The Other Side (15 page)

Today he maintained a tactful silence, though I would have preferred it if he had prattled on. I often found his accounts of his affairs, which were not without their funny side, very amusing. Each time an ‘end’ was reached there was a tastefully arranged farewell 
dîner à deux
,
at which regret was already giving way to new hope. Gallant and chivalrous as he was, he never held their ‘failings’ against any of them. There was always one consolation: the material was inexhaustible and he found it so terribly interesting.

A formless dread rose from my stomach, choking me, squeezing my heart and weighing down on my innards. I ate and drank, but it brought no relief. The impression the living statue in the Palace had made on me and the recognition of the danger my wife was in fused into one. It was like being in a nightmare and not being able to wake up.

The miller from the mill opposite came in, dashed down a few glasses of rum at the bar and left again, without a word to anyone. As usual, the two chess players were sitting there like elaborate Chinese carvings of demons.

Brendel took me along with him to the Blue Goose, where he generally had his meals. After lunch we went to his apartment. He gave me coffee and showed me his charming collection of water-colours, scenes from the Dream Realm. By five in the afternoon I couldn’t stand it there any longer. I thanked him, apologised for spoiling his day and went home. I had been away too long and could not understand how I could be so inconsiderate.

My fear was a torment driving me through the streets like an engine. I rushed up the stairs then could not find the courage to go in. I listened at the door. Nothing! She must be in the farther room. I took another deep breath and opened the door.

The first thing I saw was Lampenbogen’s fur coat. I trembled as I entered the sick-room. The doctor gave a cursory reply to my greeting; he had taken off his cuffs. My wife was stretched out on the bed; she looked old and shrivelled. I collapsed to the floor in unnameable dread and begged the doctor, ‘Help her! Help her!’

The colossal figure patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Pull yourself together. You’re young.’

I whimpered. The nurse held out a glass of water to me, but I leapt up as if stung by a whip-lash and pushed it away.

I bent over the tangle of sheets and stared at my dying wife, stunned. She was quite still apart from the ghastly chattering of her teeth. It was like a small machine, a constant clatter, dry, harsh, clear. The pain cut deeper than anything I had felt in my life before. I was so horrified I could hardly take it in. Her wrinkled skin was a greenish colour. Sweat was dripping from every pore. I made to wipe it off with a cloth. The chattering suddenly stopped, her eyes and mouth opened wide, her face turned white as a sheet and she was dead.

As if from a long way off, I heard the nun pray, the doctor leave. I knelt down beside the bed and spoke in tenderest tones to my dead wife. The years we had spent together appeared in my mind once more. I didn’t speak of the Dream Realm to her, but of the time when we first met. I thanked her for the all the joys she had brought me. I kept my lips close to her ear, so no one else could hear me. Softly, for her alone, I whispered that I had prayed to Patera for her, that the Lord would help. I was full of childlike trust. As I murmured these last words I caught her head; it fell with a dull thud onto its side and came into the yellow light of the lamp. Only now did I see the change: what lay before me was something I did not recognise, a thing with bloodless lips and a pointed chin. That was not the wife I had known. Large, blank pupils stared right through me. With a convulsive shiver, and still mumbling meaningless words, I ran out, out into the alien streets. I ignored everyone and sought out the darkest corners. I spent the whole night walking round and round, a garrulous ghost that had lost the power to instil fear, muttering to myself all the prayers I could remember from childhood. I was alone. There was nothing more alone than me.

The next day too I spent in hiding. I hoped I might die as well. The following night there was whistling and banging all round me and I kept thinking I could see Patera in a hazy, grey shape, an apparition hovering in front of me. In the grey light of morning I clambered up the steps to our apartment, weary, my mind a blank, mocked by a faint hope that it had all been just an illusion.

The room where she had died was a mess. I was met by a stale, sickly-sweet smell. The bed was empty, the bedclothes in a tangle, the bedside table a clutter of overturned medicine bottles and scattered sweets. There was something beyond comprehension, beyond consolation about it all. I went back down the stairs. Lampenbogen was standing outside beside his carriage. He took me by the arm. I started. Another misfortune?

‘A word with you. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You mustn’t let yourself go like this. You’re coming with me, in half an hour they’re burying your wife. At a time like this you need a home, a family. I’m inviting you to stay with us for the moment and I hope you won’t refuse. My wife would be delighted. People do get over this kind of thing. You’ll calm down.’

Without saying a word I got into the carriage with Lampenbogen. I was squashed up on the seat beside the broad, fat doctor. The people in the coffee house watched us leave. Anton bowed at the window; the chess players were immersed in their game.

After a drive of a few minutes we arrived at the graveyard. From a distance I could see the group of people in the cramped hall of the mortuary. Gradually I recognised some faces: Hector von Brendel, the owner of the coffee house, a priest and a few people I did not know. They were all stand- ing,just one thing was lying flat. A simple coffin covered with a black cloth. It started to rain, the dampness seeping in through my clothes. To my taut, dry skin it came as a blissful relief.

The priest muttered a few prayers, then the coffin was carried to the grave. I led the procession behind it. ‘It’s my wife lying in there’, I thought. I imagined she was still alive. ‘I’m sure she knows everything that’s happening here, that I’m walking behind and letting things take their course.’ At times I stumbled on the wet grass and from now on I tried to concentrate on keeping my composure. ‘I’ll not let anything show’, I told myself, ‘I’ll keep all my sorrow for later, when I’m alone.’ Inside my head I saw a word printed in block capitals and kept reading it to myself, ‘COURAGE, COURAGE, COURAGE, COURAGE …’ It was a never-ending line. At the same time I bit the inside of my cheeks. In spite of all this I still examined the spot where the grave had been dug with a certain amount of interest. There it was, in the middle of lots of other graves. Now we were there and the black cloth was removed from the coffin. I was in a kind of daydream. Carefully the men lowered the coffin into the ground. I took one quick glance down, the image imprinting itself with unnatural sharpness on my mind. ‘That’s your last look, your farewell to the woman who shared your life.’

I staggered away. Lampenbogen held my arm and all the people bowed their heads to me.

Just then someone came running from the graveyard gate, at the same time rubbing his top hat on his sleeve. It was the barber. He shook me by the hand and said, ‘In death the subject becomes a diagonal between time and space. Let that be a comfort to you.’

On the left by the wall I saw the Blumenstichs’ large family vault. On top of a marble cube sat a sphinx wearing a helmet with the visor down. I was glad it was all over and that everything had gone so off smoothly.

I got back into Lampenbogen’s carriage and we drove to his villa.

IX

It was certainly very good of the Lampenbogens to take in a lost soul like myself. As it was, I would have gone with anyone, I just couldn’t have cared less what happened next.

‘The Lampenbogens really do themselves well’, was the thought that struck me as the maid opened the door to the dining-room. ‘The fact that my wife has just died means nothing to them.’ That was at six o’clock. Frau Lampenbogen had been there when I arrived and said she hoped I would feel at home with them and quickly forget ‘this terrible tragedy’. ‘Oh yes, this terrible tragedy’, I replied mechanically. ‘Life is full of heartache’, Lampenbogen had remarked, putting a packet of cigars on the table in my room.

After I had spent some time getting used to the idea that I would be living in a different room from now on, I smartened myself up a bit and went down. Outside it had been cold and miserable, in here it was warm, spacious and luxurious. My hostess seemed full of concern for me, which I found comforting. The effect she had had on me when I saw her recently must have been some kind of hallucination. Today I could look into her eyes quite calmly. They were almond-shaped, greenish-grey, thoughtful, and always seemed to be looking for something. ‘And this is the woman they’re all talking about’ I thought to myself. ‘It’s ridiculous nonsense.

We sat down. With his elephantine bulk, Lampenbogen took up one long side of the table himself. He liked his food. When he ate, his cheeks became a pair of bellows and you could both see and hear that he was enjoying it. I didn’t feel like eating, despite my empty stomach. At table Lampenbogen was a different person, a ‘priest-general’, if you’ll excuse the expression. He surveyed the dishes with an eye that was both sharp and devotional, and if they were not handed to him quickly enough he would give a peremptory snap of his fingers. He would insist dishes that had already been returned to the kitchen be brought back. ‘How often have I told the stupid creature’, he snarled, going red in the face. At such moments he looked like the Japanese god of fortune, Fukuroku. The salad he prepared himself at a little side-table, skilfully manipulating the two forks. I was struck by how deft the movements of his small, fat hands were. He must be good at operating, I thought. Nevertheless he did not seem satisfied with the results of his labours.

‘You just can’t get things here any more’, he moaned with a disgruntled look at a regular battery of coloured bottles and tins.
Lantpenbogen in cross-section
, a subject for Castringius.

‘You’re not eating anything!’ he said when we reached the cheese. ‘But Odoacer’, his wife reprimanded him, ‘just think for once!’ He did have a good nose, though, that I did notice. It was the only similarity between us.

After dinner I had my cigarettes. With a sigh of regret the tub of lard got up. ‘I’m afraid I have to go to the club this evening. Unfortunately. And we could have had such a nice evening together.’ I expressed my regret too and asked where the club was. Naturally he immediately wanted to take me with him, there was a bowling alley at the back of the Blue Goose. I declined, with thanks. It would have been a bit too much for me today, I said. ‘Well, it’s your decision’, he said and shook me by the hand. His wife received a pat on the cheek. In contrast to his weight, his movements had a certain elastic grace.

We were alone.

‘Your husband enjoys monumental good health’, I said, just for something to say.

‘Yes, indeed’, was the reply.

I felt slightly awkward. I was afraid of what the night might bring and wanted to stay down here as long as possible. Only now did I take a closer look at this beautiful woman. She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped, full-skirted dress and her thick hair was worn in a net, as was the fashion in the Dream Realm at the time. I found her face strikingly small. Her forehead was narrow, her eyebrows were steeply arched and went up at the outside. She had a rather short nose, a snub nose, and a very full mouth with wide, negroid lips. The most beautiful things about her were her alabaster skin and her hair. She was tall for a woman.

I was surprised how sharp my powers of observation still were, given the state I was in. Melitta rummaged round in a basket for a piece of needlework then sat down by the fire where beech-logs were crackling. The sumptuous dining room with its brown wooden panelling was slightly overheated whilst outside the trees were creaking in the storm and now and then a shower of rain rattled against the windowpanes.

I was not very good company today and I expected her to say something, but she remained silent. It was up to me then. ‘You have very beautiful hair, Frau Lampenbogen’, I said. it was the first thing that came into my head.

‘Oh, it’s nothing special, really. I used to have more. It looks nicer when I let it down.’

At this a sudden rush of alarm swept through me. I felt myself turn pale.

What happened next is something I will never be able to explain fully, even to myself. During the past few days I had been through some of the most traumatic experiences a human being can stand. I was a broken reed, at the end of my tether, impotent and despairing.

Is there some law of compensation governing our vital force? How else could it have been that at this very point a tiny thought, cold and furtive, quietly crept into my mind?

Almost at the same moment I felt immense obscure forces beginning to stir within me. It was all happening somewhere in the depths; on the surface, in my conscious mind, I was outraged at myself. But all that changed in a flash as every part of my being was united in one combined, inflexible will. So it had been ordained somewhere. I was calm and collected, as calculating as a snake. To outward appearances, of course, I was simply a man smoking a cigarette.

Melitta put her sewing down and said, in a steady voice, ‘Of course, as a painter you must know about beauty.’

A chain of thought unrolled crystal clear in my mind and I was in complete control of it. Now I was resolved to act, but first of all a little probing.

‘Your hair must really be a wonderful sight when you let it down’, I said, hiding behind a cloud of smoke.

‘I’m afraid you’d be disappointed’, she said with a little laugh, quickly bending over her needlework again.

‘Oho’, I thought. ‘No, I’m really not interested in teasing games.’ That had never been my cup of tea. Nonchalantly I stood up and remarked, with suave coolness, ‘Pity your husband isn’t an artist.’ This was a diversionary tactic to flush the opposition out of its cover and get it to show its hand. And it worked. ‘Lord, he never notices anything.’ It was said with a slight contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. Exactly as I had expected. Now I had her. In spite of that, nothing had actually happened, the situation was not in the least compromising.