One day he would pretend he didn’t hear her when she came home from work—even if she perhaps yelled to him some news, that she had been awarded, say, a coveted grant. He would pretend to be deep in his work, only greet her over an hour later. From Asja there was no exasperated “can’t you even say hello to me?” Instead, she simply put the fresh mozzarella and tomato salad he had made for their dinner down the drain, insisting even under duress that she had never seen such a salad—her face unimaginably blank. Later they would make fun of the neighbors together and the sex would be fantastic.
But once he did not help her to the hospital when she had an attack of asthma. In retaliation, she secretly erased the article he had been writing diligently for weeks, both the copy on the hard drive and the one on the back-up disk. Then months went by without sex of any kind, or even any acknowledgment of the other’s existence.
But as long as Asja was home, that was the main thing Amadeus cared about. He trusted that with her devotion to the church, she would never be unfaithful to him.
Margaret Taub, on the other hand, not a religious girl, had never once lashed out or been unkind, never done a harsh thing, never even ribbed him. Her love for him had disarmed her, she said. This was gratifying to Amadeus, made him feel the conqueror, but also made Margaret a bit unexciting. Submissiveness had its uses, but she was certainly no “true love” as Asja was. When Margaret finally did begin to turn vindictive, her claws emerging, he found his passion for her growing for the first time.
Amadeus knew that he was dependent on the lock-dance with women—deep down he believed he loved women more than life itself. What he couldn’t stand, couldn’t bear to even think about, was the prospect of losing any woman he had ever had. He made a point of trying to seduce each of his ex-lovers regularly, with even more dedication, not less, after his marriage. He became peeved if an ex-girlfriend left the country, or even left Berlin.
There was one night when Margaret was going to Paris on vacation, threatening never to come back to Berlin, when he completely broke down. He invited her over, exceptionally, to the apartment on Winsstrasse (Asja was away visiting “family”), and he was unable to keep his eyes off her all through dinner and kept his hands on her knees under the table, and then afterward, in the bedroom, he drank vermouth straight from the bottle and sang “I Saw Her Standing There” in such a way that it was meant for Margaret and Margaret alone, and then he started crying and was not able to stop, and then he started drinking schnapps, and pretty soon he was sobbing. He got slaphappy, insisted that he wanted to sleep with her even though he was clearly too drunk—he danced naked to the Smiths and put his head under her skirt, and then undressed her and kissed her breasts but as he was kissing them, he started crying again, his tears running the length of these upturned slopes.
Margaret was in transports.
He kept saying: “I rejected you so many times, I don’t know why I did,” until Margaret began to cry too.
But then the next day he wouldn’t go with her to the airport even though Asja was out of town and it was a Saturday, and Margaret’s face hardened and she took off the bracelet he had given her and threw it on the pavement in front of the café where they ate breakfast. Amadeus admitted to her that all the emotions he gave her were self-serving and cowardly, but he said it in proud defense. He said it was right of him—it was all he had ever meant to give to her. At least he was consistent.
TWENTY-SIX • Erich
Erich the Hausmeister stood across the street from the apartment house on the Grunewaldstrasse. He was hidden in the shadow of Number 54. From here he was leaning back on his heels, regarding Number 88 cannily. It huddled between two buildings more ornate than itself, but still it was apparent that Number 88 had once been a grand place to live, as Erich estimated with a certain paternal pride, although, precisely because his pride was of the paternal kind, not entirely approvingly. Number 88 was his adopted child—he would have