Billiards at Half-Past Nine (3 page)

The old man, now, he actually blew his nose, chewed his
cigar and sometimes complimented her on her hairdo, her complexion. His suit at least showed some sign of wear and tear, his tie was always a little crooked, on his fingers ink stains, on his lapels eraser rubbings. He carried pencils soft and hard in his vest pocket and occasionally he would take a sheet of paper from his son’s desk, sketch an angel on it, an
Agnus Dei
, a tree, the portrait of one of his contemporaries, hurrying by outside. And sometimes he gave her money to go and buy cake, asked her to make a second cup of coffee, making her happy that for once she could plug in the electric percolator for someone beside herself. That was the kind of office life she was used to, making coffee, buying cakes and being told stories with a proper beginning and end. Stories about the life lived back there in the apartment wing of the building, about the dead who had died there. Back there for centuries the Kilbs had tried their hand at vice and virtue, sin and salvation, had been city treasurers, notaries, mayors and cathedral canons. Back there in the air still lingered some intimation of the acrid prayers of would-be prelates, of the melancholy sins of Kilbian spinsters and the penances of pious Kilbian youths. All in that gloomy part of the house back there, where now, on quiet afternoons, a pale, dark-haired girl did her homework and waited for her father to come home. Or was he at home afternoons? Two hundred and ten bottles of wine emptied between the beginning of May and the last of August. Did he drink them all by himself? With his daughter? With ghosts? All of it unreal, less real than the ash-blond hair of the office girl who fifty years ago had sat there in her place, keeping watch over legal secrets.

“Yes, she sat right there, my dear Leonore, on exactly the same spot where you’re sitting now. Her name was Josephine.” Had the old man said nice things about her hair, too, and her complexion?

The old man laughed and pointed to the proverb hanging up on the wall above his son’s desk, solitary relic from times past, painted in white letters on mahogany. “Their right hand
is full of bribes,” it said. A motto of Kilbian as well as Faehmel incorruptibility.

“My two brothers-in-law, point of fact, didn’t go much for the law. Last male descendants of the line. One chose the Uhlans, with their lances and fancy uniforms, the other just liked to kill time. But both of them, the officer and the loafer, were in the same regiment, and fell in the same attack on the same day. They rode into machine-gun fire at Erby-le-Huette, and there went the name of Kilb. And took their vices with them into the grave, the void. Like so many scarlet flowers, at Erby-le-Huette.”

The old man was happy when he got white mason’s mortar on his pants and could ask her to brush him off. Often he carried fat rolls of drawings under his arm, and whether he had taken them from the files or was actually working on an assignment, she never knew.

He sipped at his coffee, said how nice it was, pushed the cake dish over to her, dragged on his cigar. The reverential look came back on his face. “One of Robert’s schoolmates? I really should know him. You’re sure his name wasn’t Schrella? Positive? No, no, ridiculous, he’d never smoke cigars like this. Never. And you sent him to the Prince Heinrich? That’ll make trouble, my dear Leonore, there’ll be a row. He doesn’t like it, my son Robert, when people upset his routine. He was like that even as a boy. Perfectly nice, intelligent, polite, everything just so. But if you overstepped a certain mark, he blew up. Quite capable of committing murder. I was always a little scared of him. You, too? Oh, he won’t do anything to you, girl, not for what you did. Be sensible. Come on, now, let’s go and eat. We’ll celebrate your new job and my birthday. Don’t do anything foolish. If he’s already raised the deuce over the phone, then it’s over and done with. Pity you can’t remember that fellow’s name. I had no idea he still kept up with his old school chums. Let’s go. Come on. Today’s Saturday, and he won’t mind if you close a bit early. Leave that to me.”

St. Severin’s was striking twelve. She counted the envelopes quickly, twenty-three, gathered them up, got a good hold on them. Had the old man really been there only half an hour? The tenth chime of the twelve was ringing.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I won’t bother to put on my coat. And please, not to The Lion.”

Only half an hour. The presses had stopped their stamping. But the wild boar bled on.

By now it had become a habit with the desk clerk, almost a ritual, second nature, every morning at half-past nine sharp to take down the key from the board, to feel the light touch of the dry, well-kept hand as it took the key from his, to glance at the pale, severe face with the red scar on the bridge of the nose. And then, with a hint of a smile only his own wife might have noticed, to look thoughtfully after Faehmel as he ignored the elevator boy’s beckoned invitation, walked upstairs, lightly running the billiard room key across the brass balusters. Five, six, seven times the key made a ringing sound like a xylophone with only one tone. Then, half a minute later, Hugo, older of the two bellboys, came along and asked, “The usual?” Where-upon the desk clerk nodded, knowing that Hugo would now go to the restaurant, get a double cognac and a carafe of water, and disappear into the billiard room upstairs until eleven o’clock.

The desk clerk sensed something ominous in this habit of playing billiards every morning from half-past nine till eleven,
always in the same bellhop’s company. Disaster or vice. Against vice there was a safeguard. Discretion. Discretion went with the room when you hired it. Discretion and money went together, abscissa and ordinate. Eyes that looked yet did not see, ears that heard yet did not hearken. Against disaster, however, no protection existed. Not all potential suicides could be spotted at the door. Indeed, were they not all potential suicides? It came, disaster, in with the suntanned actor and his seven pieces of luggage. Took the room key with a laugh. As soon as the bags were stacked, slid the pistol from his overcoat pocket, safety catch already off, and blew his brains out. Disaster came sneaking in like something from the grave, in golden shoes, with golden hair and golden teeth, grinning like a skeleton. With ghosts in vain pursuit of pleasure, who left an order for breakfast in their room at half-past ten, hung a ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ card on the outer knob, inside piled suitcases high against the door, swallowed poison pills. And long before the shocked room-service girl dropped the breakfast tray, already it was rumored through the hotel that ‘There’s a body up in Room 12.’ Rumors even spread at night, when late drinkers were slinking from the bar to their rooms and at Room 12 sensed foreboding behind the door. There were even some who could tell the silence of sleep from death’s silence. Disaster. He felt it in the air when he saw Hugo going up to the billiard room at a minute after half-past nine with a double cognac and the water carafe.

Around this time of day, too, he could ill spare the boy. A tangle of hands formed at his desk, demanding bills, grabbing an assortment of travel folders. At this time of day again and again he caught himself—a few minutes after half-past nine—getting impolite. Right now, to this schoolteacher, of all people, the ninth or tenth person to ask him how to get to the graves of the Roman children. The teacher’s reddish complexion disclosed the fact that she came from the country, her coat and gloves that she lacked the income presumptive
in Prince Heinrich guests. He wondered how she happened to be regimented along with these other agitated old biddies, not one of whom felt obliged to inquire after the price of her room. Would she, now tugging self-consciously at her gloves, would she consummate the all-German miracle, against which old Jochen had bet ten marks? ‘Show me a German who ever asks how much anything costs before he buys and I’ll give you ten marks.’ No, even she wasn’t going to win him the prize. He calmed himself with an effort, pleasantly explained how to get to the graves of the Roman children.

Most of them asked straight off for the boy now slated to be in the billiard room for an hour and a half. It was he all of them wanted, to bring their luggage to the foyer, to take it to the airlines coach, to the taxi, to the railroad station. Ill-tempered globetrotters waiting in the foyer for their bills, discussing plane arrivals and departures, all of them wanted ice for their whiskey from Hugo, him alone to strike a match for the cigarette dangling unlit in their mouth, just to see how well trained he was. Hugo alone they wished to thank with a wave of languid hand. Only when Hugo was on the scene did their faces quiver in mysterious spasms, impatient faces, whose owners could hardly wait to rush, carrying their nasty tempers with them, to distant corners of the earth. They were champing at the bit, longing to ascertain in the mirrors of Persian or Upper Bavarian hotels the exact shade of their tan. Shrill female voices were calling for lost articles. It was ‘Hugo, my ring,’ ‘Hugo, my handbag,’ ‘Hugo, my lipstick.’ All of them expected Hugo to dash to the elevator, noiselessly ascend to Room 19, Room 32, Room 46 to search for ring, handbag and lipstick. And there was old Madame Musch, leading in her mongrel, which, after lapping up milk, gorging on honey and turning up his nose at fried eggs, would have to be taken out for a walk, so he might relieve his doggy needs, and revive his fading sense of smell, on kiosks, parked cars and waiting buses. Obviously only Hugo could cater to this dog’s spiritual needs.
Then there was Oma Blessieck, who spent a month every year at the Prince Heinrich, while she visited her children and evermore-numerous grandchildren. Though she had hardly set foot in the place, already she was after Hugo. “Is he still here, that nice little young one who looks like an altar boy? The thin one with the auburn hair who’s so pale and always looks so serious?” The idea was to have Hugo read the local newspaper to her while she ate her breakfast, while she licked honey, drank her milk and did not turn up her nose at fried eggs. As he read, the old girl, hearing the names of streets familiar from her childhood, would look up ecstatically. Accident near Memorial Field. Robbery on Frisian Street. “I had pigtails this long when I used to go roller-skating there—this long, Hugo.” The old girl was frail, but tough. Was it for Hugo’s sake she had flown across the great ocean? “What?” she said, disappointed. “Hugo won’t be free till eleven?”

The driver of the airlines coach was standing at the revolving door, hand lifted in warning, even while complicated breakfast bills were still being added up. There sat the man who had ordered half a fried egg, indignantly rejecting the bill on which he’d been charged for a whole one. And even more indignantly rejecting the manager’s offer to cross off the item altogether, instead demanding a new bill, on which he was charged for only half a one. “I insist on it.” No doubt he traveled the world round just to collect restaurant bills charging him for half a fried egg.

“Yes, Madam,” the desk clerk said, “first left, second right, then third left again, and you’ll see the sign: ‘To the Roman Children’s Graves.’ ”

At last the driver for the bus crowd had assembled all his passengers, all the teachers had been given the right directions, all the fat pet dogs taken out to pee. But the gentleman in Room 11 was still fast asleep, had been for the past sixteen hours with a ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ card hanging outside his door.
Disaster, either in Room 11 or in the billiard room. It stuck in your mind, that ceremony right in the middle of the foolish bustle of departure, key taken down from the board, faint brushing of hands, glance at the pale face, the red scar on the bridge of the nose, Hugo’s “The usual?”, your nod. Billiards from half-past nine till eleven. But the hotel underground as yet had reported nothing out of the way, either disastrous or corrupt. That fellow up there actually did play billiards from half-past nine till eleven. No partner, just himself, sipping at his cognac, at his glass of water, telling Hugo stories from way back, having Hugo tell him stories about when he was a kid. Not saying a word when the chambermaids or cleaning women stopped at the open door on their way to the laundry elevator to watch him, looking up at them from his game with a smile. No, no, that guy’s harmless.

Jochen hobbled out of the elevator with a letter in his hand, held it up, shaking his head. Jochen lived high up, under the pigeon loft, near feathered friends who brought messages from Paris and Rome, Warsaw and Copenhagen. Jochen in his made-up uniform, something between a crown prince and a noncommissioned officer, defied classification. A bit of a factotum, a bit of a gray eminence, everybody’s confidant, not a room clerk, not a waiter, but a little of all these, and something of a cook to boot. It was he who was responsible for the saying around the hotel always used to counter moral aspersions on the guests: “What would be the point in having a reputation for discretion, if everybody’s morals were above suspicion? What good is discretion when there is nothing left to be discreet about?” Something of a father-confessor, of a confidential secretary, of a pimp. Jochen, with twisted arthritic fingers opened the letter and grinned.

“You might have saved yourself the ten marks, I could have told a thousand times more—and all for free—than that little con man. Argus Information Bureau. ‘Herewith the
information requested concerning Dr. Robert Faehmel, architect, resident at 7 Modest Street. Dr. Faehmel is 42 years old, a widower, two children: a son, 22, architect, not living here; a daughter, 19, at college. Dr. F,’s assests: considerable. Related on his mother’s side to the Kilbs. Nothing negative to report.’ ” Jochen chuckled. “ ‘Nothing negative to report’! As if there ever had been anything out of the way about young Faehmel. And with him there never will be. One of the few people I’d stick my hand in the fire for any time, any old time of the day. Get me? This rotten arthritic old hand, right square in the fire! You don’t have to worry about leaving that kid up there alone with him. He’s not that kind. And if he was, so what? They allow queers in the government, don’t they? But he’s not that kind. He already had a child when he was twenty, by the daughter of one of my friends. Maybe you remember the girl’s father, Schrella. He worked right here once, for a year. No? You weren’t here at the time? Then take my word for it, just let young Faehmel play his billiards in peace. A fine family. Really is. Class. I knew his grandmother, his grandfather, his mother and his uncle. They used to play billiards here themselves, fifty years ago. You wouldn’t know, of course, but the Kilbs have lived on Modest Street for three hundred years. That is, they always did—there aren’t any left any more. His mother went off the beam, lost two brothers and three of her children died. Never got over it. Fine woman. The quiet kind, if you know what I mean. Never ate a crumb more than the ration card allowed her, not an ounce more, and her children didn’t get more than was coming to them, either, not from her. Crazy, of course. Whatever she got extra, she’d just give it all away. And she always got plenty: they owned big farms, and the Abbot of St. Anthony’s, down there in the Kissa Valley, he sent her tubs of butter, jars of honey, bread and so on. But she never ate any of it, or gave any of it to her children. They had to eat that sawdust bread with artificially colored marmalade, while their mother gave all the other stuff away. She even gave away money. Seen her do it
myself. Must have been in ’16 or ’17—used to see her coming out the front door with the bread and the jars of honey. 1917! Can you imagine what it was like then? But none of you can remember. You can’t imagine what it meant, honey in 1917, or in the winter of ’41–’42. Or the way she went down to the freight yard and tried to go along in the cars with the Jews. Screwball, they said. They locked her up in the looney bin, but for my money she wasn’t crazy at all. She was the kind of woman you only see in the old pictures in the museums. I’d go right down the line for her son, and if he doesn’t get first-class, number one service, things are going to hum around this joint. I don’t care if ninety-nine old women are asking for Hugo. If Herr Faehmel wants the kid with him, then he’s going to get him and don’t you forget it. Argus Information Bureau! Just imagine paying those fakers ten marks! Now I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know his father, old man Faehmel? Good! You do know him. But I bet you never thought he might be the father of the one playing billiards up there. Sure, everybody and his brother knows old man Faehmel. Came here fifty years ago in one of his uncle’s hand-me-down suits with a couple of bucks in his pocket. He used to play billiards right here, too, at that time, here in the Prince Heinrich, before you even knew what a hotel was. Some desk-clerk you are! Leave that one upstairs be, then. He’ll never do anything foolish or cause any harm. Worst he might do is get teed off in a nice quiet way. He was the best man at the plate and the best hundred-meter-dash man this old town’s ever had. He was tough, and if he had to be hard, he was hard, all right. He just couldn’t stand seeing some people giving other people a rough time. And if you can’t stand that kind of stuff, first thing you know you’re mixed up in politics. He was in politics when he was nineteen years old. They’d have cut his head off or locked him up for twenty years if he hadn’t fooled them and taken off. That’s right, you don’t need to look so surprised. He got away and stayed away for three or four years. I don’t know exactly what went wrong, I
never heard. All I know is that old Schrella was mixed up in it, and the daughter, too, the one young Faehmel had the baby by later on. Well, he came back and they didn’t lay a finger on him. Went into the army, the Engineers. I can see him now, home on leave in his uniform with the black piping on it. Don’t gawk at me with that dumb look on your face. Was he a Communist? How should I know whether he was or he wasn’t. And supposing he was, every decent man’s been one sometime or other. Go on and have breakfast; I’ll be able to manage the old hens.”