Next World Novella Page 6

  Those spectators obeyed her every word; they ate out of her hand, drank whatever she served them, and although something quite different might have been ordered, no one dared respond to her pert remarks. For although Dana cast her spell over everyone with her charm and her slight eastern accent, and even the women turned to look at her, at heart she was the opposite of flirtatious. When one of the customers, a hopeful young man whom they all called Kiddo, began describing her with enthusiasm as the best bad waitress he’d ever come across, she could probably do almost anything, shouldn’t they think of her as a kind of minder or nurse instead – well, she whirled round at once and silenced not only him but all the others drinking in the bar. ‘Anyone here want to be minded?’ she inquired in an undertone, looking so slowly from table to table that everyone felt they’d been caught in some guilty act and devoted themselves to their glasses. But Kiddo, a dubious character of unattractively unwashed appearance with a face inviting a slap and bushy side-whiskers that almost came down to his chin, as if that made him a real man – Kiddo ducked into the crowd standing at the bar and was seen no more that evening.

  Schepp registered that with pleasure. His gaze followed Dana while she strode around the room as if shooting from the hip, furious down to the tips of her toes. He didn’t yet know that she had an unsuccessful career as a dancer behind her, but he could see it, good God, he could see it. The fact that that career had been a failure, a few short engagements in third-class shows, made no difference when he learnt about it later. He was no wiser on the vital point: had she exerted her obvious talents only to drive men crazy – or women as well? An excitingly terrible idea.

  Schepp sat. Schepp drank. Schepp waited. Was he not the only one who knew what Dana was really like? Hadn’t he seen it with his own eyes? He was always trying to extract a revelation from her when he followed her outside. He discovered all sorts of things, but not what he was hoping to discover. After a few weeks he knew a good deal about the circumstances of her life, the past circumstances of her life, because she liked to tell him about her childhood with her grandmother in Galicia, and how she had helped out in the fields as a little girl; they’d even had a television, a tractor, there was an uncle in America, in short it had been a golden age – but she was airily elusive so far as her present life was concerned, she reacted to questions both impulsively and confusingly: ‘Well, of course, Professor, a bit of fun makes things even more fun.’ Was that supposed to mean – ? Was it just naïve chatter, or was there subtle calculation behind it?

  Dana. As every single one of his questions led only to more questions, never to a definite answer, Schepp thought her capable of anything. He often found her out in a lie; she was both a talkative and a muddled creature who seemed to have forgotten how a sentence had begun by the time she reached the end of it – her brain was a labyrinth of blind alleys, what she said was surprising, sometimes amusing, but above all a strain on the listener, or at least on a listener like Schepp, who doubted and even despaired of her mind when she talked to him. Until the image of a mobile hanging from the ceiling occurred to him. Yes, he said to himself, that may be how her mind functions, each thought fitted separately to make up a constantly circling structure, moved forwards by the slightest breath of air, next moment backwards or upwards, downwards, something that seemed puzzlingly fickle and unpredictable, but in reality was nothing but a natural process, the outcome of a change in air current rather than thought process.

  Soon there was no resisting Dana’s erratic way of conversing. It was something of a borderline experience for the honest scholar he had been all his life: he understood that when he talked to her it wasn’t the meaning but the sound of the words that mattered. From then on he stopped speaking logically to her, no more arguing, insisting, deploying his brilliance; instead he indulged in a sweet buzz of sound, rhetorically dressing up an absence of meaning. Dana would sometimes smile at him with her big, empty eyes, a reward worth more than any international recognition he had ever received.

  He, number one in his field of study, spent an entire spring, almost an entire summer with her, smoking, agreeing with nearly all of her mysteriously wayward remarks as if he had finally found someone who understood his innermost mind. He was entirely absorbed in his new life. Doro at most wrinkled her nose and said nothing. There was nothing worth talking about, was there? The fact that Schepp had discovered the life of bars and red wine and smoking, all in moderation, of course, who could blame him? Certainly not Doro with her gentle sympathy. ‘If you ever stop loving me I shall notice at once,’ she had assured him when they married, when he had asked her what she expected from their life together and without stopping to think she had replied, ‘Nothing.’ All she wanted was to be happy. But suppose one day she wasn’t? She’d know what to do, she said.

  Oh, Doro trusted her feelings, she would feel it when he stopped loving her whether his clothes smelled of stale smoke or not. He did still love her just as he always had done. At times, however, he surprised himself, even if Doro didn’t; he was sometimes oppressed by guilt in the afternoon, in broad daylight, although he hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of. Luckily such feelings became much less distinct at dusk, dissipating entirely once night fell and he took his hat and went out again.

  So it could probably have gone on for years. Then Dana suddenly disappeared. Apparently because a considerable sum of money had gone missing from the till when the drinks bought were reckoned up against the takings. Paulus had obviously only just checked the figures, promptly blaming his waitress for the discrepancy. Although of course she protested her innocence. Her, innocent? Paulus asked across the bar as he polished a glass to sparkling radiance, and he was sure of the nods all round. When customers nevertheless threatened to go off and drink wherever Dana turned up to wait if he didn’t take her back, he assured them that he’d rather go bust.

  Schepp listened calmly to all this, sitting at his usual place beneath the wooden vault and working his way, sip by sip, towards a decision. It was no good, you had to bow to the unrelenting nature of existence, you had to reconcile yourself to whatever happened and would happen, you had to accept your fate or be dashed to pieces against it – this, or something like it, is how Schepp was thinking as he picked his way through the situation. And thought that if it turned out badly for him, at least he’d know the right place to attack, indeed to bite.

  Shortly thereafter Schepp observed himself speaking casually to Paulus, bringing the conversation around to Dana and her ‘misappropriation’ of funds, striking his forehead and confiding that now, embarrassingly, it was clear that the whole thing probably should be chalked up to his account, literally so. It was not the real Schepp, of course, who confessed to Paulus, making a very obvious effort to be discreet, that all those weeks and months he had let Dana chalk up what he owed. The missing sum could only be the amount she had secretly cancelled on his behalf. Paulus tugged awkwardly at his moustache, not sure what to think of this story, then decided not to complicate matters even further and unnecessarily, and named a sum he thought appropriate. Schepp was alarmed by the amount but did not hesitate for a moment; yes, it must be something like that, could he settle up with his credit card?

  Which made Dana’s innocence clear and gave Paulus no option but to apologize to her immediately and ask her to come back and work for him, after all, he wasn’t a monster – in fact, Schepp ought to give her the glad news himself, he said, handing him the telephone that stood on the bar. He was sure the Professor could explain it to her better.

  Schepp had enough presence of mind to put this off until the following day. He didn’t like to call anyone so late, he said, perhaps Paulus would be kind enough to write the number down? Paulus stroked his moustache even more thoroughly than usual, but then he even wrote down the Polish country code. Yes, a call to her would cost money, what had Schepp been thinking?

  Schepp preferred to leave that question open. A few days later Dana was back serving drinks at La Pfiff as if sh
e had never been away, and she thanked him by observing him very carefully from the bar, so carefully that it wasn’t quite seemly, and then she brought him his wine, ostentatiously breathing in an undertone, ‘I dreamt of you again last night.’ Schepp was accustomed to mockery of that kind from her, it meant nothing at all, it was just what he expected.

  It did, however, surprise him that she never once took a smoking break. Only when nearly everyone had left, and she still hadn’t said or done anything that she didn’t say or do at every other table, did Schepp give himself a push and go over to the bar to pay; he almost stumbled, the wine affected his legs so suddenly. As she printed out the receipt Dana turned to him in such a way that the tattoo was right in his face. Sorting the notes she asked how she could ever repay him for ‘all that’, but her eyes did not sparkle as she spoke. It was on the tip of Schepp’s tongue to say, oh, it will be enough if some day I can give that damn throat of yours a good bite, but immediately a rushing began in his ears, his jaw worked idly, and he said nothing. Or did he? He must have said something or other in his confusion; with that rushing in your ears you couldn’t hear yourself speak. Dana suddenly laughed so indignantly that the rushing stopped at once, and everyone still sitting with their glasses looked up..

  Schepp remembered only those glances directed at him, an overexposed snapshot in his memory that faded everything else out, a still moment of terror into which, powerfully, eternity had passed. Then the picture started moving again. Dana turned away from him with contempt and began, with a ‘That takes even my breath away!’, to pull him to pieces. In so far as he could hear at all, what with the rushing in his ears, that terrible rushing. He didn’t know whether to feel offended as a man or as someone who had, after all, shelled out a considerable sum of money for Dana and now had to listen to her putting him down in the most brazen way.

  Today, when he reconstructed the scene, he felt sick with embarrassment; he would have liked to have kept his eyes firmly shut until it was entirely forgotten. He ought really to have told Doro about it long ago, but the story had not point – apart perhaps from the fact that he had never felt so ashamed in his life, what was there to say? Soon after he had unselfishly paid off Dana’s debts, she had disappeared again anyway. This time for good. Paulus didn’t know why. No, she had left of her own accord, disappeared from one day to the next, that was her way, he had no means of keeping her.

  And this time Schepp had no means of getting her back. Yes, he kept ringing her at different times of the day and night, but he always got her voicemail, left good wishes ‘from all at La Pfiff’, at first even whistled a little goodbye tune. His sense of humour took a beating when, one day, the digital voice told him that the number he wanted was unavailable – Schepp understood at once, even if he didn’t get a word of the Polish message. He cursed the doctor who had advised him to have his eye operation. In his old half-blind condition he would never have found his way to La Pfiff, would never have seen Dana and therefore would not be missing her now, missing her in this pathetic way. If only he had stayed in the peaceful routine of his old life with his wonderful wife! Who now lay dead beside him, and had taken any resentment she might have had with her –

  Taken it with her?

  On the contrary. Schepp flew into a rage. Behind his back, she had maliciously compiled a reckoning, had left him all her resentment in black and white, and he couldn’t even contradict it. Oh no? He’d see if he couldn’t! Once again he was pacing back and forth in full flow, one last time, right hand keeping precise time in the air with his thoughts, index and little fingers, the rest of his hand a clenched fist. He was so angry with Doro (even though he had been angry with the ophthalmologist a moment earlier) that he could have knocked her down or done something else to hurt her.

  Schepp stamped, Schepp snorted, Schepp was a caged wild beast, he was going to bite the next hand that came close, watch out! When the doorbell rang he stood still for a moment, holding his breath, but it would only be the postman looking for the nearest idiot to deliver some neighbour’s package to. The hell with the postman. The doorbell rang a second time, rang in a demanding way and for rather too long. Schepp stood there trembling, gasping for breath, his glance roaming until it came to rest on Doro’s nose. The nose definitely looked sharper, he didn’t need convincing, her face was altogether thinner.

  Bonier.

  Uglier.

  Yes, he hissed, you’ve become uglier. Your own fault. It serves you right.

  From outside came the sound of a car driving away, from inside not even a buzzing, even the fly was hiding from him. A few breaths later he discovered it crawling out of Doro’s nose. ‘Filthy creature!’ he shouted, so loudly that it immediately settled on Doro’s cheek. The way it crawled out and the way it settled struck him as outrageous, incredibly nasty. All the bottled-up anger against Doro tried to discharge itself in determined gesticulating: ‘You just wait, you’ll be sorry!’

  The fly showed no alarm at his flapping. ‘Damn you, get out!’ If it stayed on Doro’s cheek he surely couldn’t – ? Then it all suddenly poured out of him. A desperate bitterness about his entire life: about the Emperor of China, whom as a little boy he had been so keen to meet and who had enticed him into this wretched life as a Sinologist; about his colleagues who had laughed at him for years; about his mother who had always blamed him for being a failure because he hadn’t become a professor, as if he hadn’t done far, far more in life than she had – she who hadn’t even been able to provide him with a proper father; about his parents-in-law, who thought that their daughter should have married someone better, and who had insisted on a prenuptial agreement with a strict division of property; about Doro, who never openly contradicted them to declare her belief in him, who had in fact withdrawn more and more as the years went on, as if they were living together only for the sake of their children – what was left of the dream they had shared, the one in which she dreamt about a lake with or without an isle of the dead in it? About Pia, who had fled as far as possible from her parental home as soon as she had her school-leaving certificate, as if she’d been any happier in the United States, as if she could ever have made it there, with her poor linguistic ability; about Louisa, who had meant everything to him but since puberty had fallen so short of all he had hoped she would be; about his doctoral students with their pathetically mediocre minds; about the ophthalmologist; about La Pfiff and every single person waiting for someone, looking for something; about Dana, who had come so unexpectedly into his life and disappeared from it equally unexpectedly. Who did she think she was, what right did she have to go through life so high-handedly, bringing nothing but confusion with her, wreaking havoc, leaving emptiness in her wake? A dark, gloomy storm was brewing inside Schepp, all the gloom he had kept within bounds all his life through persistent study of the ancient sources. Since his operation, following the trail of all things bright and colourful, it had crawled back into his life and devoured it.

  The fly took off into the air.

  Schepp followed in hot pursuit. It must atone for its sins. Ignoring in his fury the vase of flowers as it fell over and broke behind him, he struck out at the fly with the manuscript, now wielding the stack of paper with both fists, now rolling it up in his right hand. A few sheets came loose and fluttered to the floor. Schepp took no notice, he was focused on his rage. Wherever the fly came down he was after it like doom personified. Who cared if an object fell off the desk or the coffee table, fell off the shelf and rolled across the floor, even breaking?

  Then, head bent over, arms hanging powerless by his sides, he just sat there. On the ceiling, equally motionless, sat the fly. When the clock of the Church of the Good Shepherd struck first four high notes and then three low notes, Schepp knew what time it had struck, but didn’t know how the tears were pouring down his cheeks.

  Finally he drew up his knees and buried his face in his hands, hoping for a miracle. If it hadn’t been for that smell! Schepp could discern it more and more clearly, that
indecent something Other that had been waiting to ambush him this morning at the heart of his familiar home, that had maliciously skewed the day. How could flower water stink like that? Although when he knelt in front of the puddle that had spread among the broken pieces, the water smelt of nothing at all.

  Not in the least?

  Not in the least. Schepp inhaled. Such an intolerably unique smell had never entered his nostrils before. Should he fling all the windows open, should he get rid of everything in the room that was quietly, eerily, giving off that smell, trying to drive him mad? It couldn’t be Doro, thank God; he remembered her perfume, a bottle of it had stood on the desk ever since their wedding so that he always had the scent of her nearby when he surfaced from his texts and wanted to be reassured of her love. When had he last seen the little bottle of perfume? He hoped the fluid in it hadn’t evaporated.

  He found the flask intact, removed the stopper, closed his eyes, and for a few seconds he could imagine that everything was all right, was as it had been thirty years before. He dabbed some of the perfume behind Doro’s ears and at the base of her throat. There, that was better. He checked that her hands remained as he had folded them. By now they were considerably more rigid. Linked inseparably, they somewhat resembled claws. As he smoothed the sleeve of the kimono he saw more discoloured patches on her body and carefully covered them up again. Yes, that was better.

  Now he’d get it over and done with. Quietly, Schepp went around the room, carefully avoiding anything in his path, retrieving the sheets of his manuscript that he still had to read. There were not many, barely three pages. Doro’s final set of comments began on the third page. He could cope with her comments now too. He put all the pages in the correct order. And then? He would be done. And afterwards for all he cared the doctor could come, the undertaker, the lawyer to read the will, the executor. He sat down beside Doro on the chaise-longue. When he located the passage in which Marek was asked for his name and date of birth at the customs office, and was taken into custody, his own name was still there in the margin. ‘Why not just call him Hinrich and be done with it?’ At that point Schepp would have liked to stop reading again. But it was no good. He had promised.