A Small Death in Lisbon. Robert Thomas Wilson

I don’t need to go.’

      Her eyes narrowed.

      ‘Perhaps you’re here to work?’

      ‘On the contrary, I’m here to dance which I hope we can do again.’

      He bowed and she let him brush her dimples with his lips before returning to her seat.

      Felsen found Poser with his nose navigating the inside of a brandy glass.

      ‘You seem to have the measure of this place already,’ said Poser, leaning back from the fumes.

      ‘I don’t think so, Poser. It’s just that you and I see things differently. You’re a diplomat who wants to know what everybody’s thinking. I’m an opportunist who wants to know what everybody’s doing. Madame Branescu’s another. We recognized each other, that’s all.’

      ‘But what could you possibly do for each other?’

      ‘You’ll see, you’ll see,’ he said, and moved off.

      More people drifted into the casino – a mixed crowd, some happy and smiling in spectacular evening dress, others hunched and furtive in borrowed clothes. Felsen shouldered his way through to the cashier and made straight for the roulette table. Only fools played roulette.

      He came across the usual sights and smells of the inside of a casino but this time their distinction was sharper and more poignant. The tables were lit by the normal harsh glare of avarice – an unblinking, hard-swallowing need. But the air in between was layered with cigarette smoke and a fear, so pungent, it cut the back of Felsen’s throat like steaming vinegar. Occasionally carefree elation broke out of the canopy like tropical birds from the forest, but all the time, crouching lower and lower, a grim desperation sweated will into cheap shirts and shored-up evening dresses. The hopes riding on the clicking, chattering, hopping ivory ball were either nothing or everything. The backing for each milled chip on the green baize was either a banknote from the top of the next block or the last family jewel in the case. The faces closest to the table, the most avid, were ones that would either pale to translucence at a jaunty jump of the ball or, like the costive patient, would momentarily flood with relief at a perfect movement.

      Felsen stood back from the crowd on the roulette table, only his starched shirt-front picking up the edgy light. An American talked loudly over his shoulder at anyone who’d listen, while slapping down the maximum bet on a number he didn’t have to think about. He stopped only to glance at the ball and to cheer when he won and shrug when he lost. Next to him, seated and humped with age, bathing in the sunny warmth of his stacked chips, was an elderly, spectral, threadbare aristocrat, probably Russian, who gripped her minimum-stake chips with a tight, white-knuckled, sinewy hand. An Englishman, impeccable in his stiff wing collar, looked down his nose at the turning wheel and disdained all winning numbers until his collar was all the stiffness left in him. His mouth had already taken on the sneer of someone who’d have to face bread and horse mackerel for lunch until the next remittance. In front of Felsen a minute Portuguese woman, who wore the rosette of the Legion of Honour, was smoking cigarettes through a six-inch holder and wore gloves to her armpits. She played for amusement and gave cigarettes to a young woman sitting at her side who smoked them too quickly with her chest pressed against the wood of the table as if she might influence the turn of the wheel. The young woman had a single minimum-stake chip which had scored red marks on to the palm of her hand. It was a confused chip that could look confident on its own square right up until the call for last bets, when it would have to join other chips on nearby squares, before suffering the indignity of being taken back. It survived five turns of the wheel like that, until it found a home on number five, which had come up twice in ten minutes. The wheel turned, the ivory ball span and clicked, the white hand came out.

      ‘Madame,’ said the croupier severely, and the hand shot back.

      The ball settled in twenty-four and the hot chip was raked in. The young woman’s head dropped. The Portuguese lady’s hand found her back and patted it. She gave her another cigarette. The woman stood and turned and she found Felsen’s eyes on her. She smiled.

      ‘Mr Felsen, isn’t it?’

      ‘That’s right. Miss van Lennep,’ he said giving her a stack of chips. ‘Would you put these on red for me?’

      The transfusion had an instant effect. The anaemia was gone. Blood thumped again. Red came up. She turned.

      ‘Put them all on even,’ said Felsen.

      Even came up. He split the chips and gave her half.

      ‘Those are for you. If you have to play, play fifty/fifty but remember there’s a zero on the wheel which always tips the odds away from you, so . . .’

      She’d already turned back to the table before she realized that the last piece of advice was the most important.

      ‘So what?’ she said.

      ‘So don’t play when it matters, only for fun.’

      The Portuguese woman, who was the same size standing as the young woman was sitting, nodded agreement. Laura van Lennep put the chips in her handbag. Felsen offered her his arm. They went to the Wonderbar and drank whisky which she diluted with soda. They danced on the lighted dance floor until Felsen collided with one of Madame Branescu’s escorts who was hauling her around as if she was a cast-iron stove. They nodded and Felsen left the floor with his partner. They sat at a front table and ordered more whisky.

      ‘You didn’t say why you were in Lisbon, Mr Felsen.’

      ‘What happened to your friend? Edward, I think, Edward Burton.’

      ‘He had to go up north. He’s one of these Anglo-Portuguese from up there around Porto. The Allies use them a lot for buying things, you know, they understand the people. He told me it was all very important, but I think he might be a bit silly,’ she said, diminishing him for her nearer purpose.

      ‘Why did you ask him to help you?’

      ‘He’s young and good-looking and well-connected . . .’

      ‘But not with the lady in the American consulate visa office.’

      ‘He tried. She likes them young and good-looking.’

      ‘But with money.’

      She nodded dismally and looked back at the gaming rooms. The band released Madame Branescu from the next number and she walked past Felsen and gave him a little roll of her eyes.

      ‘Who was that?’ asked Laura van Lennep.

      ‘Madame Branescu,’ said Felsen. ‘She runs the visa office in the American consulate.’

      Something like love came into her face.

      An hour later Felsen was removing the pearled stud from his throat and stripping away the collar from his shirt. He unthreaded his monogrammed gold cufflinks and put them on the dressing table next to a letter he’d written on Hotel Parque stationery for the attention of Madame Branescu. He undid a shirt button.

      ‘Let me do that,’ said the girl.

      Her borrowed evening dress lay on the chaise longue where she’d thrown it with her small, tight purse. She knelt up on the bed in her black slip and stockings. He stood in front of her with the first tingle of adrenalin shivering up his legs in his voluminous black trousers. She undid his shirt, drew the braces down off his shoulders and tugged the tails out of the waistband of his trousers. He eased her towards him and felt her stiffen against his front. She undid his trousers which dropped straight to the floor. Her head trembled on her neck at the jib of his undershorts. She drew them out and over, and put her fingers to her lips. She was flushed crimson and not with whisky and soda.

      In the bathroom she found something among the bottles of perfumes and unguents provided by the Hotel Parque that would suit her purpose. Jasmine oil. Back in the room Felsen stood in his opened shirt. Her careful and thorough lubrication of him brought out the desperation of a chased man. He frightened her as he pulled her round on the bed,