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

and caressed her right breast. Frank could not imagine what Ellen might think if she could see him now. But he found it deeply arousing and was fascinated by the uncanny correspondence between their intertwined devotion to each other and the enigmatic music that became entangled in his senses with every change of meter.

“Janáček,” said Jack, glancing over at Frank as his fingers floated nimbly over the keyboard. “I find there is such a beautiful sense of repressed passion in his music. And since the Prague Spring I find it has a special piquancy. So I play it all the more today. Pure magic.”

The music stopped. Frank looked over at Jack, who was staring down at the keyboard, and felt he had been torn away from an intensely satisfying dream. As if caught out when a sudden bright light is switched on. The discomfort made him shiver. Slowly, pensively, Jack stood up from the piano and sat in the chair beside Baschi. He took what appeared to be a large sketchpad from the coffee table and rested it on his knees. He said nothing more. Esther and Vreni were still locked in their embrace, oblivious to the loss of music, and they continued their devotional attention to each other. Jack watched with an intensity and a look in those dark eyes of his that Frank was unable to fathom. Not a word was spoken. Finally, Frank felt compelled to reach for the wine on the table.

By now, the two women had shed every last inch of clothing. Vreni lay in raptured abandon on the sofa. Her right leg was wrapped around the waist of Esther, who leaned over her partner and let her flaming red hair gently brush the curvature of Vreni’s body.

Frank’s head began to spin. He took a large gulp from his glass, topped it up from the bottle on the table and watched as Jack took a pencil from his pocket. His hand swept back and forth across the paper, eyes every so often lifting to gauge the mounting passion on the sofa alongside him. Vreni threw her head back with a smile of the deepest satisfaction as Esther turned to Jack and asked:

“Is this ok for you?”

“It will look wonderful on canvas. What do you think, Frank?”

At that moment, the sound of bells chimed a deep, sepulchral toll from outside, which rumbled its way into the room. A solemn sound. Like the voice of a dark angel chanting a heavy, heavy song.

“Damn the church bells in this country,” Jack cursed. And turned to Frank on the sofa opposite. Frank stubbed out his cigarette and held his head in both hands, his eyes shut tight and his face seemingly contorted in pain.

“I said what do you think, Frank?” Jack repeated in an attempt to raise his voice above the sound of the bells.

Baschi continued chuckling quietly to himself. Esther and Vreni wrapped their discarded clothes around them and looked anxiously across at Frank.

“Frank? Are you all right?” Jack shouted, louder this time. There was a hint of concern in the voice. But it was lost on Frank, as his head now flinched with every chime of the bells. They boomed through his skull twelve times. And each time left him trembling a little more.

As the church bells ran through their midnight repertoire, Frank’s hosts looked on. Speechless. Awaiting Frank’s next move. When eventually the bells fell quiet, what should have been a blissful silence was invaded by the faint sound of the words ‘Achim, oh Achim’ repeating over and over, as they ricocheted around Frank’s head. He clasped his hands over his ears vainly trying to stifle those words. But in time they too faded, and as they did so he became aware of the smell he had noticed when he first entered the room. But now, mingled with the taste of stale nicotine, it had a new edge to it – an odour deeply redolent of a history he could not put his finger on. A troubled history. The odour swirled around his head adding new layers of confusion to his mind. For an instant, it reminded him of the little dachshund his mother adopted for company after he left home. He recalled how his father never seemed to have enough time for his mother; he was often away on business – if not in Berlin or Leipzig, then abroad somewhere. In New York, London or mostly Calcutta.

But Frank could make neither head nor tail of these memories. In an attempt to shake off his confusion, he finally opened his eyes in the hope he might get a grip on reality. Jack, Baschi and the two women fixed their eyes on Frank in expectation. But all he could see was the bottle on the table. He picked it up and gulped down the remainder of the wine straight from the bottle. The haunting odour in the room was quickly dispelled by the Amarone on his tongue. But the memory of the dachshund stayed with him nonetheless. It played with him. Tormented him. He lashed out with his right hand as if to sweep his mind clear of the memories – and swept the bottle to the floor instead. The last dregs of wine splashed their drops of blood-red liquid onto the carpet. The weave of the floor covering was sorely worn away in places. It was old and dirty. But what should that matter?

Without a moment’s hesitation, Frank threw himself to the floor and began to lick up the drops before they soaked into the carpet. The taste was abhorrent. And the physical sensation of the dust, the hair and the carpet, as the fine papillated surface of his tongue scraped over them and trapped them in his mouth, made him retch. He was on the brink of vomiting. But still he continued to lick at the carpet as if his life depended on it.

“What the hell are you doing old chap?”

As Frank lay on the