Petra woke Sean early to the gray dawn of Paris.
On the street rival gangs of youths raucously argued about the boundaries of each other's territory. He would have preferred to while away the morning making love to Petra, except Vanessa was sleeping on the other side of the bed, so he had to be satisfied with nestling together like teenage lovers and a simple kiss on the lips. Anything else would have to wait, till they were alone again.
An hour later Petra got out of bed and hurriedly dressed in jeans and one of his shirts, then went to the open window. Looking down on the bustle of Rue des Ecouffes, Petra remarked, "I thought Paris was bright lights, fountains, and fashion shows, but I can live with this."
While Petra was enthralled with this excursion into what she considered a return to the roots she had abandoned upon becoming Hamburg's top call girl, she began to grasp that she was leaving more than a life behind.
Gone were the nice hotels, the delicate foods, and the designer clothing, but she could live without them all as long as she had Sean.
"Is New York like this?"
"Where I live is, but we won't be going there any time soon."
"Shit, I nearly forgot why we are here." Petra turned around, biting her lower lip, for only one nightmare remained to blight her expectant happiness.
"I did too. I don't think that's the case for Vanessa."
Sean arose from the bed and went to hold Petra.
She put her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. He breathed in the fragrance of her body. Petra kissed him on the lips, and caressed his face as a promise for more later.
"Better wake her. It's getting late."
Sean went into the bathroom and Petra shook Vanessa's shoulder slowly, till her eyes fluttered open.
"It's morning. How did you sleep?"
"Good," Vanessa lied, for she had been tormented with a repetition of dreams in which she lost something and could not find it, because she did not know what it was. Waking to find herself without Kurt had answered that mystery in an instant.
"Wie geht's?" asked Petra.
The two had bonded in the back seat and clarified each other's positions for Kurt and Lukas. Neither held anything against the other and would help each other through this last chapter of Kurt Oster's life.
"I am good as can be expected." Vanessa had spent too much time crying to be convincing. She let down her guard and succumbed to the gravity of her sorrow. "When do you think we can see Kurt?"
"As soon as the morgue opens." Petra put her arm around the younger girl as she would do for a sister, but something in her face told Petra that Vanessa still didn't believe that Kurt was dead. People never do until they see the body and nothing takes the mystery out of life faster than the corpse.
"I don't know whether I am ready for this." Vanessa tried to reinforce the strength within herself, knowing that when she saw Kurt's dead body, she would break down.
"I will be with you."
When Sean emerged from the shower, she signaled for him to get the car. He made a face, but her scowl sent him scurrying from the room.
Vanessa sat on the bed. Her eyes were puffy and red. She wiped her nose delicately, then folded her arms and stared across the room, trying to transport herself to another world. Petra pulled her up and onto her feet.
"Go take a shower. It will make you feel better."
Vanessa remained in the bathroom for what seemed like forever and several times Petra worried whether the young girl had committed suicide. Many people had killed themselves for less. She was relieved to hear the shower shutting off. Vanessa emerged from the bathroom, Petra was slightly discomforted by the blonde girl's nakedness, but asked, "Better?"
"A little. I used some of your make-up. I couldn't go see Kurt the way I was looking," Vanessa apologized, then dressed in the jeans and tee-shirt.
When the two women left, Petra took the briefcase with the money with her. It was probably safe, but she would feel better about the money having been stolen from her rather than an empty room.
The BMW was double-parked on the narrow street, blocking traffic. Sean waved for them to hurry up before a gang of Jewish thugs attacked him, though their aggression was stripped away by the sight of the two women.
They began fighting about who saw which woman first.
Vanessa and Petra sat in back, leaving Sean to play chauffeur again. All he needed was the uniform and cap.
Driving across Rue Du Rivoli, he momentarily considered taking the ladies to the morgue the long way, but none of them had come to Paris for a scenic tour. He headed east down the quai and they passed Ile St. Louis and Bastille.
"How far is the morgue?" asked Vanessa.
"Right here."
A blue and white Metro train snaked out of a tunnel and Vanessa gasped upon seeing the yellow-bricked building serving as Paris' house of the dead.
No one needed to be told it was the morgue.
Anyone could recognize it was what it was.
Anyone living that was.
The three of them walked across the hard-packed earthen path to the morgue's front door. The clouds overwhelmed the sun and cast the trio in a somber shadow. Sean smelled the sickly odor of the dead over the heavy exhaust from the morning traffic stalled on the inbound quai. The three of them looked at each other with obvious reservations, then they all took a deep breath and climbed the stairs together into the building.
The immaculate hallway was grim and institutional. There were no directions as to where they were go, but instinctively they entered the office to the left. None of the workers behind the counter lifted their heads. They all felt themselves cursed with having to work a Sunday on everyone else's vacation in France. There was no mistaking this atmosphere for anything, but an branch of the famed French bureaucracy.
As Sean approached the counter, the wire-haired matron rolled her eyes and demanded dismissively, "Quais, Monsieur?"
"I'm here for my brother." Sean presented his fake passport.
Her hand inched toward the documents for him to fill out in triplicate, which would take him two hours to complete after which she would tell them to come back after lunch. Before she could put the forms on the counter, Vanessa stepped forward and rattled off in eloquent French, that they were here to see a dearly beloved and wanted to see him now.
The elegance of Vanessa's appearance and speech made the woman sit up straight as well as being told that she was addressing 'La Baronesse Von Hausen'. The other workers perked up their ears to eavesdrop on the conversation with this creature from the upper strata. Having beheaded a king had purged little of the French urge to kowtow to the aristocracy.
A white jacketed doctor appeared from a closed room, carrying a single folder.
Neither Sean nor Petra could follow the dialogue between Vanessa and the medical examiner, however they were ushered from the office and down the hallway. The young doctor turned to Sean and said in English, "I am very sorry about your loss."
"Thank you. Do you have a cause of death?" Sean was curious about what had killed Kurt outside the bank in Geneva.
"No autopsy was performed as ordered, but you have many choices. Drug overdose, heart attack, barbiturate/alcohol poisoning, the combination of all three." The doctor's eyes flitted between Vanessa and Petra. His comment on 'being ordered' suggested that Cali had paved the way for a smooth burial with money, which was the only thing a French functionaire might understand more than the order of things taking place in the right sequence. "Could you enter 'natural causes'?"
"Normally you would have to wait, until tomorrow for the burial. Due to 'special circumstances' after the viewing we will bring the body to Pere-Lachaise for cremation. Identifying the corpse is a mere formality."
"Thank you." Sean managed, as they descended from the first-floor to the basement. Something rose and sank quickly in the back of his throat.
"Yes, it takes some getting used to, the smell," the doctor pronounced, leading the way down a hallway where the cloying stench of formaldehyde and decay ratted into Sean's nostrils.
A buzzsaw whined against a material harder than bread, but softer than rock. Petra had to support Vanessa. They stopped at a door and the doctor wrapped on the glass-viewing porthole.
"Your brother is resting here. Are you ready? You will find he looks very much like you remember. In fact, almost healthy."
The doctor pushed open the door to a small tiled room. A white-jacketed technician stood beside a small table. A white sheet covered the form resting on it. There was no mistaking whatever lay underneath for anything other than a body. The doctor approached the head of the table and put his hand on the corner of the sheet. He stared at the three and waited for a signal.
Vanessa exchanged a hesitant glance with Petra and Sean. This was her call. She lowered her head and the doctor pulled down the sheet. It was Kurt.
Sean put his hand on the German's forehead. The skin was lifelessly cold. Kurt was dead.
The doctor regarded Sean, then asked, "C'est lui, oui?"
"Oui, c'est mon frere." Sean replied in the low tone from the lump in his throat.
Vanessa choked back a sob, but not the tears streaming down her face. She murmured under her breath for Kurt to get up, then leaned over and kissed him on the lips, thinking maybe that could wake him like Sleeping Beauty, but her loved one had voyaged beyond the pale of this life onto the other side.
She straightened up and backed away, her hand over her mouth. Petra again took the stricken blonde under her care. She looked at her longtime 'friend' and cursed him for dying for such a stupid reason, though two days ago she had been as close to death as you can get and she had forgiven herself and someday would do the same for Kurt. The three of them had seen enough and Sean signaled the doctor to cover the dead man's face. All that remained was for them to bury the dead. For the living that was always the hardest thing about dying.
Out in the hallway the doctor had Sean sign a release, then told them that the State mortician had a hearse waiting in back and they could follow Mssr. Oster up to Pere-Lachaise cemetery. Sean thanked the doctor and led the way out of the morgue, relieved that he wasn't the one on the marble slab, scarily aware that the secret of human life was the desire to continue on, regardless of the odds.
Sean opened the back door to the BMW, but Petra said, "You ride in back. She wants to speak with you."
Sean had been dreading this, since first seeing Vanessa at the studio apartment. She was going to grill him for the details of Kurt's death and there was nothing heroic about the way her lover had died. He sat in the back and the door thunked shut like a coffin's lid. Vanessa blew her nose, then licked her lips and swallowed to fold back the tattered edges of her soul. She succeeded where most would fail.
Petra took the wheel without turning around to either see her passengers or check on the traffic. The BMW pulled away from the curb and circled the city morgue to the delivery entrance, which was like any other shipping dock in the world, except for the packaging and the trucks delivering the goods to their final destination.
"Thank you for this."
"I was Kurt's friend."
"And I thank you for that. Please explain what happened in Geneva."
She had really assumed the title of baroness in more than just name.
"I was in the bank." Sean told the truth, for the despair in Vanessa's eyes demanded the truth. "He was exhausted from taking too many drugs. I suppose I could have told him to stop, but then the only person who can stop an addict is himself."
"Or death," Vanessa commented, as the doctor supervised two workers in blue overalls load Kurt's coffin a black hearse. Both were smoking cigarettes to overpower the death house smell. He sniffed at his leather jacket and could detect the sickly-sweet stench of the dead, then swore he would never wear these clothes again.
"He spoke about you before he went." Sean regretted having added this to his report.
"He did?" Vanessa turned to him with the expectation of someone hearing a voice from beyond the grave.
Sean weighed out whether to tell Vanessa the truth or lie. It was a hard decision and he said, "Yes, he wanted to be with you and forever. He told me that he loved you."
Petra’s eyes disapproved in the rearview mirror and he expected Vanessa to take issue with his version of Kurt's demise, except she said, "Thank you."
With that she turned her head forward, presenting him with an almost surreal classic profile. Sean had trouble taking his eyes off her, until the BMW lurched forward to follow the hearse along the Canal St. Martin around Bastille and up Rue de Rocquette. Pedestrians paid no attention to the coffin laden black van, since hundreds of similar processions occurred each and every week.
The hearse entered the cemetery through high granite walls and climbed through the ornate tombs to the oddly modern crematorium. Neither chimney was smoking, though Kurt's arrival would soon change that.
Skirting the necropolis they went out back, where two workers were waiting as well as several unexpected mourners; Jonny Werth, Bertram, and Cali all of whom must have flown down to be with Kurt for his final send-off. No one here was playing priest and he could tell by the grim look on their faces no one was going to say prayers aloud either.
Both attendants were pleased, since they belonged to the communist union, the CGT. Without a cleric the process of cremation would be a simple matter of sticking the corpse in the oven and turning up the flames, until the flesh was incinerated from the bones, then crushed into small fragments.
Everyone greeted each other with muted words. Cali called Sean over to the side. He was wearing a black suit and tie as was Jonny. Sean apologized for his attire, but Cali waved his hand, "I want to thank you for helping Kurt this way. He would have appreciated the service."
"It was the least I could do. How are you doing?"
"I will survive, but Hamburg is in a turmoil with the death of Lukas. The newspapers are going wild, but the police are saying that it was justifiable homicide in light of his involvement with the other murders." While he held his left arm stiffly to his side, Cali's face had regained its natural mahogany sheen, a testament to his strong restitutional coefficient. "What are you doing after this?"
"I'm going away for a long time with Petra."
"That sounds like a good plan."
"And you?"
"Me, the more things change, the more they stay the same."
"So you're still King of the Reeperbahn."
"Someone has to rule that street and it might as well be me." Cali bowed his head and clicked his heels. "I will get to Africa and Harlem and many other places one day. You see, I am difficult to kill."
"So I noticed." Sean deflated the black pimp's bravado by saying, "Unlike Kurt."
"Yes." was the only word Cali could muster in response and he excused himself wordlessly to join Vanessa and Petra. Other people arrived, whom Sean recalled from his nights at Kurt's house in Paris. How they had heard about the cremation was beyond him. They didn't recognize him or chose to avoid him. Either way was fine with Sean. He was happy to be left alone with Petra.
Somehow the Stones' YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT started playing in his head. He forgot whether he had seen it in a movie or that the song was really appropriate for the situation. The attendant wheeled the trolley carrying Kurt's body inside to the ovens. Sean sagged against the wall and Petra asked, "What's wrong?"
"That could be me."
"It could have been any of us, only it is Kurt. And why? Because it was his time to go," Petra stated the truth so succinctly that there was no need to add any epithet.
"Shouldn't we join everyone else?" Sean spied the other mourners entering the crematorium.
"No, they are all adults and can handle it themselves. I would prefer to go." Petra had her fill of dead and dying for a lifetime.
"What about Vanessa?" Sean watched, as Bertram accompanied the baroness inside.
"Cali will take her back to Hamburg. That's where she belongs." Petra nuzzled his neck, sending a chill to the center of his soul. Love was what he had wanted and love was what he was going to get.
"Should we say good-bye?" Sean felt funny about just leaving, although all the loose ends could take care of themselves. They usually did.
"I think everyone can live without it." Petra took his hand and led him back to the BMW. Sean lifted his head to the blue sky and the breeze brought him the scent of a city still steeped in summer. "Petra, what do you say to staying in Paris for awhile? We can go to India after the monsoons."
"I was hoping you'd say that." Petra had been daydreaming about living in this city all morning. Nowhere else in the world seemed so perfect to be in love.
Her nightmares were left behind in Hamburg, but then they always could have been, if she had deserted her desire for revenge. That sacrifice had been too much to ask from herself before, though now having accomplished her mission, she experienced a mild emptiness of the soul. As if everything she had been no longer existed, except as a fading memory. It was almost too good to be true and she prayed it wasn't.
"Yes, we'll always...." Sean stopped himself before he repeated that famous line from CASABLANCA.
We'll always what?" asked Petra.
"We'll always remember today." Sean couldn't come up with anything better, but luckily he had Petra with him, because she added, "And tomorrow."
"Yes, tomorrow." Sean pulled Petra closer with his arm around her waist. "We'll always have tomorrow."
It sounded better than what it was, because it was truth. Sean smiled. He was with a woman he loved and couldn't ask for anything for more than that. The only thing bothering him was the price and it would for a long time. It always did, when you were one of the only ones left standing. THE END
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