Free A Choice of Enemies by Mordecai Richler

face.
    “You son-of-a-bitch. First you steal Frank’s wallet, then you cost me one of my best friends, and now –”
    “You don’t understand.”
    “– and now you come upstairs to steal.”
    In another moment, Ernst had thought, the M.P .s will be here.
    “Get away. I’m going through the window.”
    Ernst had tried for the window once more and Nicky, the smashed beer bottle in his hand, had rushed him. Ernst had tried to take him by force, but then, in the distance, he had heard the whine of another police siren, so he had pulled out his knife. Nicky had lost all semblance of individuality for him, he had become simply another opponent. Ernst had worked swiftly and accurate. Then, acting from the memory of other encounters, he had removed Nicky’s wristwatch, taken his papers, smashed the window with a chair, and jumped.
    Ernst ran and ran and ran, until he had collapsed on the pavement in a little street in Schwabbing, the blood pounding through his head. His hand had been bloody. He had sat there – a panting, empty-eyed boy on the pavement – until he had risen at last and had been sick once, twice, in the gutter.
    The following morning, and every morning since, he had rationalized his crime to himself, but once he was alone in the dark, the rationalizations had no longer served a useful purpose. Each night Nicky came and was knifed and murdered again.
    Ernst jerked awake. A scream died, unheard, in his throat. Breathing heavily, he wiped his forehead with his arm.
    After the boat-train arrived Ernst waited at the head of the platform until the people began to come through with their luggage. There were many Americans, more than he had hoped for, and at last he spotted a man of roughly his own size. The American was struggling with three pieces of luggage; he seemed baffled. Ernst hastened to his side.
    “Porter?”
    “I don’t think –”
    But Ernst was already in charge. “There are two more inside,” the American said lamely, pointing at the train.
    “Wait for me here. I’ll get you a taxi.”
    Ernst picked up the heaviest of the three bags and boarded the train. Inside he picked up another bag and then raced ahead through four cars and descended to the platform again. By this time a camera was strapped to his side and he was wearing sun glasses. “Porter,” he called. “Porter.”
    A porter picked up his bags and Ernst followed him through the gates.
    “Vite,”
Ernst said.
“Je suis très pressé.”
    Ernst gave the taxi driver the address of an hotel on the left bank. Inside the hotel he registered as D.H. Hollis, the name on hisluggage tabs. He told the
patron
that he was in a hurry, he said that he had to get to the American Express before it closed and that he would return before evening to fill out the proper papers, then he followed a sluggish boy to a room on the third floor. As soon as the boy left, Ernst locked the door. Then, the shaking came. He tumbled on to the bed and brought his knees up to his chin and hugged himself tight. When the fear had passed again he took out his last cigarette and smoked it on the bed. He stepped out of the hotel again about an hour later. He wore a Brooks Brothers suit. Carrying a raincoat over his arm in spite of the cloudless skies, he took a bus to the Rue des Rosiers and entered a dark seedy café there. Albert bought the camera, a Leica, for about a quarter of what it was worth.
    Ernst walked to a café in the Opera district, sat down on the terrace, and ordered a beer. This, he thought, is a good time for a spot of
Selbst-Kritik
. He had twelve thousand three hundred francs and some change. Ten thousand would go to his parents. The night mortician, he thought, will sell me identity papers for fifty thousand francs, but what then? My French is bad; I haven’t got a trade. A tall middle-aged Texan drifted down the street clutching his pretty wife like an all-day sucker. Lanky Swedes with packs on their backs, boys of his own age, passed brown and