King, Queen, Knave

by Vladimir Nabokov

  So now the time came to obtain a small dependable revolver. She imagined how Franz—slow, lanky, shy Franz—would make the rounds of gun shops, how the friendly salesman would suddenly start asking him tricky questions, how the idiot would remember later Franz’s tortoise shell glasses and the explanatory gestures of his thin, white, innocent hands, how later, after the gun had been used and buried, some meddlesome detective would ferret all this out.… Now, if she should go and buy it.… Perhaps she thought Tom had rabies and she wanted to shoot him, and actually did some practicing—women can also learn to shoot well. And suddenly an extraneous image floated by, stopped, turned, and floated on like those cute objects that move by themselves in commercial cinema advertisements. She realized why the image of the revolver had in her mind such a definite form and color, though she knew nothing about guns. Willy’s face emerged from the depth of her memory; he laughed his fat laugh, and bent low examining something, and holding back Tom, who thought it was a plaything for him. She made another effort and remembered that Dreyer was sitting at his desk and showing Willy—what? a revolver! Willy had turned it in his hands, laughing, and the dog barked. She could remember nothing more, but that was sufficient. And she was amazed and gladdened to see how painstakingly and providently her mind had conserved for a couple of years that fleeting but absolutely indispensable image.

  It was yet another Sunday. Dreyer and Tom went out for a little walk. All the windows in the villa were open. Sunlight made itself comfortable in unexpected corners of the rooms. On the terrace a breeze ruffled the pages of the April issue (already old) of a magazine with a photograph of the newly discovered, really lovely arms of Venus. First of all, Martha thoroughly explored the desk drawers. Among blue folders containing documents, she found several sticks of gold-tinted sealing wax, a flashlight, three guldens and one shilling, an exercise book with English words written in it, his grinning passport (who grins in official circumstances?), a pipe, broken, that she had given him a long long time ago, an old little album of faded snapshots, a recent snapshot of a girl that might have been Isolda Portz had she not worn a smart ski suit in the photo, a box of thumbtacks, pieces of string, a watch crystal, and other trivial junk the accumulation of which always infuriated Martha. Most of these articles, including the copybook and the winter sports advertisement, she deposited in the wastebasket. She thrust back the drawers violently and, leaving the deafened desk, went up to the bedroom. There she rummaged through two white chests-of-drawers, finding among other things a hard ball that bore Tom’s toothmarks which God knows how had got into the drawer where her husband’s ten pairs of shoes stood in two neat rows. She threw the ball out of the window. She ran downstairs. In passing by a mirror she noticed that the powder had come off her nose and her eyes were positively haggard. Should she see a lung doctor or a heart specialist? Or both? She inspected a few more drawers in various rooms, chiding herself for looking in absurd places, and finally decided that the gun was either in the safe, to which she did not have a key (the Will was there, the treasure, the future!), or else at the office. She tried the accursed desk again. It cringed and stood holding its breath at her menacing approach. The drawers began clacking like slaps on the face. Not here! Not here! Not here! She noticed a brown briefcase in one. She lifted it angrily. Beneath it she saw deep in the drawer a small revolver with a mother-of-pearl handle. Simultaneously her husband’s voice came from nearby, and pushing the briefcase back, she quickly closed the drawer.

  “Heavenly day,” Dreyer was saying in a singsong voice. “Almost like summer.”

  Morosely, without turning, she said:

  “I’m looking for some pills. You had pyramidon in your desk. My head is splitting.”

  “I don’t know. Nobody’s head should split on such a lovely day.”

  He seated himself on the leather arm of a chair and wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

  “You know what, my love,” he said. “I’ve got an idea. Listen—what’s Franz’s telephone number?—I’ll call him up, and we’ll all drive to the tennis club. Good idea? Charming idea?”

  “When do you want to lunch? He is coming for lunch. Why don’t you ring somebody else and play after lunch?”

  “It’s only ten now. We can lunch at half past one. It’s a shame to waste such weather. You come too. Okay, okay, okay?”

  She consented to come only because she knew how unbearable it would be for Franz to be with him alone. “I’ll call him,” she said.

  The landlord asked who she was, and why she wanted to talk to his lodger. But Martha told him to mind his own business. Franz, taken by surprise, arrived in an ordinary suit, having simply changed to sneakers. Dreyer, puffing with impatience and afraid that at any moment a thunderhead might form in the sky, rushed him upstairs and issued him a pair of white flannel pants which he had bought in London a couple of years ago, and which were too tight for him. Standing there, arms akimbo, eyes bulging, head cocked, he watched as Franz changed. The poor boy stank like a goat. And those long drawers on a day like this! Whoever sewed on that monogram was not a professional—at least not a professional seamstress. Franz, numbed with embarrassment, well aware that his underwear was not what it should be, and grotesquely fearful that something about the whole situation might give away the messy secrets of adultery, had trouble with the changing of trousers, as he stepped from foot to foot, hopping and extending one leg, and trying to persuade himself that it was only a bad dream. Dreyer too began stepping from one foot to the other. The awfulness dragged on. The trousers seemed too long and too voluminous, and in the course of that sack race a spasmodic movement landed Franz on the top of a broken luggage rack which had no business to be in the dressing room. Dreyer made vague motions as if he wanted to help. No less nightmarish was the business of buttoning the dummy’s fly, which he was told to do himself. After which the fitter with two fingers delicately pulled up the waist, adjusted the side straps, expertly slipped a belt around the wooden waist, and sank on one knee to measure the leg with a tape which he wore as one does a dancing serpent. Finally he gave a chuckle of relief and approval, and dealt Franz a robust slap on the buttocks. The blow kept vibrating for quite a long time in the poor fellow’s system whereas his double squeamishly advanced on bent legs, tucking in his bottom. The tingle endured even in the taxi. When they got out Dreyer gave him another exuberant slap, this time with Franz’s racket, which he was about to forget in the cab. “Aber lass doch,” said Martha to her vulgar husband.

  On the terra-cotta courts white figures darted to and fro, while hired children picked up the balls at top speed. All around, a tall wire fencing was hung with green tarpaulin. White tables and wicker armchairs stood in front of the clubhouse. Everything was very clean and sharply defined. Martha fell into conversation with a blond-legged beautiful pale-eyed woman in a white skirt no bigger than a paper lampshade. They ordered drinks—an ice-cold American coffee-dark concoction. Dreyer went inside to change. Dark Martha and the platinum lady spoke loudly but Franz did not catch a single word. A stray ball bounced past him onto a table, onto a chair, onto the turf. He picked it up and examined it: it was quite new and signed in violet by a firm well represented at the Dandy. Franz put the ball on the table. Two other young women went by with bare arms and legs, putting the red soles of their silk-laced white shoes (Mercury—no, Loveset) down on the lawn quite flat as if walking barefoot. Their eyes were happy, their mouths red. All that was in the past, dreams and desires of a boyhood long gone. They blinded him with a blended smile, mistaking him for somebody. Beside one of the further courts a kind of judge, or guardian of games, sat on a stepladder chair watching the ball cross the net, and like an automaton shaking his head in rhythm—denying, denying, denying, they are not for you. In the black aperture of the door appeared a dazzling white Dreyer. “Let’s go,” he cried, and with a bouncing step, a fluffy towel around his neck, two rackets under his arm, and a box of new balls in his hand, headed for court number six. Martha said au revoi
r to the lady and moved to another chair to watch the two players. On the court, with the thoroughness of an executioner preparing the block, Dreyer was already measuring the height of the net with his racket. Franz stood on the side of the court near his mistress, looking up at a passing airplane. With stern tenderness she took note of his dear boyish neck, his shining glasses, his elegant tennis trousers which were a bit too roomy around the hips but otherwise very becoming. Having completed his sinister manipulations, Dreyer jogged heavily to his base line. Franz remained standing in the center of his own rectangle. A scrawny little girl with a blank expression on her freckled face bounced toward him one of the balls from the box. As the ball jumped, it struck him in the groin, he tried to pat it down with his racket but it passed between his legs and she threw him another which eluded him too. This time, however, he ran after it, and finally picked it up from under the feet of a player on the adjacent court, who muffed his shot and glared at him. Zestful Franz ran back with the pocketed ball and assumed his former position. With a tolerant grin Dreyer waved at him to stand further back and ladled out a warm-up underhand serve in tolerably correct style copied from that of the club coach Count Zubov. Franz swung at it and with beginner’s luck returned it by means of a tremendous, though unorthodox, whack that propelled the ball well beyond Dreyer’s reach. Martha could not refrain from applauding. Dreyer dealt out another underhand serve. Franz’s weapon swished mightily but the ball flew by unscathed and was neatly fielded by the little girl behind him. Then, taking his time, Franz held the ball found in his pocket at arm’s length, gauged the altitude, dropped the ball, and attempted to hit it on the rebound. Again nothing happened except that he stepped on the ball and nearly fell. He trotted to the net, where the ball had finally got entangled. Dreyer told him to go well back and continued to send him ball after ball. Franz lunged and whirled but his main stroke remained a swing in a void. The little girl, who was beginning to enjoy herself, kept flitting this way and that, cupping every ball in her tiny hands, and with nonchalant precision rolling it or tossing it back to Dreyer.

  “Stop getting in the way,” cried Martha to the impudent little catcher, but the child did not hear or did not understand.She had a brass ring on her finger. Might be a dirty little gypsy or something.

  The ordeal continued. Finally Franz in the ecstasy of despair did get a crack at the ball, and it soared over the roof of the pavilion.

  Dreyer slowly walked up to the net and beckoned to Franz.

  “Have I won?” asked Franz, panting.

  “No,” said Dreyer, “I just want to explain something. We are not playing American baseball or English cricket. This is a game called ‘lawn tennis’ because it was first played on grass.” He invariably mispronounced “lawn” as if rhymed with “down.”

  Then, slowly and sadly, Dreyer returned to his base line, and the same thing began all over again. Martha could bear it no longer. She shouted from where she sat:

  “Enough, enough! You see perfectly well he can’t—”

  She had wanted to shout “can’t play” but a gust of spring wind cut off the ultimate word. Franz intently examined the strings of his racket. A young fellow, also lanky and also wearing glasses, who had been watching the play with predatory irony, stepped forward and bowed, and Dreyer, indicating with his racket to Franz that he could go, joyfully greeted the newcomer, whom he knew to be a strong player.

  Franz walked over to Martha and sat down beside her. His face was pale and drawn, and glistened with sweat. She was smiling at him but he wiped his glasses and did not look her way. “Dear,” she whispered, trying to catch his eye; she caught it, but he shook his head gloomily, his teeth clenched.

  “Everything is all right,” she said softly. “It won’t happen again. I’ll tell you something,” she added still more softly. “Listen, I found it.”

  His gaze slipped away but she firmly recaptured it. “… I found it in the desk. You’ll simply take it the day before. Understand?”

  He blinked. “You’ll catch cold like that,” she said. “There’s a bad wind blowing. Put on your sweater and coat, darling.”

  “Not so loud,” whispered Franz. “Please.”

  She smiled, looked around, shrugged.

  “I must explain to you.… No, listen, Franz—I have a completely new plan.”

  Dreyer had just made a good shot, gently slicing the ball close to the net, and glanced from under his brows at his wife, pleased that she was looking at him.

  “You know what,” whispered Martha. “Let’s go. I must explain everything to you.”

  Dreyer missed a volley and returned to his base line, shaking his head. Martha called him over. She told him that her headache was worse, and that he should not be late for lunch. Dreyer nodded and went on with the game.

  They could not find a taxi but anyway it was only a few minutes of fast walking. They cut across a park where happy lovers were melting in each other’s arms on yesteryear’s dry leaves. She began explaining on the way.

  The plan was delightfully innocent: it was based on his study of English. Occasionally he would ask her to dictate something to him. She knew fewer words than he but her pronunciation was perhaps a little better than his or at least different from his: her “lawn” for example rhymed with “own” and not “down,” which was ridiculous, as she had told him many times, the obstinate fool. He used to take down her dictation in an exercise book. Then he would compare what he had written with the text. And it was on such a dictation that everlasting happiness in a private park would depend. They would take a Tauchnitz novel and find a suitable sentence in it, such as “I could not have acted otherwise” or “I am shooting myself because I am tired of life.” The rest was clear. “In your presence,” she said, “I shall dictate to him the chosen sentence. Of course, he must write it not in a copybook but on a clean sheet of letter paper. In fact I have already destroyed that copybook. As soon as he has written that down but just before he has lifted his head you’ll come up to him very close and a little behind him, as if you wanted to look over his shoulder, and then very carefully—”

  10

  Almost three months had already elapsed since that unforgettable day when the Inventor (by now capitalized in Dreyer’s mind) had produced the first samples of his automannequins, as he called them. Because of the strong naked lighting, his workshop resembled a medical laboratory, and indeed it had been exactly that in the past. Demonstrations were conducted in a large bare room that had been once a repository for dead bodies and parts of such bodies, which ribald students (some of them, though not all, respectable old surgeons today) frequently used to place in various attitudes and reciprocal positions suggestive of strange orgies. The Inventor and Dreyer stood in a corner of the room and watched in silence.

  In the center of the brightly illuminated floor, a plump little figure about a foot and a half tall, tightly bundled in brown sackcloth that left exposed only a pair of short blood-red legs made of some substance resembling rubber and shod in baby boots with buttons, walked back and forth with a very natural human-like motion, swaggering a wee bit and turning at every tenth step with a built-in little cry between “hep” and “help” meant to disguise the slight creak of its mechanism. Dreyer, hands clasped on his stomach, watched with soft emotion, as a sentimental visitor watches a child—perhaps his own little bastard—to whose first toddle he is being treated by a proud mother. The Inventor, who had let his beard grow and now looked like an Oriental priest in mufti, kept tapping his foot lightly in time to the movements of the little figure. “Goodness,” said Dreyer suddenly in a high-pitched voice, as if he were ready to burst into tears of tenderness. The hooded gnome did in fact walk about very catchingly. That brown cloth was there only for decency’s sake. Afterwards, when the mechanism had died, the Inventor unwrapped his prototypical automannequin and laid bare its works: a delicate system of joints and muscles, and three small but remarkably heavy batteries. One thing about this invention could be discerned e
ven in this first crude model; what impressed one was not so much those electrical ganglia and the rhythmic transmission of current as the springy, somewhat stylized, but wonderfully lifelike gait of the mechanical infant. Paradoxically, it paced the floor more like a meditating mathematician than a babe in the wood. The secret of this motion lay in the flexibility of voskin—the very special stuff with which the Inventor had replaced live bones and live flesh. The two pseudopodia of this original voskiddy seemed alive not because it moved them (a mechanized “strollie” or zhivulya are after all no rarity, they breed like rabbits on sidewalks around Easter or Christmas) but rather because the material itself, animated by a so-called galvanobiotic current, remained active all the time—rippling, tensing, slackening as if organically alive or even conscious, a double ripple grading into triple dapple with the smoothness of reflections in water. It walked without jerking—this was the wonder of it. And it was this that Dreyer appreciated most while reacting rather indifferently to the technical mystery, imparted to him first in code, then in coded explanation of the code, by the cagy Inventor.