David's Revenge

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  When I steeled myself to return to Ralf’s board after a good half an hour, he had one more chessman left than the child, and was in the process of driving the black king into the middle of the board. The child must have made a fatal mistake. I waited for him to start crying, which I wouldn’t have wanted either, because he really was a nice kid. But after a couple more moves, in which his situation became even worse, he suddenly turned off the clock, offered Ralf his hand, and wrote on his notation form “resigned” in round letters. He stood up, put the form in his pocket, said, “So long,” and walked away.

  I congratulated Ralf. He nodded a little awkwardly and said, “That little kid really wasn’t bad.” I said I could see that, and asked if he’d like to have a cup of coffee with me. He hesitated, then said he’d have to let the tournament management know the result of the game, and after that he wanted to have a look around and see how the other boy from his school was doing. I said goodbye, wishing him luck. He gave me his hand and smiled. “Well, we’ll see. I’m not knocked out of my first tournament just yet.”

  When I got home I found no one in. Julia had left me a note on the desk, saying that she and Erika and David had gone into town to see a film, and then they were going to get something for supper from Felipe’s. I could follow them if I liked. I didn’t like.

  Chapter 40

  I wonder how Ralf is doing in SchwitteMinnenbüren. He’ll have the first coaching session from Mr Tretyakov or Molotov or Ustinov—or whatever those eminent experts are called—behind him by now. Perhaps he is still sitting in the dining room of the youth hostel at the moment, eating the vanilla pudding with raspberry sauce donated by Herr Friedrich Hünten as dessert after the first course of a casserole, cuffing a small chess genius who jostled him in passing and then got stuck at his table, and thinking a little nervously of the second round, which begins in an hour’s time, and the opponent he may be facing in it.

  I once felt very much at my ease in a place like SchwitteMinnenbüren, admittedly when I was a child, and not staying in a youth hostel, nor was there any factory or even a comprehensive school around. I used to stay with my uncle and aunt in the holidays, sleeping in a huge bed with turned, highly polished bedposts which shone in the glow from the street lights by night, and gave me the comfortable feeling that I was resting in an impregnable fortress. I didn’t notice it if the main street emptied at twelve sharp every morning, not just on Sundays, for at that time of day I was sitting down to the table myself and letting my aunt fill my plate.

  In the morning I would go out to the woods in sunny weather with the friends I had easily made locally. We crossed the tracks of the branch railway that ran along the slope, and when a train was coming laboriously up from the valley we played chicken, seeing who would be the last to dare to jump over the sleepers in front of the engine. The engine driver would ring his bell furiously, the shrill steam whistle blew, he leaned out of his window and shook his clenched fist at us as he drove by—“You louts, you want a good hiding, you do!”

  There was a little river much like the Laaxe there as well. We took our shoes and socks off and picked our way over the slippery stones, trying to catch the tiny fish that shot through the splashing water in our hands. We were more successful looking for blackberries. Sometimes we agreed that we would all bring a container from home, and my aunt gave me the enamel water scoop that hung over the sink. We used to climb up into the woods, intending to come home with our harvest. But once the containers were half full we stopped picking, sat down at the top of the slope, looked down at the church tower and the rooftops, and devoured all the berries we had gathered.

  I never had such a sense of happiness again. When I have found myself in the SchwitteMinnenbürens of this world now and then later, they have usually depressed me. I’ve seen to it that I get back home to the city as quickly as possible. I have felt lonely and abandoned in their quiet, empty streets, amidst the tree-grown slopes, under the wide sky: exposed in a strange, indeed a hostile world.

  It is easy to explain the contradiction. It’s nothing to do with the place itself, or the difference between staying somewhere abroad or in familiar surroundings. We can feel just as lonely at home as abroad if there are no friends around, people with whom we feel a bond, and who let us see that they feel a bond with us in return. I hope Ralf will be spared this experience in SchwitteMinnenbüren. I hope he’ll find a friend as well as opponents there.

  Julia is off on another trip with Ninoshvili tomorrow. She has a date with her client in Frankfurt in the afternoon, and at the same time Ninoshvili is going to see one of the publishing houses he visited last week again. They’ll come home in the evening.

  Chapter 41

  Dr Lawrenz has written me a letter. Dr Lawrenz, a medical doctor who runs a flourishing gynaecological practice and is much in demand for treating outpatients, is chairman of the section of the Parents’ Association responsible for the welfare of my drama group.

  It has come to his attention, the gynaecologist writes, that I have been making enquiries among the students in the group to discover which unknown person damaged a stage set for a play. He would have expected me, he says, at least to inform the Parents’ Association before embarking on an investigation of this kind. However, as I obviously did not think that necessary, he finds himself obliged to insist on a meeting of the Association immediately after half-term.

  Dr Lawrenz is a bastard, and I ought to have expected that he wouldn’t let this opportunity to puff up his own importance pass. His own brainless son doesn’t belong to the drama group, but even that lad’s dull mind will have grasped what it was all about. I just hope that Trabert, whom I have informed about Manni Wallmeroth’s visit to me—I told Elke Lampert as well—hasn’t yet spread the story of his confession.

  I wanted a reason to leave the house before Julia came home from the courthouse to pick up our guest and drive to Frankfurt, so I phoned Elke. I told her about the outrageous letter that that stuffed shirt had sent me—he once muscled in on her territory as well, making a complaint to the principal—and asked whether she felt like talking to me again about Manni and his swastika, if she had the time. She said I could come to her house; she’d just been idling around since early morning.

  I looked in at our living room. Ninoshvili was sitting in a chair reading the paper. Erika had slept a little later than he had; I found her at the dining table eating her diet breakfast: low-fat curd cheese, crispbread and a hardboiled egg. I said I had to go and see a colleague. Ninoshvili called, “Are you off for the rest of this morning, Christian? I wanted to show you the publisher’s catalogue.” I said I was sorry, I didn’t have time now, but I hoped he would have a good journey and do a successful deal. Erika glanced at me over the rim of her teacup.

  My conversation with Elke signally failed to cheer me up. She came to the door in a baggy pullover, slippers trodden down at the heels on her bare feet, her hair untidy and her face only perfunctorily made up. She was obviously feeling depressed, and I immediately suspected that her husband had come home late yet again, claiming that one of the pill-rolling machines was out of order and urgently needed servicing. But I did not ask about her husband. I didn’t feel up to having Elke unload her troubles on me in addition to the rest of it.

  She got her own back, though certainly not with any malicious intent, poor thing, by saying she saw major problems ahead for me. She read the gynaecologist’s letter, folded it up again carefully, nodded and said, “He’ll have the whole Parents’ Association up in arms against you. He did that with me. They’ll blame you for being too hard on the poor children. And the stupid thing is that they’ll be right.”

  “You said that before. Do you really think so?”

  “Yes, I do, even if you don’t like to hear it.”

  “Well, at least my methods persuaded Manni to come and see me.”

  “So they did. And now what?” She said that Dr Lawrenz, like Brauckmann and one or two other staff members whose names she didn�
��t need to tell me, probably thought the slogan and the swastika no more than thoughtless, stupid conduct, a silly prank. They would certainly go on the warpath if I insisted on Manni Wallmeroth’s exclusion from the school. Not because they particularly liked him, but they liked me and my principles even less. Yes, yes, my chances were certainly better than she would have expected because that silly boy Manni had already booked himself a place in the firing line. But how would I feel if he really was excluded this time?

  I said nothing. She leaned forwards and poured me some coffee. “You don’t really want that.”

  “Who says I’m going to insist on his exclusion?”

  She laughed and threw her head back. “Well, that would be a new departure! A man admitting he’s gone too far!” She looked at me. “Do you really think so? You’d have to take back everything you said at the staff meeting. A misdeed that must be sternly punished, because otherwise all the dams would be broken. Don’t you remember? You’d have to climb off your high horse. You’d have to admit to minding more about a boy like Manni Wallmeroth than about your principles. Do you really think you could do it?”

  I said, “So now you’re trying to make it all into some kind of masculine failing? I don’t think that’s appropriate. In fact to be honest I think it’s idiotic. Why couldn’t a woman act in the same way? What’s it got to do with sticking to one’s principles? And why wouldn’t a man be able to admit that he’d gone too far?”

  All of a sudden she began to cry. She fished a handkerchief out of the baggy pullover, pressed it to her eyes and cried quietly. I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to speak roughly.” She didn’t answer. After a while I moved closer to her on the sofa, put an arm around her shoulders and shook her gently. “What’s the matter, Elke?”

  It all came pouring out, just as I’d feared. She had caught her husband again, this time in the front seat of the car with his fies open, and with the same lady as before leaning over him. He explained to Elke that the woman wouldn’t accept his letter dumping her, she had given him no peace, threatening to kill herself unless he agreed to meet and talk one last time in the car park, and once there she positively attacked him.

  I tried to comfort Elke, but my efforts were even less wholehearted than the first time. I was tired of having to find psychological reasons for Herr Lampert’s quirky sexual habits. So we fell into mutual silence. She kept sniffing, I gently shook her shoulders now and then. I stopped when she suddenly raised her head and looked at me with a sad smile. “Christian, you don’t know how lucky you are.”

  I walked through the city for a time before going home. When I had closed the front door behind me I stood there for a moment, and called, “Hello?” Erika’s voice answered, from the living room. “Hello, Christian! I’m in here!” She was in an armchair with an open book on her lap. It was the first time I’d ever seen her reading a book.

  “Weren’t you going to go with the other two?” I asked.

  “No, what makes you think that?” She smiled, raised her fingertips to her head and patted her hairstyle into shape. “Why would I want to go to Frankfurt?” After a brief pause, she added, “And anyway, I’m not necessarily hell-bent on enjoying the company of Herr Dzhugashvili.”

  “Ninoshvili.”

  “What did I say, then?”

  “Dzhugashvili.” I sat down with her. “That was Stalin.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “You can see how much we learned at school! The good old German Democratic Republic doesn’t take its claws out of you in a hurry!”

  “How long have they been gone?” I asked.

  She looked at the time. “About an hour.”

  I stood up. “Have you had any lunch yet?”

  “For Heaven’s sake, that’s the last thing I need! I put on two kilos at the weekend, and one of them’s still with me, isn’t that obvious?”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  She stood up, looked down at herself, passed her hands over her hips and looked at me.

  “You’re fishing for compliments.” I got up and went into the kitchen, found myself some curd cheese in the fridge. She appeared in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the doorpost. “Oh, and David Thingy had another phone call this morning, from Darmstadt. From a publisher there. Does that sound likely?”

  “Yes, it does. And what did the publisher want?”

  She put a hand to her hair and tidied a curl into place. “They wanted him to go and talk to them about something tomorrow morning, something or other important. A contract, could that be right? Anyway, they were very keen on speaking to him tomorrow morning.”

  She stopped, and I stared at her. She said, “Julia’s going to take him on there from Frankfurt. She said she doesn’t have to be in court tomorrow.” After a moment she added, “They’re planning to spend the night in Frankfurt or Darmstadt. Julia thinks they’ll be back here around midday tomorrow.”

  I walked past her with my curd cheese, sat down in a comfortable chair in the living room and spooned it up. She followed me, picked up the book from her own chair, sat down beside me and looked at the book. “Julia’s going to call as soon as she knows which hotel they’re staying in.”

  After a while, during which time she leafed through the book, she looked at me and smiled. “Do you know what? I feel like a little cognac. Will you drink one with me?”

  “No, thanks, not my time of day for it.” I rose to my feet, poured a cognac and handed it to her. She raised the glass and smiled at me. “To your good health, Christian! To your very good health!”

  Chapter 42

  I went to bed with Erika. I can at least say in my own defence that her perfume washes off in a bath, and once she’d had one she was no longer enveloped in a cloud of the stuff.

  After she had given me Julia’s message, I stayed sitting with her for some time in the living room, trying to make conversation. When she mentioned David Thingy again and began telling me why she doesn’t particularly like him, I stood up and said please would she excuse me, I had some work to do. She nodded, said she hadn’t wanted to hold me up, and opened her book. I went to my study, closed the door behind me, and covered a sheet of paper with matchstick men, carefully moving from line to line.

  Some time later I heard her going upstairs to the top floor. I listened. Ten or fifteen minutes later she came downstairs again. I felt a sudden fear that she could be going out, leaving me on my own. I opened the door and smiled at her. She stopped in front of me.

  I asked, before I could think better of it, “Why don’t the two of us go out this evening? What do you say?”

  “Well, my word!” She began to laugh. “That would be quite something! Oh yes, that would be fantastic!”

  I asked what she felt like—a film, the theatre, maybe the opera if there were still tickets available. She said I knew she was an opera buff. I looked up the programme, and there was no opera this evening but a ballet performance instead, The Firebird. That would be even better, she cried, fantastic! I called the booking office and got two tickets, for the most expensive seats, as I correctly assumed from the price, but it was worth it to me. Erika kissed me firmly on both cheeks.

  She said I must go on with my work, and went down to the living room. I drew the next row of matchstick men. Half an hour later there was a knock at the study door, and I hastily reached for the notes on my series of lessons about Georgia and covered up the matchstick men. Erika put her head round the door. She didn’t want to disturb me, she said, but she’d like to know what time we would have to leave. I said the performance began at seven, but maybe we should get something light to eat in town before it, or my stomach might start grumbling too loudly. She laughed. I asked if five would be all right for her. Of course it was, she said, and closed the door.

  A quarter of an hour later there was another knock. “Come in!” I called, and looked up from the book I had been reading without taking in two lines running. She came in, stood beside the desk and smiled rather uncertainly,
as if she had an embarrassing little confession to make. She said, “Christian, could I ask you an outrageous question…?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Could I maybe, just for once, use your bathroom?” She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but I’d really love a bath. I’d like to wallow in the tub for a change and then have plenty of room to get ready.”

  “Not an outrageous question at all.” I stood up, opened the bathroom door and looked in. I pointed to the wall cupboard. “You’ll find towels and flannels in there, and there’s a bottle of bath foam. If you need anything else, just let me know.”

  She kissed me on both cheeks. I asked. “Could you do me a great favour?”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “If you don’t mind too much… could you not put your perfume on again after you’ve had your bath?”

  She looked at me, wide-eyed. Then she asked, “Don’t you like it?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Oh, why did you never say so?”

  “I’ve never spent a whole evening sitting next to you in the opera house either.”

  She laughed and lightly prodded my chest. “What a funny one you are! But you really don’t have to be so shy!”

  After her bath she knocked again and took a step inside the room. She was wearing a short pink dressing gown and white slippers. “The bathroom’s empty.”

  “Thanks.”

  She looked down at her breasts, and pulled the dressing gown together slightly. “I was just thinking…” She looked at me. “How can we leave before Julia calls? I’m sure you’ll want to know where she’s staying.”

  “I’ll hear that soon enough. She can leave a message on the answering machine.”