Beware of Pity (49 page)

I wait. The same room, the same waiting as before, and—thank God—the same quietly dragging footsteps now in the next room.

The door is opened hesitantly, uncertainly. Once again, it is as if a draught of air has opened it, only this time Frau Condor’s voice greets me warmly.

“Is that you, Lieutenant Hofmiller?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, bowing to the blind woman—the same pointless folly again!

“Oh, my husband will be so terribly sorry. I know how much he’ll regret being out just now. But I hope you can wait. He’ll be back at one o’clock at the latest.”

“I’m afraid not—I can’t wait. But … but it’s very important. Couldn’t I telephone him, reach him at some patient’s home?”

She sighs. “No, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I don’t know just where he’s gone, and then you see … the people he
prefers to treat can’t afford telephones. But perhaps I myself could …”

She comes closer to me, a timid expression on her face. She wants to say something, but I can see that she is diffident about coming out with it. At last she tries.

“I … I can tell … I feel that it must be very urgent and … if there were any possibility then of course … of course I would tell you how to find him. But … but perhaps I could give him a message myself as soon as he comes in … I expect it’s about that poor girl, the child you are always so good to. If you like I will be happy to …”

And now something odd happens; ridiculously, I cannot look the blind woman in the face. I have, I don’t know why, a feeling that she already knows or has guessed everything. The idea makes me feel so ashamed that I can only stammer, “That’s very, very kind of you, ma’am … but I don’t want to put you to the trouble. If you’ll allow me, I can tell him the essentials myself in writing. But you’re sure, really sure that he will be home before two o’clock, aren’t you? Because the train he’ll need to catch leaves not long after two, and he must … I mean it’s really, really necessary for him to go out there, please believe me. I promise you I’m not exaggerating.”

“Why, of course I believe what you say. And don’t worry. He will do whatever he can.”

“And may I write to him?”

“Yes, do write to him … this way, please.”

She goes ahead of me with the uncanny certainty of someone who, although blind, knows where everything is in this room. She must tidy his desk dozens of times a day, feeling around on it with her careful fingers, because she takes three or four sheets of paper out of the left-hand drawer with the sure touch
of a sighted woman, and puts them perfectly straight on the blotting pad in front of me. “You will find pen and ink there.” Once again she points to precisely the right place.

I write five pages without stopping once. I tell Condor he must go out there at once,
at once
—I underline it three times. I tell him everything, as briefly and as honestly as I can. I tell him that I did not stand firm; I denied my engagement in front of my comrades—only he, I tell him, knew from the first that my fear of what people might say, my pitiful fear of the talk and laughter of others, was to blame for my weakness. I do not conceal the fact that I wanted to take my own life, and the Colonel saved it against my will. But at that moment I had been thinking only of myself. Only now, I write, do I realise that I am making someone else, an innocent girl, suffer with me. He must go at once, I repeat, he will understand how urgent it is for him to go out there
at once
—again I underline the words—and tell them the truth, the whole truth. I don’t want him to gloss anything over, I don’t want him to present me as innocent, as any better than I am, and if she can forgive my weakness all the same, then our engagement will be more sacred to me than ever. Now, indeed, it is truly sacred to me, and if she will allow me I will leave the army and go to Switzerland with them. I will stay with her whether she is cured soon, or later, or never, only one thing in life matters to me, and that is to prove that I was not lying to her, only to others. I ask him to tell her all that honestly, the full truth, because only now do I know how deeply I am pledged to her, more than to anyone or anything else, more than to my comrades or the army. Only she could judge me, only she could forgive me. It was now up to her to decide whether she would, and I asked him—it really was a matter of life and death, I said—to drop everything else he had to do
and go out there on the early afternoon train. He must, must be there at half-past four in the afternoon, no later, he must be there at the time when she would usually be expecting me. It was the last thing I would ever ask him. Would he help me this one last time, and
at once
—this time I underline the words four times—just this once he must go out there, or all would be lost.

When I put the pen down I realised immediately that I had finally, and for the first time, made up my mind. Only in writing that letter had I come to know what the right decision was. For the first time, too, I was grateful to Colonel Bubencic for saving my life. I knew that I was pledged to only one person, to her, the girl who loved me, from now on for the rest of my life.

At that moment I also noticed that the blind woman was still standing beside me, never moving. Once again I was overcome by the ridiculous notion that she had read every word of the letter and knew all about.

“Forgive my incivility,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I’d entirely forgotten that … but … but it was so important to me to let your husband know at once …”

She was smiling at me.

“I don’t mind standing for a while,” she said. “Only your letter mattered. I am sure my husband will do whatever you are asking him … I felt at once—I know every tone of his voice—that he is fond of you, very fond. And don’t worry,” she said, her voice sounding still warmer. “Please don’t worry. I am sure everything will turn out all right.”

“God grant it may!” I said with genuine hope—isn’t it said that the blind can see into the future?

I bent down and kissed her hand. When I looked up, I couldn’t understand how this woman, with her grey hair, her bitter mouth and the sadness of her blind eyes, could have struck me at first sight as ugly. Her face was radiant with love and human sympathy. I felt as if those eyes that never reflected anything but darkness knew more about the reality of life than all the eyes that see the world shining in its full brightness.

I said goodbye feeling like someone recovering from illness. Suddenly it no longer seemed to me any sacrifice to have promised myself again, and for ever, to another woman who had suffered and was an outcast from normal life. Why love the healthy, confident, proud and happy? They don’t need it. They take love as their rightful due, as the duty owed to them, they accept it indifferently and arrogantly. Other people’s devotion is just another gift to them, a clasp to wear in the hair, a bangle for the wrist, not the whole meaning and happiness of their lives. Love can truly help only those not favoured by fate, the distressed and disadvantaged, those who are less than confident and not beautiful, the meek-minded. When love is given to them it makes up for what life has taken away. They alone know how to love and be loved in the right way, humbly and with gratitude.

My batman is waiting faithfully on the station concourse. “Come along,” I say, smiling at him. All of a sudden I am curiously light at heart. I know, with a sense of relief that I have never felt before, that I have done the right thing at last. I have saved myself, I have saved another human being. I don’t even regret my stupid cowardice last night now. On the contrary, I tell myself,
this way is
better
. It’s better that it turned out like this, that the people who trusted me now know I’m no hero, no saint, not a god graciously looking down from the clouds to raise a poor sick creature up to him. If I accept her love now I am no longer making a sacrifice. No, it is for me to ask forgiveness this time, for her to grant it. And that’s the better way.

I have never felt so sure of myself before. Only once, fleetingly, did a shadow of fear cross my mind, and that was when a fat man rushed into the carriage in Lundenburg, gasping for breath, and dropped on the upholstered seat. “Thank God I caught it! If the train hadn’t been six minutes late I’d have missed it.”

I instinctively feel a pang of anxiety. Suppose Condor hadn’t come home at midday? Or suppose he had arrived too late to catch the afternoon train? Then it would all have been in vain. Then she will wait and wait. At once the terrible image of the terrace flashes into my mind again—I see her hands clutching the balustrade as she stares down, already teetering on the brink of the abyss. For God’s sake, she
must
hear how sorry I am for my betrayal in time, before she falls into despair, before, perhaps, the worst happens! I’d better send her a few words by telegraph at the next station we come to. Something to give her confidence, just in case Condor hasn’t told her in time.

In Brünn, the next station, I jump out of the train and run to the station telegraph office. But what’s going on? Outside the door a dense, dark, agitated crowd has gathered to read a message pinned up there. Using my elbows ruthlessly, I force my way through the throng to the little glazed door in the post office. Quick, a form, quick! What should I write? Not too much.

I hand in the telegram. How slow the woman behind the counter is! Sender’s name and address, formality after formality. And my train leaves again in two minutes’ time. Once again I have to push my way through the crowd clustering around the notice. It is even larger now. I want to ask what’s going on, but the whistle tells me my train is about to leave. I just have time to jump into the carriage. Thank God, that’s all dealt with. Only now do I realise how tired I am after these two strenuous days and two sleepless nights. On arriving in Czaslau in the evening, I need all my strength to stagger one floor up to my hotel room. Then I fall into sleep as if I were falling into a chasm.

I think I must have gone to sleep the moment I lay down—it was like sinking with my senses numbed into a dark, deep torrent, far, far down into depths of unconsciousness that I had never known before. Only after that, much later, did I begin to dream. I don’t remember the beginning of the dream, only that I was standing in a room again, I think in Condor’s waiting room, and the terrible wooden sound that had been tapping in my temples for days began again, the rhythmic sound of crutches, that dreadful click-click, click-click. At first it came from far away, as if it were out in the street, then it came closer, clickclick, click-click, and now it is very close, very loud, click-click,
click-click, and finally so dreadfully close that I wake from my dream with a start.

I stare open-eyed into the darkness of the strange room. But there it is again—a tapping sound, knuckles knocking on wood. No, I’m not dreaming now, someone is knocking, knocking on my door. I jump out of bed and quickly open it. The night porter is standing outside.

“You’re wanted on the telephone, Lieutenant Hofmiller, sir.”

I stare at him. I, wanted on the telephone? Where … where am I, anyway? A strange room, a strange bed … oh yes … I’m in … I’m in Czaslau. But I don’t know a soul here, so who can be telephoning me in the middle of the night? Nonsense! It must be at least midnight. But the porter goes on pressing me. “Quick please, Lieutenant Hofmiller, sir, a long-distance call from Vienna, I didn’t quite catch the name.”

At once I am wide awake. From Vienna! It can only be Condor. He must want to tell me his news, say she has forgiven me. It’s all right. I snap at the porter, “You hurry back down, say I’m coming at once.”

The porter disappears, I hastily fling my coat on over my shirt, which is all that I am wearing, and go after him. The telephone is in the corner of the ground-floor office, the porter already has the receiver to his ear. Impatiently, I push him aside, although he tells me, “The connection’s been cut,” and listen to the receiver myself.

Nothing. Nothing but a distant surging, humming sound … sssf, sssf, sssf, like metallic mosquito wings far away. “Hello, hello,” I shout, and I wait and wait. No answer. Only that mocking, pointless humming. Am I shivering like this because I have nothing on but my shirt and my coat, or is it fear? Perhaps something has gone wrong. Or perhaps … I wait, I listen with
the hot rubber ring of the receiver held tight to my ear. At last there is a clicking. I am on another line. I hear the voice of the switchboard operator.

“Do you have your connection?” the operator asks

“No!”

“But you were connected just now—a call from Vienna. One moment, please, I’ll see what I can do.”

More sounds on the line. A switching sound on the phone, a growling, crackling and gurgling. Then rushing, roaring noises, and as they gradually die away only the faint humming and surging on the wires again. Suddenly there’s a voice, a harsh, growling bass.

“Prague HQ here. Is that the War Ministry?”

“No, no!” I shout desperately down the telephone. The voice mutters something else indistinct and goes away, is lost in the void. Only that stupid humming and surging again, and then a babble of distant, incomprehensible voices. At last the
switchboard
operator is back.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just been checking. The connection had to be broken—there was an urgent army call coming through. I’ll let you know when the subscriber calls again. Please hang up meanwhile.”

I hang up, exhausted, disappointed, embittered. What can be worse than to have caught a voice in the distance and then lose it again? My heart is hammering as if I have just climbed a huge mountain. What was it about? Only Condor can have been the caller. But why was he calling me now, at half-past midnight?

The night porter approaches courteously. “You can wait up in your room, sir. I’ll run up as soon as the call comes through.”