Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (33 page)

The writer got into the carriage with the doctor. In the gardens all
around the birds began to sing. The carriage drove past the businessman,
and all three men lifted their hats to one another, politely and ironically,
all with the same faces. "Are we going to get to see something of yours
in the theatre soon?" the doctor asked the writer in his usual voice. The
writer spoke of the extraordinary difficulties connected with the performance of his newest drama, which, he had to admit, did contain attacks
on much of what society ostensibly held sacred. The doctor nodded and
didn't listen. The writer didn't either, as the oft-reiterated sentences had
long fallen as if by rote from his lips.

Both men climbed out in front of the doctor's house, and the carriage drove away.

The doctor rang. Both of them stood there in silence. As they heard
the porter's steps approach, the writer said, "Good night, my dear doctor," and then, with a twitch of his nostrils, he added slowly, "By the way,
I'm not going to tell mine either." The doctor looked in the air past him and smiled sweetly. The door opened, they shook hands, and the doctor
disappeared into the entryway; the door shut. The writer left.

The writer reached into his breast pocket. Yes, the piece of paper
was there. His wife should find it well preserved and sealed in his belongings. And with that rare power of imagination with which he was
blessed, he could already hear her whisper at his grave: "You noble
man ... you magnanimous soul...."

"TWENTY-FOUR BROWN-SKINNED SLAVES rowed the magnificent
galley which was to bring Prince Amgiad to the palace of the caliph. But
the prince, wrapped in his purple cloak, lay all alone on the deck beneath
the dark blue, starry sky, and his gaze ..."

Up to this point the little girl had been reading aloud, but now, suddenly, her eyelids fell shut. Her parents looked at each other and smiled.
Fridolin bent down, kissed her blonde hair, and closed the book lying on
the table that had yet to be cleared. The child looked up as if caught at
some mischief.

"It's nine o'clock," the father said. "Time for bed." And as Albertine had also bent down to her, the parent's hands now met on the
beloved forehead, and their glances met with a tender smile no longer
meant only for the child. The governess entered and asked the little girl
to say good night to her parents. She got up obediently, offered her lips
for her father and mother to kiss, and without protesting let herself be led
away from the room by her governess. But Fridolin and Albertine, now
left alone under the reddish glow of the hanging lamp, were suddenly in
a hurry to continue the conversation they had begun before supper about
their experiences at yesterday's masquerade ball.

It had been the first ball for them this year, and they had decided to
attend it just before the end of the carnival season. Fridolin had no sooner
entered the ballroom than he had been greeted, like a long lost and now
impatiently awaited old friend, by two red dominoes, whom he couldn't
for the life of him identify, though they had shown strikingly detailed knowledge of certain episodes of his student and internship days. They
had left the loge to which they had eagerly invited him with the promise
that they would come back-unmasked-very soon, but had stayed
away for so long that he, becoming impatient, had decided to go back
down to the ballroom where he hoped to meet the two enigmatic figures
again. But however carefully he looked around, they were nowhere to be
seen, instead, another woman unexpectedly took his arm. It was his wife,
who had just abruptly freed herself from a stranger whose melancholy
and blase manner and foreign, evidently Polish, accent had at first
charmed her but who had then offended and even frightened her with a
casually dropped, unexpectedly vulgar, and hatefully impertinent remark. And so husband and wife, at bottom glad to have escaped the disappointing and banal masquerade game, soon had sat like two lovers
among other lovers, eating oysters, drinking champagne, and chatting
animatedly as though they had just met, reenacting the comedy of gallantry, resistance, seduction, and surrender. After a quick ride home
through the white winter night, they had sunk into each other's arms in
lovemaking more ardent than they had experienced for a long time.

A grey morning had awakened them all too early. The husband's
profession called him to the bedside of sick patients at an early hour, and
household and motherly duties prevented Albertine from staying in bed
much longer than he. So the hours had flown by soberly in predetermined daily routines and work, and the events of the previous night,
those at the beginning as well as those at the end, had grown pale. Only
now, when the day's work was finished for both of them and no disturbance was likely, the child having gone to bed, did the shadowy forms of
the masquerade, the melancholy stranger and the red dominoes, rise into
consciousness again. And all at once the insignificant events were magically and painfully imbued with the deceptive glow of neglected opportunities. Harmless but probing questions and sly, ambiguous answers
were exchanged. Neither failed to notice that the .other was not completely honest, and so both felt themselves justified in taking a mild revenge. They exaggerated the degree of the attraction that their unknown
masquerade partners had exerted upon them, made fun of the jealous tendencies of the other, and denied their own. But the light banter about the trivial adventures of the previous night gradually became a more serious
conversation about those hidden, scarcely suspected desires that are capable of producing dark and dangerous whirlpools in even the most
clearheaded, purest soul. They spoke of those hidden regions that barely
attracted them but to which the incomprehensible winds of destiny could
still drag them, even if only in a dream. For though they were united to
each other in thought and feeling, they knew that yesterday wasn't the
first time that the breath of adventure, freedom, and danger had touched
them. Uneasy and self-tormenting, each pretended curiosity and sought
to draw confessions from the other. Anxiously drawing closer to each
other, both searched for an event, however indifferent, for an experience,
no matter how trivial, that might count as an expression of the inexpressible and whose honest confession now could perhaps free them from the
tension and mistrust that was gradually becoming unbearable. Albertine,
whether she was the more impatient, the more honest, or the more kindhearted of the two, first summoned the courage for a frank confession.
She asked Fridolin in a rather uncertain tone of voice whether he remembered the young man who, along with two officers, had sat at the table
next to theirs at the beach in Denmark where they had vacationed the
previous summer. He was the one who had received a telegram one
evening at dinner, and had then hastily excused himself and departed.

Fridolin nodded. "What about him?" he asked.

"I had already seen him that morning as he was rushing up the hotel
stairs with his yellow briefcase," answered Albertine. "He glanced at me,
stopped after he had gone up a few more steps, then turned around and
looked at me. Our glances met. He didn't smile; in fact, it seemed to me
that his face darkened, and I suppose mine did too, for I was more deeply
affected than I had ever been before. That whole day I lay on the beach,
lost in dreams. Had he called to me-so I believed-I could not have resisted. I thought I was ready for anything. You, my daughter, my futureI felt ready to give it all up, and at the same time-can you understand
this?-you were more precious to me than ever. Just on that very afternoon-surely you remember-it happened that we talked more intimately about a thousand things, about our common future, about our daughter, than we had for a long time. At sunset we were sitting on the
balcony, you and 1, when he walked by down on the beach. Though he
didn't look up, I was overjoyed to see him. But it was you whose forehead I stroked and whose hair I kissed, and in my love for you there was
a lot of sorrowful pity at the same time. That evening I looked very beautiful-you told me so yourself-and I wore a white rose. Perhaps it was
not an accident that the stranger and his friends sat near us. He didn't
look at me, but I played with the thought of standing up, walking over to
his table, and saying, `Here I am, my long awaited one, my belovedtake me!' That was the moment he received the telegram and read it,
whereupon he turned pale, whispered a few words to the younger of the
two officers, and left, glancing at me with a strange look."

"And?" asked Fridolin drily, when she stopped.

"There isn't any more. I only know that I woke up the next morning
with a certain anxiety. I don't know what I feared more-that he had left
or that he was still there-and I still don't know. But when he hadn't appeared by noon, I breathed a sigh of relief. Don't ask me to tell you any
more, Fridolin. I've told you the whole truth. You had some sort of experience at that seashore, too-1 know it."

Fridolin rose, paced up and down the room several times, and then
said, "You're right." He was standing at the window, his face in the
shadow. "In the mornings," he began in a veiled and slightly hostile
voice, "sometimes very early, before you got up, I used to walk along the
beach, out beyond the town. No matter how early I went, the sun was always shining bright and strong over the sea. Out on the beach there were
small cottages, as you know, each one standing like a world of its own.
Some had fenced-in gardens and others were completely surrounded by
forest, but they were separated from the beach huts by the road and a section of beach. I hardly ever met anyone at this early hour, and there were
never any swimmers around. But one morning I suddenly became aware
of a female figure that had been quite hidden only a moment before and
was now cautiously walking on the narrow ledge of a beach hut set on
piles in the sand, her arms spread out backward against the wooden wall
behind her. She was a very young girl, maybe fifteen years old, with loose blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and to one side over her
delicate breast. The girl was looking down into the water, and slowly
sliding with her back along one wall as she focused on the far side of the
wall, and suddenly she was standing immediately opposite me. She
reached her arms far back as though she wanted to get a firmer hold.
Looking up, she suddenly saw me. A tremor passed through her body, as
if she wanted either to sink down into the water or to flee. But since she
could only move very slowly along the narrow ledge, she decided to restrain herself and stay where she was-and now she stood there, first
with a frightened, then with an angry, and finally with an embarrassed
look. All at once, however, she smiled at me, smiled marvelously. There
was a greeting, even a wink in her eyes-and at the same time a slight
teasing as she very lightly dipped her foot into the water that separated
us. Then she stretched her slim young body upward, glad of her beauty,
and, as was easy to see, proud and sweetly aroused by the obvious admiration of my gaze. So we stood opposite each other, maybe ten seconds,
eyelids half open and eyes misty. Instinctively I stretched my arms out to
her. Her eyes expressed surrender and joy. But suddenly she shook her
head vigorously, took one arm from the wall, and with a commanding
gesture signaled that I should go away. When I couldn't get myself to
obey immediately, such a look of pleading and begging came into her
childish eyes that there was nothing for me to do but to leave. I went on
my way as quickly as I could. I didn't turn around and look at her even
once, not really out of consideration, obedience, or chivalry, but because
I was so profoundly moved by her last look, moved so far beyond anything I've ever felt, that I felt dangerously close to fainting." And he
stopped.

"And how often," asked Albertine, looking down, in an even voice,
"did you take the same way after that?"

"What I just told you," answered Fridolin, "by chance happened on
the last day of our stay in Denmark. I too don't know what might have
happened under other circumstances. Don't ask me to tell you anything
else, Albertine."