The Darts of Cupid: Stories (18 page)

I said, "End of April till the first week of June, and raining all the time."

"That’s right. Good girl. It never stopped pissing, and the entire summer was pissed-up too, as though we hadn’t enough reason for being fed up just then, in sixty-five. You’ve come here in happier times now, and I don’t mean just the weather."

"To me it’s all the same," I said. "I don’t understand politics, and the Malá Strana is just as marvelous as it was before, down to every baroque church and palace. But yes, there is an improvement. They have fixed up most of the baroque since I was here last. Only the Kracker frescoes in the St. Mikuláš are still being done over, but that’s only in the side chapel."

"Never mind the blooming baroque," he said. "You can talk freely on the telephone nowadays, so you needn’t be so heavy on culture with me. But tell me, you can’t have had a very good time with Konstantin in that year, in those days."

"How do you mean?"

"Because . . . Well, he had a streak of pitch just then. I don’t know what he did before, mind you, and I don’t know what he’s doing now, but I do know that just at that time he was working as a chauffeur."

"No, never," I said. "He seemed very prosperous. And he went away twice on business during that time I was there, and it sounded important, I know, because he told me that he couldn’t make up his mind whether to fly or take the train."

"He was a chauffeur," insisted Blonik.

I did not reply.

He said, "You know, it’s funny. Now that I’ve talked to you I don’t know myself anymore what to believe. I’m sacramentally bewildered. You’ve pulled the chair from under my arse."

"I should hate to do that," I said.

He said, "Yes, I believe you, you sound a very decent girl, Miss Edith from London. Now hold your breath and I’ll dictate."

After he had rung off I began to wonder if all along I had not been speaking to the Russian after all. Alternatively, I reassured myself, recalling my cousin, "Whatever he is or isn’t, he certainly is a Russian. It’s like a watermark on a banknote; it gives the show away every time."

I was about to run my bath when the telephone rang once more.

"It’s me again," said Blonik’s voice. "Something came to my mind, seeing that you are from London, and big on culture. I’m a fan of American novels—Upton Sinclair and Steinbeck. Now Steinbeck is alive, isn’t he? I would like to write to him. Can you get me his address?"

"Easily," I said. "When I’m back in London, I can look up his publishers and you can write him care of them. Or better still, I’ll get hold of the American Writers Yearbook."

"That’s fine," he said. "But there is something else too. You won’t be offended, will you? I’d very much like to meet you."

"With pleasure."

"It’s not just cold-snouted curiosity," he said, "because, you see, there is something I want to ask you, and I can’t say it over the phone."

"You can ask me whatever you wish."

"Yes, but not on the phone," he insisted. "Today is Sunday and I’m off work. Are you free this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"Could you meet me at four?"

"I’m free all day," I said, "and four will be fine. I’ll meet you wherever you wish."

"Would the coffeehouse up my street suit you?" he asked. "The one in the hotel—you know, it’s on the first floor?"

"Don’t I know it!" I said. "I’ll be there. But how shall I know you? What do you look like?"

With an embarrassed laugh he said, "What do I look like? It’s a funny thing—you’ll think it funny when I tell you—but I look rather like Konstantin."

I tried to steady my heart by taking a deep breath. "That makes it so much easier," I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. "And I am small and have black hair. It’s very long, and I wear it in plaits in a chignon, like my grandmother’s cook used to wear it, and nobody nowadays wears it anymore. You could not have known my grandmother’s cook, but I think it will give you the idea."

"The hand is in the glove," he said, "and I’ll be there at four sharp."

I ran my bath but did not take it; I could not master myself. I rang up the Russian’s number, which Blonik had given me, together with the address. There was no answer.

During the following hours I was tortured by doubts. Had Blonik let elapse ten minutes before ringing me up that third time because he had relayed to the Russian the information that I was in Prague, and had he received instructions from him to arrange a meeting with me? But the Russian was not in; he had not answered the call. Or had he been in and not answered, knowing full well that it would be me? Or had Blonik given me a wrong number so as to hinder me from getting in touch with the Russian himself? There was no telling, all the more so as the name Biyelogradov was not in the book.

And as to Blonik of the faulty memory, the plain man, the printer, he who could not recall having lent his flat to the Russian, nor where he had been himself during that time, did he come at me with butter, or with dripping? And what was the question he wanted to pose, the question that could not be safely uttered on the telephone, after having reassured me that the lines were no longer tapped?

I was in the coffeehouse at quarter to four. I chose a table in the center, facing the swinging glass doors. Before sitting down I turned around and looked behind me. Close to the mournful-looking naked statue were three tables where men were playing chess, all of them shabbily dressed and elderly. At the other tables there was not a single man on his own; there were only groups or couples. As I looked carefully at each, there was no one who looked in the least like the Russian, neither in build nor age nor coloring.

At a quarter past four it was clear to me that Blonik would not turn up. I told myself, "He can’t turn up because he doesn’t exist," and then, "Yes, he does; there are two of them, because of the accent and the voice."

To be sure that I had not been mistaken about his presence, I rose and viewed the guests once more. When I resumed my seat I saw in the shadowy lobby behind the glass doors the outline of a tall, powerful figure. A heartbeat later the Russian stood in the entrance. He was bareheaded and the lion-colored wavy hair was dulled with strands of gray. He was stouter than he had been; the face was fuller too, and the skin, though still pink, had lost its sun-ripe open-air glow. Perhaps owing to his portliness, he now looked more stately and openly commanding than before, the heaviness of his jowls recalling the portrait busts of baroque ruling princes.

He paused and our eyes met. Without showing any surprise, he came to my table. Still standing, he kissed my hand.

"Do sit down," I said.

"I’ll put my coat in the cloakroom first, milostivá paní," he said. "I’ll be with you in a minute."

As I listened to the full hard voice with the accent glittering through the words like brocade, I noticed how prosperous he looked in his tan lightweight loose-cut overcoat; then it occurred to me that he had entered wearing it, that he had not handed it in beforehand, that he must have been told I would be in the coffeehouse, that he had first wanted to make sure that I was there. He had clearly not walked in by chance, intending to spend an hour reading the paper.

"Will you have another coffee?" he asked when he sat down.

"Yes, thank you."

We faced each other in silence till he turned away under the pretext of looking for a waiter. Now I saw that what had appeared as baroque dignity from a distance was due to the dulling of age and the coarsening of high living.

"So you’ve appeared again," he said gravely.

"I arrived the day before yesterday."

"Well, well."

"Do you know why I’m here? In the coffeehouse, I mean?" I asked.

He gave me his indulgently resigned laughter. "Because you hoped to run into me by chance?"

"No," I said. "Because I was supposed to meet Mr. Blonik at four. But it looks as though he hasn’t turned up."

He surveyed the room calmly, then said, "He certainly isn’t here. I know him quite well, you can rely on me."

The sound of that familiar phrase made my tongue shrink; now, for the first time, I could savor the bitterness of its irony. Perhaps my distress showed on my face, or perhaps he wanted to play for time, to delay the explanation he was certain I would demand. He turned around once more and said in a show of annoyance, "The service is a disgrace. It’s been getting worse steadily, ever since you’ve been away."

"Is the old girl, the waitress, still here?" I asked. "The one who liked me so much, remember, and who played
postillon
d’amour that evening when I was here with my cousin?"

"She’s serving in the wine tavern now," he said. "She’s under the weather. She’s got trouble with her daughter because her daughter is in trouble. Relata referro." He smiled indulgently and with benevolence, still unperturbed, still the lion at rest.

"But look here," he continued, "this is an awful table, with the full draught from the door. Let’s move away, shall we? I can see a free table upstream over there."

We moved.

"Are you sure you want coffee?" he asked. "I’m off beer now because I’ve been putting on too much weight. I only drink wine."

"I don’t feel like wine in the middle of the day," I said. "I’ll stick to coffee. In the meantime, don’t you want to know why I was going to meet Mr. Blonik?"

"Not particularly," he said. "You know I never asked you a personal question."

"Of course not," I said. "You didn’t have to; you knew all the answers beforehand. Just as now you needn’t be told why I made a rendezvous with Mr. Blonik. Why did you lie to me?"

He looked at me with perplexed astonishment.

I said, "Why did you tell me your name was Blonik?"

"Oh, that," he said, easily and indifferently. "That’s because I happened to be in the middle of my divorce proceedings at the time. I couldn’t afford any trouble and confusion."

"But you told me then that your divorce was through," I said.

Raising his chin lazily and glancing at me with half-closed eyes, he said, "Did I? It can’t have been."

"How is your little girl?" I asked.

"She’s fine," he said. "I’ve just been to see her." He paused. "She is eight," he added. "She’s already in the second grade of primary."

I felt I was turning pale as my heart tightened with sadness and disgust. The evasively slipshod lying about his divorce had already sickened me because its very carelessness proved how indifferent he was to what I might think. Now the daughter whose loss had been too painful to talk about, the daughter with the big blue eyes who had shared her plateful of ham with a crowd of Chinese children, the daughter who had to arrange her shoes neatly before going to bed—that daughter was still eight years old.

"That’s splendid," I said. "And is she doing well at school?"

"Fairly well," he replied. "Ah, here he is at last. What will you have? White or black or Turkish?"

"Turkish, please," I said. By then I understood; it was his outstandingly reliable memory which had betrayed him, the memory which held the exact ingredients of
sauce tartare
and
sauce rémoulade,
of all the prepositions in Latin governing the dative and the accusative, of the rules of the Greek aorist. That memory had been imprinted with the fact that in that certain role he was to play, he had a daughter of the age of eight, and he had automatically repeated the fact as he had memorized it.

"I’ve got a very decent flat now," he said, "not far away from here. Where are you staying? In this hotel again?"

"No, I had to take a room in a private flat. I wanted to get in here, and the Čedok woman telephoned in my presence, but they were full."

"That’s not true," he said. "It’s half empty. If you wish, I’ll go downstairs and get you in. With me everything goes smoothly."

"No, thank you."

"In that case," he said, "why don’t you go home now and pack up and move in with me? It’s not grand, but it’s much better than what I used to have."

"But you didn’t have it," I said. "It was Blonik’s all along."

"Not at all," he said, "it was mine. I took it over from Blonik. And that’s why I didn’t bother to change the name in the telephone book either."

"Sorry, I got it wrong," I said.

"Well, what about it?" he asked. "Come and live with me. I’ll make you comfortable, you can rely on me."

"No, thank you," I said. "I am settled where I am."

"Think it over," he said. "I hope you change your mind."

By then his wine and my coffee had been set before us. I fought against my emotions as I watched him while he seized the stem of the pot, slowly tilted it, held a spoon against the crust on the surface of the coffee, and poured without disturbing the grounds, just as in former days.

"And in case you care to change your mind," he said, "have you my address?"

"Yes," I said. "Blonik gave it to me."

"Show me."

I handed him the slip of paper I had taken from my handbag.

"That’s wrong," he remarked. "What he’s given you is my former address. I only moved to this place where I am now six months ago. Give me your notebook."

And again he opened it, unhesitatingly this time, to the month of June, turned to the date, and wrote in that large hand with curls around the capital letters, "Konstantin Biyelogradov," and a street and a number. "Here you are," he said. "Now you have me in black on white."

"It’s a beautiful name," I said.

"It’s my name," he said, "and I couldn’t change it even if it displeased you. But I am glad you like it. May I offer you a cigarette, milostivá paní ?"

Then he looked up and rose. A young couple were standing in front of our table. I had seen them approaching and taken no notice of them, thinking they had stopped just to look around for somewhere to sit. The coffeehouse had filled up completely by this time. "Hallo, Helen," he said, in a condescending voice I had not heard him use before, and, "Hallo, you there." He sat down again.

I looked at them closely. She was in her twenties, and her youth barely softened the sharpness of her features. Her dark shoulder-length hair was crimped and domed in the way favored by provincial beauties and factory girls. She wore a dark blue modest dress with an ill-fitting collar of machine-made lace. He was shorter than she, a dark-haired sickly youth with an alert air, in an imitation suede jacket and a checkered woolen shirt open at the neck. He looked like a garage mechanic who was saving up for a motorcycle, she like an assistant in a chemist’s, or a technical-equipment store.