Sophie and the Sibyl (11 page)

In the hushed deep stillness of the Kursaal, sixty or seventy people gathered around the roulette tables, many standing in outer rows, peering forwards to watch the gambling. Some of the aficionados had been there, slouched on gilded chairs, since mid-afternoon. The reverent concentration of those seated at the tables remained fervent and undisturbed, the hush broken only by a light rattle, a faint chink, and the occasional monotonous murmur in French:
Faîtes vos jeux, Rien ne va plus
, as if an ingenious automaton had been constructed to officiate at the ritual. For gambling does indeed resemble the Holy Office, the repetition of a sacrament charged with the particular mood of the congregation, optimism and desperation, laced with curiosity or boredom. Some are there merely as observers, while others are engaged, with all their souls, in the deadly pleasures of the game. Max had played both parts in his time, at these very tables, and now he stood well back as if to avoid contamination, holding the Sibyl’s shawl, while she conversed in whispers with Lady Castletown. Here before them, lounged or poised, lay the great world of men, and women too, old and young, wealthy and skint, some leaned over the tables, ignoring one another, utterly lost in the deep, hypnotic trance of risk. These were the big players, staking all on the red or the black, barely aware of the impoverished dilettantes placing small bets with an absurd flourish. Rank, age and sex vanished in the long chequered space before the wheel. Were these lovely painted women, with their little jewelled reticules, ladies of pleasure or daughters of the rich? No one cared.
Faîtes vos jeux, Rien ne va plus
.

Max watched the gamblers. He felt the adrenalin precision of that tingle in the thighs, chest and neck, as you begin to win, and the quiet sighs from the watchers, never from the table, as you begin to lose. The whole point of gambling is to lose. You always lose in the end. You go on till you lose.

But someone at the far table was on a winning streak, and causing a small stir in the phalanx of onlookers. He could see only the back and shoulders of her blue jacket, and her hair pinned up into a jaunty matching cap with a darker velvet band around the rim. She wore walking clothes indoors, as if she had sauntered in from the Schlosspark, to pass the time between dinner and the dancing among the clique at the tables, her dark blue gloves luring the napoleons out from other fingers. Here they come, swooping towards her across the red and the black as if magnetised. She won, again and again.

Was she beautiful, or not beautiful? Max could not see her face. He craned forwards. He glimpsed the blue cap, emerging and vanishing as the crowds closed round again to watch ‘
la belle qui gagne
’. The blue gloves, tapering to points, pushed the chips away across the board as if they were too filthy to touch. Back came her stake carrying the contents of the board in its wake. Max rose on tiptoe, his view of her magical fingers suddenly frustrated by two fat silken backs. The Sibyl, sensitive as a butterfly to every gust and shift in the air, immediately sensed his defection.

‘Who is it?’ She raised her giant head to look, but the far table, now surrounded like a fort under siege, hid all its secrets.

‘A young lady, playing recklessly, I believe. And winning.’

The Sibyl followed his curious glance and they proceeded to the far side of the Kursaal to watch. Lady Castletown, waylaid by one of her many English acquaintances, paused in the gangway. They took up their positions by a sofa on the angle of the stairway, commanding an excellent view of both tables. Max settled the Sibyl first, bending to make her comfortable, then swung round to scrutinise the face beneath the blue hat. He recognised her at once, swallowed hard in disbelief, and glared across the little distance between them. For there, bent forward to deposit her stake, the blue glove firm on her little tower of chance, sat the Countess Sophie von Hahn.

His first idea was to abandon the Sibyl, who was now also gazing, fascinated, at the gambling belle, and drag the feckless wench out of the Kursaal and back to her hotel by the hair. What did she think she was doing, flinging down her money like a drunken professional? And where was Fräulein Garstein, the chaperone, who was supposed to accompany Sophie on a march round the park and a session with the dancing master, while the Count talked politics? But even as they watched, Sophie won again, her pointed avaricious fingers raking the pile of chips across the green baize towards her.
Faîtes vos jeux.
She divided the
jetons
, canny as a Frankfurt banker, hesitated, then shovelled the lion’s share on to the black. A soft gasp ruffled the hush. She had doubled her stake. Her eyes devoured the spinning glint of the wheel.

Roulette is a game of pure chance, if the house has not bugged the machinery. Win or lose appears as random as the accidents of birth: one child has shining eyes and long lashes, the other a hare lip. Ah, Sophie, you see nothing else, with your hot glance, bent head and that defiant set of your shoulders, braced for whatever comes. The girl’s whole body rocked, clamped to the board and the wheel. The other hands that placed their stakes did not exist for her. She saw nothing, only the wheel’s turret and the spinning rim. She won again. A small whispered tinkle of pleasure and astonishment accompanied the rustle of shifting ivory stakes nuzzling the actual cash on the green baize. Max tensed; the crowd solidified around her. He eyed his prey, a cheetah preparing for the leap.

The Sibyl laid her hand gently upon his sleeve. He saw the ivory lace mitten clamped on to his dark coat and recoiled, the moment lost.

‘I take it that this young lady is an acquaintance?’

Max remembered where he was, bowed politely, and bent his head to hers. No one would have overheard their exchange.

‘I am afraid she is indeed. That, Madame, is the eldest daughter of the Count August von Hahn. But I am at a loss to explain her presence here in the Kursaal, without her father or her usual chaperone.’

The Sibyl’s ironic smile of recognition bought him a moment to stifle his fury, now directed primarily against Fräulein Garstein, who had mysteriously allowed Sophie to slip the leash.

‘This is quite unaccountable. What can –’

‘Do sit down for a moment,’ suggested the Sibyl.

Max obeyed.

‘Do you know why she is gambling with such passionate abandon? She lives mostly in the country, I believe, and can hardly have done this before? Although Fortune, at present, clearly loves her dearly. Do you have any idea why she is here?’

‘I do.’

Suddenly Max gave in to that universal impulse to confide all, seduced by the benignity of that great prophetic forehead, and the vast tenderness in the writer’s eyes. Max’s narrative, carefully absorbed by the Sibyl, revealed itself to be a masterpiece of omissions. Yes, he had played with the Countess when they were children. And of course, Wolfgang had always been a close friend to the Count. Max adopted a careful strategy, which would give the tale a sentimental spin, and would also explain his evident and possibly excessive feelings of indignation and concern. The Count himself was like a father to us when my own father died. And so I have always known the little Countess. (That makes me sound like the brother she never had.) I had no idea, until yesterday, that they were visiting Homburg. He decided not to mention the recent visit to the Jagdschloss, or the proposed engagement cooked up between Wolfgang and the Count. This morning, when I was walking in the early day (I had just spent the night with a prostitute), I saw her in an odd part of town. And here he disclosed everything he had witnessed concerning the necklace and the cautious Jew. Opals, rubies and diamonds flowed on to the Sibyl’s lap. Yes, Sophie von Hahn had laid down part of her inheritance upon the Jew’s velvet counter.

‘Ah, she must have visited Herr Wiener,’ nodded the Sibyl. ‘His shop is in the Judengasse. He is a friend of ours. I know him through other connections.’

Max immediately regretted his incivility to the clearly alarmed pawnbroker, and gazed at the Sibyl, astonished. Surely she was omniscient, all-knowing and forgiving, given that her acquaintance stretched from chateaux to ghettos. What if the Jew revealed he had been rude? Max now overflowed with speculative drama concerning Sophie’s motives, to conceal his own embarrassment. Why did the Countess need to raise money in the first place? Was she in terrible trouble? The Sibyl presented only rational explanations.

‘Either she needs one thousand thaler to nourish her gaming streak, my dear Max, or she owes more than that sum and is busy winning it back before you at this very moment. But soon, she will begin to lose, and we must stop her before she does. We must also remove the need – or the debt – she is concealing from her father. The Graf von Hahn has championed my cause in his time. And that kindness I will now repay. Her relationship to you makes her all the more interesting to me. But one of us must save her from this evil vale of temptation. I will send to Herr Wiener for the necklace. He will accept a credit note from me.’

Max stared, open-mouthed, at her decisiveness.

‘Go on. Be quick. Stop her. Her luck won’t last.’

The Sibyl rose to greet Lady Castletown and retreated in the direction of the supper tables. Max thrust himself into the fray. Sophie, leaning forward, elbows on the table, had by now accumulated an Ali Baba’s cave of winnings, piled up before her. Max grasped her shoulder, none too gently, and hissed:

‘Countess von Hahn, I believe you should now rejoin your father.’

Her eyes widened in shock as she recognised Max.

‘You! It’s not possible! Wolfgang told us he had banned you from the tables.’

‘I’m not playing, Sophie. You are. Just collect that pile of money and get up. Now.’

Murmurs of disappointment surrounded them as he dragged the gambling belle away by the elbow. Belligerent with righteousness, Max stood fuming while Sophie translated her
jetons
into cash, then swept the girl out of the Kursaal and into the swift chill of early evening, regardless of numerous fascinated glances, and a trail of gossip, burgeoning behind them.

‘A striking girl – that Sophie von Hahn – unlike others.’

‘I hear that the Count is negotiating her price with the publishers. That was Max Duncker I saw, dragging her away from her pleasures. Is the marriage arranged between her and the younger or the elder brother?’

‘Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind of girl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty?’

‘Very. A man might risk hanging for her – I mean, a fool might.’

‘You like a
nez retroussé
then, serpent-green eyes and that wonderful boyish stride? She really does not present herself like a lady.’

‘I saw her this afternoon in the water meadows, at full gallop, riding a bay horse. Quite fearless, she was, all her veils flying!’

‘Very becoming that – a girl who can master a horse.’

‘The younger Duncker son used to be here every night at the tables. Haven’t seen him this year. He must have been mastered by the little Countess.’

‘Well, I gather she’s taken his place, and had a luckier swing at Fortune’s Wheel.’

Max dragged Sophie through the lighted streets towards the Marktplatz, nodding to the odd acquaintance. He glowed with rage, and never noticed the social sensation caused by their rapid progress. What irritated him most? The fact that the Sibyl could write out a credit note for a thousand thaler without a flicker, and he couldn’t? His prospective bride rubbing shoulders at the gaming tables with men who were hardly gentlemen, and ladies who were certainly not ladies at all? Sophie von Hahn exposing herself to gossip, comment and impudent glances? The delinquent behaviour of Fräulein Garstein? The irresponsible Count? Or was he incensed by the bitter truth that she was winning, and winning large sums, whereas he always lost every stake, without fail?

‘You don’t need to hang on to me as if I was a criminal, Max. Let me go.’

‘You’re coming straight back to the hotel. How could you be so indiscreet?’

‘In what way? By winning?’

Sophie pulled herself free, and shaking with pink-cheeked resentment, took her stand on the steps of the Grand Continental, and declared, for all the world to hear:

‘How dare you spoil my game? I was well ahead. I know when to stop. Unlike you, by all accounts. You haven’t even asked for my hand and yet you think that you can treat me as if I were an abject wife, to be bullied and pushed about. You have no right to tell me what to do. And you never will have.’

Max hurled her and her ill-gotten gains through the hotel doors. And behold Fräulein Garstein, rushing towards them, a respectable middle-aged bundle of grey silks.

‘Ah
ma chère
, there you are! I was most anxious. The reception clerk told me that your headache had quite gone and that you had stepped out. I looked for you in the gardens. But I am so relieved to see that you were not alone! Indeed, you have discovered a most acceptable escort!’

She smirked at Max, the fiancé-in-waiting. Sophie laid down her heavy bundle of notes and cash on the marble table in the foyer, turned her back upon him, and began, with slow and ostentatious care, to unpin her hat. Max bowed low to both women, speechless with fury, and stalked out of the building. He pounded back down the Obere Promenade to the Kursaal, cutting several people dead en route and causing lasting offence.