I made no reply. As I watched Carmen and Mrs. VriesIänder and the Koller twins with their new bosoms and Mr. Vriesländer-Warwick, whose trousers were a little too short, I felt lighter than I had for years. Perhaps, I thought, this really was the Promised Land; maybe Kahn was right and you really could change everything in this country, not only your name and face but your personality as well. Maybe you didn't have to forget; maybe you could sublimate and transform your memories until they ceased to give pain—yet without loss, without betrayal, without desertion.
XI
When I got back to the hotel after work the next day, I found a letter from the lawyer; I had been granted a six months' extension on my residence permit He asked me to phone the following afternoon. I could imagine why.
I decided to go and see Kahn. He had â small room over the shop where he worked. It was very noisy; the traffic went on all night. And any number of neon signs cast their light on his walls and ceiling. He didn't mind; he hated quiet and darkness, and the room was cheap.
Natasha was sitting in the lobby. I felt rather awkward. "Waiting for Melikov?" I asked.
"No. For you." She laughed. "Isn't it exciting," she said. "We know each other so little, and we already have so much to forgive each other for. What kind of terms are we on?"
"The best," I said. "At least we don't seem to be bored with each other."
"Have you eaten?"
I counted up my money mentally. "No. Shall we go to the Pavilion?"
She looked me over. I had on my new suit. Silvers insisted on my wearing it to work. "New," I said. "New shoes, too. Do you think I can show myself at the Pavilion?"
"I was at the Pavilion yesterday. It was boring. You ought to be able to eat out of doors in the summer. They haven't discovered that yet in America."
"I've got a pot of the best Hungarian goulash in my room," I said. "Enough for six hungry people. It was marvelous last night and it should be even better today."
"Where did you get it?"
"I went to a party last night."
"And they gave you goulash to take home? Where was this party? Was it . . ."
I flashed her a warning glance. "No, it wasn't in a German beer hall. Goulash isn't German; it's Hungarian. This was a private party. With dancing," I added, to punish her for her thoughts.
"Oh, with dancing. You seem to get around."
"They also gave me dill pickles and Strudel," I said. "A meal for the gods. Only unfortunately the goulash is cold."
"Can't it be warmed up?"
"Where? All I've got in my room is an electric coffeepot."
Natasha laughed. "What? No etchings for the ladies?"
"I'm afraid not I'll have to get some. Shouldn't we try the Pavilion after all?"
"No. You've made the goulash sound too tempting. Melikov will be back soon. He'll help us. Let's take a little walk. I haven't been out yet today. Well work up an appetite for your goulash."
Natasha warned me about her shoe complex. She couldn't pass a shoe store without looking in the window. And if she came back the same way an hour later, she had to look at the same window again. "Crazy, isn't it?"
"No. Why?"
"Because I've just seen them all. There hasn't been any time for changes."
"Maybe you've overlooked something. Or the window may have been redecorated."
"Then you don't mind looking at a few shoes?"
"Not at all. I'm crazy about shoes."
We seemed to be strolling aimlessly, but I had a destination in mind. Half an hour and two or three shoe stores later, we approached Kahn's shop. To my surprise he was still there. "Just a minute," I said to Natasha. "I think I've found a solution to our goulash problem."
I opened the door. Kahn looked past me and saw Natasha. "Won't you bring the lady in?"
"I wouldn't think of it," I said. "I only wanted to borrow your electric hot plate."
"Now?"
"Yes, now."
"I'm sorry. I need it myself. I'm expecting Carmen for dinner and then we're listening to the fight. She ought to be here any minute; she's three-quarters of an hour late already. Luckily, it doesn't matter with warmed-over-goulash."
"Carmen ..." I said, and looked out at Natasha, who suddenly seemed very remote and desirable on the other side of the windowpane. "Carmen . . ." I repeated.
"Yes. Why don't you stay? Then we'll all listen to the fight."
"Great," I said. "But where will we eat? Your room's too small."
"Right here in the shop."
I hurried out to Natasha, and she seemed very close to me.
"We're invited to dinner," I said.
"But what about my goulash?"
"A goulash dinner," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"You'll see."
"Have you hidden pots of goulash all over town?"
"Only at strategic points."
I saw Carmen coming. She was wearing a light-colored raincoat and no hat. Kahn came out to meet her. Natasha gave her a quick once-over. Carmen showed no surprise at our presence, nor did she react in any way. Her hair was a henna-colored cloud in the evening light. "I'm a little late," she said blandly. "But it doesn't matter with goulash, does it? Did they give you some Strudel, too?"
"Cherry Strudel, cheese Strudel, and apple Strudel," answered Kahn..
The goulash really was better than the day before. We ate it to the sound of organ music. Kahn had switched on his six radios, for fear of missing the fight. Strange to say, Bach went well with Hungarian goulash, though Liszt might had been more appropriate. We ate the pickles with our fingers, and the goulash with spoons.
There was a violent knocking at the door. Kahn and I thought it was the police, but it was only a waiter from the bar across the street, bearing four enormous drinks. "Who ordered these?" Kahn asked.
"A gentleman. It seems he was looking out the window. He saw you drinking vodka, and then he saw the bottle was empty."
"Where is he?"
The waiter shrugged. "The drinks are paid for. I'll come back for the glasses."
"Bring four more when you do."
"Yes, sir."
The six organs faded out. Kahn distributed strudel and apologized for not making coffee. If he ran upstairs for the coffeepot, he might miss the beginning of the fight.
After the fight Kahn seemed as exhausted as if he himself had been in the ring. Carmen was sleeping peacefully.
"What did I tell you?" said Kahn. ,
"Let her sleep," Natasha whispered. "I must be going now. Thanks for everything. Good night."
We went out into the damp street. "He must want to be alone with his girl friend," she said.
"I'm not so sure."
"Why not? She's so beautiful." She laughed "Beautiful enough to give me an inferiority complex."
"Is that why you left?"
"No, that's why I stayed. I like beautiful people. Though sometimes they make me sad."
"Why?"
"Because they can't stay beautiful forever. Old age isn't becoming to most people. That seems to call for more than beauty."
We passed sleeping shop windows full of cheap jewelry. A few delicatessen stores were still open. "Strange," I said. "I've never thought about growing old. I guess I was too busy keeping alive."
Natasha laughed. "I think about it all the time."
"Melikov says it's impossible for young people to understand such things."
"Melikov has always been old."
"Always?"
"Well, too old to be interested in women. Isn't that what old age means?"
"That's simplification, but I suppose it's true. In that case Melikov is right."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that at this present moment such a thing is beyond my comprehension."
She gave me one of her quick glances. "Bravo," she said with a smile, and took my arm.
I pointed across the street. "A shoe store," I said. "Shall we look at the window?" .
"I co
uldn't live without it."
We crossed over. "How enormous this city is!" she said. "It never ends. Do you like it here?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because they, let me stay here. Simple, isn't it?"
She looked at me thoughtfully. "Is that enough?"
"It's a modest, primitive kind of happiness: enough to eat and a place to sleep."
"But is it enough?"
"What more can I ask for? Adventures get to be very tedious as daily fare."
Natasha laughed. "Happiness is a quiet corner. Is that it? You know what? I don't believe you."
"Neither do I, but it comforts me to say such things from time to time."
She laughed again. "Your remedy for despair? I know exactly how you feel."
"Where do we go now?" I asked.
"That's a big problem in this town. The night spots are all so boring after you've been there once or twice."
"How about El Morocco?"
"You and your millions!" she said. The tone was ironic, but I detected a trace of affection.
'I've got to show off my new suit."
"Don't you want to show me off?"
"That is an indiscreet question."
At El Morocco we went to the little side room.
"What will it be?" I asked.
"A Moscow mule."
"What on earth is that?"
"Vodka, root beer, and lime juice. Very refreshing."
"I'll try it."
Natasha pulled up her feet on the banquette, leaving her shoes on the floor. "I don't go in for sports like the Americans," she said. "I can't ride or swim or play tennis. I'm a lounge lizard and a chatterbox."
"What else are you?"
"Sentimental and romantic and unbearable. What I like best is sleazy romance. The sleazier the better. How's the Moscow mule?"
"Great"
"And the Viennese songs?"
"Great."
She leaned back contentedly in her corner of the banquette. "Sometimes I feel like plunging into a great big wave of sentimentality that washes away every shred of good sense and good taste. Afterward I can shake myself dry and laugh at myself. How about it?"
"I'm plunging."
There was something about her that made me think of a playful but melancholy cat She looked like it, too, with her little face, abundant hair, and large eyes. "All right" she said. "Then I'll tell you about myself. I'm unhappy in love, dreadfully disillusioned, lonely, and sick of it all. I don't even know why I go on living."
I thought it over. "Why," I asked, "should you want to know that? If you know why you're living, it means you've got a purpose. That reduces life to a job."
She gaped at me. "Do you really mean that?"
"Of course not We're talking nonsense. Isn't that what we wanted?"
"Not entirely. Half and half."
The pianist came over to our table and bade Natasha good evening. "Karl," she said. "Gould you sing the song from the Count of Luxemburg?"
"I'll be glad to."
He sang well. "Lieber Freund, man greift nicht nach den Sternen / die für uns in nebelhaften Fernen . . ."
Natasha listened in a state of rapture. It was a pretty tune, the popular music of another day. The words, as usual, were idiotic.
"How do you like it?"
"Petit bourgeois."
"What!" She glared at me. I expected our little war to break out again and hastened to mollify her.
"You'd say the same thing if you understood the words. The idea is that it's no use reaching for the stars, because we have everything we need in this cunning little cottage."
She thought it over for a second. "Then you ought to like it. Isn't that the quiet corner you were talking about?"
The bitch is quick on the draw, I thought
"Why do you have to criticize everything to death?" she asked, grown suddenly gentle. "Can't you let yourself go? Are you so afraid?"
Another of those questions in the dim light of a New York night club. I was annoyed with myself, because she was right. I couldn't help talking like the typical German I detested. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear myself delivering a lecture on places of entertainment from the dawn of history down to the most recent times, with special emphasis on cabarets and night clubs since the First World War. "That song,"'I burst out, "reminds me, of a time long before the war. It's a very old song; my father sang it, I think. He was a frail man with a love for old things, old gardens. I often heard it sung in the garden cafés outside Vienna, where you go to drink the new wine. It's sentimental slop from an operetta; but at night in those gardens under the leafy chestnut trees, it didn't seem like slop. In the flickering light of the lanterns, to the soft music of the fiddles and accordions, it just sounded nostalgic. Not petit bourgeois at all—that just slipped out of me. I hadn't heard it in a long time. I remember another: 'When music and wine are gone/ How then will life go on/Then shall we too be gone—' That was the last song to be heard in Vienna."
"Karl must know it."
"I'd rather not hear it. It was the last song before the Nazis marched into Austria. After that, there was nothing but marching songs."
Natasha was silent for a while. "If you like, I'll tell Karl not to sing the other song again."
"But he's just sung it."
"He knows I like it. When I'm here, he sings it over and over."
"He didn't sing it the last time we were here."
"That was his night off. Somebody else was singing."
"Never mind. I enjoy it as much as you."
"Really? It doesn't bring back sad memories?"
"All memories are sad, because the past will never come back."
She pondered that one a moment Then she found the right answer. "I think it's time for another Moscow mule."
"You're full of good ideas." I looked at her. She had none of Carmen's tragic beauty, or, rather, her beauty was not of the tragic type. Her little face was too much alive, reflecting by turns a keen intelligence, quick, malicious humor, and a sudden startling gentleness.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, grown suddenly suspicious. "Is my nose shiny?"
"No. I'm wondering why you're so friendly to waiters and piano players and so aggressive with your friends."
"Because the waiters are defenseless." She looked at me. "Am I really so aggressive? Or are you hypersensitive?"
"I think I'm hypersensitive."
She laughed. "You don't believe that for a minute. People who are never think so. Do you believe that?"
"I believe everything you say."
Karl started on the Count of Luxemburg again. "I warned you," said Natasha.
Some people came in and waved to her. She seemed to know everybody. Two men came over to our table and talked to her. I stood up and suddenly had the feeling you get in a small plane when it drops into an air pocket. Everything began to rise and fall and sway, the green-and-blue-striped walls, the many faces, and the beastly music. What was wrong with me? It couldn't have been the vodka or the goulash. The goulash had been too good, and there hadn't been enough vodka. Probably, I thought bitterly, it was the memory of Vienna and my dead father, who hadn't left the country in time, because my mother couldn't bear to leave her home and furniture, which had come down to her from her parents. I stared at the piano and at Karl. I saw his hands on the piano but heard scarcely a sound. Then the walls began to calm down. I took a deep breath and felt as if I had returned from a long journey.
"It's getting too crowded," said Natasha. "The theaters are out. Shall we go?"
The theaters are out, I thought; at midnight the night clubs fill up with millionaires and gigolos; the world is at war, and I'm somewhere in between; A silly thought, and unfair as well, because a good many of the men at the tables were in uniform, and some of them had wound stripes— but just then I was choking with helpless rage and in no mood to be fair.
The air outside was warm and humid. A taxi drove up, and the porter opene
d the door for us.
"No thanks," said Natasha. "We don't need a cab. I live in the neighborhood."
At the next corner we left the neon signs behind us. The street grew darker. We came to the house she lived in, and she stretched like a cat. "I love these conversations about everything and nothing," she said. "Especially at night. Of course you mustn't believe anything I said."