Billiards at Half-Past Nine (32 page)

“Yes, Madam, the fireworks begin half an hour after sun-down, that is to say about half-past seven. The Fighting Veterans’ parade about seven-fifteen. Sorry, I’m not in a position to tell you whether the Minister will be there.” Hugo read on in his high school graduate voice: “And the city fathers presented to the deserving boxer not only the Key to the City but also the golden Marsilius Plaque, which is awarded only for particularly outstanding cultural accomplishments. The dignified ceremony closed with a gala banquet.” The globetrotters were finally leaving the lobby. “Yes, gentlemen, the banquet
for the Left Opposition party is in the Blue Room—no, for the Right Opposition party in the Yellow Room. There are signs marking the way, sir.” Who belonged to the Left, who to the Right? You couldn’t tell by looking at them. Jochen would have been better at such a job. When it came to labeling people, his instinct was infallible. He could spot the real gentleman in a shabby suit or the upstart in a tailor-made. He would have known how to distinguish between the Left and the Right Opposition, though otherwise you couldn’t tell them apart even to their menus. Oh, there’s still another banquet: the board of directors of the Co-operative Welfare Society. “The Red Room, sir.” Their faces were all the same, and they would all eat lobster cocktail as hors d’oeuvre, the Left, the Right and the board of directors; all would have Mozart for the hors d’oeuvres, Wagner for the main course and the taste of rich sauces, and jazz for dessert. “Yes, sir, in the Red Room.” Jochen’s instinct was infallible in social matters, but failed him beyond that. When the shepherd priestess came onto the scene for the first time, it had been Jochen who’d whispered: ‘Careful, that’s real upper class.’ And when the small, pale young woman appeared, with her long unruly hair and only a handbag and pocketbook under her arm, Jochen whispered: ‘Hustler.’ And I said: ‘She does it with anyone, but
takes nothing for it
, so she’s not a whore,’ and Jochen said, ‘She does it with anyone,
and takes something for it
.’ And Jochen was right. Jochen, however, has no instinct for disaster; for when the blonde came in, glamorous with her thirteen suitcases, I said to him as she got into the lift: ‘Do you want to bet we won’t see her alive again?’ And Jochen said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, she’s only skipped out on her husband for a couple of days.’ And who was right? I was! Sleeping tablets and a Do Not Disturb notice in front of the door. She slept twenty-four hours, and then the whispering started: ‘Dead, someone dead in Room 118.’ It’s a fine thing when the murder squad arrive around three in the afternoon, and around five a body’s dragged out of the hotel, a fine thing.

Now, how’s that for a buffalo-face! A trunk with a diplomatic air, two hundred pounds, a dachshund-waddle—and look at the suit on the man. This one fairly reeked of importance, kept in the background while two less significant birds stalked over to the desk. Mr. M.’s room, please. “Oh, yes, Room 211. Hugo, come here, take the gentlemen upstairs.” And six hundredweight swathed in English woolens soundlessly glided upward.

“Jochen, Jochen, good God, where’ve you been all this time?”

“Excuse me,” said Jochen, “you know I’m almost never late. And I wanted to be on time especially tonight when your wife and children are waiting for you. But when it comes to choosing between you or my pigeons, well, I’m not so sure. And when I send six of them off on a trip, I want six back, but only five were on time, you understand; the sixth came in ten minutes late and completely exhausted, poor creature. Go on, now, if you still want to get a good seat for the fireworks. Yes, all right, I see, Left Opposition in the Blue Room, Right Opposition in the Yellow Room, board of directors of the Co-operative Welfare Society in the Red Room. Well, all right, that’s not bad for a weekend. Not nearly as tough as when the Stamp Collectors or the National Beer Brewers’ Committee meet. Don’t worry, I’ll manage them okay, and I’ll control my feelings, even though I’d just as soon warm the seat of the Left Opposition’s pants, and spit into the hors d’oeuvres of the Right and the Co-operative Welfare Society—all right, don’t get excited, we’ll keep the old house flag a-flying. And I’ll check up on your would-be suicides. Yes, Madam, Hugo to your room at nine o’clock for cards, certainly. Ah, Mr. M.’s already here? Don’t like him, that Mr. M.; without even having seen him I hate his guts. Yes, sir, champagne to Room 211, and three Partagas Eminentes. By the smell of their cigars shall ye know them! Good God, here comes the entire Faehmel family.”

Girl, oh girl, what’s happened to you! When I saw you for the
first time, at the Emperor’s Parade in 1908, my heart beat faster. Even though I knew that little flowers like you didn’t grow for the likes of us to pick. I took the red wine into the room where you were sitting with Papa and Mamma. Child, child, who ever would have thought you would grow into a downright grandma, all silver hair and wrinkles; I could carry you up into the room with one hand, and I’d do so if they’d let me. But they won’t let me, old girl, too bad, you’re still good-looking.

“Your Excellency, we’ve reserved Room 212 for you and your wife, pardon, for your wife and you. Any luggage at the station? No? Anything to be brought from your house? Nothing. Oh, only for two hours while the fireworks are on, and to watch the Veterans’ parade. Of course there are seats for six people in the room, there’s a large balcony, and if you wish we can have the beds pushed together. Not necessary? Hugo, Hugo, show the ladies and gentlemen to Room 212, and take a wine list with you. I’ll send the young people up to your room. Of course, Doctor, the billiard room has been reserved for yourself and Mr. Schrella, and I’ll see that Hugo is free for you. Yes, he’s a good boy, he’s spent half the afternoon hanging onto the telephone, dialing again and again; I don’t think he’ll ever forget your phone number or the Pension Moderne’s as long as he lives. Why is the Fighting Veterans’ League parading today? Some field marshal’s birthday—the hero of Husenwald, I think; we’ll get to hear that wonderful song, ‘Fatherland, the ship of state groans in every timber.’ Well, we’ll let her groan, Doctor. What? Always has groaned? If you’ll allow me to express a personal political opinion here, I’d say, ‘Watch out if she ever groans again. Watch out!’ ”

“I’ve stood right here once before,” she said quietly, “and watched you as you went marching by below, during the Emperor’s Parade in January, 1908. It was imperial weather, dearest, a crackling frost, as they say in poems, I believe. And I was all aquiver to see if you’d stand up to the last and hardest
of the tests: of how you would look to me in your uniform. The General stood on the next balcony and toasted Father, Mother and me. You made out all right, old man—don’t look at me so suspiciously, yes, suspiciously, you’ve never looked at me like that before—put your head in my lap, smoke your cigar and forgive me if I’m shaky. I’m scared. Did you see that boy’s face? He might have been Edith’s brother, mightn’t he? I’m scared, and you must understand that I cannot go back into our apartment as yet, perhaps never again. I can’t step back into the circle, I’m scared, much more than I was then. Obviously, you’re all quite used to the faces. But I’m beginning to wish I were back among my poor old harmless lunatics. Are you all blind, then? So easily fooled? Don’t you see they’d kill you all for less than a gesture, for less than a sandwich? You needn’t even be dark-haired or blond any more, or show your grandmother’s birth certificate. They’d kill you if they just didn’t like your faces. Didn’t you see the posters on the walls? Are you all blind? You just don’t know any more where you are. I tell you, dearest, the whole pack of them have partaken of the
Host of the Beast
. Dumb as earth, deaf as a tree, and as terribly harmless as the Beast in his last incarnation. Respectable, respectable. I’m scared, old man—I’ve never felt such a stranger among people, not even in 1935 and not in 1942. Maybe I do need time, but even centuries wouldn’t be enough to get me used to their faces. Respectable, respectable, without a trace of grief. What’s a human being without grief? Give me another glass of wine and don’t stare at my handbag so suspiciously. You all knew about the medicine but it’s me who has to use it. You have a pure heart, with no idea how bad the world is, and today I want to ask you to make another great sacrifice: cancel the party in the Cafe Kroner, destroy that legend, don’t ask your grandchildren to spit on your statue, simply make sure you never get one. You really never liked paprika cheese—let the waiters and kitchenmaids sit down at the banquet table and eat up your birthday dinner. We’ll stay here on this balcony and enjoy the
summer evening in the family circle, drinking wine and looking at the fireworks and watching the Fighting Veterans march past. What are they fighting against, anyway? Shall I go and telephone the Kroner to cancel the dinner?”

Blue-uniformed men were already gathering at the big doors of St. Severin’s, standing around in groups, smoking, carrying blue and red flags with great, black F.V.’s on them. The brass band began to rehearse “Fatherland, the ship of state groans in every timber.” On the balconies, wine glasses clinked softly, champagne buckets echoed metallically, corks popped into the dark blue evening sky. The bells of St. Severin’s chimed a quarter to seven, and three dark-suited men stepped onto the balcony of Room 211.

“Do you really believe they might be some use to us?” asked M.

“I’m certain,” said the one.

“No doubt about it,” said the other.

“But won’t we antagonize more voters than we’ll win by such a show of sympathy?” asked Mr. M.

“The Fighting Veterans’ League is known as non-radical,” said the one.

“You can’t lose anything,” said the other, “and you’re bound to win something.”

“How many votes are involved? At best and at worst?”

“At best, around eighty thousand, at worst around fifty thousand. Make up your mind.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” said M. “I’m still waiting for K.’s instructions. Do you think up till now we’ve managed to escape the attention of the Press?”

“We have, Mr. M.,” said the one.

“And the hotel personnel?”

“Absolutely discreet, Mr. M.,” said the other. “Mr. K.’s instructions should come in soon.”

“I don’t like those guys,” said Mr. M., “they
believe
in something.”

“Eighty thousand votes ought to believe in something, Mr. M.,” said the one.

Laughter. Clink of glasses. The phone.

“Yes, M. speaking. Have I got you right? Show sympathy? Right.”

“Mr. K. has decided in the affirmative, gentlemen. Let’s move our chairs and the table out onto the balcony.”

“What will they think abroad?”

“They’ll have the wrong ideas in any case.”

Laughter, the clink of glasses.

“I’ll go down to the leader of the parade and draw his attention to your balcony,” said the one.

“No, no,” said the old man, “I don’t want to lie on your lap and I don’t want to look up into the sky. Did you tell them in the Cafe Kroner to send Leonore here? She’ll be disappointed. You don’t know her, she’s Robert’s secretary, a dear child, she mustn’t be done out of her party. I don’t have a pure heart, and I know exactly how bad the world is; I feel like a stranger, more strange than when we used to go to The Anchor in the upper harbor and take the money to the waiter called Groll. They’re getting into marching formation down there—it’s a warm summer’s evening, the laughter’s echoing up here in the dusk—shall I help you, dearest? I suppose you don’t know that you laid your handbag on my lap in the taxi. It’s heavy, but not heavy enough—what do you intend to do, precisely, with that thing?”

“I want to shoot that fat man there on his white horse. Can you see him, do you still remember him?”

“Do you think I could ever forget him? He killed the laughter in me, and broke the hidden springs within the hidden wheels. He had that little blond fellow executed, Edith’s father taken away, and Groll too, and the boy whose name we never learned. He taught me how lifting your hand could cost you your life. He made Otto into someone who was only Otto’s
husk—and in spite of all that, I wouldn’t shoot him. I’ve often asked myself why I came to this city. To get rich? No, you know that. Because I loved you? No—since I hadn’t yet met you and couldn’t yet love you. Ambition? No. I think I just wanted to laugh at them and tell them at the end: it wasn’t really serious. Did I want children? Yes. I had them. Two died young and one fell in battle, and he was a stranger to me, stranger even than those young men picking up their flags down there. And the other son? How are you, Father? Well, and you? Well, thank you, Father. Can I do anything for you? No, thank you, I don’t need anything. St. Anthony’s Abbey? Forgive me if I laugh, dearest. Dust. It doesn’t even arouse my sentimentality, much less my feelings. Would you like some more wine?”

“Yes, please.”

I’ll take my stand on Paragraph 51, dearest husband. The law is flexible—look down there, there’s our old friend Nettlinger, clever enough not to appear in uniform, but just the same here to shake hands and slap people on the back and finger the flags. I’d rather shoot Nettlinger, if anyone—but perhaps I’ll think it over and not shoot into that menagerie down there. My grandson’s murderer is sitting nearby on the balcony, can you see him, in his dark suit, respectable, oh so respectable. That one thinks differently now, acts differently, plans differently; he’s learned a little, speaks fluent French and English and understands Latin and Greek, and he’s already put the bookmark in his prayer book for tomorrow. Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. He’s just hollered ‘What’s the Introit?’ into his wife’s bedroom. I won’t shoot fat-guts there on his white horse. I won’t shoot into the menagerie—just a bit of a turn, and, at a range of six yards at the most, I can’t miss. At seventy-one what else good can I accomplish? No tyrannicide for me, it’ll be murder of respectability. Death will bring the great wonder back into his face; come, don’t tremble, dearest, I want to pay the ransom money. And it gives me pleasure, to breathe deep, aim and fire—you needn’t hold your ears,
dearest, it doesn’t bang louder than a balloon bursting. Vigil of the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost.…