Billiards At Half-Past Nine Part 8

"Certainly," said the waiter. He took the platter off the flame and had begun to go when he turned back again and asked, "The potatoes too, sir-and perhaps a little salad?"

"No, thank you," Schrella said, smiling, "the French fries go soft and the lettuce loses flavor." He looked into the gray-haired waiter's well-groomed face for a trace of irony, but none was there.

Nettlinger looked up angrily from his plate. "All right," he said, "you want to get back at me. I can understand that. But do you have to do it this way?"

"Would you prefer me to kill you?"

Nettlinger made no reply.

"In any case, it's not revenge," Schrella said, "I just have to get out of here, I can't stand it any longer, and I'd have kicked myself for the rest of my life if I'd let that chicken go back. Perhaps you can blame my instinct for economy; if I were sure they permitted the waiters and busboys to eat up leftovers, I'd have left it-but I know they don't allow it here."

He thanked the boy who had brought his coat and helped him on with it, took his hat, sat down again and asked, "Do you know Mr. Faehmel?"

"Yes," said Hugo.

"Do you know his phone number, too?"

"Yes."

"Would you do me a favor and call him up every half-hour, and when he answers tell him a Mr. Schrella would like to see him?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure there's a phone booth where I'm going, or I'd do it myself. Did you get my name?"

"Schrella," said Hugo.

"Right. I'll ask for you at about half-past six. What's your name?"

"Hugo."

"Thank you very much, Hugo."

He stood up, looked down at Nettlinger, who was taking another slice of sirloin from the dish. "I'm sorry," Schrella said, "that you see revenge in such a harmless act. I wasn't thinking of getting even for a single instant, but perhaps you will understand that I'd like to go now. Matter of fact, I don't want to spend much time in this hospitable city and I still have several matters to deal with. May I perhaps remind you once more of the Wanted List?"

"I'm available to you at any time, of course, officially or unofficially, as you wish."

Schrella took the neatly packed white carton from the waiter's hand and gave him a tip.

"The fat won't leak out, sir," said the waiter. "It's all wrapped in cellophane in our special picnic carton."

"Goodbye," said Schrella.

Nettlinger raised his head slightly and said, "Goodbye."

"Yes," Jochen was saying, "certainly, and then you'll see the sign post: 'To the Roman Children's Graves.' It's open till nine and lit at dark, Madam. Not at all, thank you very much." He came out from behind the desk and hobbled up to Schrella as the boy was opening the door for him.

"Mr. Schrella," he said quietly, "I'll do everything I can to find out how Dr. Faehmel may be reached. In the meanwhile I've learned one thing from the Cafe Kroner. There's a family party there at seven in honor of old Mr. Faehmel, and you'll certainly meet him there."

"Thank you," said Schrella, "thank you kindly," and he knew no tip was called for in this case. He smiled at the old man, and walked through the door, which swung softly back into its felt-lined frame.

8.

The entire width of the autobahn was barricaded by ma.s.sive signboards. The bridge that had spanned the river at this point had been destroyed, its ramps blown clean off. Rusty wire cables hung down in tatters from the pylons. Signboards ten feet high announced what lay in wait behind them: DEATH. A skull and crossbones, menacing, ten times life size, painted in dazzling white on jet black, made the same announcement graphically to those for whom the word was not enough.

a.s.siduous students from the driving schools practiced their gear-changing along that dead stretch, grew familiar with speed and ground their gears, backing to the left, backing to the right. And neatly clad men and women, relaxing after work, would stroll along the roadway leading past the golf course and between the small garden plots, and peer at the ramps and the menacing signboards, behind which, seeming to mock at death, the modest little construction workers' huts lay hidden; behind DEATH, blue fumes rising up from the stoves where the night watchmen were warming their lunches, toasting bread and lighting their pipes with splinters of wood. The steps, of bombastic design, had survived destruction and now, on the warm summer evenings, served as seats for weary strollers; from a height of sixty feet, they could watch the progress of work. Divers in yellow suits slid down into the waters, guided the crane hooks to segments of iron or blocks of concrete, and the cranes hauled up the dripping catch and loaded it onto barges. High on the scaffolding and on swaying catwalks, up in crow's nests fixed to the pylons, workmen severed the torn steel girders, their oxyacetylene lamps giving off blue flashes as they cut out twisted rivets and sheared away the remains of tattered cables. In the river, the columns with their transverse b.u.t.tresses stood like giant empty gates framing acres of blue nothingness. Sirens signaled "Waterway clear," "Waterway blocked," green and red lights went on and off, as the barges carried coal and wood here and there, there and here.

Green river, cheerfulness, soft banks with their willow trees, gaily colored boats, blue flashes from the welding torches. Wiry men and wiry women, serious-faced, carrying golf clubs, went walking over the immaculate turf, behind their golf b.a.l.l.s, for eighteen holes. Smoke rose up from the allotments, where bean shoots and pea shoots and discarded stakes were being burned, making sweet-smelling clouds in the sky, like primitive cave paintings, balled together in baroque shapes, then dissolving, against the clear, gray afternoon sky, into tormented figures until a rush of wind mangled them again and swept them away to the horizon. Children went roller skating on the rough-surfaced parking edge, fell down, cut their arms and knees and showed their scratches and abrasions to their startled mothers, extracting promises of lemonade and ice cream. Hands entwined, loving couples went wandering down to the willow trees, where the high-tide mark had long ago been bleached away, where the reed stalks stood and corks and bottles and shoe-polish cans were littered. Barge-men climbed up their swaying gangways onto land, women appeared with shopping baskets on their arms, self-confidence in their eyes; the washing flapped in the evening wind on the spotless barges; green pants, red blouses, snow-white bed linen against the fresh, jet-black tar, gleaming like j.a.panese lacquer. Parts of the bridge were being hauled from the water, covered in slime and seaweed. In the background the slender gray silhouette of St. Severin's, and in the Cafe Bellevue the exhausted waitress announced: "The cream cake's sold out," wiped the sweat from her broad face and fumbled in her leather purse for change. "Only raisin cake left-no, the ice cream's sold out too."

Joseph held out his hand and she counted the change into it. He put the coins into his trouser pocket and the note into his shirt pocket, then turned to Marianne and with outstretched fingers combed the pieces of reed out of her dark hair and brushed the sand off her green sweater.

"You were so happy about the party," she said. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," he said.

"But I feel there is. Is it something else?"

"Yes."

"Don't you want to tell me?"

"Later," he said. "Maybe not till years from now, maybe soon. I don't know."

"Is it anything to do with us?"

"No."

"Really not?"

"No."

"With you?"

"Yes."

"Then it has to do with us."

Joseph smiled. "Of course, since I have to do with you."

"Is it something bad?"

"Yes."

"Is it anything to do with your work?"

"Yes. Give me your comb, but don't turn round. I can't get the fine sand out with my hands."

She took the comb from her handbag and pa.s.sed it over her shoulder to him; he held her hand for an instant.

"I've always noticed how in the evenings after the workmen have gone you walk along by the big heaps of brand-new stone, and just touch some of them-and I've noticed that yesterday and the day before you didn't do so; I know your hands well. And you left so early this morning."

"I went to get a present for Grandfather."

"You didn't leave early because of the present. Where did you go?"

"I was in town," he said, "the picture frame still wasn't ready, and I had to wait for it. You know the photo, don't you, the one with Mother holding my hand, Ruth in her arms and Grandfather standing behind us? I had it enlarged; I know he's going to like it."

And then I went to Modest Street and waited till Father came out of his office. Tall and straight, and I followed him to the hotel. I waited half an hour in front of the hotel, but he didn't come out and I didn't want to go in and ask for him. I only wanted to see him, and I did see him. A well-groomed gentleman in the prime of life.

He let Marianne go, put the comb in his trouser pocket, laid his hand on her shoulder and said, "Please, don't turn round, one can talk better this way."

"Lie better, you mean," she said.

"Perhaps," he said, "or better still, keep back some things." Looking past her ear he could look over the parapet of the cafe terrace and into the river, and he envied the workman hanging in a basket from the pylon, more than a hundred feet high, branding blue flashes on the air with his welder's torch. Sirens howled and an ice cream vendor went along by the hedge below the cafe, calling, "Ice cream, ice cream," then stopped and smoothed ice cream into crumbly wafers. In the background, St. Severin's gray silhouette.

"It must be something very bad," said Marianne.

"Yes," he said, "it's fairly bad-but maybe not. It's not certain yet."

"Bad inside or outside?"

"Inside," he said. "Anyway I gave Klubringer my notice this afternoon. Don't turn round or I won't say another word."

He moved his hands from her shoulders to her head and held it firmly facing the bridge.

"What will your grandfather say about your giving notice? He was so proud of you, he lapped up every nice thing Klubringer said about you like honey. And the Abbey means so much to him. You shouldn't tell him today."

"They'll have told him already, before he meets us. You know he's coming to St. Anthony's with Father; afternoon coffee before the big birthday party."

"Yes," she said.

"I'm sorry about Grandfather. You know that I like him. He'll certainly be coming out this afternoon, after he's visited Grandmother; anyway, for the time being I can't look at another brick or smell any more mortar."

"Only for the time being?"

"Yes."

"And what will your father say?"

"Oh," he said quickly, "he'll only regret it for Grandfather's sake. He's never been interested in the creative side of architecture, only in the formulas. Wait, don't turn round."

"So it's something to do with your father, I feel it. I'm so excited about seeing him at last; I've already talked to him a few times on the phone. I think I'm going to like him."

"You'll like him. You'll see him this evening at the latest."

"Do I have to go with you to the birthday party?"

"Absolutely. You can't imagine how glad Grandfather will be-and he particularly invited you."

She tried to free her head, but he laughed, held her fast and said, "Stop, we can talk much better this way."

"And lie."

"No-leave unspoken," he said.

"Do you love your father?"

"Yes. Especially since I learned how young he still is."

"You didn't know how old he was?"

"No. I always thought he was fifty or fifty-five-funny, isn't it, I was never interested in his exact age, and I was really shocked when I received my birth certificate yesterday and found out that Father is only just forty-three. It's young, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said, "and you're twenty-two."

"Yes, and until I was two years old I wasn't called Faehmel, but Schrella. Funny name, isn't it?"

"Are you angry with him because of that?"

"I'm not angry with him."

"Then what has he done, for you suddenly to lose all desire to go on building?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

"All right-but why didn't he ever visit you at St. Anthony's?"

"He's obviously not interested in building jobs, and perhaps they went out to St. Anthony's too much as children, you see? Sunday walks you go on with your parents-when you're grown up you only do them again when you definitely feel a need to take a repeat course in Melancholy I."

"Did you ever go on Sunday walks with your parents?"

"Not often, mostly with Mother and my grandparents, but when Father came home on leave he went along with us."

"To St. Anthony's?"

"There too."

"Well, I still don't understand why he never came out to see you."

"He simply doesn't like construction jobs. He's a little strange, maybe. Sometimes when I come home unexpectedly, he's sitting at the desk in the living room, scribbling formulas on the margins of blueprints-he has a large collection of them-but I think you'll like him."