The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

The woman called Esther laughed, and the red curls of her hair flew out with wild abandon as she threw back her head.

“Esther’s not my wife,” Jack explained. “Esther’s my muse.”

Before Frank had any time to pigeonhole this information, they were joined by a second woman, who followed Esther from around behind the sofa. She was shorter than Esther, with cropped dark hair – a gamine with sparkling dark-brown eyes.

“And this is Vreni,” said Jack.

“Your wife?” Frank asked, as he shook her hand.

“My wife’s not here.”

There was an irritation in Jack’s voice. Frank did not pursue the matter any further. He sank back into his sofa. Baschi took one of the armchairs, while Vreni and Esther both settled into the other sofa. Esther pulled out a cigarette, lit it and threw the pack and the lighter over to Frank.

It was then that Frank noticed the only decoration in the room. On the wall behind Esther and Vreni to the right of the window with the heavy green curtains hung a small painting. A portrait of a red-haired woman with dark makeup and bright red lipstick. In her green dress that draped loosely off the shoulder to hint at the curvature of her left breast, the likeness of this woman to Esther was striking.

“Did you paint that?” Frank asked, picking up the lighter and cigarettes with the name Parisienne emblazoned across the pack. A logo with a hint of such warm memories. Yet he could not for the life of him recall exactly what or why.

“You mean Lola?” Jack asked in return, as he walked over to a cupboard behind Frank’s sofa, where he took out three glasses and a bottle of wine and placed them at the end of the table in front of Frank. “No. Lola belonged to my mother. She was the one who got me interested in the arts. And painting.”

“Und wer zum Tüfel isch Lola?” Frank asked. A look of shock etched into his expression by the sense of strangeness in his own voice as he asked: Who the hell is Lola?

He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit up in an effort to feign composure. Jack looked at Frank with suspicion at this sudden fluency in what sounded like the Alemannic dialect spoken just across the border.

“I was told it’s Lola Bach,” he replied, preferring to conceal his suspicion for the moment. “An erotic dancer from the Twenties. But who knows?”

“Who painted it?” Frank asked.

“No idea. Some unknown expressionist. A woman probably,” Jack said and waved a dismissive hand at the painting on the wall. His suspicion had nurtured a growing impatience with Frank and his questions, and he turned to the two women.

“Ladies,” he announced,” Frank is here to report on how we treat our women in this country. What do you think about that?”

Esther and Vreni giggled.

“Something few people know about this country is that every single canton produces wine,” said Jack, turning back to Frank as he filled the glasses on the table. “Even the city of Basel produces wine. But none of it has the class of an Amarone from south of the border. I think you’ll like it.” He handed both Frank and Baschi a glass of red wine, then sauntered over to the piano.

Frank watched Jack place his own glass on the piano as he sat down to play. Feeling disinclined to add another layer of confusion to his mind, Frank put his glass back down on one of the magazines lying on the table, leaned back in the sofa and drank in the music. He recognised the melody instantly from many years ago. A slow spiritual dirge that he recalled his mother often singing in the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal. And he began to hum along.

In the chair opposite, Baschi’s gut quivered and heaved as he chuckled quietly to himself.

“He always like beginning with Dvořák,” he said, as if to explain his merriment. Esther and Vreni on the other sofa looked at each other, kissed and then fell into a giggle.

“The largo from Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony,” Jack called from behind the back of Baschi. “In America, they call it ‘Going Home’.”

That was it. Frank recalled that his mother had an old 78 of Paul Robeson she used to flog to death on the antiquated record player. It was the tune she always sang as she prepared the scouse for the evening meal. Even Ellen had recognised it when she first heard his mother singing in the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me your mum was into Sam Cooke,” she said with a look of disbelief. Frank had no idea what she was talking about at the time. It was only later that he learned from her sister Beth how she had secreted one of Beth’s favourite EPs from her record collection and claimed it as hers.

As these flashbacks punctuated the music in the background, Jack raised the tempo very slightly, slipping into a mysterious melody full of melancholy tension.

“What’s that?” Frank asked, throwing his voice across the room when the change of tempo sent his thoughts scattering suddenly like marbles across the floor. Jack was lost in his music. Esther had already discarded her cigarette and was now locked in Vreni’s arms.

“Jack play only Czechish music,” said Baschi, as he sipped his wine and contemplated the two women with a satisfied smile.

Their playful frolics matched the release of tension in the music, and the melancholy mist was blown away as if by a sudden gust of wind. The mysterious music continued to entwine itself around Frank’s mind. And he watched the kindling embrace of Esther and Vreni gradually begin to catch alight. Their hands explored and wandered over each other’s skin with a tenderness he had never witnessed before between two women. The flaming curls of Esther’s long red hair emphasised the intensity of their embrace, as she gently slipped the strap of Vreni’s dress down over the shoulder