Chapter Eleven
In which Portia re-enacts history, Oscar gets plastered, and Félix is needled.
Special thanks to la_rainette for her assistance in helping us explore Berlin -- we couldn't have done it without her!
Chapter Eleven
Nobody loved Berlin.
Félix loved the nightlife in Berlin, and Oscar loved the art; Portia was loved by a boy Anastasia brought home the night after their trip to the factory, which caused some problems, but as Félix said on their way out of Berlin, it was better than smack in the face with a ceiling tile.
They arrived in the evening and checked into their hotel in what used to be West Berlin, because Eugenia, Félix's charcoal-skirted assistant who had stayed behind in Paris, had booked their rooms. Apparently, according to the text message she sent Félix, West Berlin was the only place to stay. Félix, puzzled, had asked Oscar if Berlin wasn't unified, and Oscar was reminded of Félix's peculiar youth. He was twenty-nine, and Félix was twenty-four; Félix has been ten when the wall fell.
"I get the feeling that sort of division takes more than fifteen years to fix," he told Félix, as they rode towards their destination in the limo Eugenia had arranged.
"Want my opinion, the only cure is to burn the place to the ground and start over," Portia said. Oscar winced. "Oh -- right. But you can't deny, I mean...sometimes I think you like history at the expense of happiness a little too much, boss."
Félix smiled a little. "I like history too. Germany's is...troubled, but then whose isn't?" He turned his head slightly, to look out the window at the city passing by. "I think I could understand Berlin."
"Understand Berlin! It's not a woman, it's a city," Anastasia remarked, wrinkling her nose. "What is there for you in Berlin, Félix?"
Félix grinned at her. "We'll see, won't we?"
Their hotel was very nice, as all the hotels Félix stayed in were. This one sold German chocolate in the gift shop and had a spectacular spa. It was also smack in the middle of the nightclub district, and that was not by accident. They arrived just as the club crowd was waking up and stumbling down for "breakfast" around eight in the evening, and Oscar had never seen so many rich, beautiful, and hungover people in one place.
"Are you going out tonight?" he asked Félix, who was emerging from an enormous steamy shower, towel wrapped casually around his waist. He guided the razor around his chin, rinsed it, and watched Félix in the mirror.
"I think not," Félix said, walking into the left-hand bedroom; Oscar had claimed the right. "You look like you're going to."
"I felt like I needed it, after the plane ride. Aren't you jetlagged?" Oscar complained.
"I'm used to it," Félix called. "Did it all the time as a child. We could go downstairs and get some dinner."
"Can we wait until the Beautiful People have gone?"
Félix laughed. "Why, are you afraid of being picked up?"
Oscar rinsed his face, drying it on one of the enormous towels. "I feel out of place."
"Nonsense! Handsome young architect like yourself ought to fit right in."
Oscar ran wet hands through his hair, plastering it down on his head. It felt good. "I don't know, I always feel weird around your friends."
"Anastasia would make anyone feel weird," Félix said -- in English, just in case she was lingering. Portia and Anastasia had taken the two bedrooms across the living room, which shared the other bathroom and were closer to the little kitchen. Félix equated a single room in a hotel with camping, or possibly homelessness. It was suites or nothing. "You're just not used to the lifestyle."
"I like my lifestyle," Oscar replied. "I wasn't cut out to be a high-roller."
"Everyone was cut out to be a high-roller," Félix insisted. "Blue shirt or white?"
"You're asking me?"
"Right. Blue it is. You just have to get over your belief that money means anything."
Oscar laughed and went into his own room, flopping down on the bed. "There isn't a big enough bank account in the world, Félix. I'll be an eighty-year-old millionaire and I'll still buy whatever ketchup is on sale."
"Yes, I've been meaning to talk to you about your ketchup habits."
"Oscar, you won't believe this place, they have a chiropractor on staff," Portia said, walking into his room without knocking. Oscar, boneless, did not acknowledge her presence. "Only they call it Chiropraktiker. You look like you could use one."
"Nonsense, I am calm and quiet and none of my bones need rearranging," Oscar answered. "Fly away, little chick. Go get cracked."
"I'm going to go flirt with single boys at dinner," Portia said. "Come with me, make your fortune."
"He's going to make his fortune by buying ketchup on sale!" Félix cried, from the other room. "Let him alone and we'll be down right when you're about to make a killing, to save the poor bastard from himself."
Portia gave him a mock-disdainful sniff, and vanished out the door.
True to their word, when they found her half an hour later, she was having cocktails with the son of an American millionaire who was in Berlin because his father didn't care what he did as long as he did it in another country, where nobody knew who he was. Oscar deftly plucked him away with a line about how he ought to be an artist's model, which even Oscar was unaware anyone fell for anymore, and Félix ordered their dinner while the American Millionaire's Son was sent packing.
"Beer?" Oscar asked skeptically, sitting down at the table Félix had wrangled. The place was beginning to empty as people moved on to bars and nightclubs.
"Bier," Félix corrected. "This is Germany, Oscar."
"Yeah, but it's still beer."
"Didn't we go through this with wine in France?" Portia asked. Félix and Anastasia launched into a duet of information on the quality of German bier and the care with which it was made, while Oscar listened and Portia tried every kind of pastry they offered on the menu.
"Are you going out?" Félix asked Anastasia, as he was signing the bill for the meal to his hotel room.
"I thought so, darling," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "If I find anything particularly interesting, I'll let you know. I suppose you're going to spend a dreary evening watching movies in your room and getting a good night's sleep?"
"Hmm, that was the plan. Tomorrow night, I promise," he said, as she rose to leave. "Portia?"
Portia rarely looked uncertain, and Oscar always treasured it when she did. "I would, but...I don't really speak any German or know my way around, and you scared off my native guide."
"Native guide," Oscar snorted. "Pretentious little prep-school ass."
"Jealous?" she asked, smirking. They bickered all the way out of the restaurant and up to the suite, where Portia settled herself on the couch and took control of the television remote for the remainder of the evening, which did provide plenty of bicker material.
***
What do you think of him? Really, I mean?
Félix decided he was probably dreaming, but he was too comfortable to care; he'd fallen asleep curled up in flannel pyjamas in an oversized chair, soothed by the monotone of a foreign language playing on the television.
Why do I have to really think anything of him?
Well, you like him. You trust him or you wouldn't have let him take care of us all these months. I know you, Oscar. You were raised not to take charity.
I was raised to want equal relationships with people. It doesn't mean I don't take anything, it means I give things back. Eventually.
Do you owe him?
I don't know.
Oscar, is there anything you do know?
I know you can't lose the things we lost and not be equal. Forever.
Tragedy equalises?
Doesn't it?
Félix, upset by this idea, shifted and opened his eyes a little; Oscar and Portia were sitting on the couch, foreheads almost touching, talking softly in English.
So you can take what he gives?
Yes. And give back, but in my own time. He wants a home, Portia, and I can give him a home.
Here in Berlin?
Maybe.
Another new country?
You don't have to stay if you don't want.
You're lucky I like him.
Him, eh?
And maybe you still have a thing or two to teach me.
My pleasure, Miss Rainer. I'm going to bed. Want to wake him, or should I?
Félix closed his eyes again, shifting his head away from them a little. It wasn't difficult to pretend sleep; he was tired, and had barely woken in the first place. He felt a touch on his shoulder, brushed it off, and sank back down into oblivion.
***
The driver the next morning spoke French, as per the request Félix had made with the smiling German concierge. It wasn't good French, and it wasn't terribly polite French, but it was enough that he understood where Félix wanted him to go.
Félix, still working out the kink in his neck from having spent a good deal of the night in a chair, however large and comfortable, sipped from the flask of coffee they'd brought with them from the suite. "The agent said I'd like this one, and it sounded actually sincere this time," he remarked, as they rode. "And I've arranged for a stop along the way that I think you'll be interested in."
"Oh?" Portia looked interested. "Shopping?"
"Not today, but I hear that the Kaufhaus Des Westens is the place to go. I'll make sure we get there before we leave," Félix promised her. "No, I thought we would brush up on...history."
Oscar looked intrigued.
"Today we are tourists," Félix continued. "Now, it's a little out of our way, but the driver's paid by the hour and not by the distance, and besides he's a Wessie."
"A what?"
"Wessie," Portia said, surprising them. "My date you ran off told me about it last night. West Berlin are Wessies. East Berlin are Ossies. Well, were. Apparently it's harder to tell, these days. Your house, wherever it is, is an Ossie. Our Wessie cabdriver doesn't want to take us there, but he does want to show us just how much cooler West Berlin is. Wessies pick on Ossies, and the Ossies act arrogant because secretly they envy the Wessies. Wessies had it better, before the wall came down."
Félix and Oscar stared at her.
"What? I'm not allowed to take my turn as a tour guide?" she inquired.
"Which side are we on now?" Oscar asked. "Can you tell?"
"Not anymore," Félix said with a shrug. "Well, I suppose you could, but the visible evidence is almost gone..."
"So what are we looking at?"
"Up ahead," Félix said, pointing out the window near the front, over Oscar's shoulder. The architect twisted in his seat, tilting his head slightly to get a better view. "Potsdamer Platz. Driver, stop the car -- halten Sie, halten Sie."
The driver obeyed, and climbed out to get the door; Félix slipped gracefully out of the limo, and Portia followed, leaving Oscar to clamber out behind them.
"Oh," he said. "I know what that is."
"One of the few remaining pieces of the wall," Félix said, crossing to the fence that protected the wall, hooking his fingers in it. "I asked about it this morning."
Oscar joined him, eyes raking the ground in front of the wall, littered with detritus and rubbish, before rising to study the graffiti-scrawled cement.
"I remember the day it came down," Portia said. "My mom came into my room and told me to come see the news. I had no clue what it meant."
"Byron had a piece of it," Oscar said.
"Your mentor?" Félix asked.
"He said it reminded him that not everything man builds is sacred," Oscar chuckled. "Not that it ever served much purpose, since I don't think he ever tore anything down if he could help it, but the spirit was there."
"My tutors never mentioned it until it was already history," Félix said. "I didn't even know what the Berlin Wall was until it hadn't been anymore."
"Do you really think you could live in a city with a scar like this?" Oscar asked.
"It's only a scar," Félix shrugged. Behind them, the driver cleared his throat. "We still have things to see. There's a museum of Egyptian antiquities I thought we might go to this afternoon, after we look at the factory."
"The what?" Oscar asked, climbing back into the limo.
"Factory," Félix said unflappably. "You'll see when you get there."
***
"This is eerie."
Oscar wanted to echo Portia's sentiment, but he was almost afraid to speak; he felt like a participant in a horror film. If he opened his mouth, the machines might come to life.
The factory that Félix brought them to was essentially one large room with a complex of offices at one end; the floor was filled with conveyor belts, strange hulking machinery, and rusted metal. Light filtered in through pyramid skylights in the ceiling, and the walls were covered here and there with posters encouraging honest labour, teamwork, fair play, and other things which Oscar felt any sensible person would not need posters to remind him of. Their footsteps rang loudly on the cement floor, echoing back to them from the ceiling, a hundred feet above their heads.
"Hey, get a load of me," Portia said, hoisting herself up onto one of the conveyor belts and raising her hands above her head. "FRIENDS! GERMANS! COUNTRYMEN! ICH BIN EIN BERLINER!"
Félix, nearby, threw a bit of breakfast-pastry at her in amusement. He'd had no trouble at all with the complex code to the lockbox on the front door -- all the others were securely shut with thick, heavy iron chains -- and apparently this really was the place the agent in Paris had sent them.
"Félix, why are we here?" Oscar asked warily, as the echoes from Portia's historical re-enactment died down.
"Isn't it splendid?" Félix asked, picking up a particularly ugly shoe that was still sitting on one of the conveyor belts. Oscar could see bits of fake leather rotting away in the guts of other machines, and realised this had been a shoe factory, before it became the official second scariest place he'd ever been. Which was saying something, considering the scariest place he'd ever been was a burning building.
"The dust's an inch thick -- this place must have been closed for years," Portia said, walking along the conveyor belt.
"Fifteen, give or take," Félix said, reading from his PDA. "Apparently it closed the day the wall came down, and just....never re-opened. Nobody wanted anything from the East. Agency information," he said, holding up the little machine to show Oscar, when the other man looked at him strangely.
"So they just left the machines -- and the shoes?" Oscar asked.
"It appears that way. I like it," Félix pronounced, looking around with a wide grin. "It's got space."
"Ja, lebensraum," Oscar muttered.
"Think of everything you could do with this, though! We could hold raves in here," Félix laughed.
"Do you want to hold raves in here?" Portia asked, bending over to inspect one of the machines.
"It's very versatile," Félix continued.
"It creeps me out," Oscar said. "It's not natural, Félix. Things are supposed to happen in this place. I mean, be made, you know."
"You could make things here," Félix replied easily. He climbed up onto another conveyor belt, across the enormous room from the one Portia was wandering around on, and stepped from there onto another one, higher up.
"Félix, you're going to be impaled on some demonic possessed machine," Oscar warned.
"Nonsense."
"I've seen The Omen! And Terminator!"
"What is he talking about, Portia?" Félix asked, steadily working his way higher and higher, ending up on some kind of catwalk scaffolding over the whole thing. "We have to leave this part in. Like an observation deck over the living room, there..." he pointed down, vaguely. "And we can build a level up here for bedrooms and such -- could you make a hanging level? Dangling from the ceiling?"
"I could, but I'd make you sign a waiver saying I wasn't to be sued when it came crashing down. I don't think this place is safe," Oscar said, poking at the plaster in one wall. It crumbled a little, damply.
"I'm sure they wouldn't have sent us here if it was unsafe," Félix said self-assuredly, peering up at the skylights.
And that was when the roof fell in.
"Holy crap!" Portia shouted, as a large section of cheap temporary ceiling tiles crumbled over Félix's head. For a minute Félix vanished in a cloud of plaster dust and pressed fibreboard, and the entire structure of the catwalk shook.
"Shit -- Félix!" Oscar cried, lifting himself up onto the conveyor belt and working his way along to the next level, following the dusty footsteps Félix had left.
"I'M ALL RIGHT!" Félix shouted down. More of the ceiling fell away, and Oscar took shelter underneath a part of one machine. Pressed-board ceiling tiles showered down around him.
"I don't think it likes us," Portia said, running nimbly along the conveyor belt, skipping over the ugly shoes sitting in various states of construction.
"I'm all right, don't come up!" Félix said, as the dust began to clear a little. Oscar, nevertheless, began the ascent again, now that the sky seemed to have stopped falling.
There was a clatter as Félix dropped off the catwalk to the belt below, and then again to the next level, where Oscar met him. Both of them had dust in their hair, and Félix laughed a little.
"You look ridiculous!" he said, dusting Oscar's shoulders and ruffling his hair. Bits of plaster skittered down to the cold cement floor.
"How do you call nine-one-one in Germany?" Portia called.
"I'm fine!" Félix repeated, but Oscar could see dust-caked blood leaking out his nose, and one of his cheeks was slowly swelling. "Help me down."
"No, I thought I'd let you hang out up here for a while," Oscar said weakly. Somewhere on the other side of the building, glass shattered.
"Skylight!" Portia said, hysterically cheerful.
"Félix?" Oscar said, as he helped the other man down.
"Yes, Oscar?"
"I don't think I want to restore this place."
"Funny, I was just thinking that it has some distinct disadvantages," Félix agreed.
***
They had to wait in the hospital the limo driver took them to, grumbling under his breath about prozess, which Félix (who had what he referred to as "business German") translated as lawsuit. There was a small first-aid kit in the limo, and Portia kept herself busy getting the painkillers open and administering a few.
The doctor at the hospital had no French, and they had to wait a few minutes while a translator was summoned. Félix sat quietly and obediently on the hospital bed, examining the bruises on his arm and chest with his shirt off, while Oscar paced and Portia stole medical tape.
He paced a little faster when the translator showed up, introducing herself as Margaret. She was, in Portia's later words, interesting for more reasons than her nimble tongue.
"How did it hit you?" she asked, as the doctor examined Félix's eyes. An ill-placed hand on Félix's cheek made him jerk back before answering.
"Sideways," he said. "Across the face. Stop!" he said, to the doctor, who looked surprised. "That hurts!"
"He begs your pardon," Margaret continued. "Nothing directly down?"
"It still hit me," Félix retorted. The translator smiled gently.
"Doesn't seem to have put you in a very good mood," she said. "Do you have any dizziness? Shortness of breath?"
"Only out of panic," Félix said. "A roof fell on me, you know!"
"He's goin to check your head for contusions," Margaret answered, as the doctor began lifting tufts of Félix's short, messy hair. "Did you have any bleeding?"
"Nosebleed," Oscar said helpfully. "And the scrape on his cheek. We stopped it in the car."
"Mr. Carvell, we're going to -- "
"OW!" Félix shouted, as a needle was jabbed into his arm without warning.
"Sorry, he didn't wait for me to translate," Margaret apologised. "Tetanus shot. Just in case."
"I hate hospitals," Portia sighed. A box of latex gloves was peeping over the edge of her purse, and Oscar pushed it down, with a warning look at her.
"The doctor says there's no sign of a concussion, but you're not to sleep for another six hours," Margaret continued. "He's going to give you a prescription for some pain relievers, and an ice pack for that face." She glanced over her shoulder at Oscar, then grinned and leaned in closer to Félix as the young man pulled his shirt on, carefully. "You want some tranquilisers for your bodyguard?"
"My -- oh. Yes, please," Félix said, a grin spreading over half of his face, while the other half looked like some kind of horrible sneer. "Risked life and limb to save me, you know."
"Félix," Oscar protested, as the doctor turned to him. "I don't need anything," he said to the translator, who shrugged.
"We'd like to check you over anyway," she replied.
"We?"
"Well, the doctor. My interests in you are strictly non-medical," she said, and Portia snickered as she moved to sit next to Félix on the hospital bed. The doctor wrapped a thin towel around Oscar's neck and picked up a water-bottle with a strange siphon device attached, filling it at the sink.
"What's he -- cold!" Oscar gasped, as the doctor squirted the water over his head, rinsing bits of plaster and metal down onto the towel. "What is this, some kind of crime drama?"
"The doctor says there's lots of dangerous debris. Are you cut anywhere?"
"Not if it means he's going to give me a shot, too," Oscar said firmly. The translator looked firm.
"Mr..."
"Shelley."
"Like the poet, nice. Mr. Shelley, I'm a medical translator. I can give you the full symptoms of Tetanus in several languages, if you want me to. It starts with lockjaw -- "
"I'm not cut anywhere," Oscar sulked.
"Better. Were you hit by anything?"
"Just dust. Félix got most of it."
"You haven't exchanged fluids with Mr. Carvell?"
"What?"
"Common question," she replied. "Making sure neither of you have blood-borne diseases you could have shared."
"No, we didn't swap fluids," Oscar snarled, wiping water out of one eye. "And neither of us are diseased, either, thanks."
"Well, you look all right," Margaret translated, as the doctor spoke to Oscar in rapid-fire German. "Get some rest and make sure you wash your hair."
"I thought the plastered look was rather nice," Portia put in.
"You, shut it," Oscar snapped.
"Now see, he wouldn't have said that to me a year ago," she remarked to Félix, who was accepting an ice pack from a nurse and easing it onto his bruised cheek. "Come on, Oscar, we'll get you an apple juice from the cafeteria."
"Swell," Oscar muttered. The doctor gave him a reassuring and condescending pat on the arm, tossed the wet towel in a laundry hamper in the corner, and left.
"If you happen to feel sick, here's the hospital's number. This is the doctor, and this is my number in case you get a desk nurse who doesn't speak French or English," Margaret said, handing the business card not to Félix, but to Oscar. She turned it over and scrawled a fourth number on the back.
"What's that one?" Oscar asked.
"My mobile. Call me if you need anything," she said with a wink. "Bodyguards get days off too, right?"
"But I'm not -- " he started, giving up when the door shut behind her.
"I get hit with a ceiling and he gets a beautiful woman's telephone number," Félix complained.
"Yes, you're a martyr to the cause," Portia replied. "Come on, you big babies, apple juice for all. "
"What is your fixation with apple juice?" Oscar asked, following her down the hallway.
"That's what you get when you go to the doctor," Portia replied.
"What?"
"Yeah, when you were a little kid, didn't the doctor always give you an apple juice when you were done?"
Oscar glanced at Félix, who shrugged in a slightly lopsided fashion. "Don't look at me, " he said.
"Your doctor must have especially liked you," Oscar suggested.
"Well, I was a princess," Portia replied, gravely.
"What happened?" Félix asked.
"Don't think I won't hit you. Give you matching bruises," Portia shot back.
"My bodyguard will protect me!" Félix proclaimed, and both of them began laughing uncontrollably. Oscar sniffed haughtily.
"I'm going to go fill these prescriptions," he said, stalking off towards the sign reading Apotheke with the little RX sign next to it.
"It is a little weird, you know," Portia said, plucking two boxes of juice off the shelf in the cafeteria. "I mean, she had a choice between you, shirtless, and Oscar with plaster in his hair."
"I don't find it weird at all," Félix remarked, imperturbably.
"No?"
"No. Oscar's special; people are beginning to see that."
Portia, wisely, kept her peace until Oscar returned with the painkillers.
Special thanks to la_rainette for her assistance in helping us explore Berlin -- we couldn't have done it without her!
Chapter Eleven
Nobody loved Berlin.
Félix loved the nightlife in Berlin, and Oscar loved the art; Portia was loved by a boy Anastasia brought home the night after their trip to the factory, which caused some problems, but as Félix said on their way out of Berlin, it was better than smack in the face with a ceiling tile.
They arrived in the evening and checked into their hotel in what used to be West Berlin, because Eugenia, Félix's charcoal-skirted assistant who had stayed behind in Paris, had booked their rooms. Apparently, according to the text message she sent Félix, West Berlin was the only place to stay. Félix, puzzled, had asked Oscar if Berlin wasn't unified, and Oscar was reminded of Félix's peculiar youth. He was twenty-nine, and Félix was twenty-four; Félix has been ten when the wall fell.
"I get the feeling that sort of division takes more than fifteen years to fix," he told Félix, as they rode towards their destination in the limo Eugenia had arranged.
"Want my opinion, the only cure is to burn the place to the ground and start over," Portia said. Oscar winced. "Oh -- right. But you can't deny, I mean...sometimes I think you like history at the expense of happiness a little too much, boss."
Félix smiled a little. "I like history too. Germany's is...troubled, but then whose isn't?" He turned his head slightly, to look out the window at the city passing by. "I think I could understand Berlin."
"Understand Berlin! It's not a woman, it's a city," Anastasia remarked, wrinkling her nose. "What is there for you in Berlin, Félix?"
Félix grinned at her. "We'll see, won't we?"
Their hotel was very nice, as all the hotels Félix stayed in were. This one sold German chocolate in the gift shop and had a spectacular spa. It was also smack in the middle of the nightclub district, and that was not by accident. They arrived just as the club crowd was waking up and stumbling down for "breakfast" around eight in the evening, and Oscar had never seen so many rich, beautiful, and hungover people in one place.
"Are you going out tonight?" he asked Félix, who was emerging from an enormous steamy shower, towel wrapped casually around his waist. He guided the razor around his chin, rinsed it, and watched Félix in the mirror.
"I think not," Félix said, walking into the left-hand bedroom; Oscar had claimed the right. "You look like you're going to."
"I felt like I needed it, after the plane ride. Aren't you jetlagged?" Oscar complained.
"I'm used to it," Félix called. "Did it all the time as a child. We could go downstairs and get some dinner."
"Can we wait until the Beautiful People have gone?"
Félix laughed. "Why, are you afraid of being picked up?"
Oscar rinsed his face, drying it on one of the enormous towels. "I feel out of place."
"Nonsense! Handsome young architect like yourself ought to fit right in."
Oscar ran wet hands through his hair, plastering it down on his head. It felt good. "I don't know, I always feel weird around your friends."
"Anastasia would make anyone feel weird," Félix said -- in English, just in case she was lingering. Portia and Anastasia had taken the two bedrooms across the living room, which shared the other bathroom and were closer to the little kitchen. Félix equated a single room in a hotel with camping, or possibly homelessness. It was suites or nothing. "You're just not used to the lifestyle."
"I like my lifestyle," Oscar replied. "I wasn't cut out to be a high-roller."
"Everyone was cut out to be a high-roller," Félix insisted. "Blue shirt or white?"
"You're asking me?"
"Right. Blue it is. You just have to get over your belief that money means anything."
Oscar laughed and went into his own room, flopping down on the bed. "There isn't a big enough bank account in the world, Félix. I'll be an eighty-year-old millionaire and I'll still buy whatever ketchup is on sale."
"Yes, I've been meaning to talk to you about your ketchup habits."
"Oscar, you won't believe this place, they have a chiropractor on staff," Portia said, walking into his room without knocking. Oscar, boneless, did not acknowledge her presence. "Only they call it Chiropraktiker. You look like you could use one."
"Nonsense, I am calm and quiet and none of my bones need rearranging," Oscar answered. "Fly away, little chick. Go get cracked."
"I'm going to go flirt with single boys at dinner," Portia said. "Come with me, make your fortune."
"He's going to make his fortune by buying ketchup on sale!" Félix cried, from the other room. "Let him alone and we'll be down right when you're about to make a killing, to save the poor bastard from himself."
Portia gave him a mock-disdainful sniff, and vanished out the door.
True to their word, when they found her half an hour later, she was having cocktails with the son of an American millionaire who was in Berlin because his father didn't care what he did as long as he did it in another country, where nobody knew who he was. Oscar deftly plucked him away with a line about how he ought to be an artist's model, which even Oscar was unaware anyone fell for anymore, and Félix ordered their dinner while the American Millionaire's Son was sent packing.
"Beer?" Oscar asked skeptically, sitting down at the table Félix had wrangled. The place was beginning to empty as people moved on to bars and nightclubs.
"Bier," Félix corrected. "This is Germany, Oscar."
"Yeah, but it's still beer."
"Didn't we go through this with wine in France?" Portia asked. Félix and Anastasia launched into a duet of information on the quality of German bier and the care with which it was made, while Oscar listened and Portia tried every kind of pastry they offered on the menu.
"Are you going out?" Félix asked Anastasia, as he was signing the bill for the meal to his hotel room.
"I thought so, darling," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "If I find anything particularly interesting, I'll let you know. I suppose you're going to spend a dreary evening watching movies in your room and getting a good night's sleep?"
"Hmm, that was the plan. Tomorrow night, I promise," he said, as she rose to leave. "Portia?"
Portia rarely looked uncertain, and Oscar always treasured it when she did. "I would, but...I don't really speak any German or know my way around, and you scared off my native guide."
"Native guide," Oscar snorted. "Pretentious little prep-school ass."
"Jealous?" she asked, smirking. They bickered all the way out of the restaurant and up to the suite, where Portia settled herself on the couch and took control of the television remote for the remainder of the evening, which did provide plenty of bicker material.
***
What do you think of him? Really, I mean?
Félix decided he was probably dreaming, but he was too comfortable to care; he'd fallen asleep curled up in flannel pyjamas in an oversized chair, soothed by the monotone of a foreign language playing on the television.
Why do I have to really think anything of him?
Well, you like him. You trust him or you wouldn't have let him take care of us all these months. I know you, Oscar. You were raised not to take charity.
I was raised to want equal relationships with people. It doesn't mean I don't take anything, it means I give things back. Eventually.
Do you owe him?
I don't know.
Oscar, is there anything you do know?
I know you can't lose the things we lost and not be equal. Forever.
Tragedy equalises?
Doesn't it?
Félix, upset by this idea, shifted and opened his eyes a little; Oscar and Portia were sitting on the couch, foreheads almost touching, talking softly in English.
So you can take what he gives?
Yes. And give back, but in my own time. He wants a home, Portia, and I can give him a home.
Here in Berlin?
Maybe.
Another new country?
You don't have to stay if you don't want.
You're lucky I like him.
Him, eh?
And maybe you still have a thing or two to teach me.
My pleasure, Miss Rainer. I'm going to bed. Want to wake him, or should I?
Félix closed his eyes again, shifting his head away from them a little. It wasn't difficult to pretend sleep; he was tired, and had barely woken in the first place. He felt a touch on his shoulder, brushed it off, and sank back down into oblivion.
***
The driver the next morning spoke French, as per the request Félix had made with the smiling German concierge. It wasn't good French, and it wasn't terribly polite French, but it was enough that he understood where Félix wanted him to go.
Félix, still working out the kink in his neck from having spent a good deal of the night in a chair, however large and comfortable, sipped from the flask of coffee they'd brought with them from the suite. "The agent said I'd like this one, and it sounded actually sincere this time," he remarked, as they rode. "And I've arranged for a stop along the way that I think you'll be interested in."
"Oh?" Portia looked interested. "Shopping?"
"Not today, but I hear that the Kaufhaus Des Westens is the place to go. I'll make sure we get there before we leave," Félix promised her. "No, I thought we would brush up on...history."
Oscar looked intrigued.
"Today we are tourists," Félix continued. "Now, it's a little out of our way, but the driver's paid by the hour and not by the distance, and besides he's a Wessie."
"A what?"
"Wessie," Portia said, surprising them. "My date you ran off told me about it last night. West Berlin are Wessies. East Berlin are Ossies. Well, were. Apparently it's harder to tell, these days. Your house, wherever it is, is an Ossie. Our Wessie cabdriver doesn't want to take us there, but he does want to show us just how much cooler West Berlin is. Wessies pick on Ossies, and the Ossies act arrogant because secretly they envy the Wessies. Wessies had it better, before the wall came down."
Félix and Oscar stared at her.
"What? I'm not allowed to take my turn as a tour guide?" she inquired.
"Which side are we on now?" Oscar asked. "Can you tell?"
"Not anymore," Félix said with a shrug. "Well, I suppose you could, but the visible evidence is almost gone..."
"So what are we looking at?"
"Up ahead," Félix said, pointing out the window near the front, over Oscar's shoulder. The architect twisted in his seat, tilting his head slightly to get a better view. "Potsdamer Platz. Driver, stop the car -- halten Sie, halten Sie."
The driver obeyed, and climbed out to get the door; Félix slipped gracefully out of the limo, and Portia followed, leaving Oscar to clamber out behind them.
"Oh," he said. "I know what that is."
"One of the few remaining pieces of the wall," Félix said, crossing to the fence that protected the wall, hooking his fingers in it. "I asked about it this morning."
Oscar joined him, eyes raking the ground in front of the wall, littered with detritus and rubbish, before rising to study the graffiti-scrawled cement.
"I remember the day it came down," Portia said. "My mom came into my room and told me to come see the news. I had no clue what it meant."
"Byron had a piece of it," Oscar said.
"Your mentor?" Félix asked.
"He said it reminded him that not everything man builds is sacred," Oscar chuckled. "Not that it ever served much purpose, since I don't think he ever tore anything down if he could help it, but the spirit was there."
"My tutors never mentioned it until it was already history," Félix said. "I didn't even know what the Berlin Wall was until it hadn't been anymore."
"Do you really think you could live in a city with a scar like this?" Oscar asked.
"It's only a scar," Félix shrugged. Behind them, the driver cleared his throat. "We still have things to see. There's a museum of Egyptian antiquities I thought we might go to this afternoon, after we look at the factory."
"The what?" Oscar asked, climbing back into the limo.
"Factory," Félix said unflappably. "You'll see when you get there."
***
"This is eerie."
Oscar wanted to echo Portia's sentiment, but he was almost afraid to speak; he felt like a participant in a horror film. If he opened his mouth, the machines might come to life.
The factory that Félix brought them to was essentially one large room with a complex of offices at one end; the floor was filled with conveyor belts, strange hulking machinery, and rusted metal. Light filtered in through pyramid skylights in the ceiling, and the walls were covered here and there with posters encouraging honest labour, teamwork, fair play, and other things which Oscar felt any sensible person would not need posters to remind him of. Their footsteps rang loudly on the cement floor, echoing back to them from the ceiling, a hundred feet above their heads.
"Hey, get a load of me," Portia said, hoisting herself up onto one of the conveyor belts and raising her hands above her head. "FRIENDS! GERMANS! COUNTRYMEN! ICH BIN EIN BERLINER!"
Félix, nearby, threw a bit of breakfast-pastry at her in amusement. He'd had no trouble at all with the complex code to the lockbox on the front door -- all the others were securely shut with thick, heavy iron chains -- and apparently this really was the place the agent in Paris had sent them.
"Félix, why are we here?" Oscar asked warily, as the echoes from Portia's historical re-enactment died down.
"Isn't it splendid?" Félix asked, picking up a particularly ugly shoe that was still sitting on one of the conveyor belts. Oscar could see bits of fake leather rotting away in the guts of other machines, and realised this had been a shoe factory, before it became the official second scariest place he'd ever been. Which was saying something, considering the scariest place he'd ever been was a burning building.
"The dust's an inch thick -- this place must have been closed for years," Portia said, walking along the conveyor belt.
"Fifteen, give or take," Félix said, reading from his PDA. "Apparently it closed the day the wall came down, and just....never re-opened. Nobody wanted anything from the East. Agency information," he said, holding up the little machine to show Oscar, when the other man looked at him strangely.
"So they just left the machines -- and the shoes?" Oscar asked.
"It appears that way. I like it," Félix pronounced, looking around with a wide grin. "It's got space."
"Ja, lebensraum," Oscar muttered.
"Think of everything you could do with this, though! We could hold raves in here," Félix laughed.
"Do you want to hold raves in here?" Portia asked, bending over to inspect one of the machines.
"It's very versatile," Félix continued.
"It creeps me out," Oscar said. "It's not natural, Félix. Things are supposed to happen in this place. I mean, be made, you know."
"You could make things here," Félix replied easily. He climbed up onto another conveyor belt, across the enormous room from the one Portia was wandering around on, and stepped from there onto another one, higher up.
"Félix, you're going to be impaled on some demonic possessed machine," Oscar warned.
"Nonsense."
"I've seen The Omen! And Terminator!"
"What is he talking about, Portia?" Félix asked, steadily working his way higher and higher, ending up on some kind of catwalk scaffolding over the whole thing. "We have to leave this part in. Like an observation deck over the living room, there..." he pointed down, vaguely. "And we can build a level up here for bedrooms and such -- could you make a hanging level? Dangling from the ceiling?"
"I could, but I'd make you sign a waiver saying I wasn't to be sued when it came crashing down. I don't think this place is safe," Oscar said, poking at the plaster in one wall. It crumbled a little, damply.
"I'm sure they wouldn't have sent us here if it was unsafe," Félix said self-assuredly, peering up at the skylights.
And that was when the roof fell in.
"Holy crap!" Portia shouted, as a large section of cheap temporary ceiling tiles crumbled over Félix's head. For a minute Félix vanished in a cloud of plaster dust and pressed fibreboard, and the entire structure of the catwalk shook.
"Shit -- Félix!" Oscar cried, lifting himself up onto the conveyor belt and working his way along to the next level, following the dusty footsteps Félix had left.
"I'M ALL RIGHT!" Félix shouted down. More of the ceiling fell away, and Oscar took shelter underneath a part of one machine. Pressed-board ceiling tiles showered down around him.
"I don't think it likes us," Portia said, running nimbly along the conveyor belt, skipping over the ugly shoes sitting in various states of construction.
"I'm all right, don't come up!" Félix said, as the dust began to clear a little. Oscar, nevertheless, began the ascent again, now that the sky seemed to have stopped falling.
There was a clatter as Félix dropped off the catwalk to the belt below, and then again to the next level, where Oscar met him. Both of them had dust in their hair, and Félix laughed a little.
"You look ridiculous!" he said, dusting Oscar's shoulders and ruffling his hair. Bits of plaster skittered down to the cold cement floor.
"How do you call nine-one-one in Germany?" Portia called.
"I'm fine!" Félix repeated, but Oscar could see dust-caked blood leaking out his nose, and one of his cheeks was slowly swelling. "Help me down."
"No, I thought I'd let you hang out up here for a while," Oscar said weakly. Somewhere on the other side of the building, glass shattered.
"Skylight!" Portia said, hysterically cheerful.
"Félix?" Oscar said, as he helped the other man down.
"Yes, Oscar?"
"I don't think I want to restore this place."
"Funny, I was just thinking that it has some distinct disadvantages," Félix agreed.
***
They had to wait in the hospital the limo driver took them to, grumbling under his breath about prozess, which Félix (who had what he referred to as "business German") translated as lawsuit. There was a small first-aid kit in the limo, and Portia kept herself busy getting the painkillers open and administering a few.
The doctor at the hospital had no French, and they had to wait a few minutes while a translator was summoned. Félix sat quietly and obediently on the hospital bed, examining the bruises on his arm and chest with his shirt off, while Oscar paced and Portia stole medical tape.
He paced a little faster when the translator showed up, introducing herself as Margaret. She was, in Portia's later words, interesting for more reasons than her nimble tongue.
"How did it hit you?" she asked, as the doctor examined Félix's eyes. An ill-placed hand on Félix's cheek made him jerk back before answering.
"Sideways," he said. "Across the face. Stop!" he said, to the doctor, who looked surprised. "That hurts!"
"He begs your pardon," Margaret continued. "Nothing directly down?"
"It still hit me," Félix retorted. The translator smiled gently.
"Doesn't seem to have put you in a very good mood," she said. "Do you have any dizziness? Shortness of breath?"
"Only out of panic," Félix said. "A roof fell on me, you know!"
"He's goin to check your head for contusions," Margaret answered, as the doctor began lifting tufts of Félix's short, messy hair. "Did you have any bleeding?"
"Nosebleed," Oscar said helpfully. "And the scrape on his cheek. We stopped it in the car."
"Mr. Carvell, we're going to -- "
"OW!" Félix shouted, as a needle was jabbed into his arm without warning.
"Sorry, he didn't wait for me to translate," Margaret apologised. "Tetanus shot. Just in case."
"I hate hospitals," Portia sighed. A box of latex gloves was peeping over the edge of her purse, and Oscar pushed it down, with a warning look at her.
"The doctor says there's no sign of a concussion, but you're not to sleep for another six hours," Margaret continued. "He's going to give you a prescription for some pain relievers, and an ice pack for that face." She glanced over her shoulder at Oscar, then grinned and leaned in closer to Félix as the young man pulled his shirt on, carefully. "You want some tranquilisers for your bodyguard?"
"My -- oh. Yes, please," Félix said, a grin spreading over half of his face, while the other half looked like some kind of horrible sneer. "Risked life and limb to save me, you know."
"Félix," Oscar protested, as the doctor turned to him. "I don't need anything," he said to the translator, who shrugged.
"We'd like to check you over anyway," she replied.
"We?"
"Well, the doctor. My interests in you are strictly non-medical," she said, and Portia snickered as she moved to sit next to Félix on the hospital bed. The doctor wrapped a thin towel around Oscar's neck and picked up a water-bottle with a strange siphon device attached, filling it at the sink.
"What's he -- cold!" Oscar gasped, as the doctor squirted the water over his head, rinsing bits of plaster and metal down onto the towel. "What is this, some kind of crime drama?"
"The doctor says there's lots of dangerous debris. Are you cut anywhere?"
"Not if it means he's going to give me a shot, too," Oscar said firmly. The translator looked firm.
"Mr..."
"Shelley."
"Like the poet, nice. Mr. Shelley, I'm a medical translator. I can give you the full symptoms of Tetanus in several languages, if you want me to. It starts with lockjaw -- "
"I'm not cut anywhere," Oscar sulked.
"Better. Were you hit by anything?"
"Just dust. Félix got most of it."
"You haven't exchanged fluids with Mr. Carvell?"
"What?"
"Common question," she replied. "Making sure neither of you have blood-borne diseases you could have shared."
"No, we didn't swap fluids," Oscar snarled, wiping water out of one eye. "And neither of us are diseased, either, thanks."
"Well, you look all right," Margaret translated, as the doctor spoke to Oscar in rapid-fire German. "Get some rest and make sure you wash your hair."
"I thought the plastered look was rather nice," Portia put in.
"You, shut it," Oscar snapped.
"Now see, he wouldn't have said that to me a year ago," she remarked to Félix, who was accepting an ice pack from a nurse and easing it onto his bruised cheek. "Come on, Oscar, we'll get you an apple juice from the cafeteria."
"Swell," Oscar muttered. The doctor gave him a reassuring and condescending pat on the arm, tossed the wet towel in a laundry hamper in the corner, and left.
"If you happen to feel sick, here's the hospital's number. This is the doctor, and this is my number in case you get a desk nurse who doesn't speak French or English," Margaret said, handing the business card not to Félix, but to Oscar. She turned it over and scrawled a fourth number on the back.
"What's that one?" Oscar asked.
"My mobile. Call me if you need anything," she said with a wink. "Bodyguards get days off too, right?"
"But I'm not -- " he started, giving up when the door shut behind her.
"I get hit with a ceiling and he gets a beautiful woman's telephone number," Félix complained.
"Yes, you're a martyr to the cause," Portia replied. "Come on, you big babies, apple juice for all. "
"What is your fixation with apple juice?" Oscar asked, following her down the hallway.
"That's what you get when you go to the doctor," Portia replied.
"What?"
"Yeah, when you were a little kid, didn't the doctor always give you an apple juice when you were done?"
Oscar glanced at Félix, who shrugged in a slightly lopsided fashion. "Don't look at me, " he said.
"Your doctor must have especially liked you," Oscar suggested.
"Well, I was a princess," Portia replied, gravely.
"What happened?" Félix asked.
"Don't think I won't hit you. Give you matching bruises," Portia shot back.
"My bodyguard will protect me!" Félix proclaimed, and both of them began laughing uncontrollably. Oscar sniffed haughtily.
"I'm going to go fill these prescriptions," he said, stalking off towards the sign reading Apotheke with the little RX sign next to it.
"It is a little weird, you know," Portia said, plucking two boxes of juice off the shelf in the cafeteria. "I mean, she had a choice between you, shirtless, and Oscar with plaster in his hair."
"I don't find it weird at all," Félix remarked, imperturbably.
"No?"
"No. Oscar's special; people are beginning to see that."
Portia, wisely, kept her peace until Oscar returned with the painkillers.