“You’re absolutely out of your mind, boy!” Mrs. Ema chided him. She was sitting maternally at his bedside, wiping his face. “Why didn’t you come to see me?”
“You were asleep … and I didn’t know I was ill.”
“Didn’t know indeed — and he was burning like a piece of coal! Would you believe he lay down drenched with sweat in a chilly room, without undressing, without even taking off his shoes! Why didn’t you undress and get into bed?”
“It was so white and clean,” smiled Melkior. “I’d got out of the habit.”
He was lying in bed, in his pajamas. The fragrance of cleanliness was everywhere. So she must have undressed me! he realized in a flash.
“Well, I never! He lost the habit of using clean things!” Mrs. Ema was putting on a tone. “You don’t happen to have brought any vermin with you, have you?”
“Oh no, certainly not,” Melkior assured her, for all that he was not so certain himself.
She put her palm on his forehead out of gratitude.
“See how I brought your temperature down?” she boasted. “You were still delirious only this afternoon. The doctor gave me those pills last winter, I thought they were past their expiration date — well, obviously they weren’t. Are you hungry? Didn’t they feed you in the army? You look like your bones will be breaking through at any moment.”
Melkior reddened, she saw me naked … But he reached down under the eiderdown and found she had put his pajamas on over his underwear. He gave her a grateful look. As if understanding, she looked away at the window:
“Doesn’t seem to be letting up …”
The rain was making a fine tattoo on the windowsill … as if asking …
“Falling day and night …” he said out loud, then answered the rain, inside: “I’m quite all right …” He thought he could do with a little Turgenev. Later, when Mrs. Ema left …
He saw her face in the light of the small lamp on the night table. Her skin seemed somehow tired; it was in a weak, resigned, sagging condition. O Lord, look at all the wrinkles she’s got! Many indeed, said the Lord, indifferent (He had more pressing concerns).
She sensed his seeing her “unprepared” face with the wariness of a woman on the brink of old age: she sprang to her feet, patting her hair.
“I’m going to get you some hot soup,” she was showing her goodness of heart instead of her face, “God knows how long it’s been since you last had something to eat …”
Indeed, Melkior couldn’t remember … yesterday at noon, porridge at the barracks, no appetite … He had traveled all night, chilled, feverish. …
“Madam, if anyone asks for me, please don’t tell them I’m back. I would like to get some rest.”
“To be sure. The fellow downstairs keeps inquiring …” she pointed her toe downward. “He asked me for your address, said he wanted to write to you.”
ATMAN wanted to write me! Melkior shivered. ATMAN wouldn’t have written just to say it was raining. Something must have happened … if he wanted to write.
But after the soup, later on, that night, Melkior relaxed. And read his Turgenev, A Nest of Gentlefolk. White all over and a tinge of … He was enjoying himself like a Russian landowner.
He had lived four days above ATMAN’S head without ATMAN knowing. Melkior triumphed. He slept, lounged in bed, stretched … and watched the amusing little hell in the potbelly stove. And the rain …
… was not drumming a fine tattoo on the tin windowsill tonight. He already felt well and impatient to be out and walking along the wet streets. Also, it was amusing to sidestep ATMAN, to sneak by under his nose as if the man was a blind monster, to escape like Odysseus from Polyphemus. Why had ATMAN wanted to write?
His heart was pounding as he drew level with ATMAN’S door. He had a strange feeling at his back: any moment now the bony long-fingered hand might drop onto my shoulder — thump!
But there was no thump, he got safely out into the street. The air was fresh and sweet, rinsed but still damp, undried. Melkior nevertheless inhaled it greedily, mainly for the symbolic meaning of breathing freely, or, as they also say, breathing in the air of freedom.
He found himself outside the Cozy Corner. Curious silence behind the yellow curtains. Has Else married the sergeant after all, he wondered. Which he wished for Kurt’s sake with all his heart: congratulations, Kurt, and may the little centurions multiply in bliss …
“Look in, do look in at the misery, sir,” he suddenly heard behind him a voice saturated with impatient pleasure, and the bony long-fingered hand was already resting on his shoulder.
When he turned around, the inseparable polyp eyes were looking at him from the dark and smiling, smiling … ha-ha, sir.
“Mr. Adam,” ejaculated Melkior in fright, as if he had seen a ghost. “My God, man, how …”
“Quite by accident, on my way home,” ATMAN hastened to explain.
“… you frightened me!” finished Melkior. “Frightened me, devil take your …”
“Good heavens, why?” ATMAN was embarrassed. “Could it be because you thought I didn’t know you were back? Well, I didn’t want to disturb you — you were ill. The evening’s damp, I don’t think it’s wise of you to … Look, why don’t we go in? So you can see what it’s like now. Here you are then,” and he had already opened the door in front of Melkior and pushed him in.
Inside, a short, pale, nondescript man in black was standing among the unoccupied tables in a waiter’s position (napkin over forearm), looking submissively down as though being rebuked by a demanding guest. When they came in he gave a surprised start but didn’t seem glad to see them: with a hopeless civility, he offered them a seat, needlessly tweaking the tablecloth.
“Yes, gentlemen,” he said unhurriedly, “what can I serve you?”
“What would you say to some hot wine?” ATMAN leaned toward Melkior across the table. “An autumnal drink, keeps the cold away. Or would you prefer something to eat first?”
“Cold dishes only,” said the cold voice above them with an important flick of the napkin across the table.
“Sardines, cheese, and some salami,” ordered ATMAN in the manner of a distinguished guest.
“No sardines, cheese homemade, cow’s milk, low-cal salami only,” said the pale man indifferently and again flicked his napkin at some invisible morsel on the tabletop.
“I won’t have anything to eat,” said Melkior. “I’ll only have a hot brandy.”
“Excellent idea!” cried ATMAN. “I’ll have one, too.”
“So, nothing to eat, just two hot brandies,” said the pale man ambling off. “With customers like you, who needs enemies,” seemed to be what he meant.
“More or less,” ATMAN called wittily after him. “And his wife’s reading Secrets of the Russian Imperial Court in the kitchen. Stupid fool, buying a business at a time like this.”
“Oh, so Kurt has …?”
“Natch. What’s the use of holding on to it, now? You heard the man, ‘cheese homemade, cow’s milk.’ They say there’s going to be a shortage of wine, too, things are going to … well, you know where to. Anyway, the Cozy Corner has … cozened its guests … in every way.” ATMAN put a particular stress on the last words, training his small derisive eyes onto Melkior’s. And Melkior got confused, foolishly, not having yet caught ATMAN’S drift.
“And why did you ask for my address in the army?” he asked suddenly, so that it appeared in some way connected with what ATMAN had been telling him.
“Ah-ha,” blurted ATMAN unawares, as though a little bird had got snared in his trap. “I wanted to write you.”
“Why … and what about?”