Who Is Martha?

by Marjana Gaponenko

  When Levadski arrives at the table, Mr. Witzturn is busy squeezing a wedge of lemon over his salmon. The clattering of the cutlery at the table of the lady with the bird’s nest hairdo has become a monotonous stirring in her cup. The waiter has not forgotten Levadski – the coffee he ordered is standing in a silver pot on the table. “What I meant to ask you in the elevator …”

  “A decent portion,” Mr. Witzturn interrupts, pointing approvingly at Levadski’s plate.

  “What I wanted to ask you when you entered the elevator was,” Levadski continues, “was, what the time was. My watch stopped.”

  “It is ten on the dot.” Levadski expresses his thanks by smacking his lips loudly.

  “That is a very good idea!” remarks Mr. Witzturn on seeing the magnifying glass flashing in Levadski’s hand.

  “Yes, at least you can see the hands,” Levadski jokes. “You learn where the numbers are in the course of life, don’t you?”

  “You remind me of my first wife,” Mr. Witzturn tells him while pushing a rolled up piece of lettuce into his mouth.

  “Did she also have a magnifying glass?”

  “No, cancer.”

  “Oh God,” Levadski leans back in his chair, “I am sorry.”

  “Yes, so am I. It is a menace. The second one also had cancer. I didn’t dare take a third.”

  “How terrible!” Levadski puts the magnifying glass down on the table. “Perhaps that’s the reason why I remained a bachelor …”

  “It is never too late,” Mr. Witzturn says to a walnutsized olive eye, before devouring it. “Pitted,” he adds after chewing it carefully.

  “It is too late for me, Mr. Witzturn.”

  “Then at least eat.”

  “I assume,” Levadski says over his second pot of coffee, “we were enemies once …”

  “Oh, let’s forget the incident!” Mr. Witzturn gestures dismissively with his napkin.

  “I am not talking about the incident in the elevator. I mean,” Levadski lowers his eyes to the floor, “the war.” Mr. Witzturn still insists on forgetting the incident.

  “We have,” he says, putting the napkin on his lap, “never been enemies.”

  “It is embarrassing,” Levadski crumbles half of Mr. Witzturn’s roll, which Mr. Wtizturn follows with a fixed stare, “very embarrassing, that I behaved so impossibly in the elevator. God knows what got into me. If I had known you were a widower, a widower twice over …” Levadski points a finger at the stucco ceiling.

  “Don’t you notice anything?” Mr. Witzturn’s bleary eyes attempt to hypnotize Levadski. Levadski reaches for his magnifying glass.

  “What am I meant to notice? I don’t see anything. Oh!”

  “What do you see?”

  “You have a pimple. Got you, got you!”

  “Very funny. Can’t you see anything?” Mr. Witzturn’s voice assumes an offended tone. Levadski continues to look at him through the magnifying glass.

  “You have blue eyes. Green. And one, two, three, four, six little spider veins on both cheeks. Hardly noticeable.”

  “What else?” Mr. Witzturn demands impatiently.

  “You were a good looking man,” Levadski says, “and now that you are smiling, I can see that you have dill between your teeth.”

  “Charming,” Mr. Witzturn says in thanks and drinks a sip of tea that he keeps in his mouth discreetly and for longer than necessary. “And now?”

  “Already gone.”

  “You are blind in both eyes, Mr. Levadski, if I may be permitted to make an observation.” Levadski puts his magnifying glass in his trouser pocket. “You don’t see that I have a plastic nose.”

  “You amaze me!” Levadski reaches for the magnifying glass again, straining hard to look. “It could be.”

  “It is! How can you not have noticed it?”

  “Well,” Levadski says in defense, “I did notice your nose, but I thought, nothing out of the ordinary, the gentleman is partial to the bottle. After all, that is the kind of cultural environment I’m from. You see noses like that sitting on many park benches during summer.” Levadski observes Mr. Witzturn’s supposedly plastic nose. “And where is the cord?”

  “It’s a magnetic nose, it is held in place by three magnets,” Mr. Witzturn says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  “Did you lose your nose at the front?”

  “Cancer,” says Mr. Witzturn dryly and wipes his mouth with his napkin.

  “What are your plans for this evening?”

  “I don’t have any,” Mr. Witzturn says, suddenly laughing. “I am laughing because you just wiped your nose!”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes, with the napkin,” Mr. Witzturn reveals, still laughing.

  “Yes, I know, I know, it’s out of order. Excuse me.”

  “You only dabbed it a little.”

  “Nevertheless,” retorted Levadski energetically, “it’s inappropriate. I am getting old!”

  “Never mind, be happy!” Mr. Witzturn laughs raucously, “be happy you can blow your nose as you please …” Levadski grins, Mr. Witzturn clutches his stomach with laughter. “To your heart’s desire …” Levadski cautiously laughs along, “ … not too briefly and to your heart’s desire, oh, I can’t take any more, my heart! …” Mr. Witzturn clutches his stomach more tightly. “Get it out, according to all rules of the art! Excuse the expression,” a tearstained Mr. Witzturn adds.

  “So what are your plans for this evening? Or are you checking out after breakfast?”

  “No, I am staying until tomorrow. This evening I was planning on carousing in the Bar Maria Theresia.”

  Mr. Witzturn smiles at Levadski. There is still dill between his front teeth, but Levadski decides not to announce this. It will disappear of its own accord while he is drinking tea, he thinks, and smiles at Mr. Witzturn.

  “You have got dill between your teeth,” Mr. Witzturn says with a concerned face.

  “You too,” says Levadski peevishly.

  “See you this evening, then.”

  “I will keep you company!”

  “Please do. I haven’t had such amusing company in a long time. Haven’t had the honor of experiencing,” Mr. Witzturn says to be more precise and slowly gets up.

  3

  Zimmer / Room 302–336

  “OH, HABIB, YOU ARE STILL HERE!” HABIB IS SMILING AT the pair of shoes he has just worked on with a shoe shine brush. It takes a while for Levadski to follow Habib’s gaze. “Thank you! A freshly polished pair of shoes is exactly what I need now. I just met a very pleasant gentleman in the elevator. We are going to meet at the bar this evening.”

  “But at the bar, people won’t be able to see your shoes that well. It would be different at a concert. At a concert you parade up and down during intermission in the gala lights!” Habib swings his arms as if he were marching. “And everyone sees: your shoes are polished.”

  “Is there a concert in the hotel?”

  “No, but right behind the hotel, in the Musikverein.”

  “Oh! Goodness …” Levadski feels an icy caterpillar placing a series of sharply polished eggs in one of his ventricles. “The Musikverein …”

  “Is right behind the hotel.”

  “I know, I know, I had just forgotten …”

  Levadski crosses the room and stops in front of the window.

  “On the other side, this is the Ringstrasse boulevard,” Habib explains.

  “Yes, of course, behind the hotel. I have been there.”

  “You have been there?”

  “Yes, it was a very long time ago.” Levadski has to take a seat. He hands his stick to Habib. “The Musikverein …”

  “A concert every day.”

  “This evening too?”

  “Yes, several. One in the Glass Hall, one in the Stone Hall, one in the Metal Hall, one in the Golden …”

  “Golden Hall,” Levadski sighs, “golden sound!”

  “If you would like tickets, I am happy to arrange some for you,”
Habib says, holding Levadski’s stick in his hand. “The Musikverein is a must, especially when you are staying in such style as you are.”

  The butler assumes the proportions of a mountain in front of Levadski, who is dozing off in his armchair. “A long time ago with my great-aunts,” Levadski sighs, “I had a long pair of trousers sewn especially for the Musikverein …” Levadski’s eyelids, paperthin in the sunshine, quiver with every movement Habib makes. Or is it the branches of the trees that are swaying in the wind in front of the window? It grows even lighter behind Levadski’s lids. “And the little titmouse,” mumbles Levadski, “can you hear it calling! Zib-zib-zib, beyond words the way it intones. It sounds midnight …”

  Levadski’s chin slides feebly onto his chest, his right ear tilting towards his shoulder, as if his left ear wanted to listen to what was happening on the top floor of the hotel. Levadski’s suspicion is confirmed in his dream. He takes his socks off and sees for himself that his feet, which feel unusually hard, are really hooves. Habib is murmuring some kind of incantation over his shoulder. Tramp tramp trampaloo, here’s a flower just for you. White, yellow, inky red, for tomorrow you’ll be dead!”

  “Stop it!” Levadski interjects, “it’s not funny.” Habib apologizes, he only meant to help. Hips swaying, he prances toward the door and leaves the room.

  “Tramp, tramp, trampaloo …” Levadski hears Habib singing in the corridor.

  I can’t chop off the hoof, Levadski concludes, I can only affirm my cosmetic defect. And I can wash it. Levadski stomps into the bathroom and dips his hoof into the full bath. Thick steam rises towards the gilded domed ceiling.

  “Hell, hell, hell!” Habib is singing in the bedroom.

  “Why has he come back?” The steam is growing thicker and thicker, the water is spouting green bubbles that glisten for an excruciating moment before they burst. But Levadski does not allow himself to be led astray. He sits clinging to the side of the bath, letting his hoof dangle in the soup.

  “Hell, hell!” Habib sings. The bursting of the bubbles grows louder and louder. It swells to the sound of thundering cannons.

  “Damn, it’s wartime!” Levadski tries to pull his hoof out of the bath.

  “For the Fatherland! For the Fatherland, from the mountain and from the valley, up and onward, fresh and cheery!” utters Habib from the bedroom.

  Levadski is shivering with exhaustion. He cannot lift his legs any more. In a green bubble he suddenly recognizes the meticulously shaven face of his new acquaintance from the elevator. “Mr. Witzturn! It’s wartime!” Levadski moans.

  “Come, brother, give me your hand!” he hears Mr. Witzturn say in a mosquito voice from inside the bubble.

  “For the Fatherland! For the Fatherland!” Habib yodels through the bathroom door, “the land where our cradles stood …”

  Levadski stretches his finger out towards the greenish bubble. “And what if you burst?”

  “Don’t worry, soon the days of ice and powdery snow will be over. Please!” Mr. Witzturn pleads from his filigreed hiding place. Levadski hesitates. The blister of water is trembling precariously. “Quick, brother, give me your hand!” Levadski moves his finger in the direction of Mr. Witzturn’s plastic nose, coming closer and closer. “For the Fatherland, for the Fatherland!” Habib shouts in Levadski’s ear. The finger twitches and bursts the bubble.

  “Mr. Levadski!” Habib’s kid glove holds on tightly to Levadski’s wrist while Levadski is racked by a coughing fit. “You were snoring,” Habib tells him between coughs, “and then you choked in your sleep. Do you want me to thump you?” Levadski shakes his head.

  “Do you think you could, ahem, get me two tickets for this evening?”

  “But of course. A lady?” Habib rolls his eyes gallantly.

  “Ahem,” Levadski clear’s his throat, “the gentleman from the elevator. I have always, been, ahem, suspicious of women, people too by the way. Humans on the whole, I mean.”

  “I understand.” Veils of clouds drift across Habib’s moon-face. “Don’t get me wrong, hehemm. Habib, I am not a ladies’ man, and where I worked, I only drank with colleagues, he-hem-aheeheem, because I was forced to.”

  “I understand,” Habib repeats even more softly.

  “And now I am here, Habib, the Musikverein is behind me. On one of the upper floors, my acquaintance from the elevator, a particularly amiable gentleman, is enjoying a nap, isn’t he? Tomorrow he is leaving. I will never see him again. Why, for God’s sake, should I not invite him to a concert and give him some pleasure?”

  “I will arrange the tickets for you.”

  “Music,” Levadski adds, eyes screwed up in delight, “wipes away all misunderstandings. It sweeps across the world!” Habib takes a peek at his watch. “It sweeps across the world as the only, the only truth, Habib!”

  “Yes,” The butler sighs.

  “I do not know the gentleman. But that is beside the point. We are,” Levadski searches for the words, “we are symbols.”

  “Of what?”

  “Well, symbols of, ahem, of those, of those …” Levadski scratches his bald head, “of who we might have been. Of who we are!”

  “Let’s hope that your friend can make it,” Habib remarks carefully.

  “Why shouldn’t he be able to? After all we have arranged to meet in the Bar Maria Theresia this evening.” Levadski throws a glance at the telephone. “Would you be so kind as to find out which room Mr. Witzturn is staying in?”

  Habib calls the concierge. “The name is Witzturn. Witz …”

  “Turn!” Levadski adds.

  “Turn, Witzturn, yes. Yes. Thank you. We’re joining forces.” Levadski struggles out of the armchair.

  “Oh, Habib, please ask him whether he would like …”

  “Yes. Good day, reception. I apologize for disturbing you around …” Habib looks at his watch, “lunchtime. The gentleman you arranged to meet this evening in the Bar Maria Theresia would like to know whether you would care to go to a concert with him instead. Yes. Yes. Classical music. Yes. Vienna Symphony. We will let you know in a minute what time it starts. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Yes, I will pass that on. Thank you. I will. I will. Goodbye.”

  Habib raises his forefinger. “He would be delighted to join you, but he wanted me to tell you that the concert does not get you out of paying a visit to the bar!”

  “Did he really say he would be delighted?”

  “Yes, absolutely delighted!”

  Levadski taps his scrawny thigh. “That’s the kind of man I met in the elevator!”

  “Here, the program,” Habib waves a magazine. “Where To Go In Vienna, Musikverein, November. Today … Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 7:30, Fe-do-se-yev. Vladimir Fedoseyev, conductor, Alexander Glazunov, there he is, your Glazunov, Concert Waltz No.1 in D-Ma-jor, Op. 47 and Concerto for alto saxophone and strings in E-Flat Major, Op. 109, and after the intermission, Hector Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14, Episode in the Life of an Artist …”

  “That sounds good!” Levadski says happily, “please call!”

  “Yes. Good day, reception again. It starts at 7:30. Vladimir Fedoseyev, Conductor, Alexander Glazunov, Concert Waltz and Concerto for saxophone and strings, Hector Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, Episode in the Life of an Artist. You could think about setting out slowly at 7:00. The Musikverein building … Yes, seven o’clock, it’s right behind the hotel. You know. Certainly. Seven in the lobby,” Habib repeats and nods at Levadski on the opposite side of the room. “Enjoy yourself. Goodbye.”

  “Why did you say reception? You called from my room.”

  “Your friend, Mr. Witzturn, he does not have butler service.”

  After several failed attempts, Levadski hoists himself out of the armchair. Smiling and serious, he is now standing before Habib, who makes himself smaller by lowering his gaze to the parquet floor. “You are a wonderful person, Habib.” If the butler were to raise his gaze from the parquet floor now, he would be looking into Levadski’s watery e
yes.

  “Have a rest before the concert,” Habib advises and takes his leave so that he can arrange the tickets.

  Such a tactful young man! Levadski looks at himself in the mirrored door of his bedroom. The suit was a good buy. And the walking stick too. I will take a discreet look at Mr. Witzturn’s cane through my magnifying glass this evening when the opportunity arises. Levadski trots over to the window: a streetcar, red, light gray and gray, swims along the tracks.

  Want a real vacation? the advertisement on the first car reads. Tunisia, only two hours by plane. Live your dreams!

  When Mr. Witzturn is clapping this evening, I will seize the moment and take a look at his walking stick, thinks Levadski.

  I am moving ahead, reads the ad on an older red streetcar on the other side of the road, Vienna-businesschool.at.

  It is impossible for a human being to have as much tact as this Habib, thinks Levadski. Like an animal, yes, like an animal he holds up a mirror in front of me, the mirror of my own wretchedness.

  Toifl Textile Care is waiting in the middle of the street, blinkers on, and turns off in the direction of the back entrance of the hotel. 15 Years Gruenfeldt Insect Screens breathes in the exhaust from the little Nordsee fish delivery van. Fall in love with fish.

  If I were Habib, it would never have occurred to me to announce myself as the reception desk, such thoughtfulness, so tactful, such genuine sympathy! Just so that Mr. Witzturn is not reminded that there are people who are even more privileged that he is in this hotel. Or perhaps so as not to make me seem like a showoff? Levadski stares at the writing on the streetcar that slowly comes to a halt in front of his window. Nobody chooses where they are born. Mr. Witzturn probably has sufficient dignity to not feel one iota smaller in a Classic Room and without a butler. But you never know. At our age.

  The ringing of the telephone gives him a start. Habib is on the line, he has got the tickets. Row 1, seats 3 and 4, ground floor box on the right, sparkling wine in the intermission ordered in Levadski’s name.