Laughter in the Dark (20 page)

“Take me through all the rooms and describe everything to me,” said Albinus. He was not really interested, but he thought that it would give Margot pleasure: she loved settling in a new place.

“A little dining room; a little drawing room, a little study,” she explained, as she steered him through the ground floor. Albinus touched the furniture, patted the different objects as if they were the heads of strange children, and tried to get his bearings.

“So the window is over there,” he said, pointing trustfully at a blank wall. He collided painfully with the edge of a table and tried to pretend that he had done it on purpose—groping over it with his hands, as though he wanted to take its measure.

Then they climbed side by side up the creaking wooden staircase. Above, on the top step, sat Rex, convulsed with soundless mirth. Margot shook her finger at him; he stood up cautiously and stepped back on the tips of his toes. This was really superfluous, for the staircase creaked deafeningly under the blind man’s tread.

They turned into the passage. Rex, who had now retreated to his door, crouched down several times and pressed his hand to his mouth. Margot shook her head angrily—a dangerous game; he was larking about like a schoolboy.

“This is my bedroom, and here’s yours,” she said.

“Why not one?” asked Albinus wistfully.

“Oh, Albert,” she sighed. “You know what the doctor said.”

When they had been everywhere (except into Rex’s room, of course) Albinus tried to go through the house without her help, just to show her how splendidly she had made him see it all. But almost at once he lost his way, ran into a wall, smiled apologetically, and nearly smashed a wash-basin. He also strayed into the corner room (which Rex had appropriated and which could only be entered from the passage), but he was already so confused that he thought he was coming out of the bathroom.

“Careful, that’s a lumber-room,” said Margot. “You’re going to break your head. Now turn around and try to walk straight to bed. And really I don’t know whether all this roaming is good for you. Don’t imagine that I shall let you go on exploring like this; today is just an exception.”

As it was, he already felt utterly exhausted. Margot tucked him in and brought him his supper. When he had gone to sleep she joined Rex. As they were not yet on speaking terms with the acoustics of the house, they talked in whispers. But they could just as well have spoken aloud: Albinus’ bedroom was far enough away.

T
HE
impenetrable black shroud in which Albinus now lived infused an element of austerity and even of nobility into his thoughts and feelings. He was separated by darkness from that former life which had been suddenly extinguished at its sharpest bend. Remembered scenes peopled the picture gallery of his mind: Margot in a figured apron drawing aside a purple curtain (how he yearned for its dingy color now!); Margot under the shining umbrella tripping through crimson puddles; Margot naked in front of the wardrobe mirror gnawing at a yellow roll; Margot in her glistening bathing suit throwing a ball; Margot in a silvery evening gown, with her sunburned shoulders.

Then he thought of his wife, and his life with her seemed now to be steeped in a pale subdued light, and only occasionally did something emerge from this milky haze: her fair hair in the lamp
glow, the light on a picture frame, Irma playing with glass marbles (a rainbow in every one), and then haze again—and Elisabeth’s quiet, almost floating, movements.

Everything, even what was saddest and most shameful in his past life, was overlaid with the deceptive charm of colors. He was horrified to realize how little he had used his eyes—for these colors moved across too vague a background and their outlines were singularly blurred. If, for instance, he recalled a landscape in which he had once lived, he could not name a single plant except oaks and roses, nor a single bird save sparrows and crows, and even these were more akin to heraldry than to nature. Albinus now became conscious that he had not really been different from a certain narrow specialist at whom he used to scoff: from the workman who knows only his tools, or the virtuoso who is only a fleshly accessory of his violin. Albinus’ speciality had been his passion for art; his most brilliant discovery had been Margot. But now, all that was left of her was a voice, a rustle and a perfume; it was as though she had returned to the darkness of the little cinema from which he had once withdrawn her.

But Albinus could not always console himself with esthetic or moral reflections; could not always
succeed in convincing himself that physical blindness was spiritual vision; in vain did he try to cheat himself with the fancy that his life with Margot was now happier, deeper and purer, and in vain did he concentrate on the thought of her touching devotion. Of course it was touching, of course she was better than the most loyal wife—this invisible Margot, this angelic coolness, this voice which begged him not to excite himself. But no sooner had he seized her hand in the darkness, no sooner did he try to express his gratitude, than there was suddenly kindled in him such a longing to see her that all his moralizing dissolved away.

Rex was very fond of sitting in a room with him and watching his movements. Margot, as she pressed herself to the blind man’s breast, pushing away at his shoulder, would cast up her eyes to the ceiling with a comical expression of resignation or put out her tongue at Albinus—this was particularly amusing in contrast with the wild and tender expression of the blind man’s face. Then Margot freed herself by a dexterous movement, and retreated toward Rex, who was seated on the window sill, in white trousers, with his long-toed feet and his torso bare—he loved roasting his back in the sun. Albinus reclined in an armchair, clad in his pyjamas and dressing-gown.
His face was covered with bristly hair; a pink scar glistened on his temple; he looked like a bearded convict.

“Margot, come to me,” he said imploringly, stretching out his arms.

Now and then Rex, who loved taking risks, went up quite close to Albinus on the tips of his bare toes and touched him with the utmost delicacy. Albinus uttered an affectionate purring sound and tried to embrace the supposed Margot while Rex side-stepped noiselessly and went back to the window sill—his habitual perch.

“My darling, do come to me,” groaned Albinus, floundering out of his armchair and wading toward her. Rex on the window sill drew up his legs and Margot screamed at Albinus, declaring that she would leave him at once with a nurse if he did not do as she told him. So he shuffled back to his seat with a guilty grin.

“All right, all right,” he sighed. “Read something aloud to me. The paper.”

She once more cast her eyes to the ceiling.

Rex seated himself cautiously on the sofa and took Margot on his knees. She spread out the newspaper and, after patting it and poring over it, began to read aloud. Albinus nodded his head now and then and slowly consumed invisible cherries, spitting the invisible stones into his fist.
Rex mimicked Margot, pursing his lips and then drawing them in again as she did when she was reading. Or he pretended he was just going to let her fall, so that suddenly her voice would jump and she had to search for the end of the snapped sentence.

“Yes, perhaps it’s all for the best,” thought Albinus. “Our love is now purer and loftier. If she sticks to me now, it means that she really loves me. That is good, that is good.” And suddenly he began to sob aloud, he wrung his hands and begged her to take him to another specialist, to a third, to a fourth—an operation, torture—anything that might restore his sight.

Rex, with a silent yawn, took a handful of cherries from the bowl on the table and departed to the garden.

During the first days of their life together, Rex and Margot were cautious enough, although they indulged in various harmless jests. Before the door leading from his room into the corridor Rex had erected, in case of emergency, a barricade of boxes and trunks, over which Margot clambered at night. However, after his first stroll through the house, Albinus was no longer interested in the topography of it, but he had quite got his bearings in his bedroom and in the study.

Margot described all the colors to him—the
blue wallpaper, the yellow blinds—but, egged on by Rex, she changed all the colors. The fact that the blind man was obliged to picture his little world in the hues prescribed by Rex afforded the latter exquisite amusement.

In his own rooms Albinus almost had the feeling that he could see the furniture and the various objects, and this gave him a sense of security. But when he was sitting in the garden he felt himself surrounded by a vast unknown, because everything was too big, too unsubstantial and too full of sounds to enable him to form a picture of it. He tried to sharpen his hearing and to divine movements from sound. Soon it became quite difficult for Rex to come in or go out unnoticed. No matter how noiselessly he passed, Albinus turned his head at once in that direction and asked: “Is that you, darling?” and was vexed at his miscalculation if Margot answered him from quite another corner.

The days passed and the more keenly Albinus strained his hearing, the more daring did Rex and Margot become: they accustomed themselves to the safety curtain of his blindness, and, instead of having his meals under the adoring dumb gaze of old Emilia in the kitchen as he had done at first, Rex now contrived to sit at table with both of them. He ate with a masterly
noiselessness, never touching his plate with knife or fork, and munching like a silent film diner, in perfect rhythm with Albinus’ moving jaws and to the bright music of Margot’s voice who purposely talked very loudly while the men chewed and swallowed. Once he choked himself: Albinus, for whom Margot was just pouring out a cup of coffee, suddenly heard at the far end of the table a strange bursting sound, an ignoble sputter. Margot promptly began to chatter, but he interrupted her, his hand raised: “What was that? What was that?”

Rex had taken his plate and moved away on tiptoe holding the napkin to his mouth. But as he was slipping through the half-open door he dropped a fork.

Albinus swung round in his chair. “What’s that? Who’s there?” he repeated.

“Oh, it’s only Emilia. Why are you so jumpy?”

“But she never comes in here.”

“Well, today she did!”

“I thought that my ears were beginning to get hallucinations,” said Albinus. “Yesterday, for instance, I had the most definite impression that someone was stealing barefoot along the corridor.”

“You’ll go out of your mind, if you’re not careful,” said Margot drily.

In the afternoon, during Albinus’ usual nap, she would sometimes go for a stroll with Rex. They fetched the letters and newspapers from the post office, or climbed up to the waterfall—and a couple of times went to a café in the pretty little town lower down. Once, as they were returning to the house and already tackling the steep footpath which led to the cottage, Rex said:

“I advise you not to insist on marriage. I’m very much afraid that, just because he deserted his wife, he has come to look upon her as a precious saint painted on glass. He will not care to smash that particular church-window. It’s a simpler and better plan to get hold of his fortune gradually.”

“Well, we’ve collected quite a large bit of it, haven’t we?”

“You must get him to sell that land he has in Pomerania and his pictures,” continued Rex, “or else one of his houses in Berlin. With a little cunning we could manage it. For the time being the checkbook answers the purpose admirably. He signs everything like a machine—but his bank account will soon run dry. We must hurry up, too. It would be nice to leave him, say, this winter; and before we go we’ll buy him a dogas a small token of our gratitude.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” said Margot, “we’re at the stone already.”

This stone, a large gray one, which was overgrown with convolvulus and looked like a sheep, marked the boundary beyond which it was dangerous to talk at all. So they walked on in silence and after a few minutes were near the garden gate. Margot laughed suddenly and pointed to a squirrel. Rex chucked a stone at the animal, but missed it.

“Oh, kill it—they do a lot of damage to the trees,” said Margot softly.

“Who does damage to the trees?” asked a loud voice. It was Albinus.

He was standing—rocking slightly—among the syringa shrubs on a little stone step which led from the footpath onto the lawn.

“Margot, whom are you talking to down there?” he went on. Suddenly he stumbled, dropped his stick and sat down heavily on the step.

“How dare you wander so far by yourself?” she exclaimed and, seizing him roughly, she helped him to get up. Some little bits of gravel had stuck to his hand; he spread out his fingers and tried to rub the gravel off, as a child might do.

“I wanted to catch a squirrel,” declared Margot,
thrusting the stick into his hand. “What did you think I was doing?”

“I fancied …” Albinus began. “Who’s there?” he cried sharply, nearly losing his balance again as he veered in the direction of Rex, who was cautiously walking across the lawn.

“There’s no one here,” said Margot, “I’m alone. Why are you in such a state?” She felt her patience going.

“Lead me back to the house,” he said, almost in tears. “There are too many sounds here. Trees, wind, squirrels, and things I cannot name. I don’t know what’s happening round me … It’s all so noisy.”

“From now on you shall be shut in,” she said, and dragged him into the house.

Then, as usual, the sun went down behind the neighboring ridge. As usual, Margot and Rex sat side by side on the sofa and smoked, and half a dozen feet away from them sat Albinus in his leather armchair, staring at them fixedly with his milky blue eyes. At his request Margot told him about her childhood. She rather liked doing it. He went to bed early, slowly climbing the staircase and feeling for every step with toe and stick.

In the middle of the night he woke up and fingered the unglazed dial of an alarm clock until he found out the position of the hands. It was about
half past one. He was filled with a strange uneasiness. Of late something had hindered him from concentrating on those grave and beautiful thoughts which alone were capable of shielding him against the horrors of blindness.