Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (15 page)

HE COULDN'T BEAR to sit quietly in the carriage any longer; he jumped
down and paced back and forth. It was already dark. The light from the
few street lanterns on this quiet, deserted side street flickered as they
swayed back and forth in the wind. It had stopped raining. The sidewalks
were almost dry, but the unpaved streets were still wet, and in a few
places small puddles had formed.

It's strange, thought Franz, how it's possible here, just a hundred
steps from the Praterstrasse, to feel transplanted into a small Hungarian
town. In any case, at least it's safe here: she won't bump into any of her
dreaded acquaintances.

He glanced at his watch ... seven ... and already totally dark. An
early fall this year! And this damned storm!

He turned up his collar and paced back and forth more rapidly. The
glass sides of the lanterns jangled. "Another half an hour," he told himself, "then I can go. Ah, I almost wish it were already time." He stopped
at the corner: here he had a view of both the streets from which she might
be coming.

Yes, she'll come today, he thought, while he held on to his hat,
which was threatening to fly away. Friday-the faculty meeting-she'll
dare to come today and will even be able to stay longer than usual....
He heard the jangle of the bells of the horse-drawn tram; and now the
bell in nearby Nepomuk Church began to ring as well. The street became
livelier. More people passed: most of them seemed to be employees of the shops that closed at seven. They were all hurrying and seemed to be
engaged in a kind of battle with the storm that made it difficult for them
to walk. No one paid any attention to him; only a couple of shop girls
glanced at him with mild curiosity. Suddenly he saw a familiar figure approaching quickly. He rushed toward her. Not in a carriage? he thought.
Is it she?

It was. When she caught sight of him, she quickened her footsteps.

"You're walking?" he asked.

"I had the carriage let me out at the Karl Theatre. [ think I've had
this coachman once before."

A man walked by and glanced casually at the young woman. The
young man fixed him with a sharp, almost threatening look; the man
passed by quickly. The woman followed him with her eyes. "Who was
that?" she asked anxiously.

"I don't know him. Nobody knows us here; don't worry-but now
hurry up. Let's get in."

"Is this your carriage?"

"Yes."

"An open one?"

"An hour ago it was still nice weather."

They hurried over to it; the young woman climbed in.

"Driver!" called the young man.

"Where on earth is he?" asked the young woman.

Franz looked around. "This is incredible," he cried, "the fellow is
nowhere to be seen."

"For God's sake!" she exclaimed under her breath.

"Wait a minute, dear. He's got to be around somewhere."

The young man opened the door to a small tavern. The driver was
sitting at a table with a few other people; now he rose hurriedly.

"Coming, sir," he said and finished his glass of wine standing up.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Beg your pardon, sir. I'll be there right away."

He hurried to the horses a little unsteadily. "Where to, sir?"

"To the Prater-the Pleasure Pavilion."

The young man climbed into the carriage. The young woman was
leaning in the corner under the raised top, almost cowering, and quite
hidden.

Franz took both her hands into his. She remained motionless.
"Don't you at least want to say hello to me?"

"Please, I beg you, give me a minute. I'm still breathless."

The young man leaned back into his own corner. They were both
silent for a while. The carnage had turned into the Praterstrasse, passed
by the Tegetthoff Monument, and in a few minutes was flying down the
broad, dark Prater Boulevard. Then Emma suddenly threw her arms
around her lover. Tenderly he pushed back the veil that still separated
him from her lips and kissed her.

"Finally, I'm with you!" she said.

"Do you know how long it's been since we've seen each other?" he
exclaimed.

"Since Sunday."

"Yes, but that was only from a distance."

"What do you mean? You were at our place."

"Well, yes ... at your place. No, it can't go on this way. I'll never
come to your house again. But what's the matter now?"

"A carriage just passed us."

"My dear child, the people out riding in the Prater today certainly
aren't worrying about us."

"You're right. But someone might accidentally look in."

"It's impossible to recognize anyone."

"Please, I beg you, let's drive somewhere else."

"As you wish."

He called out to the driver, who didn't seem to hear him. He leaned
forward and touched him with his hand. The driver turned around.

"I want you to turn around. And why are you beating the horses like
that? We're not in any hurry, do you hear! We'll drive to the ... you
know, the boulevard that goes to the Reichsbridge?"

"The Reichstrasse?"

"Yes, but don't go on racing like this. It's senseless."

"Please, sir, it's the storm that's making the horses so wild."

"Oh, of course, the storm." Franz sat down again.

The driver turned the horses around. They drove back.

"Why didn't I see you yesterday?" she asked.

"How could I have?"

"I thought you were invited to my sister's, too."

"Oh, that."

"Why weren't you there?"

"Because I can't stand to be with you when there are other people
around. No, never again."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Where are we?" she asked then.

They were driving under the railroad bridge into the Reichstrasse.

"That's the way to the Danube," said Franz. "We're on the way to
the Reichsbridge. You won't run into any of your friends here!" he added
teasingly.

"The carriage is shaking horribly."

"Yes, we're driving over cobblestones again."

"Why does he keep zigzagging across the road?"

"It just seems that way to you."

But he himself felt that the carriage was tossing them back and forth
more violently than usual. He didn't want to say anything about it for
fear of making her even more afraid.

"I have a lot of important things to talk to you about, Emma."

"Then you have to start soon, because I have to be home at nine."

"Everything can be settled in two words."

"My God, what was that?" The carriage had been running in a horse
tram track and now, as the driver was trying to get out of it, swerved so
sharply that it almost turned over. Franz grabbed the driver by his coat.
"Stop!" he shouted at him, "Why, you're drunk!"

The driver stopped the horses with great effort. "But, sir ..."

"Come on, Emma, let's get out of here."

"Where are we?"

"We're already on the bridge. It's not quite so stormy now. Let's walk a bit. We can't really talk while driving." Emma pulled her veil over
her face and followed.

"You call that 'not stormy'?" she exclaimed as a gust of wind blew
against her just as she was climbing down.

He took her arm. "Follow us," he shouted to the driver.

They walked on ahead. All the while they walked up the gradual incline of the bridge, they said nothing, and when they heard the water
rushing underneath them, they stopped. It was pitch-dark. The broad
stream below them was a boundless expanse of grey. In the distance they
saw red lights that appeared to float above the water and were mirrored
in it. Quivering streams of light from the hank they had just left were
sinking into the water, and on the other shore it seemed as if the stream
lost itself in black pastures. A faint and distant thunder seemed to come
closer and closer, and without meaning to, they both looked in the direction where the red lights gleamed. Trains with lighted windows rolled between iron arches that rose up suddenly out of the night and then sank
down again as suddenly as they had appeared. The thunder gradually lost
itself in the distance, and it grew quiet. Only the wind blew in sudden
gusts.

After a long silence Franz said, "We should go away."

"Of course," said Emma softly.

"We should go away," Franz said animatedly, "really go away, I
mean."

"But that's impossible."

"Because we're cowards, Emma, that's why it's impossible."

"And my son'?"

"I'm sure he'd let you have him."

"And how would we do it?" she asked softly. "Just run away in the
dead of night?"

"No, not at all. All you have to do is tell him that you can no longer
live with him because you belong to another."

"Are you crazy, Franz?"

"If you want, I'll spare you that too-I'll tell him myself."

"You won't do that, Franz."

He tried to look at her, but in the darkness he could only see that she
had lifted her head and turned it toward him.

He was silent for a while. Then he said calmly, "Don't worry, I
won't do it."

They approached the other shore.

"Don't you hear something?" she said. "What's that?"

"It's coming from over there," he said.

Slowly something came rattling out of the dark. A small red light
floated toward them. Soon they saw that it came from a small red lantern
that was attached to the front of a peasant's wagon. But they couldn't see
whether the wagon was loaded with goods or whether anyone accompanied it. Right behind it came two similar wagons. On the second one they
could make out a man in peasant clothes who was just lighting his pipe.
The wagons passed. Then they again heard nothing but the muffled noise
of the carriage which was slowly rolling twenty paces behind them. At
this point the bridge began to slope gently toward the other shore. They
saw the road in front of them disappear between the trees into the darkness. To their right and their left in the depths below lay meadows. It was
as if they were looking into deep abysses.

After a long silence Franz suddenly said, "Well then, this is the last
time ..."

"What?" asked Emma in a worried tone.

"-that we'll be together. Stay with him. I'll say goodbye to you."

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely."

"You see, it's always you who spoils the few hours that we have together, not me!"

"Yes, yes, you're right," said Franz. "Come on, let's drive back."

She grasped his arm more tightly. "No," she said tenderly, "Not
now. I don't want to. I'm not going to let you send me away like that."

She pulled him down toward her and gave him a long kiss. "Where
would we end up," she said, "if we continued on this street?"

"This goes directly to Prague, sweetheart."

"We won't go that far," she said smilingly, "but let's go on a little
farther, if you don't mind." She pointed into the darkness.

"Hey, driver," Franz called. But the driver didn't hear.

Franz shouted, "For heaven's sake, stop!"

The carriage kept on rolling. Franz ran after it. Then he saw that the
driver had fallen asleep. Franz finally succeeded in waking him up by
yelling loudly. "We want to drive a little farther-along this straight
street-do you understand?"

"Yes, sir, all right, sir...."

Emma climbed back in; Franz followed. The coachman whipped
the horses and they flew across the muddy street as if mad. But the two in
the carriage held each other in a tight embrace while the carriage tossed
them from side to side.

"Isn't this beautiful, too?" Emma whispered, her lips close to his.

At that very moment it seemed to her as if the carriage was suddenly flying up into the air-she felt herself hurled out; she wanted to
grab hold of something but grasped only empty air. It seemed to her that
she was spinning round and round in a circle at such a dizzying speed
that she had to close her eyes-and suddenly she felt herself lying on the
ground as an enormous, heavy silence broke over her, as if she were far
away from the whole world and all alone. Soon she heard a jumble of
noises: the sound of horse's hoofs pawing the ground nearby and a soft
moaning, but she could see nothing. Then a wild fear gripped her and she
screamed; and her terror became even greater when she realized that she
couldn't hear her own screams. All of a sudden she knew exactly what
had happened: the carriage had struck something, probably one of the
milestones, had overturned, and they had been thrown out. Where is he?
was her next thought. She called his name. And she heard her voice, very
weakly to be sure, but she heard it. There was no answer. She tried to get
up. She succeeded to the extent that she was able to sit up on the ground,
and as she groped around with her hands she felt a human body near her.
And now she could see more clearly in the darkness. Franz was lying
next to her, completely motionless. She touched his face with her outstretched hand and felt something warm and moist flowing over it. She
gasped. Blood? ... What had happened'? Franz was injured and unconscious. And the driver-where on earth was he'? She called out to him.
No answer. She was still sitting on the ground. Nothing's happened to me, she thought, although she felt pains all over her body. What should I
do, what should I do ... it isn't possible that nothing's happened to me.
"Franz," she called. A voice nearby answered, "Where are ye, miss,
where's the gentleman? Nothing's happened, has it? Wait a minute, miss,
I'm just going to light the lantern so we can see somethin'. I don't know
what's got into them nags today. It ain't my fault, by God ... they went
into a rut, the damned nags."

By this time Emma had stood up completely despite her pain, and,
realizing that nothing had happened to the driver, she calmed down a bit.
She heard the man open the lantern cover and strike a match. Anxiously
she waited for the light. She didn't dare touch Franz again. He was lying
stretched out on the ground next to her. She thought: everything seems
worse when you can't see. He'll have his eyes open ... nothing's really
happened.