February 15th, 1933
Jack stirred in the rumpled bed, burrowing in deeper to the covers, tangled thoroughly in his legs. He breathed deep of the pillow, rubbing his nose into the coarse cotton and smiling as the cloying scent filled his lungs. Ennis. They had yet to call each other by first name—for that matter, they were still using Sie to address each other, yet those five letters already felt more familiar to Jack than his own cumbersome name—Jacob Benjamin Schwarz. He wondered what Ennis's middle name was. Did he even have one? He'd heard Ennis leave very early this morning, before the light was skirting the horizon, and caught a glimpse of his face profiled against the blue-grey of pre-dawn just before he was gone.
"Ennis Demarien," he whispered into the pillow, claiming it as his own, savoring the sibilant between his teeth and the catch of the purring consonant in the back of his throat. His body hummed, still imprinted with afterimage of Ennis, burned onto his skin like an overexposed negative, and he held onto it until the last of the definition faded. Opening his eyes, he turned himself to the world of the living, blinking at the harsh sunlight cutting across the attic, untangling the vined blankets from his legs. He was up and out of the bed in a quick roll, padding across the hardwood floor, reaching down to pick his far-scattered clothes and slinging them over his shoulders on his way to the WC. He relieved himself, still nude; he had come to the conclusion that wearing clothes in this attic was like being nude in church. It simply was not done.
He piled his clothes on the kitchen table, frying two eggs for breakfast, lonely inhabitants of the icebox, and eating them off the single chipped orange plate in the cupboard, he surveyed the abode in its entirety. His feet smacked lightly on the rough hardwood as he walked to the pile of jutting angles and frames in the center of the room. Kneeling, he licked the runny yolk off the fork, frowning as he examined a canvas crushed on the floor, marred by footprints, wooden supports snapped like kindling. He set down the plate, running his fingers over the paint, smeared into brutish finality, fingering the jagged edges that spoke volumes.
"Mein Gott."
What had Ennis been destroying—the artwork, or its subject?
Jack closed the door behind him hard, dropping his weight back on it, breathing like he'd forgotten how, hands pressed to his forehead and fingers tangled in his hair. All day his concentration had flickered on and off like a mis-wired street lamp, but now it blazed bright, honed in on an image that undid him as surely as it saved him: Ennis, burned in candleglow, skin luminous, his jaw unhinged, body thrown back in an invocation to the gods of the flesh. Jack groaned, knees buckling and heart racing, sank to the floor. As he fought to gain control, there was a distinctive tatta-tat-tat on the door behind him.
"Ja?" He replied in a short burst air.
"It's Niko—may we speak?"
Jack got up, carefully placing his feet to maintain his balance. He stepped back, grimacing. "Saying 'no' won't do me much good, will it?"
"Nein." Jack tried to compose himself, opening the door to find Niko Liedermann filling its frame, looking at him wryly, his impossibly malleable eyebrows radiating annoyance, condescension, and disbelief all at once.
"You knew what you were doing when you spoke to Herman today." Niko stepped past him, entered the room, and draped his long frame onto the black couch, legs sticking over the edge, elongated and bird-like. Jack sat across from him in the rounded wicker chair, averted his gaze.
"I thought we had worked this out." Niko interlaced his fingers, long and slender just like the rest of him, bridging them across his stomach and looking pointedly at Jack. "I have indulged you as far as I can. We tried it your way. Annalise was performed to your exact specifications, and all week we had nothing but complaints. I am still hearing about your Hindenburg performance as well. Yet… you still try to tell us what to do. Tell me the logic in this."
"I was not telling him what to do—I just made a small—"
"Jack—the agreement was that you would not make any 'suggestions' on about how we ought to run our business."
Jack sighed. "Ich weiß."
"Ja? Und dann? You went straight to Herman after rehearsal."
Jack wrung his hands, getting up out of his seat and pacing. "Scheiße. This show is scheiße and you know it." He chopped his hands in the air to drive his point home, "We've been planning that satire for over a month, and instead we're doing some cheap comedy act? I'm not sure whose time you're wasting more—ours or the audience's once they see this farce of a show—"
"Jack. If you will please sit down—I'm happy to explain."
He shut his mouth on all the words he'd prepared, still crawling along his tongue, itching to be spoken. He clamped down on them, smoothing his hands over his thick linen shirt, and sat once more, crossing his legs. Niko swung into an upright position, leaning his elbows onto his knees, eyes burning into Jack. "From what I gather you didn't bother to ask why; as always, you assumed the worst. Had you given it a few moments of thought, you would have realized Herman could have explained this whole situation to you."
Jack's jaw clenched, and when he looked into the mirror for an escape, Niko's face stared back at him, all flawless white skin fringed in soot-black hair that stopped just short of his eyes, the color of burnt chestnut. Jack's adolescent pain was traced in those features, still beautiful to him even after their truth had been revealed. He had been drawn into the sight like a curious child to a glinting knife—the dangerous is an irresistible lure in the eyes of the naïve. But now, running his finger along the blade, he found that it had no bite left, no cut, and he held Niko's gaze with no difficulty.
"Times are changing, Jack. There is a new party in power… we have to watch where we step. One of our competitors went out of business earlier this month. Usually that would be a reason to celebrate, nein, but there are rumors that it was more than just poor revenue that closed the doors of Kade Koko.
"Sabine also told me she saw die Polizei at Eiermann's and Felix's, und jetzt—they are boarded up. It may be coincidence but I'm not willing to risk my show on that. Are you?"
Jack shook his head reluctantly. "Nein."
"Gut. I knew you would see reason. These are just precautions; I'm sure when things settle in a few months this we will all have a good laugh about this. Now—what's this about you refusing Sabine's costume choices?"
"You have plenty of dancers to wear those ridiculous clothes and you know it, Niko. Why must we go through this song and dance again?" Jack opened the drawer to his vanity, mahogany smooth under his hands, withdrawing his facecloth and containers of powder he needed for tonight. He placed them in front of the mirror, gilded in snakes of brass, and stood, stepping behind his dressing screen, stripping down with no discomfort.
"I may have plenty of others, but none with your body, your looks. I can guarantee that in drag, you would sell us out every night." Jack shot Niko a look over the screen, face etched in concrete and eyes shaded overhangs.
"Well, think about it." Jack stepped into his undergarments, saying nothing. Taking the hint, Niko got off the couch, pausing halfway out the door.
"Avoiding drag doesn't mean you're any better than the rest of us mere cabaret dancers, Jack—don't forget that." He shut the door behind him a little harder than necessary.
But Jack just smiled, humming under his breath to the tune of Ennis's breathing.
The steam stretched clumped and irregular against the sky, drowning-blue and vacuous with the absence of clouds. The beast roared forward, trailing its remains as it hurtled on the tracks, wheels beating out a fixed tempo, chug-a-chug-chug-a-chug, the cherry red of the driving shafts blurred into the coal black of the beast's body. It crossed paths with another of its kind, wind slicing between them, the twin plumes of steam laid out like a set of insubstantial tracks in the air. They separated at one hundred twenty kilometers an hour, displacing the atmosphere. Coming to an obstacle, the beast screeched to a long halt, metal on metal scratching a nails-on-the-chalkboard whine in all directions, caressing Ennis's eardrum with a deep pressure. He didn't even notice; it was a well-worn sound. He flicked the cigarette butt to his feet, grinding it into the ground, shoved his hands deep in his pockets, walking along the tracks, gravel crunching under his heels.
He heard the crossroads before he saw them; the alarms blared an unmistakable warning to oncoming traffic. It was incredible to see the trains stopped in their progress, seemingly impermeable to all outside influences, the fortresses of iron and steel yielding to the soft-grained wood lowered before them. But stop they did, obeying the power of silent command and avoiding the glory of fatal collision. Ennis watched for what must have been hours, the words Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft circling in his mind every time he saw the faint lettering on the body of the locomotives, lulled into a state of mechanical meditation as the minutes flew, carried on the pumping wheels.
He roused when the light of the day dimmed, thoughts slow and tentative, cold creeping under his loose sleeves and raising the hairs along his arms. Standing, his knees popped, joints protesting the long inactivity. He headed for home, mind already fifty paces ahead, restored and invigorated.
Time to paint.
February 18th, 1933
Ennis laid the brushes and palette on the waist-height wall, slightly off-kilter on the uneven surface, and adjusted the canvas to stand centered on the easel.
"Es ist fantastisch…" Jack's voice wafted out from behind four huge stone slabs, jutting out of the earth in criss-crosses, somber slabs standing guardian to the entrance of the forest. He re-appeared on the other side, placing his steps carefully on the slippery ground. "And so close to the city, it is unbelievable."
Ennis smiled a little, nodding, and swirling the hog bristle into the green oil, he began to lay it around the edges of the canvas, a few flakes of gypsum dusting off.
"Whenever you are ready," he said, laying out color foundations and using broad strokes to capture the gentle swells of the quarry. The area he had chosen was dappled in sunlight, trees encroaching on the perimeters of what was once a site for extracting treasures from the earth, remains of the operation scattered and broken all throughout the forest floor.
Jack ran a hand over the thick mat of moss on the stone he had chosen, a piece tilted with a slope conducive to him lying down. Sitting down, he untied his boots, setting them aside, and unbuttoned his vest and shirt, folding them. He shivered when the air penetrated his skin, carrying a wintry hint, raising gooseflesh where it brushed cold fingers. "Kalt," he whispered, slipping quickly out of his pants and lying on his stomach, head resting on his elbow, moss soft and springy underneath his weight. Ennis worked as quickly as he could, aware that the light would not last long, and with the dark would come the icy chill. He swept out loose shapes in the background, knowing he could come back to them later if necessary. Then he switched to his miniver brush, biting the inside of his cheek as he guided his wrist along the subtle line of Jack's form, pausing for a breath at the dip in his back, a valley that arched into pale mountains of snow-white eroticism. Swallowing, he followed the line to its end, looping back up to create his legs, and up to the torso, a detour southwards for the arm, elbow crooked, and crowning him off with a half-moon face.
As he worked, the colors melded until they became right, shadows formed where the light would not touch, and the pieces stopped being pieces and became a part of something greater, a whole that captured on linen a spark of life, neoteric and frail, divine in its weakness. He nursed it with each stroke, wary of breaking it with heavy-handed attempts. It sustained, but would not grow and finally, acknowledging defeat, he sat back on the wall, exhausted through and through.
After a few moments, Jack sat up on the stone, reaching his hands for the sky and sighing with the pleasure of it, muscles resisting at first. He stood and did a fast series of stretches, paying special care to his shoulders, tight from the awkward positioning. Pulling his left arm across his chest, he watched Ennis standing before the canvas, hair flying in all different directions and shirt half-open, no doubt loosened while he was painting. Jack walked over, careful to avoid sharp edges underfoot; he felt a strange sense of primal being, completely at the mercy of the forest. Ennis was entranced, lost in his work; he gasped when Jack pressed up behind him.
Jack slipped his hands, living ice, under the rough shirt. He let his fingertips roam freely on the gold silk, radiant with heat and light, bringing the blood back to his fingertips, pulling the shirt up and off Ennis without breaking contact, skin meeting skin, and undid the pants with two fingers. He brought his head forward, nuzzling in the salty nape, biting lightly on the earlobe.
"Ich bin kalt, Ennis. Sehr kalt." He flicked his tongue out in exploration and ground his hips into Ennis, sealing the distance between them, edges fusing as winter touched summer, flakes of snow melting on his lips when they kissed. Ennis turned, his hands thawing trails down Jack's spine, fierce caresses guiding them back to the wall, stumbling closer together with each step. Their tongues twined, dancing together, tasting like the rain of a sudden storm, sweet and wet, drenching them in slick sensation. Ennis placed his hands firmly under Jack, hands sinking into the snow-covered fields, murmuring revelry into the moist heat of Jack's mouth, lifting him onto the rocky wall, placed him atop the bed of moss. They clung, heartbeats co-mingling rhythm, lips fitted in a sacred seam, breaking only for harsh breathing, a whispered Nicht so kalt jetzt, ja?, and Jack groaned his assent, jutting his hips higher, calling to Ennis in wordless entreaty. Ennis drew back, bringing his hands onto Jack's bones, gateway to the dreams he dared not speak. The clouds cleared from his eyes; they flashed with the fire of night, gaze meeting the cobalt water that promised dreams he dared not hope. With a deliberate agony, he dove into the depths of those pools, locking their eyes; the moss was damp and giving under his palms, Jack's skin so cold it burned at his touch. He slid his length into the heart of the storm, every inch flaring his nerve endings into screaming want, inciting a frantic desperation, but he maintained his course, moving with the patience of a mountain, rewarded by the sight of Jack, head rolled back and neck overflowing with his cries, veins pulsing on his skin, chest heaving. His skin glowed in the waning light of dusk.
"Jack… Mein Gott…"
Ennis was lost in Jack, lost in this man who brought tears to his eyes with need, and when he sank to fullness, he abdicated the throne of his sanity, finding that he could only pray for more and more and more, plunging into the lucent depths in search of relief from the need clutching his every cell, spiraling into the turbulent blue and still he pressed closer. Jack's legs gripped him in a steel vise, wrapping tight enough to stop the blood in its tracks, rising from the stone to meet every request for more, and Ennis pushed forward until there was nothing left of him but a body howling a cry to tear the heavens apart. They convulsed with the feel of each other, riding the crest into the black of night, pain and joy and sweet relief all tangled, mouths coming together to exchange incoherent syllables of bliss, and as the sun surrendered its last bit of light to dark, they unraveled together, falling in sated pieces onto the vibrant bed of moss.