Page 10 of Geist Fleisch
He looked around for somewhere safe. Damn it, safe fromwhat?
The bright lights of a passing car reflected off the snow, revealing a series of doors he recognised. The women’s bar! Theywouldn’t look for him… Hell, they weren’tlookingfor him! They could speak directly to his mind. They’d find him, all right.
Unless…
He ignored odd looks from the last few women gathered around the tables in the bar’s darkest corners. He also ignored the bartender’s scowl as she grunted something at him in German.
“Entschuldegung, Fraulein…” he began, not sure how to continue.
“Closing,” she said, firmly, pointing to the clock behind the bar. It was close to midnight.
“Please?” he asked, somewhat piteously. “Ein Bier? Bitte?”
She shrugged, fetching him a glass. At this time of night, a pint sold was a pint sold. The woman mumbled the total and Callum dumped a few pfennigs from the change he’d collected at Eldorado. He’d meant to give it back to Frank. That Rohm bastard had distracted him. Then, he’d seen bigger monsters make short work of Rohm’s bully boys. Monsters, who moments before had kissed him goodnight and told him to enjoy Berlin like a happy little tourist. He stared into the bubbles of his beer, waiting for what? For more of the voice that had invaded his head? The one he couldn’t quite attribute to either Jacqueline or Robert, but which had rattled his nerves all the same? Were they coming? Would they find him here? Would somethingworsefind him here? The bartender gave him another odd look.
Right. Closing. Bollocks.
He took a long pull of his drink. He needed more than a beer, but didn’t want to push his luck trying to order something stronger, and he had never developed the taste, nor the stomachfor schnapps. He had… three minutes? He jumped as the door banged behind two women leaving the bar. All right, think, you jittery bastard, think!
He snatched up his beer and disappeared once more into the toilets, where he could at least be left alone. If they came looking for him in this place, already a big ‘if,’ they wouldn’t—
They’re already in your head, idiot!
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror again, looking even less healthy than before. He looked like he ought to be in bed. Maybe more to drink wasn’t a great idea. He barely noticed the glass slip from his fingers until it hit the floor with a loud crack and shattered. Beer-soaked shoes to match his beer-soaked shirt. Welcome to fucking Berlin.
Had someone turned up the music outside? He frowned, certain now that he could hear a vibrant piano being played, instead of the somewhat sombre record the bartender had put on to kick out her last regulars. Unless… No, he’d imagined all that, hadn’t he?
Just as he was imagining it now.
Dandy boys stepping together in intimate embrace on the dance floor, another in shabby looking coat tails providing musical accompaniment, and the same gruff, barrel-shaped bartender who’d refused his coin. The place seemed even busier, though not so busy he couldn’t recognise the scarred young man in the blue shirt. The one who’d somehow cooled his drink, then kissed him.
He had to leave. Then never come back to this place where they put God knew what in the drinks! That had to be it. He’d imagined this bar, he’d imagined the voice in his head, and he’d imagined the two faces stained with Nazi blood. It was late. He’dgotten lost. The lights, liquor, and cold had disoriented him, and it was time to go home. He’d walk all the way back to Neukölln if he had to.
He crossed the room and pushed back the curtain that concealed the front entrance, only to be greeted with the same wood panelling that covered the sides of the room. No handle. No doorknob. Not even a window.
The scarred man smiled at him. Callum didn’t know why he smiled back. The stranger was not such a bad illusion, but he was an illusion, just the same.
He’d come in through the toilets, hadn’t he? Easing his way through the crowd, he returned, finding the room empty, to his relief. In the mirror, he stared at his own reflection, face full and healthy as it had ever been, freshly shaven at Anne’s insistence, which made Callum look more boyish than probably suited him. But he’d looked nothing like this in the real bar. It so shocked him, he barely noticed the piano, still playing, not getting any softer as he stared.
“Eine schöne Aussicht?”
Callum turned to the voice that had come from his right. “Eh?”
The scarred man smiled with only half his face, which Callum soon realised was all he could manage, probably due to the same injury that had caused the scarring. The stranger rocked lightly on the balls of his feet, like a shy boy unsure what to say to a girl he fancied. Or to a boy he fancied.
The man drew closer, pausing as he stood inches from Callum’s face. He sniffed the air. “Bier?”
Why not? “Bitte,” Callum said, before remembering the beer that had soaked through his shoes into his sock. Did the stranger mean to offer or was he commenting on the smell? Callum could smell it, which made the whole illusion seem more real. Perhaps he’d hit his head.
The fellow grinned, tilting his head to the curtained entrance.
Where else did he have to be? Callum followed the man past the young guys sitting at the bar. Several were already dancing, arms around one another in a way Callum had never seen before coming to Berlin. They were all so young. Excluding the bartender and the pianist, barely a handful looked over twenty-five, and those that did would have been thirty at a stretch. Yet there were few unblemished beauties. Callum saw at least two eye patches, one man limping towards the bar, hands that were missing fingers, and countless scars, some much more serious than those on his suitor.
Suitor? Well, listen to you, all posh and hoity, he thought.
Something in him seized up as he approached his new friend’s table, where the same group of friends now looked up and stared at him with a faint mix of curiosity and amusement. The new novelty at Chez Fritz.
“You found him again?” asked a friendly-looking dark-haired fellow whose slender frame was drowning in an off- white shirt. Sitting next to the bloke in the string vest, the one who’d tried on Callum’s shirt and kissed him in the toilets, the speaker looked like a pirate captain drinking with his mate.
