I got my feet out of the coke, filled the second scuttle, looked for a broom, and when I found it I swept the lumps that had rolled out into the main part of the cellar back into the bunker, latched the door, and carried the two scuttles upstairs.
She had taken off her jacket, loosened her tie and undone the top button, and was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk. She saw me, began to choke with laughter, and then let it out in full-throated peals. She pointed at me and slapped her other hand on the table. “Look at you, kid, just look at you!” Then I caught sight of my black face in the mirror over the sink, and laughed too.
“You can’t go home like that. I’ll run you a bath and beat the dust out of your clothes.” She went to the tub and turned on the faucet. The water ran steaming into the tub. “Take your clothes off carefully, I don’t need black dust all over the kitchen.”
I hesitated, took off my sweater and shirt, and hesitated again. The water was rising quickly and the tub was almost full.
“Do you want to take a bath in your shoes and pants? I won’t look, kid.” But when I had turned off the faucet and taken off my underpants, she looked me over calmly. I turned red, climbed into the tub, and submerged myself. When I came up again she was out on the balcony with my clothes. I heard her beating the shoes against each other and shaking out my pants and sweater. She called down something about coal dust and sawdust, someone called back up to her, and she laughed. Back in the kitchen, she put my things on the chair. Glancing quickly at me, she said, “Take the shampoo and wash your hair. I’ll bring a towel in a minute,” then took something out of the wardrobe, and left the kitchen.
I washed myself. The water in the tub was dirty and I ran in some fresh so that I could wash my head and face clean under the flow. Then I lay there, listening to the boiler roar, and feeling the cool air on my face as it came through the half-open kitchen door, and the warm water on my body. I was comfortable. It was an exciting kind of comfort and I got hard.
I didn’t look up when she came into the kitchen, until she was standing by the tub. She was holding a big towel in her outstretched arms. “Come!” I turned my back as I stood up and climbed out of the tub. From behind, she wrapped me in the towel from head to foot and rubbed me dry. Then she let the towel fall to the floor. I didn’t dare move. She came so close to me that I could feel her breasts against my back and her stomach against my behind. She was naked too. She put her arms around me, one hand on my chest and the other on my erection.
“That’s why you’re here!”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. Not yes, but not no either. I turned around. I couldn’t see much of her, we were standing too close. But I was overwhelmed by the presence of her naked body. “You’re so beautiful!”
“Come on, kid, what are you talking about!” She laughed and wrapped her arms around my neck. I put my arms around her too.
I was afraid: of touching, of kissing, afraid I wouldn’t please her or satisfy her. But when we had held each other for a while, when I had smelled her smell and felt her warmth and her strength, everything fell into place. I explored her body with my hands and mouth, our mouths met, and then she was on top of me, looking into my eyes until I came and closed my eyes tight and tried to control myself and then screamed so loud that she had to cover my mouth with her hand to smother the sound.
CHAPTER SEVEN
T HE NEXT night I fell in love with her. I could barely sleep, I was yearning for her, I dreamed of her, thought I could feel her until I realized that I was clutching the pillow or the blanket. My mouth hurt from kissing. I kept getting erections, but I didn’t want to masturbate. I wanted to be with her.
Did I fall in love with her as the price for her having gone to bed with me? To this day, after spending the night with a woman, I feel I’ve been indulged and I must make it up somehow-to her by trying at least to love her, and to the world by facing up to it.
One of my few vivid recollections of early childhood has to do with a winter morning when I was four years old. The room I slept in at that time was unheated, and at night and first thing in the morning it was often very cold. I remember the warm kitchen and the hot stove, a heavy piece of iron equipment in which you could see the fire when you lifted out the plates and rings with a hook, and which always held a basin of hot water ready. My mother had pushed a chair up close to the stove for me to stand on while she washed and dressed me. I remember the wonderful feeling of warmth, and how good it felt to be washed and dressed in this warmth. I also remember that whenever I thought back to this afterwards, I always wondered why my mother had been spoiling me like this. Was I ill? Had my brothers and sisters been given something I hadn’t? Was there something coming later in the day that was nasty or difficult that I had to get through?
Because the woman who didn’t yet have a name in my mind had so spoiled me that afternoon, I went back to school the next day. It was also true that I wanted to show off my new manliness. Not that I would ever have talked about it. But I felt strong and superior, and I wanted to show off these feelings to the other kids and the teachers. Besides, I hadn’t talked to her about it but I assumed that being a streetcar conductor she often had to work evenings and nights. How would I see her every day if I had to stay home and wasn’t allowed to do anything except my convalescent walks?
When I came home from her, my parents and brother and sisters were already eating dinner. “Why are you so late? Your mother was worried about you.” My father sounded more annoyed than concerned.
I said that I’d lost my way, that I’d wanted to walk through the memorial garden in the cemetery to Molkenkur, but wandered around who knows where for a long time and ended up in Nussloch. “I had no money, so I had to walk home from Nussloch.”
“You could have hitched a ride.” My younger sister sometimes did this, but my parents disapproved.
My older brother snorted contemptuously. “Molkenkur and Nussloch are in completely opposite directions.”
My older sister gave me a hard look.
“I’m going back to school tomorrow.”
“So pay attention in Geography. There’s north and there’s south, and the sun rises…”
My mother interrupted my brother. “The doctor said another three weeks.”
“If he can get all the way across the cemetery to Nussloch and back, he can also go to school. It’s not his strength he’s lacking, it’s his brains.” As small boys, my brother and I beat up on each other constantly, and later we fought with words. He was three years older than me, and better at both. At a certain point I stopped fighting back and let his attacks dissipate into thin air. Since then he had confined himself to grousing at me.
“What do you think?” My mother turned to my father. He set his knife and fork down on his plate, leaned back, and folded his hands in his lap. He said nothing and looked thoughtful, the way he always did when my mother talked to him about the children or the household. As usual, I wondered whether he was really turning over my mother’s question in his mind, or whether he was thinking about work. Maybe he did try to think about my mother’s question, but once his mind started going, he could only think about work. He was a professor of philosophy, and thinking was his life-thinking and reading and writing and teaching.