The God of the Labyrinth

  I found it all flattering. No writer ever gets so blasé that he doesn’t enjoy female admiration. I found myself charmed with Frau Dunkelman’s disinterestedness; obviously, she was not the jealous type.

  ‘Good. I told Clara we would try to go to see her some time today. She lives in Notting Hill Gate, so it is close. I have a picture of her.’ She opened her handbag and took out a wallet. I stood up to fetch it; she also stood up, and began searching in the wallet. She was wearing some faint but very pleasant perfume, and the soft material of the dress moulded the curve of her breasts and hips. ‘Ah, here it is.’ She moved closer to me, and her buttock pressed lightly against my loins. I experienced a tingle of desire that almost made me jump. The picture she was showing me was of a girl in ski-costume, standing at the top of a ski-jump. The girl seemed to be pretty and slim, but it was hard to tell.

  What surprised me was the pleasure I was deriving from lean­ing against Anna Dunkelman. She was lightly pressed against me, leafing through pages of the photograph wallet, and the warmth that came through the thin dress seemed to communi­cate itself directly to my penis. She seemed to have several photo­graphs of Clara Viebig. A close-up showed a pretty but slightly masculine girl with high cheekbones and a great deal of dark hair. She reminded me vaguely of Anna Dunkelman.

  Standing here behind her, looking over her shoulder, I was puzzled at the violence of my desire. Our sexual responses are so complex that it is hard to tell why a certain person exercises attraction; in this case, I was reluctant to place the entire blame on my subconscious. I stared blankly at the picture of the girl, trying to remember something. Suddenly, Anna Dunkelman said: ‘You feel warm.’ And without self-consciousness, she reached back and slipped her hand between her buttock and my loins. She left it there, flat, for a moment, then ran a fingertip lightly along the length of my now throbbing penis. I did what I had been thinking about since she came in: reached down to the bottom of her skirt, and slipped my hand above the top of her stockings.

  ‘That is good. We are friends. There is no reason why we should not treat one another with frankness. I am too old to be your lover, of course, and neither of us want this. But there is still a vestigial male-female attraction between us. We can be frank about this.’

  It was the right approach. The thought of carrying Anna Dunkelman to bed would have worried me. But she expected nothing. She said:

  ‘You will find that Clara is much more your type. She is a sweet girl. We should go and see her.’

  I thought this might be a good idea. I was beginning to experi­ence the same unhealthy lust as in the taxi with Angela, the kind of thing an exhibitionist probably feels: the desire to do some­thing indecent with my penis. Anna Dunkelman’s wet cleft seemed an ideal receptacle for it. On the other hand, caution told me it would be better to skip it. I said:

  ‘Yes. Why don’t we go over there now?’

  ‘Good. But first, I want to tell you a little about our plans . . .’ She took my hand quite naturally, and drew me to the settee. I sat down beside her. From her handbag she took several typed sheets. ‘This is in German. Do you read German? Then I will translate.’ She was sitting in the familiar position, leaning back, her thighs apart, the dress over the tops of her stockings. Her thigh was touching me, and I felt something like a faint trickle of electricity running from it direct to my loins.

  And then, abruptly, Esmond was there, and everything changed. It felt as if I had suddenly stepped out of my body, and was looking at myself from some other part of the room. The fever passed away. At the same time, with no definable mental process, I understood. Anna Dunkelman had power, a curious, primeval power that all women possess instinctively. But in most women it is buried under layers of personality, of inhibition. Anna Dunkelman had learned to free this power, and direct it. It would not be inaccurate to speak of it as a form of magic; the actual powers possessed by witches are basically of the same nature. And this, I saw in a flash, is why Witches’ Sabbaths are traditionally licentious, with the stripping off of clothes, inter­course with goats, and so on. She throws off inhibition and learns to concentrate her natural sexual power.

  Esmond understood Anna Dunkelman; he had known many of her type, and most of them were even more gifted. I found myself looking into Anna Dunkelman’s mind, and feeling a grue­some fascination. Unlike her husband, this one was not a pervert. Perversion springs from some deep psychological block. Klaus was hypnotised by the forbidden; the thought that anything was forbidden was enough to give him an erection. Like de Sade, he wanted to be wicked, to spend his life in a search for new and shocking things to do. Anna Dunkelman’s sexuality comple­mented this perfectly. The maternal instinct in her had been distorted into a kind of voracity. I saw clearly that she was bi­sexual, and that Clara Viebig was her lover. Her attitude to sex was oddly masculine: she would have liked to be possessed by every healthy male in the world, and to possess every pretty female. And she was insatiably curious; she wanted to be ‘in’ on everything. This, I saw, was her motive in grasping at me. I could add an air of intellectual solvency to her ‘group’ and attract disciples. Her plan was that I should possess her and Clara Viebig before the day was out; then it would be Clara’s task to keep a hold on me, with the airs of an infatuated disciple.

  I am not pretending that I could read Anna Dunkelman’s mind. All this was, in a sense, speculation: but speculation based upon Esmond’s enormous experience. It seemed obvious. And now I understood, it even seemed a little pathetic. She had too much energy and not enough opportunity to use it. Why should she not grasp at any possibility? It was understandable.

  She was unaware that she had ‘lost’ me; my insight came in a flash, while she was still unfolding the typed sheets. She held these open in one hand; the other moved between us, increasing the contact. And it was at this point that Esmond began to amuse himself. What he did was simply to draw upon my own sexual forces, and direct them against her. In fact, this was not entirely strange to me. I had always done it unconsciously, when in contact with any girl who attracted me. If a woman wishes to attract, she may flutter her eyelids or flaunt her charms; but if she is subtle, she keeps the surface demure, and uses the inner-telepathic charm that Anna Dunkelman was now using. The male seldom flaunts his attractions openly; from the beginning, his method is to appear disinterested. In a sense, therefore, I had an advantage over Anna Dunkelman in this matter. But I would not have known it without Esmond’s experience.

  I felt guilty about it; I didn’t really want to attract her. But I had to admit that there was poetic justice in it. It had become a game, a duel with wooden swords.

  She started to translate; and then the hand holding the paper trembled. She was resisting. She was used to being the witch, not the bewitched; she found the sensation unpleasant and bewilder­ing. I said politely: ‘Go on’, and increased the flow. She started to read: ‘The rules for a freely co-operative group of students of Reich . . .’, then stopped. ‘We ought to find another name for them’, I said. ‘Yes . . . we must think of a name . . .’ She regained confidence and went on reading.

  I had observed that her dress was zipped at the back, and held at the top with an enormous button. Now I understood its signifi­cance. Her loins were a weapon of aggression, a fly-trap for males; but her breasts were part of her femininity, the maternal part of her. I pointed at a sentence on the paper, saying: ‘What does that mean?’ The bone of my wrist touched the point of her breast. She winced and drew away. I placed my hand firmly on the breast and held it; for a moment, she lost control and tried to push it away with as little calculation as a frightened girl. Then she gained control again, and said in a remarkably steady voice: ‘That is a quotation from Reich . . .’ and began to trans­late it. I reached behind her, and carefully undid the large button. She repressed the temptation to stop me; after all, it was she who had talked about ‘treating one another with frankness’. I pulled down the zip, and saw
that her back was bare, except for the strap of her bra. I untied a bow at her waist, and drew the zip down to its limit, below the top of her panties. She said: ‘You are distracting me!’ ‘You’re distracting me.’ She tried to press back against the settee, but she was too late; I had already unclipped the bra. She sat back hard, and for the first time her control slipped; she was suddenly unsure of herself, tempted to fight me. Without looking at her face, I took hold of the shoul­ders of the dress, and drew it forward. It came away from her shoulders, which were white and statuesque. She would have looked excellent in a shoulderless dress in a Second Empire ball­room. Her breasts were large, and still good. I was struck by their whiteness, and the contrasting red of the nipples. I placed a hand over each of them and felt warmth flowing into her. There was something admirable in the way she tried to regain control, and partly succeeded. I knew what was happening to her, from the way her legs opened. She was experiencing the same feverish tingling I had felt earlier. She reached over and laid her hand on my trousers, then pulled down the zip of my fly. Before she could reach inside, I said: ‘Stand up.’ She hesi­tated, then did as I ordered. The dress fell on to the floor; she stood there in the pink panties, with a suspender belt over them, and sheer stockings. I drew her close to me, and took a nipple in my mouth. She began to tremble, and her hand strayed between her thighs and pressed tight. Then she saw that my own excite­ment was rising to meet her, and reached her hand down. I transferred to the other nipple. She suddenly raised her hands to her waist and started to push her panties down. The suspender belt prevented this, so she had to push the belt down too. I reached up one hand, and slid it between her thighs. Her genitals, which had obviously been recently shaved, were very firm, and the faint smell of animal excitement that came from them was pleasant. I felt her increasing tension, and her unwillingness to go any further; she wanted me to take the lead now. But as my finger pressed into the warm cleft, she suddenly said: ‘Please!’ It came out like an explosion.

  I laid her on the settee, and bared myself fully. As I moved on to her, she tried to reach down to guide me; I pushed her hand away. The panties and suspender belt formed a tangle in the area of her loins. I brought the head of my penis against the material of the panties and pushed. It entered the cleft and was caressed by warmth. She made another attempt to push the gauzy material aside, but as she did so, I pushed forward hard, at the same time pressing her breast with one hand. Her resist­ance vanished; I felt her dissolve, gasping, as the tide of the orgasm swept from her breasts to her loins, then back again. At the last moment, she sank into a solipsist universe in which there was only a pleasure that came close to pain. Her eyes were closed tightly, her loins tensed, her body arched upwards. Slowly, the frenzy passed, and she relaxed. She kept her eyes closed. I under­stood why; she did not want to look at me.

  The sound of the telephone startled us both. I zipped my trousers as I crossed the room to it.

  A man’s voice said: ‘Mr Sorme?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘You don’t know me. My name’s Nigel St Leger. I wonder if I could come and see you?’

  ‘The Nigel St Leger?’

  He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘I suppose you could say so. Could I come and talk to you about the death of Horace Glenney?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course. When?’

  ‘I’m quite close to you at the moment. Could I come over now?’

  ‘Of course. Do you know the address?’

  ‘Oh yes. Be with you in a few minutes.’

  When I looked around, Anna Dunkelman was already clasp­ing her bra. She said nothing. She stood up, and I helped her to pull up her panties. I felt her resistance, but she made no attempt to prevent me. I picked up her dress and helped her on with it. Then she said:

  ‘I suppose you think I am very stupid?’

  ‘No.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

  I could feel her getting angry. I held out her coat. She said:

  ‘Why did you not tell me?’

  I said the first thing that came into my head.

  ‘Perhaps I wasn’t allowed to.’

  She stared at me, suddenly interested. For a long moment her eyes stared into mine. She said:

  ‘I think I understand.’

  That was more than I could say.

  She went towards the door.

  ‘Well, we remain friends.’ She said it in her bluff, hearty manner. She was back in control again. She stood there, her coat open, her hand held out, her legs planted firmly apart. But it seemed absurd. I looked at the upstanding breasts, and down to her thighs; she was a woman pretending to be a man.

  And then, suddenly, she blushed. I had not realised the look had been so obvious. She dropped the hand, turned without a word, and wrenched open the door. I made no attempt to follow her. To begin with, I was glad to see her go. Secondly, I suddenly felt sorry. Esmond’s game may have been amusing; but it had left her exposed and vulnerable. What could she do now? Try to cultivate her feminine aspect? It would only lead to frustration. It struck me suddenly that there was one fundamental difference between Esmond and myself. He belonged to the eighteenth century, before the age of sensibility. For him, Anna Dunkelman’s discomfiture was funny; and beyond that, unimportant.

  I went to the window as I heard the car draw up outside; I recognised Nigel St Leger before he stepped out on to the pave­ment. I had never seen him in the television series that made him known to so many people; but I had a book about his cases, with a great many photographs. He was smaller than I had expected; but his walk had a determined forward drive that indicated something about his character.

  I met him at the door. ‘Mr Sorme?’ He shook my hand, but the smile struck me as bleak. I led him into the flat. He was a good-looking man, powerfully built, in his early fifties. I could imagine that his penetrating, rather cold stare had worried a great many prisoners in the dock.

  I said: ‘Who told you I was here?’

  He looked at me sharply, as if tempted to say ‘I’m asking the questions’; then said: ‘Dr Körner, naturally.’

  He took a cigar case out of his pocket, and offered it to me; I shook my head. He came over to me as I stood by the window, and stared into my face. He said: ‘I’ve never read any of your books, but I shall take care to do so now.’

  I said nothing. He crossed to a chess table near the window, and absent-mindedly moved one of the chess-men.

  ‘Do you play dominoes, Mr Sorme?’

  I said nothing. I was trying to make my mind a blank. St Leger stood looking at me, fixing me with his best prosecuting stare. Esmond said:

  ‘Greetings, domino.’

  St Leger was startled, and showed it. He recovered by going to the settee and sitting down. He said:

  ‘I gather you know a great deal, Mr Sorme. But you don’t belong to our house. And the Grand Master has never heard of you.’

  I knew I had better leave this to Esmond. There was no time to take my bearings. Esmond said:

  ‘Then you should have, shouldn’t you?’

  St Leger lit his cigar.

  ‘Apparently so. If all I hear is true.’ He tried to relax. ‘Let me make myself clear. I am not denying your right to belong. Your qualifications are obviously great. Incidentally, where do you live?’

  ‘In Ireland.’

  ‘Ah.’ I thought he seemed to expand. ‘Of course, there hasn’t been anything in Ireland for seventy years. Perhaps we might do something there.’

  He stared at the tip of his cigar; I had a feeling that he wasn’t certain how to handle this. Then he looked across at me.

  ‘How did you find out, Mr Sorme?’

  Esmond offered me no lead. I decided to tell the truth.

  ‘An American publisher asked me to write about Esmond Donelly. For the past few months I’ve been trying to track down his journals and papers.’

/>   ‘And you knew nothing before this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’ He seemed relieved. There was a ring at the doorbell, and we both started. He said: ‘Are you expecting someone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see. Then I think I know who it is. Would you mind?’

  But it was Angela. She said: ‘Chris gave me a lift. He’s had a terrible row with Otto . . .’ She came into the room, and saw St Leger, who stood up politely to greet her. She obviously recog­nised him. I introduced them, and they shook hands. He displayed a great deal more cordiality towards Angela than he had showed so far.

  ‘You’re a member of Dr Körner’s group? Charming! I presume it was you who introduced Mr Sorme?’

  ‘You know about them?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes, I know about them.’ Angela looked at me, hoping for information. I said:

  ‘Sir Nigel is the domino of the English house of the Sect of the Phoenix.’

  St Leger went pale; for a moment, I thought he was going to lose his temper. Angela said:

  ‘Is he joking?’

  St Leger was obviously put out.

  ‘He certainly has an unfortunate sense of humour.’

  Angela said to me: ‘Körner thinks you’re in the Sect of the Phoenix. What did you say to him?’

  St Leger cut in: ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think this is a subject that should be dropped. It could be dangerous.’

  Angela said: ‘Dangerous?’

  St Leger stared at her for several seconds, then stood up and went over to the window. I got the impression he felt more com­fortable on his feet. He looked out of the window, then said:

  ‘You asked me about the assassination of Lord Glenney. It is not a subject about which I know a great deal, but I can tell you one thing. Glenney was not the intended victim. Esmond Donelly was.’