“How terrible!” Levadski puts the magnifying glass down on the table. “Perhaps that’s the reason why I remained a bachelor …”
“It is never too late,” Mr. Witzturn says to a walnutsized olive eye, before devouring it. “Pitted,” he adds after chewing it carefully.
“It is too late for me, Mr. Witzturn.”
“Then at least eat.”
“I assume,” Levadski says over his second pot of coffee, “we were enemies once …”
“Oh, let’s forget the incident!” Mr. Witzturn gestures dismissively with his napkin.
“I am not talking about the incident in the elevator. I mean,” Levadski lowers his eyes to the floor, “the war.” Mr. Witzturn still insists on forgetting the incident.
“We have,” he says, putting the napkin on his lap, “never been enemies.”
“It is embarrassing,” Levadski crumbles half of Mr. Witzturn’s roll, which Mr. Wtizturn follows with a fixed stare, “very embarrassing, that I behaved so impossibly in the elevator. God knows what got into me. If I had known you were a widower, a widower twice over …” Levadski points a finger at the stucco ceiling.
“Don’t you notice anything?” Mr. Witzturn’s bleary eyes attempt to hypnotize Levadski. Levadski reaches for his magnifying glass.
“What am I meant to notice? I don’t see anything. Oh!”
“What do you see?”
“You have a pimple. Got you, got you!”
“Very funny. Can’t you see anything?” Mr. Witzturn’s voice assumes an offended tone. Levadski continues to look at him through the magnifying glass.
“You have blue eyes. Green. And one, two, three, four, six little spider veins on both cheeks. Hardly noticeable.”
“What else?” Mr. Witzturn demands impatiently.
“You were a good looking man,” Levadski says, “and now that you are smiling, I can see that you have dill between your teeth.”
“Charming,” Mr. Witzturn says in thanks and drinks a sip of tea that he keeps in his mouth discreetly and for longer than necessary. “And now?”
“Already gone.”
“You are blind in both eyes, Mr. Levadski, if I may be permitted to make an observation.” Levadski puts his magnifying glass in his trouser pocket. “You don’t see that I have a plastic nose.”
“You amaze me!” Levadski reaches for the magnifying glass again, straining hard to look. “It could be.”
“It is! How can you not have noticed it?”
“Well,” Levadski says in defense, “I did notice your nose, but I thought, nothing out of the ordinary, the gentleman is partial to the bottle. After all, that is the kind of cultural environment I’m from. You see noses like that sitting on many park benches during summer.” Levadski observes Mr. Witzturn’s supposedly plastic nose. “And where is the cord?”
“It’s a magnetic nose, it is held in place by three magnets,” Mr. Witzturn says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Did you lose your nose at the front?”
“Cancer,” says Mr. Witzturn dryly and wipes his mouth with his napkin.
“What are your plans for this evening?”
“I don’t have any,” Mr. Witzturn says, suddenly laughing. “I am laughing because you just wiped your nose!”
“Did I?”
“Yes, with the napkin,” Mr. Witzturn reveals, still laughing.
“Yes, I know, I know, it’s out of order. Excuse me.”
“You only dabbed it a little.”
“Nevertheless,” retorted Levadski energetically, “it’s inappropriate. I am getting old!”
“Never mind, be happy!” Mr. Witzturn laughs raucously, “be happy you can blow your nose as you please …” Levadski grins, Mr. Witzturn clutches his stomach with laughter. “To your heart’s desire …” Levadski cautiously laughs along, “ … not too briefly and to your heart’s desire, oh, I can’t take any more, my heart! …” Mr. Witzturn clutches his stomach more tightly. “Get it out, according to all rules of the art! Excuse the expression,” a tearstained Mr. Witzturn adds.
“So what are your plans for this evening? Or are you checking out after breakfast?”
“No, I am staying until tomorrow. This evening I was planning on carousing in the Bar Maria Theresia.”
Mr. Witzturn smiles at Levadski. There is still dill between his front teeth, but Levadski decides not to announce this. It will disappear of its own accord while he is drinking tea, he thinks, and smiles at Mr. Witzturn.
“You have got dill between your teeth,” Mr. Witzturn says with a concerned face.
“You too,” says Levadski peevishly.
“See you this evening, then.”
“I will keep you company!”
“Please do. I haven’t had such amusing company in a long time. Haven’t had the honor of experiencing,” Mr. Witzturn says to be more precise and slowly gets up.
3
Zimmer / Room 302–336
“OH, HABIB, YOU ARE STILL HERE!” HABIB IS SMILING AT the pair of shoes he has just worked on with a shoe shine brush. It takes a while for Levadski to follow Habib’s gaze. “Thank you! A freshly polished pair of shoes is exactly what I need now. I just met a very pleasant gentleman in the elevator. We are going to meet at the bar this evening.”
“But at the bar, people won’t be able to see your shoes that well. It would be different at a concert. At a concert you parade up and down during intermission in the gala lights!” Habib swings his arms as if he were marching. “And everyone sees: your shoes are polished.”
“Is there a concert in the hotel?”
“No, but right behind the hotel, in the Musikverein.”
“Oh! Goodness …” Levadski feels an icy caterpillar placing a series of sharply polished eggs in one of his ventricles. “The Musikverein …”
“Is right behind the hotel.”
“I know, I know, I had just forgotten …”
Levadski crosses the room and stops in front of the window.
“On the other side, this is the Ringstrasse boulevard,” Habib explains.
“Yes, of course, behind the hotel. I have been there.”
“You have been there?”
“Yes, it was a very long time ago.” Levadski has to take a seat. He hands his stick to Habib. “The Musikverein …”
“A concert every day.”
“This evening too?”
“Yes, several. One in the Glass Hall, one in the Stone Hall, one in the Metal Hall, one in the Golden …”
“Golden Hall,” Levadski sighs, “golden sound!”
“If you would like tickets, I am happy to arrange some for you,” Habib says, holding Levadski’s stick in his hand. “The Musikverein is a must, especially when you are staying in such style as you are.”
The butler assumes the proportions of a mountain in front of Levadski, who is dozing off in his armchair. “A long time ago with my great-aunts,” Levadski sighs, “I had a long pair of trousers sewn especially for the Musikverein …” Levadski’s eyelids, paperthin in the sunshine, quiver with every movement Habib makes. Or is it the branches of the trees that are swaying in the wind in front of the window? It grows even lighter behind Levadski’s lids. “And the little titmouse,” mumbles Levadski, “can you hear it calling! Zib-zib-zib, beyond words the way it intones. It sounds midnight …”
Levadski’s chin slides feebly onto his chest, his right ear tilting towards his shoulder, as if his left ear wanted to listen to what was happening on the top floor of the hotel. Levadski’s suspicion is confirmed in his dream. He takes his socks off and sees for himself that his feet, which feel unusually hard, are really hooves. Habib is murmuring some kind of incantation over his shoulder. Tramp tramp trampaloo, here’s a flower just for you. White, yellow, inky red, for tomorrow you’ll be dead!”