The Master of the Day of Judgment

by Leo Perutz

  The sound of a mouth organ floated over to me from the open kitchen window of a neighbouring house. A few bars of a stupid, vacuous waltz I had heard a thousand times before, the Valse bleue or Souvenir de Moscou, I couldn't remember what it was called. How did it come about that it had such a deeply calming effect on me, that all the weight that had been crushing me suddenly lifted? The Valse bleue, an appropriate dirge for the death of a human being. Over on the pavilion floor lay someone who was no longer a fellow human being but belonged to another world, had become incomprehensible and strange. But where was the shudder of awe, the shudder of the tragic, the inconceivable and the unalterable? The Valse bleue. The rhythm of life and death was a banal dance tune. Thus we come and thus we go. What shatters us and casts us down utterly turns out to be an ironic smile on the face of the world spirit, to whom suffering and grief and death are continually recurring phenomena familiar since the beginning of time.

  The music suddenly stopped, and for several minutes there was deep silence, with nothing but raindrops dripping from the branches of the maple trees and the glass roof of the greenhouse. Then the mouth organ started up again, this time with a march. Somewhere not far away a church clock struck. I counted the strokes. It was ten o'clock. Was it as late as that? And here I was sitting and listening to a mouth organ, while over there Dina and her brother . . . perhaps they needed me, they were bound to be looking for me, Dina couldn't possibly think of everything herself.

  It struck me that there were a large number of things that had to be attended to. In a case like this the police must be sent for and the authorities informed, the medical officer of health must be sent for, and the undertaker — and here I was sitting and listening to music from a kitchen window. And of course the press must be told. Of course Dina could not possibly think of everything herself. What were her friends for? Nothing about suicide must be allowed to get into the papers. Someone must hire a cab and make the round of the newspaper offices. Sudden death of a great actor, a beloved artist. At the height of his powers. Irreplaceable loss to the German stage. The many thousands of his admirers. The grief- stricken family.

  And then there was the theatre management: no-one had given them a thought. It was essential that next week's playbill be altered, and there was no time to lose. It was Sunday, would anybody still be on duty at the office at this time of night? It was ten o'clock, someone must telephone immediately or — better still — I must get in touch with the director. To think that I, a friend of the family, had not thought of that before.

  I wanted to get up and go immediately. I was seized with an irresistible impulse to act, to do whatever was necessary, to take full responsibility for all the needs of the hour. We must telephone at once, I said to myself again, in five minutes it may be too late — nobody will be left in the office — Richard III on Tuesday — but in spite of all this I just went on sitting there limply and feebly and dead tired, incapable of carrying out any of my intentions.

  I'm ill, I murmured to myself and made another attempt to get up. Oh, of course, I'm feverish, sitting in the cold night air without hat or coat, and getting wet into the bargain. It may be the death of me. I took the newspaper from my pocket, heaven knows why I had brought it with me, I carefully spread it out on the bench so that I shouldn't have to sit in the damp, and suddenly I heard my old doctor's voice, I heard it as distinctly as if he were standing beside me.

  "Oh dear, baron, so we're unwell, are we? Been overdoing things a bit lately, haven't we, and feeling rather tired? Well, what about a few days in bed, two or three perhaps, we have plenty of time at our disposal, haven't we, and we shan't be missing anything. We'll keep well covered up, shan't we, and hot tea certainly won't do us any harm, and no letters, no newspapers and no visitors will do us good, yes, a great deal of good, won't it? So let us take the good old doctor's advice and go straight home, there's nothing for us to do here, we're really ill, feverish, aren't we? Just let me feel your pulse ..."

  I obediently held out my hand and awoke from dream and sleep and there I was, sitting alone on the cold, wet bench. I really felt ill, I was shivering with cold, my teeth were chattering wildly. I wanted to go home, I wanted to slip away without saying goodbye, I wasn't wanted here, there was no- one here who needed me. Dina and Felix knew what to do, and besides, Dr Gorski was there, I was in everyone's way.

  Good night, garden, and good night to you too, mouth organ, my companion during this lonely hour — and good night to you for ever, my old friend Eugen, I'm going, I'm leaving you, you need me no longer.

  I rose to my feet, tired, wet through and frozen, and I wanted to go and groped for my hat, but I couldn't find it and couldn't remember where I had put it, and while feeling for it on the garden table my hand fell on the book that had lain on it for days or even weeks.

  Perhaps it was because I touched the rain-soaked pages, perhaps it was because of a gust of cold air on my face just at the moment when I turned to go, I don't know what it was, but suddenly I felt about me the breath and fragrance of a long- forgotten day, it lasted only for a moment, but for that moment it was resurrected before my eyes and lived for me again. It was an autumn day in the hills outside the city. The smell of withering potato plants floated up to us from the fields. We were walking up the forest track, the green wall of the hill lay ahead of us, and a distant white mist lay over the tree-tops. It lay over the landscape like a premonition of the frost to come, overhead the blue autumn sky was cool and clear, and rose-hip bushes flamed red on both sides of the track.

  While we walked Dina rested her head on my shoulder, and the wind played its games with the short brown hair over her brow. Once we stopped and she recited verses about the red leaves of autumn and silver mist lying over the hills.

  Then the vision faded as abruptly as it had come. But another memory arose in me. A house high up in the mountains, New Year's Eve, deep snow all round, thick layers of ice on the windows — how good it was that the landlord had put a small iron stove in my room, it crackled and threw up sparks and glowed white-hot. My dog scratched and whined outside the door and wanted to come in. "That's Zamor," I murmured. "Open the door, he won't give me away," Dina murmured, and I freed myself from her lips and arms and opened the door, and for a brief moment a cold draught floated in to us and the clink of glasses and muffled dance music.

  Then that vision vanished too, only the feeling of cold remained and the dance music coming from the kitchen window yonder, and inside me there was wild despair and a stabbing pain — how, in God's name, had it come about that we had drifted apart? Was it possible that what had bound two people so closely to each other could disappear? How was it possible that today we had sat opposite each other like two strangers and had nothing to say to each other? How was it possible that she had slipped so suddenly from my arms and that another man should be holding her in his, and that it was now I who was scratching and whining outside the door?

  And only then did I realise that that other man was dead, and at that moment I understood for the first time what the word dead really meant.

  And I was astounded at the thought that chance had brought it about that I should be here at this day and hour, that I should be on the spot when destiny beckoned. No, it was not chance, it had been foreordained for me, for we are subject to unalterable laws.

  And now after this had happened I had wanted to go, to steal away — I could not understand how I had thought of such a thing. And upstairs Dina was sitting in the dark and waiting.

  "Is that you, Gottfried? You've been away so long ..."

  "I got up to open the door, darling. You wanted me to. Here I am again."

  The light was still on in the pavilion. I waited behind a chestnut tree.

  The door opened and I heard voices. Felix came out carrying a lantern and walked slowly towards the house.

  Two shadows followed behind him. They were Dina and Dr Gorski.

  She did not see me.

  "Dina," I said softly as she p
assed very close, nearly touching me with her arm.

  She stopped and gripped Dr Gorski's hand.

  "Dina," I repeated. She dropped Dr Gorski's hand and took a step towards me.

  The lantern glided up the steps and disappeared into the house. For a moment its light enabled me to make out Dina and the shadows of the trees and the bushes and the twining ivy. Then the garden was plunged in darkness again.

  I heard Dina's voice from close in front of me.

  "Are you still here?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"

  Something glided over my forehead like a light, warm hand. I seized it — it was only a withered chestnut leaf falling to the ground.

  "I was looking for my dog Zamor," I said quietly, meaning that I had been thinking about old times.

  There was a long silence.

  Then at last she spoke, quietly and sadly.

  "If there's a spark of decency in you," she said, "you will go now, you will go at once."

  SIX

  I watched her go, and stood there for minutes with nothing in my ears but the sound of the voice that I loved. Not till long after she had gone did I realise the full meaning of what she had said.

  At first I was utterly bewildered and dismayed, but this gave way to fury and bitter revolt against the implication of her words, the wrong that was being inflicted on me. Was I to go now? Oh, no, now that was out of the question. My weariness and feverishness had vanished. I was entitled to an explanation, I told myself indignantly, and Felix and Dr Gorski must give me one. Lord knows I had done nothing to her. I had done nothing to her, had I?

  Certainly, a misfortune had happened, a terrible misfortune which might perhaps have been prevented. But I was not responsible for it, not I, for heaven's sake. He shouldn't have been left alone, he shouldn't have been left alone for a single minute, how did he get hold of that revolver? And now they seemed to be wanting to put the blame on me. I could understand someone being unfair and not weighing his words at such a moment. But that was just the reason why I must stay, I was entitled to an explanation, I must . . .

  Something suddenly occurred to me, something so obvious that it made my agitation seem absurd. Obviously there had been a misunderstanding, it couldn't possibly have been anything else. I had misunderstood what Dina had said, what she had meant had been quite different. All she had meant was that I was to go home, because there was no more that I could do there, that was all, it was as clear as daylight. No-one thought of blaming me in any way. My strained nerves had played a trick on me. Dr Gorski had been there, and had heard everything. I would wait for him, and he would confirm that the whole thing had been merely a misunderstanding.

  It won't be long now, I shan't have much longer to wait, I said to myself, Felix and Dr Gorski will soon be back. After all, poor Eugen can't be — they can't leave him alone lying on the floor all night.

  I crept to the window as stealthily as a thief in the night and looked into the room. He was still lying on the floor, but he had been covered with a tartan rug. I had seen him once as Macbeth, I couldn't help remembering it. Lady Macbeth's words rang in my ear: "Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia ..."

  My teeth started chattering again, and the weariness and the cold sweat and the feverishness came back, but I fought them and drove them away. Rubbish, I said to myself, that quotation was really not appropriate here, and I firmly opened the door and walked in, but this burst of energy promptly faded and gave way to a nervous dread, for now for the first time I was alone with the dead man.

  There he lay, completely covered with the rug except for his right hand, which no longer held the revolver. Someone had taken it and put it on the small table in the middle of the room. I went closer to have a look at it, and only then did I notice that I was not alone.

  The engineer was standing behind the desk, bending over something I could not see, he seemed to be absorbed in contemplation of the pattern of the wallpaper. He turned when he heard my footsteps.

  "So it's you, baron," he said. "What do you look like! Well, this ghastly business has affected you badly."

  He stood there, square-shouldered and solidly self-assured, with his hands in his trouser pockets, the very personification of nonchalance, with a cigarette between his lips in a room in which a dead man lay.

  "It's the first time you've been confronted with a dead body, isn't it? Lucky you, baron," he said. "You peace-time officers! I thought so at once, because of the gingerly way you walked in. There's no need to watch your step, baron, you won't wake him up."

  I said nothing. He confidently threw his cigarette into the ashtray, which was several paces away from him, and immediately lit another.

  "I'm a Baltic German, didn't you know that?" he went on. "I was born at Mitau, and I was in the Russo-Japanese war."

  "Tsushima?" I asked. I don't know why that naval battle occurred to me, I thought he must have been a ship's engineer or something of the kind.

  "No," he said. "The Munho. Ever heard of it?"

  I shook my head.

  "The Munho. It's not a place but a river. Yellow water winding between the hills. It's better not to think about it. That's where they lay one morning, five hundred of them or more lying side by side, a whole formation of riflemen, with burnt hands and distorted yellow faces. Dreadful, dreadful, there's no other word for it."

  "A contact mine?"

  "No, high-tension currents. My handiwork. Sometimes when I remember it I say to myself: What of it, it happened in the Far East, five years ago and six thousand miles away, everything that happened there then is now dust and ashes. But it's no good, things like that stick, you don't forget them."

  He stopped, and blew a whole series of perfect smoke rings into the air. Anything connected with smoking that he now did suggested a juggling act.

  "And now they want to abolish war," he went on after a pause. "They want to abolish war. What good does that do? They want to abolish that and everything else of the kind," he said, pointing to the revolver. "But what good does it do? Human vileness remains, and that's the most lethal of all lethal weapons."

  Why did he say that to me? I said to myself in surprise and alarm. Does he hold me ultimately responsible for Eugen Bischoff's suicide?

  "He voluntarily took his own life," I said quietly.

  "Voluntarily?" the engineer exclaimed with a violence that alarmed me. "Are you quite sure of that? Let me tell you something, baron. I was first into this room. The door was locked from the inside, and I smashed the window, the broken glass is still there. I saw his face, I was the first to see his face, and I tell you that the horror on the faces of those five hundred on the Munho river who were climbing the hill in the dark was nothing in comparison with the horror on Eugen Bischoff's face. He had a mad fear of something that is hidden from us, and it was from that fear that he sought escape with the revolver. Went to his death voluntarily? No, baron, Eugen Bischoff was driven to his death."

  He lifted the rug and looked at the lifeless face.

  "Driven to his death as if with a whip," he then said, with an emotion in his voice which was quite inconsistent with the personality he normally displayed.

  I had turned away, because I could not look.

  "So, if I have understood you correctly," I said after a while — there was a lump in my throat and talking was an effort — "so you believe, if I have understood you correctly, that he had found out, that somehow or other it had come to his knowledge ..."

  "Found out what? What are you talking about?"

  "Presumably you know about the failure of the bank where all his money was?"

  "Oh? No, I know nothing about that. This is the first I've heard of it. No, baron, it wasn't that. The fear in his face was of a different kind. Money? No. It had nothing to do with money. You should have seen his face, there's no explanation of that."

  After a moment's silence he went on:

  "He could still speak when I came in, he said only a few words, I heard
them, though they were more breathed than spoken. They were very strange words in the mouth of a dying man ..."

  He paced up and down the room and shook his head.

  "They were very strange words. I really knew him so little. One really knows so little about others. You knew him better, or at any rate for longer than I did. Tell me, what was his attitude to religion? I mean, to the Church. Was he religious in your opinion?"

  "Religious? He was superstitious, like most stage people. Superstitious in little things. But I never saw in him any sign of faith in the Church meaning of the word."

  "All the same, could that fairy tale for credulous children have been his last thought after all?" the engineer said, gazing fixedly at me.

  I said nothing, I didn't know what he was talking about, and in any case he was not expecting an answer.

  "Never mind," he said to himself with a slight movement of his hand. "That's another thing we shall never get to the bottom of."

  He picked up the revolver, which was lying on the table, and looked at it in a way that made it obvious that his mind was on something else. Then he put it back on the table.

  "Where did he get that weapon from?" I asked. "Did he own it?"

  The engineer awoke as if from a trance.

  "The revolver?" he said. "Yes, it was his. Felix says he always had it with him. On his way home at night he had to cross fields and pass building sites where there were plenty of shady characters about. He was nervous of encounters in the dark. The tragedy is that he had the loaded revolver on him. If he'd jumped out of the window — in this case it wouldn't have been serious. A pulled ligament, a sprained ankle, perhaps not even that."

  He opened the window and looked out. He stood there for a few seconds, and the wind soughed in the chestnut trees outside and shook and filled the curtains like sails. The papers on the desk fluttered, and a withered chestnut leaf that had strayed into the room darted noiselessly across the floor.