The Black Obelisk (7 page)

Riesenfeld emits a snort like a ground hog. His cosmic melancholy has disappeared like' magic. I get up to turn on the light. "No light!" he snaps. "Have you no feeling for poetry?"

He creeps to the window. Lisa begins to draw a tight dress over her head. She writhes like a serpent. Riesenfeld snorts 
aloud. "A seductive creature!
Donnerwetter
,
what a rear end! A dream! Who is she?"

"Susanna in the bath," I explain, trying to intimate delicately that at the moment we are in the role of the old goats watching her.

"Nonsense!" The voyeur with the Einstein complex never moves his eyes from the golden window. "I mean what's her name."

"I haven't the slightest idea. This is the first time we've seen her. She wasn't even living there at noon today," I say to whet his interest.

"Really?" Lisa has got her dress on and is now smoothing it down with her hands. Behind Riesenfeld's back Georg fills his glass and mine. We toss off the drinks. "A woman of breeding," Riesenfeld says, continuing to cling to the window. "A lady, that's easy to see. Probably French."

As far as we know, Lisa comes from Bohemia. "It might be Mademoiselle de la Tour," I reply. "I heard someone mention that name yesterday."

"You see?" Riesenfeld turns around to us for an instant. "I told you she was French! One can tell right away—that
je ne sais quoi!
Don't you think so too, Herr Kroll?"

"You're the connoisseur, Herr Riesenfeld."

The light in Lisa's room goes off. Riesenfeld pours his drink down his time-parched throat and once more presses his face against the window. After a while Lisa appears at the door and goes down the steps into the street. Riesenfeld stares after her. "An enchanting walk! She does not mince; she takes long strides. A lithe, luscious panther! Women who mince are always a disappointment. But I give you my guarantee for that one."

At the words "lithe, luscious panther" I have quickly downed another drink. Georg has sunk into his chair, grinning silently. We have turned the trick. Now Riesenfeld whirls around. His face shimmers like a pale moon. "Light, gentlemen! What are we waiting for? Forward into life!"

We follow him into the mild night. I stare at his froglike back. If only, I think enviously, it were as easy for me to bob up from my gray hours as it is for this quick-change artist.

The Red Mill is jam packed. All we can get is a table next to the orchestra. The music is too loud anyway, but at our table it is completely deafening. At first we shout our observations into one another's ears; after that we content ourselves with signs like a trio of deaf mutes. The dance floor is so crowded that the dancers can hardly move. But that doesn't matter to Riesenfeld. He spies a woman in white silk at the bar and rushes up to her. Proudly he propels her with his pointed belly across the dance floor. She is a head taller than he and stares in boredom at the balloon-hung ceiling. Lower down, Riesenfeld seethes and smolders like Vesuvius. His demon has seized him. "How would it be if we poured some brandy into his wine to make him tight quicker?" I ask Georg. "The boy is drinking like a spotted wild ass! This is our fifth bottle! In two hours we'll be bankrupt if it goes on like this. I estimate we've already drunk up a couple of imitation marble tombstones. Here's hoping he doesn't bring that white ghost to our table so that we'll have to quench her thirst too." Georg shakes his head. "That's a bar girl. She'll have to go back."

Riesenfeld returns. He is red in the face and sweating. "What does all this amount to compared to the magic of fantasy!" he roars at us through the confusion. "Tangible reality, well and good! But where's the poetry? That window tonight against the dark sky—that was something to dream about! A woman like that, even if you never see her again, is something you'll never forget. Understand what I mean?"

"Sure," Georg shouts. "What you can't get always seems better than what you have. That's the origin of all human romanticism and idiocy.
Prost
,
Riesenfeld!"

"I don't mean it so coarsely," Riesenfeld roars against the fox trot "Oh, if St. Peter Knew That." "I mean it more delicately."

"So do I," Georg roars back. "I mean it even more delicately!" "All right! As delicately as you like!" The music rises to a mighty crescendo. The dance floor is a variegated sardine box. Suddenly I stiffen. Laced into the trappings of a monkey in fancy dress, my sweetheart Erna is pushing her way through the swaying mob to my right. She does not see me, but I recognize her red hair from afar. She is hanging shamelessly on the shoulder of a typical young profiteer. I sit there motionless, but I feel as though I had swallowed a hand grenade. There she is dancing, the little beast to whom ten of the poems in my unpublished collection "Dust and Starlight" are dedicated, the girl who has been pretending for a week that she is not allowed out of the house because of a mild case of concussion. She says she fell in the dark. Fell indeed, but into the arms of this young man in the double-breasted tuxedo, with a seal ring on the paw with which he is supporting the small of Erna's back. A fine case of concussion! And I, imbecile that I am, sent her just this afternoon a bunch of rose-colored tulips from our garden with a poem in three stanzas entitled "Pan's May Devotions." Suppose she read it aloud to this profiteer! I can see the two doubled up with laughter.

"What's the matter with you?" Riesenfeld roars. "Are you sick?"

"Hot!" I roar back and feel sweat running down my back. I am furious; if Erna turns around she will see me perspiring and red in the face—when more than anything I should like to appear superior and cool and at my ease like a man of the world. Quickly I wipe my face with my handkerchief. Riesenfeld grims unsympathetically. Georg notices this. "You're sweating quite a bit yourself, Riesenfeld," he says.

"That's different! This sweat comes from the joy of life!" Riesenfeld roars.

"It's the sweat of fleeting time," I snarl maliciously and feel the salt water trickling into the corners of my mouth.

Erna is near us now. She is staring out over the orchestra in vacant happiness. I give my face a mildly reproachful, superior, and smiling expression while the sweat wilts my collar. "What's the matter with you anyway?" Riesenfeld shouts. "You look like a moon-struck kangaroo!"

I ignore him. Erna has finally turned around. I look toward the dancers, examining them coolly until at last, with an expression of surprise, I pretend accidentally to recognize her. Casually I lift two fingers in greeting. "He is
meschugge
,"
Riesenfeld howls through the syncopation of the fox trot
"
Himmelsvater
."

I do not reply. I am literally speechless. Erna has not seen me at all.

Finally the music stops. Slowly the dance floor empties. Erna disappears into a booth. "Were you seventeen or seventy just now?" Riesenfeld howls.

Since at this moment the orchestra is silent, his question thunders through the room. A couple of dozen heads turn to look at us, and even Riesenfeld is startled. I want to creep quickly under the table; but then it occurs to me that the people around us may have taken the question for a business offer and I reply coldly and loudly: "Seventy-one dollars apiece and not a cent less."

My reply awakens immediate interest. "What's the merchandise?" asks a man with a child's face at the next table. "Perhaps I'll get into the act. I'm always interested in good items. Cash, of course. Aufstein is the name."

"Felix Koks," I complete the introduction, happy to be able to pull myself together. "The items were twenty bottles of perfume. Unfortunately, the gentleman over there has just bought them."

"Sh—" whispers an artifical blonde.

The entertainment has begun. A master of ceremonies is talking nonsense and is furious because nobody likes his jokes. I pull my chair back and disappear behind Aufstein; masters of ceremonies, bent on attacking the audience, always love to pick on me, and tonight that would be bad because of Erna.

Everything goes fine. The master of ceremonies disappears in disgust, and who should suddenly appear in a white bridal dress and veil but Renée de la Tour. Relieved, I pull my chair back and wonder how I can use my acquaintance with Renée to impress Erna.

Renée begins her duet. Docilely and modestly she trills a few verses in a high, maidenly soprano—then comes the bass and makes an immediate sensation. "How do you like the lady?" I ask Riesenfeld.

"Lady?"

"Would you like to meet her? Mademoiselle de la Tour."

Riesenfeld is taken aback. "La Tour? Are you going to pretend that this absurd freak of nature is the enchantress in the window opposite you?"

That's just what I am about to pretend, in order to see how he reacts, when I notice a sort of angelic glow hovering about his elephantine snout. Without a word he gestures toward the entrance with his thumb. "There—over there—there she is! That walk! You recognize it instantly!"

He is right. Lisa has entered. She is in the company of two middle-aged playboys and is behaving like a lady of the most cultivated society, at least according to Riesenfeld's conceptions. She hardly seems to breathe and listens to her cavaliers with haughty distraction. "Am I right?" Riesenfeld asks. "You recognize women instantly by their walk, don't you?"

"Yes. Women and policemen," Georg says grinning; but he, too, looks appreciatively at Lisa.

The second number begins. A girl acrobat stands on the dance floor. She is young, with an impudent face, short nose, and beautiful legs. She does an adagio with somersaults, handstands, and leaps. We go on watching Lisa. She apparently wants to leave the place again. That, of course, is pretense; there's only this one night club in the city; the rest are cafes, restaurants, or dives. That's why one meets everyone here who has enough cash to get in.

"Champagne!" roars Riesenfeld in a dictator's voice.

I am alarmed; Georg, too, is worried. "Herr Riesenfeld," I say, "the champagne here is very bad."

At that moment a face looks at me from the floor. I look back in amazement and see that it is the dancer, who has bent over backward so far that her head protrudes from between her legs. For a second she looks like an extremely deformed dwarf. "I'm ordering the champagne!" Riesenfeld exclaims, motioning to the waiter.

Georg winks at me. He plays the role of cavalier, while I'm there to look after awkward situations; that's the arrangement between us. "If you want champagne, you shall have it," he says now. "But of course you're our guest, Riesenfeld."

"Impossible! I'm taking care of this! Not another word!" Riesenfeld is now the complete Don Juan of the upper classes. He looks with satisfaction at the golden neck in the ice bucket. Various ladies immediately exhibit a strong interest. I, too, feel gratified. The champagne will show Erna that she threw me overboard too soon. With satisfaction I drink to Riesenfeld, who responds formally.

Willy turns up. That was to be expected; he is a regular patron of the place. Aufstein and his friends leave, and Willy sits down at the table next to ours. Almost immediately he gets up to greet Renée de la Tour. With her is a pretty girl in a black evening dress. After a while I recognize her as the acrobat. Willy introduces us. Her name is Gerda Schneider. She throws an appraising glance at the champagne and at us three. We watch to see whether Riesenfeld will catch fire; then we'd be rid of him for the evening. But Riesenfeld is committed to Lisa. 'Do you think I could invite her to dance?" he asks Georg.

"I wouldn't advise you to just now," Georg replies diplomatically. "But perhaps we'll meet her later in the evening."

He looks at me reproachfully. If I had not said in the office that we did not know Lisa, everything would be simple. But who could have guessed Riesenfeld would turn romantic? Now it is too late to explain. Romantics have no sense of humor.

"Don't you dance?" the acrobat asks me.

"Badly. I have no sense of rhythm."

"Nor have I. Let's try it together."

We wedge our way into the mass on the dance floor and are slowly pushed forward. "Three men without women in a night club," Gerda says. "Why?"

"Why not? My friend Georg maintains that anyone who takes a woman into a night club is inviting her to put horns on his head."

"Who is your friend Georg? The one with the big nose?"

"The one with the bald head. He is a believer in the harem system. Women should not be exhibited, he says."

"Of course," Gerda replies. "And you?"

"I haven't any system.' I'm just chaff in the wind."

"Don't step on my feet," Gerda says. "You're not chaff at all. You weigh at least one fifty."

I pull myself together. We are just being pushed past Erna's table, and this time, thank God, she recognizes me although her head is resting on the shoulder of the profiteer with the seal ring and his arm is around her waist. How can I watch at such a moment? I smile sweetly down at Gerda and pull her closer to me, keeping an eye on Erna the while.