The Game of Cards

by Adolf Schroder

  Markus sat up. She had closed her eyes again. He stared at her chest until he could see it rising and falling, and only then did he turn away and go back into the small room.

  THE FOURTH DAY

  Dear Almut,

  When I walk through the streets, I can hear through the opened windows the beating of drums amidst the cry of children and the whistling of the parrots. Over the asphalt, the air shimmers, the dazzling light rebounds from the shards of glass lying at the roadside, and in the wind blowing in from the sea and bringing with it the smell of fish, the washing on the balconies flap.

  I try to persuade myself that I’ve been lucky or that I am happy, but at the same time I have the feeling that all the sentences in which the word happiness appears are already starting, as I think or utter them, to drift away from me until they are so far away that all I can hear is a soft, numbing noise.

  I have moved into a small flat in the old town and filled it with borrowed furniture, to which the smell of its possessors still clings. I cannot stand any pictures in the flat, as I want to protect the invisible pictures that I brought with me when I left you behind, since they are my only possession.

  As I stepped off the ship and felt the hot foreign ground under my feet, as the customs official was searching through my things and saw that nothing was of sufficient value to require customs dues, as I sat in the back of the taxi that drove me into town, the town that took me into its embrace as if it wanted to swallow me up, as I stepped into the foyer of the hotel where, in the shade of the wood-panelled walls, a piano player was sitting asleep at his instrument, as I went into the room where I was to sleep and opened the window to drive away the smell of mothballs and looked down on to the street where the people seemed harmless, for quite a while I believed that I had arrived. But when I closed the window and sat on the only chair in the room, I was again lying with you in the shade of the maple tree where we would take refuge when the August sun was consuming the garden in its heat. You started to count the leaves, you were never scared of insoluble problems, until evening fell and we took advantage of the coolness that announced the coming of night to climb right to the top of the tree that bent in the wind towards our house. Being a bird must be the second loveliest thing in the world, you said. I asked you what the loveliest thing was, you said you didn’t know, we would wait for it, with the same patience with which you started to count the leaves on the tree. When we were called in, we sat still and quiet, the sound of our breath mingled with the rustling of the leaves and the crackling of the twigs that enclosed us.

  The following morning—I hadn’t expected that I’d get any sleep that night, but weariness waylaid me and drew me into a dreamless state of unconsciousness—when I went downstairs, Herbert was standing at the foot of the stairwell, proffering his hand with the formality of an automaton, he accompanied me into the breakfast room where we sat opposite each other in silence until Herbert began to explain to me in our language, a language which he handled carefully like some strange and rather dangerous object, that he had been instructed to keep me company during the first weeks of my stay. Those were his words, Almut, and I can see the mockery glinting in your eyes.

  In the mornings, when I wake up in the flat that Herbert helped me to find, and whose walls are so thin that I can hear the coughing of the woman next door, the curses that she hurls at her parrot whose screeches reverberate across the stairwell, I stay lying there motionless for a long time and gaze up at the ceiling, crisscrossed by thin cracks like the veins of rivers on a map. I imagine that I am sailing down the rivers through gorges and jungles, and through the flat coastland, until I reach the sea. There I leave the ship that has brought me here, walk down to the boundary between land and sea, the boundary that the waves draw in the sand, and gaze across the water, leaning into the wind that at any moment may turn into a storm. I see us, you and me, Almut, galloping along the beach on horses with glossy dark-brown coats to which the glittering spray from the water clings, you are leading the way, your hair enveloping your head like a cap, I hear the beating of the hooves in the sand still damp from the last high tide wafting over to me, carried by the wind from continent to continent, and only when the hoof-beats become fainter and fade away until I can hear only an echo of them, do I turn my gaze away from the ceiling, throw back the sheet under which I was sleeping, and get up.

  Herbert teaches me the first words of the foreign language when he comes to me each evening after his work. He handles me carefully like a porcelain figure, he walks with me through the city streets, he is patient when I say nothing, friendly when I scold him, apprehensive when I lay my arm around his shoulder, something that makes me feel as if I were deceiving him. I’m going to marry him, Almut.

  Glowna is wearing a grey suit, the jacket of which fits tightly over his belly. The fringe of hair around his bald spot is cut short. His eyes are magnified by the lenses in his steel-rimmed glasses, in which the light coming through the windows into the room is reflected. His hands—he thrusts them into his jacket pockets, only to take them out immediately—hang heavily from his thin arms. On his right hand he is wearing a ring with a polished stone.

  He stepped into the room cautiously, as if entering someone else’s flat, opening and closing the door so gently that Markus does not notice he has come in until he hears Glowna speaking.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait,” he says, with a friendliness that surprises Markus, who had not expected to be welcome in this house. Berger did not stand up when Glowna came in, but merely leant forward in his chair, turned his face to the door and silently observed Glowna walking across the room, meanwhile swaying slightly to shift his weight from one leg to the other.

  When gets to the desk, he stands there and props himself upon the surface of the desk with one hand. He gazes past Berger to Markus who is still standing behind Berger’s chair. Markus does not evade Glowna’s gaze. For a short while their gazes form a bridge under which Berger’s shape, sitting in the chair, disappears.

  “You are Markus Hauser,” says Glowna, “I am pleased to meet you.”

  Now Berger sits up in his chair, leans forward until his feet find a firm hold on the ground, and stands up.

  “Sit down, Hauser,” he says.

  Markus feels the blood rushing to his head. He involuntarily takes one step backwards so that his back bumps into the bookshelves, and he tries to restore the distance that Berger destroyed when Berger addressed him by surname alone just now. Did he do this to impress Glowna, or to lower Markus in Glowna’s eyes, since he too—like Markus—had sensed the friendliness in Glowna’s words, a friendliness that he wanted to wreck?

  “I’d rather stand,” says Markus. Glowna who has pulled the desk chair towards him and is now sitting comfortably in it, says: “Shall we get down to business, Herr Berger.”

  The Superintendent stands in front of his chair between Glowna and Markus, still gazing across at Markus, who avoids his gaze.

  Finally, Berger turns away. He sits back in the chair, and leans so far backwards that he is no longer visible to Markus, crossing his legs and saying, so quietly that Markus has to make an effort to understand him: “Let’s wait until Herr Hauser sits down, then we can get down to business.”

  Glowna stands up. He walks round the desk past Berger’s armchair to Markus, and takes his arm, his contact is so cautious that Markus barely perceives it, and he leads him unresistingly to the chairs in front of the desk.

  “I can assure you that the chairs are comfortable,” he says.

  When Glowna takes him gently by the shoulder, Markus sits on the chair furthest away from Berger’s armchair.

  “I only ever saw Selma Bruhns once,” says Glowna once he has sat down again behind the desk and, opening one of the desk drawers, taken a document out and places it on the desk pad, “apart from that our only contact was by telephone, since that’s how Selma Bruhns wanted it.”

  When Glowna does not continue but instead opens the document and starts
to read it, Markus, who has intently taken each of Glowna’s words into himself, feels a wish to demand that Glowna, whose friendliness has taken him by surprise, should carry on speaking, in the hope that he might learn something from this man about Selma Bruhns. But Glowna remains silent, and Markus sees that Berger has leaned far back in his armchair and closed his eyes. In the silence that spreads through the room, Markus feels how the unrest rising within him is turning into anger, albeit one with no object, an anger not directed at Glowna or even against Berger, though it does force him to stand up again.

  “Can you tell me why I’m here?”

  Markus addresses his question directly at Glowna, who lifts his eyes from the document and gazes at him in astonishment.

  “I thought the Superintendent had explained to you,” says Glowna, “I was Selma Bruhns’s notary. Five days ago, she asked me to go and see her. And that was highly unusual. I generally conducted all business by telephone, as I’ve already said. When I called on her, she requested that I make enquiries about you on her behalf.”

  Markus had lain there awake for a long time. Finally, he had flung back the blanket and gone into the kitchen, turning on the tap to let the water run until it was cold. He had held a glass under the tap, filled it, and drunk it in one go. While he smoked a cigarette, he looked out of the window into the imperceptibly brightening half-light. When he had heard the ringing of the alarm clock, he had gone back into the bedroom.

  “Already up?” said Christine.

  While Christie was in the bathroom, Markus had switched on the coffee machine, taken two plates out of the cupboard, and sliced some bread.

  “My bicycle chain is broken.”

  Christine, her hair still wet after her shower, had sat opposite him at the table and, as she raised her cup to her mouth, looked at him as if she had asked him a question.

  “I’ll drive you to the office,” said Markus. He had gone downstairs and waited outside the house for Christine.

  “So, you’re going back to her,” Christine had said, and she came downstairs, holding the briefcase containing the documents that, the previous evening, she had brought home. Markus had gone over to her and taken the briefcase from her. When they had sat down next to each other in the car, and Markus had started up the engine and driven out of the parking space, Christine said: “Drive down Kurfürstenallee.”

  “That’s out of our way.”

  Still, Markus had indeed turned off at the crossroads, left the ring road and driven into the villa district.

  “Stop in front of her house.”

  Although Markus had the feeling he was doing something forbidden, he had stopped the car not in front of the house, but twenty yards away from the front gate.

  He had climbed out and, walking round the car, opened the passenger door.

  “Which house is it?”

  When Christine had climbed out and was standing under the chestnut trees, Markus thought he could detect a gleam in her eyes, whose meaning he could not fathom.

  “Don’t you want her to see me?”

  He had sensed that her question was a reproach.

  Before following Christine, he locked the car and remained standing next to it. He gazed down the street, as if to reassure himself that they were not being observed. He quickly caught up with Christine, and she laid her hand on his arm, but Markus stepped away, so that her hand slipped off his arm and they continued on their way without touching each other. Markus had to ward off the desire to stand there, hold Christine back by the shoulders, and persuade her to turn round.

  “What are you scared of, Markus?” said Christine.

  He could not answer her question because he did not know why he had agreed to her request to drive here. Neither did he know why Christine had wanted to drive here, whether out of curiosity or out of a desire to get closer to the woman whose letters she had read.

  They reached the garden gate, and Markus stood in a protective gesture in front of the entrance as though he were afraid that Christine would walk into the front garden. Selma Bruhns’s villa stood in the morning light. Christine contemplated the overgrown front garden of the house.

  “Come on,” said Markus but she stood there, gazing fixedly at the villa.

  “Come on,” said Markus a second time.

  Just as Christine was about to turn her gaze from the house, the front door opened and Selma Bruhns stepped out. She remained standing on the area from which the steps lead to the garden. Her eyes were fixed on Markus and Christine. Markus’ only desire was to flee. He reached for Christine’s arm to pull her away from the gate. But Christine shook off his arm. The two women stared at each other. Selma Bruhns was standing in front of her house, erect, statuesque, Christine pausing outside the gate, abandoned by Markus who had taken a few steps backwards. Then Selma Bruhns stepped back into her house and closed the door.

  Has Berger closed his eyes again, as if what happens in this room did not concern him? As if it had not been he who had brought Markus here? As if he were no longer responsible for what happens in this room?

  Markus feels a prickling in his fingertips. He involuntarily lays his hands on his thighs, as if in this way he could conceal his trembling from the two men. Although he has heard every word that Glowna has said, although he thinks that he has understood Glowna, this understanding continues to cling to the surface of the words and does not penetrate deep enough inside him for him to react.

  He tries to focus his eyes on some object, he tries to repeat Glowna’s words to himself and relate them to the six days he spent in Selma Bruhns’s house. Finally, he tries to imagine Selma Bruhns talking to Glowna, but he does not have the strength to make this idea vivid. Without wanting to, he again sees those photographs, the ones that had been lying on Berger’s desk, the shawl wrapped around her neck, the open eyes in which he had seen the blind spot, the plastic sheet they had wrapped round her body.

  “Now you know why we have come here, Herr Hauser.”

  It is Berger speaking. He has sat upright in his armchair and is addressing him by surname, he stares at Markus until the latter turns towards him.

  Though Berger’s words merely represent a simple statement, Markus feels the itching in his fingertips diminishing and the pictures he has seen fading. While he meets Berger’s gaze—this time without having to force himself to do so—Glowna’s words also lose their meaning. He goes back to his chair, from which, without realising it, he had moved away, sits down, and, as he has no questions to ask, waits in silence until Glowna says: “I have the report in front of me.”

  Only now, as he peacefully waits, does the idea that she spoke to this man become vivid. The idea that she asked Glowna to make enquiries about him. That she did so while he was sitting in the small room sorting out the letters. That she may have read the report on him at just the same time as he was pausing in his task and reading one of the letters.

  Dear Almut,

  how many days have gone by since we last saw each other? I tried to keep count of them, day by day, every day, but I got the numbers all mixed up and although I try to find my way through the chaos of numbers representing days, hours and minutes, I can’t do it. Herbert would like to have children. I have refused to bring a child into the world.

  Although Markus thinks he can see everything in front of his eyes—Glowna stepping into the house and leaving it again, standing amid the stench of the animals in the hallway, Selma Bruhns stepping into the hallway and speaking to him—he does not ask himself why Selma Bruhns had let this man into her house and asked him to make enquiries about Markus, as if this were a question that only Selma Bruhns could answer, though in any case she would have refused to do so.

  “Only one detail in this report interests me, the rest is familiar and unimportant,” says Berger, and neither from his words nor from his gaze, directed past Glowna to the window, can one tell whether he is continuing to speak to Markus or whether his words are addressed to Glowna: “Can you imagine which detail I me
an?”

  As Markus does not feel he is being addressed, or refuses to believe that he is being addressed, he says nothing.

  “If you want, I can quote the report to you,” says Glowna. “At the age of seventeen, Markus H was admitted to hospital and spent three months in the psychiatric ward, including one month in isolation. Further details could not be ascertained, as the doctors cited their duty of confidentiality, and the nursing staff only vaguely remembered the patient Markus H, but did state that patient Markus H had behaved in a quiet and inconspicuous way until one incident, about which no further information was given.”

  Glowna, who has been holding the report up and reading from it in a calm voice, lays the paper back on the desk. He avoids Markus’ gaze, turns to Berger and says: “I take it that your investigations justify quoting a confidential report.”

  Markus has been listening to Glowna as if this report were nothing to do with him but is about some stranger, as if the report had no more to do with him than any random newspaper report and as if he had not, at Selma Bruhns’s request, been investigated by Glowna. But as Glowna evades his gaze and turns to Berger, and as the latter reacts to Glowna’s words with a nod, Markus for the first time has the suspicion that both men must have got together before Berger brought him here, and arranged it all in advance. They must have established what they were going to say as it were the text of some theatrical production, and practised their gestures with care so as to provoke his reactions. They must have shared out the roles between them, Berger’s abruptness and Glowna’s friendliness, so as to drive him into a corner, and he has reacted to this game exactly in the way they wanted.

  Selma Bruhns opened the door of the small room in which Markus had been squatting on the floor for three hours, after he had driven Christine into town, come back, parked his car in front of her house, walked into her house through the unlocked front door and, without coming face to face with Selma Bruhns, gone to the small room. For three hours he had been breathing in the smell that clung to the letters and mingled with the stench of the cats. As he worked, laying the letters page by page on the different piles that imperceptibly rose under his hands, he had the feeling that, with every page that he picked up, he was growing more distant from the present, slipping further and further down without knowing where he would end up. Words from the letters that he had read came alive. He found himself in streets where he had never been, heard the shrieking and whistling of creatures that he could not see but whose presence he surmised, felt on his skin the burning sun whose strength he had never yet felt, saw a woman coming up to him who spoke to him in a language that he did not understand.