The Fist of God

&nbs

p; “Jolly decent,” said Paxman.

A single week had brought about a transformation in Edith Hardenberg—a week, that is, and the effects of being in love.

With Karim’s gentle encouragement she had been to a coiffeur in Grinzing, who had let down her hair and cut and styled it, chin-length, so that it fell about her face, filling out her narrow features and giving her a hint of mature glamour.

Her lover had selected a range of makeup preparations with her shy approval; nothing garish, just a hint of eyeliner, foundation cream, a little powder, and a touch of lipstick at the mouth.

At the bank, Wolfgang Gemütlich was privately aghast, secretly watching her cross the room, taller now in one-inch heels. It was not even the heels or the hair or the makeup that distressed him, though he would have flatly banned them all had Frau Gemütlich even mentioned the very idea. What perturbed him was her air, a sense of self-confidence when she presented him with his letters for signing or took dictation.

He knew, of course, what had happened. One of those foolish girls downstairs had persuaded her to spend money. That was the key to it all, spending money. It always, in his experience, led to ruin, and he feared for the worst.

Her natural shyness had not entirely evaporated, and in the bank she was as retiring as ever in speech if not quite in manner. But in Karim’s presence, when they were alone, she constantly amazed herself with her boldness. For twenty years things physical had been abhorrent to her, and now she was like a traveler on a voyage of slow and wondering discovery, half abashed and horrified, half curious and excited. So their loving—at first wholly one-sided—became more exploratory and mutual. The first time she touched him “down there,” she thought she would die of shock and mortification, but to her surprise she had survived.

On the evening of the third of February he brought home to her flat a box wrapped in gift paper with a ribbon.

“Karim, you mustn’t do things like this. You are spending too much.”

He took her in his arms and stroked her hair. She had learned to love it when he did that.

“Look, little kitten, my father is wealthy. He makes me a generous allowance. Would you prefer me to spend it in nightclubs?”

She liked it also when he teased her. Of course, Karim would never go to one of those terrible places.

So she accepted the perfumes and the toiletries that once, only two weeks ago, she would never have touched.

“Can I open it?” she asked.

“That’s what it’s there for.”

At first she did not understand what they were. The contents of the box seemed to be a froth of silks and lace and colors. When she understood, because she had seen advertisements in magazines—not the sort she bought, of course—she turned bright pink.

“Karim, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could,” he said, and grinned. “Go on, kitten. Go into the bedroom and try. Close the door—I won’t look.”

She laid the things out on the bed and stared at them. She, Edith Hardenberg? Never. There were stockings and girdles, panties and bras, garters and short nighties, in black, pink, scarlet, cream, and beige. Things in filmy lace or trimmed with it, silky-smooth fabrics over which the fingertips ran as over ice.

She was an hour alone in that room before she opened the door in a bathrobe. Karim put down his coffee cup, rose, and walked over. He stared down at her with a kind smile and began to undo the sash that held the robe together. She blushed red again and could not meet his gaze. She looked away. He let the robe fall open.

“Oh, kitten,” he said softly, “you are sensational.”

She did not know what to say, so she just put her arms around his neck, no longer frightened or horrified when her thigh touched the hardness in his jeans.

When they had made love, she rose and went to the bathroom. On her return she stood and looked down at him. There was no part of him that she did not love. She sat on the edge of the bed and ran a forefinger down the faint scar along one side of his chin, the one he said he had sustained when falling through a greenhouse in his father’s orchard outside Amman.

He opened his eyes, smiled, and reached up for her face; she gripped his hand and nuzzled the fingers, stroking the signet ring on the smallest finger, the ring with the pale pink opal that his mother had given him.

“What shall we do tonight?” she asked.

“Let’s go out,” he said. “Sirk’s at the Bristol.”

“You like steak too much.”

He reached behind her and held her small buttocks under the filmy gauze.

“That’s the steak I like.” He grinned.