The room grew darker. The wind was whipping the dust off the road and the first shimmering twilight of the storm settled on the room and on the scene through the window. The blackflies were mercilessly stinging Ábel’s face and the mixed odors of the room were making his stomach heave. He glanced pleadingly at Tibor. The pawnbroker was taking regular sips of water: the thought of the bird that had so excited him was still bothering him. His fingers drummed on the table and he kept grunting. The acrid, almost refreshing smell of mothballs triumphantly overcame the smell of rotting food.
“We’ve come about the silver, Mr. Havas,” Tibor said in the sultry silence.
They waited with bated breath. The pawnbroker ran his eyes over the room as if seeking a fulcrum, some familiar landmark to help him understand what they were talking about.
“The silver?” he asked. “What silver?”
Tibor took out his wallet and handed him the ticket.
“It’s the family silver, Mr. Havas,” he said quickly. “I have to tell you Father is rather fond of it. That’s why we have come.”
“But this ticket is long out-of-date, gentlemen,” the pawnbroker said. “The contract is perfectly clear. It expired a month ago.”
“But we thought…,” said Tibor, then got stuck. “Didn’t Amadé explain?”
Havas stood up with the ticket in his hand.
“Amadé?” he pondered. “Do the gentlemen mean the dancing master? No, he said nothing. But perhaps the gentlemen don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” asked Tibor. He too stood up, and took a step towards Havas.
“Oh!” said Havas, surprised. “I thought you knew. He went away at noon. He’s gone for good. He was here this morning to say goodbye. It’s usually the way with actors,” he said shaking his head, then went over to the window and carefully reread the details on the ticket.
“I’m sorry to say it’s out-of-date. Was it family silver? An old much-loved heirloom? Generally we only lend according to the value of silver, pure and simple. We can’t take sentimental value into account. But I am surprised to hear he didn’t take his leave of you gentlemen. For, as far as I am aware, it was specifically the gentlemen, his friendship with the gentlemen, that is, that was the occasion of his departure.”
He carefully closed the window.
“We shall have a hurricane. Just look. Once it’s over we’ll have a nice cool evening. But no, it’s a real surprise…the young gentlemen should certainly have been aware of his departure.”
They were so tense they were ready to leap. Ábel was unable to speak. The pawnbroker sat back down at the table. Second by second the room was growing darker. They couldn’t see each other’s faces in the gloom. With his back to the window the pawnbroker was indistinct, a large dark shapeless mass.
“May I suggest the young gentlemen sit down?” he addressed them courteously. “Let’s talk this over.”
He waited, then continued with the odd pause for breath.
“He was here this morning. He came in a carriage laden with trunks. He came for money, of course. They’re real characters, those actors. Not all the wealth of Darius is enough for them. Being a foolish man with a foolish heart I naturally gave him some, especially once he explained why he had to leave town. I couldn’t remain indifferent to his plight…He was, I had to admit, in serious danger.”
He gave a dull, flat laugh.
“How extraordinarily mobile these people are,” he remarked in acknowledgment. “It’s nothing to them to pack everything in a few hours and move on. I’m not the sort of person who could make such sudden decisions. Look around you. Then try to imagine the storeroom below, the real thing. Because all you see here is the stuff people have abandoned. People are extraordinary. They find themselves in a spot, pick up the nearest valuable thing, be it silver, a clock, or a pair of earrings, and over they come to Havas. They think six months is a long time. But most of them haven’t a clue what is likely to happen in six months’ time. Then one day there they are in front of me, begging.”
He looked over the ticket again, holding it slightly away from him as though he were nearsighted.
“Six hundred crowns. A pretty sum. Many people could live for six months on that. A silver dinner service for twenty-four…” He stood up, went over to the bed, groaned as he bent down, and drew out a worn old green leather trunk. “Was this the item?”
He opened the trunk and the Prockauers’ family silver lay pale and glimmering before them. Tibor seized Havas’s arm.
“I knew it would still be here, Mr. Havas. You couldn’t have done that to us! You have no idea how terrible it would have been! But everything will be all right, Mr. Havas. You will have our bond.”
The pawnbroker removed Tibor’s arm and, without a word, closed the trunk and pushed it back under the bed with his foot.
“The customer offering items for pawn is not obliged to give his name,” he said. “Please to consider that I cannot know who the silver belongs to. This ticket,” he sat back down at the table and handed the ticket over, “has expired. The customer failed to extend the term of the agreement. The pawned item was auctioned off at a public auction.”
“Who bought it?” Tibor asked.
“I did,” said Havas calmly. “I made the highest bid. Auctions are publicly advertised well in advance.”
“But in that case, Mr. Havas,” said Tibor in his singsong astonished voice, “everything is all right. You give us the silver and we give our bond that the money will be repaid in the shortest possible time. You know us, know who we are. You must understand. Please don’t think ill of us, Mr. Havas. But back then…Didn’t Amadé say anything about it?”
“Whether he said or did not say anything, gentlemen, by law and by right the silver is no longer yours.”
“By law and by right, Mr. Havas?” asked Tibor.
“By law and by right. I go strictly by the terms of the contract. The young gentlemen will not understand: it is a delicate matter. I am not permitted to ask anyone’s name.”
“We graduated yesterday, Mr. Havas,” Tibor exclaimed. “Please understand. We are no longer schoolboys. That which was, is in the past. Please think it over…We will recover the money in no time…Amadé was your friend too.”
“Actors are such peculiar people,” said Havas pleasantly, considering the matter. “They come, they go. People like me are like rocks, we sit firm. That man seemed to have been born with wings. No ties bind him. But he really should have taken his leave of the gentlemen…”
The gale shook the window.
“It’s starting,” he said calmly. “Don’t the young gentlemen understand? Amazing. A detective was asking after him in the morning.”
He made a movement with his hand.
“He was advised, in strictest confidence, to leave the town immediately. Or be kicked out.”
He leaned on the table.
“Someone had made a complaint against him. It’s an ugly business, gentlemen. The complaint was that his behavior regarding a certain circle was drawing attention to him. He suspected his fellow actors. But the point was that a complaint had been lodged. That’s a very unpleasant business, gentlemen.”
Ábel held on to the table. The question he asked was so quiet they could hardly hear him.
“What was the complaint?”
“Allegedly, the corruption of certain young people. There are such folk. It’s a bad business. Bad for the young people’s future too. It’s a small town.”
“But it isn’t true,” said Tibor in a cracked voice.
The pawnbroker nodded.
“I know, I know. Allegedly there are witnesses. It’s a small town and a whisper quickly spreads, gentlemen. People in small towns have time for such things. Scandals blow up quickly. It is hard to imagine what might happen if witnesses actually appeared.”
“Witnesses to what, Mr. Havas?” asked Ábel. “What did they witness?”
“The corruption. Be so good as to think it over. The actor,
they say, was himself corrupt to the core. I take a different view. The charge is that he corrupted young boys. They say he organized orgies. The complaint has it that he dragged a lot of boys off to the theater, boys from good families, and set up an orgy there.”
“That’s not true,” screamed Tibor.
“That’s what the complaint alleges,” the pawnbroker went on unrelentingly. “The young gentlemen would no doubt know better. There must be something in it, though, or he wouldn’t have left in such a hurry. He shot off as if pursued by the four winds, gentlemen. There is only ever destruction in the wake of such a man. According to the complaint one witness saw, strange to say, the actor kissing the son of a prominent family.”
Ábel stepped up to him.
“It was you in the box, Havas. You…you were watching us. You arranged it all. You put the actor up to it…O God!” He swayed. His lips were white. “What do you want?…Tibor, ask him!…What’s going on here?…Let’s go!”
“Unfortunately the rain has started,” said Havas. “Perhaps the young gentlemen may care to sit the storm out here.”
HE WATCHED THE STORM. THUNDER SHOOK THE window and the rain swept in waves over the pavement. He gently wagged his head.
“The young gentlemen know nothing about life,” he said in a quiet, even voice. “We are very slow to learn anything. I myself was ignorant for a long time. Please be so good as to hear me out. It’s pouring out there and you have nothing better to do. I come from a humble family with no pretensions, but perhaps I may help to enlighten the young gentlemen. Things are not so simple as people imagine. I was forty before I learned anything. It is impossible to say one man is like this, another like that. Be so good as to consider that. I once had a family, a wife, and a daughter: I know life. Nobody can know what awaits him the next morning.”
He was breathing heavily, asthmatically.
“I eat heartily and I drink heartily, gentlemen, but I have a heart and no one can say I haven’t one. I understand the delicate situation in which the young gentlemen find themselves very well. I will do what I can to help. Given certain conditions, if the young gentlemen can produce the appropriate amount by, say, tomorrow night, the original loan and the interest owing, I am prepared to return the items previously pawned. No one can force me to do that of course, but Havas says to himself: these are young gentlemen of good breeding, or rather, excuse me, children. Extraordinary children. Help them if you can. Havas is listening to his foolish heart again. Deep down he has qualities of which the world knows nothing.”
“Tomorrow night?” queried Tibor. “It’ll be there, Mr. Havas. One way or the other you’ll have the money by tomorrow night. But for heaven’s sake, what are you talking about here? What do you mean Amadé corrupted us? What do you mean that we were observed? It was only a game, Mr. Havas. There was nothing I could do about it. There was nothing I could do about anything.”
He began to tremble.
“For God’s sake, Mr. Havas. What kind of complaint? What are they saying? What has happened?”
“I beg the young gentleman not to ask me questions I cannot answer. Please be kind enough to agree that I should give you explanations for such matters as I deem right. What I consider right is that I inform the young gentlemen of the situation in which they find themselves. What the actor did? Are the young gentlemen to blame? I cannot answer questions like that. And even if all happened as the complaint has it, it is still an open question for me whether they were actually guilty or not.”
They could no longer see his face. Only his voice emerged out of the murk, grave, stumbling with a dull resonance, sometimes like the warning growl of some animal.
“You never know how the devil gets into a man. Allow me to furnish you with an example. The young gentlemen will keep quiet. They will have every reason for keeping quiet. And I am glad to offer them this example because it is important that they should understand something of life. As I said before, it is not so simple. Take a man. Let us say he is married, with a daughter. He goes about his work. He has a thriving pawnbroker’s business in some town, but the devil gets into him, he eats a lot, drinks a lot, and chases every skirt he sees. He needs money and it is as if the devil himself were guiding his hand, for everything succeeds, whatever he touches turns to gold, so much so that he grows overconfident. He travels to Lemberg, ready to supply the regiment with soap, when, there in Lemberg, he makes a mistake. It is all too possible, alas, to make mistakes in the course of business. The devil gets into him. Four months. He sleeps on the prison mattress for four months, his diet reduced to that fit only for an invalid. Two rolls and two pints of milk a day. This for a man who needs meat, who must have his meat. He is a number, number 137. He sits, he sleeps in a cell for four months, debating with the devil. He doesn’t understand. Kindly consider that the bucket that is put aside for such purposes as are necessary is there in the cell with him. However much milk he drinks he longs for a little slice of bacon. So he lies there and dreams and doesn’t understand why he should have to be number 137 in Lemberg, and the thought tortures him, as he is a big man with big appetites. He is a widower. His daughter is running the business and he writes to her: My dear daughter, pressing business has unexpectedly delayed me here, look after yourself, Mein gutes Kind, write to me care of Poste Restante, Lemberg, Central Post Office, 137. Four months. Such things happen.”
He was struggling for breath. He relit his cigar.
“As I understand it the young gentlemen are not yet acquainted with the lives of adult men. So a little bird tells me. Never mind. I must stress that the man we are talking about is a big man with big appetites. Give him a decent meal and a nip of brandy and he can’t pass a skirt without chasing after it. He spends four months practically in cramp. I once saw a hunting dog out in the yard. It was in a crate that had been misdirected so the dog had arrived a day late, but it never once messed the crate where it slept, if I may so put it, it would rather suffer cramps, and that was how it arrived. The doctor had to lift it from the box and give it a dose of salts. Now imagine a human being. At long last he goes out into the street, it’s the end of October, afternoon, he is a little unsteady on his feet, he waves a carriage down and says, take me to the best brothel, the nearest brothel, and be quick about it. The rain is falling. He takes his hat off and sits like that in the open carriage, his face up to the rain, wishing for more rain, heavier rain, let it pour, he thinks, his tongue licking at the rain, never having realized before just how good rain tasted. The carriage rolls along the cobbles, a woman has stopped at the side of the road, she holds an umbrella, she wears brown shoes and black stockings, in four months hers is the first female face he has looked on, the woman laughs and shouts out: Hey, meshugener. Do the young gentlemen find this difficult to understand? He is taken to a high-quality house. There are palms in the salon. Yes, madame, he says, one, two, whatever you have available; the ladies only arrive in the evening, will a brunette do? The woman is indeed brunette, she has gold teeth and a mole at the side of her nose, but she’s quite pretty. He doesn’t even see her. He takes his coat off and sees that prison leaves a man with a certain smell on his skin. On the mirror is written Happy New Year, in gold.
“Now please to imagine,” he continued and raised his hand as if for attention, “that after all these preliminaries nothing happens. I am not sure if I am making myself clear. Nothing. He slowly gets dressed, his clothes are almost dry by then, the warm smell of rain and the smell of prison emanating from them. What’s going on? he thinks. The girl is sitting at the mirror in her nightdress, smoking a cigarette, looking at him over her shoulder. Ahem, he says. Pardon. It can all be explained, the man has come a long way. A long, long way. Next time then. He is already standing by the door. Idiot, he thinks. You are forty-two years old, what’s this to you? Can’t you dance on the billiard table till six in the morning, drink two or three bottles of bubbly by yourself, and top it with half a bottle of cognac, plus a stick of dry salami and four or five hard-boil
ed eggs? He turns his hat round and round in his hands. He doesn’t understand. He can’t find it in himself to leave. He can neither leave nor stay, he is worried that he’ll make a nuisance of himself, that he is going to hit somebody. The girl moves towards him, every part of her body swaying as she approaches, looks at him with desire, throws her cigarette away, puts both hands behind his neck, rises on tiptoe, closes her eyes, and kisses him, very gently. Come here, she says quietly. They move back into the room, the girl with her arm round his neck, keeping close to him. He sits down and looks around. He feels like a fool. He understands nothing. The girl silently goes about her business, flitting here and there in the room, puts on some perfume, adjusts her hair, applies some powder, takes off her nightdress. She is wearing black stockings and red suspenders. She is very attractive. Drink has ravaged her face a little but she is still attractive. Her body has a yellow tinge, is very cold to the touch, her body hard, in fact just as you like them, he thinks, not an ounce of fat. She comes up to him, close your eyes, she says. He closes his eyes, the girl leans over him and kisses him: flesh is simply a kind of mechanism, he thinks, and she is a good mechanic. Think of something, he tells himself. Something cheerful. The patriarchs. David. Solomon. Solomon had a thousand wives. No, that’s not a particularly cheerful subject, he thinks. He reaches for the girl’s neck.”
He held his hand out. They backed away. His arm described a circle in the air.
“The girl throws herself on him, all of her. That’s the kind of girl she is. She embraces him, kisses him while he continues shaking his head like an idiot. The girl’s body is seized by a cramp: the smell of mouthwash, cigarettes, and something a touch sour emanates from her mouth, she hasn’t eaten a thing all day, she’s working on an empty stomach. He will never forget that. The girl kisses his eyes, throws herself this way and that. Time passes. He removes the girl’s hands from his neck, he must sit up, he feels he is drowning. The girl slowly withdraws. She is wearing lacquered shoes, little half shoes. She pulls at her stockings and sits at the edge of the bed, and never stops staring at him. How long haven’t you been able to do it? asks the girl. He shrugs. It is always somehow comical when a supine figure tries to shrug. I don’t know whether the gentlemen have noticed that?”