by Vera Caspary
“Why do we always talk of such ugly things?” I cried. “I’m sick of it.”
Once more he escaped into his private world. His mouth pursed in, his eyes looked unseeingly at the candles. Flames danced upon his eyeballs. When he picked up his glass his hand trembled, and when he set it down there was a stain on the tablecloth. Time ticked on. My stretched nerves had lost their flexibility. Tension coarsened my voice.
“I’m sick of all this ugly talk. I’ve had enough. If you only like me because I can describe atrocities, I’m not coming out with you any more.”
“I’m sorry if I have bored you. Please forgive me.” Gerhard pushed back his chair and suggested that he take me home.
The next night his car was not waiting, nor the next, nor any night that week. I was desolate, regretted my harshness, wondered if I would see him again.
There was another reason, less charitable, for my anxiety. When an oversensitive suitor is poor and lives in a seedy room, he can easily become a bore but, lodged in a castle, his melancholy is romantic. Gerhard Metzger was the owner of one of the oldest and finest castles in the Salzkammergut. My boss, who had vast knowledge of the possessions and activities of the very rich (although his club was not often patronized by such distinguished persons) had congratulated me for “having caught a fat goose.” Innocently I had asked which goose. The boss patted my hip. “Don’t tell me there aren’t big ideas in that little Jewish head.” His tone was affectionate; the Glamour Girl had increased his profits. “Got rid of that seedy newspaper fellow, Leni? You were right. No future in him, sweetheart. Roll those big blue eyes at the man with the castle.”
“Castle?” I had not yet heard about Liebhofen.
“He hasn’t bragged about it! Whatever have you two been doing at those late suppers?”
I did not wish to say that I had entertained the gentleman with horror tales, and merely laughed into Herr Kraut’s eyes so that he would think Gerhard and I had been carrying on like a conventional couple. The boss nodded wisely and remarked that if I had not heard about the famous castle I was not using my little Jewish head.
You can be sure that much of the talk at the supper that followed was devoted to this subject. “A real castle?” I had asked. My boss was so given to exaggerations that I disbelieved his statements, automatically. The same word, Schloss, describes a castle and a country mansion.
“A real castle!” Gerhard smiled indulgently. His mood was brighter when he talked about Liebhofen. More than a home, the old castle had come to be his very purpose in living. He talked about the restorations, the furnishings, the historical periods he had tried to reproduce, about his dear mother who had worked with him until the day of her death, about carved doors, arches, drainpipes, ancient beams and modern heating. Even the name of his castle enchanted me; Liebhofen, Court of Love. Old memories were revived, dream pictures of the prison child:
“What is a castle, Mutti?” Her warm night voice challenges the stinking darkness. Beyond barred window glows the prisoner moon. My mother whispers of towers and marble staircases, golden walls, music in the movement of crystal pendants hanging from great chandeliers. “What is marble?” “What is gold?” “What are chandeliers?”
“How I should love to see your Liebhofen!”
“You will, my dear, you most certainly will.” His disappearance robbed me of the lovely hope of seeing his magic palace. Marble staircases, walls of gold, the music of crystal prisms, the light of hundreds of candles in shining chandeliers, flowery gardens, swans floating upon still waters, dreams and visions collapsed like all other bubbles. Before I had ever laid eyes upon my castle I had lost it.
He returned abruptly. I was in the midst of a song and saw him at the usual table with the usual Scotch and soda. Singing, I nodded and showed a small smile. If his car should wait half a block down the Himmelpfortgasse, I would pass as though I had not noticed. No man could take so for granted that he could walk out without a word, stay away for a week, and then expect me to leap at the first signal.
The car waited, beside it the lean silhouette. I walked along the street with my chin thrust out. Gerhard reached for my arm.
“Please,” I said and tried to draw away.
“Don’t be angry with me.” His hold tightened. “I’ve been very unhappy. Come and have supper.”
“Not tonight. I can’t really…”
“Please. I need you.”
He addressed me as du. I was deeply moved. I had been accepted by kind friends, cared for, made love to, but no one had ever expressed a need for Leonora Neumann. I had found a place in the world, a man who needed my sympathy to soothe hidden wounds. In the streetlamp’s oblique light the man’s shadow appeared longer, leaner, its height increased by the distinction of a Homburg hat. This tall impressive shadow asked the help of a shadowy sliver. I felt a sudden surge of importance.
He had prepared for my capitulation. Supper waited in the baroque salon. The old waiter welcomed us like longlost relations. In the centerpiece were forget-me-nots, beside my plate a velvet box. In it were earclips of gold set with star sapphires. I was awed but unwilling to accept the valuable gift.
“But star sapphires aren’t important stones. I chose them because they’re like your eyes. Try them, please. Quite perfect! Now there are four great sapphires for me to enjoy, but yours are the finest.”
“Thank you but I cannot allow you to make me such fine gifts.” Although he had addressed me as du, I called him sie because of his superior age and dignity.
Gerhard begged me to accept the sapphires. I expected him to entreat me also to come to his apartment. He did not. His caresses were no less mild than they had been before he presented me with the earclips.
Frau Mayr shook her head over the sapphires. “Has the gentleman asked you to marry him?”
“No, but I think he is in love with me.”
“You cannot accept such costly gifts from a gentleman who is merely in love.”
“There is nothing wrong. He has made no improper advances.”
Frau Mayr smiled skeptically. Elfy looked prim.
“You don’t believe me?”
“You’ve never lied to me, Leni, but I am older than you and I know gentlemen do not give jewels for nothing.”
“It’s the truth, I swear it. Gerhard Metzger has done nothing more than kiss my hand.” I had grown angry, I shouted unreasonably. “He has asked no more than my company.”
“But if he did?” asked Elfy. She had learned a bit more about life since she had become engaged to a young man who drove about the country selling hops to brewers.
“Elfy,” said her mother severely, “you should not suggest such sinful things. Leni’s a good girl, she’d never do anything wrong.”
“You were the one who suggested it, Mutti.”
“I’ll keep the earclips but I’ll do nothing wrong,” I promised. “Gerhard Metzger does not expect payment for his presents.”
Every night that week there was a gift, none so valuable as the earclips, but all luxurious and delightful, boxes of sweets, flowers, French perfumes. On the following Monday night when I did not have to work, he booked seats for the opera. He asked if I would care to wear evening clothes. I had a pretty gown which I had worn to an artists’ ball, an amethyst chiffon which gave lilac tones to my eyes. I knew he would admire the color. On Monday morning early, a gift arrived at the apartment, a small cape of the softest, whitest fur I had ever seen. Immediately I dressed in the amethyst gown, satin slippers, my star sapphire earclips, long white gloves, and with the fur over my shoulders, danced around the apartment like a demented drunk.
“You must not accept it,” said Frau Mayr.
“Just for tonight. Tomorrow I will give it back.”
“It will be worn, it will not be new. The shop may not accept it.”
“They do. They don’t mind having their furs seen at the opera and grand balls. What else have I to wear over an evening gown? I have been wretched at the thought of appear
ing with Herr Metzger in my black coat.”
Gerhard did not come upstairs to the apartment, but had the chauffeur announce that the car waited. I came out of the house dramatically in the long gown, the fur cape, white gloves. “How lovely you are. I knew! I knew!” he exclaimed as though he were triumphantly informing someone who had denied my charm. I thanked him for the fur but said he must not give me such valuable presents.
“Why not? It gives me great pleasure to find things which add to your loveliness.”
“It is not good for my reputation. People believe…” I hesitated, coyly.
“What do people believe? Don’t be afraid to say it.”
“It’s not customary for a man to give a girl such costly gifts unless he is her lover.”
He pulled me toward him, kissed my cheek. In front of us sat the chauffeur like a man dumb to all but the sounds of traffic. During the opera (it was Don Giovanni) Gerhard held my hand. When it was over he said, “I’ve ordered supper in my suite. I hope you don’t mind.”
They were magnificent rooms, all gold and “white and crimson brocade. Gerhard took me in his arms. I allowed him to kiss me more ardently and decided that his generous and cautious wooing had been the strategy of an older man with a twenty-one-year-old girl. My blood warmed with suspense. Against crimson drapes I saw myself the heroine of elegant drama.
The embrace was interrupted by a soft knock. A waiter greeted Herr Metzger and his young lady with deference and announced supper. Two assistant waiters brought in hot and cold foods. Neither of us could eat much. When the waiter came to change the plates and saw the food barely touched, he looked knowing and disappeared with swift tact. Gerhard left the table and walked to the window, pushed back the curtains and stared at the blankness of the shutter.
“Why are you so kind and generous to me?” I said, joining him at the window.
“I like you, Leonora, I’ve grown very fond of you. I found you very appealing. From the start, that first night when I came into that frightful place where you work.”
“Then why haven’t you tried to make love to me?” It was daring, an uncalculated move, pure impulse.
He moved back a step or two. “Is that what you expected of me?”
“It’s the normal thing when a man finds a girl appealing.”
“Normal?” He repeated the word tautly.
“Most men do. They try, I mean.”
“And you allow,” he asked so slowly that each word was like a stone dropped into water with circles forming at the place where it sank, “these young fellows…” his voice died away. He stared down at me, his pale cheeks showing color, a nerve throbbing in his eyelid.
“Well, honestly, I don’t. Because I haven’t fallen in love with any of them. Love’s the only reason for an affair.” Although I spoke the truth there was female artifice in my manner. At such moments every girl considers a man’s vision of her. I knew that Gerhard wished me to be untouched, the sad heroine. Whether I thought about this in full awareness at the moment, or merely followed the instinct which guides us with vulnerable men, I cannot recall. More than anything else I wanted this man to want me. “I need love so much.”
“Poor Leonora, poor lost child.”
I moved in closer. His palm lay dewy hot upon my bare back. I pushed myself tighter against him, raised my head and waited for the heat of a kiss. The telephone rang.
Gerhard answered peevishly, “Rome? No, I do not wish…” but the long-distance operator had already connected him with an apparently familiar voice. With greater irritation, he snarled, “God in Heaven, how often must I tell you to quit bothering me? No, I can’t talk to you now. Never!” And with a swift, almost sly glance over his shoulder, “I’m busy. Yes, I’ve got a guest. Well, what if it is?” This seemed to go on, with repetitions and bursts of petulance, for a long time. Suddenly, with the frosty hauteur of an outraged emperor, he told the telephone, “Don’t bother me again. I don’t want to hear from you,” and hung up. One would have thought from the way he touched it that the instrument had offended him.
The scene remains vivid. I see it all now, white walls with gold-edged lozenges, crimson hangings, carnations on the table, ice melting in the silver cooler, dew on gold-rimmed glasses. I see myself, too nervous to wait like a marble woman on a tomb, rising and hurrying toward him. He is wrapped in some reverie that makes him shiver while sweat rises on his upper lip. He starts at the sight of me.
“Leonora!”
We stand face to face. I look up at his quivering lips.
“Tell me, please, was she so angry because I am here with you?”
“She?”
“Who telephoned you just now.”
“Bitch!” He has gone to the mantel to scold the recessed mirror. Perhaps he finds an image there, the author of that offensive call. “Bitch,” the word pleases him, “the devil’s bitch.” Stern, he turns toward me with a command. “Forget about it, forget you ever heard me speak to the creature,” and tries to speak again, but his voice is impotent and only the lips move.
“What is it, Gerhard?”
On the shelf below the mirror a rococo clock measures his reluctance. My earclips have grown heavy, I pull them off, study the stones, wonder if this strange man has real need of me. I leave him at the mirror, retreat to the farthest corner.
He comes to my chair, stands above me. Against the polished wood his hands are bone-white, bone-thin. They grip the chair as if for strength. “Leonora, what would you say if I asked you to marry me?”
Still clinging to the chair, he tilts his long body backward, closes his eyes. What sight does he wish to shut out? White walls with gold lozenges, crimson drapes, a girl, the measurement of time on the face of the rococo clock, reality? I do not think so much about the proposal as about his anguish. What agitates him so painfully as he asks me to marry him?
The waiter and two assistants came to clear away the dishes. They left and the clock took possession of the room, its insolent tempo reminding us that silence is measured. Reluctant words punctuated long pauses.
“Well, Leonora?”
A sense of power rose as I kept him in suspense.
“Well?” he said again.
“Before I give you an answer, you must tell me something. It is important.”
He walked the length of the room, scowled down at me for making him wait. “What is it you want of me?”
I found my voice unwilling, tremors in my throat. “You said you needed me. Why? Why, please? You’ve never mentioned loving me, you know.”
“Love me, Leonora!”
I was shaken by the change of tone. The haughty Prussian had shrunk, his height dwindled, authority fled. That nameless creature, the devil’s bitch, had struck at weakness, some part of the man so shamed and private that the tones of a distant voice had unmanned him. I ran to him, touched his coat sleeve, commanded his eye, told him wordlessly that I would happily fill his need. He thanked me with a rueful smile. I opened my arms and Gerhard accepted the solace of my embrace.
Love me, Leonora. All night it echoed in the cold room. Beside me under the goosedown Elfy hummed in her sleep. I lay thinking about the man who, after so much hesitancy, had cried out his need in the voice of command. Love is a flexible thing, too easily molded to the pattern of the wish. If he had asked me to spend the night in his curtained bedchamber I would not have refused. For all of my noble resolutions about giving back the fur and the sapphires, I had been waiting for his demand. I was in a state of nervous exhilaration, needed a man desperately, came alive, throbbed with emptiness at the touch of a male hand. How else can I describe such feelings? Pulsation and void, a girl in need of a man. Had I been like Elfy with a virginal mind I should not have recognized such desire for what it was, but I knew all the tremors and restlessness of the passionate imagination.
In Elfy’s sleep song I recognized the Second Brandenburg. Over and over she repeated a passage which she had probably found difficult. It ended abruptly and she turned
over in the bed, sleepily remarking that I had come home. The room was very cold. She shifted the goosedown to her side of the bed. I jerked a portion of the quilt back over me.
“I’ve had a proposal of marriage.”
She sat up. “Not the Piefke?”
The question offended me. I pulled at the quilt.
“You’d marry him?”
“We’re in love.” My tone raised the temperature of the room.
“A German?”
“You don’t approve?”
“I’m surprised, that’s all. Please, Leni, give me back a bit of the cover.”
I flung the goosedown with my answer. “You’ve never met him. I don’t see why you’re so prejudiced.”
“I haven’t said anything against him. Why are you so cross with me?”
“He needs me.” The vehement cry was addressed to darkness. Through shuttered windows came the filtered sounds of night traffic. I waited for Elfy to comment on my important announcement.
“He is so rich,” she said.
“The rich are also human,” I answered piously.
Elfy’s remark had touched an area of doubt. In many ways Gerhard did not seem quite human, and I had wondered if it was not his wealth that made the man so alien. Money can be more of a barrier between people than language or race or religion. At that time the rich were like film stars or story-book people to me, fascinating and not quite real. The rich were not like those titled ladies who came in their shabby furs to the coffeehouse, nor the poor young counts who ordered the cheapest wine. I could understand seedy aristocrats nourished by memories as flimsy as my own romantic fancies, but found no common ground with a lonely millionaire. With good looks, a castle, money enough to buy anything, the man could have had whatever he desired. Why had he chosen a humble girl, a cafe singer, a Jewish waif? To Elfy I declared, “Gerhard Metzger is the most sympathetic man I’ve ever met. He wants to give me everything to make up for all I’ve missed. He’s very sensitive, almost too much so.”
