Herr Huber was standing in the middle of the empty dance floor. Blood from three long scratches ran down his cheeks, and he was crying.
I don’t think I shall ever forget the sight of that huge, wretched man, unaware of the glances that were thrown at him, mopping and mopping with his large white handkerchief, now at his bleeding cheek, now at his streaming eyes.
Of Magdalena Winter there was no sign.
For twenty-four hours we heard nothing. Magdalena did not return home, she sent no word to Edith. Then, just as the police were about to be called, a message written in her own hand was delivered to her parents. She was safe; she was well; she was not to be searched for — and that was all.
Safe in the arms of her lover, I was sure, but held my peace. ‘It was my fault,’ said Herr Huber, sitting in my armchair. His kind face destroyed by grief, he stared blindly into his coffee cup. ‘I behaved like an animal. An animal.’
He had arrived in my shop as promised to pay for the trousseau which Magdalena now will never wear.
‘It was the music,’ said the butcher. ‘The music and the sudden dark. It overcame me.’
‘But what exactly happened, Herr Huber? What did you do?’
He put down his cup. ‘I kissed her on the mouth,’ he said, and blushed a fiery crimson.
‘Good God! Is that all? But you were to be married in less than two weeks. Is that so terrible?’
‘Yes it is, Frau Susanna,’ he said solemnly. ‘I broke my oath.’
‘Herr Huber, I think you’d better explain what kind of marriage you had in mind. I have often been puzzled by certain aspects…’
‘Yes… yes. Only it is necessary to speak intimately.’ He paused to wipe his eyes. ‘You will of course have asked yourself why such a beautiful girl should agree to marry a man like me, especially when so many other people had proposed to her.’
‘I wouldn’t have put it like that. But go on.’
‘It was because I agreed to her conditions. A pure marriage. A marriage of companionship. Well, not exactly companionship because naturally she did not want to spend too much time with me. But she agreed to live in my house and share my meals and let me adore her. Just to see her move about, to look at her, that was all I wanted. It was a privilege for which I would never have ceased to be grateful. To wake and know she was there… to see her moving across the lawn with a watering can…’
‘And what was she proposing to do in this extraordinary menage?’
‘Well, she had the benefit of knowing that her family was cared for — she’s extremely attached to her brothers — and she was going to devote herself to work for the church. You could say that she was going to marry Jesus and I was going to marry her — only not carnally.’
‘Herr Huber, you are a grown man, a man of the world. Did you seriously imagine that this bizarre arrangement would work?’
‘I have to say to you, Frau Susanna, that I hoped… yes, secretly I hoped… I thought that if I was very patient… very patient… that one day perhaps she would lean her head against my shoulder, just for a moment… and I would touch her hair. Not stroke it… not at once, not for many months… ’ He had begun to cry again and, aware that I was about to lose my temper, I busied myself with the coffee cups. ‘Then perhaps very, very slowly… perhaps in a year… she would let me brush her hair or sit beside her on the bed and hold her hand… And, yes, yes; I admit I dreamt that the time would come when she would come to me and smile that divine smile of hers and say, “I’ve been silly, Ludwig; of course I’d like to be like other married women.” ’ He paused and looked at me like an enormous, desperate child. ‘I loved her so much, you see. So terribly much.’
‘Well, I think the whole thing is disgusting,’ I said furiously. ‘Obscene. You’re a healthy man with an interesting profession —’
‘No, no! I never spoke of it to Magdalena. It distressed her.’ ‘Well it doesn’t distress Fräulein Edith and she’s a great deal more intelligent.’
But the poor Bluestocking didn’t exist for the lovesick butcher.
‘How can you say that?’ I had deeply offended him. ‘How can you talk of obscenity? It was the purest, the most —’
‘It wasn’t anything of the sort,’ I snapped. ‘It was loathsome. An insult to human love. You’ve been saved from the most appalling unhappiness and so has your fiancée. I can’t imagine how a man of your intelligence could come up with anything so sickly. You ought to be ashamed.’
‘Ashamed! Of wanting to be pure! Of trying to embrace high ideals. Of being like Parsifal!’
‘Parsifal. Ha! What do any of us really know about Parsifal? As for the opera it lasts six hours and in the first act absolutely nothing happens except someone waiting to have a bath. Furthermore, if Parsifal was so pure how did he manage to father Lohengrin — answer me that!’
After he left I regretted my sharpness. The poor man is half demented not only with grief but with anxiety. Where can a girl with no money have gone to? Is she hungry? Is she in need? All the same, it’s odd how low purity comes on my list of priorities. From my earliest youth I have wanted to be successful, warm-hearted, generous and rich — but pure, no. Even when there was still a chance of it, I can’t say I ever wanted to be that.
I wish there was someone other than Jan Kraszinsky to supervise the child’s work for the concert. Surely he shouldn’t be working so ceaselessly? It isn’t just the way he plays that Kraszinsky is bullying him about.
‘Don’t make faces,’ we hear him yell. ‘Don’t screw up your mouth!’ The child isn’t even allowed out now in the evenings for his airing by the fountain. It’s understandable, I suppose, Kraszinsky’s agitation, so much depends on this one night. He’s borrowed money on the strength of it and given up so much, but he’s a fool. He’ll break the boy’s health if he goes on like this.
This morning I met Rip coming out of the paper shop and because we’re old friends, he let me take the Neue Presse briefly from his jaws. Opening it at the concert page, I found Van der Velde’s advertisment: a pen and ink drawing of a romantically coiffed waif who looks about six years old with the caption: In 1842 — Anton Rubinstein! In 1887 — Ignace Paderewski!! In 1911 — Sigismund Kraszinsky!!!
The child’s debut is attracting a lot of attention; nearly all the seats are sold and the critic from Tageblatt is said to be coming, and the man from the Allgemeine Zeitung. Van der Velde took the boy to the hall to show him where he was playing.
‘What was it like?’ I asked Sigismund.
‘It is a very fine piano,’ he said seriously. ‘A Bosendorfer — and I don’t have to sit on books; there is a special seat.’
‘And the hall itself?’
He looked at me, puzzled. I don’t think he saw anything except the piano. His concert clothes are finished. I’ve made him an extra pair of trousers for every day and Nini, unasked, has stitched him a handkerchief embroidered with his initials. With his hair properly cut, he looks now what he is: a plain and serious little boy — but tired, terribly tired. Van der Velde, who surely should be keeping an eye on him, has gone to Paris.
Mitzi Schumacher, that gentle soul, has her own anxieties.
‘Should I marry Sigismund, do you think, Frau Susanna, when I’m grown up?’
‘Do you want to, Mitzi?’
‘No, I don’t. He’s too thin and small. But someone should look after him if he’s going to be a famous pianist and see that he eats enough. Maia won’t — she says that pianists only go to boring towns, not interesting places like the Amazon, and Franzi doesn’t like to cook.’
‘If he’s going to be famous perhaps he could get a housekeeper,’ I suggested — and took Mitzi out to look at my pear.