8

MEANWHILE Margot had rented the flat and proceeded to buy a number of household articles, beginning with a refrigerator. Although Albinus paid up handsomely, and even with a certain pleasurable emotion, he was giving the money on trust, for not only had he not seen the flat—he did not even know its address. She had told him that it would be such fun if he did not see her home until it was complete.

A week passed. He fancied that she would ring him up on Saturday. The whole day he mounted guard over the telephone. But it gleamed and was mute. On Monday he decided that she had tricked him—had vanished forever. In the evening Paul came. These visits were hell for both of them by now. Still worse—Elisabeth was not at home. Paul sat in the study opposite Albinus, and smoked, and looked at the tip of his cigar. He had even become thinner of late. “He knows everything,” thought Albinus dismally. “Well, and what if he does? He’s a man; he ought to understand.”

Irma trotted in and Paul’s countenance brightened. He took her on his lap and produced a funny little grunt as she prodded him with her small fist in the stomach while making herself comfortable.

Then Elisabeth returned from a bridge-tea. The thought of supper and of the long evening afterward suddenly seemed to Albinus more than he could endure. He announced that he was not supping at home; his wife asked him good-naturedly why he had not said so before.

He had only one wish: to find Margot immediately, no matter what the cost. Destiny, which had promised him so much, had not the right to cheat him now. He was so desperate that he resolved upon a very daring step. He knew where her old room was, and he knew that she had lived there with her aunt. Thither he went. As he walked through the back yard, he saw a servant-girl making a bed at an open window on the ground floor and questioned her.

“Fräulein Peters?” she repeated, holding the pillow she had been thumping. “Oh, I think she has moved. But you’d better see for yourself. Fifth floor, door on the left.”

A slatternly woman with bloodshot eyes opened the door a little way without taking off the chain, and asked what he wanted.

“I want to know Fräulein Peters’ new address. She used to live here with her aunt.”

“Oh, did she?” said the woman with sudden interest; and now she unhooked the chain. She led him into a tiny parlor, all the objects in which shook and rattled at the least movement. On a piece of American cloth with brown circular stains stood a plate of mashed potatoes, salt in a torn paper bag and three empty beer bottles. With a mysterious smile she invited him to be seated.

“If I was her aunt,” she said with a wink, “I’d not be likely to know her address. No,” she added with a certain vehemence, “she hasn’t got no aunt.”

“Drunk,” thought Albinus wearily. “Look here,” he said, “can’t you tell me where she has gone?”

“She rented a room from me,” said the woman pensively, as she bitterly reflected on Margot’s ingratitude in hiding from her both the rich friend and her new address, though there had not been much difficulty in sniffing out the latter.

“What can I do?” exclaimed Albinus. “Can’t you suggest anything?”

Yes, sadly ungrateful. She had helped her so; now she did not quite know whether by telling she would be doing Margot a service or the reverse (she would have preferred the second), but this big, nervous, blue-eyed gentleman looked so unhappy that with a sigh she told him what he wanted to know.

“They used to be after me, too, in the old days,” she muttered, nodding her head, while she let him out, “that they did.”

It was half past seven. Lights were being put on, and their soft orange glow looked very lovely in the pale dusk. The sky was still quite blue, with a single salmon-colored cloud in the distance, and all this unsteady balance between light and dusk made Albinus feel giddy.

“In another moment I shall be in paradise,” he thought, as he sped in a taxi over the whispering asphalt.

Three tall poplars grew in front of the big brick house where she now lived. A brand-new brass plate with her name was affixed to her door. A huge female with arms like lumps of raw meat went to announce him. “Got a cook already,” he thought lovingly. “Walk in,” said the cook, coming back. He smoothed down his sparse hair and went in.

Margot was lying in a kimono on a dreadful chintz-covered sofa, her arms crossed behind her head. On her stomach an open book was poised, cover upward.

“You’re quick,” she said, languidly extending her hand.

“Why, you don’t seem surprised to see me,” he murmured softly. “Guess how I found out your address.”

“I wrote you my address,” she said with a sigh, raising both elbows again.

“It was rather amusing,” Albinus continued without heeding her words—just gloating over the sight of the painted lips which in another moment … “Rather amusing—especially as you’ve been pulling my leg with that ready-made aunt of yours.”

“Why did you go there?” inquired Margot, suddenly very cross. “I wrote you my address—in the top right-hand corner, quite clearly.”

“Top corner? Clearly?” repeated Albinus, puckering up his face perplexedly. “What on earth are you talking about?”

She shut the book with a bang and sat up on the couch.

“Surely you got my letter?”

“What letter?” asked Albinus—and suddenly he put his hand to his mouth and his eyes opened very wide.

“I sent you a letter this morning,” she said, settling down again and gazing at him curiously. “I reckoned you’d get it by the evening post and come to see me straightaway.”

“You didn’t!” cried Albinus.

“Of course, I did. And I can tell you exactly what it was I wrote: ‘Darling Albert, the wee nest is ready, and birdie is waiting for you. Only don’t hug me too hard, or you’ll turn your baby’s head more than ever.’ That’s about all.”

“Margot,” he whispered hoarsely, “Margot, what have you done? I left home before I could possibly get it. The postman … he doesn’t come until a quarter to eight. It’s now—”

“Well, that’s no fault of mine,” she said. “Really, you are hard to please. It was such a sweet letter.”

She shrugged her shoulders, picked up the book and turned her back to him. On the right-hand page was a photographic study of Greta Garbo.

Albinus found himself thinking: “How strange. A disaster occurs and still a man notices a picture.” Twenty minutes to eight. Margot lay there, her body curved and motionless, like a lizard.

“You’ve shattered …” he began at the top of his voice; but he did not end his sentence. He ran out, rushed downstairs, jumped into a cab and while he sat on the very edge of the seat leaning forward (winning a few inches that way), he stared at the back of the driver and that back was hopeless.

He arrived, he jumped out, he paid as men do in films—blindly thrusting out a coin. By the garden-railing he saw the familiar figure of the gaunt, knock-kneed postman talking to the short stout hall-porter.

“Any letters for me?” asked Albinus breathlessly.

“I’ve just delivered them, sir,” answered the postman with a friendly grin.

Albinus looked up. The windows of his flat were brightly lit, all of them—an unusual thing. With a tremendous effort he entered the house and began to go upstairs. He reached the first landing—and the second. “Let me explain … A young artist in need … Not quite right in head, writes love letters to strangers.” … Nonsense—the game was up.

Before reaching his door, he suddenly turned round and rushed down again. A cat crossed the garden path and slipped nimbly between the iron bars.

Ten minutes later he was back in the room which he had entered so gaily a short while ago. Margot was still curved on the couch in the same posture—a torpid lizard. The book was still open at the same page. Albinus sat down at a little distance from her and began to crack his finger joints.

“Don’t do that,” said Margot without raising her head.

He stopped, but soon began again.

“Well, has the letter come?”

“Oh, Margot,” he said, and cleared his throat several times. “Too late, too late,” he cried in a new shrill voice.

He rose, walked up and down the room, blew his nose and sat down on the chair again.

“She reads all my letters,” he said, gazing through a moist haze at the toe of his shoe and trying to fit it into the trembling pattern of the carpet.

“Well, you ought to have forbidden her to do that.”

“Margot, you don’t understand … It was always like that—a habit, a pleasure. Mislaid them sometimes before I had read them. There were all sorts of amusing letters. How could you do it? I can’t imagine what she’ll do now. If, by a miracle, just this once … perhaps she was busy with something … perhaps … No!”

“Well, mind you don’t show yourself when she comes along here. I’ll see her alone, in the hall.”

“Who? When?” he asked, dully remembering the drunken hag he had seen—ages ago.

“When? Any moment, I suppose. She’s got my address now, hasn’t she?”

Albinus still failed to understand.

“Oh, that’s what you mean,” he muttered at last. “How silly you are, Margot! Believe me, that, at any rate, is utterly impossible. Anything else … but not that.”

“So much the better,” thought Margot, and suddenly she felt extremely elated. When she had sent off the letter she had anticipated a far more trivial consequence: he refuses to show it, wife gets wild, stamps, has a fit. So the first suspicions are roused and that eases the way. But now chance had helped her and the way was made clear at one stroke. She let the book slip to the floor and smiled as she looked at his downcast twitching face. It was time to act, she supposed.

Margot stretched herself out, was aware of a pleasant tingling in her slim body and said, gazing up at the ceiling, “Come here.”

He came, sat down on the edge of the couch and shook his head despondently.

“Kiss me,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’ll comfort you.”