Who Is Martha? (15 page)

“What a song and dance!” Levadski complains, after the elevator has swallowed the lady with the poodle.

“You are the one who insisted,” Mr. Witzturn pants, emphasizing
you
.

“Well, well!” says Levadski, scraping his walking stick on the carpet, “our little trip has evidently made you very tired, you are out of breath.” Mr. Witzturn purses his lips.

“I was counting and concentrating, that’s all. Some-body had to put an end to this schoolboy prank.”

“I am not the one who started it,” Levadski said, looking longingly at the door of the café.

“Mr. Levadski!”

“Levadski, if you please.”

“Mr. Levadski, I am going through that door now,” Mr. Witzturn signals in the direction of the café, “and I am going to devote myself to the reason why I made the effort this morning of shaving and getting dressed, forcing myself into my shoes and taking part in this unnecessary riding up and down. I am going to devote myself to my breakfast. I wish you a good day.”

“Be my guest,” Levadski’s open hand points towards the door.

Mr. Witzturn clatters past the illuminated display cabinets with his stick. “Youth first!” Levadski whispers after him. The narrow back stops as if rooted to the spot and then sets off again a moment later. Levadski waits for the door to stop swinging. Yesterday’s waiters dart back and forth behind the milky glass of the café door. In the engraved coat of arms a lion and a stag dig their claws into each other, which stops them from keeling over.

He went left, so I will go right, thinks Levadski, grabbing the door handle. A wall of laughter mounts in front of him, the room to the right is filled with chubby grayhaired women who have strategically sat themselves close to the buffet. “I am sorry,” the waiter says regretfully, recognizing Levadski. “Good day, I am sorry, but we have a group of Americans.”

“A gripe?” The shrieking wall is collapsing in on the waiter and Levadski.

“No, a tourist party!” It is of no significance, he will find a table, Levadski says cheerily.

“Coffee, like yesterday?” Levadski nods.

“I will bring it to your table!” the waiter promises, and is gone.

The room next door is filled with the sound of Mr. Witzturn’s rustling newspaper and the clatter of a female creature’s cutlery, who has not made a particularly convincing attempt at piling up her thin hair. “We should consider ourselves lucky for both having that one thing less to worry about,” Levadski says to Mr. Witzturn’s newspaper.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Witzturn’s striking eyes become visible above the newspaper. With the corner of his mouth, Levadski signals in the direction of the strange hairdo of the solitary lady a few tables away. “You are not only a misanthrope but a misogynist as well, Mr. Dawalski.”

“My name is Levadski, Mr. Turnwitz. Allow me?” Levadski looks hopefully at the padded chair beside Mr. Witzturn. “Thank you,” Levadski says, before Mr. Witzturn can say Please do, and, groaning, takes a seat. Mr. Witzturn lets the business pages drop into his lap, and he gazes disappointed into the distance, into which something valuable seems to be hurrying off.

“You are …”

“I wanted to apologize …”

“You are a …”

“… for my behavior.”

Mr. Witzturn allows the words to stand without comment. “I am a lonely old man,” Levadski continues, “and seldom among people. My social aptitude has been withering away for decades.” Mr. Witzturn listens with his head slightly cocked to one side, stroking the handle of the knife lying next to his empty plate. “You haven’t eaten anything yet!” Levadski remarks with dismay.

“Yes,” replies Mr. Witzturn, “I am scared of the tourist party at the buffet.”

“Americans,” Levadski shrugs his shoulders, “we can go to the buffet together!”

Mr. Witzturn scans the room. There is not a door in sight, so he concurs.

“I don’t understand,” Mr. Witzturn admits, “why the fair sex give up their splendid heads of hair with age. They look like men!”

“Who is the misogynist now?” Levadski jokes.

“No, quite honestly, I prefer the lady over there with the ridiculous bird’s nest hairdo to those bald chickens.”

“Olala!” Levadski says, pleased. “You are getting angry! A blessing, that the ladies are making such a racket. And if any of them had ever made an effort to learn a foreign language like German, the merry club would tear us to pieces like two old traveling clocks!”

Mr. Witzturn closes his eyes, opens his mouth and produces a melodic barking. Levadski also laughs. Armed with his magnifying glass and giggling, he inspects the array of cold and hot dishes at the buffet table.

“Yesterday I came down so late that although the piano was playing, breakfast was over,” says Levadski, appraising the shreds of salmon spun with dill cobwebs.

“What did you eat, then?”

“Cake. Chocolate cake.”

“Not bad. Right, I am going back to the table now. I find it difficult to stand without my stick.” Levadski looks at Mr. Witzturn’s ready plate. I am not surprised, that weighs at least a kilo, he wants to say, but pulls himself together and praises the beautiful composition.

“And the small sour pickle on the tip of the tower is the crowning glory! Good luck!”

What shall I eat, thinks Levadski, brutally surrounded by the short-haired women. A boiled egg can turn out to be a cold hard egg, better not go for that. Fruit salad? Kid’s stuff. Vitamins have been of no use to me for ages. Venison pâté, liver pâté with green pepper, a moldy French cheese? Horseradish to go with it, a piece of bread that the waiter has hopefully presliced. Yes.

When Levadski arrives at the table, Mr. Witzturn is busy squeezing a wedge of lemon over his salmon. The clattering of the cutlery at the table of the lady with the bird’s nest hairdo has become a monotonous stirring in her cup. The waiter has not forgotten Levadski – the coffee he ordered is standing in a silver pot on the table. “What I meant to ask you in the elevator …”

“A decent portion,” Mr. Witzturn interrupts, pointing approvingly at Levadski’s plate.

“What I wanted to ask you when you entered the elevator was,” Levadski continues, “was, what the time was. My watch stopped.”

“It is ten on the dot.” Levadski expresses his thanks by smacking his lips loudly.

“That is a very good idea!” remarks Mr. Witzturn on seeing the magnifying glass flashing in Levadski’s hand.

“Yes, at least you can see the hands,” Levadski jokes. “You learn where the numbers are in the course of life, don’t you?”

“You remind me of my first wife,” Mr. Witzturn tells him while pushing a rolled up piece of lettuce into his mouth.

“Did she also have a magnifying glass?”

“No, cancer.”

“Oh God,” Levadski leans back in his chair, “I am sorry.”

“Yes, so am I. It is a menace. The second one also had cancer. I didn’t dare take a third.”

“How terrible!” Levadski puts the magnifying glass down on the table. “Perhaps that’s the reason why I remained a bachelor …”

“It is never too late,” Mr. Witzturn says to a walnutsized olive eye, before devouring it. “Pitted,” he adds after chewing it carefully.

“It is too late for me, Mr. Witzturn.”

“Then at least eat.”

“I assume,” Levadski says over his second pot of coffee, “we were enemies once …”

“Oh, let’s forget the incident!” Mr. Witzturn gestures dismissively with his napkin.

“I am not talking about the incident in the elevator. I mean,” Levadski lowers his eyes to the floor, “the war.” Mr. Witzturn still insists on forgetting the incident.

“We have,” he says, putting the napkin on his lap, “never been enemies.”

“It is embarrassing,” Levadski crumbles half of Mr. Witzturn’s roll, which Mr. Wtizturn follows with a fixed stare, “very embarrassing, that I behaved so impossibly in the elevator. God knows what got into me. If I had known you were a widower, a widower twice over …” Levadski points a finger at the stucco ceiling.

“Don’t you notice anything?” Mr. Witzturn’s bleary eyes attempt to hypnotize Levadski. Levadski reaches for his magnifying glass.

“What am I meant to notice? I don’t see anything. Oh!”

“What do you see?”

“You have a pimple. Got you, got you!”

“Very funny. Can’t you see anything?” Mr. Witzturn’s voice assumes an offended tone. Levadski continues to look at him through the magnifying glass.

“You have blue eyes. Green. And one, two, three, four, six little spider veins on both cheeks. Hardly noticeable.”

“What else?” Mr. Witzturn demands impatiently.

“You were a good looking man,” Levadski says, “and now that you are smiling, I can see that you have dill between your teeth.”

“Charming,” Mr. Witzturn says in thanks and drinks a sip of tea that he keeps in his mouth discreetly and for longer than necessary. “And now?”

“Already gone.”

“You are blind in both eyes, Mr. Levadski, if I may be permitted to make an observation.” Levadski puts his magnifying glass in his trouser pocket. “You don’t see that I have a plastic nose.”

“You amaze me!” Levadski reaches for the magnifying glass again, straining hard to look. “It could be.”

“It is! How can you not have noticed it?”

“Well,” Levadski says in defense, “I did notice your nose, but I thought, nothing out of the ordinary, the gentleman is partial to the bottle. After all, that is the kind of cultural environment I’m from. You see noses like that sitting on many park benches during summer.” Levadski observes Mr. Witzturn’s supposedly plastic nose. “And where is the cord?”

“It’s a magnetic nose, it is held in place by three magnets,” Mr. Witzturn says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Did you lose your nose at the front?”

“Cancer,” says Mr. Witzturn dryly and wipes his mouth with his napkin.

“What are your plans for this evening?”

“I don’t have any,” Mr. Witzturn says, suddenly laughing. “I am laughing because you just wiped your nose!”

“Did I?”

“Yes, with the napkin,” Mr. Witzturn reveals, still laughing.

“Yes, I know, I know, it’s out of order. Excuse me.”

“You only dabbed it a little.”

“Nevertheless,” retorted Levadski energetically, “it’s inappropriate. I am getting old!”

“Never mind, be happy!” Mr. Witzturn laughs raucously, “be happy you can blow your nose as you please …” Levadski grins, Mr. Witzturn clutches his stomach with laughter. “To your heart’s desire …” Levadski cautiously laughs along, “ … not too briefly and to your heart’s desire, oh, I can’t take any more, my heart! …” Mr. Witzturn clutches his stomach more tightly. “Get it out, according to all rules of the art! Excuse the expression,” a tearstained Mr. Witzturn adds.

“So what are your plans for this evening? Or are you checking out after breakfast?”

“No, I am staying until tomorrow. This evening I was planning on carousing in the Bar Maria Theresia.”

Mr. Witzturn smiles at Levadski. There is still dill between his front teeth, but Levadski decides not to announce this. It will disappear of its own accord while he is drinking tea, he thinks, and smiles at Mr. Witzturn.

“You have got dill between your teeth,” Mr. Witzturn says with a concerned face.

“You too,” says Levadski peevishly.

“See you this evening, then.”

“I will keep you company!”

“Please do. I haven’t had such amusing company in a long time. Haven’t had the honor of experiencing,” Mr. Witzturn says to be more precise and slowly gets up.

3

Zimmer / Room 302–336

“O
H
, H
ABIB, YOU ARE STILL HERE!
” H
ABIB IS SMILING AT
the pair of shoes he has just worked on with a shoe shine brush. It takes a while for Levadski to follow Habib’s gaze. “Thank you! A freshly polished pair of shoes is exactly what I need now. I just met a very pleasant gentleman in the elevator. We are going to meet at the bar this evening.”

“But at the bar, people won’t be able to see your shoes that well. It would be different at a concert. At a concert you parade up and down during intermission in the gala lights!” Habib swings his arms as if he were marching. “And everyone sees: your shoes are polished.”

“Is there a concert in the hotel?”

“No, but right behind the hotel, in the
Musikverein
.”

“Oh! Goodness …” Levadski feels an icy caterpillar placing a series of sharply polished eggs in one of his ventricles. “The
Musikverein
…”

“Is right behind the hotel.”

“I know, I know, I had just forgotten …”

Levadski crosses the room and stops in front of the window.

“On the other side, this is the Ringstrasse boulevard,” Habib explains.

“Yes, of course, behind the hotel. I have been there.”

“You have been there?”

“Yes, it was a very long time ago.” Levadski has to take a seat. He hands his stick to Habib. “The
Musikverein
…”

“A concert every day.”

“This evening too?”

“Yes, several. One in the Glass Hall, one in the Stone Hall, one in the Metal Hall, one in the Golden …”

“Golden Hall,” Levadski sighs, “golden sound!”

“If you would like tickets, I am happy to arrange some for you,” Habib says, holding Levadski’s stick in his hand. “The
Musikverein
is a must, especially when you are staying in such style as you are.”

The butler assumes the proportions of a mountain in front of Levadski, who is dozing off in his armchair. “A long time ago with my great-aunts,” Levadski sighs, “I had a long pair of trousers sewn especially for the
Musikverein
…” Levadski’s eyelids, paperthin in the sunshine, quiver with every movement Habib makes. Or is it the branches of the trees that are swaying in the wind in front of the window? It grows even lighter behind Levadski’s lids. “And the little titmouse,” mumbles Levadski, “can you hear it calling! Zib-zib-zib, beyond words the way it intones. It sounds midnight …”

Levadski’s chin slides feebly onto his chest, his right ear tilting towards his shoulder, as if his left ear wanted to listen to what was happening on the top floor of the hotel. Levadski’s suspicion is confirmed in his dream. He takes his socks off and sees for himself that his feet, which feel unusually hard, are really hooves. Habib is murmuring some kind of incantation over his shoulder. Tramp tramp trampaloo, here’s a flower just for you. White, yellow, inky red, for tomorrow you’ll be dead!”