Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (24 page)

It really doesn't matter how and where I begin. I'm going to tell you
the story as it occurs to me, and I'll begin with the moment when I
boarded the train in the company of Dr. Muelling. As it was, in order not
to raise suspicion of any sort, especially in Eduard's young wife, we had
left the villa on the lake on a Monday morning. Yes, we went so far as to
get tickets to Vienna, but naturally we got off at the train station in the
small town where the duel was to take place the next morning.

Dr. Muelling was a longtime friend of Loiberger's, almost the same
age as he was, about thirty-five. I owed the honor of being chosen as the
other witness, aside from my already mentioned suitability for it, to the
circumstance that I used to spend my vacations in the same fresh summer
air as Loiberger and had often been a guest at his villa. I never really developed a particular liking for him, but his house was convivial; many
pleasant people came and went; there were music, tennis, joint outings,
and rowing parties, and after all I was only twenty-three years old. An
exchange of words between Eduard Loiberger and his opponent, the
Ulan cavalry captain Urpadinsky, was given me as reason for the duel. I
hardly knew the latter. He had been at the lake on Sunday, on a visit from
his garrison, evidently only for the sake of the exchange of words which
served as the excuse for the duel, but last year he had spent the whole
summer there with his wife.

Both men were apparently very anxious to resolve the matter. The
meeting of the seconds had taken place in Ischl on Sunday evening, only
a few hours after the exchange of words in question. Muelling and I had
been instructed by Loiberger to accept the conditions of the opposing
seconds without objection. They were difficult ones.

And so on Monday, Muelling and I arrived in the small town.

First we examined the location that had been chosen as the rendezvous spot for the next day. During the little pleasure ride that followed, Muelling spoke of his travels, his long-finished university
studies, student duels, professors, villas, rowing championships, and all
sorts of acquaintances whom we both happened to know. I was just facing my last state examinations. Muelling was already a well-known
lawyer. We didn't speak a word about what was to take place the next
day, as if we had agreed not to do so. Dr. Muelling undoubtedly knew
more about the reasons for the duel than he felt it wise to confide to me.

Eduard Loiberger arrived in the evening. He had interrupted his
summer stay under the pretense of a scheduled mountain-climbing excursion in the Dolomites, a pretext to which the current wonderful August weather lent plausible support. We greeted him matter-of-factly and
took him to the venerable old inn on the market square, where we had reserved the best room for him. We had dinner together at the inn, enjoyed some animated conversation, drank, smoked, and in no way attracted attention, not even that of the few officers who were sitting at a table in the
opposite corner. Dr. Muelling routinely reported on the location where
the duel was to take place the next day. It was the usual forest clearing, as
if chosen by fate for just such things-a little inn was nearby, an inn in
which, as Muelling remarked gaily, many a reconciliation had taken
place over breakfast. But this was the only hint of the purpose of our
presence here; otherwise we spoke about the sailing regatta scheduled for
next Sunday, in which Loiberger, last year's victor, was supposed to take
part-about a planned addition to his villa for which he, by profession a
manufacturer but a dilettante in many other fields, had drawn the blueprints himself-about the completion of a cable-car line to a nearby
peak, with whose position Loiberger found fault-about a legal case that
Dr. Muelling was conducting for him, in which considerable assets
seemed to hang in the balance-and about a lot of other things, until Dr.
Muelling, with a lukewarm smile, remarked around eleven o'clock, "It's
perhaps time to go to bed; it never hurts to be fully rested for such occasions, even for the seconds." We took our leave of Loiberger and sent
him to bed, but the two of us walked around the town for another hour in
the beautiful, warm summer night. I can't remember anything about this
nighttime walk except the deep black shadows that the houses around the
market square threw on the moonlit cobblestones, and nothing of what
we talked about. I only know that we didn't talk at all about the next
day's duel.

But I do remember very clearly the carriage ride the next morning;
yes, even now I can still hear the clattering of the horses' hoofs that were
bringing us over the dusty road to the forest clearing. Loiberger talked
with exaggerated importance about a certain Japanese shrub recently introduced to Central Europe that he planned to plant in his garden, and
jumped out of the carriage with an agility that was at the time often mentioned in the newspapers as a special attribute of reigning princes. I
thought of that and smiled involuntarily. Loiberger happened to glance at
me at that moment, and I felt a little ashamed.

I remember the duel itself almost as if it had been a marionette the atre play: like a marionette Eduard Loiberger lay there after his opponent's bullet had felled him, and the regiment physician, a haggard, elderly man with a Polish mustache, who pronounced him dead, was also a
marionette. The sky above us was cloudless but had a strange dull blue
color. I looked at my watch-it was ten minutes before eight. The protocol and the other customary formalities were taken care of quickly. Actually I was happy that we still had the chance to make the nine o'clock
express train-it would have been unbearable to have to stay even an
hour longer in this unhappy town.

We paced back and forth on the platform almost unnoticed-two elegant tourists on a summer trip. Then, as I was having a cup of coffee,
Muelling saw in the newspaper that the King of England and his prime
minister would be visiting our emperor in Ischl in the next few days. We
got into a political discussion-actually, it was more like a lecture by Dr.
Muelling, whom I interrupted unnecessarily through rather insubstantial
objections. As the train from Vienna arrived, I breathed more easily, almost as if everything that had happened would now be undone and
Loiberger would return to life. We were alone in our compartment. Only
after a long silence did Dr. Muelling, as though in apology, note that he
had not spoken earlier. "It's impossible to grasp it right away, however
much one has been prepared for it." Then we both talked of all sorts of
other duels in which we had taken part as seconds, harmless ones and
less fortunate ones-but neither of us had previously taken part in a fatal
duel. At first we dealt with today's duel, which had ended so tragically,
without sentiment, from an aesthetic and athletic perspective. Loiberger,
as was to be expected, had conducted himself composedly; the captain
had been far less calm and much paler; yes, we had both clearly noticed
that his hand had been trembling before the first exchange of shots. Both
of them had fired at the same time; both bullets had missed. On the second round the captain's bullet had grazed Loiberger's temple, and
Loiberger had instinctively reached for the spot and then smiled. At the
third round, right after the signal, Loiberger collapsed before he had even
fired.

Only now, as if he had been freed from the obligation of silence, did Dr. Muelling remark, "To tell the truth, I saw it coming; actually, I expected it last year already. Both of them, our friend Loiberger as well as
Urpadinsky's wife-you've never seen the captain's wife, too bad-behaved as indiscreetly as possible. Everyone in town knew about it. Only
the captain himself, even though he often came from his garrison for a
visit to St. Gilgen, had no idea. Only last winter did he supposedly receive anonymous letters and then investigate the matter. Evidently, under
the constant stress of his questioning, his wife finally confessed. Everything ran its course from then on."

"Incomprehensible," I said.

"How incomprehensible?" Muelling asked.

"When someone has a wife like Loiberger's-I thought it was the
happiest marriage." I pictured Agatha, who looked like a young girl, like
a bride, really, in front of me. When one saw the two of them, Eduard and
Agatha, one could have taken them for a pair of lovers rather than a married couple-and that after four or five years of marriage. At that excursion to the Eichberg two weeks earlier, when we were basking in the
noontime sun-there were seven or eight of us-actually, I hate group
outings and had joined only because of Mademoiselle Coulin-Agatha
seemed to have fallen asleep or else she had shut her eyes because the
sun was blinding her, and Eduard had stroked her hair and her forehead
with his fingers, and they had smiled and whispered like a young couple
in love.

"And do you think," I said to Muelling, "that Agatha suspected anything at all?"

Muelling shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think so. In any case she
certainly had no idea about the coming duel and doesn't know that her
husband is dead right now."

Only now did I realize with a kind of shock that the moving train
was bringing us closer and closer to the unfortunate woman. "Who
should tell her?" I asked.

"There's nothing to do but for both of us-"

"We can't appear like members of a committee bringing an invitation to a ball," I thought, and said out loud, "We should immediately
have telegraphed from there."

"Such a telegram," said Muelling, "could only have served as a
kind of announcement. We can't avoid informing her in person."

"I'll do it." I said.

A lengthy discussion of the matter followed. It was still not over as
our train pulled into the station in Ischl. It was a gorgeous summer day,
there was a crowd of visitors, travelers, and people waiting on the platform-some of our acquaintances were among them, and it wasn't easy
to get from the station into the street without being stopped. But finally
we were sitting in a carriage without anyone's having come near us, and
rushed off. The dust whirled behind us, the sun burned brightly, and we
were glad as the town disappeared behind us and we turned into the
country road and then into the forest.

Even before we caught sight of the first farmhouses of the village
from the last bend in the road, Dr. Muelling had declared his agreement
that I, as the more removed, should bring Frau Agatha Loiberger the sad
news.

The lake glistened with the reflection of a thousand tiny suns. From
the opposite hank, hidden in the bright haze, a droll steamship that
looked like a toy was approaching. Its waves were joyfully anticipated
by the many young swimmers. Soon we stopped in front of the inn that,
undeservedly, called itself the "Grand Hotel". I climbed down, Dr.
Muelling shook my hand, declared that he would call on me at four
o'clock in the afternoon, and drove on to the villa in which he had rented
a room.

I exchanged my traveling clothes, which hardly seemed appropriate
for my mission, for a dark grey suit and carefully chose a black striped
tie. In the end I had to rely on my own taste, on my intuition in fact, since
for such a visit as stood before me there were understandably no commonly accepted guidelines. With a heavy heart I made my way.

From behind the inn on one side, a shortcut with occasional
glimpses of the lake led past small farmhouses to the white and, for my
taste, rather too grand villa that Loiberger had designed himself and built
to his own specifications. I walked at an exaggeratedly slow pace so that
I wouldn't give myself away immediately by breathing too rapidly, but
on the whole I felt rather calm or at least composed. I said to myself that I merely had to fulfill my duty-and I wanted to be able to do that in a
reasonable manner. I couldn't allow any more of my feelings to show
than good social etiquette demanded and allowed.

The garden gate stood open; the artfully arranged flower beds
gleamed colorfully; the sun lay on the white benches to the right and left,
and the red-and-white-striped awning extended over the broad veranda
with its bright-red wicker chairs. Above the awning in the second story
the windows were open, and the small balcony in front of the mansard
roof lay bathed with slanting sunbeams. No one could be seen anywhere.
Everything was quiet; only the gravel underneath my feet crunched too
loudly, it seemed to me. It was near the lunch hour; perhaps everyone
was already sitting down to the meal, or perhaps Agatha was sitting
down alone, since Eduard was on a trip to the Dolomites. Yes, that was
my first thought, before I was shocked into remembering that at this very
hour he was laid out in the morgue of a small garrison town. And suddenly I felt the task that stood before me in the next few minutes was so
grotesque, so unbearable, so impossible that I felt seriously tempted to
turn around right then, before anyone had caught sight of me; yes, just to
run away, to get Dr. Muelling and explain to him that it was impossible
for me to give Frau Agatha the gruesome news all by myself.

At that moment a servant stepped out of the darkness of the inner
rooms and greeted me. Evidently he had heard my footsteps from within.
He was a blonde young man in a blue-and-white-striped linen jacket; he
came down a few steps toward me and said,

"There's no one at home. Herr Loiberger left yesterday, and Frau
Loiberger is still at the lake." But since I made no move to leave, he said
to me, "But if you would like to wait, Herr von Eissler-Frau Loiberger
should be back any minute."

"I'll wait."

The servant seemed a little disconcerted; perhaps he was struck by
the rigidity, the somber seriousness of my demeanor. And so, with a
hastily contrived lightness, I looked at my watch and said, "I have something to tell your mistress," and repeated, "I'll wait."

The servant nodded, went on ahead of me, and pushed aside a chair
that was blocking the way through the middle door into the salon. With an indefinite gesture he pointed to the various places to sit in the room
and disappeared into the adjoining room, where a table sparkling with
two place settings could be seen, closed the door behind him, and left me
alone.