The Train Was on Time Read online

  She had imagined he would play something crazy, some wild piece by Tchaikovsky or Liszt or one of those glorious lilting Chopin pieces, because he had attacked the keys like a madman.

  No, he played a sonatina by Beethoven. A delicate little piece, very tricky, and for a second she was afraid he would “mess it up.” But he played very beautifully, very carefully, perhaps a shade too carefully, as if he did not trust his own strength. How tenderly he played, and she had never seen such a happy face as that soldier’s face above the polished surface of the piano. He played the sonatina a little uncertainly, but purely, more purely than she had ever heard it, very clear and clean.

  She hoped he would go on playing. It was wonderful; she had lain down on the sofa, where he had been lying, and she saw the cigarette gradually burning away in the ashtray: she longed to draw on it but dared not move; the slightest movement might destroy that music; and the best part of all was that very happy soldier’s face above the black, shining surface of the piano.…

  “No,” he said with a laugh as he got to his feet. “There’s not much left. It’s no use. The fact is, you have to have studied, and I never did.” He bent over her and dried her tears, and he was glad she had cried. “No,” he said softly, “stay where you are. I was going to tell you my story too, remember?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Tell me, and give me some wine.”

  This is happiness, he thought, as he went to the closet. This is bliss, although I’ve just discovered that I’m no good at the piano. There’s been no miracle. I haven’t suddenly become a pianist. It’s done with now, and yet I’m happy. He looked into the closet and asked over his shoulder: “Which would you like?”

  “Red,” she said with a smile, “a red one now.”

  He took a less slender bottle out of the closet, then he saw the sheet of paper and the pencil and studied the paper. At the top was something in Polish: that would be the matches; then came “Mosel” in German, and in front of that a Polish word no doubt meaning bottle. What charming handwriting she has, he thought, pretty, feminine handwriting, and under “Mosel” he wrote “Bordeaux,” and below the Polish word for bottle he made two dots. “Did you really put it down?” she asked, smiling, as he poured the wine.

  “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t even cheat a madame.”

  “Yes I would,” he said, and he suddenly remembered Dresden station, and the taste of Dresden station, painfully distinct, was in his mouth, and he saw the fat, red-faced lieutenant. “Yes I would, I once tricked a lieutenant.” He told her the story. She laughed. “But that isn’t so bad.”

  “Yes it is,” he said, “it’s very bad. I shouldn’t have done that, I should have called out after him: I’m not deaf. I said nothing, because I have to die soon and because he yelled at me like that … because I was full of pain. Besides, I was too lazy. Yes,” he said softly, “I actually was too lazy to do it because it was so wonderful to have the taste of life in my mouth. I wanted to get it clear, I remember exactly, I thought: You must never let someone feel humiliated on your account, even if it’s a brand-new lieutenant, not even if he has brand-new medals on his chest. You must never let that happen, I thought, and I can still see him walking off, embarrassed and smarting, crimson in the face, followed by his grinning flock of subordinates. I can see his fat arms and his pathetic shoulders. When I think of those pathetic, stupid shoulders of his I almost have to weep. But I was too lazy, just too lazy, to open my mouth. It wasn’t even fear, just plain laziness. God, I thought, how beautiful life is after all, all these people milling about on the platform. One’s going to his wife, the other to his girl, and that woman’s going to her son, and it’s autumn, how wonderful, and that couple over there going toward the barrier, this evening or tonight they’ll be kissing under the soft trees down by the Elbe.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you all the people I’ve cheated!”

  “Oh no,” she said, “don’t. Tell me something nice … and pour me some more!” She laughed. “Who could you ever have cheated?”

  “I’ll tell you the truth. Everything I’ve stolen and all the people I’ve cheated.…” He poured more wine, they raised their glasses, and in that second while they looked at each other, smiling, over the rims of their glasses, he drew her lovely face deep within himself. I mustn’t lose it, he thought, I must never lose it, she is mine.

  I love him, she thought, I love him.…

  “My father,” he said quietly, “my father died from the effects of a serious wound that plagued him for three years after the war. I was a year old when he died. And my mother soon followed him. That’s all I know about it. I learned about all this one day when I had to be told that the woman I had always thought of as my mother wasn’t my mother at all. I grew up with an aunt, a sister of my mother’s who had married an attorney. He made good money, but we were always terribly poor. He drank. I took it so much for granted that a man should come to the breakfast table with a thick head and in a foul temper that later on, when I got to know other men, fathers of my friends, it seemed to me they weren’t men at all. That there were men who weren’t stewed every evening, and who didn’t make hysterical scenes every morning at breakfast, was something I couldn’t conceive. A ‘thing which is not,’ as Swift’s Houyhnhnms say. I thought we were born to be yelled at, that women were born to be yelled at, to grapple with bailiffs, to fight terrible pitched battles with shopkeepers and go off and open a new account somewhere else. My aunt was a genius. She was a genius at opening new accounts. When things were at their blackest she would become very quiet, take an aspirin, and dash off, and by the time she came back she had money. And I thought she was my mother; and I thought that fat bloated monster with burst blood vessels all over his cheeks was my respected begetter. His eyes had a yellowish tinge, and his breath reeked of beer, he stank like stale yeast. I thought he was my father. We lived in a very grand villa, with a maid and all that, and often my aunt didn’t even have small change for a short streetcar ride. And my uncle was a famous attorney. Isn’t that boring?” he asked abruptly, getting up to refill the glasses.

  “No,” she whispered, “no, go on.” It took him only two seconds carefully to refill the slender glasses that stood on the coffee table, yet she took in his hands and the pale narrow face and thought, I wonder what he looked like all those years ago, when he was five or six years old or thirteen, sitting at that breakfast table. She had no trouble picturing that fat, drunken fellow grumbling about the jam because all he really wanted was some sausage. When they have a hangover, all they ever want is sausage. And the woman, frail perhaps, and that pale little fellow sitting there, very timid, almost too scared to eat or cough although the heavy cigar smoke caught at his throat; he would have liked to cough and didn’t dare because that drunken fat monster would fly into a rage, because that famous attorney would lose control of himself at the sound of that child’s cough …

  “Your aunt,” she said, “what did she look like? Tell me exactly what your aunt looked like!”

  “My aunt was very small and frail.”

  “Was she like your mother?”

  “Yes, she was very much like my mother, to judge by the photographs. Later on, when I was older and knew about a lot of things, I used to think: How terrible it must be when he … when he embraces her, that hulking great fellow with his breath and the burst blood vessels all over his distended cheeks and his nose; she’s forced to see them right up close, and those great yellow bleary eyes and everything. That picture haunted me for months, once I had thought of it. And all the time I thought it was my father, and I would torment myself all night long with the question: Why do they marry men like that? And.…”

  “And you cheated her too, your aunt, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said. He was silent for a moment and looked past her eyes. “That was terrible. You know, when he was seriously ill at one time—liver, kidneys, heart, his insides were all shot, of course—he was in hospital, and we took a taxi there one Sunday
morning because he was to have an operation. It was a glorious sunny day, and I was absolutely miserable. And my aunt cried terribly, and she kept whispering to me, begging me to pray for him to get well. She kept whispering this to me, and I had to promise her. And I didn’t do it. I was nine, and by that time I knew he wasn’t my father, and I didn’t pray for him to get well. I just couldn’t. I didn’t pray for him not to get well. No, I stopped short at that idea. But as to praying for him to get well: no, that I didn’t do. I couldn’t help thinking all the time how wonderful it would be if … yes, I did think that. The house all to ourselves, and no more scenes or anything … and yet I had promised my aunt to pray for him. I couldn’t do it. The only thing I could think was: Why on earth do they marry men like that?”

  “Because they love them,” Olina interrupted.

  “Yes,” he said in surprise, “you know, don’t you? She did love him, she had loved him, and she still loved him. At the time, of course, as a young attorney, he had looked different; there was a photo of him taken just after he passed his finals. Wearing one of those godawful student’s caps, remember? 1907. He looked different then, but only on the outside.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Just that—only on the outside. To me his eyes looked exactly the same. Only his stomach wasn’t that fat yet. But to me he looked dreadful even as a young man in that photo. I would have seen him the way he was going to look at forty-five, I wouldn’t have married him. And she still loved him, although he was a wreck, although he tormented her, wasn’t even faithful to her. She loved him absolutely and unconditionally. I can’t understand it.…”

  “You can’t understand it?” He looked at her again in surprise. She was sitting up now, had swung her legs down, her face was close to his.

  “You can’t understand it?” she asked passionately.

  “No,” he said, astonished.

  “Then you don’t know what love is. Yes,” she looked at him, and suddenly he was afraid of that solemn, wholly altered face. “Yes,” she repeated. “Unconditionally! Love is always unconditional, you see. Haven’t you,” she murmured, “haven’t you ever loved a woman?”

  He quickly closed his eyes. Again that deep, thrusting stab of pain. That too, he thought, I have to tell her about that too. There must be no secrets between us, and I had been hoping I could keep that, that memory of an unknown face, hoping I could keep that gift to myself and take it with me. His eyes remained closed, and there was silence. He was trembling in his anguish. No, he thought, let me keep it. That’s my own most private possession, and for three and a half years it’s been all I’ve had to live on … just that tenth of a second on the hill outside Amiens. Why did she have to thrust so deeply and unerringly into me? Why did she have to open up that carefully protected scar with one word, a word that pierces me like a probe, the probe of an unerring surgeon.…

  So that’s it, she thought. He loves someone else. He’s trembling, he’s spreading his hands and closing his eyes, and I’ve hurt him. The ones you love are the ones you’re bound to hurt the most, that’s the law of love. His pain is too great for tears. Some pain is so great that tears are powerless, she thought. Ah, why aren’t I that other woman he loves? Why can’t I transpose this soul and this body? There’s nothing, nothing of myself that I want to keep, I would surrender my whole self to have only … only the eyes of that other woman. This last night before his death, the last night for me too because when he’s gone I shall have ceased to care about anything … ah, if only I could have her eyelashes, give my whole self in exchange for her eyelashes.…

  “Yes,” he said softly. His voice was without emotion, the voice of someone on the brink of death. “Yes, I loved her so much I would have sold my soul to feel her mouth for just one second. I’ve only just realized this—now that you ask me. And perhaps that’s why I was never to know her. I would have committed murder just to see the hem of her dress as she turned a corner. Just something, something real. And I prayed, I prayed for her every day. All lies and all self-deception, because I believed I loved only her soul. Only her soul! And I would have sold all those thousands of prayers for one single kiss from her lips. I’ve only just realized this.” He rose suddenly to his feet, and she was glad his voice was human again, a human voice that suffered and lived. Again the thought came to her that he was alone now, that he was no longer thinking of her, he was alone again.

  “Yes,” he said into the room, “I believed it was only her soul that I loved. But what is a soul without a body, what is a human soul without a body? I couldn’t desire her soul so passionately, with all the insane passion I was capable of, without longing for her just to smile at me at least once, once. God,” he slashed the air with his hand, “always the hope, and nothing but the hope, that that soul might become flesh,” he cried, “only the insane burden of hope! What’s the time?” He turned on her and, although he spoke roughly and brusquely as if she were a servant girl, she was glad to see that at least he had not forgotten her presence. “Forgive me,” he added swiftly, grasping her hand, but she had already forgiven him, she had forgiven him before it happened. She glanced at the clock and smiled. “Eleven.” And she was filled with a great happiness, only eleven. Not yet midnight, not even midnight, how glorious, how lovely, how wonderful. She was as gay as a carefree child, jumped up and danced across the room: I’m dancing with you into heaven, the seventh heaven of love.…

  He watched her, thinking: it’s strange, really, that I can’t be angry with her. Here I am, half-dead with pain, deathly sick, and she’s dancing, although she has shared my pain, and I can’t be angry, I can’t.…

  “You know what?” she asked, suddenly pausing. “We must have something to eat, that’s what we need.”

  “No,” he said, appalled. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then you’d have to leave me. No, no,” he cried out in anguish, “you mustn’t leave me for a single second. Without you … without you … without you I can’t go on living!”

  “What?” she asked, without knowing which word her lips were forming, for a delirious hope had sprung up within her.

  “That’s right,” he said softly, “you mustn’t go away.”

  No, she thought, that’s not it after all. I’m not the one he loves. And aloud she said: “I don’t have to go away! There’s food too in the closet.”

  How miraculous, that somewhere in a drawer of that closet there should be cookies, and cheese wrapped in silver foil. What a glorious meal, cookies and cheese and wine. He didn’t like his cigarette. The tobacco was dry, and it had a kind of foul army taste.

  “Give me a cigar,” he said, and needless to say there was a cigar there too. A whole box of cigars good enough for a major, all for the Lvov mortgage. It felt good to stand there on the soft carpet, watching Olina arrange the little snack on the coffee table with gentle, loving hands. When she had finished, she suddenly turned to him and looked at him with a smile: “You couldn’t go on living without me?”

  “No,” he said, and his heart was so heavy he couldn’t laugh, and he thought: I ought to add now: because I love you, and that would be true and it would not be true. If I said it I would have to kiss her, and that would be a lie, everything would be a lie, and yet I could say with a clear conscience: I love you, but I would have to give a long, long explanation, an explanation that I don’t know myself yet. Always those eyes of hers, very gentle and loving and happy, the opposite of the eyes I desired … still desire … and he repeated, looking straight into her eyes: “I couldn’t go on living without you,” and now he was smiling.…

  At the very moment when they were raising their glasses to drink a toast to their birthdays or their wasted lives, at that very moment their hands began to tremble violently; they put down their glasses and looked at one another in dismay: there had been a knock at the door.…

  Andreas held back Olina’s arm and slowly stood up. He strode to the door, taking only three seconds to reach it.
So this is the end, he thought. They’re taking her away from me, they don’t want her to stay with me till morning. Time is still alive, and the world is turning. Willi and the blond fellow are each in bed with a girl somewhere in this house, that old woman is downstairs lying in wait for her money, the slot of her mouth always open, slightly open. What shall I do when I’m alone? I shan’t even be able to pray, to go down on my knees. I can’t live without her, because I do love her. They mustn’t do that.…

  “Yes,” he asked softly.

  “Olina,” came the madame’s voice. “I have to speak to Olina.”

  Andreas looked around, pale, aghast. I’ll give up the five hours if only I can spend just one more half-hour with her. They can have her then. But I want to spend one more half-hour with her, and look at her, just look at her, maybe she’ll play the piano again. Even if it’s only, I’m dancing with you into heaven.…

  Olina smiled at him, and he knew from that smile that she would stay with him whatever happened. And yet he was scared, and he knew now, as Olina quietly unlocked the door, that he did not want to part with this fear for her. That he loved this fear too. “Leave your hand in mine, at least,” he whispered as she was going out, and she left her hand in his, and he heard her outside beginning to talk to the madame in hurried, heated Polish. The two women were locked in combat. The moneybox was doing battle with Olina. He anxiously scanned her eyes when she came back without closing the door. He did not let go of her hand. She had turned pale too, and he could see that her confidence was no longer very great.…

  “The general’s turned up. He’s offering two thousand. He’s furious. He must be raising the roof down there. D’you have any money left? We have to make up the difference, otherwise.…”

  “Yes,” he said; he hastily turned out his pockets, which still contained money he had won from Willi at cards. Olina twittered something in Polish through the door. “Hurry,” she whispered. She counted the bills. “Three hundred, right? I haven’t a thing! Not a thing!” she said frantically. “Yes I have, here’s a ring, that’s five hundred. It’s not worth more than that. Eight hundred.”