He wondered about his sanity for a moment. Perhaps the day’s excitement, perhaps the liquor, had introduced a painful madness to his recollections. He realized that he had never been married. Gretchen, again? Sometimes he thought of this unknown woman. Steven? Ernst’s father’s name had been Stefan. Gretchen? Married? He called to M. Gargotier. “More bourbon, straight, no water,” he said. There was still some darkness left. But he could already make out the lines of the hotel across the street, just beginning to edge clearly into view from the mask of nighttime.
“I have never gone anywhere,” he whispered. “I have never come from anywhere.” He sat silently for a few seconds, his admission hanging in the hot morning air, echoing in his sorrowing mind. Will that do? he wondered. He looked in vain for M. Gargotier.
He could almost read the face of the clock across the street. He picked up his glass, but it was still empty. Angrily, he threw it at the clock. It crashed into pieces in the middle of the avenue, among the small group of pigeons. So, it was morning; perhaps now he could go home. He rose from his cheap latticed chair. He could not move. He stood, wavering drunkenly. Wherever he turned it seemed to him that an invisible wall held him. His eyes grew misty. The wardens had locked his doors.
“No escape,” he said, sobbing. “It’s Courane that’s done this. Courane and Czerny. He said they’d get me, the bastards, but not now. Please.” He could not move.
He sat again at the table. “It is because they’re the only ones with all the facts,” he said, searching tiredly for M. Gargotier. He held his head in his hands. “It is for my own good. They know what they’re doing.”
His head bowed over the table. Soon, he would be able to hear the morning sounds of the city’s earliest risers. Soon, the day’s business would begin. Not so very long from now, M. Gargotier would arrive, greet him cheerfully as he did every morning, roll back the steel shutters and bring out two fingers of anisette. Now, though, tears dropped from Ernst’s eyes onto the table’s rusting circular surface. They formed little convex puddles, and in the center of each reflected the last of the new morning’s stars.
Relatives Page 22
