Little Apple (3 page)

One-thirty ... I really must try to get some sleep. What on earth can that fool of a conductor have thought? I'm dog-tired. Why did he stare at me like that? Damned impertinence! Grisha - that was the name of Selyukov's orderly: Grigory Osipovich Kedrin or Kadrin from Staromyena in the Government of Kharkov - he dictated his letters to the Professor often enough. I'll write it down just in case . . .

He pulled out his notebook and wrote the following under Selyukov's name:

"Grisha, Selyukov's orderly. Grigory Osipovich Kedrin (Kadrin?) from the village of Staromyena, Glavyask Railway Station, Government of Kharkov."

LIMBO

From the carriage window he caught sight of his sisters, Lola and Vally, in the waiting throng. So they had both come. Vally had developed into a pretty girl. A child no longer, she was a slender nineteen-year-old with lustrous eyes and airy, graceful movements. Three years was a long time. And there was his father, too, still erect and every inch the retired army officer, but a little older-looking for all that.

Vit¬torin stepped down on to the platform. He was relieved of his bedding-roll by a young man with angular, unfamiliar features, a minuscule moustache and brown kid gloves: his brother Oskar. Three years ago Oskar had still been wearing blue sailor suits. The friendly but formal way in which he shook his elder brother's hand conveyed an emphatic and unmistakable request to be treated like a fully-fledged adult.

Innumerable questions: how had he stood up to the journey, was Moscow cold at this time of year, had he seen anything of the Revolution, was he glad to be back in Vienna again? "Let's take a look at you, Georg. Hm, not bad, a bit thin in the face, though." - "Franzi Kroneis has been dropping in every day to ask for news, and yesterday she'd only just left when your telegram arrived." - "What are we standing here for?
Avanti, avanti!
Let's go." Was he hungry, was he tired, did he still feel his leg wound sometimes? "That man Lenin must be a fantastic person," said Oskar, offering his brother a home-rolled cigarette. "I find him tremendously impressive."

They slowly neared the barrier, and there stood Franzi Kroneis, beaming, excited, and flushed after her brisk walk to the station.

"You haven't changed a scrap," she said. "Not a scrap."

Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she took his arm. Quite a change from the old days. Three years ago they had kept their understanding a secret from everyone else.

Georg Vit¬torin had often pictured the moment of arrival, which had once seemed so unattainably remote, during his endless peregrinations through Siberia and Transbaikalia. It was associated with a vision of himself nonchalantly lolling back in an open cab as he rode home through bustling streets on a fine, warm day in late summer. This mental picture had been particularly vivid at the station in Manchuria, when they were trudging along the shell-torn platform and over the makeshift wooden bridge. Now that the coveted moment had come at last, they took a tram.

Franzi said au revoir at the tram stop. She had taken half an hour off from the office to welcome him at the station, but now she had to get back. She drew him aside. Would he care to collect her from the office that evening? 17 Seilerstrasse. "That's right, the same old place. No, I don't suppose you'll be going out again today - you must be tired. Till tomorrow, then. You can always phone me. Sleep well, and don't dream too much about - what are the girls in Russia called? Sonya? Natasha? Marfa?"

"Anyuta, Sofya, Yelena," said Vit¬torin.

"You knew as many as that? All right, see you at seven tomorrow. Did you think of me a little sometimes?"

Nobody spoke much in the tram. Lola, hoping to please her brother, remarked that Franzi was a charming girl — so affectionate, too. Oskar insisted on buying his own ticket. Herr Vit¬torin produced a stubby meerschaum pipe from his pocket. The war would soon be over, he said - it couldn't last much longer. The decisive battle would probably take place in the West, in Champagne. Morale there was as high as it was elsewhere. A lieutenant just back from the Piave front had told him that morale was good there too. He filled his pipe with tobacco to which he had added woodruff and marinated pumpkin leaves to make it go further.

"It's not a bad smoke," he said. "According to a newspaper article by some medical expert - I've forgotten his name - this mixture has a very stimulating effect on the lungs. Mind you, the chief accountant in our office still smokes his Trabuco. Where does he get the money? Hm, 'nough said!"

Vit¬torin's father suggested a game of chess after supper, but his sisters jibbed. No chess tonight, they said - they could play another time. Georg must tell them about himself.

"All right," said Lola, "begin at the beginning, the day they took you prisoner on the Dunajec. That much I do know, because you wrote us about it, but not the details. How did you feel when the Cossacks dumped you in that cart? When did they first dress your wound? Ella's brother was wounded too, in the lung, but he's still in the hospital. Which reminds me: I saw the chief clerk from your office a couple of weeks ago, quite by chance, in the street - you know, the one with freckles. He was arm in arm with a very tall red-head - not his wife. He'd have asked after you if he'd been on his own, I'm sure."

"You must go and look him up," said Herr Vit¬torin. "It's only proper - he may be offended if you don't put in an appearance. He's bound to hear you're back in Vienna. Word soon gets around."

"If you feel like going to the theatre next week," said Oskar, "I can get you some complimentary tickets. I mix with a lot of theatrical types these days."

Georg Vit¬torin experienced a kind of malaise, almost as if he were sickening for some fell disease. His secret preyed on his mind. It was clear from every word his father and his sisters uttered how glad they were that he would soon be readapting himself to his old, uneventful, well-ordered way of life. Should he shatter their illusions on his very first day home? Who could he confide in? His father? Yes, perhaps. Father had been an army officer in his youth, a lieutenant in the regulars. His sword and the faded group photograph that showed him surrounded by his brother officers still hung on the wall below Mother's portrait. Should he get up and take him aside? "May I have a word, Father? I've something to tell you." No. For the past seventeen years Father had been a civil servant in the audit office of the Finance Ministry. Off to work at nine every morning, lunch at three-thirty sharp, then the newspaper, then the daily constitutional, the "big one" out to Dornbach on Sundays, the "little one" through town on weekdays, and finally, when evening came, a hand of cards or a glass of beer across the street - such had been Father's world and way of life for seventeen long years. No, he couldn't tell Father.

The doorbell rang. Lola looked up from her embroidery and Hstened intently. Vally hurried out, came back, stuck her head round the door and pulled a face.

"Lucky old Lola!" she whispered. "Ugh, it's Herr Ebenseder."

"Ah, Herr Ebenseder!" exclaimed Vit¬torin's father. "So he's honouring us with his presence again, is he? Come in, come in, Herr Ebenseder!"

Oskar rose, buttoning his jacket, and turned to Georg. He was awfully sorry - he would so much have liked to stay awhile, but unfortunately he had to rush - he'd arranged to meet some friends.

"A colleague from the office," Herr Vit¬torin explained. "The only one who's really on my side. The others are an ambitious, scheming bunch. Ebenseder's a most intelligent fellow - you'll like him. He's a keen collector, incidentally - buys anything connected with the theatre. He can afford it, too -he owns four houses. Ebenseder collects actors' portraits, play scripts, set designs, old playbills, views of the Ring Theatre and the Karntnertor Theatre, even cloakroom tickets . . . Ah, good evening, Herr Ebenseder! Permit me to introduce my long-lost son Georg, just back from Siberia. Georg, meet Herr Ebenseder."

"Delighted to make the acquaintance of another member of this esteemed family. I've heard a lot about you. So you only got back today, eh? Delighted, truly delighted."

Herr Ebenseder, a short, stout gentleman with a goatee beard, a big bald patch and pudgy fingers, went over to Lola and ceremoniously, reverently, kissed her hand.

"My respects, Fräulein Lola. Your humble servant. Diligent as ever, I see. What nimble little fingers you have! Never idle for a moment, eh? It's a pleasure to watch you."

Herr Vit¬torin fetched a bottle of wine and poured his guest a glass of Gumpoldskirchner. Herr Ebenseder, as etiquette prescribed, staged a show of reluctance.

"Why go to such trouble on my account, Herr Vit¬torin? It really isn't necessary in these hard times. I never say no to a cup of tea - everyone brings their own sugar nowadays - but a genuine Gumpoldskirchner! Ah well, if you insist. Your very good health! A 'seventeen, isn't it? I could tell at once. What a year! Quite superb!"

He smacked his lips so loudly that Lola gave a little jump. Then he produced a shiny black skullcap from his pocket, clapped it on his bald pate - it paid to be careful of drafts - and drew his chair up to Lola's.

Vally's meaningful glance at her brother signalled that she was going over to the attack.

"Is it really true, Herr Ebenseder," she inquired with an air of innocence, "that you're one of the few people still alive who were personally acquainted with Nestroy?"

"What nonsense, Vally!" cried Ebenseder. He gave a fat, contented chuckle. "There you go again! Nestroy? How could I possibly have known Nestroy? He died in the eighteen-sixties! I did see Matras, though. I saw him at the Carl Theatre when I was a boy - Matras and Knaack and Katharina Herzog, who was in the original cast of
Der Verschwender."

"Since when have you addressed me by my first name, Herr Ebenseder? I don't remember inviting you to do so."

"There's a first time for everything," Herr Ebenseder replied archly.

"And that time hasn't come," Vally retorted. "Nor will it."

Her father glared at her and changed the subject. He'd recently seen a watercolour in the window of Feldmayer's Bookshop. It depicted Charlotte Wolter in gipsy costume conversing with an elderly man who was looking at her through his lorgnette. He thought it might be something for his esteemed colleague's collection.

Herr Ebenseder pricked up his ears at once.

"The man with the lorgnette must be Laube, the director of the Burg Theatre," he said. "Of course I'd be interested in the picture - very interested indeed. Feldmayer's Bookshop, eh? I'll pop in there tomorrow. Wolter in gipsy costume ... I wonder which play it could have been."

He proceeded to count on his fingers. He'd seen the great Burg Theatre actress as Phaedra, as Mary Queen of Scots, as Lady Milford, as Sappho, as Medea, as Iphigenia, in a modern play whose name escaped him, and lastly, a year before she died, as Adelheid in
Götz von Berlichingen.

"Ah, Charlotte Wolter!" he said to Lola. "I pity the modern audiences who never saw her. There'll never be another like her - never! May I?"

Sighing, he poured himself another glass of wine.

Georg Vit¬torin sat there with half-closed eyes. Herr Ebenseder's droning voice sounded very remote. He wrestled with the snug sense of security that had descended on him. The objects in the room reached out and held him fast as if he were their property. The ticking of the clock on the wall, the muted glow of the lamp, the discreet clink of glasses, the haze of bluish smoke from his father's meerschaum pipe, his sisters' noiseless movements - all were calculated to lull him and induce him to abandon his grand design. He felt that the impending battle would decide matters once and for all; it had to be waged without delay.

His desire for solitude became overwhelming. He rose with something of an effort, saying that he was tired and wanted to go to bed, and the moment he did so the battle was won. The surrounding objects had lost their hold over him. The clock on the wall ticked mournfully on, the smoke rings from his father's pipe drifted to the ceiling in melancholy silence.

He left the room.

Lola followed him out. She found him on his knees in the cramped little box-room whose barred window overlooked the air well, unbuckling the strap around his bedding-roll.

"Oskar doesn't like him either," she said after a while. "He only comes because of me. I'm glad you're back, Georg. I think he's already spoken to Father."

"Herr Ebenseder, you mean?"

"Yes, but I'd sooner drown myself. He's already been married twice. His first wife died young - he bullied her into the grave - and the other one ran off. They were both in vaudeville. What does he want with me, the repulsive brute? I'm not an equestrienne - I can't jump through a hoop."

Vit¬torin had opened his bedding-roll.

"This is some Chinese writing paper, and here are the envelopes to match. See how prettily painted it is?"

"It's very pretty - very stylish, really. There's something I've been meaning to tell you, but you mustn't be angry. You'll have to share this room with Oskar for the next few days. Your room - I wrote and told you we'd taken a lodger, didn't I?"

"I don't remember. No, I don't think so."

"I'm sure I did. A nice, respectable fellow - we've been really lucky from that point of view, one never sees or hears him during the day. He's paying a hundred and eighty kronen, and that's a very useful contribution to the family budget, believe me. Have you any idea what everything costs these days? Prices have been creeping up all the time. Of course, I told the gentleman he'd have to move out as soon as you were back in Vienna."

"That won't be necessary," Vit¬torin said. "He's welcome to keep the room. I'm not staying."

"But Father says the war will soon be over."

Vit¬torin rose slowly to his feet.

"When it is, I'm going back to Russia."

"Back to Russia? Are you serious?"

"Keep your voice down, the others mustn't know yet. This is just between the two of us. Yes, I have to go back."

"For long?" asked Lola, staring at him fixedly.