Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (34 page)

He was still standing at the window, motionless. Albertine stood up and walked over to him, her eyes moist and dark, a slight frown on her
forehead.

"In the future, let's always tell each other these kinds of things at
once," she said.

He nodded in silence.

"Promise me."

He pulled her to him. "Don't you know I will?" he asked, but his
voice still sounded harsh.

She took his hands, stroked them, and looked up at him with misty
eyes in whose depths he could read her thoughts. She was remembering
other, more real experiences he had had when he was younger, many of
which he had confessed to her in the early years of their marriage, when,
too willingly yielding to her jealous curiosity, he had surrendered many
secrets that he should have kept to himself. He knew that what he had
said inevitably reminded her of these affairs, and he was hardly surprised
when she spoke the half-forgotten name of one of his early sweethearts.
It sounded to him like an accusation, even like a covert threat.

He raised her hands to his lips.

In every woman-believe me, even though it sounds trite-in
every woman I thought I loved it was always only you that I sought. I
know that more surely than you can understand, Albertine."

She smiled at him weakly. "And what if I had searched for you in
others before, too?" she said. The look in her eyes changed, became cool
and impenetrable. He let her hands slip from his as though he had caught
her in a lie or a breach of faith. But she said, "Oh, if you men only
knew ..." And she fell silent again.

"If we only knew-? What are you trying to say?"

In a strangely harsh voice she answered, "Just what you imagine,
my dear."

"Albertine-so there is something that you've kept from me?"

She nodded and looked down with a peculiar smile.

Incomprehensible, unreasonable doubts awoke in him.

"I don't quite understand," he said. "You were barely seventeen
when we got engaged."

"Older than sixteen, yes, Fridolin. And yet-" she looked him
squarely in the eye-"it wasn't thanks to me that I was still a virgin when
I became your wife."

"Albertine-!"

But she continued:

"It was at Lake Worther, just before our engagement, Fridolin.
There, one beautiful summer evening, a very handsome young man stood
in front of my window that looked out into the large and spacious
meadow, and while I talked with him I was thinking-yes, just listen to
what I was thinking-What a lovely, charming, young man-he would
only have to say the word-the right word, of course-and I would come
with him into the meadow and walk with him wherever he wanted to
go-maybe into the woods-or, even better, we could take a boat out
into the lake-and I would grant him anything that he wanted that night.
Yes, that's what I was thinking. But he didn't say the word, that charming
young man; he only kissed my hand tenderly-and the next morning he
asked me-to be his wife. And I said yes."

Fridolin, annoyed, let her hand drop. "And if," he said, "someone
else had by chance stood at your window that night and said the right
word, if it had been, for example-" and he pondered what name he
should say, but she had already lifted her arms in protest.

"Any other man, no matter who it might have been, whatever he
might have said-it wouldn't have helped him. If it hadn't been you
standing in front of the window"-she smiled up at him-"then very
likely the summer evening wouldn't have been so beautiful!"

His mouth assumed a scornful expression. "So you say now, so you
may even believe now. But-"

There was a knock on the door. The maid entered and announced
that the housekeeper from Schreyvogel Street was there to fetch the doctor to the councillor, as he was feeling very ill again. Fridolin went out
into the hall, learned from the messenger that the councillor had had a
heart attack, and promised to come at once.

"You're leaving-?" Albertine asked in an angry tone as he was
hastily preparing to leave, as though he were doing her a premeditated
injustice.

Fridolin answered, almost in astonishment, "Yes, I have to."

She sighed regretfully.

"I hope it isn't very serious," said Fridolin. "Up to now three centigrams of morphine have always pulled him through."

The maid had brought his fur coat. Fridolin kissed Albertine on her
forehead and her mouth, rather absentmindedly, as though the conversation of the last hour had already slipped from his memory, and hurried
away.

II

On the street he had to unbutton his fur. It had suddenly begun to thaw;
the snow on the sidewalk had almost melted, and there was a hint of
spring in the air. It was less than a quarter of an hour from Fridolin's
home near the General Hospital in the Josephstadt to Schreyvogel Street,
and soon Fridolin was walking up the dimly lit, winding staircase of the
old house to the second floor and ringing the doorbell. But before the
old-fashioned doorbell even sounded, he noticed the door was ajar. He
entered through the unlit foyer into the living room and saw at once that
he had come too late. The green-shaded kerosene lamp hanging from the
low ceiling cast a dim light on the bedspread under which a lean body lay
motionless. The dead man's face was in shadow, but Fridolin knew it so
well that he thought he could see it distinctly-the high forehead, the
thin and wrinkled cheeks, the white, short beard, and the strikingly ugly
ears covered with coarse, white hairs. Marianne, the councillor's daughter, was sitting at the foot of the bed, her arms hanging limply from her
shoulders as if in total exhaustion. An odor of old furniture, medicines,
petroleum, and cooking permeated the room, along with a trace of
cologne and rose-scented soap; yet somehow Fridolin also perceived the
sweet, bland odor of the pale girl who was still young but who had been
slowly fading for months, even years, under the stress of heavy household and difficult nursing duties and night watches.

She had looked up when the doctor entered, but in the dim light he
couldn't quite see whether she had blushed as she usually did when he
appeared. She started to rise, but a movement of Fridolin's hand re strained her, and so she greeted him with a nod, her eyes large and sad.
He walked over to the head of the bed and mechanically placed his hands
first on the dead man's forehead, then on the arms lying on top of the
bedspread in loose and open shirtsleeves. He dropped his shoulders with
a slight expression of regret, stuck his hands in the pockets of his fur
coat, and let his eyes wander about the room until they finally rested on
Marianne. Her hair was blonde and thick, but dry; her neck well formed
and slender, though no longer wrinkle-free and rather yellowed; and her
lips were hard and narrow, as though from holding back many unsaid
words.

"Well, my dear Marianne," he said in a slightly embarrassed whisper, "you weren't entirely unprepared for this."

She held out her hand to him. He took it sympathetically and dutifully asked about the particulars of the final, fatal attack. She reported
briefly and to the point, and then spoke of her father's last and comparatively easy days, during which Fridolin had not seen him. Fridolin had
drawn up a chair and was now sitting opposite her. He tried to console
her by saying that her father couldn't have suffered very much in his last
hours, and asked if the relatives had been notified. Yes, she said; the
housekeeper was already on the way to tell her uncle, and Dr. Roediger
would soon come in any case. "My fiance," she added, and looked at
Fridolin's forehead instead of his eyes.

Fridolin only nodded. In the course of the year he had met Dr.
Roediger two or three times in the councillor's house. The overthin and
pale young man with the short, blonde beard and spectacles, an assistant
professor in history at the University of Vienna, had made a good impression on him without, however, arousing any further interest. Marianne
would certainly look better if she were his mistress, he thought. Her hair
would be less dry; her lips would be fuller and redder. I wonder how old
she is? he asked himself. The first time I was called to the councillor, she
was twenty-three. At that time her mother was still alive. She was more
cheerful when her mother was still living. Didn't she take singing lessons
for a time? So she is going to marry this assistant professor. Why, I wonder? Surely she isn't in love with him, and he isn't likely to have a lot of
money either. What kind of marriage will that turn out to be'? Well, prob ably a marriage like a thousand others. Why should I care anyway? It's
quite possible that I'll never see her again, since there is nothing more for
me to do in this house. Oh, how many people have I never seen again,
people that I cared for more than I do for her?

While these thoughts were running through his mind, Marianne had
begun to speak of the dead man-with a certain fervor, as though he had
suddenly become a remarkable person through the simple fact of his
death. So he was really only fifty-four years old? Of course, he'd had so
many worries and disappointments-his wife always ill-and his son
had given him so much grief! What, she had a brother? Certainly. She
had once told the doctor about him. Her brother was now living somewhere abroad; a picture he had painted when he was fifteen was hanging
over there in Marianne's room. It depicted an officer galloping down a
hill. Her father had always pretended not to see the picture at all. But it
was a good painting. Her brother would have made something of himself
if he'd only had the chance.

How excitedly she speaks, thought Fridolin, and how her eyes are
gleaming! A fever? Quite possible. She's grown much thinner lately.
Probably has tuberculosis.

She kept on talking, but it seemed to him that she didn't know to
whom she was talking, or as if she were talking to herself. It was now
twelve years that her brother had been away from home; yes, she had
been still a child when he suddenly vanished. They had last heard from
him four or five years ago, at Christmastime, from a small town in Italy.
Strange to say. she had forgotten the name. She continued a while talking
of indifferent, unimportant matters, almost incoherently, until she suddenly stopped and sat there silently, her head resting in her hands.
Fridolin was tired and even more bored; he was anxiously waiting for
someone to arrive, one of her relatives or her fiance. The silence in the
room was oppressive. It seemed to him that the dead man joined in the silence, not because he couldn't talk anymore but on purpose and with malicious joy.

With a sidelong glance at the body, Fridolin said: "In any case, as
things are now, it's good, Fraulein Marianne, that you won't have to stay
in this house much longer." And since she raised her head a little, with out, however, looking at Fridolin-"Your fiance will probably get a professorship soon; his chances are better in the Faculty of Philosophy than
they are with us in Medicine." He was thinking that years ago he had also
aspired to an academic career, but had in the end decided to practice
medicine instead because of his wish for a more comfortable lifestyle;
and suddenly he felt inferior to this noble Dr. Roediger.

"We're going to move in the fall," said Marianne listlessly, "he has
a position at the University of Gottingen."

"Oh," said Fridolin, and was about to offer his congratulations
when it seemed to him rather inappropriate in this place at this moment.
He glanced at the closed window and, without asking her permission, as
though in his capacity as physician, he opened both windowpanes and let
the air in, which had in the meantime become still warmer and more
springlike and seemed to bring with it the soft odor of the awakening distant woods. When he once more turned toward the room he saw Marianne's eyes fixed questioningly on him. He moved closer to her and
remarked, "The fresh air will I hope do you good. It's become quite
warm, and last night-he was about to say: we drove home from the
masquerade ball in a snowstorm, but he quickly changed the sentence
and continued, "last night the snow was still lying half a meter high on
the streets."

She scarcely heard what he said. Her eyes moistened and large tears
streamed down her cheeks; once more she buried her face in her hands.
Instinctively he placed his hand on her hair and stroked her head. He felt
her body beginning to tremble as she sobbed, first hardly audible sobs,
then gradually louder and louder, and finally completely unrestrained.
All at once she slipped down from her chair and lay at Fridolin's feet,
clasping his knees with her arms and pressing her face against them.
Then she looked at him and with wide-open, suffering, and wild eyes,
whispered ardently, "I don't want to leave here. Even if you never return,
even if I'm never to see you again, I want to live near you."

He was more touched than surprised, because he had always known
that she was in love with him or imagined that she was in love with him.

"Please get up, Marianne," he said softly, bent down to her, and
softly raised her head. He thought: of course there is hysteria in this, too. He cast a sideways glance at her dead father. I wonder if he can hear
everything? he wondered. Maybe he isn't really dead. Perhaps every man
only seems dead the first few hours after he dies-'? He held Marianne in
his arms but kept her a little away from him. Almost unthinkingly he
planted a kiss on her forehead, an act which seemed a little ridiculous
even to him. Fleetingly he remembered a novel he had read years ago in
which a very young man, almost a boy, was seduced, in fact, raped, really, at his mother's deathbed, by her best friend. At the same time-he
didn't know why-he found himself thinking of his wife. He felt a bitterness against her rise up in him, and a dull animosity against the man in
Denmark with the yellow briefcase on the hotel stairs. He pulled Marianne closer to him but didn't feel the slightest arousal; on the contrary,
the sight of her lusterless dry hair and the slightly sweet and dull odor of
her musty dress gave him a feeling of revulsion. The outside bell rang
once more and he felt saved. He quickly kissed Marianne's hand as
though in gratitude, and went to open the door. It was Dr. Roediger
standing in the doorway, wearing a dark grey topcoat, with overshoes, an
umbrella in his hand, and a serious face appropriate to the occasion. The
two men greeted each other much more intimately than their actual state
of acquaintance merited. Then they walked into the room together.
Roediger, after a shy glance at the deceased, offered his sympathy to
Marianne; Fridolin went into the adjoining room to write out the official
death certificate. As he turned up the gaslight over the desk, his glance
fell on the picture of a white-uniformed officer galloping down a hill
with a sword drawn against an invisible enemy. It hung in a narrow
gilded gold frame and made no better impression than a modest print.