'She was short and dark,' Winter said, 'and her face was as broad as yours.'
But he couldn't visualize Captain Kudashvili either, although he swears he heard the name every day. 'Ja, of course, der Kudashvili. He was the sergeant of the block, the General of the Schwindgasse. "You watch out, you mind your manners," the mothers would tell you, "or der Kudashvili is taking you away." Oh ja, he was blonder than a German's German, he was as fat as a Russian's bear. He wore elevator shoes.'
'He never did,' said Utch. 'He was tall and lean, with a long sad face and a mustache like black wool. His eyes were gray-blue, like a revolver.'
'Oh, that one!' Severin Winter cried. 'Of course I remember him.' But he didn't; it was just his clever tooth talking again.
But why couldn't they remember! Children were scarce. Out of rarity, alone, all the children must have looked at each other. Children stare at each other - even now, when there are so many.
'There was a lot of forgetting going on,' Utch told me.
Yes, and much of it was hers. She must have been uncomfortable about her guardian captain's job. Drexa did not make things easier for him. At supper, Kudashvili allowed her to eat with Utch and himself, despite Drexa's babble.
'Well, Captain, you must have heard,' Drexa would say. 'Old Gortz is gone - the machine-parts store up Argentinierstrasse? He owned it for years.'
'Gortz?' Kudashvili would say; his German was better than he let on.
'Just disappeared,' Drexa would say. 'Overnight. His wife woke up and the bed was empty. She woke because suddenly she felt cold.'
'Men are poor weak creatures, Drexa,' Kudashvili would say. 'You have to marry a good one if you don't want him to run away.' And to Utch he'd say, 'You're going to be lucky. You won't ever have to marry anybody until you want to.'
'Ja, Utchka will marry a czar!' old Drexa would cackle. She knew that was old Russia, but she liked it when the captain raised his black eyebrows at her.
'The czars are gone, Drexa.'
'Ja, mein Hauptmann, and so is Gortz.'
'You must have known what was going on,' Severin said once to Utch.
'I knew what was going on before too,' Utch answered.
'So, what's the difference between one Gestapo and another?' Winter asked.
'Kudashvili took good care of me,' she said.
We were sitting in our living room late one evening, after dinner. It was often awkward when all four of us tried to have a conversation; by then, it was Edith and I who talked to each other, and Utch and Severin. Still, if such things are ever going to work, it must be thought of as a relationship between four people, not two couples. The whole point was not to be clandestine, but it was Severin who would never give the four of us a chance. He would either be sullen and say nothing, or he would get into these long family-history harangues with Utch and expect Edith and me to listen. He was uncomfortable, so he tried to make us uncomfortable too. Sometimes, at their house, he'd appear holding Utch's coat out to her immediately after supper, in the middle of a fairly relaxed conversation. He'd say suddenly to her, 'Come on, we're keeping them from talking about their writing.' That was a habit at his insistence too; somehow he always took Utch home, or stayed with her in our house, and I would end up with Edith in their house. He made a Prussian routine out of our relationship, and then made fun of it for being a routine! 'Exasperating,' he said one night when the three of us were very much aware that he hadn't said a word all evenin
g. 'We're just biding time before we go to bed. Why not forget the dinner part and save a little money?'
So we tried it a few times, and he seemed to enjoy the coldness of it. I'd arrive at their house after dinner and he'd slip out of the backdoor as I came in the front. Or when he came to our house first, he sat around with his coat on, mumbling 'Yes' and 'No' until I left to see Edith. Then he would take his coat off, Utch told me.
But it didn't have to be that way, or like other times when he'd consciously set out to bore us all, engendering a monologue at dinner which he'd carry to the living room afterwards with every intention of making us all fall asleep. One night he talked so long that Edith finally said, 'Severin, I think we're all tired.'
'Oh,' he said. 'Well, let's call it a night, then. Let's go to bed, then,' he said to Edith! He kissed Utch goodnight and shook my hand. 'Another time, then. We've got lots of time, right?'
I remember the endless evening which began with his saying to Utch, 'Do you remember the riot at the Greek embassy in 'fifty-two?'
'I was only fourteen,' Utch said.
'So was I, but I recall it very clearly,' Severin said. 'A horde of rioting Communists attacking the Greek embassy; they were protesting the execution of Beloyannis.'
'I don't remember any Beloyannis,' Utch said.
'Well, he was a Greek Communist,' Severin said, 'but I'm talking about the attack on the Greek embassy in Vienna. The Soviets wouldn't let the police send an armed force to break up the riot. The funny thing was that the rioters were brought to the embassy in Soviet Army trucks. Remember now?'
'No.'
'And even funnier is that the Soviets disarmed all the police - in our sector, anyway. They even took away their rubber truncheons. I always wondered if that was Kudashvili's idea.'