by Vicki Baum
With an extreme tenderness he laid his face to hers as though he would infuse into her something of his own vitality. The strength, the softness and the pity that inspired his love for her at this moment filled him with astonishment. He felt clean and upright and a little ridiculous in the emotion he felt over this poor woman whom he had stripped of all her secrets.
He moved away from the bed and stood for a few minutes frowning and open-mouthed before the mirror, deep in thought. He was wondering whether it was possible to keep the pearls in spite of everything. No, it was not possible. For the moment, at least, he was still Baron von Gaigern, a somewhat easygoing fellow who kept bad company, with debts, certainly, but otherwise reputable. If he left the room with the pearls in his possession the police would hear of it within an hour or two, and his life as a man of leisure would be over. He would be hunted down like any other criminal. And this would not suit him at all. To have become the lover of Grusinskaya was not in keeping with his plans, but it was a fact, and it altered everything. He weighed the chances as he would have weighed the chances of a boxing or a tennis match. Enterprises like this were a sport to him, and this time the game was going against him. The change of circumstance made stealing the pearls impossible. All he could hope for now was to be given them as a gift if he was patient. I must wait, thought Gaigern, and sighed deeply. His calculations so far were levelheaded and perfectly clear. He did not go on to confess that a great deal more lay behind them. He did not wish to become ridiculous in his own eyes and he hated sentiment. He looked into the mirror and made a face. The long and short of it is, he thought uneasily, that I don’t care to steal pearls from a woman I’ve slept with. I no longer even want to. It goes against the grain—so that’s that!
Neuwjada, he thought, with a sudden wave of tenderness toward the bed. Dear Mouna, I’d much rather give you a present, a big one, something pretty and costly, something to rejoice your heart, you poor dear. He pulled the pearl necklace out of his pocket, cautious not to make a sound. He did not like them now in the least. Perhaps they were fake after all, in spite of all the newspaper stories. Perhaps they were not worth half their reputed value. In any case, it cost him little to say good-bye to them now.
Grusinskaya tried to wake up, but she found her head swathed in sleep. The Veronal, she thought, and closed her eyes. She had been afraid of waking up lately. She dreaded the shock of facing the hard and naked facts of her life. She had a dim idea that something good, something pleasant awaited her this morning, but at first, she did not know what it was. She moistened her lips and found the sleepy parched taste of the night on them. She moved her fingers as a dog stirs in its sleep. Her body was utterly tired out, but she was profoundly happy, as she was after an evening of many encores when she had to expend her last ounce of energy. She felt the light of day on her closed eyelids, and for a moment she thought she was at Tremezzo, where the reflected light from the surface of the lake shone into her rosy gray bedroom. She decided to open her eyes.
At first she saw an unfamiliar quilt over her knees that rose like a mountain before her eyes; then the hotel wallpaper with red tropical fruits on slender stems, a pattern calculated to fix the eyes in a feverish and senseless stare. The weariness of a life of incessant travel was bound up with such wallpapers. The corner of the desk was in darkness, for the curtain there was still drawn, and she could not see the time on the clock. The door to the balcony was open and a cool breeze came in. Near the dressing table her sleepy gaze discerned the broad, black silhouette of a man outlined against the light from the balcony. He stood with his back turned to her and his legs apart. He was motionless and entirely unconcerned, and his bent head showed that he was occupied with something; but what it was she could not see. Surely, thought Grusinskaya, I was dreaming of this just now. She was still too dazed with sleep to be frightened. Surely I have experienced this before, she thought next. Jerylinkov, she concluded at last. Suddenly her heart started to race like an engine. She was wide awake and remembered everything.
She breathed with closed lips, stealthily but deeply, and with each breath all the memories of the past night came rushing back. She raised an arm from the bedclothes and found it as light as a bird’s wing.
She felt surreptitiously for her powder-box and glancing earnestly into its tiny mirror she began to check on her appearance. The delicate scent of the powder delighted her. She was pleased with herself. She felt that she was in love with herself as she had not been for years. She encircled her small breasts with her hands. It was a habit of hers: but this morning it gave her peculiar pleasure to feel her own smooth, cool and contented flesh. Benvenuto, she said to herself, and repeated it in Russian: Zjellany. He could not hear her say it, for she said it mutely within herself. He stood there, large-limbed with beautiful shoulders—like one of Signorelli’s executioners, Grusinskaya thought, delightedly—and his hands were busied with some object that lay on the dressing table. She sat up with a smile to see what it was.
He was doing something with the case in which her pearls were kept. She distinctly heard one of the jewel cases snap shut. She could tell by the peculiar sound that it was the blue oblong velvet case that held the rope of fifty-two pearls. For a moment Grusinskaya could not understand why this sound stabbed her with such mortal fear. Her heart stood still and then gave three sudden, heavy, resounding beats, which she felt painfully all over her body. Her fingertips hurt and went numb. So did her lips. All the while she still smiled—she had forgotten to remove the smile from her lips and it stayed there, though her face was as cold and white as paper. So he’s a thief— thought Grusinskaya in a flash. It was an extraordinary thought, mute and final like a cut straight through the heart. She thought she would faint, and she longed to do so. But instead, for a second’s space, her head was alert with myriad thoughts that cut and crossed and collided, and flashed—as in a fight with daggers.
A screaming feeling of having been cruelly abused, shame, fear, hate, rage, a terrible pain—and at the same time an abysmal weakness that cried out not to see, not to understand, not to admit the truth, that cried out for the merciful refuge of a lie—
“Que faites vous?” she whispered to the executioner’s back. She thought she was shouting, but only a whisper came from her stiffened lips. “What are you doing?”
Gaigern gave so violent a start, that his head spun right round. His fright spoke as clearly as any confession. Besides, he held in his hands the cube-shaped case of a ring; the case was open, strings of pearls lay on the glass top of the dressing table.
“What are you doing there?” Grusinskaya whispered again. That her blanched and distorted face smiled as she spoke, was pitiful enough. Gaigern understood her at once, and again his pity was so intense that he felt it beat in his temples. He held himself in an iron grip.
“Good morning, Mouna,” he said affectionately. “I have come on a wonderful treasure while you were asleep.”
“What are you doing with my pearls?” Grusinskaya asked hoarsely. Tell me a lie, tell me a lie, her distraught face implored him. Gaigern went to her and covered her eyes with his hand. Poor creature, poor little woman.
“It was very rude of me to rummage around among your things,” he said. “I was looking for some adhesive tape, or a bandage of some kind, and I thought to myself there would be something of the sort in the little dressing-case. But it was your treasures I found. I feel like Aladdin in the cave—”
Even her eyes had lost their color and become leaden. Now their bluish black tint came back slowly. Gaigern, to convince her, showed her his right hand, which was still bleeding a little. The tension was released, and from sheer weakness Grusinskaya let her lips sink to his hand. Gaigern put his other hand on her hair and drew her to his breast. He could be fairly brutal and domineering with the women he usually got involved with. But this one, for some mysterious reason, called forth all his better instincts. She was so fragile, exposed to such dangers and so much in need of protection—and at the same
time so strong. His own existence, always trembling on the edge of a precipice, taught him to understand hers.
“You silly—” he said tenderly, “did you think I had my eye on your pearls?”
“No,” lied Grusinskaya.
These two untruths formed a bridge that united them again as lovers.
“Besides—I never wear them now,” she added with a sigh of relief.
“No—but why not?”
“Well, you wouldn’t understand. It’s a superstition. First they brought me good luck. Then they brought me bad luck. And now as soon as I stopped wearing them, they bring me luck again.”
“Do they?” Gaigern asked thoughtfully. He still had a burden of uneasiness to get rid of. The pearls were safely back in their little bed of velvet. Adieu. Au revoir, he thought childishly. To prove it he put his hands in his pockets where he found all his burglary implements but no booty. This put him in a rollicking good humor. His spirits rose and he felt perfectly happy. He opened his mouth and uttered a shout of joy. Grusinskaya began to laugh, and at this he went over to her and playfully ended his shout on her breast; mouth and eyes and heart were all surrendered to her. She seized hold of his hands and kissed them. There was something genuine as well as playful in this submissive gratitude.
“There, it’s bleeding,” she said with her mouth on the little wound.
“You have lips like a horse’s,” Gaigern replied, “as soft as a little foal’s, a black one with a marvelous pedigree.”
He kneeled down and embraced her bare ankles. Just as she was about to look down at him, there came a buzzing sound from the desk.
“The telephone,” said Grusinskaya.
“The telephone?” replied Gaigern.
Grusinskaya sighed deeply. There was no help for it, her expression said, as she lifted the receiver as if it weighed a hundred pounds. It was Suzette.
“It is seven o’clock,” she announced in her hoarse morning voice. “Madame must get up. There’s the packing to be done. Will you have your tea now? And if Madame is to have her massage it is high time I began. And Herr Pimenov asks if Madame will please call him on the phone as soon as Madame is up.”
Madame considered for a moment.
“In ten minutes, Suzette—no, in a quarter of an hour you can bring in my tea, and then we’ll make short work of the massage.”
She put back the receiver but kept her one hand on it while she extended the other to Gaigern who stood in the middle of the room, lightly poised on the chrome-leather soles of his boxing shoes. After a moment she lifted the receiver again. The hall porter replied with a dutiful promptitude, though he had not closed an eye all night, for his wife in the hospital seemed to be in a bad way.
“Number, please?” he asked smartly.
“Wilhelm 7010. Herr Pimenov.”
Pimenov was not staying in the same hotel. He was in a second-class pension that a family of Russian emigrants had started on the fourth floor of a house in Charlottenburg. Nobody there was awake yet, apparently. While Grusinskaya waited she had a vision of old Pimenov hurrying to the telephone in his old silk dressing gown, with his narrow feet which were always turned out, as though for the fifth position. At last she heard his gentle, nervous old man’s voice.
“Oh, Pimenov, is that you? Good morning, dobroje utro, my dear. Yes, thanks, I slept very well. No, not too much Veronal, only two. Thank you, tout va bien—heart, head and all the rest. What? What is it? Michael has burst a blood vessel in his knee? But, good heavens, why didn’t you tell me last night? This is awful. This will take time— well, we know how long this will take. And what have you done? What? Not yet? But you must wire Tchernov, at once, do you hear? He must come to the rescue. Meyerheim must see to that. Where is Meyerheim? I’ll ring him up at once. Too early? Pardon me, my dear, if it’s not too early for us, it’s not too early for Herr Meyerheim— please. And has the scenery gone to the station? But it must go, please, with the first shift—when does the first shift start work? At six? If it is not there, I shall hold you responsible, Pimenov. I won’t accept any excuses. You are the ballet master. It is your business to see to the scenery, not mine. Yes, I shall expect to hear in half an hour at latest. Go to the station yourself. Adieu.”
This time she kept the receiver in her hand and merely pressed down the hook with two fingers. She rang up Witte, whose wits were always confused in the mornings. His panic at travelling still put him into a fever in spite of all the years of touring and threw everything into confusion. She rang up Michael. He was staying in a small hotel. He was as pitiful about his burst blood vessel as a dog that had been kicked. Grusinskaya shouted her strict injunctions and advice on the telephone. She was always furious and quite unfair when any of the company fell sick. She rang up three doctors before she found one who was able to visit Michael at once and give him the requisite treatment and apply acetate bandages. She rang up Meyerheim and arguing with him in French, finally commanded him to be at the hotel at half-past eight to settle their accounts. She sent a telegram by telephone to Tchernov and a second in case of accidents to a young dancer in Paris, who could dance well and was not engaged just then. After that with the help of Senf, the hall porter, she ascertained the connection with the express train from Paris which would enable the young man to reach Prague in time, and then sent a third telegram on the heels of the second.
“Please, chéri, turn on the bath,” she said hurriedly to Gaigern in the midst of all this, and then drummed out a series of instructions in English to Berkeley on the telephone—for she was not taking the car and it was to be thoroughly overhauled in the meantime. Gaigern went and turned on the bath as he was told. He hung her bath wrap over the radiator to warm up. He found the sponge with which, the night before, he had sponged her tear-stained face and took it into the bathroom—and still she telephoned on and on. He found bath salts and threw in a handful. He would have loved to have done something more for her, but there was nothing more to do. Besides, Grusinskaya appeared to have finished with the telephoning for the time being.
“That’s how it is, and every day the same,” she said. It was meant to sound like a complaint, but her vitality and the pleasure she took in tackling things were irrepressible. “It has all got to be done. And then Michael says there’s too much chi chi about Grusinskaya. He calls it chi chi, as if it were a pleasure.”
Gaigern stood in front of her, hungry for a little tenderness and intimacy. And indeed she held out both hands to him, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She was thinking of Michael’s burst blood vessel. And then she heard the racing of the clock and the watch, and quickly seizing the telephone, rang up Suzette once more. “Wait another ten minutes, Suzette,” she asked her politely and rather guiltily. Her eyes fell on the table and last night’s teacup. There it stood washed and clean, looking utterly innocent and harmless, with the fantasy golden crest of the hotel gleaming on its thick porcelain. What a mad night, she thought. Such things don’t happen. And dances such as I imagined last night cannot be danced. It was my over-stimulated nerves. The Viennese would hiss me off the stage if I appeared in dances like that instead of the wounded dove and the butterflies. Vienna is different from Berlin. There they know what ballet is.
Even though she was staring into Gaigern’s face, she did not see him. He felt a stab of pain that was new to him, a vivid and peculiar pain as he took a breath. “Thyme—Neuwjada,” he said softly, drawing the word from the deepest rapture of the night. Its scent came with it, the bitter and also the sweet and the unforgettable. And, indeed, at this invocation, Grusinskaya turned her eyes to him again, and her face took on a tense look of suffering although she smiled. “I suppose we must part now—” she said in a voice she made loud and inflexible so that it would not break.
“Yes—” Gaigern answered. He had forgotten the pearls. They were actually and utterly erased from his memory. He was conscious of nothing but the grip and the stress of his feelings for this woman, and the infinite desire to be good to her
, good, good, good. Helplessly he turned the signet ring with the lapis lazuli Gaigern crest around his finger.
“Here,” he said and held the ring out to her awkwardly like a schoolboy, “so that you won’t forget me.”
Won’t I see you again, thought Grusinskaya, and at that her eyes became hot and Gaigern’s beautiful face shone through her tears. It was one of those thoughts that cannot be spoken. She waited.
Let me stay with you. I will be good to you, thought Gaigern. But he held his mouth fast shut and not a sound escaped him.
“Suzette will be here any moment,” Grusinskaya said quickly.
“You are going to Vienna?” he asked.
“First, for three days to Prague. Then for fourteen days to Vienna. I shall be at the Bristol,” she added.
Silence. The ticking of the clock. Car horns below in front of the hotel. The smell of a funeral. The sound of breathing.
“Can’t you come with me? I need you,” Grusinskaya said at last.
“I—I can’t come to Prague. I haven’t any money. I must raise some first.”
“I’ll give you some,” she said quickly, and as quickly Gaigern answered, “I am not a gigolo.”
A sudden overmastering impulse flung them into each other’s arms and something greater than themselves held them tightly bound together at the very moment when they had to part. “Thank you,” they both said at once. “Thank you, thank you,” in three languages, German, Russian, French, stammering, sobbing, whispering, weeping, jubilant. “Thank you, merci, bolschoje spassibo, thank you.”
At that moment Suzette took the tray of tea out of the hands of the hurt waiter. It was twenty-eight minutes past seven. The clock on the desk was racing breathlessly. The watch had given up in exhaustion. On—on—on it ticked reproachfully.
