A Sad Affair (19 page)

S
IBYLLE
HAD
walked down to the end of the road, and then turned in the direction of the lake. She went the same way she had gone with Friedrich, when he had visited the foreign city. The streets were quiet and deserted. Occasionally a car would pass or a pedestrian would come up the other way, his coat collar turned up and walking with long, hasty strides. If she heard silence behind her, then she knew that he had stopped to watch her, until, despairing at her continued walk, he would turn and carry on. Sibylle reached the lakeside road. There was a pause in the rain, and from behind a cloud a piece of the moon peeped out to illuminate the loose and broken cloudscape. The wind too had settled, and the lake was a smooth, black mirror. Like ink, Sibylle thought. The lights of the facing shore had lost their haze, and now each one burned separately, and projected its own clear, personal reflection on the surface of the water. A last streetcar crossed the wide bridge. The squeak of its wheels could be heard long after it was gone. The two conductors stood alone together in the brightly lit carriage. Sibylle went to the hotel where Friedrich had stayed. She rang the bell for the porter, and then ran away and hid behind a tree when she heard the approach of firm steps and a jingling of keys. The light over the door came on, and a man stepped out on to a little area under a roof that covered the drive. He stood as on a stage, a scarf around his neck, the keys in his hand, and looked around crossly. He shouted something that sounded like an oath and went back inside. The light went out at the same moment that the moon was masked by a cloud, and it was as though it too had been extinguished by the irate porter. For a while there was total darkness. Only gradually were the outlines of things reestablished in the light of the street-lamps. Sibylle was annoyed with herself for not asking for Friedrich. She knew he couldn't be there. But she would have liked to have asked the question, and heard an answer to it. There seemed to be some point in that. The air wrapped itself around her like a damp cloth. Everything returned: the rain, the wind. It was like a cold compress laid around the chest of someone sick with a fever. The patient shivers and grimaces, and the red, cracked hands of the nurse strike him as incredibly cruel. Sibylle walked down the steps to the quayside, and wandered along the water's edge, stumbling over gravel, rubble, and dirt. She walked there because she was afraid. She walked there because shudders ran down her spine, and because she saw masked murderers in every shadow. Was she not the Sibylle who was suffïciently free and courageous to follow the prompting of any moment? Was she a prisoner in her room at the Saint Peter's Hostel, a slave to the cabaret, the mistress of Fedor, who would be waiting for her with his simple soul's irritating cheerfulness? She picked up a stone and chucked it in the water. It sounded as if the lake had gulped and had to force it down. Sibylle threw more stones. She listened to the sounds they made. "The lake's gurgling, its gurgling!" she cried. When she'd stood here with Friedrich, she had had the feeling he had wanted to glide into the deep with her. What if someone came along now, who would simply push her into the water? Would she scream? She was already screaming! Shrilly, in a demented treble. She felt the touch of hands on her, and didn't know they were her own. Was she condemned to be the victim of some man? She herself had wanted to be like a man in the way she chose a lover, and gave desire and responsibility the slip. Was that it, that she wanted to avoid the fate of the woman, and, more actively and more intellectually obsessed than other girls, to play the knight herself, the one who comes and confers grace and happiness as the mood takes him? Had she not selected and used up the men who were her lovers? Had she not been the one to speak to Bosporus and court him, once she was excited by his veteran's limp? Had she not resisted Friedrich because she refused to give in to the demands that were implicit in his love? And had she not taken Fedor to herself because he was nothing more to her than an animal in need of shelter that had lain down in front of her door one night? Sibylle walked on. The moon peered out of a window in the clouds again, and pinned a long shadow on her, reaching down to the water. Her fear calmed. She was out of terror's clutches. She looked around for a flight of stairs up to the lakeside road. All at once, she stopped and laughed. A wild, childlike laugh. She wondered which of the men she knew would understand her night walk. She pictured their horror, their astonishment, their surprise, the words: "You must be mad!" and almost burst with laughter. Only Friedrich would understand her walk. No one else. She knew that. When she reached the road, she trotted glumly home, like a schoolgirl weighed down with the many unsolved problems in the satchel on her back.

I
N
R
OME
, Friedrich was praying. He knelt on the flags at the shrine of a saint whose name he didn't know. Friedrich had had a Protestant baptism and upbringing, and he wasn't at home in a Catholic church, but never had he prayed with such fervor. The cathedrals he knew were bare, lofty barns, without any swirl of incense. White unadorned pillars stood in rigid lines supporting the beams. The roses of their capitals flowered invisibly. Here, though, God and His saints were on view, and you could raise up your voice to them, and complain and accuse, and pray for a blessing. Like most men of his age, Friedrich had led a churchless life and not felt any deprivation. Nor did his kneeling in Rome betoken any sort of conversion. It was a surge of desire, belief, and hope that broke from him, set in motion by the sight of the group of young sailors and their chaste darling with whom Friedrich had traveled. In the station, he had bought wine and offered it to them, who were going farther, to Livorno. They had duly passed the bottle round among themselves, from mouth to mouth, and to the mouth of the girl, and raised it before drinking and said: "Here's to your beloved, Signore!" And when they went away waving and laughing, Friedrich thought once more: I wish I were like them. And then he had sent off a couple of telegrams. One to Sibylle with a twenty-word reply paid for. It told of Friedrich's separation from Anja, and asked Sibylle to tell him if he might see her, or if she wanted to meet him somewhere. The return address he gave as a hotel in Bologna, whose name he had once heard. The other telegram was sent to a place from where Friedrich had hopes of being sent money. Then he went straight on to Bologna, and that had been the extent of his second sojourn in Rome.

T
IRED
OUT
after her walk, Sibylle had thrown herself down on her bed. Her coat hung down to the floor, while she lay on its sleeve and collar. She hadn't undressed further. She was relieved that Fedor hadn't been waiting in her room, and that, in fact, his window was dark and he seemed to have gone to sleep. Sibylle remained awake. She waited for a bell to sound. Surely news would come for her. It was the pauper's wait for the postman. You hear him set his foot on the bottom step, he's on his way up, perhaps he's bringing news, a message that'll provide a ray of hope or a meal for that particular day—when he turns on his heel, just before the crack of our door, turns back, and we hear the quick taps of his iron-heeled shoes as he scuttles down the stairs. Sibylle's bed was a raft on a boggy pool. She heard the gurgle all round her of hollow bubbly sounds, and the wizened faces of ancient toads emerged out of the muck and stared at her with mightily bulbous eyes. She didn't want to set foot on the cabaret stage again. She didn't want to see Magnus again, or Fedor, or any of them. She remembered the dressing-room reek of rancid fat, strong perfume, soap, sweat, and alcohol, and it made her feel sick. She felt like screaming again, but she didn't want to show her fear, her dread, to anyone, and it might have brought out Fedor, which would have been insufferable to her at that moment. Outwardly, she would have to continue to be the secure, brave, and sensible Sibylle. The raft mustn't capsize. The bog mustn't wash over her. There was no one to help her, not Bosporus and not Friedrich. And there was no news.

Outside, it was getting light. Firm strides tramped along the pavements outside. The workers were leaving their homes and going to their factories. A streetcar screeched to a sudden halt. Sibylle could feel in her teeth the grind of the jammed wheels on the smooth rails. Her room looked cool and bare. She looked at her stuffed toys, her bears and dogs and donkeys, and thought they still looked asleep. Then she got out of bed, went up to the mirror, and saw that she was still the young Sibylle with the delicate features. Her wakeful night hadn't caused her face to slacken. The skin was taut with a tension that looked well on her. Her eyes had a swimmy sheen that might have come from the kingdom of dreams. Sibylle made herself ready with a care she hadn't shown for a long time. She dealt with a profusion of waters, lotions, powders, and essences, made a careful choice of underwear, dress, stockings, and shoes, and was as beautiful, clean, and fragrant as any young English lady paying her first call on the Queen, and then, with a quiet cry, she threw herself back on the bed to await the ringing of the bell.

I
N
B
OLOGNA
Friedrich was standing in the "Two Towers," in an old smoke-blackened room, in front of an ancient stooped man, who, with trembling, almost tearful voice, was saying: "Yes, there is post for the gentleman, yes, there is post there, if
I
might see his passport, yes, of course, very good, sir, there is some post," and he passed Friedrich a telegram. Friedrich had to go over to the window to be able to make out the writing. The shadows of the two towers leaned heavily down on the old inn. When he looked out of the window at the masonry, he couldn't see to the top of them. Two endless, crooked paths seemed to be leading up to heaven. When they collapse, they'll squash us, thought Friedrich. He was afraid to open the telegram. What sort of rejection would Sibylle be shouting to him this time?

S
IBYLLE
HAD
come charging toward the boy who had brought Friedrich's second telegram from Rome, and had thrown her arms around him, because a message spelled the way out for her. The jaws of the trap loosened, and the grille slid aside leaving a chink she could slip through. She threw everything she had into a large suitcase, sat down on it, and got the lid shut. A whistle, a shrill, guttersnipe-style whistle out the open window might be sufficient. A taxi would drive up, the driver would pick up the suitcase; she was free, she could get away from the bog. But: Was that what she wanted? Was it necessary to flee? Did she have to sneak away unnoticed? Could she not cut the ribbon of camaraderie, of an empathy that was foreign to her and that she hated, openly and in front of everyone? She lapsed into the tiger stride. She crisscrossed the room. The grille was shut again. She had shut it herself. But now she was a dangerous wild animal, with teeth and claws. She knocked on Fedor's door. Her face bore the veiled expression that Friedrich had got to see so many times. "I'm leaving." Her voice was harsh. Fedor rolled over in bed, and asked what the weather was like. He hadn't understood her. Sibylle was sorry she had come. Was it still flight, if she left him asleep? She said: "Afraid it's raining," and she slammed the door behind her.

F
RIEDRICH
KEPT
rereading the text of the telegram. Was it not a fanfare, a jubilation, an annunciation? "
MEET
ME
V
ENICE
," it said. "
MEET
ME
V
ENICE
TOMORROW
MORNING
," and it gave an exact time as well. Was that not a miracle? Friedrich went out onto the square. He saw pigeons grazing in front of a church. The pigeons of Venice, he thought. He owed thanks to God, his prayers had been answered, a miracle had befallen, Sibylle was coming to him, he would see her, hold her in his arms, hand her into a gondola; he had better set off for Venice right away. The heavens were lofty and bright above the two towers. Friedrich hurried back into the inn.

He felt he owed the old man an apology, because he was going on without having slept there. He ordered some of the old man's best wine. In the shadowy bar, it looked as black as elderberry juice. Friedrich invited his host to drink with him. He said: "Sibylle." The old man loudly clacked his tongue. A slow and heavy heat came from the wine.

It was night by the time Friedrich reached Venice. He was there to choose Sibylle's billet, and he didn't know where to turn. The station platform was like a building site. In front of a half-built wall were troughs of mortar and large white cement sacks, some of which, overfilled, had burst, and spilled their dusty contents across the platform so that your shoes went white as you walked. Then a passageway lined with faded posters took in the travelers, only to spit them out in front of a serried row of hotel agents. Friedrich didn't dare to succumb to their chanted appeals or to the famous names on the brass badges on their caps. His money was almost gone. Unless he was sent more—I must send another wire, he thought—and with Sibylle, he would spend the last of his lire in a week at the outside. That calculation irked him. He felt like a debt-laden wastrel. Why hadn't he been more prudent, and saved up his money for Sibylle? He cursed his trip with Anja and her expenses, in a way that was unattractive and wasn't really him. The hotel agents, who hadn't managed to fish any guests out of this last train of the day, moved grumpily onto the waiting platform for the vaporetto and shoved Friedrich out on deck with them. He stood by the rail, heard the signal for departure, saw the pistons begin to move, and sniffed the hot steam smell of the boiler. A cool breeze blew down from the bows. From the greenish canal water, a line of white foam rose on either side with a soft hiss. The frontages of the buildings could not be seen in any detail. From time to time you could make out some gaudy landing poles in front of a palazzo. The dark entrances of lateral canals were sinisterly silent. After they had passed under the arch of the Rialto Bridge, Friedrich got out. He followed his yen to be somewhere in the heart of the city, and he booked a couple of rooms for himself and Sibylle in a simple hotel close to the vaporetto stop. They were inexpensive, and one was over the other. Friedrich moved into the downstairs room so as to be able to hear Sibylle's footfall above him. He put himself to bed with the desire to hear that footfall.