At midnight, alone once more, Hans and Álvaro zigzagged down Potter’s Lane. They were headed for the Picaro Tavern, where on Saturdays young women would dance without any of the affectations of the Apollo Theatre, to the strains of a small orchestra. Hey, you, Hans spluttered, how can you tolerate them? Who? said Álvaro. Oh them, it’s very simple, my dear, very simple — I never mix business with pleasure; that’s something I learnt in England. Before I knew that I was a little nobler and a lot poorer, if you see what I mean! And I’m telling you, Hans said distractedly, we’ve gone past it, seriously, isn’t it farther back? In that other street, I mean. No, replied Álvaro, how can it be back there? Just follow me, come on! I swear, Hans went on, whenever those men open their mouths it makes me long for the cave. Your organ grinder is a strange bird, said Álvaro, sometimes he talks as if he knows everything, and other times I look at him and he seems like a poor old man in a cave. The organ grinder knows everything, replied Hans, don’t ask me how, but he does. It’s very odd, insisted Álvaro, I don’t know where he gets it from, have you ever seen him read? Does he have any books in the cave? Never, replied Hans, he never reads, he has no time for books or newspapers. When he isn’t playing his barrel organ, he’s gazing at the landscape. When I’m with him I feel a little stupid, as if I’d read everything without having read anything, sorry, did I tread on your foot? Are you sure we’re going the right way?
The Picaro Tavern was a place where no sooner people entered than the rhythm of the polka and the smell of sweat invited them to relax and cast their cares aside. Anyone who crossed its threshold with a heavy gait left with a spring in his step, wondering what had come over him. The clientele was mixed, everyone except the aristocracy, who preferred more discreet establishments farther from the centre, where they paid much more money to do the same things. On the chalkboard hanging next to a warped mirror, a message (complete with misspellings) announced: “The Picaro Tavern welcomes not ladies and gentlemen, but men and women.” The police never interfered with the tavern’s activities, provided it closed at three in the morning, held no parties during religious holidays and, in accordance with the Rules Governing Public Places of Free Admission in Wandernburg, its patrons did not wear masks. It was not uncommon after suppertime to find off-duty policemen in the tavern.
As they stepped through the tavern doors, an image of the organ grinder gazing through his fingers at the sun flashed though Hans’s mind. He grinned drunkenly and missed him foolishly, as though he had not seen him in years. He thought instantly: Tomorrow I’ll go to see him. They descended into the gloomy Picaro Tavern, looking for a place to sit. Suddenly, Hans thought he recognised somebody’s back — a stocky figure, hunched over, muscles tensed as though suffering from cramp. The figure instinctively wheeled round and faced him — it was Lamberg, wearing an old mask that covered his eyes and half his brow. Opposite him, at a safe distance, a waiter was trying to persuade him to take it off. Lamberg appeared not to hear him. His arms hung at his sides, tensed, as though pushing down on a spring. For a moment, Hans thought Lamberg was going to tip up a chair or punch the waiter. But all he did was to stagger, tear off his mask, walk over to Hans and embrace him wholeheartedly. His face stank of stale alcohol, his back was rigid. After flashing Hans a look of relief, the waiter disappeared among the dancers. What were you doing wearing that mask? Álvaro asked, coming over. Lamberg slowly raised his head from Hans’s shoulder, and said: I just wanted it to be Carnival. With that, he burst into tears for a few moments. He soon calmed down and remained silent, expressionless. Come on, Hans said, we’ll buy you a drink.
They approached the bar and ordered three schnapps from the same waiter who had been arguing with Lamberg. The waiter looked at him askance, but Lamberg seemed to be concentrating on something on the ceiling. While the waiter was pouring out their drinks, a candle dropped from one of the cast iron wagon-wheel chandeliers above the bar straight onto his shirt, setting his sleeve alight. The waiter leapt into the air and began flailing his arm about. The bottle of schnapps spilt onto the bar. The customers standing nearby turned their heads. Álvaro and Hans yelled. Someone ran over with a siphon to spray the waiter, who was glaring at Lamberg with a mixture of loathing and bewilderment. Lamberg was still silent, his eyes fixed on the waiter’s shirt.
The cave dissolved the remains of the heat like a stomach digesting soup. During the past few weeks the interior had offered a welcome contrast to the heat of midday and a buffer against the night air, which was still chilly. The organ grinder had lit two tallow candles and was examining the inside of his barrel organ. The strings, in groups of three, were looped around screws, the loops worn by the passage of time. The organ grinder adjusted the strings with a key, his bony hand turning it clockwise. Above the screws, written in pencil in the unsteady hand of an infant or one palsied with age, were the notes A, B, C, D …
Hans was also spelling something out — his last meeting with Sophie at the salon on Friday. He was relaying all the details to the organ grinder, and although nothing was certain (even his next visit to the Gottlieb salon), these uncertainties seemed to diminish when he talked to the old man, as though every tuned string were an eventuality foretold, a doubt resolved. Since their snatched kiss that day, Sophie had been as discreet towards him in person as she had been audacious in her letters. They had not seen one another alone since then, which far from seeming to Hans a bad sign, suggested something was afoot. What flowers were in the house? the organ grinder asked, glancing up with a pin between his lips. What flowers? Spikenards, I think. Spikenards? — the organ grinder gave a start — Are you sure? I think so, replied Hans, they were white and pungent, they must have been spikenards, why, what does it mean? It means, the old man said, smiling as he lowered the lid, pleasure, pleasure and danger.
The moon was growing bigger and as round as a peephole in a door. Although at that moment, as Franz was lifting his leg on a pine tree, no one in the whole of Wandernburg was gazing at it, just as no one was gazing at the clock on the Tower of the Wind, or noticing it looked like the moon with clock hands. On the outskirts, however, Hans and the organ grinder were sitting contemplating the night from the entrance to the cave. Before he met the organ grinder, Hans had never spent so much time gazing at the sky. Now he had grown accustomed to this calm activity that brought them together without the need to talk or do anything. The stars were few and spaced out, like a spray of salt. The two men looked at them in very different ways. Hans’s expression before the vastness of the universe suggested restlessness, choice, an uncertain future. The organ grinder saw in the horizon a shelter, a protective boundary, an undivided present.
Hans murmured:
The stars and the night
Make the wine of life