Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (36 page)

He looked up from the newspaper and encountered two eyes fixed
on him from the opposite table. Was it possible? Nightingale-? The latter had already recognized him, threw up both arms in happy surprise,
and came toward Fridolin. He was a tall, rather broad, almost stocky, and
still young man with long and blonde, slightly curly hair with a touch of
grey in it, and a blonde mustache that drooped down Polish fashion. He
was wearing an open grey coat and underneath a somewhat dirty suit, a
crumpled shirt with three fake diamond studs, a wrinkled collar, and a
dangling white silk tie. His eyelids were red as if from many sleepless
nights, but his blue eyes beamed brightly.

"You're here in Vienna, Nightingale?" exclaimed Fridolin.

"Didn't you know?" said Nightingale in a soft Polish accent that
had a moderate Jewish twang. "How could you not know? I'm so famous!" He laughed loudly and good-naturedly, and sat down opposite
Fridolin.

"What?" asked Fridolin. "Have you been appointed professor of
surgery in secret?"

Nightingale laughed still louder. "Didn't you hear me just now? Just
this minute?"

"What do you mean-hear you? Why, of course!" And Fridolin realized that he had heard piano music drifting up from the depth of some
cellar as he entered; in fact, that he had heard it even earlier, as he was
nearing the cafe. "So that was you?" he exclaimed.

"Who else'?" laughed Nightingale.

Fridolin nodded. Why of course-the idiosyncratic vigorous touch
and the strange, somewhat arbitrary but wonderfully harmonious lefthand chords had seemed awfully familiar to him. "So you've devoted
yourself to it completely?" he asked. He remembered that Nightingale
had given up the study of medicine after his second preliminary examination in zoology, which he had successfully passed though he had taken
it seven years late. Yet for some time afterward he had hung around the
hospital, the dissecting room, the laboratories, and the classrooms. With
his blonde artist's head, his ever-rumpled collar, and the dangling tie that
had once been white, he had been a striking and, in the humorous sense,
a popular figure, much liked not only by his fellow students but also by
many of the professors. The son of a Jewish tavern owner in a small Polish town, he had left home early and had come to Vienna in order to
study medicine. The trifling subsidies he had received from his parents
had from the beginning hardly been worth mentioning and in any case
had soon been discontinued, but this did not hinder him from continuing
to appear at the table reserved for medical students in the Riedhof, a circle to which Fridolin also belonged. After a certain time, one or another
of his more well-to-do fellow students had taken over the payment of his
part of the bill. He sometimes was also given clothing, which he also accepted gladly and without false pride. He had already learned the basics
of piano in his home town from a pianist stranded there, and had also
studied at the Conservatory in Vienna, where he was alleged to be
thought a musical talent of great promise, at the same time he was a medical student. But here, too, he was neither serious nor diligent enough to
develop his art systematically, and soon he contented himself with musical triumphs within his circle of friends, or rather with the pleasure he
gave them by playing the piano. For a time he had a position as a pianist
in a suburban dancing school. University student friends and table companions tried to introduce him into fashionable houses in the same capacity, but at such occasions he would play only what he liked and only for
as long as he liked. His conversations with the young women there were
not always innocent, and he drank more than he could hold. Once, playing for a dance in a bank director's home, he succeeded long before midnight not only in embarrassing the young women who were dancing near him with flattering but improper remarks which offended their male
companions, but he also decided to play a wild cancan and sing a risque
song with his powerful bass voice. The bank director scolded him severely. In response, Nightingale, as if filled with a blissful gaiety, arose
and embraced him, and the latter, outraged, though himself a Jew, hurled
a common insult at him. Nightingale unhesitatingly avenged himself by
giving him a powerful slap-an act which appeared to end his career in
the more fashionable houses once and for all. He behaved better, on the
whole, in more intimate circles, even if it was necessary on some occasions to eject him forcefully from the premises when the hour was late.
But usually all such momentary lapses were forgiven and forgotten by all
participants the next morning. Then one day, long after his colleagues
had all finished their studies, he had suddenly disappeared from the city
without a word. For a few months, postcards from various Russian and
Polish towns had arrived, and once, without any explanation, Fridolin,
who was one of Nightingale's favorites, was reminded of his existence
not only by a postcard but by a request for a moderate sum of money.
Fridolin had sent the sum at once but had never received a word of
thanks or any other sign of life from Nightingale.

At this moment, however, at a quarter to one in the morning, after
eight years, Nightingale insisted on paying his debt, and took the exact
amount of cash from a rather shabby wallet, which was so well filled that
Fridolin was able to accept the repayment in good conscience.

"So things are going well for you?" he asked with a smile, as if he
wished to be reassured.

"Can't complain," answered Nightingale. And, placing his hand on
Fridolin's arm, he said, "But tell me, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Fridolin explained his presence at such a late hour by his urgent
need for a cup of coffee after a nighttime visit to a patient, but he concealed, without quite knowing why, the fact that he had found his patient
dead. Then he talked in quite general terms of his medical duties at the
General Hospital and of his private practice, and mentioned that he was
married, happily married, and the father of a six-year-old girl.

Nightingale took his turn and explained that he had, as Fridolin rightly guessed, spent the time as a pianist in all sorts of Polish, Romanian, Serbian, and Bulgarian cities and towns, that he had a wife and four
children in Lemberg-and he laughed heartily, as though it were exceptionally funny to have four children in Lemberg, all by one and the same
woman. Since autumn he had been back in Vienna. The vaudeville company that had originally hired him had fallen apart not long afterward,
and he was now playing anywhere and everywhere, anything that happened to come along, sometimes in two or three places the same night, as
for example, in the cellar of this place-not a very fashionable establishment, as he noted, really a kind of bowling alley, and as far as the patrons
were concerned ... "But if you have to provide for four children and a
wife in Lemberg"-and he laughed again, though not quite as merrily as
before. "Sometimes I also have private engagements," he added quickly.
And, noticing a smile of reminiscence on Fridolin's face, he continued"not in the houses of bank directors and such, no, but in all kinds of
places, larger ones, public and secret."

"Secret?"

Nightingale looked straight ahead with a gloomy and sly air. "I'm
going to be picked up very soon."

"What, you're playing somewhere else tonight yet?"

"Yes. Things don't start there until two."

"Must be a pretty chic place," said Fridolin.

"Yes and no," laughed Nightingale, but immediately became serious again.

"Yes and no-?" repeated Fridolin, curious.

Nightingale bent across the table toward him.

"I'm playing in a private house tonight, but I don't know whose it
is."

"So you're playing there for the first time tonight?" asked Fridolin
with mounting interest.

"No, for the third time. But it will probably be a different house
again."

"I don't get it."

"I don't either," laughed Nightingale. "Better you don't ask any
more."

"Hm," remarked Fridolin.

"No, you're wrong. It's not what you think. I've seen a lot; it's unbelievable what one sees in small towns-especially in Romania. But
here...." He drew back the yellow curtain from the window a little,
looked out on the street, and said, as though to himself, "Not here yet."
Then, turning to Fridolin, he explained, "I mean the carriage. A carriage
always comes to get me, and it's always a different one."

"You're making me curious, Nightingale," Fridolin remarked
coolly.

"Listen," said Nightingale after a slight hesitation. "If there is anyone in the world that I would like-but how can I do it-" and suddenly
he burst out, "Do you have courage?"

"That's a strange question," said Fridolin in the tone of an offended
fraternity student.

"I don't mean it that way."

"Well, what do you mean? Why does one need special courage for
this affair? What can possibly happen?" And he gave a short and contemptuous laugh.

"Nothing can happen to me. At the most, tonight might be the last
time-but that may be the case anyway." He fell silent and once more
looked out between the curtains.

"Well?"

"What did you say?" asked Nightingale as if in a dream.

"For heaven's sake, tell me more. Now that you started.... A secret
party? An exclusive society? Only invited guests?"

"I don't know. Last time there were thirty people, the first time only
sixteen."

"A ball?"

"Of course, a ball." He seemed to regret that he had said anything at
all.

"And you're providing the accompaniment for it?"

"What do you mean, for it? I don't know for what. I play, just
play-with blindfolded eyes."

"Nightingale, Nightingale, what kind of song are you singing?"

Nightingale sighed softly. "But unfortunately I'm not totally blind folded. Not so much that I can't see anything. In the mirror opposite me I
can see through the black silk handkerchief over my eyes...." And he
fell silent again.

"In a word," said Fridolin impatiently and contemptuously, though
he felt strangely aroused, ". . . naked females."

"Don't say 'females,' Fridolin," answered Nightingale as though offended. "You've never seen such women."

Fridolin cleared his throat a little. "And how much is the entrance
fee?"

"You mean tickets and such? Hey, what are you thinking of?"

"Well, how does one gain admission?" Fridolin asked with compressed lips, and tapped his fingers on the table.

"You have to know the password, and every time it's a different
one."

"And what's the one for tonight?"

"Don't know yet. I'll find out from the coachman."

"Take me along, Nightingale."

"Impossible. Too dangerous."

"A minute ago you yourself were about ... to invite me to come
along. I bet you can figure out a way."

Nightingale looked at him critically. "It would be absolutely impossible for you to go as you are right now, for they're all masked, both the
men and the women. Do you have a masquerade outfit with you? Impossible. Maybe next time. I'll try to figure out some way." He listened attentively and once more peered again through the opening in the
curtains, then said with a sigh of relief, "The carriage is there. Goodbye."

Fridolin held him by the arm. "You're not getting away from me so
fast. You've got to take me along."

"But my dear fellow ..."

"Leave the rest to me. I know it's dangerous-maybe that's exactly
what tempts me."

"But I've already told you-without costume and a mask-"

"There are places to rent costumes."

"At one o'clock in the morning-?"

"Look, Nightingale. At the corner of Wickenburg Street there's just such a place. I walk by it several times a day." And he added hastily, in
growing excitement, "You stay here for another quarter of an hour,
Nightingale. In the meantime I'll try my luck there. The owner of the
rental shop presumably lives in the same building. If not-then I'll just
give up. We'll let Fate decide. There's a cafe in the same building; it's
called Cafe Vindobona, I think. You tell the coachman-that you forgot
something in the cafe, walk in, and I'll be waiting near the door. Then
you can tell me the password and immediately get back into your carriage. If I manage to get a costume, I'll immediately take another carriage and follow you-the rest will have to take care of itself. I'll assume
all the risk, Nightingale. You have my word of honor."

Nightingale had tried several times to interrupt him, without success. Fridolin threw the money for the check on the table with an all too
generous tip, which however seemed to him appropriate for this kind of
night, and left. Outside stood a closed carriage. A coachman dressed entirely in black, with a high top hat, sat motionless on the box. Looks just
like a hearse, thought Fridolin. After jogging for a few minutes, he
reached the corner building that he was looking for, rang the bell, asked
the caretaker whether the costume shop owner Gibiser lived here, and secretly hoped that he didn't. But Gibiser did actually live here, on the
floor beneath the costume shop, and the caretaker didn't even seem surprised at having such a late visitor. Instead, feeling friendly because of
Fridolin's generous tip, he remarked that it was not at all unusual during
carnival for people to come to rent costumes at such a late hour. He lit the
way from below with a candle until Fridolin had rung the doorbell on the
second floor. Herr Gibiser opened the door himself, as though he had
been waiting there. He was a haggard, bald-headed man, beardless, wearing an old-fashioned flowered dressing gown and a Turkish cap with a
tassel, which made him look like the old man in a stage comedy. Fridolin
explained what he wanted and said that price was not an issue, whereupon Gibiser remarked, almost disdainfully, "I ask a fair price, no more."

He led Fridolin up a winding staircase into the storeroom. There
was an odor of silk, velvet, perfume, dust, and dried flowers, and gleams
of silver and red flashed out of the indistinct darkness. A number of little
lamps suddenly gleamed from between open cabinets in a narrow, long hallway, the end of which was lost in the darkness. To the left and right
hung all sort of costumes-on the one side there were knights, squires,
farmers, hunters, scholars, orientals, and jesters; on the other, ladies in
waiting, knights' ladies, peasant women, ladies' maids, and queens of the
night. On a shelf above the costumes were the corresponding headpieces,
and Fridolin felt as though he were walking through a gallery of hanged
people who were on the verge of asking one another to dance. Herr
Gibiser followed him. "Is there anything special that you want? Louis the
14th? Directoire? Old German?"