Fellner squirmed in his seat, and Kopetzki choked again and coughed prolifically. Aunt Paulette didn’t move, and Theophila in the taffeta dress was also frozen in a mix of hostile defensiveness and gruesome curiosity that was evident in her hard eyes.
Tamara Tildy sat down in a chair that Herr Adamowski had wedged into the circle after freeing it from a load of magazines. Fellner came to his aid, brushing off the dust that had collected there with his handkerchief.
Madame Tildy smiled with strained grace, a little painfully, to each guest, one by one, and as she did so her head rocked slowly and slackly to the side, as if she had just woken up from a deep slumber full of happy dreams — a recuperative sleep following a long, strength-sapping illness. She was dressed in the trappings of a bygone elegance, faded and exceptionally feminine, with an abundance of silk scarves as delicate as veils, now frayed and torn. Her silver brocade jacket was now tarnished to a shade of black that hardly matched the hour, much less her delicate woolen dress, which was light-colored and summery. She was carrying a gold mesh purse, clutching it somewhat frantically, as if she were afraid someone might take it from her; its long chain was forever getting caught in the fringes, corners, folds, and bulges of her overburdened attire.
“It’s nice that you could make it after all, my dear,” said Herr Adamowski, staggering around to set a glass of liqueur in front of her. No one seemed astounded at the embarrassing way he addressed her.
“Yes, my friend, I have come to you,” said Madame Tildy gently. “You know that. I always come to you, day after day …” Below her sharp hooked nose, her doll-like mouth expressed a tender irony.
“Here, I have a present for you,” said Herr Adamowski, placing a delicate, high-stemmed glass of rare shape on the table in front of her.
“A Murano glass,” said Tamara Tildy in a cheery voice that was agonizingly distant. “From Venice … I’ll put it in my room, in the middle of the floor. It will be very beautiful there, all alone in its beauty.”
She stared at it for a while, and no one said a word.
“It will be very beautiful there,” she repeated. “All alone …” She reached for it and squeezed it to splinters in her hand.
“Oh, I’ve cut myself,” she said, and looked at her hand, which was dripping blood.
“I’ll bandage your hand,” said Herr Adamowski. He tottered to a chest covered with magazines, and fished a little bottle of tincture of iodine and some bandages out of a drawer. The general silence was so horrible it hurt. It made me hate everyone in the room, including Aunt Paulette.
“This will burn a little,” said Herr Adamowski, as he first blotted the blood with some cotton wool and then pressed another piece that had been dipped in the iodine against her fingers. He exuded a fatherly, if also awkwardly transparent, authority.
Once he had cleared the shards of glass off the table, she said: “You can do magic. Why don’t you make it whole again?”
“I’m not allowed to perform magic in the presence of Fräulein Paulette,” he said, with a toothy smile that was meant to be charming.
“But if I want you to …” said Tamara Tildy, looking at my aunt. Aunt Paulette met her stare with a similar coolness and indolent calm.
“Yes, yes, I know …” said Madame Tildy, lost. She got up. “I’ll be going again.”
“But why? You just got here,” said Herr Adamowski.
“I have something to do. Something important. Something very important.” She seemed very anxious. “I had forgotten about it when I came. I have to … My dress is full of blood. I have to change.” She left the room without saying goodbye. Herr Adamowski followed her out. We heard him stamping as he walked her to the door.
“Well, Herr Kavalier, how about another little glass of Cointreau?” he asked me when he came back, and brought me the glass that Madame Tildy had left untouched. “Not a drop of this noble drink should go wasted.”
The three men, who had been sitting there, dumb as blocks, laughed once again. Herr Adamowski returned to his seat and launched into a long anecdote of excruciating wit that began with the words: “By the way, do you know the story of the two Russians who go to their priest …” Like all bad mimics he grossly exaggerated the Russian accent, going from the highest head note to the deepest bass, and back up to a high-pitched squeal, going so far as to say “saltpyotr” for “saltpeter”—which elicited a new burst of applause. I was relieved when Aunt Paulette was finally ready to go.
We spoke even less to each other on the way home than we had on the way to Herr Adamowski’s. We were just crossing the street between the officers’ casino and the entrance to the Volksgarten when a caravan of vehicles drove up that we had to let pass. There were several families of Galician Jews, who were coming to town in small horse-drawn carts piled with their meager possessions. Their melancholy dark eyes looked on us as strangers.
At home, my mother said: “My heavens, the boy is completely pale. Aren’t you feeling well?”
I said I was fine, although I really felt awful. Tanya steered clear of me and avoided being alone with me for the next several days.
As a result it wasn’t until much later that I learned about Tanya’s own visit to Herr Adamowski’s:
During the night, she hadn’t been able to sleep. She was so restless and upset about her clumsy dancing that she was crying. Finally she got up to go to Mama. As she passed Aunt Paulette’s room she heard our father’s voice, very worked-up: “If you go to his place one more time there’s going to be hell to pay. Believe me, I’m not joking. This time I’m serious.”
Tanya had fled back to our children’s room. In keeping with her romantic nature she began to hatch a plan for getting back at Aunt Paulette for hitting her — the revenge of the proud: magnanimity.
She was so animated that the next morning she seemed to “melt” into the ballet music. She never realized how beautifully she danced that day. But from then on she danced with the same dedication, until the dancing came to a sudden end.
That afternoon she had lurked about, hoping that Aunt Paulette would go to Herr Adamowski despite all threats — Tanya had no doubt as to whom she wasn’t supposed to visit again. And Aunt Paulette did go.
Tanya kept an eye on our father. When he left the house a little later, she went to warn Aunt Paulette. She had planned everything carefully, going so far as to find out where Adamowski lived. She had taken money out of her savings box to pay for a cab — much too little, as she later told me, it would have never been enough. But she couldn’t find one. So she ran, very afraid lest our father should get there first. By the time she reached Herr Adamowski’s she had half fainted. God knows in what situation she expected to find Aunt Paulette there. In any case, not in the company of Messrs. Fellner, Leutgeb, and Kopetzki, and Theophila in the brown taffeta dress. Utterly taken aback, they let her in; naturally she didn’t explain why she had come. It wasn’t until the general astonished merriment had subsided that she was able to tell Aunt Paulette in a few awkward sentences what had driven her there. Aunt Paulette stared at her a while with cold attention, then tilted her head back and laughed out loud.
Nevertheless, she was considerate enough not to tell the others what she found so funny. Tanya was deposited in a corner with some books and a glass of Cointreau, just as I would be later on, until Aunt Paulette decided to leave.
They met our father on the corner of the street, where he was standing and waiting. He was very dismayed to see Tanya together with Aunt Paulette. But he said nothing about it. Aunt Paulette shot him a mocking glance and said, casually, “I took Tanya along to visit my friends. She was an excellent guard of honor.”