Count Luna

by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

  For centuries this branch of the Luna family virtually vanished from the scene. As beggarly hangers-on of the great, they passed their lives in utter poverty — a state which they shared with one million petty nobles and seven million still poorer peasants and laborers. It was not until 1700 that a certain Inigo de Luna emerged from this misery, and, in fact, it is not altogether certain that he was descended from the Constable. This man went to Vienna with one of the groups of Spanish nobles who were sent there at more or less regular intervals to serve at the imperial court. He distinguished himself in the wars against the Turks and was invested by Charles the Sixth with two estates in Hungary, Györkeny and Czecze.

  When he reached this point in his reading, Jessiersky turned pale. For “Györkeny” and “Czecze” were the titles of one of his own grandmothers, that Sophie Grabaricz de Györkeny and Czecze, who had been the wife of Witold Jessiersky. In what order the Lunas and the Grabariczes had been invested with those estates and when they had lost them (for, like the Jessierskijs, the Lunas had also lost them) was of no importance compared to the fact that a link of this sort existed between the two families. In itself, it was not particularly significant since very often two entirely different families were invested one after the other with the same estate. But to Jessiersky it was of the utmost significance, for it confirmed him in his mysterious feeling of oneness with his mortal enemy.

  At the time of Ferdinand the First, also called the Kind, a Luna served a term as ambassador to the Holy See and was also made a count in his own right, that is, independent of the Spanish earldom which long before had been transferred to the Villahermosas. Afterward, however, the family sank once again into obscurity. Luna’s father, to be sure, had married a Baroness Judt-Hofkirchen, whose mother, after the death of her first husband, had married a manufacturer name Millemoth. But the Millemoths had, meanwhile, become just as impoverished as the Lunas. Virtually the last remnant of the Millemoth fortune had been the property on the Southern Railroad — whose purchase by the Fries concern had not only proved disastrous for Luna himself, but also began the undoing of Alexander Jessiersky.

  On the night when his research on this sad, strange subject came to an end, Jessiersky thoughtfully shoved into a heap the books, letters, and photostats which were lying about on the library table. Then he took down from one of the shelves Coello’s Atlas de España and opened to the region of the Pyrenees in order to look for the city of Luna. After a few moments he found the little, now apparently quite unimportant, town from which Luna had come and, with him, all these woes. Actually there was not much to see on the small map. But in spite, or perhaps because, of this, it suddenly seemed to Jessiersky that the landscape on the map bore a certain resemblance to the landscape of the moon. It is possible, even probable, that this was the moment at which, first only in a very vague way, but later more and more definitely, he began to identify Luna with the moon, or at least to identify the influence which Luna exercised with that exercised by the moon.

  He knew by now that the name Luna did not derive from the satellite of the earth, but came from the Alani, a tribe that some time in the fourth century A.D. had left their original home in the Wolkonski forest in Russia, had reached Spain on their migration, and, before moving on to Portugal, around 409, had founded a city — this same city of Luna. But that knowledge was of no use to him. He grasped it with his intellect. His emotions, however, could not rid themselves of the idea that the city was named for the moon, and the Don Alvaro de Luna, the father of the Bastard, was the ancestor of a long series of moon people.

  The lamp, whose shade was dark green outside and white inside, cast a strong light on the Coello atlas; and just as the moon receives and throws back the light of the sun, so the moon landscape on the map seemed to transform the white sheen of the lamp into silver moonlight and to cast it back onto the shadowed face of the observer. At the same time, the shores of the Bay of Barcelona and the Gulf of Biscay kept reminding him of the stony curves of the Sea of Darkness and the Sea of Rain, and the Pyrenees more and more seemed to suggest a mountain range of stellar iron. If one looked at it long enough, Jessiersky thought, one would become a moonstruck sleepwalker. Saturated with the light of this landscape, one might later — so he thought — feel impelled to get up out of bed without waking up, cross the rooms and walk up the stairs, tap, tap, to the loft. Then, as is the way of sleepwalkers, one might step out onto the roof through one of the attic windows and, without knowing what one was doing — blind to all dangers — take a stroll on the roof. . . .

  Curiously enough, he now seemed really to hear the tapping of the footsteps which he had been imagining. But after a few moments, he realized that these were real sounds and that he must also have heard them before on preceding nights. Only then he had not paid any attention to them. But he had heard them, and now he was hearing them again.

  The tapping did not come from the floor immediately above the library, not from the next floor, but from the one above that which was a kind of attic. Throughout the house and even in the street, it was so still at this time of night that, although the sound was far away and very soft, one not only could hear it distinctly, but also could tell exactly where it was coming from. The steps were coming, tonight at any rate, from the back of the house, from the direction of the narrow street which ran behind the house. They passed over the two library rooms, the dining room, and the big parlors and started down the stairs leading to the door that gave onto Bankgasse. The crystal chandeliers on the ceiling over which the footsteps passed jingled slightly. It was as though a man in armor were walking about overhead.

  On the floor between the one on which the library was located and the one on which he had heard the steps were the bedrooms of the family. But neither the footfalls nor the vibration that caused the jingling of the chandeliers came from there. Both came from the floor above where the servants were sleeping, or rather were not sleeping, since if they were sleeping they would scarcely be tapping about in the night! It might be the footman who was paying a visit to the cook, or the chauffeur who had felt obliged to pay his respects to the governess. But what did that matter? Was Jessiersky supposed to be his servants’ keeper? He did decide, however, to forbid this tapping about. After all, it was half past two.

  He rose, left the library, crossed the parlor, and had just reached the door that opened onto the stairway when he realized that the tapping individual had not only walked down the stairs, but already passed the door behind which he, Jessiersky, was standing. The fellow now must have reached the front hall, for Jessiersky could hear the glass door that closed off the stairwell being shut. The nocturnal wanderer, who, up to now, had moved in a fairly leisurely fashion, must suddenly have dashed down the dark stairs as fast as he could.

  Jessiersky, who had stepped out onto the landing, did not take the time to consider whether it had been he, or something else, that had caused the sudden flight. He turned on the light in the stairwell and ran down the steps. But the very moment he came to the glass door and entered the front hall, one of the wings of the heavy entrance door, which, meanwhile, must have been unlocked and opened, was being closed again from the outside. He was just about to fling it open and dash after the fugitive when he thought better of it. He switched off the light and cautiously opened a hand’s breadth the wing which had been left unlocked.

  The night was restless with fitful gusts of wind. The sky, a bit of which could be seen above the Ballhausplatz, was covered with a web of moonlit clouds. The wind was gentle and warm for the season. The lights of the street lamps stretching from the Liechtenstein Palace to the Dietrichstein Palace flickered, much like a swarm of will-o’-the-wisps, in the deep shadows of the buildings. But there was no human being in sight.

  Jessiersky peered up and down the street which was dotted with puddles of melted snow. He could hear the far-off roar of a few late trucks. The tangled masses of bare trees in the nearby public gardens looked like
huge brambles, and farther off, the iron chariots with their teams of four horses on the roof of the parliament buildings stood out against the moonlit clouds drifting in the southerly breeze.

  After looking about for a while, Jessiersky went over to the Hungarian Embassy and inquired of the policeman who was on duty there whether he had seen anyone leave the Strattmann Palace. No one but him, the policeman replied. But when Jessiersky had thanked the man and started back, he thought he saw a shadowy figure slip out of the door of his house and scurry off in the direction of the Burgtheater. Jessiersky immediately began to run after the figure. But no sooner had he made the first steps than the shadow vanished.

  Chapter 6

  It was hardly surprising that the male and female servants should sometimes visit each other. The prelude to such calls always followed the same, or much the same, pattern. One of the girls, as she was ironing, perhaps, would begin to sing a sentimental song: “Do you remember the hour . . .” for instance, or “A woman lay down, God wanted it thus. . . .” Then the men would know that the time was ripe. And the footman, the chauffeur, or the doorman (a married man with adulterous leanings), after studying the curves of the ironing songstress for a while, would come up to her — always in the same atavistic fashion — from behind. He would address her as “Fräulein” and inquire about her home and family, although he had not the faintest interest in them. Finally, if it happened to be summer, he would propose an outing in the Prater for the following Sunday, or if it were winter, he would suggest that they go to the movies. That, too, was always the same, for they could afford nothing else. After a time, the couple would decide that they could be far more comfortable at home than in the seats of a movie theater, or in the damp grass, surrounded by gnats. So they simply made themselves more comfortable at home. . . .

  So much for the visits within the household. There were, of course, also others, from people who did not belong to the household; obviously this caller had been one of them. But where and how had he got the house key or a duplicate of it? Which of the maids had had it made and given it to her lover? Or had the entrance door been left unlocked? Here Jessiersky caught his breath, and beads of perspiration formed on his forehead as he realized that with the door unlocked at night . . . But that was what came of spending all that time in the library and never thinking to check the door!

  From that moment on, he could not get rid of the thought that the nocturnal visitor might not have been simply an admirer of his wife’s chambermaid or of the young kitchen help, but someone else altogether. He was not sure it would be wise to question the staff; the night visitor, having got wind of Jessiersky’s inquiries, would merely exercise greater caution!

  Finally Jessiersky decided to sound the servants out after all. It occurred to him that they, too, might have heard something and might have some further information to offer. Of course, they would offer it only if they too had merely heard the visitor. If, on the other hand, one of the women had a personal interest in him, that is, if she had been visited by him, his nocturnal presence in the building could be dismissed as harmless anyway — unless he had called on her only for the purpose of getting into the house. Except for that alternative, then, Jessiersky could assume the visit to have been of a not innocuous kind only if every single one of the servants, of the females, at least, declared that she had heard the steps. The word of the female servants was important because an outside woman was most unlikely to call on one of the male domestics at night. Therefore, one woman who, in order not to give herself away, would say nothing about the footfalls could be considered proof of the harmlessness of the visitor. But the questioning would have to be handled with great tact. And how, even with the most tactful approach, would the servants be able to make statements, if most of them, perhaps all of them, had been asleep and had not been able to hear anything?

  Jessiersky became aware that the moment he felt himself again threatened with Luna’s presence, his thoughts began to turn in a circle. In fact, they grew confused. So for instance he could not resist the impulse to make a series of “calculations.” Had Luna been present at regular or irregular intervals? And if the intervals had been regular, how long had they been? That Jessiersky should embark upon such “calculations” was not in itself particularly disquieting. What was disquieting was that he then tried to ascertain whether the intervals between Luna’s visits were divisible by the length of the period from one full moon to the next, or by the duration of one phase of the moon.

  Just as the moon was supposed to influence the weather, so Luna undoubtedly had an influence upon the climate of events! And there must be times, so Jessiersky came to feel, when Luna’s command over the forces which enabled him to deceive, to inflict harm, perhaps even to kill, was greater than usual, and times when he was practically powerless. But during the intervening period, it was prescribed that he should grow and diminish in power at a regular rate. Every night and every day he rose and set and controlled the ebb and flow of events which concerned him. It was also quite possible that his own physiognomy waxed and waned, his crescent-moon-shaped face with the prominent forehead and chin and the rather pushed-in features in the middle, his skin with its pock-like blemishes which looked like volcano craters; his entire body, indeed, might grow sturdier or frailer at regular intervals. The picture at the Millemoths’, for instance, in which he looked strikingly thin, might have been taken at a time when it was, so to speak, new moon with him. A fortnight later, however, he would certainly have looked far more robust. In short, he had phases, phases like the moon. . . .

  Cursing the absurdity of such thoughts, Jessiersky tore up the paper on which he had set down his calculations, rang the bell, and gave the order for the entire domestic staff to appear at once.

  To sum up briefly, the questioning, although Jessiersky conducted it, or tried to conduct it, with the utmost tact, produced no results. This was largely due to Elisabeth Jessiersky who came in with the staff and kept throwing in such questions as: What was all this excitement about? what was this about footsteps having been heard at night? who in the world could it have been? and so forth. The servants, flustered by her undisciplined questions, began to reply in an equally undisciplined fashion, the most undisciplined aspect of their behavior being that their answers took the form of questions. Who did Herr Jessiersky think they were? Had they ever given him any reason to assume that the servant floor was a den of iniquity? Did he really think that after all the heavy work during the day they had nothing better to do than to flit about the rooms all night? If the nocturnal visitor — as Jessiersky has said himself — had escaped, it was clear that he, not they, was to blame for the disturbance. So they asked him in all deference to refrain from casting any further suspicion on them. It would never have been possible to make any such accusations in the first place, they went on, if domestic help were unionized! Incidentally, they had been meaning to tell him that hours were too long, not to speak of the free afternoons they had coming to them. . . . And so it went on for a considerable time. Finally the cook gave notice.

  Very soon after the servants had started to speak, Alexander Jessiersky fell silent and stared at them thoughtfully. Again, as at the time of the Third Reich, he had the uneasy feeling of belonging to an extremely thin stratum of humanity which had not the most remote realization of what was going on in the strata beneath. The cook, for instance, who had just given notice, was a so-called master cook; but under certain circumstances, this fact — so Jessiersky imagined — would not have deterred her for a moment from using her knife on her employers. That the manservant who waited on Jessiersky every day had not long since struck him dead with the bootjack could be attributed only to the fact that, had he done so, he would have been out of a job. . . .

  Snapping out of his bewilderment at last, Jessiersky chased everyone, including his wife, out of the room. This had not been the way to go about it. There was nothing, it seemed, that was important enough to distract people
from their preoccupation with their own trivial concerns; and inasmuch as the questioning had started off in the direction of the absurd, nothing and nobody could have steered it back onto the track of reason anyway. Jessiersky might well consider himself lucky if all this fuss had not made the nocturnal caller as wary as a frightened roebuck and never appear again.

  This, apparently, was exactly what happened. For weeks, even months, the sinister prowler gave no sign of life, and Jessiersky lay in wait for him in vain. It might have been supposed that Jessiersky, having frightened away, or seemingly frightened away, the fellow, had accomplished his purpose. But his intention had not been so much to scare him off as to find out who he was. For while he could have sworn that it was Luna, he had been unable to prove it to himself.

  He tried, at least, to discover what Luna, if it really had been Luna, might have been doing in the house. He scoured it from top to bottom for traces of his ghostly adversary. He then attempted to discover, not what Luna had done, but what he might have done if he had not been frightened away prematurely. Conceivably, he might have tried to do something to the next youngest again, since his plot on her life the preceding year had failed. But the child had long since recovered and showed no signs of falling ill again. Moreover, all the rest of the family were enjoying the best of health. This should have set Jessiersky’s mind at ease. But at this point he began to wonder whether he cared very much about his family. He cared about Luna, he realized, far more than about his family.

  It was toward the end of January that Jessiersky had heard the tapping, and until far into April, he waited for Luna night after night, never closing his eyes before the break of day. Then he would sleep until two or three in the afternoon and between five and seven in the evening would — occasionally — go to his office. The directors were surprised that Jessiersky took so little interest in the business; and his wife was secretly amazed when he went to bed at ten or, at the latest, eleven in the evening and then stayed there until the following afternoon. But on the whole, this behavior harmed neither his household nor his business.