The Game of Cards

by Adolf Schroder

  “Can you get me another ice cream?”

  “And a Coke for me.”

  “And get me that cone with the clown on it.”

  Under the table at which the children were sitting with their mother, there lay a dog with grey and black spots. It turned its head and looked at him. Its eyes were blue.

  As he drank his coffee, smoked a cigarette, observed the dog, and listened to the voices at the next table, he tried not to think of the villa. Not to think of Selma Bruhns. Nor of the stench, the cats, the twilight that hung over the house. The woman and her children left the restaurant; the dog, after a momentary hesitation, as if it wanted to prove that it was acting of its own accord, followed them. Markus stood up and walked out through the glass door.

  As he drove away from the city centre, he stopped by a phone box, felt in his jacket pocket for a phone card, waited in his car until the man standing in the booth hung up the receiver and came out. Then Markus climbed out, went into the phone box, inserted the card into the machine and dialled the number of the office where Christine worked. As he waited, he realised that he had no idea what he was going to tell Christine.

  “Bollmeyer tax office.”

  Should he tell her about the burial, about the bucket in which he had carried the half-rotting cat into the garden?

  “I’d like to speak to Christine Baumann,” said Markus.

  “Just a moment.”

  Or about the music that he had heard in the small room. The music that was linked in his memory with burying the dead cat.

  “Markus, is that you?”

  Or about the chests with the wooden lids, all three of them crammed with paper. Sheets of rustling, sometimes crumbling paper. All in the same handwriting.

  “Yes,” said Markus, “I’ve got a job. For several days.”

  “What do you have to do?” asked Christine.

  “It’s easy work, sorting out old papers, that’s all,” he answered, suddenly feeling that he had embarked on a completely meaningless conversation.

  “I’ve got to go now,” said Markus quickly.

  “Why did you phone, Markus?” said Christine.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. That was the truth.

  Markus parked the car under the chestnut trees and walked over the flagstones towards the villa. Only now did he notice the places where the outer layer of plaster had crumbled away, and the red stones had become visible. Pieces of the decoration round the window frames had broken off and lay half hidden among the weeds under the windows. He opened the front door.

  As he entered the house, Markus stopped for a moment, dazed by the stench. Selma Bruhns came into the hall. With her hand still on the door handle—but which room lay hidden behind the door—she looked at him.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” she said.

  When the telephone rings—the Superintendent has been silent for a long time, swinging his swivel chair towards the window, turning his back on Markus, and staring out over the cranes on the building site—Berger reacts only on the third ring. He picks up the receiver, listens, and without saying a word, puts it back.

  For a moment, Markus closes his eyes and tries to remember what she said to him the evening before, when she led him into her room after he had finished his work. She had sat in an armchair whose dark green cover had in several places worn so thin that it showed the material underneath. Markus had sat in front of her on a stool; between them stood the case. The light of the standard lamp fell onto her hands, one laid on top of the other, white skin with brown flecks. Everything else, her bed, the cupboard, the pictures, had remained in the dark. Even her face was no longer recognizable to Markus. She had withdrawn her head from the glare of the light. In the six days he had spent at Selma Bruhns’s house, he had been allowed to go into this room for the first time only on the previous day. The only room in the villa that she occupied.

  “You can smoke if you want,” says Berger.

  Markus says nothing. He keeps reaching out for his coffee cup even though it is now empty, and only the coffee grounds are still sticking to the bottom.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two,” says Markus. He takes the packet out of his jacket pocket and lights a cigarette. Berger swings his chair back into position, pulling himself up by the edge of his desk.

  Now he picks up the form from the desktop; it contains a few personal details that Markus gave when asked for them by the secretary—or maybe she is a police official too.

  “You say you’re a student,” says Berger. He speaks quietly. Markus has to make an effort to understand his words.

  “What are you studying?”

  “I’m not studying,” answers Markus; to his own surprise, he is not lying, as so often when he is asked this question. “I signed up for a philosophy course, went to a couple of lectures, and then stopped going.”

  Why does he feel ashamed? He senses his shame from the rush of blood to his face.

  “You didn’t go to college, but you did go to Selma Bruhns’s house, for six days in a row.”

  “She paid me,” says Markus.

  The door behind Markus opens. Someone comes into the room. Markus bends over the desk and stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray. A man walks past Markus and places a folder on the Superintendent’s desk pad.

  “Thank you,” says Berger, stands up, and leaves the room together with the man. Markus has the feeling that during the long time in which he has been sitting almost motionless on the chair he has shrunk. He stands up, stretches, and goes over to the wall on which a plan of the city is hanging. The location of the churches is indicated by little towers. In between are little red blocks, marking the law courts, schools and official buildings. Black and white streaked lines leading to the main railway station, symbolised by a square shape, represent railway lines. Markus stares at the plan as if it were a map on which the escape routes were marked, all of them leading away from the rectangle representing police headquarters.

  He did not look at her. His gaze was again directed at the man’s portrait. He took in the details. The ring on his hand down in the right-hand corner. The white, stiffly ironed cuff covering his wrist. The material of his suit, with delicate streaks running through it. The handkerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket. His neck, skinny and wrinkled, only loosely embraced by the firm collar. The black knot of the cravat under the prominent Adam’s apple.

  “Are you feeling unwell?” Selma Bruhns repeated her question. She let go of the door handle and came over to him. Markus had to force himself not to take an instinctive step backwards. He tried to look at her. She was wearing a dress that reached down to her ankles. There were stains on it that made the dark red seem almost black. There was no belt; the dress fell loosely from the shoulders. She was taller than he was. Her hair was cut short. Now she was wearing flat white linen shoes, without stockings.

  “Why won’t you answer?” said Selma Bruhns. Markus looked into her eyes. They were grey, with small pupils like points.

  “Yes, I’m feeling unwell,” he said, “I can’t stand the stench. How do you put up with it?”

  Markus tried to think of the posters in the hamburger restaurant, of the taste of Coca-Cola, of the dog which had gazed at him with its blue eyes.

  “What stench?” said Selma Bruhns.

  He took a step to the side, walked past her to a wicker chair next to the foot of the stairs and sat down. Again and again faint yowlings reached them at short intervals from the upper floor.

  Selma Bruhns seemed to be losing interest in him. She turned away, and walked across the hall to the corridor leading to the rooms on the right.

  “Come with me,” she said. She stepped into the corridor and Markus could barely hear the faintly perceptible noise of the linen shoes on the parquet floor.

  Nothing could be heard from the upper floor. Were there really animals there? Markus stood up and followed her. He was tempted to turn round, jump down the steps to the front door, and dash
out, running until he reached the street.

  The corridor had no windows. Markus let the palm of his hand slide along the wall, came to the end, and stepped into the anteroom that was empty apart from the bench whose wooden back was full of cracks. Three doors. He stood there, not knowing which way to turn. The right door was half-open, the others were closed.

  “Herr Hauser?”

  Now the door was completely open. He saw her standing in the frame of the door. Beneath her, the black and white checked pattern of the tiled kitchen floor.

  “I’ll show you where you can make some coffee,” said Selma Bruhns.

  Markus stepped into the kitchen; she was pointing to a kettle standing on the gas stove. A white enamel coffee pot with a curved spout. A kitchen table filled the middle of the room. Above it there was a light-bulb. In the stone sink, to the left beneath the window which, like all the others, was draped, there lay a pile of cutlery, dirty, and encrusted with remnants of food.

  “There are cups in the kitchen cupboard,” said Selma Bruhns, who had not moved from her place at the door. Markus went to the cupboard, opened the upper right door, and took out a cup.

  “Can I at least open a window,” he said. The smell of the animals had been so overwhelming in the hall that he had barely dared to breathe; it had penetrated here too.

  She did not reply. Markus observed as she reached into a side pocket of her dress, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, opened it, took out a cigarette, went over to the kitchen table and pulled open the drawer. She took out a box of matches and lit a cigarette. The little flame of the match burnt for so long that it almost reached her fingers.

  “In my house, the windows are not opened,” said Selma Bruhns.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to ask someone else to do this job, I can’t stand the stench,” said Markus, but Selma Bruhns had already left the kitchen, and he wasn’t sure if she had heard him. He listened to her footsteps. He set down the cup he was still holding on the kitchen table. Just for the sake of doing something, he picked up the yellowed paper lying on a chair next to the kitchen table. It was the free weekly paper that was delivered to every district in town.

  Finally, he left the kitchen and stood in the anteroom. He listened, but all he could hear was scratching and pawing above his head. He went back through the corridor to the lobby, resolved to leave the house. His briefcase was in the small room where he had started the work for which Selma Bruhns was paying him. But he didn’t fetch the briefcase. He climbed the stairs to the upper floor, without seeing any of the animals. The stench here was sharp and pungent; the floor of the corridor to which the stairs led was covered with cat droppings, and the doors to the rooms on the corridor stood open. Now they had noticed him. Several of them, some with red inflamed eyes, started to approach, but remained at a safe distance. When he took a step forward, they scurried away. Taking care not to tread in the cat droppings, Markus walked across the corridor to one of the rooms. No furniture, no pictures, just curtains drawn across the windows. In one corner of the room, a cat was crouching, with six tiny kittens. She hissed at him, and before he could lift his arm in self-defence, another of the animals leapt at him. It clawed at the fabric of his shirt. He grabbed it by the neck and tore it away; two bloody scratches were left on the back of his hand. Breathing in quick short bursts, so as not to allow the stench to penetrate his body, he walked backwards to the stairs. Now they were coming out of the other rooms too. Their gaze was hostile. He didn’t take his eyes off them until he was a good way down the stairs, where he could feel safer. In the hall, Selma Bruhns was standing observing him. He felt as if he had been caught in the act.

  “How much am I paying you per hour?” she said.

  Markus did not reply and walked past to the small room to fetch his briefcase. She followed him. As he bent down to pick up the briefcase, she repeated her question.

  “How much am I paying you per hour?”

  “Ten marks. You know perfectly well,” said Markus. He tried to leave the room, but Selma Bruhns stood in the doorway and blocked his exit.

  “I’ll pay you three times as much if you stay,” she said.

  When he hears steps in the room next door, Markus turns round; it’s the secretary, she opens the door but does not come into the Superintendent’s office.

  “Are you alone?” she asks.

  “Yes,” replies Markus.

  “Did Herr Berger say when he’d be back?”

  “He didn’t say anything.”

  Markus’ words sound more vehement than he intended. The secretary looks at him in astonishment, smiles, and shuts the door.

  Markus slowly walks back to the desk. He picks up the folder from the top of the desk. He removes the elastic band. It contains six photographs. Markus looks at them, one after the other. He puts them back just as carefully as he had taken them out. He shuts the folder, stretches the elastic band over the corners of the cover and pushes it back to where it was before.

  Yesterday evening, as he had been running through the front garden to the street, it had started to rain. A few big drops to begin with, beating on the leaves of the chestnut tree. Then a sudden downpour, obscuring the light of the street lamps. In the few minutes that Markus needed to reach his car, unlock the car door and open it, his shirt was drenched. Markus had started up the engine, switched on the blower and leant over towards the right-hand window. He had wiped the condensation from the glass with his shirtsleeve, but through the thick veil of rain he had not been able to recognize Selma Bruhns’s house. Finally Markus had released the handbrake, switched on the windscreen wipers, and let the car roll slowly through the puddles of water that had quickly built up by the roadside until he reached a crossroads, where he left the Kurfürstenallee.

  Markus can hear voices in the room next door, but cannot understand what is being said. He involuntarily takes two steps back from the desk and sits on the chair that the Superintendent has pointed out to him, meanwhile repressing the desire to light a cigarette. He tries not to stare at the folder lying in front of him on the desk.

  First photo: the armchair, with green cover, in several places worn so thin as to show the material beneath. Her head is lolling against the back of the chair. The white shawl that Markus at her request had fetched from the chest of drawers.

  Behind Markus the door opens, and he hears Berger stepping into the office. Markus recognize him from his tripping step. He is followed by a man whom Markus recognizes when he turns round. While Berger goes to his place behind the desk, sits on his chair without looking at Markus, and quickly straightens the folder, as if Markus had not pushed it back to where it had previously been, the other man stays standing by the door. His hands are clasped behind his back and he allows his gaze to wander restlessly through the room, avoiding looking at Markus. The second photo: her face with its features vividly caught against the darkness by the flashlight. The lips twisted into a grin. The teeth biting down on each other. The eyes not closed. The eyebrows raised high up on the forehead. The hair that does not cover her ears.

  “Take a seat,” says Berger to the man, before rotating his swivel chair towards the window and turning his back on them. The man clears his throat, and is about to say something but Berger gets in first.

  “Wait a minute. Your statement needs to be taken down.”

  The third photo: they have lifted her out of the armchair and laid her on the floor. The red dress with dark spots conceals her body right down to the ankles. Finally the man overcomes his timidity, and takes a few steps to a chair standing next to the desk, not far from Markus. Now he can no longer avoid looking at Markus. His gaze is cautious and not unfriendly. He smiles. Markus senses that the man would like to say something to him, but since Berger is silent, they too remain silent. The fourth photo: details. Her hands, white skin with brown flecks, clinging to the shawl wrapped around her neck. Markus can stand it no longer, he gets up and walks over to the wash-basin, turns on the tap and holds his hea
d under the stream of water. He feels the cold on his scalp and the drops of water running down his face as if he were weeping. He turns off the tap. The fifth photo: now her eyes are closed. They have closed the lids over her pupils. He reaches for the hand towel and dries his face. The sixth photo: they have laid her on a stretcher and wrapped a plastic sheet round her.

  “Did you have a look at the photos?” asks Berger without turning round. Without answering Markus walks back to his chair.

  Markus left the small room with a feeling of relief. Although he felt he had made hardly any progress with the attempt to put the letters in order, he sensed a weariness throughout his body as if he had put ten hours’ hard labour into it. He had wasted a lot of time trying to bring some system into his work; he had begun by creating a special section for each year, then (when forced to realise that, since there was such a huge number of letters, this was impossible) for each decade, so that several separate piles of paper covered the floor of the room and he started to worry that the animals might come in and destroy the careful beginnings of his labour.

  He pulled on his jacket—while he been sitting on the floor he had hung it over one of the chests that was still closed. He shut the lid of the open chest, put the padlock on the iron loops, and turned the key as Selma Bruhns had asked him to. He picked up his briefcase and opened the door, quite prepared to see the animals lying in wait for him.