The Master of the Day of Judgment (15 page)

We had at last reached a livelier neighbourhood in a part of the city in which I knew my way about. We were in a wide street, brightly lit by arc lamps, with acacia trees on either side of the roadway. The barracks of the 23rd Regiment cannot have been far away.

"Where have you led us?" Dr Gorski complained. "We've made a quite unnecessary detour, I could have been home long ago.''

"I've no intention of letting you go home yet," said the engineer. "That's the Gulliver Café over there. Won't you take an Allasch with me?"

Dr Gorski declined the offer for both of us without consulting me.

"I'm going home by tram," he announced. "Yes, by tram," he continued with a glance at me. "I'm not an officer, and have no status to live up to. You two can stand and wait here till a taxi turns up."

"Oh, nonsense, come in with us," the engineer said. "If you're lucky you'll meet an interesting man. My friend Pfisterer is a regular here, he's a true polymath, a man with a Barnum circus memory, a historian as well as a dancer, a painter, an engraver, actor, barman, Jack of all trades, paragon — and he's an expert in keeping his creditors at bay, though there are at least five hundred of them."

"Thank you, but I don't like long-haired geniuses," the doctor said grumpily.

"My friend Pfisterer is of the porcupine variety, besides being just the man I need today. Come on, I've no desire to go home alone tonight."

We went into the café. It was a rather dubious sort of place, and our arrival made a definite impression on the few customers. The engineer seemed to be well known here, as the young woman at the pay-desk greeted him with friendly condescension.

A reluctant waiter approached and asked for our orders.

"Is Dr Pfisterer still here?" the engineer asked him.

"Hasn't been anywhere else all day," said the waiter with a gesture implying contempt and well-justified mistrust.

"How much does he owe here?"

"Twenty-seven kronen, not counting tips."

"Here are twenty-seven kronen plus a tip," the engineer said. "Where is Dr Pfisterer?"

"He's over there in the billiard room as usual, busy writing."

A tall, thin, red-haired man was sitting at one of the marble tables with a half-empty beer bottle, an egg cup he was using as an ink pot, and a pile of handwritten pages in front of him. A quite young girl with hair dyed bright yellow was sitting silently by his side, making cigarettes. A dirty sheet of paper, fixed with a drawing-pin to the wall facing him, was covered with closely written pencilled handwriting. On closer inspection this turned out to be a document of far-reaching significance. It was as follows. "Announcement. The undersigned regretfully withdraw the charge of theft against Dr Pfisterer of stealing two illustrated weeklies and an illustrated supplement as he has threatened to take proceedings against us. (Signed) The table of the four."

"There he is," said the engineer. "Good evening, Pfisterer."

"Good evening. Don't disturb me," the red-haired individual replied without looking up.

"What are you working on, may I ask?"

"The thesis of a young idiot who badly wants a doctorate. Waiter, some stewed pears with a disgusting amount of syrup, and a Turkish coffee
à la
Pfisterer. I've got to finish this by eleven o'clock."

"Let me have a look. May I?" the engineer said, and picked up one of the handwritten sheets. "Pectins and glycosides as vegetable-flavouring substances," he read. "Since when have you been a chemistry expert, for heaven's sake?"

"I know as much about it as the members of the faculty at the university," the great scholar replied, and went on with his writing.

"Can you spare a moment, Pfisterer? I need some information."

"If you must, but make it snappy. The boy's coming at eleven o'clock to fetch his life's work."

"Is there a painter known to the history of art as the Master of the Day of Judgment?"

"Giovansimone Chigi, a well-known master, a pupil of Piero di Cosimo. Next question."

"Lived when?"

"1520, in Florence, you ignoramus."

"Did he commit suicide?"

"No. He died mentally deranged in the monastery of the Seraphic Brothers of the Seven Dolours."

The polymath put down his pen and looked up. He had a glass eye and on his right cheek a red birth-mark.

"Is that all you want to know?"

"Thank you, yes."

"Your thank you doesn't get me very far. You put three questions to me, as Mime did to Wotan, the Father of All. Now it's my turn, and I'm putting three questions to you, Solgrub. No. 1. How are you off for cash?"

"I've paid your bill."

"Splendid. I don't know that I've any other questions to put to you. Solgrub, go your way. I've long since noticed that you've disgracefully gone over to the moneyed section of humanity. Disgusting. Get out of my sight."

We drank our Allasch standing.

"Mentally deranged," the engineer muttered. "He has stronger weapons than I suspected. Mentally deranged? Nonsense. I fought in the east and I'm not afraid of his Last Judgment."

SEVENTEEN

A strange idea struck me at breakfast next morning. I tried to drive it away by thinking of more serious and important matters, but it would not leave me in peace and kept coming back, so I ended by giving in to it. I rose, took five of the white tablets the chemist had given me, and dissolved them in a glass of water. My eyes fell on the packed suitcases that were still in the room, for I had been intending to go away. Now I would have to abandon the project, for that absurd and crazy idea of mine had put it out of court.

However, when I sat down at my desk, the idea no longer seemed quite so stupid and ridiculous. Sleeping dreamlessly from one night to the next, cheating the devil of a grey autumn day, breaking the tyranny of the hours by an easy movement of the hand — something inside me murmured: Why wait? Do it now.

I picked up the glass and held it in my hand. No, not yet, I told myself, I've got to go out. There were some important matters to be attended to, things that I could not postpone. Later on, I muttered to myself, perhaps this evening, and I put the glass back on the desk.

When I came back at midday I found a note from the engineer on the desk.

"I have some important news for you," it said. "I appeal to you urgently not to go away or do anything until I've spoken to you. I'll be with you this afternoon."

I had not intended to go out again in any case, so I stayed at home. I took a book from the book case and settled down at my desk.

At about five o'clock a storm broke — thunder, lightning, a real cloudburst. If I hadn't shut the windows quickly the room would have been flooded. Then I stayed by the window and watched people scurrying for shelter. The street was swept clean of human beings in a moment — that amused me. Then the bell rang. There he is, I said to myself, he would turn up in a storm like this.

Important news. Well, we'll see. I did not hurry. I put the book I had been reading back in its place, picked up a sheet of paper from the floor, and put the armchair in front of the desk back where it belonged. Then I walked out of the room.

"Vinzenz, where's the gentleman who asked for me?" I called out. No-one had asked for me. The afternoon post had brought me the long-awaited letter from Jolanthe, the young lady of the Stavanger fjord. A big white envelope with no seal and no trace of perfume — that was just like her. I had called her Jolanthe in jest, after the heroine of some French novel the title of which I had forgotten. The name had not met with her approval, however, it was not her style, her name was Auguste. Well, she had written at last, this was the letter she had promised. That's good, I said to myself, now it's my turn to write. She kept me waiting long enough, now she can wait a bit, I said to myself, and put the letter unopened into a pigeon-hole in the desk.

At seven o'clock I gave up waiting. By that time it was dark, rain was still pattering on the windowpanes and black clouds hung over the roofs. He won't be coming any more, it's too late, I said to myself. Won't this rain ever stop? The glass into which I had dropped the white tablets was still there. No, not yet, it's not the right time yet. First I must put my papers in order. I had kept putting off that troublesome job, but it had to be done. Documents, notices, maps, crumpled or folded letters, ballast accumulated over the years — I could hardly find my way about the jumble in the desk. I told Vinzenz to make a fire in the grate, the room grew warm and comfortable, and I took a pile of dusty paper from the bottom drawer — and by some strange chance on the top of the pile were my exercise books from the military academy. I looked through one of them, and was struck by the clumsy writing of a sixteen-year-old.

The Territorial Reserve acts in support of the armed forces as a whole. Universal conscription. This must be served in person — substitution is not permitted. Krakow, Vienna, Graz, Budapest, Pozsony. Nine Territorial Reserve and six Honved territorial districts. Mother's birthday Wednesday
hastily written in the margin.
Mountain artillery. Portable recoil-operated quick-firing gun with removable shield, baggage train, took vehicle, eight mules for transport of rations. Tuesday the 16th, route march, fall in four a.m.

The dawn of my life, that's how it all began. Away with the rubbish, into the fire with it.

Letters from my guardian, who died half a life-time ago. Photograph of a girl I could not remember, with a date, 24 February 1902, written on the back, and with the words: Let it be true friendship that brings us together. The diary of a girl who died young, begun on 1 January 1901 at Dr Demeter's sanatorium, Merano. A big sketch done with coloured pencils. Details of the sale of 1200 cubic metres of beech and oak wood sent me by my estate manager. A catalogue in my own handwriting of my collection of Javanese and Annamite pictures on cloth, together with a letter of thanks from the Natural History Museum, anthropology department, for presenting the collection to them. A map of the Rottenmanner Tauern. An engraved invitation to a court ball. Letters and more letters, and a more recent photo given me when I said goodbye to the daughter of the Dutch consul in Rangoon at the bottom of which she had written something in Singhalese characters. "You'll never find out what I wrote, so don't try," she told me, and as I looked at the photo now I still didn't know whether the curly writing meant love or hate. Into the flames with it all. The picture from Rangoon wouldn't catch fire at first, but the heat was too great, and fire consumed the proud eyes, the slightly furrowed brow, the slender figure and the undeciphered message.

"I'm sorry, I'm very late," a voice said suddenly from the door. "Are you alone, baron? Isn't Solgrub here yet?"

I jumped to my feet. I must have failed to hear the doorbell. I was dazzled by the glow of the fire, and in the semi-darkness I could not make out who this caller was. "I knocked, but there was no answer," this late visitor said, and closed the door behind him. "Hasn't Solgrub been here?"

He took a pace nearer, light from the table lamp fell on his face, and at last I recognised him. He was Felix, Dina's brother. What on earth could have brought him here?

"Solgrub? No, I haven't seen him since yesterday," I said.

"Then he'll be here soon," Felix said, and took the seat I offered him.

"Solgrub, my old friend Solgrub, has an
idée fixe.
He believes you to be totally uninvolved in the events that led to Eugen Bischoff's death, and he asked me to be here so that he could tell me the results of his inquiries in your presence."

I listened in silence and said nothing.

"We two know what really happened, baron," Felix went on. "My old friend Solgrub is a fantastical fellow, and has a slight tendency to make a fool of himself. He connects the suicide of a young lady who is completely unknown to me with that of my brother-in-law, and he talks about an experiment from which he expects to draw important conclusions, and he insists on the influence of a mysterious stranger — heaven knows I didn't find it very easy to listen quietly to him. If I have understood him correctly, his system of erroneous deductions is based on the fact that Eugen Bischoff fired two shots, one at an unknown target and the other at himself. If Solgrub does as I expect, that is, if he confesses his error to us, I will tell him the answer to the riddle of the first shot. Eugen Bischoff had never used his revolver, so he fired a trial shot before turning the weapon against himself. That's the obvious explanation. Strange that Solgrub isn't here yet."

"Do you want to wait for him?" I asked abruptly, because I wanted to put an end to this conversation.

"If I'm not disturbing you."

"Then allow me to continue with what I was doing."

I did not wait for an answer, but took a packet of letters from the desk and began to look through them.

"That green Bosnian prayer mat," said Felix, his eyes wandering through the semi-darkness of the room. "How long ago was it that I last sat here facing it? I was a volunteer in your regiment, and I came here to ask your advice in a matter that was very close to my heart.
Eheu fugaces
. . . That time you talked to me like a friend, baron ... Is everything going into the fire, baron?"

"Yes, everything. Rubbish from the past. The engineer won't be coming any more tonight. It's nine o'clock."

"He certainly will be coming."

"In the meantime can I offer you something? Sherry? A cup of tea?"

"No, thank you. But may I ask you for the glass of water that's on the desk?"

"I don't advise you to drink that," I said, and rang for Vinzenz. "Those are the sleeping pills I prepared for tonight."

"For tonight," Felix repeated quietly, with a long, piercing look at me.

A few minutes passed. Vinzenz came in, I gave him the order, and he went out noiselessly. I continued dealing with those old papers.

"I was wrong not to ask you up this morning," Felix said suddenly. "When I looked out of the window again half an hour later you had gone. Perhaps you had the entirely intelligible wish ..."