ways.’

‘But you said he was queer.’

‘I didn’t, Egon. I just said I fucked him. Not the same thing.’

‘You’re playing games with me.’

‘No.’

‘You must be.’

‘No.’

‘You must be because otherwise I will kill you and then kill myself.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not.’

Loeser made a run for the dance floor, but Adele and Rackenham were nowhere to be seen. He collared Hildkraut, who looked as if he were mourning the loss of his corkscrew monopoly. ‘Have you seen that girl with the long black hair and the big eyes?’ he shouted over the music. ‘She’s with an Englishman in a waistcoat.’

‘The short bony girl? Looks about twelve?’ said Hildkraut.

‘I suppose so,’ said Loeser. That others might not find Adele as attractive as he did had not even occurred to him.

‘They were here, but they left.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘Well, they were doing some coke, not very discreetly—’

‘He gave her coke?’

‘Yes. And then I think they went out by the back entrance.’

‘Fuck!’

Outside, there was nobody but Klein vomiting methodically into an upturned copper corset mould. Loeser dashed past him and out into the street beyond, but it was deserted, so he hurried back to the party, wondering if Hildkraut might have got it wrong about the other two leaving.

Вы читаете The Teleportation Accident
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату