The Master of the Day of Judgment (3 page)

Dina's brother was standing next to me.

"Do you propose to go on with your experiments?" he hissed softly into my ear without moving his lips.

What did he mean by that? What was he trying to say?

I had thoughtlessly committed a
faux pas
, and that was all.

What else could it have been?

THREE

Eugen Bischoff paced up and down, he had something on his mind, he seemed to be trying to put something into words. Then he stopped right in front of me and looked at me. He looked me in the face, scrutinising me with a troubled, uncertain, almost mistrustful expression. The way he did so made me feel uncomfortable, I don't really know why.

"It's a strange business, baron," he said. "It may make you feel hot and cold when I tell you about it. Perhaps it will keep you awake all night, that's the sort of thing it is. Up here" — and he vigorously tapped his brow — "there's a nerve inside me that dislikes being disturbed and won't co-operate properly. It's there only for minor matters, the petty, everyday things of life. But for fear and horror and anger and raging anxiety it's useless. I lack the organ to deal with them."

"Then tell us about it, Bischoff, " Dr Gorski interrupted.

"I don't really know whether I'll be able to make you understand what an extraordinary story it is. Telling a story has never been my forte. Perhaps the whole thing won't strike you as being so disturbing. As I was saying ..."

"Why all this beating about the bush, Eugen?" said the engineer, tapping his cigarette over the ashtray.

"Very well, then, listen, this is the story, make of it what you will. Some time ago I met a young naval officer who had been given several months' compassionate leave to settle his family affairs. These were of a peculiar kind.

"He had had a younger brother here in Vienna who was a painter and a student at the Academy. He seems to have been very talented — I've seen some of his work, a group of children, a nurse and a girl bathing. Well, one day this young man committed suicide. It was completely unmotivated, there was nothing whatever to explain such an act of total despair. He had no debts or other money troubles, no love trouble and no illness — in short, the suicide could not have been more mysterious. And his brother ..."

"Such cases are more frequent than one thinks," Dr Gorski interrupted. "They are generally disposed of in the police reports by resorting to the phrase 'while the balance of his mind was temporarily disturbed'."

"Yes, that was what happened in this case, but the family were not satisfied. The parents in particular thought it inconceivable that their son should have killed himself without leaving behind a letter for them. Not even the one-line note usual in these cases — 'Dear mama, papa, forgive me, I could not do otherwise' — was found among his papers, and earlier letters gave no hint of any suicidal tendencies. So the family refused to believe it was suicide, and the elder brother came to Vienna determined to do everything possible to throw light on the matter.

"He had a fixed plan which he carried out doggedly. He lived in his brother's flat, assumed his daily habits and daily routine, and sought out and made the acquaintance of everyone with whom his brother associated or came into contact, and he avoided opportunities of meeting anyone else. He became a pupil at the Academy, he drew and he painted and spent a few hours every day at the café where his brother had been a regular customer, and he even went so far as to wear his dead brother's clothes and join an elementary Italian class that his brother had attended; and he never missed a lesson, though as a naval officer his command of Italian was complete. He did all this in the belief that in this way he was bound eventually to stumble on the cause of his brother's puzzling death, and nothing would divert him from his purpose.

"He led this life, which was not really his but someone else's, for two whole months, and I can't say whether it brought him any nearer his objective. But one day he came back to his lodgings very late. His landlady, who took up his dinner, noticed this because it was in striking contrast to his usual habits, which were marked by meticulous punctuality. He was not actually in a bad mood, though he made some irritable remarks about the food, which had got cold. He told the landlady he wanted to go to the opera that evening and hoped he would still be able to get tickets, and ordered a cold supper in his room for eleven o'clock.

"A quarter of an hour later the cook took up his black coffee. The door was locked, but she could hear the young officer striding up and down the room. She knocked at the door and called out: 'Your coffee, sir,' and left the cup on a chair outside the door. Some time later she went up again to fetch the empty cup, but it was still outside the door and had not been touched. She knocked, but there was no answer, she listened, but nothing stirred, and suddenly she heard voices and brief cries in a language she did not understand, and soon afterwards there was a loud cry.

"She shook the door, called out, raised the alarm, the landlady arrived, the two of them forced the door — and the room was empty. But the windows were open, there was a noise down in the street, and they realised what had happened. Down below a crowd had gathered round a body. Half a minute before, the young officer had flung himself from the window — his cigarette was still glowing on the desk."

The engineer interrupted the story.

"Flung himself from the window?" he exclaimed. "That's amazing. As an officer he must have had a weapon in his possession."

"Quite right. His revolver was found in a drawer of his desk. It was unloaded and intact. An army 9mm. revolver. The ammunition was in the same drawer, a whole boxful."

"Go on, go on," Dr Gorski urged the actor.

"Go on? But that's the whole story. He had committed suicide, like his brother before him. I don't know whether he had found the answer to his riddle. But, if he had, he must have had his reasons for taking the secret with him."

"What are you saying?" Dr Gorski exclaimed. "Surely he left behind a letter or note, at any rate a line or two of explanation to his parents?"

"No."

This emphatic reply came, not from Eugen Bischoff, but from the engineer, who went on:

"He had no time, don't you see? That's the extraordinary thing about the case, he had no time. He had no time to fetch his revolver and load it. How could he have had time to write a letter?"

"You're wrong, Solgrub," Eugen Bischoff said. "He did leave writing behind. True, it was only part of a single word ..."

"I call that military brevity," said Dr Gorski; and an amused twinkle in his eyes indicated to me that he regarded the whole story as fiction.

"Also," said Eugen Bischoff, finishing his story, "the tip of his pencil broke and the paper was torn at that point."

"And the word? What was it?"

"It was hastily scribbled and almost illegible. It was 'dreadful'."

No-one spoke. Only the engineer let out a brief and sharp "Oh!" of surprise. Dina had risen and switched on the lamp. Now it was light in the room, but the feeling of oppression to which I, like all the others, had succumbed would not go away.

Only Dr Gorski was sceptical.

"Admit it, Bischoff," he said. "You made up the whole story to make our flesh creep, didn't you?"

Eugen Bischoff shook his head.

"No, doctor, I didn't make up anything. It all happened less than a week ago just as I described it. The most extraordinary things happen, you can take it from me, doctor. What do you think about it, Solgrub?"

"It was murder," the engineer replied briefly and firmly. "A very unusual kind of murder, but murder, that's obvious to me. But who was the murderer? How did he get into the room and where did he vanish to? One will have to think about it very carefully when one's on one's own."

He looked at his watch.

"It's late, and I must go."

"Nonsense, you're all staying for supper," Eugen Bischoff announced, "and afterwards we'll all stay for a while and talk about more cheerful things."

"How would it be, for instance, if the distinguished audience of connoisseurs assembled here were privileged to hear extracts from your new role?" Dr Gorski said.

In a few days' time Eugen Bischoff was to play Richard III for the first time; that had been in all the newspapers, but he did not welcome Dr Gorski's suggestion. He twisted his mouth and frowned.

"Not today," he said. "Another time I'll do it with pleasure."

Dina and her brother set vigorously about trying to persuade him to change his mind. Why not today? Why be so temperamental? When everyone would enjoy it so much.

"Those enjoying the privilege of knowing you personally, Bischoff," Dr Gorski announced, "are surely entitled to some precedence over the common herd in the boxes and the stalls."

Eugen Bischoff shook his head and refused to give in.

"No, not today, it just wouldn't do. You'd hear something that's simply not ready for performance yet, and I don't want that."

"A kind of dress rehearsal before close friends," the engineer suggested.

"No, you mustn't press me. Normally I don't refuse, in fact I enjoy doing what you ask, but today it's out of the question. I haven't visualised Richard yet, I must be able to see him standing in front of me, it's essential."

Dr Gorski apparently gave in, but he once more slyly twinkled at me, for he had an excellent and well tried method of overcoming the actor's resistance, and had decided to use it now. He set about it very cautiously and cleverly by talking with the most innocent expression on his face about a very mediocre Berlin actor whom he said he had seen playing the part. He praised the man's performance highly.

"You know I'm not a mere gallery fan, Bischoff, but that Semblinsky — he's simply marvellous," he said. "The ideas the man has. The way he sits on the palace steps, throws his glove up in the air and catches it, and then lies down and stretches out like a cat in the sunshine. And then there's the way he builds up the soliloquy."

And to give Eugen Bischoff an idea of what the man's performance was like he began declaiming with passionate gestures and much pathos:

"Cheated of feature by dissembling nature

Unfinished, deformed ..."

He interrupted himself with some textual criticism. "No, it's the other way round, deformed comes first. Never mind.

"Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world — "

At this point the actor interrupted, still very gently. "That's enough, doctor," he said.

"Into this breathing world — don't interrupt me, please -

scarce half made up

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them ..."

"That's enough," Bischoff exclaimed, putting his hands to his ears. "Stop! You make me feel ill."

But Dr Gorski was not to be put off so easily.

"Why I, in this piping time of peace

Have no delight to pass away the time;

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,

And descant on mine own deformity.

And therefore — since I cannot prove a lover

To entertain these fair well-spoken days —

I am determined to prove a villain ..."

"And I'm determined to wring your neck if you don't stop," Eugen Bischoff declared threateningly. "I ask you, you turn Gloucester into a sentimental clown. Richard III is a beast of prey, a monster, a brute — but yet he's a man and a king, not a hysterical buffoon, damn it."

He began pacing excitedly up and down the room, carried away by the part. Then he suddenly stopped. What happened next was exactly what Dr Gorski had expected.

"I'll show you how to play Richard III. But quiet, please, I'll give you the soliloquy."

"I have my own conception of the character," Dr Gorski said with cool impertinence. "But please — you're the actor, I'm always willing to learn."

Eugen Bischoff rewarded him with a glance full of malice and contempt. In the process of transforming himself into the Shakespearean king he was no longer faced with Dr Gorski, but with his wretched brother Clarence.

"Listen," he said. He rapped out the word as if he were giving an order. "I'm going over to the pavilion for a few minutes. Meanwhile open the window. It's intolerable here because of the smoke. I shan't be long."

"Are you going to put on make-up? Why, Eugen? We'll do without it," Dina's brother said.

Eugen Bischoff's eyes flickered and shone. Never before had I seen him in such a state of excitation, and he said something very strange.

"Make-up? No. What I want is to see the button on the uniform. You must leave me alone for a while. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

He went out, but came back immediately.

"Listen," he said. "That Semblinsky, that great Semblinsky of yours. Do you know what he is? He's a fool. I once saw him as Iago, it was a disaster."

Then he went. I saw him walking quickly across the garden, talking to himself and gesticulating, he was already in the world of Richard III, in Baynard's Castle. In his hurry he nearly knocked over his old gardener, who was still kneeling on the lawn cutting the grass, though by now it was quite dark outside. Then he disappeared, and a moment later the pavilion windows were brightly lit, scattering tremulous shafts of light and shifting shadows into the big, quiet, night-time garden.

FOUR

Dr Gorski was still declaiming Shakespearean verse with false pathos and absurdly extravagant gestures. Eugen Bischoff having left the room, he did this partly out of sheer enthusiasm for Shakespeare, partly out of pig-headedness, and partly to pass the time pending the actor's return. Being completely carried away by this time, he had got to
King Lear
and, to the distress of the rest of us, insisted on singing the jester's songs in that hoarse voice of his to any tune that came into his head. Meanwhile the engineer sat silently in his armchair, chainsmoking and gazing at the pattern of the carpet at his feet. He could not get the young naval officer's story out of his head, his tragic and puzzling suicide left him no peace. Every now and then he started up and looked with amazement at the singing doctor, shaking his head as at a strange and extraordinary phenomenon, and once he tried to drag him back to the world of rational reality.