by Bill Peschel
We parted, and I walked across the river to my rented room. Rev. Twichell was coming on this afternoon’s train and I didn’t want to miss my friend. I resolved that the closest I would come to Miss Irene Adler after this was the distance from the stage to my seat. Drawing a half-sheet of paper from the desk, I wrote a note and sent it to her by messenger:
That evening, Livy and I saw Tristan and Isolde with Twichell, who occupied his time in a long, refreshing nap. The show was a roaring success, and Miss Adler appeared on stage with the other cast members bearing two large bouquets of roses, her jeweled necklace glittering like the gas-lit waters of the Neckar.
I led the party toward the rear of the auditorium. I anticipated no further troubles until Livy laid a gloved hand on my arm.
“We must go backstage and thank Miss Adler.”
I felt the room sway, like I did when the temblor hit San Francisco back in ’65. “You know her?”
“She sent me a lovely note thanking me for letting you accompany her, and I must do my duty in replying.”
There was nothing I could say to that but, “Yes, dear.”
It was crowded and hot in the narrow backstage area. We found Miss Adler talking to Dietrich. She introduced us, and he nodded knowingly at the sound of my name. Miss Adler turned to Livy who was exclaiming over the jewelry she was wearing, particularly the necklace of diamonds, pearls, and rubies that had caught my eye at the box office. They entered into a deep discussion over the composition and provenance of the necklace, and Dietrich turned to me, bowed with a broad smile and said in perfect English:—
“I must apologize on behalf of the behavior of myself and my servant. Miss Adler explained everything to me. You’ll find that I have a great fondness for Americans. She is a young country, a vigorous country. If she were more German, America would become a great nation.”
“America,” I said it the way he pronounced it, “Ah-MER-i-kan.”
When Livy and Miss Adler joined us, Dietrich became more expansive. “She has told me that you are writing about Heidelberg. If you like, and if your lovely wife will permit, I can show you my home. I was planning a late supper with friends, and there we will drink and smoke and I will tell you stories about the Grand Duchy of Baden for your book. And,” he bowed to Livy, “if your wife would like to accompany us . . .”
Livy said she would be pleased to come, but that it had been a long day and she needed to retire. It was decided that Miss Adler would dress quickly and convey Twichell and myself in her carriage. Free grub and good cigars always find a home with me. I should have realized that Dietrich, like any good fisherman, knew the right bait to use to catch the fish he wanted.
Miss Adler reappeared in a simple black dress. I saw Livy off to the hotel in our carriage—she whispered in my ear not to stay out too late—and Twichell and I accompanied Miss Adler to hers. I positioned myself alongside Twichell on the bench and lit a cigar. She called to her driver, and with a crack of the whip we were off.
We smoked our cigars contentedly in silence. The passing gas lamps highlighted Miss Adler in bands of gold and black. She was in a brown study. I spoke, if only for the look of the thing, “Dietrich seems like a bully fellow.”
She did not respond.
“Are you concerned about seeing him again?”
“No . . . no,” she sounded weary and I said so.
“It has been a long day. I am absolutely beaten.”
I yawned. “You should go on home then. Drop Twichell and me off, and we’ll find our way back to the hotel.”
“No. Dietrich expects me and—” she was considering me carefully.
I yawned and slumped into the seat, and as the carriage turned a corner I found myself in one as well. The only sounds were the creaking of the vehicle and the rattle of the wheels on the cobblestones. They were soothing sounds, and an idle fancy arose that Miss Adler, Twichell, and I were sailing the stars in a gondola. Travel has effect. We’re unmoored from the familiar, detached from our language, friends, the foods we eat and everything else that reflects who we are. When they go, what is left behind?
The thought amused me. Seeing Miss Adler’s handsome face reminded me of Livy, and how much I missed her. At that moment I would have told everyone to go to the devil if I could be in the same room with her again. I felt a pang in my chest and an emptiness of spirit at the thought of never seeing her again. I felt tired; so tired that I nodded off, cigar in my hand.
We shuddered to a stop and I found myself on the floor of the wagon before Miss Adler and Twichell next to her. She squealed in surprise, but no more so than I when my hand found the burning end of my cigar. I thrashed about on my knees, hunting for the handle of the cigar and knocking about my top hat. I unloosened a barrage of curses, and then the carriage door opened and by the light spilling from the open front door I could see Dietrich and his friends ready to welcome us.
In most places in America, my behavior would have been the object of much fun, none of it genteel, before I would be slapped on the back, and forgiveness for my behavior shouted to the heavens. But they do things different in Europe. Dietrich ignored my undignified position and profanity and helped me from the carriage as if he were my manservant. He conducted me inside with gentle enquiries of what I thought of the opera, and provided explanations in response to my inquiries about the décor and the paintings.
He led the party to a long table. Around us the portraits of bewhiskered and bejeweled ancestors judged us. The champagne had been uncrated for the first course of the bacchanals and the bottles soon were circulating along with plates of dried fruits and nuts, while the servants moved in and out, setting out on a sideboard plates of chicken, sausages, sauerbraten and other delicacies.
Miss Adler had left the room, leaving the men. I had intended to ask after her, but I became occupied with the talk that flowed around and about me. True to his word, Dietrich told me tales of those portrayed on the walls and the ways they distinguished themselves during the multitude of wars the German kingdoms indulged in. I saw my friend from the alley among the servants, looking like a stinkweed among the roses. As he will be with us for the rest of the story, he’ll need a name. I’ll christen him Leatherface.
Leatherface refused to meet my eye, and I meant to do the same. Fortunately, he was among those responsible for fetching and carrying instead of serving, so I saw him rarely.
Several of the men had read my books, so there were questions about San Francisco. They had read Karl May’s stories about the Apache chief Winnetou that were inflaming the German imagination at the time and were intrigued about the West. Was it as barren as he had painted it? Was it really as large? The German mind, unlike that of the French and English, was captivated with the concept of the West’s near-unlimited space. They hungered for it, and for the freedom to move about and talk as freely as they wished, gifts we Americans take as our birthright and therefore for granted.
We ran through several bottles of champagne, then the cognac was broken out and someone suggested a card game. Draw poker was chosen in honor of my presence. Dietrich directed me to the sideboard on which lay a leather case: “Open it, please. It contains the cards and chips. Make sure everything is there.”
I unlatched the case, and handled the lacquered chips bearing the Dietrich family crest with a heft that felt as solid as English guineas. The cards, too, bore the crest on their backs, and were stiff enough to slice cheese. It was a handsome set. I brought it to the table. Five of us took a seat, with Dietrich at the head, and the rest of the mob divided their attention between our play and the buffet. The stakes were moderate, too small to matter to the nobility, too high for the peasants. The play was one of the most professional I’ve seen outside the doors of a casino. Leatherface was called to the table to act as banker and dealer.
Dietrich seemed to become more American as we played. He roared at my stories and joshed his friends at their card play. As hand passed hand, he seemed to get more excited. I also noticed
after awhile that he drank much less than anyone at the table, while his friends encouraged me in, as they expressed in English, “drinking a bumper” with them. The atmosphere was formal but relaxed, and breaks were taken by the gentlemen for smokes and other purposes.
It was during one of them that an odd encounter occurred. I was on the balcony taking the air when there was a presence beside me. He was a small man with the formal attitude of an undertaker. His hair was slick and parted in the center. It looked like the blunt end of a pencil. He was smoking a large cigar from which he inhaled and expelled chimneys of smoke.
He seemed to ignore me for several minutes, even though he was so close I could feel the nap of his coat. I performed the same service for him. He rolled the end of the stogie on the balustrade to shape the ash and said in quiet German-inflected English:—
“You need take care, Mr. Twain.”
I nearly bit through my cigar. I said nothing to that extraordinary statement. I expected him to flesh out his argument, and he did so.
“I suspect that there is cheating at the table.” He turned to me and opened his mouth as if to say more, but instead brushed his hand against the lapels of my coat and said, “You have spilled ash on your jacket. I see I have upset you.”
“Not at all,” I lied.
“Perhaps it is nothing. Forget I said anything.”
But he was right; there was cheating. We played only for another ten minutes. His warning had grown in my mind until I could think of nothing else. I had resolved to back out of the game and take my leave, and intimated as such. Dietrich heartily agreed and called for one last hand.
It had been a difficult hand to play, and we had gone through several rounds of betting. Everyone had dropped out but Dietrich and me. He asked for three cards. I had a pair of kings, so I did as well.
Leatherface dealt me two more kings.
This cheered me up immensely and drove from my head my fears of being cheated. Dietrich had been pleased with his hand as well, and we raised each other. Several hundred marks were on the table, and I saw the possibility of pocketing it all. My luck had been good thus far, and I saw no reason for it to change.
We displayed our cards, and my four kings beat his pairs of aces and eights.
In the general clamor after the revelations, Leatherface expelled a grunt like a pig knocked with a pole.
Dietrich asked Leatherface for elaboration.
“Herr Twain, he is cheating. He has cards in his pocket.”
The table went dead silent. I plunged my hand into my coat pocket and pulled it out. Empty. I checked the other one where I kept my matches—
—And pulled out three cards.
I was as startled as if I had performed a magic trick without realizing it. They were useless cards—a trey, a deuce and a five—but they were from the deck, and that implied that I had swapped them for better cards.
I threw them as if stung. I protested, but for a moment. Dietrich snapped orders and I was pinioned and dragged before him. Joe Twichell added his voice, “This is an outrage. I’ve known—”
“Silence!” Dietrich said. “Herr Twain and I must talk.” He turned and left the room, leaving Leatherface and his comrade to escort me behind him. We stopped when we reached the library, lit by the dim light of a gas jet. They tossed me into a chair as Dietrich turned up the lamp on his desk. Leatherface stood behind me while his pal closed the door on his way out.
“I will not mince words with you. You have publicly insulted me. You have been caught cheating.”
“I have not!”
“You have. I accuse you of cheating. This is a matter of honor, and there is only one way to resolve this.”
It was a good thing I was seated. My legs clearly were in no mood to perform their duty. But at least my mouth was in working order. “I will not! I am a writer. I have been a reporter, even an editor! I have no honor to dishonor.”
“That is a sorrow. Your exhibition at the student club gave me hope you would be a challenging opponent. I will have to be content with thrashing you.”
My heart was hammering, but my head was thinking. Dietrich’s anger was too calm, too focused. Catching a gambler with the wrong cards created chaos that was short-lived, at least for the cheater. I know that I didn’t pocket those cards; so someone planted them on me. In a flash, I realized it happened on the balcony, as pencil-head was warning me against being cheated. Only Leatherface might have something against me, but he only acted on his master’s orders, which meant—
“Adler?” I didn’t have enough facts to touch on any particular point. It just seemed as if she were involved in this somewhere.
“I tend to take her suitors seriously.”
“I don’t! I’m—you ass! You ninny! You politician! Do you really think—?”
He waved my words aside like smoke. “Save your words, Herr Twain, they’ll do you no good here.”
“Ask her!”
“I did, after I found this in her fireplace grate.” He pulled from his coat pocket a slip of paper, one side burned, and handed it to me.
It was the note I had sent her. Much of it was burned away, but what was left told me why he thought the way he did:
I groaned. My head swam with too many questions to nail one down long enough to ask. Not a word could I say that wouldn’t ring like a counterfeit silver eagle. He took my silence for assent. He stood, smoothed his coat-front and snapped his fingers at Leatherface. “We go now.”
At least there’s one question I could ask.
“Where?”
“To the Castle. To the dueling grounds.”
Dietrich had organized everything with typical German efficiency. Our carriages were waiting for us at the front door. The seating had been arranged, with Leatherface and Twichell, who agreed to act as my second, in Adler’s carriage, and everyone else distributed among the rest.
We rode mostly in silence. Leatherface preferred to put all of his energies into glaring at me. I resolved to contribute nothing to the atmosphere. Only Twichell leaned over and patted me on the arm.
“Be brave, Sam. Everything will work out.”
I relieved myself with a few chosen words and he stopped elaborating on his sermon.
The scene passed before me like a dream. We arrived at the field outside the castle walls. Dietrich hopped out, went to the back of his coach and opened a trunk. The servants lit torches and formed a ring where the battle would take place. When Twichell dragged me out and to the rear of our carriage, I saw that we were on the opposite side of the circle.
Twichell said to Leatherface, “Go see your master. My friend needs to compose himself before the thrashing begins.”
Leatherface spat and said something insulting, but he did leave.
In the trunk of Adler’s carriage were the mask and sword similar to what we had seen at the club. He applied the mask to my face and belted it behind. He pulled out a long, heavy cape which he draped around my neck.
“Twichell, it’s customary to decorate the corpse after he’s perished.”
He attached the cape at the neck, and set a wide-brimmed hat on my head. I snatched it off.
“If you’re trying to blind me you’re doing an excellent—”
Twichell snatched it back and jammed it on my head.
“If anyone asks, Sam, it’s the way you fight in America. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. Hear me? You fight in this.”
“You know I don’t fight.”
“Yeah, but they don’t. Keep that in mind. They think you’re Rudolf Rassendyll.” He handed me the dueling sword. I looked across the field, Dietrich was nearly finished dressing. When Twichell let me go, I fled into the carriage with him hot on my heels.
“You need to step out, Sam. Now.”
“Twichell! How can you say that? Get topside. Tell the driver to get me out of here, damn you, or—” I battered the ceiling with my gloved fist in an attempt to get the driver moving. The blade was in that hand, and it was whipping
around, threatening to lop off an ear or worse.
Twichell threw himself on the floor before me and gripped my shaking arms.
“Sam! Trust me! Get aholt of yourself.” He gave my chest a hard thump with his palm and talked to me like he was soothing a skittish pony. “This is the hand you’re dealt, don’t you see? If you run, he’ll track you to the hotel and thrash you there. You want Livy to see that? Your daughters? So here’s how you’re going to play it. You step out. You meet Dietrich face to face. You’ll show brave. You’ll step back six paces. The command will be given, and you will fight. D’ya hear me? Walk out there like a man, or so help me, I’ll drag you to the field by your collar and throw you at him.”
Twichell managed to silence me; something I swore no man would ever do. I had known him for nearly a decade then. He was a Congregationalist minister who helped officiate at my marriage. He had never, ever, talked to me like that. He had always been the most amiable companion. He had been an Irish setter, who suddenly bared his fangs at his master.
He reached into his pocket and brought out a silver flask. He uncorked it and lifted it to my lips, and I tasted the foulest stuff in my life. It must have been distilled in tar barrels. My lungs took in a pint as well, and I ejected the surplus onto the floor.
There was a knock on the carriage door. It opened to reveal Leatherface. He and Twichell exchanged views in German while I sputtered and choked and ran my fingers underneath the leather mask to clear my eyes. Despite the treatment, I was much calmer. An immediate discomfort distracts the mind from the larger horror.
I stumbled from the dim light inside the carriage into the darkness. I can still remember every second of my walk to the scene of the tragedy. It’s still capable of making me leap up at night in a cold sweat: the sound of my boots brushing the short grass; the feel of my cloak over my shoulders and the closeness of the hat over my forehead; the keen smell of the evening mountain air and the lingering fumes of the brandy decorating my shirtfront. We walked and Twichell adjusted the straps in the back of my mask.
