Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (12 page)

She started a little, and, fearing that he had gone too far, he added
softly, "I beg your pardon."

Her look became impenetrable, and after a short silence she remarked dryly, "In any case, I can't make any such decision without consulting my lawyer." And since she saw that his eyes began to gleam with
new hope, she added with a dismissive gesture, "I'm having a consultation with him anyway-today, at five o'clock, in his office. I'll see what
can be done. However, I advise you, don't depend on it, not in the least.
For naturally I won't make a cabinet-level question out of it." And, with
a sudden hardness, she added, "I really don't know why I should." But
then she smiled again and gave him her hand. This time she permitted
him to press a kiss on it.

"And when can I come for my answer'?"

She appeared to consider for a while. "Where do you live?"

"In the Alser Barracks," he answered promptly. "The officer's wing,
third floor, room four."

She smiled vaguely. Then she said slowly, "Around seven or seven
thirty I will at least know whether I'm in a position to help or not-" She
reflected again for a moment and then finished decisively, "I'll send you
my answer between seven and eight through a person I can trust." She
opened the door for him and accompanied him into the waiting room.
"Goodbye, Lieutenant."

"Until then," he replied, taken aback. Her expression was cold and
distant. And by the time the maid had opened the door to the staircase for
the lieutenant, Frau Leopoldine Wilram had already disappeared back
into her room.

XII

During the short time that Willi had been with Leopoldine, he had gone
through so many different moods, of encouragement, hope, security, and
renewed disappointment, that he descended the stairs in a daze. Only
when he was outdoors once more did his mind clear, and then his situation did not seem to him so unfavorable. He was sure that Leopoldine
could get him the money if she wished. Her very attitude was evidence
enough that it was within her power to influence her attorney as she
pleased. And the feeling that her heart must finally have spoken for him
became so powerful in Willi that, mentally jumping a long distance, he
suddenly saw himself as the husband of the now widowed Frau Leopoldine Wilram, now Frau Major Kasda.

But this daydream soon faded as he walked rather aimlessly toward
the Ring in the midday heat through not overcrowded streets. He remembered again the disagreeable office room in which she had received him,
and her image, which for a while now had been suffused with a certain
feminine grace, once more took on the hard, almost severe expression
that had intimidated him from time to time during his visit. In any case,
come what may, there were still many hours of uncertainty to go, and
these had to be passed in some manner. It occurred to him to have a
"good time," as the expression went, even-yes, especially even!-if it
were to turn out to be his last. He decided to have lunch in an elegant
hotel restaurant where he had occasionally dined with his uncle. He se lected a table in a cool, quiet corner, ordered an excellent meal, drank a
bottle of half-dry Hungarian wine, and soon found himself in such a contented state that not even the thought of his predicament could disturb
him. He sat for a long time with a good cigar in the corner of the velvet
couch, the sole remaining guest, feeling woozy and half giddy, and when
the waiter offered him authentic imported Egyptian cigarettes, he bought
a whole box at once. What did it matter anyway? At the worst his orderly
would inherit them.

As he stepped into the street again, he felt as though a somewhat
somber, but in essence still mostly interesting, adventure, awaited himas if he were anticipating a duel, for example. And he remembered an
evening, actually half an entire night, that he had spent two years earlier
with a comrade who was to fight with pistols the next morning. The first
part of the evening had been spent with him in the company of a couple
of young ladies; then, when they were alone, they had entered into serious, somewhat philosophical discussion. Yes, his comrade must have
been in a similar mood then as he was now, and the fact that the affair at
that time had turned out well seemed to Willi a good omen.

He sauntered through the Ring-a young, not too elegant officer,
but of a tall and slender build, passably handsome and not unpleasing to
the young ladies of all classes who passed by, as he could tell from the
many who batted their eyelashes at him. In front of a cafe, at an outdoor
table, he drank a mocha, smoked cigarettes, turned the pages of a few illustrated magazines, and surveyed the passersby without really seeing
them. Only gradually, without wanting to but out of necessity, did he
awake to a clear consciousness of reality. It was five o'clock. Inexorably,
even if too slowly, the afternoon was passing; and now it would be wisest
to go home and get a little rest, if possible. He took a horse-drawn bus,
got out in front of the barracks, and, without encountering any unwelcome acquaintance, reached his quarters on the far side of the courtyard.
Joseph was busy in the reception room bringing order to the lieutenant's
wardrobe, and reported politely that nothing had happened, exceptHerr von Bogner had been there in the morning and had left his calling
card. "What do I need his card for?" Willi said crossly. The card was
lying on the table; Bogner had written his private address on it: Piaristen gasse 20. Not even far from here, thought Willi. But what does it matter
whether he lives near or far, the fool! He follows me as though I were his
savior, the pushy fellow! Willi was just about to tear up the card when he
changed his mind and threw it casually on the dresser. He turned to his
orderly: In the evening, between seven and eight, someone would inquire
after him, Lieutenant Kasda, perhaps a gentleman with a lady, perhaps an
unaccompanied lady. "Understand?"

"Yes, sir, Lieutenant."

Willi closed the door behind him and threw himself on the sofa that
was a little too short for him, so that his feet dangled over the lower arm,
and he sank into sleep as though into an abyss.

XIII

It was already growing dark when an indistinct noise awakened him. He
opened his eyes to see a young lady in a blue and white polka-dot dress
standing in front of him. Still heavy with sleep, he rose and saw his orderly standing behind the young lady, looking anxious and guilty. At the
same time he heard Leopoldine's voice say, "I must apologize, Lieutenant, for not allowing your-orderly to announce me, but I preferred to
wait here until you woke up on your own account."

How long could she have been standing there, thought Willi, and
what can I infer from her voice? How different she looks! This was
someone completely different from the person he had seen that morning.
Surely she's brought the money! He waved away his orderly, who disappeared at once. And turning to Leopoldine, he said, "Well, madam, make
yourself comfortable-I'm very happy to see you-please, madam"and he invited her to sit down.

She glanced around the room with a bright, almost gay look and
seemed to like what she saw. In her hand she held a white-and-bluestriped umbrella, which went perfectly with her blue and white polka-dot
foulard dress. She wore a straw hat that wasn't quite in the latest fashion
but rather was broad-brimmed, in Florentine fashion, with hanging artificial cherries. "Your place is quite attractive, Lieutenant," she said, and the cherries swung to and fro against her ear. "I never imagined that a
room in an army barracks could be so comfortable and attractive."

"They're not all the same," remarked Willi with some selfsatisfaction. To which she added with a smile, "I suppose it depends on
the occupant."

Willi, awkward yet pleasurably aroused, set the books on the table
in order, closed the door of a small cabinet that was ajar, and abruptly offered Leopoldine a cigarette from the box he had bought in the hotel. She
declined but let herself sink lightly into the corner of the sofa. She looks
marvelous! Willi thought. She actually looks like a lady from good, bourgeois circles. She reminded him as little of the business woman of this
morning as she did of the tousled blonde of former times. But where
could she have the eleven thousand? As though she guessed his thoughts,
she looked at him smilingly, almost mischievously, and then asked, apparently harmlessly, "And how do you normally live, Lieutenant?"

Since Willi hesitated to answer her entirely too general question,
she began to inquire in detail as to whether his service was easy or difficult, whether he would soon be promoted, what his relations with his superiors were, and whether he often made excursions into the surrounding
countryside such as he had the preceding Sunday, for example. Willi answered that his service was variable, sometimes easy and sometimes difficult; that he had no complaints against his superiors; that Lieutenant
Colonel Wositzky was especially pleasant to him; that he couldn't expect
a promotion for at least three years; that he didn't have very much time
for excursions, as madam could well imagine, except on Sundayswhereupon he let a sigh escape. Leopoldine, glancing up at him in a most
friendly way-for he was still standing on the far side of the table from
her-responded that she hoped he knew of better ways to spend his
evenings than at the card table. At this point she could easily have added,
"Yes, Lieutenant, so I won't forget, here, the little matter about which
you spoke to me this morning." But no, there was no word, no gesture
that could be interpreted in that way. She just kept looking up at him in
the same smiling, approving way, and there was nothing for him to do
but carry on the conversation with her as well as he could. So he told her about the appealing Kessner family and the beautiful villa in which they
lived, about the stupid actor Elrief, about the painted Fraulein Rihoscheck, and about the nighttime carriage ride to Vienna.

"In pleasant company, I hope," she said.

Oh, not at all. He had ridden home with one of his card-game companions. Then she asked him in a teasing voice whether Fraulein Kessner
was blonde- or brown- or black-haired. He really couldn't say for sure,
he answered. And his tone intentionally revealed that there were no affairs of the heart of any meaningful sort in his life. "I think, madam, that
you imagine my life to be quite different from what it actually is!"

Sympathetically, her lips half open, she looked up at him.

"If one were not so utterly alone," he added, "such dire events
wouldn't happen."

She glanced up at him with an innocent, questioning look, as
though she didn't quite understand, but then she nodded gravely. But
even at this point she did not take the opportunity, and instead of talking
about the money, which of course she had brought with her, or, still more
directly, simply putting the bills on the table, she remarked, "To stand
alone and to be alone-those are two different things."

"That's true," he said.

But since her only response to that was to nod understandingly, and
as he grew ever more anxious as the conversation began to falter, he decided to ask her how things had gone with her all this time, and whether
she had had many good experiences. He avoided mentioning the elderly
gentleman to whom she was married and who was his uncle, just as he
avoided mentioning Hornig's, and, above all, a certain hotel room with
dilapidated shutters and a worn pillow with a ruddy shine. It was a conversation between a not particularly adroit lieutenant and a pretty young
woman from a good bourgeois family, who both knew all sorts of things
about each other-quite incriminating things-but who both had reasons
not to speak of these things, if only not to spoil the mood, which was not
without its charm and even its promise. Leopoldine had taken off her
Florentine hat and had put it on the table in front of her. She was still
wearing the smooth and flat coiffure of the morning but had allowed a few locks to escape and fall in curls over her temples-which reminded
him, very remotely, of a former tousled blonde head.

The darkness outdoors deepened. Willi was just considering
whether he should light the lamp that stood in the niche of the white tile
stove when Leopoldine reached for her hat. At first it looked as though
this had no further meaning, as she had meanwhile begun to tell him
about an excursion that she had made the previous year by way of Modling, Lilienfeld, and Heiligenkreuz to precisely that same Baden. But
suddenly she put her Florentine hat on, pinned it onto her hair, and remarked with a polite smile that it was time for her to leave. Willi smiled
too, but it was an uncertain, almost frightened smile that trembled on his
lips. Was she making fun of him? Or did she merely want to amuse herself with his anxiety, his fear, in order to make him all the happier at the
very last moment with the news that she had brought the money? Or had
she only come to excuse herself, to tell him that it had not been possible
for her to get the desired amount in cash, but she simply couldn't find the
words to tell him? In any case, it was obvious that she was in earnest
about leaving, and in his helplessness he could do nothing but keep on
acting the part of the gallant young man who had received a pleasant visit
from a young and beautiful woman, and now simply could not bear to let
her go in the middle of the most enjoyable conversation.

"Why do you want to leave so soon?" he asked in the voice of a disappointed lover. And then, more urgently, "You don't really mean to
leave so soon, do you, Leopoldine?"

"It's late," she answered. And she added in a light, teasing tone,
"And you undoubtedly have something better planned on such a beautiful summer evening."

He breathed more easily, as she had suddenly spoken to him again
in the intimate form of "you," and it was difficult for him not to betray a
new hope. No, he had no plans, he said, and seldom had he been able to
speak so truthfully. She hesitated a little, kept her hat on, went to the
open window, and looked down into the courtyard of the barracks with a
seeming sudden interest. There was not much to be seen there, granted:
opposite, in front of the canteen, a few soldiers sat around a long table; an officer's orderly was rushing diagonally across the courtyard with a
wrapped package under his arm; another was pushing a small wheelbarrow with a barrel of beer toward the canteen; two officers were walking
toward the gate, engrossed in conversation. Willi stood next to Leopoldine, a little behind her; her blue and while polka-dotted foulard dress
swished softly, her left arm hung down limply, and her hand did not
move as his touched hers. Gradually her fingers slowly slipped lightly
between his. Through the open window the melancholy sounds of someone practicing a trumpet from the barracks across the way wafted into the
room. Silence.