A naked witch with smoky red hair, a witch with green eyes that glow in the dark, a witch with creamy white skin, this witch is sitting on my chest and I am buried in her body, and her hot hands are around my neck and her small thumbs are pressing hard into my throat and she throws back her head and she is laughing, a silvery chiming laugh, an inhuman pealing, a crazy clamor... I sat up, gasping for breath, and fought wildly with a mass of slippery stuff that was all around me, choking me. The distant din of church bells persisted. I tried to open my eyes. I was sitting naked on a bare four poster bed, stupidly holding the edges of the red satin sheets that had wound themselves around my head and which I had thrown onto the floor. I hurt all over. I wondered where I was. I wished the bells would stop their insistent toll.
I got up gingerly and went in search of water. I wandered around a maze of rooms until I found a kitchen. Dust lay thick on the counters. I pulled out an antique crystal tumbler from a cupboardand drank down seven glasses of water in quick succession. Tidal waves of nausea threatened to drown me but I gritted my teeth and held on. The bathroom was the size of a ballroom. I paid no attention to the rings of grime in the Jacuzzi. I was desperate. I fumbled with the complicated controls until I had jets of hot and cold water blasting me clean from every direction. I lay back in the tub and closed my eyes. I don't know how long I lay in the Jacuzzi but when I stepped out dripping I felt a little better. I felt even better after I had brushed my teeth with a black toothbrush which I picked out randomly from a pile strewn around the dirt-encrusted pink marble basin. I rubbed myself dry with a huge towel that might once have been white but which was now the color of smoker's teeth. When the towel reached my back I screamed in pain. I turned and looked at my back in the mirror. Ten trails of blood ran in neat parallel grooves from my shoulders all the way down to my legs. I fainted.
When I recovered consciousness, I may have sat on the edge of the bathtub and cried. I can't remember. The entire morning (or afternoon, I couldn't tell since my watch had disappeared) is in retrospect a complete haze. Pain refreshes in small measured doses, but these gaping wounds were simply too much to face, only days after my brutal beating from the Prague skinheads. I couldn't find my clothes anywhere so I wandered naked for hours, waiting for my wounds to heal or at least form scabs, walking from dining room to breakfast room to drawing room to billiard room to conservatory to library to guest room after guest room... The enormous apartment seemed completely uninhabited although I seem to remember seeing a middle-aged brown woman in a maid's uniform sitting placidly in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea. When she saw me walking around naked, the woman nodded and smiled, showing an expanse of broken teeth, but when I next walked into the kitchen she had disappeared. Eventually, I found my way back to the bedroom where I had woken up. I noticed a scrap of paper buried in the crumpled mound of satin sheets. `Liana. Kantstrasse. 9 pm,' the message read, hastily scrawled in an unfamiliar bold hand. I wondered if the message was meant for me. Who was Liana?
Even more arresting: who was Axel? The library was an immense room, each wall lined from floor to ceiling with rosewood bookshelves filled with first editions bound in calf leather. Each book bore the printed name plate: Ex libris Axel von Schadenfreude, with an elaborate coat of arms above the grandiloquent name. Axel von Schadenfreude was obviously something of a bibliophile; in fact, as I gradually realised after pawing through the books, most of which were in Latin and depressingly religious, he was one of Germany's largest Catholic publishers. What was his connection with Anastasia?
In another room with overstuffed sofas and coffee tables all shrouded with white draping, I found a gigantic canvas leaning against the wall. A naked woman stared out of the life-size picture. Curly auburn hair fell loose down to her slim waist. Her full lips were curled in an implacable sneer and her green eyes glittered with malice. One firm round breast mourned its twin which had been savagely hacked out with a kitchen knife, perhaps the same knife which lay next to the telephone... I picked up the phone receiver but there was no tone. The cord had been severed in a clean cut. I knew I had to get out of there. I went back to the bedroom and tried to find something to wear. The closet overflowed with piles of expensive crumpled clothing: lace lingerie and silk cocktail dresses and linen jerseys and brushed cotton polo neck sweaters and suede blousons as soft as butter. I managed to salvage some tights and an oversize grubby white silk blouse which I sincerely hoped would look enough like a shirt for me to walk to the nearest shop that sold men's clothes without incurring the ridicule of street urchins or the unwelcome attentions of other Berlin transvestites. I found my own overcoat miraculously hanging in the hallway amidst a crowd of other coats and even my shoes but my wallet was missing. However, I found a few thousand marks strewn around the foyer which I quickly pocketed.
I heaved a sigh of relief when I closed the door of the apartment behind me and walked down eight flights of stairs to the street. The church bells began to rung once again, as though I had set off some sort of trip wire: intent on fleeing Anastasia's lair, I ignored their warning. You see, at that time, I still believed in the possibility of escape. It is easy to be wise after the event.
Clothes make the man: clearly the first item on my agenda after escaping from Anastasia's apartment was to buy some clothes. I was in luck. The most fashionable shopping street in Berlin was just around the corner. I walked into an outlet of my favorite designers, Pour Jeunes Gentilhommes, picked out a few little necessaries (a sharp black six-button silk-cashmere suit, some simple silk shirts, a pair of pointy alligator boots), and asked the imperturbable sales clerk to burn the peculiar garments I was wearing. He raised his eyebrows slightly but then nodded with an air of blase comprehension when I gave him a generous tip and explained that burning those clothes was imperative for the maintenance of public hygiene.
I bought a plastic disposable watch on the street since I hadn't pilfered enough money to be able to replace my beloved platinum Bouvard et Pecuchet which my grandfather had bought in Zurich in 1925 and which he had sent to me on my eighteenth birthday through a French Embassy courier who could be sometimes be bribed to carry a few small presents from Mongolia. It was almost five in the afternoon. I wondered if Lulu was at her apartment. I found a phone box and called her.
"Darling!" Lulu sounded even more ecstatic than usual. "I had the most marvelous night of my life! How about you?"
"I can't remember," I replied. "What happened?"
"Nasty likes you. She called me from the movie studio and said she would never let you go." I shuddered. "Where are you, angel?"
"Near the Kudamm, I think, Lu."
"Baby, find the Pilsudski Hotel. I'll meet you in the coffee shop. I've got to talk to you before I go to Venice." And with that she hung up, leaving me staring enviously at the phone. Venice?
I wandered around the busy heart of Berlin until I found the ornate concrete wedding cake where I was to meet Lulu. She was already there, glowing. "Lulu, your aura is unbelievable!" I exclaimed, shielding my eyes from the glare.
"We're going to Venice tomorrow to get married. I've been waiting for Stash all my life! He's the man of my dreams!" A sour-faced waitress wandered over to our table, attracted by Lulu's radiance. She even smiled when she took our order.
"Why Venice?" I asked, ravenously devouring moist rich black chocolate cake. The perfect breakfast when washed down with cointreau café au lait.
"Because it's still there," Lulu replied, reasonably. "Who knows how much longer before it sinks?"
"Is Stash a romantic?" I asked curiously.
"Darling! He's even better. He's a cynic!"
"How long will your marriage last?"
"Oh, don't be so bourgeois, honey," Lulu chided. "We've already signed a post-nuptial agreement."
"What about Nectarino Nectarini? How is he going to handle all this love in Venice?"
"Who cares?" Lulu replied, heartless as ever. "Ex-fiances have rights to feelings?"
"And what happens now to the persona of Professor Louisa Frazer?" I asked curiously.
"Professor Frazer-Malinowski sounds even better," Lulu answered smugly. "I've always wanted a double barreled name."
"Will you send me a postcard from Venice?"
"Darling, of course," Lulu replied tenderly. "After all, I wouldn't have seduced him without your support. I told Stash all about it and we agreed that you're the godfather of our marriage. You have to give us presents on every anniversary."
I was happy for her. I said so. We kissed, fondly smearing whipped cream all over each other's faces.
But then she broke away and looked me in the eye. "I have to tell you about Midas," she said soberly.
"Who's Midas?"
"What is Midas," Lulu corrected me. "Now, honey, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Rasputin told me that he was investigating the mysterious death of Max Bulge."
"He told me that in Prague," I interrupted bitterly. "Before he killed poor Lucy and tried to frame me for her murder."
"Well, what he didn't tell you is that Bulge was a member of a mysterious club called MIDAS. Along with Eduard Kafir, the billionaire banker who just became toast in that mysterious fire in San Marino."
"So is this a club for dead billionaires?" I asked skeptically. "What's it got to do with me?"
"Xox is another of the members. And so is Sir Johnny Silver. As was Slo Lerner."
"Didn't he just die in a plane crash?"
"That's right. Now what do all these men have in common?"
"They're all billionaires. And some of them are dead. So what?"
"How does Terence Killjoy-Yuck know all these billionaires?" Lulu leaned back in her chair and stared at me.
"I don't know." I shrugged. "Maybe he plays bridge with them at some fashionable West End club. So?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, he does play bridge with some very rich people," Lulu nodded. "Which is interesting in itself. How can an Oxford don afford to play bridge for high stakes? Two hundred pounds a match point and he doesn't even play all that well anyway. But the important question is: why are there coded files about these billionaires in Terence's little notebook computer?"
"If the files are in code, then how do you know they are about these men? And how did you get hold of his notebook computer anyway?"
Lulu smiled wisely at me. "Guess, honey," she smirked. "The codes took Jonathan two weeks to crack. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to decipher any of the contents of the files since they self-destructed when he broke through the protection. All he managed to salvage were the names."
I stared at her. "Let me get this straight," I said slowly. "You seduced Terence..."
"No!" Lulu uttered a little shriek. "I wouldn't do that even for you, angel! Sleep with that vulture... ugh!" She shuddered. "No, I seduced Jonathan."
I gaped at her, aghast at the thought of Lulu toying with the virgin heart of that shy ungainly long-haired shambling gentle computer specialist. The image was too appalling to contemplate for very long. "How could you, Lu?"
Lulu giggled. "It was fun actually," she smiled, biting her lower lip. "I've always thought he's sort of cute. When you close your eyes you don't see the pimples."
"You are perverse," I said firmly. "You evil woman."
"Oi!" Lulu pouted indignantly. "Aren't you even a little grateful?"
"It's none of my business anymore." I shrugged. "I'm not working at the University of Truth and Justice anymore. I'm free."
"Oh, really, pudding-face? With a murder rap hanging over your head?"
"I'll just never go back to Czechoslovakia," I replied weakly.
"Do you really think this is about the stupid Czech police?" Lulu demanded sternly. "What about Rasputin? And why are you being followed?" I stared at her little finger which twitched discreetly towards a nondescript middle-aged man in a beige trench coat. He was sitting a few tables away from us, reading a German newspaper. I looked at Lulu in alarm. She nodded. "Didn't you see him last night?" she asked. "When we came out of my apartment building? And what was someone in a beige trench coat doing at a decadent Berlin nightclub? Saure said he let the guy in last night to find out whom he was after."
"Lulu, what is going on?" I asked plaintively. "What have I done? Why are these spooks after me?"
Lulu smiled at me mockingly. "You'll have to find out for yourself, sweetie," she said, getting up. "I'm going to Venice. Come and help me buy a wedding dress. And then we'll go to Liana."
"Who's Liana?"
"What is Liana," Lulu corrected me again. "It's a drug club. You'll like it. Nasty likes hanging out there."
"Oh, my God!" I moaned. "Is this all you people do? Go to clubs and sit around night after night drinking and taking drugs?"
"We also work like mad, sugarplum," Lulu answered acerbically. "I wrote a whole chapter of my new book and Stash and Nasty probably shot at least ten scenes of their movie. What did you do today?"
"I stole some money and then I bought some clothes," I said dismally. "I wish I were dead."
"It's the decadent lifestyle. Don't let it get you down, darling. You'll get used to it if Anastasia lets you stay. Nothing matters since we're all dead anyway," Lulu said reassuringly. She patted my cheek. "Welcome to the post-apocalypse, angel."
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