Free Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll Page B
Authors: Jonathan Carroll
witches' pot in _Macbeth_: fillet of fenny snake, a toad dead under a rock thirty days, sweat from the body of a just-hung man. She resented the comment when I said it, but there was no avoiding the fact she'd tied up with a high-level psychopath with a Ph.D. in creative sadism.
They'd met through a mutual friend, and from the beginning Luc had done all the chasing.
Charming and clever and vulnerable (she thought), he called constantly, sent exotic flowers, took her to meals he paid for with borrowed or stolen money. They slept together for the first time in a seven-room apartment in Schwabing he said was his, but later turned out to belong to an old Page 31
lover he threatened to beat if she didn't get out for two days and leave him the keys. He told Maris truths like that when their own relationship had degenerated into a series of ominous scenes and dangerous possibilities. One afternoon he came over to her and a date at Schumann's and sadly scolded her for not telling this man she had AIDS. Just because she was dying didn't mean she had the right to kill others, no matter how bitter she was.
"He sounded so heartbroken and _convincing_, Walker. The other guy ended up thanking Luc as if he'd saved his life."
"What did you do?"
"What can you do? Say you don't have AIDS? That's a hard accusation to follow, you know?"
Somewhere in those cardboard boxes was a film he'd made about her entitled _It's Incredible!_
It showed the cities, her working on them, people talking about them at one of her shows. The film was all right, but pedestrian. If it was any indication of his ability as a film director, it didn't say much. When they started having trouble, he took the film and added a new section: He stole her favorite piece of work, and filmed himself pouring gasoline over it and burning it.
"Why didn't you just leave? Or tell him to get the hell out!"
"I did, but he had a key."
"Change the lock."
"I did! But he got a locksmith and had a copy made when I wasn't there.
I changed it three times. The last time, I had one of those expensive unpickable locks put in.
When I came home that night, he'd squeezed Krazy Glue into the hole and even _I_ couldn't get into my place."
The brakes failed on her car. When she took it to be repaired, the mechanic said there was a good possibility they'd been tampered with.
These stories went on and on until I got completely exasperated. "For Christ's sake, Maris, why didn't you go to the police? You were being fucking terrorized!"
"In Germany, all you can do is go to the police and make out an _Anzeige_, which is the same as lodging a formal complaint. But if no one's around to witness the event, you're out of luck until there've been lots of those _Anzeigen_ made against the same person. Then the cops start looking into things. I did one when he hit me the first time, but you know what the cops said? Even after I'd shown them the bruises he'd left on me? How could they be sure I hadn't hit myself just to get him in trouble! Thank you very much, Munich police.
You can't imagine how helpless women are under the law in most countries when it comes to things like this, Walker. That's why they're so hesitant to go to the police after they've been raped or attacked."
"But I thought that whole policy was changing."
"It is, but it isn't changed yet."
In the boxes were a wonderful silver ballpoint pen from the 1940s, a Claude Montana leather jacket the color of a chestnut, a pack of tarot cards wrapped in a piece of black parachute silk.
"Do you read the tarot?"
"Yes, but please don't ask me to do it for you yet. I'm a little afraid of what it would say about you and me."
"Are you good at it?"
"Sometimes. It's always there to hold your hand, but then you grow too dependent on it and don't look for the answers on your own. It helps best when you don't need it so badly."
"What happened when you asked it about Luc and you?"
"The card that always came up was the Tower. _Das Turm_. Do you
They'd met through a mutual friend, and from the beginning Luc had done all the chasing.
Charming and clever and vulnerable (she thought), he called constantly, sent exotic flowers, took her to meals he paid for with borrowed or stolen money. They slept together for the first time in a seven-room apartment in Schwabing he said was his, but later turned out to belong to an old Page 31
lover he threatened to beat if she didn't get out for two days and leave him the keys. He told Maris truths like that when their own relationship had degenerated into a series of ominous scenes and dangerous possibilities. One afternoon he came over to her and a date at Schumann's and sadly scolded her for not telling this man she had AIDS. Just because she was dying didn't mean she had the right to kill others, no matter how bitter she was.
"He sounded so heartbroken and _convincing_, Walker. The other guy ended up thanking Luc as if he'd saved his life."
"What did you do?"
"What can you do? Say you don't have AIDS? That's a hard accusation to follow, you know?"
Somewhere in those cardboard boxes was a film he'd made about her entitled _It's Incredible!_
It showed the cities, her working on them, people talking about them at one of her shows. The film was all right, but pedestrian. If it was any indication of his ability as a film director, it didn't say much. When they started having trouble, he took the film and added a new section: He stole her favorite piece of work, and filmed himself pouring gasoline over it and burning it.
"Why didn't you just leave? Or tell him to get the hell out!"
"I did, but he had a key."
"Change the lock."
"I did! But he got a locksmith and had a copy made when I wasn't there.
I changed it three times. The last time, I had one of those expensive unpickable locks put in.
When I came home that night, he'd squeezed Krazy Glue into the hole and even _I_ couldn't get into my place."
The brakes failed on her car. When she took it to be repaired, the mechanic said there was a good possibility they'd been tampered with.
These stories went on and on until I got completely exasperated. "For Christ's sake, Maris, why didn't you go to the police? You were being fucking terrorized!"
"In Germany, all you can do is go to the police and make out an _Anzeige_, which is the same as lodging a formal complaint. But if no one's around to witness the event, you're out of luck until there've been lots of those _Anzeigen_ made against the same person. Then the cops start looking into things. I did one when he hit me the first time, but you know what the cops said? Even after I'd shown them the bruises he'd left on me? How could they be sure I hadn't hit myself just to get him in trouble! Thank you very much, Munich police.
You can't imagine how helpless women are under the law in most countries when it comes to things like this, Walker. That's why they're so hesitant to go to the police after they've been raped or attacked."
"But I thought that whole policy was changing."
"It is, but it isn't changed yet."
In the boxes were a wonderful silver ballpoint pen from the 1940s, a Claude Montana leather jacket the color of a chestnut, a pack of tarot cards wrapped in a piece of black parachute silk.
"Do you read the tarot?"
"Yes, but please don't ask me to do it for you yet. I'm a little afraid of what it would say about you and me."
"Are you good at it?"
"Sometimes. It's always there to hold your hand, but then you grow too dependent on it and don't look for the answers on your own. It helps best when you don't need it so badly."
"What happened when you asked it about Luc and you?"
"The card that always came up was the Tower. _Das Turm_. Do you
Similar Books
The Storm's Own Son (Book 2)
Anthony Gillis
Love After War
Cheris Hodges
The Accidental Pallbearer
Frank Lentricchia
Hush: Family Secrets
Blue Saffire
Ties That Bind
Debbie White
Inherited by Her Enemy
Sara Craven
Sly the Sleuth and the Sports Mysteries
Donna Jo Napoli
0316382981
Emily Holleman