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Back The One from the Other
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. EPILOGUE
  49. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  50. Teaser chapter

The shop faced the back of Vienna University’s Institute of Chemistry. The sign above the window read “Vera Messmann. Salon for Made-to-Measure Corselettes, Bodices, Girdles, and Brassieres.” The window contained a female tailor’s dummy wearing a pink silk corset and matching brassiere. Beside it was a show-card featuring a line drawing of a girl wearing a different ensemble. She had a bow in her hair and, but for her lack of glasses, she reminded me a little of Vera. A little bell tinkled above my head as I opened the door. There was a simple, glass-topped counter no bigger than a card table and, next to this, another anonymous girdled female trunk. In the back, a ceiling light was burning dimly near a heavily draped changing cubicle. In front of this sanctum sanctorum stood a French chair, as if someone might sit there and, with seignorial satisfaction, watch his lover or mistress appear from behind the curtain wearing some well-engineered undergarment. Who said I didn’t have a vivid imagination?

“Vera?” I called. “Vera, it’s me, Bernie. Why didn’t you show up at the bank?”

Idly, I drew open a narrow drawer to reveal a dozen or so black brassieres pressed together like slaves on a ship bound for the plantations in the West Indies. I picked one up and felt the wires in it hard underneath my fingers, thinking that it looked and felt like the harness for early and ill-advised attempt at human flight.

“Vera? I waited at the bank for half an hour. Did you forget, or did you just change your mind?”

The thing was, I hardly wanted to go blundering into the back of the shop and find some well-fed Vienna housewife wearing just her knickers. I tugged open another drawer and picked out an item of vaguely aqueductian shape that, eventually, I identified as being a garter belt. Another minute passed. A woman peered in the window and looked taken aback to see me standing there with something lacy suspended from my fingers, like a cat’s cradle. I put the undergarment down and advanced, boldly, into the back of the shop, thinking perhaps Vera was upstairs, if an upstairs there was.

“Vera?”