Billiards At Half-Past Nine Part 7

"What did you do?"

"Emotionally disturbed conduct due to disappointed love. But nothing idealistic in it. I was battling something real."

"Care to go into it?" asked Nettlinger.

"No," said Schrella, "you wouldn't understand and you'd take it for a compliment.

"I threatened a Dutch politician because he said all Germans should be killed-a highly popular politician. Then the Germans freed me when they occupied Holland, thinking I was some kind of a martyr for Germany. However, they found my name on their list of wanted persons, and I fled from their love to England. There I threatened an English politician because he said all Germans should be killed and only their works of art saved-a highly popular politician. But soon they let me out on probation, thinking my feelings should be respected, feelings I hadn't felt at all when threatening the politician-thus one gets locked up because of a misunderstanding, and because of a misunderstanding one is set free."

Nettlinger laughed. "If you collect pictures, let me contribute one. How about this one? Ruthless political hatred among schoolmates. Persecution, interrogation, flight and hate enough to kill. But twenty-two years later, the returning refugee rescued from jail by, of all people, the persecutor, the monster. Doesn't that picture deserve a place in your collection, too?"

"It isn't a picture," said Schrella, "it's an anecdote, one which has the drawback of being true-but if I translated it into abstract image and interpreted it for you, you'd hardly be flattered."

"It certainly is strange," Nettlinger said softly, taking the cigar out of his mouth, "that I should be pleading for understanding, but believe me, when I read your name on the Wanted List and checked the report and learned they really had arrested you at the frontier, I didn't hesitate an instant to get everything going for your release."

"I'd be sorry if you thought I doubted the sincerity of your motives and feelings," Schrella said. "I don't even doubt your remorse, but pictures-since you asked me to put the anecdote in my collection-involve an abstract idea, namely the part you played then, and the part you play today. The parts-forgive me-are the same, because then the way to keep me harmless was to lock me up, whereas today the way to keep me harmless is to set me free. I'm afraid that's why Robert, who has more of an abstract mind than I have, doesn't care to meet you. I hope you understand me-even at that time I never doubted the sincerity of your personal motives and feelings; you can't understand, don't even try; you didn't play your part knowingly-you'd be a cynic or a criminal-and you're neither."

"Now I really don't know if you're paying me compliments, or the opposite."

"Something of both," Schrella said, laughing.

"Perhaps you don't know what I did for your sister."

"Did you protect Edith?"

"Yes. Vacano wanted to have her arrested. He put her name on the list again and again, and again and again I took it off."

"Your good deeds," said Schrella, "are almost more terrible than your bad ones."

"And you're more merciless than G.o.d. He forgives the sins of the repentant."

"We're not G.o.d and can't any more measure up to His mercy than to His omniscience."

Nettlinger leaned back, shaking his head. Schrella took a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth and again was startled as Nettlinger's lighter suddenly clicked in front of his nose and the clean light-blue flame nearly singed his lashes. 'And your politeness,' he thought, 'is worse than your rudeness ever was. Your always wanting to be Johnny-on-the-spot is the same now as it always was. It was that way when you threw the ball in my face. It's the same now when you offer me a light for my cigarette in an annoying way.'

"When can Robert be reached?" he asked.

"Probably not until Monday; I couldn't find out where he's spending the weekend. And his father and daughter are away, too. You might try his apartment this evening, or tomorrow morning at nine-thirty in the Prince Heinrich Hotel. He always plays billiards there between nine-thirty and eleven. I hope they weren't too rough on you in prison?"

"No," said Schrella. "Everything according to Hoyle."

"Let me know if you need money. You won't get far with what you've got."

"I think it'll last till Monday. I'll get some then."

The line of cars grew longer and wider on the way to the station. Schrella tried to open the window; after an unsuccessful struggle with the handle Nettlinger leaned across him and wound the window down.

"I'm afraid," he said, "the air coming in is no better than the air in here already."

"Thank you," said Schrella. He looked at Nettlinger, transferred his cigarette from left hand to right, and right to left again. "Tell me," he said, "the ball Robert hit that time-was it ever found? Do you remember?"

"Yes," said Nettlinger, "of course I do; I remember very well, there was so much talk about it afterwards. They never found the ball. They looked for it that evening till late into the night and even the following day, in spite of its being a Sunday. They couldn't get over it. Later on someone claimed it had only been a trick of Robert's and he hadn't hit the ball at all, only faked the noise of the strike and hidden the ball somehow."

"But they all saw the ball go in the air, though-or didn't they?"

"Of course, no one believed the business about hiding the ball. Others said it must have landed in the brewery yard in a beer truck standing there. You may remember a truck came out soon after."

"That was before, long before Robert hit the ball," said Schrella.

"I think you're mistaken," said Nettlinger.

"No, no," said Schrella, "I was standing there waiting and watching everything carefully; the truck came out before Robert hit the ball."

"All right, then," said Nettlinger. "In any case, they never found the ball. Here's the station. Won't you really let me help you?"

"No, thank you, I don't need anything."

"May I at least invite you to have a meal with me?"

"Fine," said Schrella, "let's go and have a meal."

The chauffeur held the door open and Schrella got out first, waiting, hands in pockets, for Nettlinger, who took his brief case from the seat, b.u.t.toned his overcoat and said to the chauffeur, "Call for me at the Prince Heinrich Hotel towards half-past five, please." The chauffeur touched his cap, and got back into the driver's seat.

Schrella, with his spectacles, sloping shoulders, strange, smiling mouth, blond hair not yet grown thin, with only a light silver sheen and still combed straight back. The same gesture, when he wiped sweat off his face and put his handkerchief back in his pocket. Schrella seemed unchanged, hardly grown older at all, a couple of years or so.

"Why did you come back?" asked Nettlinger quietly.

Schrella looked at him, blinking, the way he had always done, teeth biting into his lower lip; cigarette in his right hand, hat in his left. He looked long at Nettlinger, and waited, waited still in vain for what, during more than twenty years, he had longed for: hatred. For the tangible thing he had always wanted, striking someone in the face or kicking them in the a.r.s.e, and shouting, 'b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' He had always envied people who were capable of such simple feelings, yet he could not strike the round, self-consciously smiling face, or give the man's backside a kick. A leg stuck out on the school's step so he would go cras.h.i.+ng down and drive the bow of his gla.s.ses into his ear lobe; waylaid on the way home, dragged into doorways and beaten up; he and Robert beaten with barbed whips; given the third degree. There he was, guilty of Ferdi's death-and of protecting Edith and setting Robert free.

He looked away from Nettlinger to the station square, teeming with people. Sun, weekend, taxis waiting and ice cream vendors, hotel boys in violet uniforms lugging suitcases this way behind guests. St. Severin's majestic gray facade, the Prince Heinrich Hotel, the Cafe Kroner. He gave a start, as Nettlinger suddenly ran off and plunged into the crowd, waving and calling, "h.e.l.lo, there, Miss Ruth!" then came back, shaking his head.

"Did you see that girl?" he asked, "the one with the green beret and the pink pullover? She's strikingly pretty-Robert's daughter. I couldn't catch her. She could have told us where to find him. Pity-did you see her?"

"No," said Schrella softly. "Edith's daughter."

"Of course," said Nettlinger, "your niece. h.e.l.l-let's go and eat."

He walked along over the station square, crossed the street, Schrella following him, to the Prince Heinrich Hotel; a bellboy in a violet uniform held the door open for them. It swung back again in their wake, into its felt-lined frame.

"By the window?" asked Jochen. "Certainly. Not too much sun? Then the east side. Hugo, make sure the gentlemen are given a place on the east side. Not at all." Tips gratefully accepted here. One mark is a round and honorable coin, tips the soul of the profession, and I did win after all, my friend, you didn't get to see him. What's that, please, does Dr. Faehmel play billiards on Sundays too? Schrella? For heaven's sake! This time I needn't look at the red card. "Good G.o.d, Mr. Schrella, you'll forgive an old man a free way of talking at this quiet time of day! I knew your father well, very well; yes, he worked with us for a year, he did; that was the year they held the German Athletics and Sports Festival; do you actually remember it? Of course, you must have been round about ten or eleven by then. Here's my hand, it's a privilege to shake hands with you. My G.o.d, they'll forgive me a few feelings which as it were don't go with my job. I'm old enough to get away with that. He was a serious man, your father, a man of dignity. He never took any back talk from anyone, good G.o.d no, but when anybody was nice to him he was like a lamb. I've often thought about your father. Forgive me for opening old wounds-I clean forgot, good heavens; what a blessing those pigs have no more say over here. But be careful, Mr. Schrella, watch out; sometimes I think: they did win after all. Careful. Don't trust this state of affairs-and forgive an old man a few off-the-cuff feelings and remarks. Hugo, the very best table for the gentlemen on the east side, the very best. No, Mr. Schrella, Dr. Faehmel doesn't play billiards on Sundays, no, never on Sundays. He'll be very glad, you were childhood friends, weren't you, had a lot in common? Don't think everybody forgets. If he should show up here for any reason, I'll let you know, if you'll leave your address here with me. I'll send you a message or a telegram. Or call you up, if you like. We do anything for our customers, you know."

Hugo remained expressionless. Guests to be recognized only on their initiative. Shouting in the billiard room? Discretion. A barbed-wire whip? No, uncalled-for intimacies and conjectures should be avoided. Discretion the watchword of the profession. The menu? Here, please, gentlemen. Do the gentlemen like their table? East wall, window seats, not too much sun? Overlooking St. Severin's and the East Chancel, early Romanesque, eleventh or twelfth century, built by the Holy Duke Heinrich the Fierce. Yes, gentlemen, hot meals all day long. Every dish on the menu served from 12 A.M. to 12 P.M. The best a la carte? You're celebrating a reunion? A brief confidential smile befitting such confidential information; only don't think; Schrella, Nettlinger, Faehmel; no conjectures; scars on the back? Yes, the waiter's coming now and he'll take your order.

"Will you have a martini, too?" asked Nettlinger.

"Yes, please," said Schrella. He gave the boy his coat and hat, pa.s.sed his hands through his hair and sat down. There were only a few guests in the room, in the corner at the back, murmuring softly to one another. Gentle laughter, underscored by the clink of gla.s.ses. Champagne.

Schrella took the martini from the tray the waiter proffered him and waited until Nettlinger had taken his, then raised his gla.s.s, nodded to Nettlinger and drank. Nettlinger seemed to have aged in an incongruous way. Schrella remembered Nettlinger as a stunning blond youth whose brutal mouth had always retained a hint of good nature. Who had effortlessly been able to do four and a half feet in the high jump and run the hundred meter in 11.5 seconds. A brutal, good-natured winner, but clearly, Schrella thought, winning hasn't made you happy. Poor education, poor nutrition and no style. Probably eats too much. Already half bald, the sentimentality of age already in the moist eyes. Nettlinger, tightening his mouth professionally, bent over the menu, his white cuffs sliding back to reveal a gold wrist watch, on his third finger a wedding ring. Good G.o.d, thought Schrella, even if he hadn't done all he did, Robert would have little desire to go out drinking beer with him or take his children out to Nettlinger's suburban villa for family badminton games.

"May I make a suggestion?" asked Nettlinger.

"Please," said Schrella, "by all means."

"Here then," said Nettlinger, "there's excellent smoked salmon as hors d'oeuvre, followed by chicken with pommes frites and salad. And I propose we don't decide on the dessert till afterwards. With me, you know, an appet.i.te for dessert only develops during the meal; then I trust my instinct to tell me whether I should have cheese, a cake, an ice cream or an omelette. I'm only sure of one thing in the beginning-coffee." Nettlinger's voice sounded as if he had taken a course on How to Become a Gourmet. He still could not bear to interrupt the well-rehea.r.s.ed ritual, and was murmuring to Schrella, "Entrecote a deux, blue trout, veal medaillon."

Schrella watched Nettlinger's finger solemnly go down the list of dishes, stopping at certain items-a smack of the lips, a headshake, indecision-"I always weaken when I read poularde." Schrella lit himself a cigarette, glad to have avoided Nettlinger's lighter this time. He sipped at his martini again and let his eyes follow Nettlinger's index finger, which had arrived at the desserts. Their confounded thoroughness, he thought, ruins your appet.i.te even for something good and sensible like roast chicken; they just have to do everything better, and they are evidently well on the way to topping even the Italians and the French in the art of epicurean indulgence.

"Please," he said, "I'll stick to chicken."

"And smoked salmon?"

"No, thank you."

"You're missing something really tasty there. And you must be hungry as a horse."

"I am," said Schrella, "but I'll make up on the dessert."

"Up to you."

The waiter brought another two martinis on a tray that must have cost more than a night's lodging. Nettlinger took one gla.s.s from the tray, pa.s.sed it to Schrella, took his own, leaned forward and said, "Here's to your special health and prosperity."

Schrella said, "Thank you," nodded and drank. "One thing still isn't clear to me," he said. "How was it they arrested me right off at the frontier?"

"By rotten luck your name was still on the Wanted List. Attempted murder comes under the statute of limitations after twenty years, and you ought to have been struck off two years ago."

"Attempted murder?" asked Schrella.

"Yes, what you tried with Vacano comes under that heading."

"You know very well I had no part in it; I never even approved of that business."

"So much the better, then," said Nettlinger. "If that's the case there won't be any difficulty at all getting your name definitively struck off the Wanted List. All I could do was vouch for you and arrange for your provisional release. I couldn't have the entry annulled. Now the rest will be merely a matter of form. Do you mind if I begin my soup?"

"Not at all," said Schrella.

He looked away toward the station while Nettlinger ladled his soup from the silver bowl. The pale yellow lumps of marrow in the soup undoubtedy came from the n.o.blest breed of cattle which had ever grazed on German pastures; the smoked salmon on the tray gleamed golden between the green lettuce leaves, the toast was gently browned and silvery drops of water clung to the pats of b.u.t.ter. Yet the sight of Nettlinger eating caused Schrella to fight down a wretched feeling of compa.s.sion. He had always thought of eating as an act of great brotherliness, in humble or in grand hotels a feast of love. Having to eat alone had always seemed to him like a curse, and the sight of men eating alone, in waiting rooms and breakfast rooms and the countless boardinghouses in which he had lived, had always been for him a vision of d.a.m.nation. He had always sought company at meals, sitting for preference near a woman. Just the few words exchanged as he broke a roll of bread, the smile across the soup plate, the objects pa.s.sed from hand to hand, made the purely biological operation bearable and pleasurable. Men like Nettlinger, whom he had watched in infinite number, reminded him of men condemned, and their meals, of hangmen's meals. Though they knew and observed the customary table manners, they ate without ceremony, in deadly seriousness which murdered their pea soup or their poularde. And furthermore felt obliged to note the price of every mouthful they ate. He looked away from Nettlinger toward the station again, reading the huge banner which hung above the entrance: Welcome to our Homecomers.

"Tell me," he said, "would you describe me as a Home-comer?"

Raising his eyelids as if emerging from the depths of grief, Nettlinger looked up from the slice of toast on which he was spreading b.u.t.ter.

"That depends," he said. "Are you in fact still a German citizen?"

"No," said Schrella, "I'm stateless."

"Pity," said Nettlinger, bending over his slice of toast again, spearing a morsel of smoked salmon from the dish and laying it on. "If you could manage to prove you had to flee not for criminal but political reasons, you could collect a pretty handsome rest.i.tution payment. Would you like me to check into the legal position?"

"No," said Schrella. He leaned forward as Nettlinger pushed back the salmon dish. "Are you going to let some of that marvelous salmon go back?"

"Of course," said Nettlinger. "But really you can't...."

He looked round, shocked, as Schrella took a slice of toast from the plate and, with his fingers, some salmon from the silver dish and laid it on the toast. "... you really can't...."

"You haven't any idea of all the things one can do in such a distinguished hotel as this. My father was actually a waiter in these sacred halls. They wouldn't bat an eyelid if you chose to eat your pea soup with your fingers, in spite of its being unnatural and impracticable. But the Unnatural and the Impracticable precisely would cause the least of sensations here, hence the high prices; it's the price of waiters who don't bat their eyelids; but eating bread with your fingers and laying fish on it with your fingers-that is neither unnatural nor impracticable."

Smiling, he took the final sliver of salmon from the dish, separated the slices of toast again and slid the fish between them. Nettlinger was watching him angrily.

"Probably," Schrella said, "you feel very much like killing me now, not from the same motives as in the past, I must admit, but the intention is the same. Now listen to what the son of a waiter has to tell you: a really well-bred man never submits to the waiters' tyranny, and among the waiters, of course, are some who think as well-bred people do."

He ate his sandwich, while the waiter, aided by a busboy, prepared for the main course, setting up complicated constructions on little tables to keep it warm, distributing cutlery and plates, clearing away the dirty dishes; wine arrived for Nettlinger and beer for Schrella. Nettlinger tasted his wine. "Just a shade too warm," he said.

Schrella let them serve his chicken, potatoes and salad, toasted Nettlinger with his gla.s.s of beer and watched how the waiter poured the rich, dark-brown gravy over Nettlinger's portion of sirloin.

"By the way, is Vacano still alive?"

"Of course," said Nettlinger, "he's only just fifty-eight, and-you'll doubtless find the word strange in my mouth-he's one of the incorrigible ones."

"Oh," asked Schrella, "how am I to interpret that? Can there really be incorrigible Germans?"

"Well, he is faithful to the same traditions he followed in 1935."

"Hindenburg and the rest? Respectability, loyalty, honor and so on?"

"Exactly. Hindenburg could be the caption for him."

"And the caption for you?"

Nettlinger looked up from his plate, holding his fork firmly in the piece of meat he had just cut off. "If only you could understand me," he said. "I'm a democrat. A democrat by conviction."

He lowered his head to the piece of sirloin again, raised up the fork with the meat speared on it and thrust it into his mouth, touched his lips with his serviette and then, shaking his head, reached for his wine gla.s.s.

"What became of Trischler?" asked Schrella.

"Trischler? I can't say I remember him."

"Old Trischler who lived down in the Lower Harbor, where they broke up s.h.i.+ps later on. Can't you remember Alois either? He was in our cla.s.s."

"Oh," said Nettlinger, taking some celery from the dish. "Now I remember. We looked for Alois for weeks without finding him, and Vacano himself interrogated old Trischler, but he got nothing out of him, nothing at all out of him or his wife."

"You don't know whether they are still alive?"

"No. But that district down there was bombed a lot. If you want, I'll see you get down there. Good G.o.d," he said softly, "what's going on now, what are you doing?"

"I'd like to go," said Schrella. "Excuse me, but I've got to get out of here now."

He stood up, drank down his beer standing, made a sign to the waiter and, as the latter came noiselessly up to them, indicated the silver platter on which three pieces of roast chicken were still simmering over the spirit flame, in gently spluttering fat.

"Would you please have them wrapped for me," said Schrella, "so the fat doesn't leak out?"