Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (40 page)

She stopped speaking. Fridolin's throat was dry. In the darkness he
could see how Albertine had concealed her face in her hands.

"A strange dream," he said. "Is it finished?" As she said no, he said,
"So tell me the rest."

"It's not easy," she began again. "It's hard to express these things in
words. Well-it seemed to me that I lived through countless days and
nights; there was neither time nor space; and I was no longer in the clearing surrounded by the forest and the cliff, but on a flower-bedecked plain
that stretched far into the distance and lost itself at the horizon on all
sides. For a long time-strange, this 'long time'-I had no longer been
alone with this man on the meadow. But I can't say whether there were
three or ten or a thousand other couples besides us or whether I saw them
or not, whether I belonged only to that man or also to the others. Just as
that earlier feeling of terror and shame was way beyond anything I could
ever have imagined while awake, so nothing in our conscious existence
can match the feelings of release, freedom, and ecstasy that I felt in this
dream. Yet at the same time I didn't forget you for a moment. In fact, I
saw you, saw how you were seized by soldiers, I think-a few priests
were also among them-someone, a gigantic person, tied your hands together, and I knew that you were going to be executed. I knew it without
feeling any sympathy for you, any fear, as though I were far removed.
They led you into a courtyard, a kind of castle courtyard. There you
stood with your hands behind your back, completely naked. In the same manner that I saw you, though I was somewhere else, so you saw me,
too, as well as all the other couples and the man who was holding me in
his arms, saw this infinite sea of nakedness which foamed about me, of
which I and the man who held me in his embrace were but a wave. Then,
while you stood in the courtyard, a young woman with a crown on her
head and a purple cloak appeared at one of the high arched windows between red curtains. She was the queen of this country, and she looked
down at you with a stern and questioning gaze. You were standing alone;
the others, though there were many, stood pressed against the wall, and I
heard a malicious and threatening murmuring and whispering. Then the
queen bent down over the railing. Everything became quiet, and the
queen gave you a sign, as though she were commanding you to come to
her, and I knew that she had decided to pardon you. But you either didn't
notice her gaze or didn't want to notice it. Suddenly, however, with
hands still tied but now wrapped in a black coat, you stood opposite her,
not in a room but somehow outdoors, as though floating. She was holding a piece of parchment in her hand-your death sentence, in which
both your guilt and the reasons for your conviction were written. She
asked you-I didn't hear the words, but I knew it-whether you were
prepared to be her lover, in which case your death sentence would be
canceled. You shook your head, refusing. I didn't wonder about it, because it seemed natural that you couldn't be other than faithful to me
eternally, in the face of all danger. At that point the queen shrugged her
shoulders, waved her hand in the air, and suddenly you were in a subterranean cellar, and whips were whizzing down on you without me seeing
the people who were swinging the whips. Blood flowed in streams down
your back, I saw it, and was aware of my cruelty without questioning it.
Then the queen moved toward you. Her hair was loose and flowed over
her naked body, and she held out her diadem to you-and I realized that
she was the girl from the Danish seashore that you saw one morning
naked on the ledge of a bathing hut. She didn't say a word, but the meaning of her presence, yes, of her silence, was to find out whether you
would be her husband and the ruler of the country. Since you refused her
once more, she suddenly disappeared, and I saw at the same time that
they were erecting a cross for you-not down in the courtyard, no, but on the flower-bedecked, infinitely broad meadow where I was resting in the
arms of my lover in the middle of all the other lovers. But I saw you, saw
how you walked alone through the ancient streets without a guard, yet I
knew that your course was marked out and escape was impossible. Then
you came up the forest path. I waited for you anxiously but without sympathy. Your body was covered with welts which had stopped bleeding.
You climbed higher and higher, the path became wider as the forest receded on both sides, and then you were standing at the edge of the
meadow at an enormous, incomprehensible distance from me. But you
greeted me with smiling eyes, as a sign that you had fulfilled my wish
and had brought me everything I needed: clothing and shoes and jewelry.
But I thought your gestures stupid and senseless beyond belief, and I was
tempted to make fun of you, to laugh in your face-because you had refused the hand of a queen out of loyalty to me, had endured torture, and
now came tottering up here to a horrible death. I ran toward you, and you
toward me faster and faster-I began to float in the air, and you did too,
but suddenly we lost sight of each other, and I knew: we had flown past
each other. Then I hoped that you would at least hear my laughter, just at
the moment when they were nailing you to the cross. And so I laughed.
as loudly and shrilly as I could. That was the laugh, Fridolin-with
which I awoke."

She fell silent and remained motionless. He, too, neither moved nor
spoke a word. Any word at this moment would have appeared stupid,
false, cowardly. The further she progressed in her story, the more ridiculous and insignificant did his own experiences appear to him, and he
vowed that he would bring them all to a conclusion, then faithfully tell
her and so revenge himself against this woman who in her dream had revealed herself as that which she was-faithless, cruel, and treacherous,
and whom he now believed he hated more than he had ever loved her.

He realized that he was still holding her fingers clasped in his hands
and that no matter how much he wanted to hate this woman, he still felt
only the same, unchanged tenderness-if anything, a more painfully
acute tenderness-for these slender, cool, and so familiar fingers. Instinctively, yes, even against his will-he pressed his lips gently against
them before he let the familiar hand drop from his.

Albertine's eyes were still closed, and Fridolin thought he could see
how her mouth, her forehead, yes, her entire face radiated a happy, beatific, and innocent smile, and he felt an incomprehensible desire to bend
over her and press a kiss on her pale forehead. But he checked himself,
realizing that it was only the all too understandable exhaustion of the stirring experiences of the last few hours that was disguising itself as a sensuous tenderness in the deceptive atmosphere of the bedroom.

Whatever his present state of mind-whatever decisions he might
reach in the course of the next few hours-the most pressing demand of
the moment was to flee into sleep and forgetfulness for a little while at
least. He had been able to sleep the night following the death of his
mother, had slept deeply and dreamlessly, and should he not be able to
sleep now? He stretched himself out beside Albertine, who seemed to
have fallen asleep again already. A sword between us, he thought again.
And then: we are lying here like mortal enemies. But it was only an expression.

VI

The maid's gentle knocking on the door awakened him at seven o'clock
early the next morning. He cast a quick glance at Albertine. Sometimes,
not always, this knocking awakened her too. But today she was sleeping
soundly, all too soundly. Fridolin dressed himself quickly. Before he left,
he wanted to see his little daughter. She was lying quietly in her white
bed, her child's hands clenched into little fists. He kissed her on the forehead. Then once more, on tiptoe, he crept up to the door of the bedroom
where Albertine was still sleeping, motionless as before. Then he left.
With him he carried the cassock and the pilgrim's hat safely hidden in his
black doctor's bag. He had drawn up the schedule for the day with great
care, even obsessively. First there was a visit to a seriously ill attorney in
the neighborhood. Fridolin examined him carefully, found him somewhat improved, expressed his satisfaction in a sincerely happy manner,
and ordered an old prescription refilled. Then he went straight to the cellar of the house where Nightingale had played piano the night before.
The place was still closed, but the cashier at the counter in the cafe above knew that Nightingale lived in a small hotel in the Leopoldstadt. A quarter of an hour later Fridolin arrived there in a carriage. It was a miserable
place. In the hall there was an odor of musty beds, rancid fat, and chicory
coffee. A tough-looking concierge with sly, red-rimmed eyes, ready to
give information to the police, willingly gave Fridolin information. Herr
Nightingale had driven up around five o'clock in the morning in the
company of two other gentlemen who had disguised their faces, perhaps
intentionally, with scarves wrapped high around their heads and necks.
While Nightingale was in his room, the gentlemen had paid his bill for
the last four weeks, and when he didn't appear after half an hour, one of
the men had personally brought him down. All three had then driven to
the North Train Station. Nightingale had appeared to be very agitatedwell, why not tell the whole truth to a man who seemed so trustwor-
thy?-and, yes, had tried to slip the concierge a letter, which however the
two men had immediately intercepted. Any letters for Herr Nightingale-so the men had explained-would be picked up by a person properly authorized to do so. Fridolin took his leave and was glad that he had
his doctor's bag in his hand as he went out the door, so that anyone seeing him would not take him for a resident of the hotel but would think he
was an official. There was nothing to be done about Nightingale for the
time being. They had been extremely cautious and probably had good
reason for it.

Then he drove to the costume rental shop. Herr Gibiser himself
opened the door. "I'm bringing back the costume I rented," said Fridolin,
..and would like to pay my bill." Herr Gibiser named a moderate sum,
took the money, made an entry in a large ledger, and looked up at
Fridolin, evidently surprised when he made no move to leave.

"I am also here," said Fridolin in the tone of a police magistrate, "to
have a word with you about your daughter."

Herr Gibiser's nostrils twitched-whether it was out of discomfort,
scorn, or annoyance was difficult to tell.

"What do you mean'?" he asked Fridolin in a similar tone of voice.

"Yesterday," said Fridolin, with the outstretched fingers of one hand
resting on the office desk, "you said that your daughter was not quite
normal mentally. The situation in which we found her does seem to indi cate that. And since chance made me a participant or at least a spectator
of this strange scene, I would very much like to advise you to consult a
doctor about her."

Gibiser, twirling an unnaturally long penholder in his hand, surveyed Fridolin with an insolent air.

"I suppose the doctor himself would be so good as to take the treatment upon himself?"

"I beg you not to put words in my mouth that I haven't said,"
Fridolin answered sharply.

At that moment the door that led to the inner room opened, and a
young man with an open coat over an evening suit stepped out. Fridolin
knew immediately that it could be none other than one of the inquisitors
of the night before. No doubt he came from Pierrette's room. He seemed
taken aback when he caught sight of Fridolin, but immediately regained
his composure, greeted Gibiser casually with a wave of his hand, lit a
cigarette, for which he used a match lying on the desk, and left the flat.

"So that's how it is," remarked Fridolin with a contemptuous twitch
of his mouth and a bitter taste on his tongue.

"What do you mean?" asked Gibiser with perfect equanimity.

"So you changed your mind, Herr Gibiser," said Fridolin, letting his
eyes wander about significantly from the entrance door to the door from
which the judge had come, "changed your mind about notifying the police."

"We came to another agreement, Herr Doctor," remarked Gibiser
coldly, and stood up as though an interview had ended. Fridolin started to
go. Gibiser obligingly opened the doors, and in an affectless manner he
said, "If the Herr Doctor should want anything else ... it needn't necessarily be a monk's robe."

Fridolin slammed the door behind him. Well, that's finished, he
thought with a feeling of anger which even to him seemed inappropriate.
He hurried down the stairs, walked to the Polyclinic, and first of all telephoned home to find out whether a patient had sent for him, whether the
mail had come, or whether there was any other news. The maid had
scarcely answered when Albertine herself came to the phone and greeted
Fridolin. She repeated everything that the maid had already said, and then she said casually that she had just gotten up and wanted to have
breakfast with their daughter. "Give her a kiss from me," said Fridolin,
..and enjoy your breakfast."

Her voice had done him good, and just for that reason he quickly
ended the call. Actually, he had wanted to ask Albertine what she was
planning to do this morning, but what business was it of his? In the
depths of his soul he was through with her, no matter whether their superficial life continued or not. The blonde nurse helped him out of his
street coat and handed him his white doctor's coat, smiling at him a little,
just as they always smiled at everyone, whether one paid them any attention or not.

A few minutes later he was on the ward. The doctor in charge had
sent word that he suddenly had to leave the city because of a conference,
and that the assisting doctors should make rounds without him. Fridolin
felt almost happy as he walked from bed to bed followed by students, examined patients, wrote prescriptions, and consulted with the other assistant doctors and the nurses. There was a lot of news. The journeyman
locksmith Rodel had died during the night, the autopsy would be in the
afternoon at half past four. A bed had become free in the women's ward
but was already occupied again. The woman in bed seventeen had had to
be transferred to the surgical division. In between there was also a lot of
personal gossip. The appointment of a man to the ophthalmology division would be decided the day after tomorrow. Hugelmann, now professor at Marburg University, had the best chance, even though only four
years ago he had still been a mere second assistant to Stellwag. A rapid
promotion, thought Fridolin. I'll never be considered for department
head, if only because I don't have the required docent degree. Too late.
But why, really? I could begin doing scientific research again, or I could
take up more seriously some of the things I've already begun. My private
practice still leaves me enough time to do it.