The Train Was On Time (12 page)

She lit another cigarette, he was glad he hadn’t offended her. She was smiling. She was thinking, after all he’s hired the room and me for the whole night. And it’s only six o’clock, not even quite six.…

“You were going to tell me about it,” said Andreas.

“Yes,” she said. “We’re the same age, I like that. I’m three days older than you. I expect I’m your sister.…” She laughed. “Maybe I really am your sister.”

“Please tell me about it.”

“I am,” she said, “I am telling you. In Warsaw I studied at the Conservatory of Music. You wanted to hear about my studies, didn’t you?”

“Yes!”

“Do you know Warsaw?”

“No.”

“Well then. Here we go. Warsaw is a big city, a beautiful city, and the Conservatory was in a house like this one. Only the garden was bigger, much bigger. During recess we could stroll in that lovely big garden and flirt. They told me I was very talented.
I took piano. I would rather have played only the harpsichord at first, but no one taught that, so I had to take piano. For my entrance test I had to play a short, simple little Beethoven sonata. That was tricky. It’s so easy to make a mess of those simple little things, or one plays them too emotionally. It’s very difficult to play those simple things. It was Beethoven, you know, but a very early Beethoven, almost classical in style, almost like Haydn. A very subtle piece for an entrance test, d’you see?”

“Yes,” said Andreas, and he could sense that soon he was going to cry.

“Good. I passed, with Very Good. I studied and played till … let’s see … till the war started. That’s right, it was the fall of ‘thirty-nine, two years; I learned a lot and flirted a lot. I always did like kissing and all that, you know. I could play Liszt quite well by that time, and Tchaikovsky. But I could never really play Bach properly. I would have liked to play Bach. And I could play Chopin quite well too. Fine. Then came the war.… Oh yes, and there was a garden behind the Conservatory, a wonderful garden, with benches and arbors, and sometimes we had parties, and there would be music and dancing in the garden. Once we had a Mozart evening, a wonderful Mozart evening.… Mozart was another one I could already play quite well. Well, then came the war!”

She broke off abruptly, and Andreas turned questioning eyes on her. She looked angry. The hair seemed to bristle above that Fragonard forehead.

“For God’s sake,” she burst out, “do what the others all do with me. This is ridiculous!”

“No,” said Andreas, “you have to tell me.”

“That,” she said frowning, “is something you can’t pay for.”

“Yes I can,” he said, “I’ll pay in the same coin. I’ll tell you my story too. Everything.…”

But she was silent. She stared at the floor and was silent. He studied her out of the corner of his eye and thought: she does
look like a tart after all. There’s sex in every fiber of that pretty face, and she’s not an innocent shepherdess, she’s a very wanton shepherdess. It gave him a pang to find that she was a tart after all. The dream had been very lovely. She might be standing anywhere in the Gare Montparnasse. And it did him good to feel that pain again. For a time it had completely gone. He loved listening to her gentle voice telling him about the Conservatory.…

“It’s boring,” she said suddenly. She spoke with complete indifference.

“Let’s have some wine,” said Andreas.

She rose, walked briskly to the closet, and in a businesslike voice asked: “What would you like to drink?” She looked into the closet: “There’s some red wine and some white, Moselle, I think.”

“All right,” he said, “let’s have some Moselle.”

She brought over the bottle, pushed a little table up to their chairs, handed him the corkscrew, and set out glasses while he opened the bottle. He watched her, then poured the wine, they raised their glasses, and he smiled into her angry eyes.

“Let’s drink to the year of our birth,” he said, “1920.”

She smiled against her will. “All right, but I’m not going to tell you any more.”

“Shall I tell you my story?”

“No,” she said. “All you fellows can talk about is the war. I’ve been listening to that for two years now. Always the war. As soon as you’ve finished … you begin talking about the war. It’s boring.”

“What would you like to do then?”

“I’d like to seduce you, you’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Andreas, and was taken aback at the way she promptly jumped up. “I knew it,” she cried, “I knew it!” He saw her eager, flushed face, the eyes flashing at him, and thought: Funny, I’ve never seen any woman I’ve desired less than this one, and she’s beautiful, and I could have her right now.
Oh yes, sometimes a thrill has gone through me, without my trying or wanting it, and for that split second I’ve known that it must be truly wonderful to possess a woman. But there’s never been one I desired as little as this one. I’ll tell her about it, I’ll tell her everything.…

“Olina,” he said, pointing to the piano, “Olina, play the little Beethoven sonata.”

“Promise you’ll … promise you’ll make love to me.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Come and sit here.” He made her sit beside him in the armchair, and she looked at him without saying a word.

“Now listen,” he said, “I’m going to tell you my story.”

He looked out of the window and saw that the sun had gone down and that only a very little light remained over the gardens. Very soon there would be no more sunlight outside in the gardens, and never again, never again would the sun shine, never again would he see a single ray of sunshine. The last night was beginning, and the last day had passed like all the others, wasted and meaningless. He had prayed a bit and drunk some wine and now he was in a brothel. He waited until it was dark. He had no idea how long it took, he had forgotten the girl, forgotten the wine, the whole house, and all he saw was a last little bit of the forest whose treetops caught a few final glints from the setting sun, a few tiny glints from the sun. Some reddish gleams, exquisite, indescribably beautiful on those treetops. A tiny crown of light, the last light he would ever see. Now it was gone … no, there was still a bit, a tiny little bit on the tallest of the trees, the one that reached up the highest and could still catch something of the golden reflection that would remain for only half a second … until it was all gone. It’s still there, he thought, holding his breath … still a particle of light up there on the treetop … an absurd little shimmer of sunlight, and no one in the world but me is watching it. Still there … still there, it was like a smile that faded very
slowly … still there, and now it was gone! The light has gone out, the lantern has vanished, and I shall never see it again.…

“Olina,” he said softly, and he felt he could speak now, and he knew he would win her because it was dark. A woman can only be won in the dark. Funny, he thought, I wonder if that’s really true? He had the feeling that Olina belonged to him now, had surrendered to him. “Olina,” he said softly, “tomorrow morning I must die. That’s right,” he said calmly, looking at her shocked face, “don’t be scared! Tomorrow morning I must die. You’re the first and only person I’ve told. I am certain. I must die. A moment ago the sun went down. Just this side of Stryy I shall die.…”

She jumped to her feet and looked at him in horror. “You’re mad,” she whispered, white-faced.

“No,” he said, “I’m not mad, that’s how it is, you must believe me. You must believe that I’m not mad, that tomorrow morning I shall die, and now you must play me the little Beethoven sonata.”

She stared at him, aghast, and murmured: “But … but that’s impossible.”

“I’m absolutely certain and you have told me the last thing I needed to know, Stryy, that’s it. What a terrible name, Stryy. What kind of a word is that? Stryy? Why must I die just this side of Stryy? Why did it have first to be between Lvov and Cernauti … then Kolomyya … then Stanislav … then Stryy. The moment you said Stryy I knew that was the place. Wait!” he called, as she rushed to the door and stood staring at him with terrified eyes.

“You must stay with me,” he said, “you must stay with me. I’m a human being, and I can’t stand it alone. Stay with me, Olina. I’m not mad. Don’t scream.” He held his hand over her mouth. “My God, what can I do to prove to you I’m not mad? What can I do? Tell me what I can do to prove to you I’m not mad?”

But she was too frightened to hear what he was saying. She merely stared at him with her terrified eyes, and all at once he realized what a dreadful profession she had. If he were really mad, she would now be standing there helpless. They send her to a room, and two hundred and fifty marks are paid for her because she is the “opera singer,” a very valuable little doll, and she has to go to that room like a soldier going to the front. She has to go, even though she is the opera singer, a very valuable little doll. A terrible life. They send her to a room and she has no idea who is inside. An old man, a young one, an ugly man or a handsome one, bestial or innocent. She has no idea and goes to the room, and now there she is, frightened, just frightened, too frightened to hear what he is saying. It is truly a sin to go to a brothel, he thought. They send girls to a room, just like that.… He gently stroked the hand he was restraining her by, and strangely enough the fear in her eyes began to recede. He went on stroking it, and felt as if he were stroking a child. I’ve never desired a woman as little as this one. A child … and suddenly he saw that poor grubby little girl in a suburb of Berlin, playing among prefabs where there were some scrawny gardens, and the other kids had taken her doll and thrown it into a puddle … and then run away. And he had bent down and pulled the doll out of the puddle; it was dripping with dirty water, a dangling, frayed, cheap ragdoll, and he had to stroke the child for a long time and try and console her for her poor doll having got wet … a child.…

“You’re all right now, aren’t you?” he said. She nodded, and there were tears in her eyes. He led her gently back to the chair. The dusk had become heavy and sad.

She sat down obediently, keeping her still somewhat nervous gaze on him. He poured her some wine. She drank. Then she sighed deeply. “God, how you scared me,” she said, and thirstily gulped down the rest of her wine.

“Olina,” he said, “you’re twenty-three now. Just ask yourself whether you’re going to be twenty-five, will you?” he urged her. “Say to yourself: I am twenty-five years old. That’s February 1945, Olina. Try, think hard.” She closed her eyes, and he saw from her lips that she was saying something under her breath that in Polish must mean: February 1945.

“No,” she said, as if waking up, and she shook her head. “There’s nothing there, as if it didn’t exist—how odd.”

“You see?” he said. “And when I think: Sunday noon, tomorrow noon, that doesn’t exist for me. That’s the way it is. I’m not mad.” He saw her close her eyes again and say something under her breath.…

“It’s odd,” she said softly, “but February 1944 doesn’t exist either.…”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she broke out, “why won’t you make love? Why won’t you dance with me?” She moved swiftly to the piano and sat down. And then she played: “I’m dancing with you into heaven, the seventh heaven of love.…”

Andreas smiled. “Come on, play the Beethoven sonata … play a.…”

But again she was playing: I’m dancing with you into heaven, the seventh heaven of love. She played it very softly, as softly as dusk was now sinking into the room through the open curtains. She played the sentimental tune unsentimentally, which was strange. The notes sounded crisp, almost staccato, very soft, almost as if suddenly she were turning this brothel piano into a harpsichord. Harpsichord, thought Andreas, that’s the right instrument for her, she ought to play the harpsichord.…

The popular tune she was now playing was no longer the same, yet it was the same. What a lovely tune it is, thought Andreas. It’s fantastic, what she can make of it. Perhaps she studied composition too, and she’s turning this trivial tune into a sonata hovering in the dusk. Now and again, at intervals, she
would play the original melody again, pure and clear, unsentimentally: I’m dancing with you into heaven, the seventh heaven of love. Now and again, between the gentle, playful waves, she allowed the theme to rear up like a granite cliff.

It was almost dark now, it was getting chilly, but he didn’t care; the music sounded so beautiful that he wasn’t going to get up and close the window; even if subzero air were to come in through the window from the gardens of Lvov, he wasn’t going to get up.… Maybe I’m dreaming it’s 1943 and I’m sitting here in a Lvov brothel wearing the gray tunic of Hitler’s army; maybe I’m dreaming, maybe I was born in the seventeenth century or the eighteenth, and I’m sitting in my mistress’s drawing-room, and she’s playing the harpsichord, just for me, all the music in the world just for me … in a chateau somewhere in France, or a little schloss in western Germany, and I’m listening to the harpsichord in an eighteenth-century drawing-room, played by someone who loves me, who is playing just for me, just for me. The whole world is mine, here in the dusk; very soon the candles will be lit, we won’t call a servant … no, no servant … I shall light the candles with a paper spill, and I shall light the paper spill with my paybook from the fire in the hearth. No, there’s no fire burning in the hearth. I shall light the fire myself, the air from the garden, from the grounds of the chateau, is damp and cool; I shall kneel by the hearth, tenderly place the kindling in layers, crumple each page of my paybook, and light the fire with the matches she noted down. Those matches will be paid for with the Lvov mortgage. I shall kneel at her feet, for she will be waiting with tender impatience for the fire to be lit in the hearth. Her feet have grown cold at the harpsichord; she has sat at the open window in this damp, cool air for a long, long time, playing for me, my sister, she has been playing so beautifully that I wouldn’t get up to close the window … and I shall make a lovely bright fire, and we won’t need any servants, no indeed, no servants! Just as well the door is locked.…

1943. A terrible century; what awful clothes the men will be wearing; they will glorify war and wear dirt-colored clothes in the war, while we never glorified war, war was an honest craft at which now and again a man got cheated of his rightful wages; and we wore cheerful clothes when we worked at this craft, just as a doctor wears cheerful clothes and a mayor … and a prostitute; but those people will be wearing horrible clothes and will glorify war and fight wars for their national honor: a terrible century; 1943.…