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

market square, where he leapt onto the very first tram that passed, dragging Frank with him as he went. They stood in silence, side by side, watching the anonymous shop facades slip by outside. It was already late in the afternoon, and the trams were beginning to fill with the wage-slaves and factory workers savouring the tired freedom of their journey home. In no time, the tram was opening its doors to the next wave of languid faces. Frank wanted to move further into the carriage to make space for them, but Silverstone placed a vicelike grip on his arm and kept him close to the door. The sudden brachial pain and the seething masses around him set his head spinning; perhaps the beating by Breitner and his friends was taking its toll. As the tram doors were drawing to, and a stabbing pain shot from behind his eyes, he heard Silverstone mutter something and became aware of being tugged through the closing doors back onto the street. He caught the words ‘Just to be on the safe side’, but the significance of this caution escaped him as his head felt ready to split.

It was as if a curtain had suddenly gone up and lifted the dizzy fog, just momentarily, just long enough to be struck by an acrid smell in the air and the sight of empty fast-food containers littering the pavement. The sound of a distantly familiar glamrock melody wafted from some unseen recess nearby: ‘Ride a White Swan’.

It conjured images of water. Mud. And a strange Exakta camera. In this muzzy confusion and dissonance, he sensed the remote memory of his experience on the castle ruins waiting for Achim. A distant sense of otherness. And then he was wrenched up steps he couldn’t see into another tram, the vicelike grip even tighter on his arm.

“You feeling okay?”

Frank could hear the words, but was unable to give a remotely coherent reply, not least because he was uncertain of the answer. His head ached from the cleavage of his skull. His mind was clouded with turmoil and battered by a farrago of images and sounds. Like a blind man in helpless innocence, he allowed himself to be led out of the second tram and across the road.

It was not until the fresh air of the street washed over his face that he began to regain some semblance of meaning and order. Silverstone had loosened his grip on Frank’s arm and directed him now along a forsaken-looking street to a shop that was already known to him from somewhere. As they entered, the American left him hovering by the entrance to engage the shopkeeper behind the counter in a furtive conversation. Throughout the exchange, his fellow conspirator cast suspicious glances in Frank’s direction. It gave him the impression that the shopkeeper was no less distrustful of Silverstone than he was of Frank. But since this appeared to be a national characteristic, he paid it no further thought. And when Silverstone eventually appeared to receive a nod of approval, he beckoned Frank to follow him out into a back corridor.

They climbed what seemed in his washed-out state to be endless flights of stairs, which were only dimly defined by the fading daylight admitted through occasional modest windows in the stairwell. When they ran out of steps to climb, Silverstone stopped at the door ahead of them and turned briefly as he put his hand on the doorknob.

“Feeling okay now?” he asked.

Frank nodded. But he felt oddly discomforted by the concern implicit in the question. His dislike of Silverstone had firmly taken root and was not easily reconciled by intimations of kindness or consideration.

Silverstone opened the door and stood aside to let him in. The room was even gloomier than the stairwell. And seemed as empty. Silverstone followed him in, closed the door behind him and strode over to the far side of the room, where he knocked with curious deliberation on another door. Frank had the impression this knock constituted some carefully observed code.

Perhaps he should have anticipated it, but nonetheless the sight of Achim’s familiar face greeting him in this dingy garret made Frank’s heart leap.

“Frank!” he said. There was a sense of alarm in his voice. “You look terrible. What have you been up to?”

He stood back, gesturing Frank into the room.

“He’s been giving me a real hard time,” Silverstone added as he followed him in.

“Did you do this to him?” Achim asked, flashing a look of concern at the American.

“Hell no!” Silverstone protested.

“Here, you could do with some of this, Frank.”

Achim poured two glasses of his favourite Mirabelle brandy, passed one to his friend and lifted the other to the light.

“Such sweet golden nectar,” he said. “You can almost see the fruit on the trees, gleaming in the sunshine. But tell me what the hell you’ve been getting up to. How did you get that face?”

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Frank evaded his friend’s questions. He felt it best not to make any mention of Breitner just yet. What interested him more was to know what Achim had been getting up to and what his connection was with Silverstone. Why had he suddenly vanished from the Gotthard, he wanted to know. What was he getting involved in? And why was Frank being dragged into clandestine adventures of hide and seek?

“But Frank, remember it was you who dragged me down to this part of the world in the first place.”

“Well, you didn’t take much persuading.”

“No, but you gave me the tip, and I’m grateful to you for that.”

“What tip? What are you talking about?” Frank asked. He detected shades of the flippancy he had always so appreciated in Achim. But on this occasion it irritated him, because he sensed that his friend was using it as a kind of subterfuge. “When I suggested you join me here, it was because I thought you could do some real work again. Maybe even join a theatre group. And instead you start playing Bo Peep