A Perfect Waiter

by Alain Claude Sulzer

  At eight he got up and had some coffee. Two cups, three, four. He didn’t touch the bread, butter and jelly he’d set out on the kitchen table as if this were an ordinary Sunday. Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote Klinger’s phone number at the top and beneath it his ultimatum. He went to the window and looked down at the street, then across at the house opposite, the one in which his unknown neighbor’s shadow bobbed up and down in the small hours. The light was still on, so she’d probably dozed off after a sleepless night. The morning was cold. He put on a sweater and his overcoat, then left the apartment, buttoning up his coat against the chilly wind. The street was deserted. He set off for the phone booth, walking as fast as if he were in a hurry, which he wasn’t.

  The phone booth stank of urine and one of the panes was smeared with filth. A week ago the phone book had been intact. Since then, someone had wantonly torn some of its pages out of the cover. A few of them lay crumpled on the floor amid banana skins and other trash, but the phone itself was working.

  Erneste unfolded the sheet of paper, smoothed it out on the shelf, and dialed Klinger’s number. The receiver was heavy, the earpiece cold. He waited for Frau Moser to answer. She didn’t sound surprised to hear his voice, just asked what he wanted. “I must speak to Herr Klinger,” he said. “It’s very urgent.” Frau Moser said, “I believe you, but you know he doesn’t take calls in the morning. Never, not from anyone. Call back this afternoon. He’s working.”

  “I have to speak to him now. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “I’m not allowed to disturb him in the morning.”

  “I know that, but I’ve got to speak to him! What I have to say to him is more important than his work. He can go back to work as soon as I’ve said it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but don’t get your hopes up.” She put the receiver down and Erneste waited. While he was waiting and wondering if she really had gone to confer with Klinger or was simply holding her hand over the receiver, he turned and looked down the street. Nothing was stirring. The absence of movement matched his own situation.

  Since Klinger had refused to come to the phone right away and would probably refuse to speak with him on any subsequent occasion, Erneste asked Frau Moser to give him the following message: Unless he announced his readiness to make the requisite arrangements to help Jakob, he, Erneste, would approach some of the less reputable newspapers and acquaint them with certain aspects of Klinger’s private life. They would undoubtedly be interested in such details, because nothing was too smutty for them not to exploit it to the full. Erneste’s agitation was such that he raised his voice, but his fears proved groundless: he didn’t lose his composure or become incoherent—he didn’t even have to consult his notes. His ultimatum came over loud and clear. The tabloids, he went on, made a living out of exposing the intimate secrets of well-known personalities. They certainly wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to wash Klinger’s dirty linen in public. They were notorious for their readiness to injure the reputations of prominent citizens or ruin them altogether, and Klinger must surely be aware that any damage to his own reputation would damage the reputation of those associated with him, notably politicians like the cantonal president, who had recently conferred honorary citizenship on him. Erneste would not only sell the gutter press such details as he knew, he could assure Klinger of that; if necessary, he would invent a few more. He had nothing to lose, whereas Klinger stood to lose a great deal. His good name and reputation were at stake. Erneste would use the money he made from his revelations to help Jakob to the best of his ability, but none of this would be necessary if Klinger agreed to help—help Jakob, of course, not himself. His sole concern was Jakob, who was in a desperate predicament.

  “But that’s blackmail,” Frau Moser said when Erneste fell silent at last. “Yes,” he said, “you’re absolutely right. It’s the first time I’ve done such a thing, and I’m sure it’ll be the last, but in this particular case I’ve no choice.” Before hanging up he asked Frau Moser to make a note of his address. “I shall expect to hear from Herr Klinger.”

  Erneste went home and spent the rest of the morning in his bedroom, lying fully dressed on the bed and staring at the ceiling. He was hungry but ate nothing. Later he turned on the radio beside his bed. The reception on the other stations was poor, so he listened as usual to Radio Beromünster: church service, the news, an orchestral concert. No Postillon de Longjumeau on this last Sunday in October, much as he would have liked to hear it. The voice of the woman announcing the titles of the pieces was familiar to him, so he found it easy to daydream idly to the accompaniment of Puccini’s Crisantemi.

  At lunchtime he opened a can of ravioli, heated the can in a saucepan of water, and ate half of it with two glasses of white wine and water. The rest he threw away. He didn’t shave, there was time for that. He was going to make himself some more coffee but drank another glass of wine instead, undiluted this time. No coffee, he’d run out of milk. If he’d had to, he would have waited forty-eight hours for Klinger’s reply without moving. But it wasn’t necessary.

  Shortly after seven—he still hadn’t shaved—a taxi pulled up outside. The bell on the black box above his front door rang. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He pressed the buzzer, opened the door and put his head out, listening. He heard the shuffling footsteps of someone toiling up the stairs to the second floor. He withdrew his head, leaving the door ajar, and hurried to the bathroom, where he glanced in the mirror and ran a comb through his hair.

  He started to tremble when he peeked through the spy hole, even though he’d guessed it was Klinger—even though that was the obvious conclusion. He stepped aside just as Klinger pushed the door open.

  The old man had clearly found the stairs an effort. He was breathing heavily and looked exhausted. His ocher-colored camel-hair coat, hat, scarf, gloves, gleaming oxfords—all were of the finest quality. Erneste felt positively squalid in comparison. He hadn’t aired his apartment for days or received any visitors since Julie. He was unprepared, but this didn’t seem to bother Klinger. As if it were unnecessary to take any notice of him, he simply said, “I need to sit down.”

  “Please come in,” said Erneste.

  He had been expecting either a bearer check or a refusal, not a visit from the man himself. Klinger had taken the trouble to come in person, so the matter must be urgent. His audacity was paying off.

  He apologized for his get-up—“It’s Sunday”—and for the mess prevailing in his apartment, but Klinger was interested neither in his appearance nor in the state of his apartment. He took off his hat. Erneste hung it on a hook in the hallway, then conducted him into the living room, shutting the bedroom door on the way. The bed was unmade and there were dirty clothes lying on the floor, but Klinger didn’t seem to notice. He sat down in one of the two armchairs and said, “Please bring me a glass of water.”

  Erneste went to the kitchen. He turned on the faucet and let the water run for a few moments. Then he remembered that there was an unopened bottle of mineral water in the fridge. Before taking it out he reached for the white wine and swigged some straight from the bottle, having first satisfied himself that Klinger couldn’t see him from the armchair. He was feeling rather dizzy. He could hardly offer Klinger wine from an open bottle, so what else? A brandy, maybe? He put the mineral water and two glasses on a tray. Klinger had come on his own. Had he called the police? Had he laid a charge of blackmail against this lowly waiter who had overstepped the mark? Erneste was a foreigner. Would they deport him? He glanced out the window. The street was deserted except for a man outside the house next door, thumbing the doorbell and looking up at the windows with an irresolute air. His neighbor’s light was on, but there was no sign of the woman herself. Klinger evidently wasn’t in the habit of getting other people to do his business for him. He knew what he wanted—he still had time to go to the police. His options were open.

  There he sat in Erneste’s living room, visible in semiprofile and looking vaguely out of place in his ov
ercoat, as if this were only a flying visit. Erneste came in bearing the tray with the water and the glasses. Putting it down on his oval coffee table, which had a colored mosaic top, he unscrewed the bottle cap and filled the glasses, first Klinger’s, then his own. He remained standing.

  Klinger looked up. “Always the perfect waiter,” he said, “even in his own home.” Erneste couldn’t tell whether he was commending him or simply being sarcastic. Klinger raised his right hand a trifle and let it fall. He looked tired.

  He waited until Erneste had sat down. Then he slowly unbuttoned his overcoat and produced an envelope from the breast pocket. He put the letter on the table. Erneste saw that it bore a United States stamp and was addressed in typescript. Picking it up again, Klinger turned it over in his hands before tapping the tabletop with the edge of the envelope.

  “From Jakob?” Erneste asked softly.

  “Yes and no. It was sent me care of my New York publishers. I received it four days after your visit. It contains some news. Bad news. I shouldn’t have kept it from you, but I waited. It’s over. This letter renders your attempt to blackmail me superfluous.”

  “Why? Has Jakob written to you direct?”

  “No, this letter isn’t from Jakob.” Klinger turned it over. “It’s from a man named Gingold.” He paused. “Neither of us could have known this when you visited me, but Jakob was already dead.” A huge hand gripped Erneste by the throat and squeezed. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t stand up or breathe.

  Klinger replaced the envelope on the table face up and tapped it with his forefinger. “This contains a death notice. A death notice and a letter from Mr Gingold.” He took out a sheet of paper and a pale-gray card with a black border. The latter was adorned with a palm leaf, a cross, and the words The Lord is my shepherd. Jack Meier 1914—1966.

  “According to Mr Gingold—a close friend of Jakob’s, one presumes—he died of a cerebral tumor. It was diagnosed far too late. He consulted a doctor three months ago, because he was suffering from unbearable headaches, but by that time his condition was hopeless, the tumor was too far advanced. There was nothing to be done. They couldn’t operate because of the tumor’s location and size—it would have been extremely risky under any circumstances. The tumor continued to grow unchecked at an incredible rate—‘incredible’, that’s the word Mr Gingold uses. It also gave rise to the mental confusion that prompted him to write you those letters. A cerebral tumor can cause all kinds of manic delusions. His erroneous belief that he was being tailed by the FBI men who once shadowed me, compelling me to leave the States and return to Europe, was simply a delusion occasioned by the tumor. He thought he needed help, but he was financially secure and well provided for. You weren’t to know that, neither was I, but it wouldn’t have surprised either of us to hear he was down on his luck, would it? This American friend of Jakob’s didn’t learn of his letters to you until he was dead. Jakob was already in another world, his world of illusion, when he wrote them. By then he was beyond help—in fact he was probably dead by the time you heard from him the second time.” Klinger unfolded the letter. “Those headaches of his were agonizing, Mr Gingold writes. The pain didn’t ease until they started dosing him heavily with morphine. He didn’t suffer for much longer after that, it seems, because he was granted a quick and merciful death. He didn’t die alone—he had good doctors and kindly nurses. Two days before his death he went blind and lost consciousness. He was past recognizing anyone.”

  Klinger pushed the death notice across to Erneste, who stared at it. “He was only fifty-two.”

  Erneste’s one thought was: “I heard him correctly, I’ll never see Jakob again.” He repeated the words to himself: “I heard him correctly, I’ll never see Jakob again.” He had heard him correctly, he would never see Jakob again—never be able to forgive him. The walls of the room in which they were sitting collapsed, slowly and silently, like a house of cards. Erneste and his agony of mind could now be viewed from every angle. He didn’t care, though, not now he possessed the key to the truth: Jakob was dead and needed no help.

  “Who is this Gingold?”

  Klinger shrugged. Neither of them spoke. At length, Klinger picked up his glass and drained it. Later he poured himself another glass, but Erneste barely noticed. He had been wrested from a years-long sleep and was now being relegated to it once more. Was that all that remained of him, three sentences: “I won’t see Jakob again. Did I hear him correctly? Yes, I did.”

  “So your attempt to blackmail me has become irrelevant. Let’s forget it.” Abruptly, Klinger went on: “His death was a sad but well-merited punishment for his depravity.” Erneste stared at him uncomprehendingly. Klinger made no move to rise. “You really mean that?” Erneste asked. But Klinger didn’t answer; he was as opaque as the objects around him. “Do you have any photos of him?” he asked.

  Erneste remained silent. Yes, he had some photos. They were somewhere down in the cellar, but he wouldn’t go looking for them.

  Chapter 12

  A few days after the United States declared war on December 7, 1941, Julius Klinger and his wife went to the opera, but they returned home earlier than intended because Marianne was feeling unwell that night. Klinger disliked the performance so much, he was quite happy to leave the theater after the first act.

  It was snowing when they came out onto the street. They hadn’t owned a car since moving to Manhattan, so they went home by cab. Jakob, who had been informed of their return by the porter, was waiting for them at the door of their apartment.

  Frau Moser had gone out with a woman friend that night and Josefa was sitting in the library, playing solitaire. Jakob reported that Maximilian had retired to his room to study early that evening and hadn’t shown his face since. Klinger asked what sort of mood Maxi was in, but Jakob shrugged and said he didn’t know. When Klinger tried to touch him, Jakob evaded his hand and it closed on thin air—for the very last time, not that he would ever have dreamed it at that moment. Klinger stared after him. His craving for Jakob’s body was as inordinate and insatiable as ever, a source of unhappiness yet not entirely unsatisfying. He was now fifty-three, Jakob twenty-five.

  The hush prevailing in the apartment, the snow falling outside, the subdued lighting—all these accorded with Klinger’s present frame of mind. A better future seemed to beckon. America’s entry into the war and its readiness to overthrow Hitler at any price, even the loss of American lives in battle, was heartening and liberating. He would have liked to discuss the future with someone, but he knew how reluctant Josefa was to have her games of solitaire interrupted and how little interest Maximilian, now a law student, took in his father’s concerns. Besides, the boy was unapproachable these days. Taciturn and distant, he had become more and more remote from the family since their arrival in America.

  Klinger glanced at his watch: half-past ten. He looked out the window—it was snowing even harder—and resumed his aimless tour of the apartment. It was time to bring the day to an end, but the futility with which the seconds were ticking away deterred him. He was in no hurry. Did this soothing silence conceal some disruptive element? If so, he couldn’t place it. In an hour or so he would ask Jakob to bring him a cup of tea in bed. What would or would not happen then, time would tell.

  Marianne Klinger had retired to bed and would not emerge from her room until morning. Her room was a desert island. No palm trees grew there, just memories of days gone by—a vast and luxuriant store of memories kept alive by the innumerable souvenirs with which she surrounded herself, having long led a life of her own. It was twenty to eleven and still snowing when Klinger turned out the light in his study, which adjoined his bedroom, which in turn adjoined Jakob’s. All three rooms had communicating doors, so Jakob was always available if he needed him. He left his study, which contained his desk and Jakob’s smaller, uncluttered desk with its big American typewriter. Klinger’s Adler had been left behind in Germany.

  While his daughter was playing solitaire and Jak
ob busying himself with something in the kitchen, Klinger ambled through the spacious apartment, which was on the ninth floor of an eighteen-story building. The third time he passed Maximilian’s room he felt tempted to knock on his door. It was so quiet in there, the boy had probably fallen asleep over his law books. If he really was asleep, Klinger reflected, he wouldn’t hear the door open. But he abandoned the idea. Not wanting to disturb his son, he strolled on from room to room. The lighting was the way he liked it: subdued, never bright, and shed by at least one standard or table lamp in every room. His daughter glanced up from her solitaire as he passed the library again. She gave him a cursory nod, smiled, and quickly put down two cards. She looked so grown-up, so old, so remote. Didn’t she have a girlfriend, a boyfriend? Eleven o’clock now. He was in the drawing room. He opened the door of the grandfather clock that had accompanied him for years and wound it up as he did every night. He sat down, waiting, listening. Yes, all was quiet. Too quiet? Exactly how many paces away were his son, his daughter, his wife, Jakob? He would never know, nor did it seem important at that moment.

  The tranquil silence was abruptly punctured by the sound of a door crashing back against a wall. Then he heard hurried footsteps making for the drawing room—making for him, beyond a doubt, and since he recognized those footsteps he wasn’t surprised when Jakob appeared in the doorway.