The Marsh Angel, Hagai Dagan [free e reader .TXT] 📗

gave her his regular phone as well. She scowled at him, but didn’t say anything. He hoped Yaki hadn’t planted anything on his clothes. He got out, went back to Mariahilferstrasse, and strode down the street before coming a across a hat and blazer shop. He went in. The prices were exorbitant, but nevertheless he purchased a purple wool hat, a gray corduroy blazer, and a teal-and-indigo plaid scarf which he wrapped around his face. The temperature was quite low, around 34 °F, so his attire did not seem conspicuous. He stuffed his old jacket and scarf into his bag. The clothes had cost him a fortune. He found the blazer and scarf quite dashing, but the purple hat he thought made him look stupid.

Tamir left the store and continued down Mariahilferstrasse, before finally reaching his destination. He figured Yaki and his men probably wouldn’t follow her into a lingerie shop. On the other hand, there might be women on his team… He peered over at the shop. It was quite broad, and adjacent to a C&A store. He walked down to the corner of the street, and turned left. He saw that the C&A had a back exit into the street. He walked in through the back exit and found himself in a corridor leading to elevators and offices. He couldn’t find the door to the store. A woman emerged from one of the elevators and turned to him. Can I help you? He revealed his face from beneath his scarf and said that he was trying to get to the C&A store, and that didn’t know how he got to where they were standing. She smiled courteously and directed him to one of the doors. He opened it and found himself standing in the store’s sales section. He looked around and saw a passage to the lingerie store, Luciana. The passage was open, except for an EAS detection system placed between the stores. He pulled the scarf over his face and crossed.

The atmosphere around him changed at once. The lighting was dimmed and soft. Brass lamps placed along the walls illuminated the space; soft silk cloths dangled from the ceiling, appearing as if they were suspended in midair, trapping in them the subtle light and overwhelming Tamir. Concealed projectors cast alternating images of women on the dangled cloths, not of typical underwear models but of serious women, contemplating, laughing, turning their heads, brushing back their hair, gathering their hair, dropping their hair, young women, mature women, lying back, standing up, sitting down, crouching. Where are the bras and panties? Tamir asked himself. For a minute, he was afraid he had reached the wrong place. Maybe it’s some kind of gallery? He looked around. It took him a few more moments to realize that the walls behind the dangling cloths were lined with stylized niches, in which underwear, bras, and all types and kinds of lingerie floated. The refined, carefully crafted silk lace panties looked like black butterfly wings. The soft cupreous light caressed and pleasured them. Tamir had to look closely to believe they weren’t in fact floating but rather suspended from transparent hangers. A perceptive saleswoman glided beside him like an ominous gust of wind. Women moved around the caressing space like nocturnal birds. Tamir almost forgot why he had entered the store in the first place, forgot to look around to check if Yaki had eyes there, forgot about the whole intelligence thing, forgot about the city of Vienna outside, feeling himself slipping into the veiled silence, into the enticing depths the store offered. Is it actually quiet here? Tamir listened. He thought he had heard a song rising from the floors, or perhaps descending from the ceiling, perhaps percolating through the fake walls, interlacing with the thick golden air. What was that song? What songs do women sing among themselves? What do they whisper to each other? In what language do the oceans sigh? Mensch, das ist mega-geil, a young Viennese woman pronounced to her friend, and the spell was broken.

Tamir stirred. He saw a girl in a pink sweater standing a bit too prolongedly around one of the niches, and suspected she might be a member of Yaki’s team. Would she recognize him? Probably not. The Viennese girls were swallowed up behind one of the dangling pieces of cloth, perhaps never to reemerge, or to emerge completely different than they had entered. The speculated song sounded once again, and the light faded into a golden gloom. Lace and fine silk entwined with the darkness. Tamir gazed into gloom, into its core, gazed and gazed. He knew what the girl from Yaki’s team did not and could not know; he knew that darkness was the fountainhead of all things, that everything emerged from the fog, always form there, and indeed, something was beginning to materialize— the contours of a human figure, a silhouette. Timeless legends started taking form among the niches, miracles were worked humbly among the undulating fabrics, resting hair, quiet, focused eyes, calm, the fiery revolving sword pushed into the background, to the depths of the lake, a hint of a cautious smile, the night sky pierced over seasonal streams, a parched winter, jackals crying to the moon—

Can I help you? You seem a bit lost.

I…

The girl in the pink sweater moved by the niche, releasing a pair of blue silk panties. Tamir tried to conjure a voice different from his own and speak in as Austrian an accent as he could muster. I-I’m fine, he said. I’m looking to get something for my wife.

She contorted her mouth into a smile, but her expression seemed contrived, stiff. I’m sure you’ll find something. There aren’t enough men in the world who buy their wives these kinds of things. Good day, sir.

Outside, lightning tore the sky and thunder erupted over Mariahilferstrasse like an air-to-surface missile. Tamir turned his head to look outside for a moment, but didn’t see anything. When he turned to look back